Sports Chiropractor

Have you ever suffered from knee pain or heel pain and tried all the home remedies you can think of like foam rolling, stretching, and ice but still with no relief? Well, your next step might be to do a Google search for “sports chiropractors near me”. However, this assumes that you know the terminology and style of chiropractic. Plantar and knee fasciitis in runners is often a problem that affects runners, but you don’t have to be an athlete to benefit from sports chiropractic.

You can type in the search bar for “chiropractor that treats plantar fasciitis” or “doctor for foot pain” and that would be a good place to start. But after reading this article, when next you suffer a similar injury, you can save time by doing a targeted search for a sports chiropractor.

What Does a Sports Chiropractor do?

A sports chiropractor treats musculoskeletal injuries of all parts of the body. Things like plantar fasciitis, runner’s knee, and swimmer’s shoulder can be treated successfully with sports chiropractic. They are board-certified chiropractic doctors.

Differences Between a Sports Chiropractor and a Traditional Chiropractor

Typically, a sports chiropractor will have additional training in extremity adjusting and sports injury management as well as training in manual therapy. You wouldn’t believe how many patients come to our office just to reveal that their feet have never been adjusted. Always check your feet if you have pain in your back, hip, knee, or foot.

There are 26 bones in each foot that glide and slide and move relative to one another in different ways. If any of these joints get stuck, they cannot move, and the body will grab this movement from higher up in the kinetic chain. These compensations often cause pain. A sports chiropractor has likely spent many lunch breaks during his chiropractic program in the extremity lab learning how to adjust feet, adjust shoulders, practicing to improve with these adjustments, not just learning to adjust your neck and back.

Chiropractic started with neck adjustments, and many traditional chiropractors focus on those founding principles – the philosophy of chiropractic and the original technique. However, if you have a foot or shoulder problem, it might be better to find a sports chiropractor.

Another reason that sports chiropractors differ from traditional chiropractors is that sports chiropractors use manual therapies, modalities, and therapeutic exercises. As a result, there are many models of chiropractic services available. Visits to a sports chiropractor are usually a bit more extensive. So a typical session with us at Performance Chiropractic + Physiotherapy includes chiropractic adjustments to the entire spine, chiropractic adjustments to the extremities we are looking at, manual therapy in those areas, as well as modalities and exercises as applicable.

Many of our patients say sports chiropractic sounds more like physiotherapy than chiropractic, and we can see why they say this, as there is a significant overlap between sports chiropractors and physiotherapists. So if you have a foot problem, it is better to adjust your back and hips rather than doing nothing. Based on this, adjusting your feet, knees, hips, and back will produce better results.