Chiropractic Care Can Help Runners

Olympic Runners rely on chiropractic adjustments to stay in best shape for running competitions. Seeing Dr. Jeff Snyder could be just as beneficial for your athletic endeavors. Whether you are a weekend runner, a marathoner, or an Olympic hopeful, chiropractic care eases pain, soothes aching muscles, helps you avoid injuries, and can improve your overall performance.

Dan O’Brien, the 1996 Olympic Gold Medalist in the Decathlon said that if it wasn’t for chiropractic care he wouldn’t have won the gold medal.

Five Ways Chiropractic Care Helps Runners Stay Fit and Healthy

Running is an excellent form of aerobic exercise.  Unfortunately, it can be hard on your body. Running exerts considerable pressure on muscles, joints, and tissues.  This increases the risk of strains, sprains, fractures, tendonitis, and other injuries.

Running injuries often impact the hips to the feet. The location of these injuries varies depending on the runner’s sex, according to a systematic review published in Physical Activity and Health. The review notes that women are more likely to develop injuries in the calf or lower leg, while injuries in men most often occur in the hip/pelvis/upper leg region.

Even minor injuries can disrupt your training schedule and affect conditioning, stamina, and endurance. Luckily, chiropractic care at Snyder Family Chiropractic can help you recover from injuries and reduce your risk for future injuries.

Visiting our clinic near Phoenixville and Collegeville offers these benefits for runners:

• Easier Stride: Stiffness affects your gait and can make running more difficult. Stiffness and motion issues can be caused by misalignments of the vertebrae in your spine. These misalignments are painful in themselves but cause other problems too. The misalignments, called vertebral subluxations, also impact the muscles and tissues attached to the spine, causing some muscles to tighten, while others slacken. Imbalanced muscles are more likely to cause injuries while running. Spinal adjustments, a treatment that realigns the vertebrae, restore proper spinal alignment and eases pressure on nerves, muscles, tendons, and ligaments.
• Reduced Pain and Inflammation. Chiropractic spinal adjustments flood your body with endorphins, your body’s natural painkillers. Endorphins soothe muscles and improve mood. Endorphins are responsible for the runner’s-high. Spinal adjustments and other chiropractic treatments can ease pain and reduce inflammation. You’ll most likely notice an improvement in pain after your first chiropractic visit with Dr. Snyder, although it may take a few treatments to see a significant improvement, particularly if you’ve been in pain for a while.
• Relief from Muscle Spasms: Do you have muscle spasms while you’re running or resting? At Snyder Family Chiropractic, we can determine why you’re getting spasms and offer helpful treatments, like hot and cold therapy, soft tissue therapy, spinal adjustments, and electric muscle stimulation (EMS) to deal with these issues. EMS treatment involves using pads that use current to decrease tightness and ease pain.
• Quick Injury Recovery: Chiropractic adjustments improve blood flow to injured areas, which speeds healing time when you have a running injury. Spinal adjustments and soft tissue treatments break up scar tissue, preventing joint restrictions and increasing flexibility, range of motion, and overall mobility.
• Injury Prevention: You’re less likely to stumble and fall or strain a muscle, tendon, or ligament if your body is properly balanced. Spinal adjustment and other therapies keep your joints properly aligned and your tissues loose and flexible. Chiropractic treatments not only help you avoid injury but may also enhance your performance. Decreased speed or endurance due to gait problems is less likely to happen when you have the full range of motion in your joints.

Don’t let running injuries sideline you! Add regular visits to Snyder Family Chiropractic to your training schedule. Contact our office at 610-935-5900 to schedule a pre- or post-run visit.

Sources:

National University of Health Sciences: 6 Reasons Why Athletes Love Chiropractic Medicine, 9/10/2019

https://www.nuhs.edu/6-reasons-why-athletes-love-chiropractic-medicine/

Runner’s World: Should You See a Chiropractor?, 9/2/2016

https://www.runnersworld.com/health-injuries/a20820924/should-you-see-a-chiropractor/

New York Times: When All Else Fails, It’s Time to See the Olympic Body Mechanic, 8/3/2021

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/03/sports/olympics/olympics-track-chiropractor.html

Physical Activity and Health: The Prevalence of Lower Extremity Injuries in Running and Associated Risk Factors: A Systematic Review, 7/9/2021

https://paahjournal.com/articles/10.5334/paah.109

WebMD: Chiropractic Care for Joint Problems: What to Know, 10/1/20

https://www.webmd.com/rheumatoid-arthritis/chiropractic-care-for-joint-problems