TCM Sports Improvement Program.
Sport, when performed correctly and persistently, is beneficial. As your body supports the introduced stimuli, it will begin to transform and move closer to your goals (be it for weight loss, swelling, or performance).
However, it typically hits the plateau when your body has adapted to your exercise routine. Athletes or individuals seeking to defy their limits can be caught in a daunting performance plateau.
Whether you participate in competitions or play sports for leisure, reaching a plateau is a common but frustrating event. In addition to personal changes, such as adjustments to your schedule and routines, TCM can improve sports performance.
Acupuncture has been an effective treatment for all forms of sports injuries and pain management. With new research and testimony from athletes of a new age, acupuncture has gained popularity as a form of natural sports enhancement.
Benefits
1. It strengthens the muscle: acupuncture stimulates the muscles to increase blood supply. With adequate blood flow to the muscles, the energy reserves are abundant. They provide enough energy to achieve that extra strength.
2. It reduces delayed muscular soreness (DOMS): Acupuncture reduces the pain and duration of DOMS such that the recovery period is shortened.
3. It speeds up muscle reconstruction: acupuncture speeds up the removal of inflammatory materials from muscles, speeding up the process of rebuilding muscle fibres.
4. It enhances flexibility and prevents joint injuries: acupuncture allows more joint movements. It reduces the injuries caused by abnormal joint movements.
5. It allows a good absorption of nutrients: Acupuncture improves the digestive system for better absorption of nutrients.
The Programme
The Sport Improvement Program has two components:
Performance Enhancement
• Identify areas of practice where improvements may be made.
• Identify the limiting factor that goes beyond the fitness plateau.
• Boost performance through acupuncture and/or tuina for joint or muscle flexibility.
• Improve performance with acupuncture and/or medications to restrict endurance/strength.
• For patients preparing for an event (marathon, combat, competition), TCM can enhance muscle sustainability and prevent injury.
Injury Management
• To find out the cause and source of the pain.
• To recognize and deal with pain.
• To identify the main contributors to pain and modify the exercise routine.
The Lane Cove rooms are at 2 Austin Street, directly opposite the Lane Cove Library and a few metres from Longueville Road. If you are coming from the village it is a walk of two or three minutes, and the parking behind the library is the easiest option in the middle of the day.
Lane Cove sends a particular mix of problems through the door. There are the desk-and-commute necks and low backs from St Leonards and the city, the shoulders and elbows of a suburb that plays a lot of tennis, and the knees and Achilles tendons that come with living on a hillside — the stairs down to Tambourine Bay and the streets off Burns Bay Road are their own kind of training load. Lane Cove also has a lot of people in their thirties and forties carrying small children, which is its own demand on a back.
A first appointment is mostly questions and movement testing: where the pain is, what makes it worse, what it stops you doing, and how it has behaved over weeks rather than days. From there you should leave knowing what is proposed, roughly how long it is expected to take, and what would mean changing the plan.
Worth bringing: any imaging or specialist letters you already have, a list of medications, and the shoes you actually walk or train in. If the pain is new and severe, follows a significant fall, or comes with numbness, weakness, fever or any change in bladder or bowel control, see a doctor first — that is a medical assessment, not a treatment question.
The nearest alternative if Lane Cove does not suit you is the Freshwater side, about 14 kilometres away across the Spit.
