Tag Archives: chiropractic care
Can Seeing a Sports Chiropractor Help your Athletic Abilities?
Patients generally use chiropractic care to help alleviate and prevent pain in the body. The targeted pain tends to be in the muscles and joints because of alignment issues. This type of care is beneficial to all because don’t we all want to be pain-free? But there’s also an entire focus that often goes unnoticed in the field, which is the work of sports chiropractors.
Good, strategic chiropractic care goes beyond the stereotypes surrounding it. As a family chiropractor in Indiana, Allen County Family and Sports Chiropractic offers services and a treatment philosophy that promotes overall health and well-being. This focus goes beyond muscles and bones and includes food, exercise, and sports. With consistent treatment by a sports chiropractor, you can:
- Enhance your athletic performance
- Prevent injuries
- Reduce recovery time for injuries
- Increase endurance during training
Sports Chiropractors & Enhanced Performance
Spine misalignment can cause a ripple effect throughout your body. Many normal bodily functions and systems can suffer, leaving your body more prone to acute and chronic pain. You can develop pain within your muscles, nerves, and joints, plus generate issues with discs and ligaments. When your body is experiencing discomfort and reacting to it, it can limit your athletic potential by slowing down your ability to perform adequately.
Sports chiropractors implement the same techniques and treatments as any chiropractor, but they focus on athletic bodies and performance. By keeping the spine aligned and healthy, you create a balance in the body. As a result, athletes experience less pain and better performance within their sport.
If you think chiropractic care isn’t for athletes, then you’re mistaken. Over 90% of professional athletes use sports chiropractors, as do most teams in the NFL, NBA, and MLB.
Increased Endurance & Fewer Injuries
If you’re an athlete and want to increase your endurance for training purposes, consider chiropractic care. When your spine is aligned correctly—resulting in reduced pain in muscles, joints, ligaments, and more—you can train harder and longer. With better training comes a reduction in injuries, as your body’s alignment lessens stress on the body and improves your range of motion. When your body is stiff in action, it’s more prone to injury. But when you have fluid movement without the risk of injury, you can do so much more.
Reduced Recovery Time
As a family chiropractor in Indiana, we offer sports care to keep athletes healthy and to prevent injury. But we can’t prevent all damage, so when an injury does occur, we use regular chiropractic care to reduce healing time. Because your chiropractor aligns your spine and lessens the irritation and inflammation between the vertebrae, the body performs better overall. This enhanced function also includes the body’s ability to heal.
Aside from regular adjustments, massage and stretching can also help reduce healing time due to sports injury. Healthy eating and mental health are also essential components in optimal athletic performance. With a holistic view of treatment, athletes can benefit greatly from chiropractic care.
Too Young for a Chiropractor?
Parents want to protect their children—and when it comes to medical care, they want what’s best for them. Many adults who use chiropractors assume that their children are too young for chiropractic care. This belief couldn’t be further from the truth. Family chiropractic clinics offer beneficial services to all clients, regardless of age.
Because the spine and nerves of children are still growing and moving, family chiropractors use special, gentle techniques to adjust the spine as needed. The goals are similar to the treatment in adults—adjustments to take the pressure off the body and alleviate pain for optimal movement—but the method prioritizes the vulnerable frame of your child.
Chiropractor for Children
If you’re searching for a chiropractor for children, you’ll find one at nearly any family chiropractic clinic in Indiana. These types of clinics tend to focus on care for the entire family. And family chiropractic care isn’t just reserved for adults—children are one of the biggest benefactors of the treatment. Let’s look at why.
Family Chiropractic Care Prevents Injury
When you’re an adult, and you see a chiropractor, your body has suffered injury—big or small—from stress, strain, and repeated movement. Pain may only occur after many months, years, or even decades of buildup. With children, their bodies are newer and haven’t yet endured years of stress.
Chiropractors for children use their clients’ youth to their advantage and work to prevent injury and pain from occurring in the first place. If children receive treatment early on, their bodies will perform better and won’t suffer as much in the future. With adjustments, stretching, positioning, and other chiropractic care methods, your child’s youthful bounce can last even longer.
Builds Strength & Flexibility
Along with preventing injury, by receiving family chiropractic care, children can also build their strength in a healthy way that’s appropriate for their age. Regular adjustments and specific exercises that align the back, spine, and pelvis can develop your child’s strength and improve flexibility. These methods work to prevent injury as well, but they can also help your child perform better in daily activities without you worrying about damage or pain.
