Don’t the All Blacks want to benefit from increased recovery times and higher performance??  Isn’t it time New Zealand caught up with the rest of the world??   On travelling to Australia last year coincidentally with the All Blacks the Australian customs agents asked if I was the team chiropractor.   I laughed in reply and informed them that New Zealand is behind the rest of the world when it comes to sports performance and chiropractic.   Thankfully we now have a chiropractor who travels with our Olympic team so we are catching on slowly.

It’s 2011 and having rugby players benched for back problems, hamstring strains, hip injuries and associated abdominal problems isn’t very “professional”.   Has anyone stopped to think where these nerves go??  How about enlisting a professional to enhance the nervous system of our elite rugby players.  Injury prevention is possible with a balanced spine and nervous system and therefore balanced muscles that don’t have to overstretch or underfunction just to maintain posture.   A fully functioning nervous system helps the brain talk to the body faster and can speed up the healing process.   I’ve worked with professional football players for France, Brazil and Portugal and they have thanked me afterwards for their bodies working better despite old ankle injuries and having more go following pre-game network adjustments.

Chiropractic isn’t the same as physiotherapy and physiotherapy isn’t the same as chiropractic. Chiros and physios have different skillsets, different goals and outcome measures. Although a lot of individual players  see chiropractors at their own expense or on ACC my hope is that come 2015 the All Blacks will have their own team chiropractor!!