Our practice is in downtown Chicago and our patient base is what we call our corporate athletes. We go from an environment that is really sedentary and to an environment where we’re moving so that might be going for a run on the lake or going to a CrossFit gym or playing flag football in the park for some intramural social sports.
The majority of our patients who come in are corporate athletes and they’re coming in for a reason, for musculoskeletal pain. The number one cause of disability in America is lower back pain. More people miss more time from work for lower back pain than any other ailment so let’s start there. If the spine is out of alignment, joints aren’t moving well, muscles aren’t engaging and creating support and stability while moving, that’s how we are going to break down in pain and dysfunction. We are going to be limited in regard to being able to enjoy being active.
If you’re a pro athlete, you may have pain and you’re going to rehab that. But pro athletes are going to be more proactive in that approach in regard to making sure they are in alignment and functioning well so they don’t break down in injury.
Our corporate athletes typically come in a little bit more reactively because they’re in pain. In our practice, we do a detailed history, consultation, figure out when the injury occurred, how it occurred, if there any chronicity in the injury, how it feels, and how it’s affecting function. We do some goal setting. What are our goals? Pain-free, improve mobility and stability so we can get back in the gym with our ultimate goal of being able to run a Tough Mudder at the end of the summer. We then evaluate the spine for subluxations. We look for joints that are out of alignment increasing stress and tension within the joint, tissue, nerve disc which typically drive pain and dysfunction. We will evaluate muscles. We’ll evaluate how well a joint is moving or isn’t moving and figure out which muscle is crossing the joint. We evaluate those muscles and joints to make they allow full range of motion and stability.
We will then provide an orthopedic exam, a neurological exam, and then a real functional exam of the injured area and all the effective areas so posterior chain, for example. We will evaluate how the core, the hamstrings, and glutes are working in conjunction with your lower back. We’ll then take some digital x-rays. Your alignment, the structure of your spine is very important in regard to how you’re physically loading the joint, tissue, nerve. By being out of alignment that transfers weight, increase stress and tension that can drive disc pressure and break us down.
Then we sit down as a team and we figure out exactly what’s going on clinically. We supplement those clinic finds with the patient’s goals. Then we create a roadmap to get them from where they’re at through their goals of being pain-free and all the goals we put in place. Treatment plans are case by case. A typical treatment plan, in our practice and a practice similar to ours, would be spinal adjustments to improve spinal joint function, alignment, and correct the subluxations. Possibly spinal traction through chiropractic biophysics, the most research form of chiropractic applies mathematical engineering principles applied to the spine so about structure and load. If we’re out of alignment, we can objectively change the shape of your spine. Research is very clear; this creates long-term improvement. We supplement that with a lot of soft tissue therapy, correcting what we call adhesions, like glue in a muscle, which really drives a lot of pain and dysfunction. Then we do physical therapy to adjust muscles and imbalance that come from just being inactive sitting in corporate America.
When you blend that approach together, we can improve joint function, spinal alignment, health of the tissue, balance, and muscle strength. When you blend that together consistently over an extended period of time, you can get real great results. You should be able to perform, exercise, and play sports well, optimally without the fear of breaking down due to poor alignment, subluxations, and poor muscle balance.
Every athlete, corporate and professional, would feel better, function better, perform at a higher level, and reduce chances of injury while playing sports if they just knew how important the joint complex is and how well the joint moves, how healthy the tissue is and how balanced the muscles are around the joint. Ideally, these athletes would address chiropractic as more of a proactive approach than a reactive approach. Instead of seeing chiropractors because we’re in pain, see them more proactively. By being proactive you say, “Hey, I’m going to run a marathon I want to get my spine checked. Am I in alignment? Am I moving well? Are there things I need to work on?” Then address it proactively.
