The crack of a ball against your bat, good! The crack of a back or shoulder, bad!

  Baseball, the nationwide pass time, heats up in summer. From little league on up, individuals enjoy swinging the bat and running the bases. Unfortunately, the movements baseball requires can wreak havoc on a person's body, leaving them with strained backs, hurt shoulders, and pulled muscles. According to Livestrong, there are over 600,000 injuries from playing baseball per year, and 5-14 year olds suffer from 117,000 of them.

  The aspects of the game — running, sliding, twisting, and jumping — cause the body to maneuver into awkward positions. If you or a loved one has slid into first and felt a pop, or twisted to catch a fly ball and felt a snap, chiropractic care offers several ways to help put you on the road to a complete recovery.

Manage pain

  Baseball injuries frequently involve large muscles, resulting in a high degree of pain. Chiropractic treatment offers relief from severe pain of many injuries involving the spine, muscles, and joints.

  Using spinal adjustments, a chiropractor is able to help the body align itself properly, and sooth the injured area. Once the body functions normally, pain is diminished. Sometimes this can be accomplished in one visit, while other injuries require a few sessions before pain diminishes.

Increase mobility

  A strained neck, pulled back, or overextended knee may cause the individual serious issues in being able to move. Limping around slowly is nobody's idea of fun!

  Chiropractic adjustments are proven to help reduce inflammation and improve mobility in many injury cases. If that last baseball game has you unable to put weight on your knee, your neck won't twist without pain, or your shoulder won't lift your arm, it may be time to visit a chiropractor for evaluation.

Promote healing

  The premise of chiropractic care is to treat the entire body as a whole, not just the injured part. As the body becomes better aligned, it functions at a higher capacity, and begins to heal itself.

  Most injuries resulting from playing baseball, such as tendonitis, strained muscles, torn rotator cuffs, and the like, heal faster with chiropractic care. Increased blood flow to the injured area, and less pressure on the body part (usually due to misalignment of the spine) allow the injured area to regenerate, and a greater chance to begin healing faster than without chiropractic care.

Avoid medication

  Even over-the-counter pain and anti-inflammatory drugs cause side effects in certain individuals. Allergies, stomach issues, and other reasons result in many injured people steering clear of medication to relieve pain and inflammation.

  Chiropractic care provides these individuals a drug-free, less invasive way to help manage the pain and promote healing. More people every year are choosing to visit a chiropractor for pain relief instead of popping pain medicine.

  Before jumping into a baseball game, or even if you or your children play regularly, remember that prevention is worth its weight in gold. Take care of your body by stretching beforehand, being aware of your physical limits, maintaining proper posture, and staying hydrated during the game. With a little extra effort, the chance of a baseball injury can be dramatically decreased.

  Summer fun often includes activities such as baseball, whether in a league or in your back yard with your family. Avoid suffering from an injury as best you can, and, if you or your child end up with an achy knee, twisted elbow, or smarting shoulder, call you chiropractor to schedule a thorough evaluation as quickly as possible.

  Whether you are an avid exerciser, an exuberant shopper, or a small child chaser, you have probably felt tightening and burning in your shin at one point in your life. Sometimes, the pain stops when the activity ceases, but other times the pain remains. If shin pain continues bothering you, it may be time to face the fact you have shin splints.

  The shin is a bone located in the front part of your lower leg. Shin splints commonly occur in athletes who have intensified or changed their training routines. They also show up in regular people who have changed or added activity to their routine.

  The shin has a lot of responsibility during exercise, as it absorbs the shock of the steps, raises the toes, and support the arch of the foot.

  A few main culprits play a part in shin splints:

•     failing to stretch properly before exercising
•     walking or running on hard surfaces, like pavement
•     wearing the wrong type of shoes during activity
•     over-exerting the body with strenuous activity
•     skipping periods of rest between exercise

  Individuals who perform any type of exercise should take appropriate measures to alleviate the above risk factors of shin splints. If you notice pain and soreness in the front part of your lower leg, know how to treat this injury properly.

  If rest and ice aren’t doing the job and you're still suffering pain, it's time to see a doctor. A thorough exam and possibly an x-ray will diagnose the problem.

  Chiropractic care is a powerful choice for treating shin splints and reducing their recurrence. Five significant ways chiropractic treatment benefits those suffering from shin splints are:

Reduction in pain

  Chiropractic is proven to relieve the pain associated with bodily injuries and medical conditions, including shin splints. Sometimes one visit is enough to relieve the pain, other times the pain decreases over a series of appointments. Being able to diminish a high degree of pain down to a manageable level is possible for shin splint patients through chiropractic.

Full body alignment

  The premise behind chiropractic is that it treats the body as a whole, and, in doing so, promotes healing and health to the injured or diseased areas. A chiropractor may work on your neck to help your calf. With shin splints, he or she may align your spine and joints to lessen the impact of activity on your shins. Again, the entire body is treated in order to create the best environment for health restoration.

Healing through adjustments

  Treating shin splints is a common procedure for chiropractors. Common practice is to adjust the calf, ankle, and foot to stretch and increase blood flow to the area.

Drug free treatment option

  A primary benefit of chiropractic care is it requires no over-the-counter or prescription drugs. Individuals who suffer from stomach issues, or simply prefer to avoid drugs, find chiropractic visits a productive alternative to manage pain and promote healing.

Strengthening exercises

  Chiropractors don't just treat the spine. Your Doctor of Chiropractic will set an overall plan of attack for optimal recovery when dealing with shin splints.

  It's routine for chiropractic treatment of shin splints to include a series of stretching and strengthening exercises the individual performs at home between visits. These exercises further expand on the positive effects of the chiropractic therapy.

