Carolina Sports Chiropractic is proud to offer a selection of tips to improve your health, increase performance, and remain injury free.  Just an example of using the latest ideas in sports science to help great athletes achieve maximum output!

• New research from the British Journal of Sports Medicine suggests a better way to ice acute injuries and reduce inflammation.  The investigators found that icing an injury for 10 minute intermittent periods, ice for 10 minutes; remove ice for 10; ice for 10 again, proved more effective than placing the ice on the injury for 20 minutes.
• Researchers may have determined the right amount of strides per minute to increase running speed and economy.  After viewing tape on several elite runners it was determined that most of them have a stride rate of about 180 strides per minute.  Increasing stride rate will also affect stride frequency which leads to less contact time with the ground and an overall decrease in vertical movement.  A decrease in ground contact time could be associated with a decrease in running related injuries.
• Most injuries result from a change in your training. A change in shoes, an increase in mileage (25 miles per week is the dividing line; at 50 miles per week the injury rate is doubled), hill or speed work, or a change in surface. Almost always there is some associated weakness of the foot, muscle strength/flexibility imbalance, or one leg shorter than the other. The use of  foot drills, arch supports, modification of shoes and corrective exercises may be necessary before you are able to return or maintain to pain-free running. 
• Training is a practical application of Hans Selye's General Adaptation Syndrome. Stress is applied, the organism reacts, a suitable time is given to reestablish equilibrium. Then stress is applied again. Each of us can stand different loads and need different amounts of time to adapt. You are an experiment of one. Establish your own schedule, find what works best for you.