Doctor Higginson’s Blog

Chiropractors have been invited to treat Olympians as team chiropractors since 1976. This year in China many countries have official team chiropractors supporting their athletes, and many more will use chiropractic outside of their team medical group. Athletes rely on chiropractic for two primary reasons; functional optimization, and recovery from injury. Chiropractic optimizes function of joints and muscles by removing restrictions that may limit range of motion or reduce neurological conduction. For the Olympian who is looking for that extra hundredth of a second having fullest range of motion and clarity of nerve signals is not just nice, it’s essential. Chiropractic enables the body to do what it needs to do at its best, whether it be healing it’s self, kicking a ball, sprinting through a finish line, or sticking that landing.

Dr. Andrew Klein, the official chiropractor for the 2000 US Olympic medical staff, identified a key reason why athletes have taken to chiropractic: it keeps them in top shape without the use of drugs. “Athletes have come to rely on manual therapy because the list of banned substances (for the Olympics) is so long and also because they feel it enhances their performance.”

These athletes are in peak condition just looking for that extra bit that they can get out of their body. Imagine what chiropractic can do for someone who has a whole lot more blocking their body from functioning. Imagine what benefit you could see from a visit to your chiropractor. Don’t spend the whole month on your couch just watching the athletes perform. Get out there and do something. For your body’s sake.

This next month you’ll watch records be broken, heroes created, and the beautiful function of the human body. It takes all of an athletes training to add up to the whole performance, from that extra mile they ran, to the mental rehearsal, to the team of physicians supporting them. So, when you watch that swimmer win by .0001seconds you can wonder what part of their training gave them that they may have their chiropractor to thank.