Sports Chiropractic: Building Resilience and Unlocking Athletic Potential
The use of chiropractic and other CAM therapies in sports is on the rise, and for good reason. Professional and recreational athletes alike are turning to these therapies for performance enhancement, injury prevention, and optimal recovery.
Sports chiropractic has had a growing presence at the Olympic Games since 1976 (Saad et al., 2020). It has also gained traction in the NFL, with 77% of coaches referring their athletes for care, and 31% of teams officially adding a chiropractor to their medical team (Botelho, 2011).
So what’s all the hype about? A quick look at the published literature helps us understand how a freely functioning spine and nervous system could be the secret weapon in an athlete’s arsenal.
Evidence-Based Benefits
First, lets take a look at what the evidence says. How has chiropractic care been shown to benefit athletes?
Enhanced proprioception (the sense of where your body is in space)
Increased motor cortex excitability (associated with safer and more efficient execution of sport-specific movements)
Improvements in strength, speed, and endurance outputs
Greater agility and balance
Faster reaction time
Increased range of motion
Reduced pain
Lower incidence of injury/re-injury
How Does it Work?
The short answer is that we don’t know exactly how chiropractic care produces these outcomes. But the connection makes sense when we consider the function of the nervous system, and the purpose of a chiropractic adjustment.
The Nervous System:
The nervous system is like your body’s control center. The nerves act like information highways, connecting the brain to every other cell, organ, and tissue in the body. Afferent signals (from body to brain) tell the brain what’s happening in the body, and how it should respond. Then efferent signals (from brain to body) command the appropriate response.
This is how your nervous system regulates breathing, heart rate & blood pressure, muscle contractions, immune response & injury repair, etc. — all essential for athletic performance and recovery.
The Chiropractic Adjustment:
The chiropractic adjustment serves to correct subluxations — misaligned vertebrae in the spine, which put pressure on nerves, and interfere with the communication between brain & body. When proper alignment is restored, so is the brain-body connection.
Chiropractic Care in the Context of Sports:
Biomechanical: Misaligned bones in the spine (or extremities) cause restricted motion, postural changes, and altered movement patterns — all of which can decrease an athlete’s efficiency and increase their risk of injury.
Neurological: Subluxations alter the nervous system’s ability to detect and respond to stimuli. This can impair protective reflexes and contribute to functional instability (as opposed to structural/biomechanical instability). This again increases the risk of injury. Furthermore, subluxations could affect the speed and quality of responsiveness in the cardiovascular, respiratory, and muscular systems — all potentially contributing to suboptimal performance.
In summary, chiropractic care serves to restore joint motion and remove neurological interference. The result is a body that can freely move and function as it was designed. Naturally, this sets the foundation for safer and more efficient athletic performance.
From Pain to Performance
The nature of being an athlete is that we consistently push our bodies to adapt and perform under stress. Injuries are common, whether from trauma or overuse. And even small dysfunctions can often be magnified under increased demands. The incidence of back pain alone has been reported to be as high as 75% annually among professional athletes (Saad et al., 2020).
Fortunately, chiropractic care works great for back pain. But as we’ve already seen, it can also do so much more.
Beyond the Spine
Just as chiropractic care isn’t limited to treating pain, it also isn’t limited to the spine! Many chiropractors, and especially sports chiropractors, will also adjust the extremities (upper and lower limbs). Just as bones in the spine can become misaligned and cause dysfunction, so can the bones in your arms and legs.
A case report from Dr. Scott Gillman demonstrates two prime examples. The study describes two teenage athletes (one male, one female) experiencing recurrent ankle sprains. This is one of the most common injuries in sport, and after one sprain, re-injury is also very common. The author describes two possible explanations:
Previously sprained ankles often present with decreased range of motion in dorsiflexion, and a fixation of the talus bone.
While severe ankle sprains may cause ligament laxity and mechanical instability, it is more common that ligament injury and joint misalignment cause functional instability by altering proprioception.
With this in mind, both patients were treated with chiropractic adjustments to the spine and extremities (specifically the ankle and knee joints). They began care with ankles “giving out” 2x/day and 2-4x/wk. Significant improvements were noted after the first adjustment, and with continued care, both athletes returned to their sport with no further ankle problems.
Everyone is an Athlete
Sports chiropractic isn’t just for the Olympians and NFL players. It’s also for the weekend hikers, the mom’s trying to bounce back after childbirth, and grandparents who want to keep up with the kiddos. Whatever you’re training for, a freely functioning spine and nervous system can help set you up for success.
From our references alone, a wide variety of athletes are represented…
Adolescents (Gillman, 2004), and young to middle-age adults (Lauro & Mouch, 1991)
Active military (Çözvelioğlu & Danışman, 2025)
Track & field (Saad et al., 2020)
Soccer and skate/snowboarding (Gillman, 2004)
Martial arts (Botelho, 2012) (Çözvelioğlu & Danışman, 2025)
Basketball and football (Çözvelioğlu & Danışman, 2025)
Professional/elite level (Botelho, 2012) (Çözvelioğlu & Danışman, 2025)
Recreational (Lauro & Mouch, 1991)
So you might say that everyone is an athlete—and sports chiropractic helps unlock the potential within all of us. From enhancing performance to preventing injury, it supports the body in moving and functioning the way it was designed to.
References
Botelho, M. B., & Andrade, B. B. (2012). Effect of cervical spine manipulative therapy on judo athletes' grip strength. Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics.
Çözvelioğlu, E., & Danışman, F. (2025). Effect of Chiropractic Treatment on Muscle Strength in Athletes: An Evidence-Based Evaluation. Advances in Chronic Diseases.
Evans, M. W., et al. (2018). Adult use of complementary and integrative approaches to improve athletic performance. Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine.
Gillman, S. F. (2004). The impact of chiropractic manipulative therapy on chronic recurrent lateral ankle sprain syndrome in two young athletes. Journal of Chiropractic Medicine.
Lauro, A., & Mouch, B. (1991). Chiropractic effects on athletic ability. Chiropractic: The Journal of Chiropractic Research and Clinical Investigation.
Saad, M., et al. (2020). Effect of sports chiropractic on the primary prevention of low back pain for track and field players. Science, Movement and Health.
