What Does a Sports Chiropractor Do?
When most people hear the word chiropractor, they probably think about back pain, neck pain, and spinal adjustments. That's certainly part of what we do, but it's not the whole picture.
Sports chiropractic looks at a much bigger picture.
Athletes ask more of their bodies than the average person. Running, lifting, swinging, throwing, punching, cutting, jumping, and changing direction all create different demands on muscles, joints, and other tissues.
A sports chiropractor's job is to understand those demands, evaluate how your body is handling them, and help you continue doing what you love whenever it is safe and appropriate to do so.
That means we aren't just asking, "Where does it hurt?". We're also asking, "Why is it hurting? What does your sport demand from this area? What needs to change so your body can handle those demands again?"
At Trademark Chiropractic we work with athletes ranging from recreational lifters and golfers to boxers, baseball players, and competitive athletes in the Edmond Oklahoma area.
What Makes a Sports Chiropractor Different?
A sports chiropractor is still a chiropractor. The difference is largely in the lens through which we evaluate and treat the person in front of us.
Athletes tend to require a closer look at movement, loading patterns, joint function, tissue capacity, training demands, and the specific movements required by their sport.
Think about three athletes who all walk into our office with shoulder pain. One is a golfer, one is a boxer, and the other is a weightlifter. The painful area might be similar, but those three shoulders have very different jobs. The golfer needs to repeatedly rotate through a high-speed swing. The boxer needs to rapidly produce and absorb force while throwing punches. The lifter might need to press hundreds of pounds or control weight overhead.
Treating all three athletes exactly the same simply because they pointed to the same part of their shoulder wouldn't make much sense. That's why understanding the athlete's sport matters.
First, We Figure Out What Hurts
When an athlete comes into Trademark with pain, our first priority is figuring out what may be generating the symptoms and making sure there isn't something more serious going on.
Sometimes the cause is obvious.
You rolled your ankle sliding into second base. You felt your hamstring during a sprint. Your shoulder started hurting after a heavy bench press. Other times, there isn't one obvious moment when the problem started. That's when we start working backward.
We look at when the symptoms occur, which movements provoke them, what your training has looked like, what changed recently, and what your sport repeatedly asks your body to do.
That gives us a much better picture than simply knowing where you hurt.
Then We Look at the Demands of Your Sport
Sports injuries don't happen in a vacuum. Your body has to produce, transfer, and absorb force every time you train or compete.
A baseball pitcher needs enough shoulder and trunk function to tolerate repeated throwing. A golfer needs to repeatedly rotate through the hips, trunk, and shoulders. A boxer needs to throw punches while constantly rotating, shifting position, absorbing contact, and moving around an opponent. A lifter needs enough mobility, strength, coordination, and tissue capacity to repeatedly squat, pull, press, and carry heavy loads.
That's why part of evaluating an athlete is understanding what "normal" needs to look like for that particular person.
The goal isn't simply to get you comfortable sitting on the treatment table.
We need to know whether your body can handle what you're going to ask it to do when you get off the table.
Our Goal Isn't Always to Stop You From Training
One of our biggest priorities at Trademark is keeping athletes involved in their sport whenever we can do it safely.
An injury doesn't automatically mean complete rest.
Research on sports rehabilitation increasingly supports a progressive approach to returning athletes to activity. Depending on the injury, this can mean temporarily modifying training rather than completely eliminating it.
Maybe you can't bench press without shoulder pain right now, but another pressing variation feels fine. Maybe full-speed throwing bothers your elbow, but lower-intensity throwing doesn't. Maybe heavy squats irritate your hip, but you can tolerate another lower-body movement.
Those modifications allow us to manage the demand being placed on the irritated tissue while continuing to expose your body to appropriate movement and load.
There are absolutely times when an athlete needs to stop.
Severe loss of motion, intense or worsening pain, suspected fractures or dislocations, significant trauma, concussion concerns, severe or worsening headaches, shortness of breath, or other concerning findings can change the plan completely.
Sometimes the best thing a sports chiropractor can do for an athlete is recognize that they shouldn't be treated in our office that day and help get them to the appropriate provider.
Keeping you training matters. Protecting your health matters more.
So Where Do Adjustments Fit?
Adjustments are one of the tools we use. They're not the entire toolbox.
When we find a joint that isn't moving the way we'd like it to, an adjustment may be one option for addressing that restriction and seeing whether changing joint motion changes the athlete's symptoms or movement.
What we aren't doing is putting a "misaligned" bone back into place. We also aren't claiming that adjusting your spine is going to cure every problem in your body or suddenly make you a better athlete.
Research on spinal manipulation has found immediate changes in some measures such as range of motion and neuromuscular function, but the evidence does not show that an adjustment by itself reliably improves athletic performance.
We're not trying to create a superpower with an adjustment.
We're trying to determine whether improving movement or reducing symptoms gives us a useful window to get you moving, training, and loading the area more effectively.
Adjustments Aren't Our Only Tool
Depending on what we find, treatment might also include manual therapy, dry needling, cupping, instrument-assisted soft tissue work, kinesiology taping, stretching, or rehabilitation exercises.
None of those treatments is automatically better than another. They're tools.
The question is whether a particular tool makes sense for the athlete standing in front of us that day.
If muscular pain or tension is limiting movement, we might use manual therapy or cupping. When myofascial trigger points appear to be contributing to the problem, dry needling may be an option. Instrument-assisted soft tissue work, sometimes called scraping, may be used when we're trying to influence symptoms or short-term mobility.
