Acupuncture Sports Injury

Gus MacAnally

“How can I get back to normal and back on the field, track or the court, as quickly as possible?”

Acupuncture treatment ‘fast tracks’ your recovery time, and gets to the point of the problem quicker. If you happen to be sidelined by a sports injury, a fall, or injury to joint or muscles you’re likely to be suffering either one or a combination of the following signs and symptoms:

•    Bruising

•    Inflammation

•    Swelling or Oedema

•    Restriction of movement

•    Pain

For sports related and muscle and joint injuries, acupuncture works locally right at the site of the problem. Your body basically has the capacity to ‘manufacture’ its own natural pain killers, natural anti-inflammatory and anti-stress hormones. Acupuncture stimulates your body to get that production line moving, thus releasing those natural, in-built body chemical healers, giving you a less pain/more gain sensation. And the ability to get back into the game faster. The fact is, the sooner your acupuncture treatment of these injuries is started, the less time you’ll need to be sitting on the sidelines. Once acupuncture treatment is commenced it will work in the following ways to help you bounce right back into action:

•    Lessening the effect of bruising

•    Reducing the swelling, inflammation and pain

•    Increasing the range of movement of the affected joint whether it’s fingers, feet, knees, hips, back, neck or shoulders

•    Decreasing muscle spasm and dispersing the ‘caulking’ in muscles

•    Reducing pain quite substantially with each treatment by breaking the pain/spasm cycle.

•    Cutting healing time dramatically by improving blood supply to the affected area and dispersing oedema or swelling.

•    Acupuncture can also provide an extra aid in healing when used in conjunction with other therapies such as massage.

To do all of this, acupuncture treatment recreates and maintains the natural free flow of energy through all the muscles, blood vessels and vital organs of the body. So you feel great! Get back on your feet, faster.

SPORTS PERFORMANCE ENHANCEMENT

One of the great and really interesting benefits of acupuncture is its natural performance enhancing ability.

An unfair advantage? Not really, because it utilises and facilitates the untapped potential that exists in us all, particularly with sportsmen and women and athletes. That extra ‘edge’ would normally lie dormant as a reserve. Now, through acupuncture, it can be accessed.

Athletes from swimmers to runners to tri-athletes are using the physical and mental stimulation and inner calmness created by acupuncture treatment to help them cross ‘the pain barrier’. This barrier is crossed when an athlete generates enough ‘endorphins’ (happy hormones) to experience euphoric feelings and less pain. This happens usually after an hour of extreme effort.

Acupuncture treatment can get an athlete right up there before the event even starts, creating an enormous psychological advantage and allowing performance to be enhanced through the relaxation of tight muscles and increased blood flow.

Acupuncture’s potential for performance enhancement is enormous and its role in the sporting arena is being tapped by countless athletes and sports people anxious to get on with the game.

If you feel your performance could be improved, contact the Medical Sanctuary, where acupuncturist specialist Gus MacAnally can improve your performance naturally.