Educates
Children’s brains are like sponges, and they crave learning. By seeking family chiropractic care for your child, you are allowing them to learn about their health and body. Because of their cognitive abilities at such a young age, children can absorb knowledge in a way that will stick with them for years to come. Learning about their bodies now can set your child up for a healthy lifestyle, even as an adult.
Manages Common Conditions and Diseases
Just because a child is young doesn’t mean that they don’t struggle from certain conditions or diseases. Chiropractors for children specialize in gentle movements and treatments that can go further than pain relief and alignments—they can help kids to cope with life. Chiropractic care is known to help manage common issues such as bedwetting, earaches, digestive issues, allergies, ADHD, crying, and more. Your chiropractor can discover the root of your child’s problem and use gentle movements, adjustments, and exercises to relieve their discomfort.
Five Ways Massage Therapy Will Help You
Massage therapy is a widespread technique of holistic medicine, one that often complements other treatment methods. In chiropractic care, for example, massage is an excellent partner to regular adjustments. It uses pressure to manipulate the body’s muscles, tendons, and ligaments. Patients see relief with reduced stress and pain in trouble areas.
There are many different kinds of massage therapy, all that work towards a similar end goal by practicing different techniques. Each type delivers various benefits, so let’s look at the most common forms of massage.
Swedish Massage
Swedish massage is a popular style that is the most gentle on the body and promotes relaxation. Therapists use long strokes and circular movements to press into the muscle and skin. The pressure tends to stay on the surface, as the primary goal of a Swedish massage is to relax and reduce mental stress.
Although most patients who request a Swedish massage are looking for an hour of relaxation and stress relief, the technique has other benefits as well. The movements can treat minor muscle tension that tends to accumulate with everyday activities, such as sitting at a computer all day. Thanks to the relief of muscle strain, many patients leave their session feeling lighter, more buoyant, and with a sense of renewed energy.
Deep Tissue Massage
If you want to relax but also reap the muscular benefits, you can upgrade to a deep tissue massage. Using similar techniques of a Swedish massage (long strokes and circular movements), therapists apply more pressure to access the deeper muscles in the body. By reaching the deep layers of the inner muscles, this form of massage therapy can heal chronic or injury-related pain.
Sports Massage
If you’re an athlete, you can benefit from sports massage. Using distinct strokes and techniques, this form of massage therapy helps to alleviate pain from past sports injuries, as well as work with the muscles to prevent future issues. The pressure will vary depending on each patient’s unique situation, but the end goal is the same: to reduce pain, increase mobility and flexibility, and prevent injury.
Trigger Point Massage
Trigger point massage focuses specifically on clusters of deep, tight muscle fibers. When these fibers connect deep into the muscle, it can cause chronic pain and reduce mobility. Therapists use bouts of prolonged pressure and short, circular movements to separate the connective tissues and fibers. Patients often feel a “popping” or “melting” sensation as the tight knot is released.
Overall Benefits
Besides the benefits of relaxation, stress management, pain relief, and sports-injury prevention, there are many other advantages to massage therapy. With regular practice, massage can relieve anxiety and stress, and therefore help reduce stress-related ailments such as insomnia. Many patients find relief with diseases such as digestive disorders, fibromyalgia, and myofascial pain syndrome.
Further, massage therapy has emotional and mental health benefits, as well. Taking the time to care for yourself with relaxing treatments gives patients a feeling of comfort and connection to their bodies. Massage can boost mood and sense of self, which can increase happiness, productivity, and focus.
Types of Chiropractors
Visiting a chiropractor is often a result of some pain in the body. When deciding which type of chiropractor to see, it’s essential to understand which variety of practice is best for your situation. In general, there are a few types of chiropractic methods: symptom-relief, sports, and wellness. Your symptoms, kind of pain, and treatment goals will all determine which approach is best for you.
It’s also essential to consider the purpose of your treatment. Are you interested in relieving symptoms or healing the body? Are you hoping to enhance sports performance and daily life, or do you need simple adjustments? Whatever your goals for recovery, there is a different type of chiropractor for you.
Symptom-Relief Chiropractors
For those that need to decrease symptoms of pain, such as headaches or neck and back pain, musculoskeletal treatment may be best. This method involves traditional chiropractic adjustments focused on painful areas set within the spine. Symptom-relief chiropractors temporarily reduce pain, free misaligned or stuck bones, and decompress joints.
One reason why patients gravitate toward symptom-relief chiropractors is that they tend to work with more insurance companies. So check your policy because it may cover these types of traditional adjustments. However, remember that to remain pain-free requires regular visits and an extended treatment plan. Many chiropractors advise against only persuing symptom-relief practices. Instead, many practitioners recommend combining regular adjustments with wellness therapy.
