Are you sidelined by a sports injury and looking to get back in the game? At Wigmore Chiropractic Care in Gillingham, we specialise in sports injury rehabilitation, helping athletes recover and return to peak performance. Whether you want shoulder pain treatment, or looking for a repetitive strain injury treatment, our chiropractors offer tailored treatments to target and alleviate your discomfort. At our clinic we are equipped to handle a variety of sports injuries, providing expert care and rehabilitation strategies designed to accelerate healing and restore strength.
We understand the unique demands of sports-related injuries and focus on personalised treatment plans to meet your recovery goals effectively. Ready to get back to doing what you love? Contact us right now to schedule your appointment and start your journey towards recovery and optimal performance.
Help, I Can’t Do My Sport
When you’re playing sports, there are a lot of stresses and strains on the muscles, ligaments and joints in various parts of your body.
Depending on what type of sport you do, repeating the same kinds of movements can result in overuse type of injuries.
At other times, you may need to make a sudden, unexpected movement that results in pulling something. Often, your tissues are more at risk of an injury when either there is a weakness in that area (even if the rest of your body is very strong), or if that area is already overused. Because of this, some sudden injuries may still be the result of an overuse type of strain.
When you get an injury like this, it often stops you being able to do your sports, and it may even result in your day-to-day activities being reduced to the point where a normally sporty person feels like a couch potato.
Generally speaking, the longer you are off with an injury, the less chance there is that you can go back to your previous levels of activity. Therefore, it’s important to aid the healing process of your injuries and get you back to movement as quickly as possible and then gradually return to your sports.
What To Expect At An Appointment
This is where your chiropractor might help. Your chiropractor will ask questions about your life, your posture, and the sports that you do, as well as how you sustained the injury. Other than that, they will want to know about your medical history also, as some pre-existing conditions can predispose you to injuries, or affect the recovery process or treatment methods.
Then the chiropractor will do an examination to find out what injury you might have and what other factors are contributing to your pain. Once they understand what’s going on, they’ll explain how chiropractic can help.
A lot of treatment for sports injuries involve a combination of gentle, specific manipulation, work to release excess muscle tension and exercises to help strengthen weaker muscles, or stretch muscles that have spasmed.
The aim of the treatment is to speed up the recovery process, improve your flexibility and strength, and prevent future flare-ups of the injury. By restoring normal function to your joints and muscles, you can feel more control over your body’s movements, your co-ordination, and feel stronger.
If your injury requires it, your chiropractor may suggest referring you for other tests like x-rays, MRI scans or blood tests.
Chiropractic Is More Than Just Backs
Your chiropractor has undergone extensive training to diagnose, treat, manage and prevent disorders of the bones, joints, muscles and ligament, as well as how these disorders can affect other areas and tissues in the body.
They look at your entire physical, emotional and social well-being, and how these factors may involve the tissues that chiropractors specialise in.
So, although chiropractors are known for treating back and neck conditions, knee, ankle, hip or shoulder injuries would also be part of their expertise. They may well discuss with you how your knee injury affects your back, or how your back made your knee more vulnerable.
Taking Care Of Yourself
Once you’re a lot better and able to return to exercise, a lot of people need to gradually increase their level of activity. You will feel less fit and supple, so you need to make allowances for that when you return to exercise.
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Making sure that you do a warm up to improve the circulation to your muscles and joints before starting to do your exercise is an important part of safely returning to sports.
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By the same token, doing a proper cool down with some gentle stretching when you finish needs to become a part of your routine.
People sometimes think that they need to push through the pain and it’ll go away by itself, but it often leads to overloading the body even more, prolonging the healing process and the risk of further injuries or added problems that give you more pain.
Finally
If you pull something, or get a pain during exercise, you can often tell whether it’s serious or not almost immediately. If it is serious, do seek medical attention as soon as possible.
If you are able to move, you can see over a few days if the injury naturally improves. If after a week or two it’s still painful, or getting worse, it’s worth having it looked at by a health care professional.