Can Acupuncture Improve Your Sports Performance?

Are you looking for an edge to your training? Have you considered incorporating acupuncture into your health maintenance and fitness regime? Read on to find out what acupuncture is and how it may increase your athletic performance

Acupuncture is one of the core therapies of Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). TCM is a system of natural medicine that has been used for thousands of years for the preservation and enhancement of health. Acupuncture involves the insertion of fine sterile needles (as fine as a human hair) into selected point sites according to an individual’s TCM health assessment. Each acupuncture point has a particular function; once stimulated with a needle, this function is activated. Needles are single-use, disposable and retained for around 30 minutes. Acupuncture is not painful as many people would expect, it can in fact elicit a deeply relaxing feeling and many people fall asleep during treatment. The principle of TCM is to attain balance and synergy of the body and mind, a concept not foreign to athletes who constantly use the power of their mind to push through pain barriers and challenge their bodies. When the body is in balance there is an abundance of Qi (life force/energy) flowing through the meridians of the body. If the flow of Qi is disrupted, the body will exhibit signs and symptoms of distress, leaving you with diminished mental capacity and vulnerable to injury.

Acupuncture and dry needling are not the same thing. Acupuncturists needle into acupuncture points or non-acupuncture points. Practitioners administering dry needling only needle into non-acupuncture points and only use dry needling for musculoskeletal conditions.