Athletes normally subject their bodies to strenuous exercises that often cause muscle and body pains. These physically straining activities can create spinal alignment and movement problems. With sports chiropractic care, the athlete does not have to live with chronic pains anymore. As of the 2014-2015 season, every NFL team had an official team chiropractor. In Major League Baseball, 30 teams have a team chiropractor. In 2006, a study analyzing Division I
NCAA athletes at intercollegiate sporting events in Hawaii found that chiropractic usage within the last 12 months was reported by 39% of respondents. Chiropractic sports medicine specialists first began treating Olympic athletes at the
Olympic Games in
Montreal in 1976, when Leroy Perry began working with the
Aruban team. Subsequently, a program was developed to screen chiropractors for the USOC in Colorado Springs, CO and chiropractors have been included with the US and other national teams since then. In 1996, Dr. Steven Horwitz, D.C. was selected by the USOC as the third chiropractor to part of the Medical Staff for the Games of the XXVI Olympiad in Atlanta. In 2000,
Life University opened a 4500 sq. ft. chiropractic clinic in the Costa Rican Olympic Committee Compound to provide chiropractic services for athletes. The US team sent four chiropractors to
Beijing for the 2008 Olympic games, where Mike Reed served the U.S. team as a treating chiropractor and also as the chiropractic medical director of the Performance Services Division of the USOC. Chiropractors were included on the US medical team again for the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games, where Michael Reed acted as the external medical director for the USOC, and oversaw the USOC volunteer medical program and the USOC Sports Medicine Network. Chiropractic care was arranged by the
British Chiropractic Association and integrated into the treatment of
athletes for a polyclinic during the 2010 Winter Olympics in
Vancouver. At the 2012 Summer Games in London, the USOC brought eight chiropractors in addition to the full-time paid medical director, William Moreau. The World Games 2022, doctors of chiropractic from eight countries represented the International Federation of Sports Chiropractic (FICS) from July 7–17, 2022 The World Games in Birmingham, Alabama. FICS chiropractors treated more than 3,400 athletes participating in 30+ unique sports. ==Associations==