Beware the Weekend Warrior

No one needs to convince you that we live in a society that is fast paced. Each day we rush from one thing to the next. Add a couple of kids to the mix and the speed at which we live tends to get amplified. It’s not that we actually like it this way, in fact we may outright hate it. Yet, we continue to live it.

Inevitably there comes a time where we stop to think about our personal health. It might be because we decide to get in better shape or lose weight. Then an opportunity presents itself that we don’t want to pass up. We think it’s a way to help us achieve our goal. It could be a work softball team that plays on the weekends, a family canoe outing, bike riding with the kids, or running a 5k with a friend. Some may call this the weekend warrior. You know, someone who decides to do that one thing over the weekend that they typically don’t do nor is their body prepared for. More often than not, weekend warrior is synonymous with injury.

We know the importance of proper training, stretching before a work out, even stretching after the physical activity. Yet, do we really take advantage of this knowledge? If we did, we would undoubtedly save ourselves the pain of an injury. Somehow, we think we are unstoppable. The key is recognizing that we need to make time for ourselves every day. We need to make our physical health a priority and schedule exercise along with everything else that we schedule. If we don’t, we run the risk of injuries such as:

• Ankle sprains
• Knee pain
• Shoulder pain
• Tennis elbow or Golfer’s elbow
• Plantar fascitis

The good news is that if we find ourselves suffering from weekend warrior syndrome then a visit to the chiropractor can help tremendously. Whether it’s a sprained ankle sustained while hiking, knee pain from a pick up game of basketball, or shoulder pain from painting your new dining room walls. Chiropractic adjustments put the body back in alignment, which minimizes the impact our weekend warrior mentality can have on us. While a chiropractor cannot stop the weekend warrior, he/she can get them out of pain and back in the saddle once again.