Chiropractic Treatment St Paul MN | Health & Wellness This School Year
Starting a new school year also means the kids are getting all gearing up to play sports. While participation in sports offers tremendous social, emotional and physical benefits for children, with competition comes natural risks. We know that one of the worst things for kids is being on the sidelines with an injury. As parents, we can help our kids enjoy the thrill of sports while helping to recognize and prevent serious injury. By making sure that kids are staying safe, we can better ensure that they do.
Continued from Part 1
Ready For Sports This Fall?
With back-to-school around the corner, the 2013 school sports season will be getting underway and we want to remind coaches, parents, and athletes of the importance of sports safety.
In 2011, more than 46.5 million children played team sports. It’s the nature of sports that athletes get the occasional bump or bruise. However, too often young athletes get serious sports injuries that can keep them from playing the sports they love. In 2012, more than 1.35 million children ages 19 and under were seen in emergency departments for injuries related to 14 commonly played sports. That’s one child every 25 seconds. In fact, sports injuries make up 20 percent of all injury-related emergency department visits for children ages 6 to 19.
- Before playing organized sports, make sure your child receives a pre-participation physical exam, or PPE, by a doctor and/or chiropractor. This can help rule out any potential medical conditions that might place young athletes at risk.
- Have your kids bring a water bottle to practice and games. Encourage children to stay well hydrated by drinking plenty of water before, during and after play.
- Stretching before practice and games can release muscle tension and help prevent sports-related injuries, such as muscle strains or sprains. Make sure there is time set aside before every practice and game for athletes to warm up properly.
- An off-season is important, too. It is recommended that kids get 10 consecutive weeks of rest from any one sport every year. Playing different sports throughout the year is OK.
- It’s also a good idea to know the signs and symptoms of a concussion and help avoid overuse injury by resting players during practices and games.
- Overuse injuries can be very subtle, making their detection difficult. Examples include: Achilles tendinitis, runner’s knee, shin splints or pitching elbow. Children who participate in two or more sports where similar muscles are used, like swimming and softball/baseball, are at higher risk of overuse injuries than those who participate in sports with different muscle emphasis, like track and golf.
- Today, there is an epidemic in youth sports: overuse injuries, caused by too much activity, with too little rest. In fact, overuse injuries are responsible for nearly half of all sports injuries in middle and high school students.
Hydrate, Hydrate and Hydrate Again!
As America’s young people gear up for organized football, soccer and basketball practices this July and August, it’s important to remember to drink plenty of water, often. Staying hydrated is extremely important because water is what delivers oxygen to the muscles, providing fuel for grueling summer workouts.
Those young people just beginning summer practices for organized sports, are particularly vulnerable to suffering some form of heat illness.
The CDC recommends that young people drink at least eight ounces of fluids—such as water, juice, or sports drinks like Gatorade—before beginning outdoor activities, and up to five ounces more every 20 minutes during the activity.
Athletes are especially susceptible to heat-related illness such as dehydration, heat exhaustion and heat stroke while exercising in hot weather. Most serious heat illness in athletes can be prevented by following some basic guidelines and heeding the warning signs and symptoms. However, if these warning signs are ignored, they may progress into a life-threatening emergency.
Pay Attention To Temperature
Allow time for young athletes to gradually adjust to hot or humid environments to prevent heat-related injuries or illness. Parents and coaches should pay close attention to make sure that players are hydrated and appropriately dressed.
It is extremely important that athletes acclimatize to hot weather by gradually increasing their work-out times and intensity over a period of at least one to two weeks. Awareness of the heat index and modification or avoidance of physical activity in extremely hot conditions should be considered. However, it must be emphasized that heat illness can occur even in less than extreme heat.
Chiropractic Sports Injury Treatment
Since there is no such thing as a safe sport, in all likelihood if you participate in any sport long enough, you will eventually get hurt to some degree. The way in which you treat your injuries determines how fast you will recover and get back to the activity you enjoy. That’s why chiropractic doctors have become the doctors of choice. The sports chiropractor can enhance an athlete’s recovery from injury and prevent injuries in the future.
Usually there is a very simple reason why we get injured. Most of the time we play too hard, too long, or too fast, putting strain on the spine, joints, muscles, tendons, ligaments, and nerves.
Overuse syndromes and playing full speed before warming up are the major causes of sports injuries. Since most sports involve body contact, fast starts and stops, or positioning that places an unusual amount of strain on the back and musculoskeletal system.
Athletes under Chiropractic care also have greater flexibility and stamina, and they recover from injuries faster than those not under Chiropractic care, which just may give you the winning edge you need to outperform your competition!
Of course, you don’t have to be an Olympian to benefit from chiropractic care. Each year, 20 million Americans go to the chiropractor, 90 percent of them seeking treatment for musculoskeletal problems like back pain, neck pain, headaches, and other joint and muscle pains. Many of these could have been prevented by regular chiropractic spinal checkups.
We know you’re tough — but in this case, no pain no gain does not apply. If you’re really hurting, take an entire week off. It’s better to miss a game or two than an entire season.
If you suspect a serious injury or have been injured while playing a sport and want to benefit from chiropractic care, regular chiropractic spinal adjustments can help keep you functioning and performing at your best… all the time!! Your chiropractor may integrate sports massage and/or physical therapy, plus Yoga into your plan. This stuff works…it will make a huge difference in your ability to recover.