Acupuncture can improve how we use our own structure. The changes we make in response to treatment can equally influence both the pain and inflammation of injury states, as well as certain sports performance related parameters such as speed and power. As an athlete, you condition your body to improve muscle contraction force and reaction speed. These changes increase your performance potential. Actual improvements in athletic skill require changes in the timing and coordination of specific muscle contractions—hence, the need for technique drills. However, athletes often acquire faulty recruitment patterns through lingering protective responses to old injuries and through the imperfection of their training techniques. Acupuncture can help remove these performance barriers through precisely targeted cueing or inhibition of specific muscle bands, determined by a particular athlete’s unique motor patterns.
Acupuncture has been employed for many years by the Chinese Olympic Teams in the training and performance regimens of their atheletes. In the past our associates have been at the US Olympic training facility for the Tae Kwon Do team and have treated various US Olympians in recovery as well as performance enhancement.