“Where you think it is, it ain’t.” I came across this quote from Ida Rolf while in grad school and it has stuck with me ever since. It’s a simple statement, but in the world of pain and injuries, it proves so often to be true. Let’s break this one open, shall we? We are going to present this one in two parts.
When patients come in, especially patients in a great deal of pain, it can be so easy to fall into the trap of putting all our attention and focus on the area that hurts. … Read More »
Here’s another Movement Fix Monday focusing on mobility of the thoracic spine (mid-back), specifically rotation.
This exercise is great for those of you spending most of your day sitting, as well as those of you with low back pain.
Give this exercise a try making sure to work both sides 6-8 times and do that once or twice per day.
Cheers,
Dr. Derek
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that unless you have been living under a rock for the past few years, you have heard somebody tell you they really need to work on their “core”. It is a constant hot topic in the fitness and physical medicine fields, but have you ever stopped to think about what the term “core” really means and why it’s important. My guess is that when I use the term core, the first thing you picture is a set of abdominals (or an apple, and if … Read More »
Understanding your pain is one of the most important components to getting rid of it. So first of all, what is pain? The most commonly accepted definition of pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience that is associated with actual or potential tissue damage. That seems like a pretty straight forward definition, but there is actually a lot packed into that sentence. The following is a short list of important keys to grasping the difficult and complex topic of pain:
Pain is all in your head. That’s right, your pain is all in your brain. I’m not saying your pain isn’t real, it certainly is, but you only suffer pain … Read More »
“No matter how much I stretch, my hamstrings are always tight”
I am betting that a large percentage of people reading this article would admit to having “tight hamstrings”. I will go a little further and say a fair amount of you with tight hamstrings have also tried stretching with some regularity at some point in time with very little success in re-gaining flexibility. Well, my goal today is to touch on one possible explanation for why this situation occurs. I also happens to be the most common presentations … Read More »
A question that comes up frequently in our office has to do with whether or not a patient needs spinal x-rays as part of their initial evaluation. The short answer is occasionally. For a very long time, it has been commonplace to visit a chiropractor and upon your initial visit, you receive spinal x-rays. Though we agree diagnostic imaging, including x-rays, MRI, CT scans, etc. are great tools to use, we also believe that there are many factors a doctor must take into account when determining if x-rays are appropriate. For this reason we collect a detailed history and perform a thorough examination to see if any findings suggest the … Read More »
If you have been following our blog for any length of time, you are probably well aware that our main focus at Elite Spine & Sport is on quality movement. We have discussed what movement is, and how pain can alter it. Well today, we’d like to approach movement from a different view to better understand the reasons we treat patients the way we do.
First, think of your body as being like a computer. Your muscles, bones, and joints are the hardware while your brain and nervous system make up the software programs. When a … Read More »
Today I am going to continue to address the topic of Movement. If you recall from our first and second posts, Movement is our main focus here at Elite Spine & Sport. My goal for this entry is to try and summarize roughly an entire year of chiropractic school into a few paragraphs. Here it goes…
Movement is often confused with motion, but thanks to earlier posts, we know better than that now. Quality movement requires not just proper joint motion, but also coordination, stability, balance and proprioception (knowing where your body is in space). Each of these parts … Read More »
The first answer that likely comes to your mind is, “they adjust the spine”. But the reality is, chiropractors offer much more. At Elite Spine & Sport our focus is on MOVEMENT. Allow me to explain what I mean. To adjust the spine is looking only at the ranges of motion of specific joints, and this makes up only a part of movement. True movement incorporates motion of joints with the addition of coordination, stability, balance and body awareness (proprioception). For this reason, quality motion does not necessarily translate into quality movement.
So now you’re probably saying to yourself, “that’s great Doc, but tell me what that movement stuff has to do … Read More »