Research Shows Chiropractic Effective at Preventing Sports Injuries

We encounter a good deal of sports injuries in our Humble clinic, and Dr. Groneck is usually able to assist these athletes. Stanford Children’s Hospital states that more than 3.5 million children aged 14 and below are hurt each year while playing sports. Add that to the close to 2 million adults hurt every year while engaged in sports-related activities, as reported by statistics compiled by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, and you can start to see the necessity of minimizing these types of common injuries. One approach to potentially achieve that goal, as stated in a study released in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, is to receive routine chiropractic treatments.

In Australian Rules football, hamstring and other leg injuries are common, frequently sidelining the players and impacting their team's odds of securing a win. One specific study was conducted using 59 semi-elite Australian Rules footballers to see how well chiropractic could diminish these injuries and help keep them in the game.

Research Supports Chiropractic Helps in Treating Sports Injuries

For this study in particular, all of the participants got medical treatment. Furthermore, half of them also engaged in chiropractic sessions at the rate of 1 treatment each week for the first 6 weeks, biweekly sessions for the next three months, and one session a month for the remaining three months of the study. The other participants were given no chiropractic intervention whatsoever and were used as the control group to determine the benefits of chiropractic.

Following twenty-four matches, researchers noticed a lessened amount of lower limb muscle strains in the group that had been given chiropractic care. Moreover, that very group also missed fewer matches correlated to non-contact knee injuries. This lead the researchers to conclude that chiropractic should be added to sports training programs to dramatically reduce the amount of leg injuries.

Dr. Groneck Can Help Clients Find Comfort From Sports Injuries & Help You Recover Quicker

If you or your child are active in sports and you want to ensure more time is dedicated on the field versus on the bench, call our Humble office at (281) 540-7201 and schedule an appointment today. We will do our best to keep you in the game!

References

• Hoskins, W, & Pollard, H. (2010, April 8). 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, 11(64), doi:10.1186/1471-2474-11-64
• Misra, A. (2014, March 17). Common sports injuries: Incidence and average charges. Department of Health & Human Services.
• Stanford Children’s Hospital. (n.d.). Sports injury statistics.