  If you are one of the many people dealing with shin splints, don't despair! Consider chiropractic care as your main treatment option or in conjunction with other modes of treatment. Within a few visits, you will experience pain reduction, and enjoy a decreased risk of ever dealing with painful shin splints again.

  Even if you have never stepped foot onto a court before, you may end up with tennis elbow. Occurring along the muscle that allows extension of the wrist, it is a painful condition that can linger for weeks or months.

  Previously, tennis elbow primarily showed up in athletes. Due to the increased interest in physical fitness, tennis elbow is being found in everyday exercisers, as well as people who perform work-related repetitive motion.

  Tennis elbow presents several symptoms. Pain will occur on the outside of the elbow an inch or so down from the bony part.

  There may also be pain when the individual tries to extend the hand and fingers against resistance. Extreme weakness in the wrist is another symptom.  

 I have been diagnosed with tennis elbow. Now what?

  Tennis elbow is often difficult to diagnose, which can delay treatment. A correct diagnosis of tennis elbow is the first step towards being able to treat the condition and rehab the afflicted area. From there, a variety of treatments for tennis elbow are available.

  Passive remedies like rest, ice, and arm braces are critical components to healing tennis elbow. Take measures to reduce the movements that aggravate the pain, and use ice at regular intervals to help minimize pain and inflammation.

  An arm brace supports and stabilizes the area to promote healing. These remedies assist greatly in treating the condition, especially in the beginning.

  Active remedies consist of stretching and strengthening exercises, and are vital aspects of improving the condition. Individuals suffering from tennis elbow should begin an exercise regimen as soon as the pain allows.

Follow a doctor's recommendation for the rehabilitative program exercises. The goal is to build strength.

  An individual dealing with tennis elbow may utilize a variety of medicinal remedies to manage pain and inflammation. Over-the-counter pain relievers and steroid injections are commonly used to treat the condition. Following doctor's orders when taking medications is strongly recommended.

  Untraditional remedies also provide vast improvements in tennis elbow, and these treatments have gained favor in the last few years due to their effectiveness. Regimens of massage therapy and acupuncture work on small areas contributing to the condition, and make significant strides in pain reduction and promote the body's restorative healing process.

  Another remedy that offers strong benefits to treating tennis elbow is chiropractic care. A chiropractor assesses the condition, then lays out a plan to promote healing.

  Treatment often includes working to align the bones and treating the surrounding joints so they function at maximum capacity, and can "take up the slack" of the injured area while it heals. Chiropractic care serves the dual purpose of treating the condition directly, and healing the areas around the injury so that the body continues to strengthen and renew.

  In a very small number of cases, the only remedy for tennis elbow is surgery. This is considered as the last straw, once all other forms of treatment have been exhausted.

  The best way to treat tennis elbow is to avoid it in the first place. Be sure to stretch before exercising, consistently perform strengthening exercises, employ correct techniques and proper equipment during physical activity, and don't overexert your arms (this goes for your entire body, by the way) during physical activity.

  If you are diagnosed with tennis elbow, it's essential to understand the variety of treatment options available. The best course is often a blend of more than one remedy. Chiropractic care should be part of your healing process, as it helps decrease pain, reduce healing time, and offers a non-medicinal approach to treating the body as a whole.

  If you have ever strained your back during a golf game, you are not alone. It's estimated of the 30 million golfers in the United States, 80% have experienced some sort of back pain. As fun as it is, swinging at golf balls puts an individual's body in an awkward position, opening up the opportunity for injury.

  While some golfers suffer through the pain by popping over-the-counter medications, others back away from playing as often, or stop altogether. There's another way to combat back injuries caused by golfing, without meds. It's not a magic wand, it's chiropractic care! 

  Golfers are increasingly finding chiropractic care to be a valuable tool to help them deal with back injuries. Here are FORE! ways chiropractors can help injured golfers get off the couch and back on the green.

Consistent adjustments can avoid injuries in the first place.

  Golfing, or any activity, is more enjoyable and causes less chance of injury if an individual's body is in top condition and operating normally. Periodic spinal adjustments keep the body functioning at maximum capacity, and reduce the chances of being injured. If the neck and back are aligned correctly, awkward positioning such as a golf swing will have a less negative impact.

Chiropractic treatment can reduce a golfer's pain.

  Back injuries can be extremely painful, and many turn to pain medications to gain relief and comfort. By treating the origin of the pain instead of just the symptoms, a chiropractor helps their patients manage the pain through manipulations, instead of drugs. Over the course of a few treatments, pain is often drastically diminished and much more manageable.

A golf injury can heal quicker with chiropractic care.

  Injuries to the back or neck can heal faster when chiropractors treat them than on their own. An experienced chiropractor can adjust the spine, and also work on the joints and surrounding tissue that can cause pain and hinder healing. Chiropractic evaluation considers the body as a whole. By treating the entire body, it promotes quicker healing of the injury.

Increased mobility can be gained with chiropractic visits.

  Golfers who play often as well as those who only play a few times a year know mobility is essential to a good golf game. Stiff joints and a weak back not only mess with the golf game, but can be the very issues that end up causing an injury.

  A chiropractic treatment schedule keeps the body loose and strong, and working in optimum fashion. This prevents injuries and increases the chances of playing the game of your life.

  Golfers need to realize the sport can cause serious injuries just like "rougher" sports like football and rugby. It's a good idea to stretch before playing, stay hydrated, and avoid overexertion.

  If you are a golfer, chiropractic care is a valuable tool in staying healthy. Regular adjustments and manipulations keep your body on track and performing with maximum mobility at the top of your game. If you do suffer an injury, a chiropractor can help you manage your pain and decrease the time it takes to heal.

  Contact us today for more information on how we can help reduce the chance of injury for golfers, and promote healing.