Chiropractic and sports injuries are not something that the average person thinks go together. Depending on the severity of the injury, sports injuries can be difficult to diagnose as they are often slow developing and confused for “regular soreness”. Sports chiropractic and many of the services that we offer go together very well.
Now, if a bone is protruding through your skin, you should most certainly visit the emergency room ASAP.
What is a Sports Injury?
A sports injury is anything that occurs during exercise or because of exercise. They can be very mild like a rolled ankle, to very severe like a torn ACL. Regardless of what the injury is, it is important to take care of yourself to insure a proper and quick recovery. Sometimes things will heal on their own with a little rest, but other times, our bodies need a little help and direction in order to heal properly.
What Causes Sports Injuries?
The most common causes of sports injuries are training errors in the form of improper training or training that has progressed in intensity, duration or frequency too rapidly (therefore called an overuse injury). For example, a high school student had a great summer, with lots of fun. Now the school year is getting ready to begin, and he/she decides to join the cross country team. The team averages 40 miles of running in their first two weeks of training, and this athlete didn’t run all summer. Now in 2 weeks time, the runner has covered 80+ miles. They begin to feel tightness and pain in the front of their shins. In an effort to make the team, the runner continues to train. The following week, the pain gets worse. The student’s parent thinks its shin splints, and that they can just manage it with ICE + ADVIL. Another week of training, and more mileage covered, and now the student is in excruciating pain, especially in the right leg. The student goes for an X-Ray, and it is determined that they have a stress fracture in their lower leg, and they need to quit the cross country team for a little while. Because this athlete “overused” their lower limbs, they suffered an overuse injury.
Improper training can be in the form of bad technique. We work with several athletes that enjoy doing Olympic lifts. They are able to complete the lift, but because their technique/form isn’t great, it is only a matter of time before they put an excessive amount of weight on the bar and get hurt performing their lift. A good example is bar position when performing a “Power Snatch”. Because of a lack of shoulder and ankle mobility, a lifter may compensate with their spine, knees or hips. Without effectively improving their mobility, the lifter is bound to get hurt eventually.