Wellness Chiropractors
Wellness chiropractors use traditional adjustments and techniques to relieve pain, but they also focus on long-term healing of the body. Daily life can stress the body, specifically the spinal column. After so many weeks or years of built-up pressure, small misalignments or fixations can occur. These issues result in pain that can lead to more severe symptoms if left untreated.
Unlike a symptom-relief-only focus, wellness chiropractors continue treatment beyond feelings of pain to keep the body regenerating and healing itself. They also use healthy eating, exercise, hydration, and mental health to support the body. If you’re looking to relieve symptoms of pain quickly, but also help the body in long-term healing, then wellness chiropractic care is the better choice.
You’ll often find other professionals in wellness chiropractic offices, such as a dietician, a massage therapist, or a personal trainer. Additionally, you may use tools at home, such as foam neck extenders or specialized pillows. All-in-all, wellness chiropractors use a more holistic view to heal the entire body.
Sports Chiropractors
Those who are athletes can visit a chiropractor specific to sports. Sports chiropractors work with those who develop pain and injury from their careers in athleticism. You may be surprised to learn that many professional teams use sports chiropractors to assist with injuries on and off the field. That’s because they can use symptom-relief techniques immediately, while also focusing on wellness methods.
Sports chiropractors use their knowledge to focus on sports performance. They are well-informed about how different wellness benefits, such as diet, exercise, training, and conditioning, can enhance athletic achievement. They also use adjustments for symptom relief and to encourage natural healing and regeneration in the body when injuries occur.
What is Massage Therapy
Have you ever had a massage? If not, we recommend you schedule a “self-care Sunday” in your near future. Massages are great for stress reduction and relaxation. However, they can be more than that when massage therapy is brought into the mix.
What is a Massage?
In general, a message is a trained professional who puts degrees of pressure on the soft tissues in your body—things like your muscles, connective tissues, tendons, ligaments, and skin. There are dozens of types of massages, including the famous Swedish massage or even a deep tissue massage. Each has a goal; for example, the deep tissue will put higher levels of pressure and movement to reach the muscles and tissues deep in your body.
What is Massage Therapy?
Massage therapy is a type of massage. In this massage technique, a massage therapist will use therapeutic massage techniques to reduce or eliminate chronic low back pain, stress, and other issues.
The effectiveness of massage therapy is strange and not wholly understood – even if accepted. Massage therapy falls into the alternative part of complementary and alternative medicine. It’s not what people usually think of when they think of medicine, but it works nonetheless.
How Does Massage Therapy Help?
Our bodies are amazing machines – completely stopped in their tracks by stress and pain. However, what may surprise you is the effect stress has on healing and the body. While a massage will never cure a cancer patient, it can help them to reduce their stress and pain.
Go back to a regular massage for a moment. When you get any type of massage, the goal is to relax and stretch your muscles. This process often makes people fall asleep – the first sign they are distressing.
Now, massage therapy is done by trained doctors who understand various health conditions and risks. Variations like the sports massage can focus on getting your relaxed and recuperate before a big game. At the same time, other types can heal, reduce the stress and pain of cancer, heart disease, and stomach problems.
Is It an Effective Treatment?
That depends on what you plan to achieve from the treatment. If you want to mend broken bones or heal health issues, no. However, if you’re going to reduce stress, increase flexibility, and – in some cases – reduce pain, then the answer is yes.
Modern health care is more than accepting of the benefits of massage therapy. In addition, it’s got plenty of good with minimal side effects that usually pass, revealing overall increases in health and wellness.
Similar to Chiropractic Care
In many ways, getting a massage is a lot like going to the chiropractor (after all, you’re reading this blog!) Massage therapists and chiropractors understand the body and how each muscle is connected to the bones and tissues around it. Using this understanding, we can manipulate your skeleton and help you feel better.
Visit us today!
Sports Chiropractors – Facts vs. Myths
If you’re a professional sports player or athletic trainer, chances are you’ve heard of – if not been to – a sports chiropractor. If you’re not one of those two groups (like the rest of us), you might have never heard of this type of chiropractic physician before. As such, we wanted to get you in the know one of the best ways we know how – busting myths and telling facts.
Are Sports Chiropractors Doctors?
Yes! Just like all other types of doctors, a certified chiropractic sports physician is required to go to chiropractic college and obtain a graduate-level degree. This enables them to practice and ensures that they can do everything in their power to heal their patients while keeping them safe.
