How Chiropractors Make the Olympics Go

The Winter Olympics are in full swing, and the best athletes in the world have come together to compete, leaving all of us captivated by their abilities. As spectators, most of us don’t give much thought to what’s going on behind the scenes. However, Olympic athletes require all kinds of supportive care to maintain peak performance.

One of the main ways these world-class competitors stay in tip-top condition is by regularly getting chiropractic care. Preventative chiropractic treatments can help extend athletes’ range of motion, improve performance, and prevent injury. Chiropractors can also help athletes recover more quickly from overwork and injuries.

In fact, chiropractic care is so important to Olympic performance that in 2016 the chief medical officer for the US Olympic Team was a chiropractor – Dr. Bill Moreau.

Let’s take a look at how chiropractors help keep Olympic athletes at their best.

Driving High-Performance Outcomes

Olympic athletes have come to recognize the benefit of conservative preventative care, including chiropractic, in helping them reach their peak performance. At the athletes’ request, chiropractic has become an integral part of daily training for many elite athletes, including noted Olympians.

Dr. Moreau, who currently serves as the managing director of Sports Medicine for the United States Olympic Committee, says that chiropractic “helps the athletes to reload and get ready for the next day of practice or competition grind. If we can help them recover and physically perform the next day, the target is for the athlete to reach the pinnacle of their potential at the Olympic or Paralympic Games.”

Post-workout recovery techniques such as hydromassage and massage therapy can help high-performance athletes recover from tough practices or competition, and perform better the next day. This is helpful in conditioning prior to competition, and to maintaining peak performance during multi-day competitions, such as the Olympics.

Improving Performance through Chiropractic Adjustment

More active chiropractic treatment is also incredibly useful. Correcting biomechanical misalignments through using chiropractic manipulation and other modalities helps improve performance, says Moreau.

Proper biomechanical alignment allows the range of motion to reach its full potential, and may also improve strength and balance – all critical for athletes to maintain peak performance.

Biomechanical misalignment may also contribute to chronic pain in high-impact areas such as the back, feet, and knees. Alleviating these sources of pain, even if the pain is minor, can help to improve performance.

Multi-gold medalists Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps regularly use chiropractic care to improve their performance, recover from injuries, and recuperate after tough practices. In the 2016 Olympics, Phelps was covered in purple dots, which were due to a technique known as “cupping,” wherein suction is applied to sore muscles.

Fort Lauderdale Chiropractors

Injuries can be devastating to elite athletes. An injury prior to competition prevents conditioning essential to maintaining peak performance, and an injury during competition likely means that the athlete will be unable to compete any further. Medical care for athletes therefore focuses strongly on injury prevention.

Chiropractic can prevent injury through a number of means. An initial evaluation and biomechanical exam can help identify areas that are already stressed and at risk for injury. Biomechanical realignment can also prevent injuries, as can low-force applied kinesiology.

Accelerating Recovery Times after Injury

When an Olympic athlete sustains an injury, valuable training time is lost. It is therefore imperative to make the recovery time as short as is possible, so that the athlete can safely reenter training.

Chiropractic care can help heal soft tissue injuries through modalities such as hydromassage and electric stim therapy. Adjustments can also help to restore the range of motion, increase blood flow to the injured region, and improve flexibility.

Reducing Chronic Pain

High-impact sports can place as much stress on the body as a moderate auto accident. Elite, high-performance athletes therefore often suffer from chronic pain resulting from consistent overwork or old injuries.

Chiropractic adjustment is especially effective in treating chronic back pain, and has consistently outperformed other medical interventions in reducing the intensity of back pain. Proper spinal alignment takes the stress off of compressed nerves, alleviating back pain.

Providing Non-Invasive Treatment

Invasive treatments are a gamble for injured athletes, as these procedures increase the recovery time from injuries. If an injury is treatable through chiropractic care, avoiding invasive treatments through these means significantly decreases recovery time. Chiropractic care is also not as risky as invasive treatments.

Bottom line? Chiropractic care helps athletes from many different sports reach their peak performance, and has become integral to the care of elite athletes. Although chiropractors don’t come to mind for most of us when we think of the Olympics, they play a vital role behind the scenes.

About the Author:

Dr. Singer has been a practicing chiropractor for more than 20 years, and USA Health & Therapy has been around since 2004. Over the course of his career, Singer has helped tens of thousands of people with all kinds of issues by using a wide variety of treatment strategies. He has extensive knowledge of chiropractic modalities, including Gonstead, Diversified, Thompson Drop Table, and Activator, and in 1997 he earned a special adjunctive Chiropractic Certification in Spinal Trauma (CCST) to better provide care for car crash victims. Dr. Singer is licensed to practice chiropractic medicine in both Florida and New York.