5 Things Weightlifters Should Know About Chiropractic

Weightlifter couple

Weight training stresses muscles, causing them to adapt and get stronger. However, since it’s physically taxing, it usually strains areas like ligaments in the upper back, intercostal muscles, and tendons in the lower back’s lumbar region. If not taken care of, they can all cause severe back pain to weightlifters. 

The mechanical imbalance is another reason for weightlifters’ back pain. It happens when weightlifters use specific muscles on one side more than the other, making them much stronger and the opposing muscles weaker. This causes muscle tension in other muscles, increased stress on joints and tendons, and postural dysfunction.

Fortunately, chiropractors can naturally treat weightlifters’ severe back pain due to physical stress and mechanical imbalance. Chiropractic care is a non-invasive, drug-free, and safe way to prevent minor injuries from worsening or taking place at all. In addition, it comes with other benefits that weightlifters could find helpful. Let’s figure them out here.

Maximize Weight Training 

Chiropractors aren’t simply “back doctors” who only crack your joints and spine for acute pain. Professionally speaking, they’re spinal cord and nervous system specialists. They don’t crack your bones but rather adjust them. The cracking sounds you hear are the results of those adjustments. 

Chiropractor treatments include adjusting your musculoskeletal system to restore your nerves’ original positions and proper functions. Specifically, hard gainers might try these. Reconditioning your nerves activates neuro signals causing muscular contraction, hypertrophy (increased muscle size), and improved muscle strength, which can all optimize your weight training.

Improve Overall Performance

As mentioned, weight training causes muscle stress on many parts of your body, which can lead to muscular and spinal misalignments. If you continue to lift with misaligned joints or back, you’ll likely put more weight on one part of your body than the other. 

Further, if your body will unevenly distribute weight, you’ll also get uneven gains. This situation is what we call muscle imbalance, and it will negatively affect your overall weightlifting performance. 

Chiropractors can fix these misalignments and restore not only the balance in your musculoskeletal areas but also in your nervous system. It’s crucial to pay attention to your nervous system because it regulates the function, regeneration, and healing processes of muscles. The better your nervous system, the better your overall weightlifting performance. 

Prevent Injuries

In worst-case scenarios, misalignments can result in terrible injuries to weightlifters. They’re very prone to several ligaments, tendons, joints, bones, and muscle injuries. Some of these injuries are:

  • Achilles tendonitis (inflamed Achilles tendon)
  • Calf strain 
  • Hamstring pull or tear
  • Herniated discs
  • Knee pain
  • Iliotibial band syndrome (ITBS)
  • Neck pain
  • Rotator cuff strain
  • Shoulder impingement syndrome (shoulder blade’s top outer edge rubs against rotator cuff)
  • Superior labrum anterior and posterior (SLAP) lesions
  • Tennis elbow
  • Wrist injuries

Skilled chiropractors can help prevent these weightlifting injuries. They’ll recommend necessary adjustments in your bones and specific workout routines that can strengthen joints better. For weightlifters, stronger joints mean more resistance against weightlifting-related injuries. 

heavy weight lifting

Moreover, even before chiropractic care, you should remember three basic dos to prevent weight training injuries:

  1. When you lift, use core muscles to better your posture.
  2. As you lift, don’t arch your back since it can damage some of the nerves in your back. Instead, keep your spine straight.
  3. Always know your limits. 

Treat Injuries

In addition to injury prevention, skilled chiropractors can rehabilitate these weightlifting-related injuries. Depending on the type and severity of the injury, they provide various therapeutic and physical treatments, such as heat or cold therapy, electrical muscle stimulation, body massage, workout training, and physical therapy. 

The injuries that weightlifters are prone to can negatively impact their joints and their adjacent soft-tissue structures, worsening the injuries. Hence, it’s critical to get treated by chiropractors who’ve been working with weightlifters and athletes. They’re more familiar with weightlifting injuries and can offer you the best chiropractic care suitable for you. 

Increases Range of Motion

Range of motion is the mobility, flexibility, and ability to use our bodies to perform movements properly. More specifically, it measures motions or movements around a particular joint. 

Working with a chiropractor can unveil limitations in degrees of motion, especially if each weightlifter differs from another. When these limitations occur, a chiropractor works closely with a weightlifter to enhance their range of movement, identify weaknesses, and speed up healing in two ways: manipulation and exercise. 

First, manipulation realigns your body. There’s a natural alignment that boosts movement and healing. It can harm your entire body when disrupted or altered due to inflammations, postures, or injuries. Lastly, as stated earlier, chiropractic care involves specific exercises or movements to promote the healing and strengthening of strained body parts. 

Final Thoughts 

More weight and more reps aren’t the only determining factors to being a good weightlifter. Being smart is necessary too, and regular chiropractic care helps you train smarter, not harder.