How Chiropractic Care Can Work Wonders on a Baseball Injury

The crack of a ball against your bat, good! The crack of a back or shoulder, bad! No matter how severe, baseball injuries can create quite a kink in your game. 

Baseball, our national pastime, heats up in summer. From little league on up, people of all ages enjoy swinging the bat and running the bases. Unfortunately, baseball requires some movements that can wreak havoc on a person's body. This often leaves them with strained backs, hurt shoulders, and pulled muscles. According to Livestrong, there are over 600,000 injuries from playing baseball per year. 5-14 year olds suffer from 117,000 of them.

Some aspects of the game — running, sliding, twisting, and jumping — can cause the body to maneuver into awkward positions. Have you ever slid into first and felt a pop, or felt a snap as you twisted to catch a fly ball? Chiropractic care offers several ways to help put you on the road to recovery.

1. Manage pain

Baseball injuries frequently involve large muscles, resulting in a high degree of pain. Chiropractic treatment offers relief from the severe pain associated with injuries involving the spine, muscles, and joints.

Using spinal adjustments, a chiropractor is able to help the body align itself properly and sooth the injured area. Once the body begins functioning normally, pain is diminished. Sometimes this can be accomplished in one visit. However, some injuries require a few sessions before pain is reduced.

2. Increase mobility

A strained neck, pulled back, or overextended knee may cause an individual to have serious issues. Limping around slowly is nobody's idea of fun! Chiropractic adjustments are proven to help reduce inflammation and improve mobility in many injury cases. Did that last baseball game leave you unable to put weight on your knee? Or maybe, your neck won't twist without pain, or your shoulder won't lift your arm? It may be time to visit a chiropractor for evaluation.

3. Promote healing

The premise of chiropractic care is to treat the entire body as a whole, not just the injured part. As the body becomes better aligned, it functions at a higher capacity, and begins to heal itself.

Most injuries resulting from playing baseball, such as tendonitis, strained muscles, or torn rotator cuffs, heal faster with chiropractic care. This is due to an increase of blood flow to the injured area. Also, less pressure on the body part (usually due to misalignment of the spine) allows the injured area to regenerate. Overall, chiropractic care significantly increases the liklihood of rapid healing.

4.Avoid medication

Even over-the-counter pain and anti-inflammatory drugs cause side effects in certain individuals. Allergies and stomach issues are a few of the reasons many people are steering clear of medication to relieve pain and inflammation.

Chiropractic care provides these individuals a drug-free, less invasive way to help manage the pain and promote healing. More people every year are choosing to visit a chiropractor for pain relief instead of popping pain medications.

Before jumping into a baseball game yourself, or if your children play regularly, remember that prevention is worth its weight in gold. Take care of your body by stretching beforehand and be aware of your physical limits. Also, maintain proper posture, and stay hydrated during the game. With a little extra effort, the chance of a baseball injury can be dramatically decreased.

Summer fun often includes activities such as baseball, whether in a league or in your back yard with your family. Avoid suffering from an injury as best you can, and, if you or your child end up with an achy knee, twisted elbow, or smarting shoulder, call you chiropractor to schedule a thorough evaluation as quickly as possible.