Sports Injury Types and Treatments

Some sports injuries primarily involve the skeleton while others originate in the muscles, ligaments or tendons. But since the entire musculoskeletal system works together as a finely tuned machine — an injury to one component can severely impair the function of others in the system. Impact injuries to the spine, for instance, frequently cause a variety of symptoms throughout the body. Football players who sustain a full-speed tackle or a heavy fall onto artificial turf may experience misalignments of the spinal vertebrae that include disc herniation and other forms of nerve impingement.

Trauma to the cervical spine may result in symptoms of whiplash, while a similar problem in the lower spine may result in back pain or sciatica. A sports injury may involve painful muscle or ligament tears as well. We can employ a combination of rehabilitation exercises, massage therapy, and other treatments to treat the injury, help tissues heal themselves, and restore flexibility and strength to injured muscles.

Overuse injuries are another common form of sports injury. The most well-known example may be a form of tendonitis known as “tennis elbow.” This type of injury occurs when the forearm tendons and muscles become inflamed from hours of serves and returns, especially if a flaw in the athlete’s technique aggravates the problem. Golfers may also develop “golfer’s elbow” for similar reasons. Joint pain typically affects runners, basketball players and other athletes who subject their hips, knees, and ankles to constant impacts. Runner’s knee actually begins as a misalignment of the patella. Plantar fasciitis, a painful foot inflammation caused by strained connective tissue in the arch, may stem from poor posture or alignment issues that put uneven stress on the foot.

We can help correct overuse injuries through chiropractic care to correct your weight distribution, physical therapy and rehabilitation to regain strength and flexibility, massage therapy to boost the circulation of healing nutrients to your tissues, acupuncture for pain management, and prescribed exercises or lifestyle changes to help protect your body against recurrences of the sports injury. Prompt use of therapeutic massage can also help prevent or break up adhesions, lumps of abnormal scar tissue that affect the range of motion and inhibit healing and cause pain.