Sports Injuries

Chiropractic medicine is used as a standard musculoskeletal injury/strain treatment and for rehabilitation. Chiropractic helps with:

• Different types of back pain
• Headaches
• Neck pain
• Shoulder pain
• Arm pain
• Hand pain
• Leg pain
• Foot pain

Spine and nervous system health are essential for a properly functioning body and overall health. There are significant benefits of chiropractic care that can improve an individual's overall quality of life and health. Chiropractic treatment can help:

Relieve Stress

Stress is natural in life, and it's too much or poor management techniques that can cause pain and or injury. Chiropractic can improve how the body responds to stress. The nervous system is responsible for adapting the body to its environment, especially a stressful environment. Around 90% of the central nervous system travels down and through the spinal column. Spinal vertebral subluxations/misalignments can interfere with proper nerve flow disrupting body functions. Vertebral subluxation decreases the body's ability to adapt to the environment. When this happens, stress can have a high adverse impact on the body's health. An aligned spine along with an optimally operating nervous system helps the body to manage stress easier.

Improve Posture

Posture shifts affect spinal alignment and nerve function. The most common is Forward Head Posture/FHP. This is where the head shifts forward and down on the shoulders. This affects the natural curve in the neck, causing tension to form in the spinal cord. Improper ergonomics and overuse of electronic devices play a role in FHP. Chiropractic treatment helps and restores proper spinal alignment, significantly improving the body's posture.

Elevate Mental Mood

Individuals in pain are often in a bad, sad, low mood reflecting their pain level. Balancing the body’s nervous system restores the balance of chemical flow in the body. Conditions like depression and ADHD have shown improvement with regular chiropractic care.

Strengthen Immune System Function

Spinal misalignment adversely affects the nervous system. The nervous system sends all the necessary information to different areas of the body. If the spine has been compromised, specific sites will not receive the vital signals required to function at full potential. This can affect any or all the systems in the body, especially the immune system. Chiropractic improves nerve flow to the organs of the immune system.

Enhance Thorough Sleep

Lack of sleep leads to all kinds of health issues. Lack of proper sleep can be from a nervous system that does not shut down, add pain, stress, and nightly symptoms do not allow the body to rest. Optimal spinal alignment relaxes the nervous system decreasing pain. Sleep improves over time, with individuals reporting reduced pain and an increase in health and wellness.

Body Composition

Gluten Effects

Gluten causes digestive issues/problems for individuals that have celiac disease or autoimmune thyroid disease. Individuals with these conditions that eat gluten foods can present with uncomfortable and painful effects. Symptoms can vary and have different classifications.

Classical Celiac Disease - CD

Classical celiac disease presents with symptoms that include:

• Diarrhea
• Discolored stools
• Constipation
• Abdominal bloating
• Pain
• Weight loss

However, these symptoms are more common in children with CD than adults. In adults, symptoms are more similar to those in non-classical celiac disease.

Non-Classical Celiac Disease

Non-classical celiac disease symptoms may not present with severe digestive symptoms as in classical CD but suffer from other symptoms. These include:

• Abdominal distension
• Pain
• Iron deficiency anemia
• Fatigue
• Migraines
• Weak bones
• Depression

Silent Celiac Disease

Silent CD is less visible. There might not be any symptoms, but damage to the intestines is still occurring.

General Disclaimer *

The information herein is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional, licensed physician, and is not medical advice. We encourage you to make your own health care decisions based on your research and partnership with a qualified health care professional. Our information scope is limited to chiropractic, musculoskeletal, physical medicines, wellness, sensitive health issues, functional medicine articles, topics, and discussions. We provide and present clinical collaboration with specialists from a wide array of disciplines. Each specialist is governed by their professional scope of practice and their jurisdiction of licensure. We use functional health & wellness protocols to treat and support care for the injuries or disorders of the musculoskeletal system. Our videos, posts, topics, subjects, and insights cover clinical matters, issues, and topics that relate to and support, directly or indirectly, our clinical scope of practice.* Our office has made a reasonable attempt to provide supportive citations and has identified the relevant research study or studies supporting our posts. We provide copies of supporting research studies available to regulatory boards and the public upon request.

We understand that we cover matters that require an additional explanation of how it may assist in a particular care plan or treatment protocol; therefore, to further discuss the subject matter above, please feel free to ask Dr. Alex Jimenez or contact us at 915-850-0900.

