What do Sports Chiropractors do?
“Empowering Athletes to Maximal Performance…NATURALLY”
Sports Chiropractors achieve peak performance by optimizing your athletic potential.
Muscles, tendons and ligaments depend on proper joint movement for peak performance. Spinal and peripheral joint injuries can restrict range of motion, reduce strength, slow reflexes, shorten endurance, and decrease performance.
Chiropractic care of these types of injuries has become increasingly popular. Professional sports teams, Olympic trainers, and competitive athletes are employing sports chiropractors because they demand positive results.
About Sports Chiropractic
Sports Chiropractic is also known as chiropractic sports sciences/medicine. The focus of sports chiropractors is to provide care in the conservative management, rehabilitation and performance optimisation of the neuromusculoskeletal system for athletes and to participate in a multi-disciplinary sports injury care environment.
Sports chiropractic achieves this focus through the application of a multimodal treatment approach that include one or more of the following: manipulation, mobilisation, soft tissue therapies, electrotherapy, rehabilitation and other movement/exercise therapies, nutritional advice, strapping and bracing and other related approaches. These approaches are applied to injury management in the form of acute, subacute and chronic injury as well as in the prevention of injury and the optimisation of athletic performance through the pursuit of the highest efficiency in neuromusculoskeletal functioning.
A Sports Chiropractor may possess additional qualifications specific to sport. Those chiropractors who have pursued additional study have assimilated a large body of clinical information specific to the special needs of those who participate in sport.
Sports chiropractic is growing rapidly nationally and internationally and is well established at many world level sporting events, such as the Olympic Games and the World Games. The International Federation of Sports Chiropractic (FICS) is the peak, international sports chiropractic body and plays a dominant role in promoting sports chiropractic throughout the world. FICS is made up of many national sports chiropractic councils. These include sports chiropractic councils from Australia, The United States, The United Kingdom, South Africa, New Zealand, Switzerland, Japan, Russia, Italy, Germany, and many others.
Core Values of a Sports Chiropractor
- Value and promote best practice principles in management of athletes and treatment in an evidence informed manner wherever possible through science and research.
- Recognition that sports injury management is best with a team based approach in which each member of that healthcare team plays a respected and important role.
- Value and promote relationships with other organisations to assist in the mutual achievement of goals.
- Openness towards and respect for the athletes we treat as well as others in the sports medicine team and their expertise.
The Last Word
Many of today’s athletes utilise a Sports Chiropractor to prevent injury and to improve biomechanical and neuromuscular function with the ultimate goal of enhancing performance. Postural and muscular imbalances as well as overuse or misuse syndromes may inhibit performance and limit further improvement.