Most Common Sports Injuries

There are certain types of injuries that occur more commonly than others when it comes to athletics. A twisted ankle, for instance, is more common than a cracked tooth, for instance — but both are completely possible the moment you step out on the field or on the court.

Below, O’Connor Family Wellness Chiropractic goes over a few common sports injuries as a way to help our patients and readership avoid such injuries in the future.

Knee Injury

Torn ACL and MCL are both common knee injuries experienced by football players, basketball players, baseball players, and even cage fighters.

Concussion/Head Injury

Concussions are common sports injuries, whether you’re an MMA fighter, football player, or even a soccer player.

Other Joint Injuries

Torn rotator cuffs are common, not to mention ankle injuries and knee injuries beyond torn ACL and MCL.

Broken Arm/Broken Leg

Since many of us have a propensity to put our arms out in front of us to break our falls, and since our legs take the brunt end of holding up our bodies as we jump and come crashing down on the ground, broken arms and legs are common sports injuries experienced by a variety of athletes.

Back/Spine Injury

Injuries to the back and spine are common in all athletics. That’s why it’s a great idea to have an effective injury prevention program. Yoga, staying active, keeping good posture, and visiting your local chiropractic care specialist in Westwood, NJ should all be high priorities for all athletes.

How to Stay Healthy in the Fall Season

Fall might be a tempting time of year to retreat indoors and maybe slack on our health and wellness routines. In lieu of binge-watching 5 seasons of your favorite TV show, it’s a far better idea to engage in activities, habits, and practices that get you better results health-wise.

Below, O’Connor Family Wellness Chiropractic goes over a few ways to stay on top of your wellness routine in the Fall season.

Get Outdoors

It doesn’t matter if you go for a morning run, a leisure hike, or take your yoga routine to the beach — getting outdoors is still plenty do-able in the Fall season. Enjoy cooler weather, which will make your outdoor workouts more comfortable. 

Eat Healthily

Instead of opting for pumpkin spice everything, make sure that you limit your sugar intake and eat as many clean, whole foods as you can throughout the Fall months for optimized health and energy.

Visit Your Chiropractor

Visiting your local chiropractor is a great way to recalibrate the body and unlock several health benefits like drug-free pain relief, improved sleep, improved brain function/mood, and more.

Contact O’Connor Family Wellness Chiropractic today to schedule your consultation for a Fall adjustment. We have a long track record of keeping our patients in the game all seasons of the year.

Exploring Chiropractic Throughout One’s Lifespan

Chiropractic treatment is not only suitable for all ages, but it’s also especially encouraged! Below, O’Connor Family Wellness gives examples of how chiropractic adjustments can benefit patients throughout all stages of life!

Chiropractic for Infants/Toddlers

Chiropractic treatments have been shown to decrease overall discomfort and promote healthy digestion and breathing in infants and toddlers. Chiropractic treatments have also been shown to boost the quality of sleep in infants and toddlers as well!

Chiropractic for Teens and Adults

Teens going through growing pains and experiencing social anxiety benefit hugely from chiropractic treatments, which have been shown to boost mood, provide drug-free pain relief, and boost cognitive function. Adults experience the same benefits, whether they’re working through an injury or exploring a more active wellness routine. 

Chiropractic for Seniors

Chiropractic treatment is pretty much essential for seniors, who enjoy benefits like increased mobility, improved sleep, improved GI function, and improved cognitive function.

Contact O’Connor Family Wellness Chiropractic to schedule your consultation today. We have a long track record of providing compassionate chiropractic care for entire families.

Tips to Get Rid of Neck and Back Pain

As we start to advance in age, we might start to feel a little more tension in our back and our neck do to the activities we engage in every day. It could be your work that’s putting the most wear and tear on your neck and back, or it could be that cage fighting career you’ve been training for that has you in pain and discomfort.

At O’Connor Family Wellness Chiropractic we’d like to go over a few ways that you can reduce and manage your neck and back pain. 

Work Out with Your Neck and Back in Mind

When we hit the gym we usually think about working chest, biceps, and maybe we’ll work in the occasional leg day. It’s crucially important for you to work out your neck and your back. Both areas of the body are made of muscle, muscle that can help support your neck and spine. After you start strengthening your back you’ll notice less pain and you’ll also notice a strengthened core.

Stretch it Out

Incorporating yoga into your routine will pay off in dividends. Work and play will get your body tense, there’s no doubt about it. Yoga or a rigorous stretch routine is the perfect antidote to daily pain and tension in the neck and back. 

Visit Your Local Chiropractor

If you have pain that persists in the face of your workout and stretch routine, contact O’Connor Family Wellness Chiropractic today. We have a long track record of keeping our patients healthy and well.

When is it a Good Time to Visit the Chiropractor?

One common misconception about chiropractic treatments is that they’re only needed when one experienced a back injury. This idea couldn’t be further from the truth. As a matter of fact, there are a number of occasions when it is appropriate to seek chiropractic care.

Below are a few instances where chiropractic treatments may come through in the clutch for you!

Joint Pain

If you’re experiencing pain in your joints, chiropractic treatment can help. Chiropractic adjustments are designed to recalibrate the body, including your joints, which suffer wear and tear from everyday activity. 

Headaches

If you’re experiencing headaches, chiropractic adjustments might be able to help. Chiropractic adjustments clear up the communication channels between the brain and the body. Many headaches come as a symptom of neck tension, which can also be alleviated with chiropractic treatment. 

Lethargy

If you’re feeling tired all the time, chiropractic treatments have been shown to help. Not only will chiropractic adjustments help you achieve more restful sleep, but they’ve also been shown to re-energize patients as their body’s function at optimum capacity.