Dr. Alex Jimenez DC, MSACP, CCST, IFMCP*, CIFM*, ATN*

email: coach@elpasofunctionalmedicine.com

Licensed in: Texas & New Mexico*

References

Khodakarami, Nima. “Treatment of Patients with Low Back Pain: A Comparison of Physical Therapy and Chiropractic Manipulation.” Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) vol. 8,1 44. 24 Feb. 2020, doi:10.3390/healthcare8010044

Rubinstein, Sidney M et al. “Benefits and harms of spinal manipulative therapy for the treatment of chronic low back pain: systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.” BMJ (Clinical research ed.) vol. 364 l689. 13 Mar. 2019, doi:10.1136/bmj.l689

Urits, Ivan et al. “A Comprehensive Review of Alternative Therapies for the Management of Chronic Pain Patients: Acupuncture, Tai Chi, Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine, and Chiropractic Care.” Advances in therapy vol. 38,1 (2021): 76-89. doi:10.1007/s12325-020-01554-0

To figure out what these professionals don’t want you to do before making an appointment, Runner’s World asked two chiropractors who specialize in running about what common training flaws are leading to patients ending up in their offices over and over again.

RELATED: When Should You See a Sports Chiropractor?

DON’T Buy Shoes For Looks

While studies go back and forth on whether or not specific types of running shoes actually lead to injury, it’s still a good idea to opt for a proper fit over a pair of kicks that look cool or you got for cheap. Ian Nurse, D.C., founder of Wellness in Motion Boston and a sub-2:30 marathoner, believes that a lot of running injuries can start from not having the right shoes on your feet.
Nurse recommends going to a run specialty store and having someone watch your gait outside or on the treadmill. This will give someone at the store the ability to find a range of shoes that might work best for your specific running/walking mechanics. From there, you can go by what feels the best when you’re running. (You can find a nearby running store by checking out our Store Finder.)

RELATED: How to Buy the Right Running Shoes

Nurse said he also asks his patients if there has been a change in running shoes from one style to another. For example, switching to a zero-drop shoe from a normal shoe, without easing into them, may increase your risk of injury. Like a fitter at a running store, a sports chiropractor like Nurse may even look at your running gait in the office to diagnose imbalances in your foot’s motion mechanics.

“The whole biomechanics starts in your foot,” Nurse said. “We all have different foot strikes. If it hits the ground in a certain way, the shoe has to support that. If you are a forefoot striker, rearfoot striker, overpronator, or underpronator, all of those different types of foot strikes can lend itself to different running injuries.”

DON’T Do Static Stretching Before A Run

Holding a static stretch for longer than 10 seconds can take away from your explosive muscular power before a run, according to Derek Vinge, D.C. at Fit Chiropractic & Sports Therapy in Courtenay, British Columbia. One study even showed that stretching cold muscles before a tough 3K left individuals starting their runs slower and at a greater perceived effort. And when your muscles aren’t signaling properly, it can lead to small injuries turning into larger problems over time.

You are better off with a series of dynamic stretches—like lunges and squats—to get the blood flowing in the body. (This 2-minute warmup should do the trick.) The benefits will be noticeable if you add just five to 10 minutes of dynamic stretching before you hit the roads or trails.

“I forget to do a dynamic stretch as well, and I think maybe it is a time thing where you tell yourself ‘I’ll do this later. I’ll deal with it later,’” Vinge said. “If you do some activation and some dynamic warmups, you are going to be a stronger, faster runner.”

DON’T Overdo It On Foam Rollers

Foam rolling and other ways to work out a knot or refresh your legs can be a good thing—in moderation. But less sometimes is actually more, according to Nurse.

“I see a lot of people who tend to go overboard on that,” Nurse said. “They do so much foam rolling on their IT band and/or their quads, and then they are in even more pain. It’s more of like a finesse, where you are trying to get blood flow into the area, but you aren’t trying to beat up the area so badly that you are causing more damage.”

RELATED: 14 Foam Rollers, Balls, and Sticks to Work Knots Out
If you’re working out on a foam roller and something continues to hurt or gets worse, stop. Overdoing a problem spot may inflame it more. If you’re feeling relatively good, Nurse suggests doing some light work on the foam roller after a run to hit any problem areas for one to two minutes.

DON’T Clam Up When You Get Into The Office

You shouldn’t arrive to an office visit with pages and pages of notes from WebMD. But you shouldn’t be silent and just think a sports chiropractor has all the answers just by looking at you.

Going into an appointment, think about what has been consistently driving you crazy on a run—a stiff neck, a cranky left ankle—as that will allow a doc to focus on what’s really bothering you.

“Runners know their bodies a lot better than a lot of people,” Nurse said. “As we run we are constantly kind of checking in on different body parts, and people really are able to recognize what is wrong and they can tell if their gait is altered and what is hanging them up. The information I get from my patients helps me a lot.”

DON’T Forget To See Someone If You Need It

With training goals and miles to complete, runners often don’t admit when there is something wrong. It’s almost a badge of honor to stay off the table for long periods of time.

But Vinge thinks there’s more to what he does than fixing injuries. Once an underlying issue is taken care of, you can teach your body to perform at a higher level than you thought was possible.

“After they start to get better, then we can work on other issues to get some more performance out of them,” said Vinge. “If you’ve never been looked at, then you have no idea what’s going wrong.”