4 Ways Chiropractic Care Can Maximize Performance and Help You Unleash Your Full Potential

  Chiropractic care and manipulation has been shown to increase cortical drive in muscles. Cortical drive is the amount of motor units that fire in order to contract a muscle. Basically, more motor units firing at a muscle, more strength and power that muscle can generate. In a 2016 study in Brain Sciences, researchers showed a nearly 50% increase in cortical drive (maximal motor evoked potential) in two different muscle groups. This study found that "spinal manipulation may therefore be indicated for the patients who have lost tonus of their muscle and/or are recovering from muscle degrading dysfunctions such as stroke or orthopaedic operations and/or may also be of interest to sports performers."1 Who doesn't want to be stronger and more powerful in their sport? Chiropractic care can help achieve those goals.

    Hand-eye coordination has been shown to increase with chiropractic care, especially in people who experience neck pain. A research study showed improved interaction between cerebellum and motor cortex in neck pain individuals after chiropractic manipulation compared with sham and with no pain individuals.2 With so many sports and activities requiring hand-eye coordination, this benefit can be huge in getting an edge on opponents. The benefits of hand-eye coordination are obvious in sports like tennis or baseball, but it can also be a factor in e-sports and music!

    Chiropractic care can help you recover from injuries faster! If you are unfortunate enough to have experienced an injury during your athletic career, you know how much you just want to be able to get back out there and compete with your teammates again. Chiropractic care can help you recover faster and get you back on the field faster. When you have an injury, your body is naturally going to compensate and change how it moves in order to reduce pressure and pain in the injured area. Chiropractic care can help to reduce the stress and pain that can sometimes be associated with these compensatory patterns of movemen    While most of these benefits are geared toward athletes, there are some benefits of chiropractic for musicians and singers. Both groups have a strong demand on their lungs, and the ability to get a deep breath and increase your oxygen comes from your rib mobility. Having lower ribs that cannot depress and open the diaphragm maximally or other ribs that are stuck or losing mobility will limit your ability to take a full deep breath, therefore limiting the length and quality of notes you can produce in your voice or instrument! Chiropractors are trained to treat poorly moving joints and increase mobility in the ribs and elsewhere in the body. 

    Every NFL team and many other professional sports teams employ a chiropractor on their medical staff. The graphic shows the medical personnel present on an NFL sideline during a game day. These athletes who are performing at the highest level trust a chiropractor for their health and wellness needs, so why not try it out and see what our office can do to unleash your full potential!

Call our office at 319-327-4416 or visit 319spine.janeapp.com to schedule today!

References:

1. Haavik, Heidi et al. “Impact of Spinal Manipulation on Cortical Drive to Upper and Lower Limb Muscles.” Brain sciences vol. 7,1 2. 23 Dec. 2016, doi:10.3390/brainsci7010002

2. Baarbé, Julianne K et al. “Subclinical recurrent neck pain and its treatment impacts motor training-induced plasticity of the cerebellum and motor cortex.” PloS one vol. 13,2 e0193413. 28 Feb. 2018, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0193413