Chiropractic care and excercise

Recently, research has taught us some amazing things about the human body. When you hurt your back, it was previously thought that if you rested it, it would heal like a cut finger. Instead, we now know that your low back or neck pain will subside, but the cause of the problem remains to pop up again - usually at the least convenient time, since stress is also a part of the problem.

There are two sets of muscles around the spine. There are the little ones close to the spine itself - these muscles create the fine movement, as well as protect the spine. Then there are the bigger muscles just under the skin that do the bull work.

The ones in closest to the spine are almost like extensions of the capsules of the joints of the spine. They have a lot of nerve endings in them, which is both good and bad. It is good because it helps the muscles keep in touch with what is going on and keep control. It is bad because with so many nerves connecting to the muscle, if there is pain for even a few days, the muscle starts to atrophy. As the muscle gets weaker, it isn’t able to control the movements of the spine as well. This leads to more pain and more weakness.

Unfortunately, hard work, being active, or even training athletically, will not help the small protecting muscles. So the bigger “work horse” muscles can actually get stronger while the protecting muscles get weaker!

The good news is that there are some simple, quick and easy exercises that will break the cycle of pain and weakness in five minutes or less per day. When combined with chiropractic care, this program has been proven to reduce back and neck crises by over 90 percent. I tell people, “It’s like brushing and flossing, versus a root canal. You pick!”

Even better, you don’t have to wait for three months to see if it will work; many people see results right away. And the longer you keep at it the better it gets!

Consider this: it takes 10 percent of the normal function of these small protecting muscles to keep you pain free. So that means if you have back pain, these muscles are functioning at less than 10 percent.

How does this happen? Say your baseline muscle function is around 50 percent of normal function. You sit in a car for a few hours, fatiguing the muscles to 15 percent of normal. Then you lift a suitcase out of the trunk, and POWIE! The strength drops to less than 10 percent, things shift and are painfully sprained! End of fun vacation!

On the other hand, if you train these muscles so that they start at 90 percent of normal - rather than 50 percent  - and then spend a few hours in the car fatiguing them the same amount, then they will be at 55 percent when you get out of the car. Lifting the suitcase will reduce function another 10 percent, leaving you at 45 percent of normal function - well above the 10 percent of function and the painful Danger Zone!

I had a patient who was in a bad car accident five years ago. She broke her neck and had to have surgery to fuse her neck. The surgery did not relieve the pain. She was in so much pain that she was taking prescription medication. She was treated by everything and everyone for four years after the surgery, to no avail.

When she came in to see me she had two states of being - either heavily medicated or in a lot of pain.

The chiropractic helped quite a bit, but it was the simple neck exercises that really made the difference. Within a week of starting the exercises, she was able to stop taking all the heavy medication, and if she did get a headache, it was minor and could be treated effectively by aspirin. Three monthly follow up visits have seen steady improvement, with even better function and stability.

What are these exercises?

• The Bird-Dog
• The Cat-Camel
• Ball-on-the-Wall
• Ball Extension
• Side Plank
• The Horse-Look

These exercises require repeated one-on-one instruction and guidance in order to be effective. They are not difficult, but they must be fine-tuned for each person to get results. Please make an appointment if you are interested in learning more.