Why are chiropractors on the medical staff for nearly every professional sports team — from basketball and baseball to hockey, football, and soccer?
The answer lies in how the body is controlled and how communication flows throughout the body.
What Controls the Body
I always ask athletes what one thing controls everything else in their body. The answers vary depending on their sport, some say the heart, others say their spirit, muscles, bones, spinal cord, but eventually someone gets it: “THE BRAIN”.
God designed our complex brains with the ability to controls thought, memory, emotion, touch, motor skills, vision, breathing, temperature, hunger…every single process that regulates our body. It is a very important part of our central nervous system (CNS).
The other part that makes up the CNS is the spinal cord, which extends from the brain. Our spinal cord runs inside our vertebrae (or bones in our back) from our head down to our tailbone. Spinal nerves depart from the spinal cord under each vertebra, like a complex system of telephone lines, to every muscle, organ, and gland in our body. These, along with sensory nerves, make up our peripheral nervous system.
The Nervous System and Sports
Athletes always talk about “muscle memory”. They want fundamental movements to their sport to be perfected so much that it feels natural, without having to think about it. In competition or with other added stressors, if you are able to master fundamentals, your performance will increase and your risk of injury will decrease.
“Muscle memory” is really just a series of movements directed by your central and peripheral nervous system, which when repeated over time wears a neurologic pathway, much like a rut from a wheelbarrow through soil. Over time by taking the same path, it is difficult for the wheelbarrow to travel anywhere except the rut in the path.
In the same way, your nervous system will expect electric signals to travel down the same pathways the more often they are used. (It is slightly more complex than that, since muscles themselves can develop neurologic reflexes after repetition which decreases reaction time by anticipating what the brain is saying before they receive the signal).
While developing muscle memory is great, you also need your body to react quickly to outside stimulus.
Have you ever twisted your ankle, but quickly shifted your weight to your opposite leg, limiting the sprain on the twisted ankle? This is a great example of your brain communicating effectively with your body and quickly responding to prevent further damage. Sensory nerves in the twisted foot sent a signal to the brain informing it that damage was occurring. The brain then sends a signal to your upper and lower body to shift weight to the other foot. The quicker this can occur, the less likely you are to have an injury.
When Communication is Interrupted
If there is a spot along your spine where a vertebra is out of alignment, it can cause interference on your nervous system, slowing that signal down, setting you up for a less than desirable result.
Similarly, you can speed up the body’s ability to communicate with the brain and vice versa by eliminating any interference or restriction. This can be done with regular chiropractic care focusing on the spine where much of that communication takes place. It’s also important to take note of tight muscles and joints as those can interfere with the communication as well.
To excel at any sport, you want to master the fundamentals but you also want to make sure that your brain is communicating optimally with your body and your body is communicating optimally with your brain through regular chiropractic adjustments!
To schedule an adjustment at Valeo Health and Wellness Center, call 952-949-0676.