Are Chiropractors Legitimate?
This (annoying) myth claims that chiropractic care is nothing but a scam. In reality, these doctors are real and helpful without a doubt. Trusted by NFL teams, world-class athletes, and many Olympians – these doctors know how to help your body stay in top shape. They don’t “crack bones.” They help to manipulate your spine to heal you without medicine – something everyone should love.
Do they really boost athletic performance?
In some cases, yes! While a chiropractic sports medicine doctor’s real goal is to treat and prevent injury, a byproduct can be a boost in the performance of the athlete that’s getting treated. In fact, that’s why so many professional athletes choose to go to a doctor regularly.
Is Pain Relief Real?
Along the lines of “scam” myths, many think that the benefits of chiropractic care are fake. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Sports-trained chiropractic doctors have a deep understanding of the musculoskeletal system as it related to a sports-related injury. As such, they understand what’s wrong with the body and can help heal it and reduce pain.
Are They Covered by Insurance?
In the United States, insurance is expensive. It’s no surprise and talked about almost daily on the news. That usually brings this myth to the forefront of many new patient’s minds. While it varies by insurance, chiropractors specializing in sports injury and family (like us) are part of the specialist coverage section of your insurance. However, you should always talk to your provider and call ahead to make sure you’ll be covered.
What Can They Help With?
If you think nothing is the answer, you’re not alone – but you are wrong! The truth of the matter is chiropractic doctors can help to relieve lower back pain, relieve neck pain, improve range of motion, and so much more. If you have a bodily pain and don’t know what can be done, get a consultation with us to see how it can be improved today!
Introduction to Massage
Massage and bodywork have been used, in one form or another, for thousands of years to promote health and well being. The Chinese culture has practiced ‘Amma’ techniques since around 3000 B.C., as the Cong Fou of Tao-Tse attests. In the Indian medicinal practice of Ayurveda, Tshanpau has been used since about 1800 B.C.
In the West, we find them integrated into rehabilitation programs, but also (and often) these practices are helpful in a large variety of other situations, such as comforting prenatal mothers-to-be, as palliative care for hospice patients, or for general relaxation and decrease in stress levels, as examples. I think massage therapy should be a vital and useful part of every individual’s overall health routine.
Practicing as a massage therapist for 15 years, I have had the privilege to be a part of thousands of clients individual health protocols. In one such case, I was working with a client who had some range of motion restriction and pain when raising their right arm overhead. This client had seen a few other bodyworkers, but the cause of the issue was elusive. As it turns out, after a functional assessment of that shoulder, as well as palpation of the muscles connected to it, we discovered that the client had a range of motion restrictions in the right pectoralis minor, as well as the latissimus dorsi, anterior deltoid, and biceps brachii. In this case, the patient’s history showed an old exercise injury, with muscular and fascial scar tissue present.
We decided to proceed with a protocol that involved contrast (hot/cold) therapy, a daily stretching routine, functional exercises, as well as some deep scar tissue massage work. This type of massage is more goal-oriented, and tends to not be the most comfortable modality. The client understood this and stayed faithful to the protocol, knowing that the results would follow. After 1 month, the client showed an increase in range of motion of more than +50% compared to the initial assessment, and by month two, had improved that to +80%. When we reassessed the client at the 3 month mark, they had nearly ALL of the range of motion restored, and were substantially stronger in the previously weaker/restricted muscles.
This was certainly a situation where immediate pain was present, but this is not always the case. In my practice, I also use massage and bodywork to help athlete’s muscular and nervous systems prepare for competition, to recuperate afterwards, to facilitate lymph movement in the reduction of swelling, to improve overall blood and interstitial fluid flow, etc.
Keep in mind, not all benefits of massage or bodywork are physical. Psychological and neurological benefits have also been reported in many studies. One of the more famous studies on the need for massage therapy and it’s emotional ramifications was conducted by a pediatrician named Dr. Fritz Talbot. He concluded that human beings are creatures that NEED human contact and touch to thrive.
There are times where I have found that massage is needed in a more short-term, symptomatic situation, such as in the case of a calf cramp or minor headache. In other cases, clients may require long-term treatment, such as athletes who need to keep fluid and flexible, or those gaining in years who just want to keep as mobile and ambulatory as possible.
From the very first session, massage can (and should be) customizable to YOUR individual needs. I have seen many clients who simply needed to “walk out feeling better than when they walked in”. In my practice, I strive to be flexible enough to suit as many needs as I may. I look forward to seeing you in the near future!