When playing sports that require a lot of lower body movement, like football, soccer, and basketball, it's not at all uncommon to suffer some type of injury to your lower extremities. Between pulled hamstrings, sprained ankles, knee injuries, and more, a number of players have found themselves sidelined not only during practices, but games as well. Fortunately, chiropractic may help prevent some of these from occurring and research proves it.
For instance, in one study published in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, researchers from Macquarie University in Australia studied 59 semi-elite Australian Rules footballers. Roughly one-half were placed in a control group and the other half were put in a treatment group that received sports chiropractic care at regular intervals. During the first six weeks, this meant engaging in care once per week. The following three months consisted of an adjustment every two weeks before reducing those to one visit monthly for the final three months of the study.
Researchers noted that there was a "significant" difference in the number of lower limb strains the players received in the treatment group when compared to the control. Furthermore, they also noticed that the subjects who engaged in chiropractic also had fewer weeks of missed practice and games as a result of non-contact knee injuries. This led them to conclude that sports chiropractic intervention should be added to "the current best practice management."
Chiropractic may help prevent lower limb injuries for athletes, which means more game time and less time spent on the bench.
Dr. Mark L Vinick, DC, CAS is serving Redondo Beach, CA to help you recover from a sports injury. Give us a call today at (310) 375-4325 for an appointment.
Resources
Hoskins W, Pollard H. The effect of a sports chiropractic manual therapy intervention on the prevention of back pain, hamstring and lower limb injuries in semi-elite Australian rules footballers: a randomized controlled trial. BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders 2010;11(64).