If you have any additional questions about how chiropractic treatments can help you, contact O’Connor Family Wellness today to schedule your consultation.

End of Summer Wellness Checklist

As summer comes to a close, it’s important to take stock of how you’re doing and whether or not you’re adhering to your wellness plan for 2019. Below, O’Connor Family Wellness Chiropractic provides a checklist in order for you to see how you’ve stacked up to your summer wellness goals.

1.) How Active Were You?

Did you take part in a 5k, a 10k, or even a half or full marathon? Did you get a predetermined amount of miles in swimming over the summer? Hopefully, you also challenged yourself to do something new, like rock climbing. 

2.) Where Did You Fall Short?

None of us are perfect, so, naturally, we likely fell short in one or more areas of our wellness plan. Diet is a common area where many of us slack off in and fail to hold ourselves accountable for, for instance.

3.) What Improvements Do You Plan to Make?

As the summer comes to a close, it’s important to regroup and maintain motivation and discipline to finish out 2019 strong. Contact O’Connor Family Wellness Chiropractic to learn how chiropractic adjustments can help you achieve your wellness goals. 

How to Warm Up Effectively

Many folks think that getting a good stretch in before rigorous activity or a workout is ideal, when, in fact, warming up is a far better option pre-workout. Saving the stretching for after your workout is ideal, while warming up will actually help improve your range of motion and get your body and muscles ready for the task ahead.

Focus on Movement

Try to work in different types of leg movements that will help stretch and activate your hips, thighs, glutes, calves, etc. You’ll feel better as you engage in whatever workout you’re planning as a result.

Hydrate Correctly

Drink water the night before a workout and make sure to maintain hydration throughout your workout, but don’t overdo it during the activity in question, because you may get cramps.

Work Up a Sweat

The point of warming up is to gather a bit of a sweat before you engage in that activity at hand. By warming up you’ll be more flexible and your body will be more pliable, which will help you avoid injury.

Contact O’Connor Family Wellness Chiropractic today to learn more about how chiropractic treatments are the perfect companion to an active lifestyle.

3 Ways to Relieve Back Pain

Back pain is something that is experienced by over 80% of adults in the world, which means that you, too, could fall victim to some sort of back pain or back problems. Below O’Connor Family Wellness Chiropractic goes over a few ways to relieve back pain in various shapes and forms.

1.) Practice Good Posture

Practicing good posture will force you to strengthen stabilizer muscles and help you feel healthier and even more attractive!

2.) Exercise Your Back

When you hit the gym, make sure to exercise your back and your core muscle group, which will help strengthen the muscles in your back. You’ll also start to notice that your back will feel bad when you stop exercising it.

3.) Do Yoga

Yoga is a great way to relieve pain, improve flexibility, and increase your range of motion, all of which will help provide drug-free back pain relief.

Chiropractic treatment is also a great way to relieve back pain. If you have back pain that persists in the face of doing the things mentioned above, contact O’Connor Family Wellness Chiropractic today to schedule your consultation.

How Chiropractic Helps MMA Fighters

Chiropractor Westwood NJ Sports Injury

Whether your practicing MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) for the conditioning or you’re practicing MMA competitively, it’s important to take care of your body along your path to learning the various disciplines of MMA, which usually entails Muay Thai, wrestling, grappling, and Jiu-Jitsu among other disciplines. 

Chiropractic treatments are a great way to give your body and your brain the boost it needs to endure the training and abuse on your body that comes along with practicing MMA.

Below are a few ways that chiropractic adjustments can benefit the martial artist.

Improved Range of Motion

By visiting the chiropractor, we’ll provide you with treatments that will improve your flexibility and range of motion. You’ll move around the mat/cage and you’ll be able to land strikes you used to not be able to.

Improved Reflexes

You drill and drill and drill some more so the moves become second nature and your mind computes the move to your body instantly. Chiropractic treatments have been shown to improve reflexes, which will help you with reaction time, which will make your countermoves faster and more effective.

Better Recovery

After a fight or a tough training session, chiropractic treatment will give you amazing recovery benefits, not to mention provide you with drug-free pain relief.

If you’re into MMA you should have a close relationship with your chiropractic care specialist. Contact O’Connor Family Wellness Chiropractic today to schedule your consultation.

Tips to Build Inner Happiness

For those of us who believe that true happiness comes from within, this means that achieving and living a happy life is essentially an inside job. Instead of focusing on large exterior forces that are basically out of our control, learning how to discipline and control ourselves is essential.

Below are a few ways to build your happiness from within.

Learn a New Skill

Start from scratch and learn a new skill, whether it’s computer coding or martial arts, it really doesn’t matter. Allowing ourselves to be lousy at something is a freeing experience, then slowly getting good at it gives us countless rewards, not to mention gives us more confidence and happiness.

Play Your Roles Well

Whether you’re a brother, sister, father, mother, boss, employee, play those roles with precision. It’s just like Shakespeare said, in this life, we play many roles and it’s important to be the best you can be at everything that you put on your plate.

Engage with Your Community

Volunteer when you can and make sure to give back to your community. Make sure that each day you come into contact with your neighbors, coworkers, and other community members in order to connect and feel a part of something larger than yourself.

Chiropractic care is another way to boost your inner happiness. Chiropractic adjustments have been shown to reduce anxiety and depression, not to mention help you achieve more restful sleep. To learn more about the countless additional benefits that chiropractic has in store for you, contact O’Connor Family Wellness Chiropractic today.