Athletes

AthletesThe two biggest concerns for many athletes is “How can I maintain/improve performance?” and “How can I prevent injuries?”  Why people are injured or why they can’t heal can be caused from a number of factors but if an injury is not treated properly, it can remain a lasting and chronic issue which ultimately inhibits performance.

A common thread with athletes experiencing an injury is that their first assumption is to associate the cause from an outside source, such as lack of stretching or the need to replace worn out sneakers.    However, this rationale fails to investigate a number of the other explanations for athletic injuries.

What Causes Athletic Injuries

In order to truly fix and treat injuries, the athlete’s overall health needs to be addressed.  Why injuries occur is often due to overtraining, diet, stress, inflammatory issues, or simply training beyond your capacity.  These issues cannot be resolved by increased stretching or following a template training schedule.

Athletic Performance and Overtraining

To optimize performance, the key to training is to train hard enough to stress your system but not too hard to where you don’t recover.  Overtraining will occur when your training is too hard or your recovery is too short.  Many athletes are aware of the concept of overtraining, yet it can be difficult to identify on your own. Unfortunately, overtraining is often identified once it is too late, either an injury has set in or performance has started to decline.   Naturally, athletes end up pushing themselves harder and further exacerbate the issue.  I encourage all athletes to take the time to monitor and evaluate their health before a major issue sets in.

How I Can Help You

Every person is unique and my treatment is an individualized examination of your neuromuscular function.  Injuries and overtraining are able to be identified before they become major issues that require significant recovery time.  In addition, nutritional and hormone imbalances can be identified that will help improve performance and decrease injury risk.