Three weeks into recovering from a shoulder injury. Physical therapy improved your range of motion, but something still feels wrong. Or maybe you’ve been seeing a chiropractor for lower back pain from deadlifts and it’s better, but not right.
Most athletes treat chiropractic care and physical therapy like you pick one or the other. Reality is, they work better together for sports injury recovery.
At Garrow Wellness Center in Sea Girt, NJ, we see athletes from Wall, NJ, and surrounding areas who’ve been bouncing between different providers trying to actually heal. Here’s why using both gets better results than picking just one.
They Do Different Things
Chiropractic and physical therapy overlap somewhat but focus on different parts of the problem. Understanding that helps you see why you need both.
Sports Injury Recovery Done The Right Way
Chiropractors Fix Alignment and How Joints Move
Chiropractors work on spinal alignment and joint mobility. When vertebrae or joints aren’t moving right, everything connected to them suffers. Muscles compensate. Nerves get irritated. Your performance drops.
Sports beat up your spine and joints. Pitchers throwing hundreds of pitches develop restrictions in their thoracic spine. A runner pounding pavement for miles gets sacroiliac joint problems.
Adjustments restore proper joint movement. Relieves nerve pressure, reduces muscle tension, and lets your body actually move correctly.
At Garrow Wellness Center, we look at what your specific sport demands. Baseball players need different treatment than swimmers or soccer players.
Physical Therapists Rebuild Strength
Physical therapists work on muscle strength, flexibility, and movement patterns. After an injury, muscles get weak. Scar tissue forms. You start moving differently without noticing and that sets you up for the next injury.
PT uses targeted exercises to rebuild strength where you got hurt. Stretching brings back flexibility. Movement training fixes bad patterns before they become permanent.
A sprained ankle needs more than time. The muscles around that ankle weakened while you were limping. Your balance got worse. You started walking differently. Physical therapy fixes all that.
Why Injuries Need Both
Most sports injuries involve multiple problems at once. Joint dysfunction, weak muscles, inflammation, scar tissue, screwed up movement patterns. Treating only one piece leaves everything else broken.
Take Shoulder Pain
The pitcher has shoulder pain. Rotator cuff strain, thoracic spine not moving right, affecting shoulder mechanics, and weak scapular stabilizers. Probably all three are happening together.
Physical therapy strengthens the rotator cuff and scapular muscles. Works on throwing mechanics. That helps, but if your thoracic spine is jammed up, you’re not fixed.
Chiropractic adjustment gets the thoracic spine moving. Relieves nerve irritation. But without strengthening those weak muscles, they still can’t support proper movement.
Both together fix the whole problem. That’s how you actually get back to pitching without pain.
Runner’s Knee
The runner gets knee pain. IT band tight, quads weak, pelvis misaligned. All of it contributes.
Physical therapy stretches the IT band, strengthens the quads and glutes, and works on form. Helps a lot.
But the pelvis is rotated and not moving symmetrically. That mechanical problem keeps causing issues. Chiropractic fixes pelvic alignment. Add that to PT strengthening and the knee actually gets better instead of just improving temporarily.
Athletes from Wall, NJ, with running injuries see this constantly at Garrow Wellness Center. One approach helps. Both together fix it.
You Heal Faster
Injuries heal more quickly when you address everything at once instead of one thing at a time.
Fix alignment while building strength. Work on mobility while reducing inflammation. Correct movement patterns while restoring joint function.
Sequential treatment takes forever. Physical therapy for six weeks helps some, then you realize you need chiropractic and do that for six weeks. Four months to get where you could’ve been in two.
Athletes trying to get back to their sport don’t have unlimited time. Season doesn’t pause while you finish treatments one by one.
Preventing What Comes Next
Sports injury recovery isn’t just fixing what’s broken now. It’s preventing the next injury.
Athletes who only fix the acute problem without addressing the underlying dysfunction get hurt again. Same spot or somewhere else, but it keeps happening.
Combining chiropractic care and physical therapy finds and corrects underlying issues. Spine alignment, joint mobility, muscle imbalances, and movement patterns. Fix everything while recovering.
A comprehensive approach means you come back stronger and less likely to get hurt again.
Different Stages Need Different Treatment
Early recovery needs different treatment than later stages. Chiropractic and physical therapy shift as you heal.
Right After Injury
The focus is on reducing pain and inflammation. Gentle chiropractic maintains mobility without making it worse. Physical therapy uses ice, electrical stimulation, and gentle movement.
Not the time for aggressive treatment. Managing symptoms and preventing things from getting worse.
Middle Phase
Acute pain settles, treatment intensifies. Chiropractic restores full joint mobility. Physical therapy moves to active strengthening and stretching.
This is where combined treatment really matters. Restoring mobility without rebuilding strength leaves you vulnerable. Building strength on dysfunctional mechanics doesn’t work.
Getting Back to Your Sport
The final phase is sport-specific training. Physical therapy includes exercises that mimic what you actually do. Chiropractic ensures mechanics stay right under increasing demands.
This phase determines whether you return at previous performance or come back weaker.
Garrow Wellness Center in Sea Girt, NJ, works with athletes through all phases, adjusting treatment as you improve.
They Need to Talk to Each Other
The chiropractor and physical therapist need to communicate about your treatment. What one finds affects what the other should do.
Chiropractor discovers major pelvic misalignment. A physical therapist needs to know how to pick the right exercises.
The physical therapist notices a weakness pattern that suggests nerve problems. A chiropractor needs to check for nerve compression.
When both work in the same place, communication happens naturally. Treatment stays coordinated instead of working against itself.
Insurance Covers Both Usually
Cost worries keep some athletes from doing both. Truth is, most insurance covers chiropractic care and physical therapy for sports injury recovery.
Limits vary. Maybe 20 PT visits and 20 chiro visits yearly. Or a combined limit of 40 visits total. Check your plan.
Even paying out of pocket, getting better in two months versus six has value. Less time injured, less time away from your sport, less total treatment needed.
What It Actually Looks Like
Typical plan at Garrow Wellness Center:
Start with an assessment by a chiropractor and physical therapist. Each evaluates from their angle. Together, they develop the plan.
The first few weeks might be two chiropractic sessions and two PT sessions weekly. Frequency drops as you improve.
Sometimes sessions overlap. The chiropractor adjusts you, and you immediately go to PT for exercises targeting what was just adjusted.
Both monitor progress. Plan changes based on how you’re responding.
Eventually, you transition to maintenance. Occasional chiropractic checkups, home exercises from PT, and full return to sport.
Most Providers Don’t Work This Way
Some chiropractors think they handle everything. Some physical therapists think chiro is unnecessary. Athletes stuck with either mindset don’t get optimal results.
Find providers who see value in both. Who coordinates care instead of competing.
Garrow Wellness Center has chiropractic and physical therapy in the same building, specifically because athletes need both for complete recovery.
If You’re Currently Injured
Stop choosing between chiropractic care and physical therapy. Do both.
Find providers who work together, understand sports demands, and tailor treatment to your injury and sport.
Athletes from Wall, NJ, and Sea Girt, NJ, recovering at Garrow Wellness Center consistently heal faster with combined treatment.
Your goal is to get back to your sport at full capacity. Not just without pain, but performing at the previous level. That requires fixing every piece of the injury, which means combining chiropractic care and physical therapy.
One helps. Both together actually get you all the way back.
Contact Garrow Wellness Center to talk about your sports injury and develop a real recovery plan using both chiropractic and physical therapy. Let’s get you competing again.