One thing professional athletes do not have to worry about is healthcare. Teams want their players healthy so that they can get their money’s worth. Longevity on the playing field is paramount, because for every year a player remains competitive, millions of dollars may be earned.

A perfect example is the modern NFL healthcare team that would never use the “no pain, no gain” treatment principles depicted in the 1979 motion picture North Dallas Forty. Scenes in that movie showed players receiving multiple shots of anesthetics for torn ligaments and tendons so that they could continue playing.

Today, athletes, their agents, athletic trainers, and medical doctors understand the consequences of disabling the pain mechanism and have come to align themselves with the chiropractic perspective—treat the cause of the pain.

The average pro football chiropractor renders 30 to 50 treatments per week during the season. With the in-season (game-playing) duration lasting 16 weeks (not including quarterback camp, mini-camp, and pre- and post-season), 34 chiropractors conservatively give 20,000 adjustments to America’s superstars in just 120 days.

The diversity of relationships among the 32 teams and their chiropractors has generated the formation of the Professional Football Chiropractic Society (PFCS).

With professional football—namely, the NFL—as one of the best-run businesses in sports, these parameters bear a critical view for chiropractic to position itself as an indispensable tool in the wellness care, improved sports performance, and injury rehabilitation of professional athletes.

Presented as a service to the community by: Union County Chiropractic Clinic, 110 Skyline Drive, Maynardville, TN (865) 992-7000 www.unioncountychiropractic.com.