Taping can sometimes provide sensory feedback or support during movement, but we don't consider tape a shortcut to better athletic performance.
Exercise and stretching become important when the athlete needs to restore motion, rebuild strength, improve control, or gradually increase the amount of load an area can tolerate.
The treatment isn't determined by what tools we happen to have in the office.
It's determined by what we find during the assessment.
Assess. Treat. Reassess.
This is one of the most important parts of how we work with athletes.
We don't want to do something simply because it feels productive. We want to know whether it changed anything.
Imagine an athlete comes in with hip pain. Before treatment, we might look at hip internal rotation, active hip extension, strength, pain with a particular movement, or another test that relates to what they're experiencing.
Then we treat what we think is contributing to the problem. Afterward, we test it again.
We want to see if the range of motion changed, if the movement feels different, or if the pain changed. We also want to know if you can perform the movement better.
If nothing changed, that's useful information too. It tells us we may need to change our approach. That's the advantage of constantly assessing, treating, and reassessing rather than following the exact same treatment routine every time someone walks through the door.
Sports Chiropractic Isn't Just for the Spine
This might be one of the biggest misconceptions we hear. Chiropractors are known for treating the spine, but sports chiropractic can involve evaluating and treating joints and muscles throughout the body.
At Trademark, that regularly means shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees, ankles, and feet in addition to the neck, mid back, low back, and pelvis.
The areas we see often depend on the athlete.
Lifters commonly come to us with shoulder pain during pressing or overhead movements, mid-back discomfort during rowing movements, and low-back or hip problems related to squatting, lunging, and deadlifting.
Boxers may deal with shoulder and wrist pain from punching, neck symptoms following sparring or competition, and low-back or hip pain from the rapid movement and rotation their sport demands.
Golfers frequently come in with low-back or hip complaints associated with the repetitive rotation of their swing.
Baseball and softball players often bring us throwing-related shoulder or elbow problems, along with the occasional ankle injury from running or sliding.
The sport changes. The process doesn't.
Understand the problem. Understand the demand. Decide what needs to change.
What If You're Not Injured?
You don't necessarily need to wait until something hurts badly to see a sports chiropractor.
Some athletes come in because they're training hard and want another set of eyes on how their body is handling it.
That doesn't mean we can guarantee that regular chiropractic care will prevent injuries. Sports injuries are complicated and can involve training load, previous injury, fatigue, strength, mobility, contact, equipment, playing surface, chance, and plenty of other variables.
Our goal is simpler.
We want to identify things that may need attention, address current symptoms or movement limitations when appropriate, and help the athlete build enough capacity for the demands they're placing on their body.
For an athlete who feels good, a visit may be relatively simple.
We might assess spinal and extremity joint motion, address areas that are currently bothering them, work on muscular tension when appropriate, and give an exercise or stretch if the assessment identifies something worth working on between visits.
If everything looks good, we're not interested in inventing a problem.
Sports Healthcare Should Be a Team Sport
A sports chiropractor shouldn't try to be every healthcare provider an athlete will ever need.
We often overlap with physical therapists, especially when it comes to musculoskeletal assessment, exercise, rehabilitation, and returning someone to activity.
Our approach at Trademark tends to start with a strong emphasis on joint function while also evaluating the surrounding muscles and movement patterns.
Athletic trainers, strength coaches, physical therapists, primary care providers, orthopedists, and other healthcare professionals all bring different expertise to the table.
The athlete wins when those people work together.
If something is outside our lane, we refer. If an athlete needs imaging, we can help determine the appropriate next step. If they need an orthopedic evaluation, they should see an orthopedist. If their strength coach is already doing a great job managing their training, we're not trying to replace their coach.
Our job is to fill our piece of the puzzle well.
Pain Relief Is Only Part of the Goal
Our three phases of care at Trademark are Relief, Rebuild, and Resiliency.
That framework doesn't really change just because someone is an athlete. First, we want to calm down the problem and help the athlete move more comfortably. Then we want to rebuild their capacity to handle the demands that contributed to the problem.
Eventually, we want them to become resilient enough that they're not constantly worried about an old injury coming back every time they train or compete. That's where sports chiropractic becomes about something bigger than getting out of pain.
It's about confidence.
An athlete shouldn't have to step onto the field, into the ring, onto the course, or under a bar wondering whether an old injury is going to stop them.
We want them focused on what they're there to do.
Great Performance Starts With Great Practice
There's a phrase we use that sums up a lot of our philosophy:
Great practice makes great performance.
Competition isn't the only thing that matters. Athletes need to be able to train consistently enough to develop the strength, skill, conditioning, timing, and confidence their sport requires.
That's why our goal isn't simply to get an athlete through game day. We want to help them train well enough to be ready for game day in the first place.
A good sports chiropractor isn't trying to magically make someone faster, stronger, or better at their sport with an adjustment. We're trying to help create an environment where that athlete can move, train, recover, and build the capacity their sport requires.
Ultimately, that's what we want for every athlete who walks into Trademark.
We don't simply want less pain. We want you to be able to compete and train without constantly wondering whether a previous injury is going to hold you back.
Because the best outcome isn't needing us forever.
It's trusting your body enough to get back to doing what you love.
Are you an athlete dealing with pain or an injury?
Trademark Chiropractic works with athletes throughout Edmond and North Oklahoma City to understand what's hurting, what your sport demands from your body, and what it will take to get you moving and training again.
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