Sports injuries can be severe and limit your range of motion. Being an athlete, you would know the importance of a full range of motion and strength to perform well in your sports. Chiropractors specializing in sports medicine are experts in treating sports injuries, helping you recover and strengthen injured body parts.

This article is all about sports injuries and massages offered by chiropractors that you need to know as an athlete. The types of massages mentioned here help strengthen your muscles and enhance your performance in sports. We have also thrown light on some common types of sports injuries and how chiropractors help you recover from them.

Types of massages that help athletes:

If you are an athlete, you might have undergone massages performed by skilled Personal injury chiropractors before and have benefited from that. Integrative chiropractic massage techniques often utilize injury rehab massage, pain management, and other goal-oriented therapies.

As an athlete, you often subject your body to intense training and physical activity. Rigorous training and other challenges in sports might also take a toll on your mental stability. Thus you would want proper and faster recovery from your injuries. You would also prefer to ease out the restricted movements in muscles for continued training and improved overall performance. Let’s consider how each type of chiropractic massage helps athletes:

Myofascial massage:

You are more likely to develop myofascial pain syndrome when you involve yourself in intense sports practice. The pain, stiffness, and restricted movement you experience could potentially demotivate you in your rigorous sports sessions.

Your chiropractor might suggest a Myofascial massage that focuses on the connective tissue around the body’s muscles, bones, and organs. Fascia plays a crucial role in maintaining structural integrity and support. Especially if you are diagnosed with stressed fascia, chiropractors apply gentle and sustained pressure to manipulate the fascia and release any tensions, adhesions, or restrictions. The massage thus alleviates pain in the functioning of muscles and other tissues.

Myofascial massage enhances your performance in sports, improves muscle coordination, and helps you deal with fatigue more efficiently. The beauty of the massage lies in its efficiency. For instance, although the areas chiropractors perform the massage may not be the areas where you experience pain, you feel the release of pressure and pain relief by massaging the trigger points in the fascia that could be several inches away from the source of pain.

Swedish massage:

Swedish massages are utilized to prevent future injuries; it involves the identification of areas of tension, muscle imbalances, and potential problem areas. Swedish massages include long, gliding strokes, termed effleurage; kneading and squeezing techniques, known as petrissage; frictional movements; vibration; and tapotement. They enhance relaxation and stress relief.

Swedish massages are practical for you when performed by a skilled Personal Injury Chiropractor. They help you recover from physical and mental stress and pressure during or after intense sports practice sessions. These massage techniques and strokes help in keeping your nervous system calm and promote overall well-being and emotional balance.

When you decide to give yourselves a day of stress relief after injuries from an intense sports session, you can opt for Swedish massage as it targets both improving immune system functioning and reducing stress levels.

Stress relief massage:

The stress relief massage focuses explicitly on sleep and improving mood quality. Stress relief massages involve playing around with the balance of chemicals responsible for mental health, such as maintaining the balance of cortisol levels and insulin levels and achieving a better sleep routine.

If you have recently been injured in your sport, the stress relief massage is more beneficial in recovering from it as this massage improves the overall immune system and circulation along the way.

Deep tissue massage:

Deep tissue massage is utilized for patients with chronic pain and those seeking rehabilitation. However, they are beneficial for athletes when they have been injured severely or dealing with tough scar tissue. Deep tissue massage is effective in breaking scar tissue and helps in lowering blood pressure and heart rate.

If your goal is to treat muscle soreness, stress in your muscles, or any kind of pain you sustained after your injury, your chiropractor would suggest a deep tissue massage for optimized recovery.

Medical massage:

Medical massages are also utilized in the process of recovering from sports injuries and are generally recommended by medical doctors. If you are confronting issues such as lack of coordination and flexibility-related issues, and want to enhance your range of motion, then your chiropractor or medical doctor would prescribe the medical massage.

Some of the techniques involved in medical massages are:

•       Strain counterstrain
•       Neuromuscular therapy
•       Positional release
•       Trigger point therapy
•       Active therapy techniques
•       rehabilitative stretching procedures

Relaxation massage:

Relaxation massages are beneficial for people who are suffering from poor nervous functioning. However, it benefits athletes as it targets lymphatic flow, relaxes muscle tissues, decreases stress on blood vessels, and much more.

Injury rehab massage:

Injury rehab massages are beneficial on the road to recovery and assist strength along the way. It also enhances blood circulation, which aids in decreasing pain during the healing and gets you back on your feet faster. The injury rehab massages are prescribed depending on the nature of the injury and the extent of pain endured.

Common sports injuries and how chiropractors help athletes recover from them

Concussions:

Athletes are susceptible to concussions, a type of traumatic brain injury that occurs when their brain or body sustains a sudden jolt or blow. Do you know that about 3.8 million concussions occur annually due to sports across the US? (Source)  Is it severe? Yes. Also, the ones you sustain after recovering from the first ones are even more dangerous. Therefore athletes are generally advised to return to sports under the supervision of healthcare professionals.

The worst part of concussions is that the symptoms can range between mild to severe based on the condition, and they are pretty challenging to notice. Chiropractors help athletes in that aspect in a considerable way. Recognizing the symptoms of concussion, and early identification, followed by appropriate management, helps in better and faster recovery.

Concussions bring in so many challenges if not treated appropriately. Athletes who have sustained concussions suffer from poor concentration, inability to multi-task, loss of focus, short-term memory loss, and other challenges.

Although conventional medicinal practices deal with the condition in prevention and medicated management of symptoms, chiropractic intervention can help in faster recovery. Chiropractors address the issues of the patient related to the dysfunction of the musculoskeletal or nervous systems. Suppose you suspect that you have sustained a concussion during a sport. You must see a chiropractor specializing in post-concussion syndrome. They work around specific areas such as vision, hormones, vestibular function, and mental health and check which area they need to work on to give you complete recovery from concussions.

Shoulder injuries:

Arms are the most used and abused parts during sports. Any Chiropractor For shoulder Pain is capable of addressing the common injuries related to shoulders that include:

•       Rotator cuff tear
•       Shoulder dislocation
•       Labral tears
•       shoulder bursitis
•       Acromioclavicular joint sprain

Chiropractors utilize advanced tools such as ultrasound waves to calm the injured muscles, electrostimulation therapies for the relaxation of muscles, and adjustment techniques to restore balance.

They also assist in exercises to achieve strength and flexibility and improve the range of motion.

Conclusion:

A good chiropractor aims to put the body in the right position and let nature do its thing to heal your injuries. Chiropractors specialize in aligning ligaments, bones, and tendons to promote healing. Sports injuries can be severe and require specialized attention and strengthening methods. Therefore if you have been injured in any sport, choose a chiropractor who has extensive knowledge related to sports injuries and is skilled in utilizing the necessary tools to get the maximum benefits from the treatment.