Friday, May 27, 2022
As athletes, coaches, or parents of athletes, you may experience or hear your athlete complain of fatigue, poor performance, lack of energy, lack of motivation, recurrent injuries or illnesses, gut issues, worsening allergies, brain fog, chronic pain, cycle irregularities, weight gain/loss, or just feeling ‘off’. These are signs of an underlying dysfunction, an intermediatory state between health and disease. The good news is that most dysfunctions are reversible when properly addressed. If not, they will continue to progress toward disease.
In conventional medicine we are taught to manage symptoms, diagnose disease and interpret labs as normal or abnormal. So in a conventional sick-care medicine model, your symptoms might not warrant a diagnosis, your labs might be normal and your symptoms may not be addressed (or a medication might be prescribed as a ‘Band-Aid’). The result = you are frustrated! Through the lens of functional medicine, we are taught to look for and find the root cause of symptoms, to reverse dysfunctions before they become a disease-state, to provide solutions to resolve symptoms and to interpret labs as optimal or nonoptimal for each individual. What does this mean to you as an athlete? It means that while you may be viewed as ‘healthy’ or ‘normal’ in the conventional medicine model, you could have some dysfunctions that need to be addressed before they snowball into a more serious injury, illness or loss of form.
At the end of the day, I want my athletes to be happy, healthy, and performing at the top of their game.
Sports performance and sports optimization help you reach your peak performance and get the edge on your competition.