Chiropractic Treatments for Baseball Injuries
Baseball is a unique sport. First, it is played almost year round putting an incredible amount of stress on the ligaments, joints and muscles of the body. Second, the hitting and pitching motions are one repetitive forceful motion after another.
The cause of most injuries originates early in life as a result of one or more stresses compromising the structural patterns and development of the body. Repetitive stresses weaken the body, causing a progressive downward spiral of dysfunction and pain. In the case of most baseball injuries, the cause is an underlying structural problem combined with repetitive stresses that can lead to a variety of injuries of the elbow, shoulder, back, hips, knees, ankles and more.
The root cause of the pain needs to be alleviated. Our technique focuses on the mechanism of the injury, making it possible to solve the underlying problem, not only to relieve pain, but also preventing the recurrence of the injury or a compensatory injury.
I use a sequence of muscular, fascial (connective tissue that holds together muscles and organs) and joint releases to re-balance the biomechanics of the body. As body structure begins to re-balance, changes encourage remodeling of healthy tissue. For most acute to moderate conditions (sprains, strains, tendonitis, etc) you’ll usually start to see results in three to six treatments. In the unfortunate occurrence of a major injury, the use of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy and hyperbaric chamber can accelerate recovery, in many cases cutting recovery time in half.
Our approach is shared with many of the top baseball pitching coaches and injury experts.
Chris Lincecum, father of Cy Young award winner Tim Lincecum states:
“The lower body controls the upper body, and energy transfers at the hinges, the ankles, knees, hips and trunk. It all has to be in sequence.”
Lincecum illustrates how important the acceleration of the hips is in throwing.
In fact, Dr. Glenn Fleisig shares the same point of view stating:
“Hip rotation is extremely important and is closely related to pitch velocity and bat speed” and “within the kinetic chain of hitting and pitching the hips impart the most energy to the ball and throughout the swing.”
Dr. Malucci
