Chiropractics for Sports Injuries: Neck & Elbow

Video Transcript

"One of the questions I get asked a lot is do I have to have my necked popped. The answer to that is no, now as a chiropractor it is totally safe to go ahead and adjust the neck, using manipulation and the training that we have as chiropractors, but one of the things that we like to do as far as talking about the neck and injuries to the neck is to work with the muscles that help support the neck. A lot of times the joints do need to be worked on, we do need to free up motion within those joints but if we also got tight muscles, we can also do some things like soft tissue mobilization. We can do some things like massage, and some other techniques that help loosen up the muscles themselves, thereby getting the results that we are looking for. Another common complaint that we see come in to our office is actually problems within the elbow joint itself. Now the elbow is a very stable joint, but it can suffer from stresses and strains. More then it being a joint problem a lot of times, what we will see is an over use problem where we got actually strains to the muscles and actually maybe some sprains, excuse me, to the ligaments themselves. When dealing with the elbow we spend a lot of time in making sure that we have balance within our muscles. For example, between the triceps and the biceps. When we have muscles that oppose each other, it's very important to have them be equally toned. If one is stronger or toned then the other one, then we are setting our elbow up for over use injuries, for excessive wear and tear, for potential problems down the road. Now when we are talking about the athlete, we are talking more of the throwing sports, tennis and football, baseball those types of things, we want to make sure that we have the musculature surrounding the elbow as balanced as possible, allowing for a free range of motion and a more efficient delivery of their particular sport."