Natural Sports Medicine
Natural sports medicine is a holistic, comprehensive approach to sports injuries and performance.
There’s more to sports medicine than ibuprofen! The same can be said for the tired rest, ice, compression and elevation (RICE) mantra. While these modalities can be used as short-term solutions, they rarely result in complete healing or recovery. Think about it…do you have a part of your body that’s never been the same since an old injury?
And while taking care of injuries is important, athletes and active people are often left with little else in terms of advice for the many other health and performance issues they face.
How many times have you heard a health care professional tell you that maybe you shouldn’t run – that its “bad” for you? Or that riding a bike, down a mountain, really fast is “crazy” Or when you say “Triathlete” their eyes gloss over…
And what about nutrition and fueling advice? “Just follow the Food Pyramid” – Ha! The U.S. Food Pyramid is woefully obsolete.
I’m an expert in sports nutrition, proper supplementation and natural sports medicine. By teaching athletes how to fuel and hydrate, employing the necessary supportive nutrients, and by identifying and correcting any metabolic inefficiency, your performance and recovery can drastically improve.
A body that is fine-tuned through the use of clinical nutrition and specific supplementation is stronger and less prone to injury. And when injury occurs, the natural medicine approach assists the body in adequately repairing tissues so injuries occur less frequently.
Natural sports medicine supports the body by assisting normal physiologic processes of healing and repair.
We can help people who want a doctor that provides a more complete, holistic medical approach to their health, wellness, and performance.
I’m an athlete myself – I’ve been injured, exhausted and victorious. I get it.
Here are the conditions we most often treat:
Foot Pain
We see a lot of foot pain in athletic, and non-athletic people. The vast majority of this is caused by improper footwear. If we change how your feet sit in your shoes (by changing the position of the toes), we can alleviate a lot of foot injuries and prevent future problems from occurring.
Despite our relatively high elevation in Fort Collins, many athletes still struggle with their performance at altitude. We can help you feel better when you go higher.
Muscle pain & spasms
Excessive pain and spasms are typically due to dietary and digestive inadequacies. Are you absorbing minerals (electrolytes) and the vitamins they need to be utilized effectively? If not, this can lead to spasms, cramps and pain – which in turn become injuries. As part of our natural sports medicine approach, we can test your digestive function to see how you are digesting, and to what extent you are absorbing the nutrients you need.
Strains & Sprains, Tendonitis & Bursitis
Don’t just take a bunch of ibuprofen – it limits cartilage repair. Part of our natural sports medicine approach will care for, and speed up healing of these injuries.
Joint pain has diverse causes. Do you know what is causing your joint pain? Do you know what you can do to keep it from interfering with your training? We can help relieve your joint pain if we know the cause of it.
Everyone feels overly fatigued at times. Training, work and family take their toll. However, if you feel like you’ve been fatigued for too long, its time to take a more detailed look. Sometimes it’s a simple fix, other times something more serious may be going on. Take the time now to get it figured out, so you don’t continue down the path of continual exhaustion.
Performance & Recovery
Depend on many different things. Your training, your fueling, your stress and your rest, to name a few. Have you put it all together? If not, chances are this is what’s holding you back, keeping you from performing at your best. And, if you’re like many of us that have work and families, paying attention to every detail of recovery becomes even more important.
Sports Nutrition
If the standard sports nutrition advice isn’t working for you, come see me. The one-size-fits-all sports nutrition advice doesn’t always work for everyone. Different athletes have different needs depending on many variables. If you’re tired of hearing the same old sports nutrition advice – come in and we’ll talk about how to get you performing your best.
Supplements for Athletes
Do you need to take supplements? It depends on a lot of different things such as your activity, your diet, and health limitations or symptoms. We DON’T suggest you take a bunch of supplements because an ad or some store clerk told you they were ‘good for you’. Rather, we will take a more detailed, scientific approach to determine which supplements you could benefit from based on YOUR individual health, training, nutrition and goal status.We will only recommend physician-grade, well-researched supplements that you need, not a bunch of expensive fluff. You can trust us, we’ve done extensive research in this area. We know what works and what doesn’t. Supplementation with appropriate nutrients is a key part of natural sports medicine.
Frequent illness & immune system support
Athletes that exercise more than 8-10 hours a week are more susceptible to catching colds, flu and stomach infections. Don’t wait until you get sick and ruin the race you’ve been training for. Come in and learn how a natural sports medicine approach can keep your immune system supported through your training and race seasons.
We work with athletes of all kinds.
We see all types of active people, from weekend warriors to elite runners, cyclists, skiers, snowboarders, triathletes, martial artists, climbers, swimmers and yogis in our natural sports medicine clinic in Fort Collins.
It doesn’t matter how active you are, or if you’re just getting started. If something’s bothering you, give us a call and we’ll tell you if we can help, or get you to the right type of care you need.