About Performance Care
What is Performance Care?
Triathletes Exiting the Water and Moving on to the Bike Race
Performance care acts to improve an athletes performance in his or her chosen sport.
Subtle or gross changes in the physiology of an athlete body can have tremendous impact on the time and effort required to perform an activity.
Difficult training regimes, repetitive motions (swimming, running, cycling), and overworked muscles all place a great deal of stress on an athlete’s body.
Repetitive motion, constant tension, and pressure often result in inflammation and swelling of soft-tissue. The body responds to this inflammation by laying down scar tissue (cross fibers across the tissue) in an attempt to stabilize the affected area. This scar tissue:
- Restricts motion.
- Reduces circulation.
- Inhibits nerve function.
- Causes ongoing friction and pressure.
- Results in the production of yet more cross fibers and adhesions across inflamed soft tissues.
What sports can ART help with?
ART can help improve performance in any sport, from skiing, weight lifting, football, to running, cycling, golf, and swimming. See the following links for more sport-specific information.
- Cycling
- Golfing
- Running
- Swimming
- Triathlons
How can ART improve my sports performance?
Even though physical training factors can be modified, the biomechanical restrictions that have been created in the triathelete’s body are seldom addressed. These lead to future injuries and inhibits the triathlete from reaching his or her full performance potential.
Equally important, different athletes may present with identical pain patterns, but each athlete may have completely different structures that are impaired or injured.
Before treatment takes place, an extremely specific physical examination must be conducted, which results in a diagnosis. It is important to look past the initial point of pain to identify other structures that are involved in the kinetic chain. For example, triatheletes using aero-bars commonly have restrictions at the Serratus Posterior Superior and at a very deep muscle called the Transversospinali
Effective treatment of shoulder problems, or of any soft tissue injury (ligaments, muscles, blood vessels, fascia and nerves), requires an alteration in tissue structure to break up the restrictive cross-fiber adhesions and to restore normal function to the affected soft tissue areas. When executed properly, this process:
- Substantially decreases healing time.
- Treats the root cause of the injury.
- Improves athletic performance.
See the following topics for more information about ART:
- How do you diagnose the problem?
- What should I expect during ART treatment?
- How does an ART treatment feel?
- What other injuries can you treat with ART?