Chiropractic care helps get your joints moving and your muscles engaging properly so you can enjoy outdoor sports without pain or dysfunction.
How can chiropractic care help people transition their bodies from being mostly sedentary in winter to engaging in more active outdoor activities in the summer?
Dr. Luke Stringer: Yeah, great question. I’ll lean into our practice here, Liz. Our practice is downtown Chicago. Our patient base is predominantly the corporate athlete, so that’s being pinned to your desk 40, 50, 60 hours a week in a seated or standing position. So essentially, we’re sedentary. When we’re sedentary, several things happen. Joints that should be able to move freely and stably become subluxated, that essentially means a joint is not moving well and/or it’s shifted out of alignment. So then if a prerequisite for a healthy joint is full range of motion, however you’ve got restricted range of motion and then you go straight from your desk. The sun comes out in Chicago, we hit the beach, we’re playing beach volleyball and you’re flying around, and joints aren’t moving, that’s going to increase the stress and tension in the joint. That’s going to break us down, and lead to injury and dysfunction.
The second thing is postural muscles that pick up on movement are intrinsic. And then muscles that move us, particularly in gait function, pick up on movement. So, when we’re pinned to our desk, it’s sedentary, sitting or standing and we’re not moving, then muscles get weak and lazy. For example, your diaphragm switches off, we’re now breathing through our chest, not through our stomach. Core gets lazy because we’re just not moving. Glutes switch off, hamstrings switch off, and then again you hit Lakeshore Path, Lakeshore Drive, you go for a run, things aren’t engaging, it creates compensation. Compensation over time is going to break us down and lead to injury.
By being under chiropractic care, you can take care of all those things, make sure the joint’s in alignment, and it’s moving well. Then making sure through an evaluation obviously, the muscles that should be essentially engaging and being used when we’re moving are engaging and being used when we’re moving. Patients who are coming in and getting a spine evaluated for alignment and function and muscle groups that they’re going to be using for functionality and engagement are going to do far better with far less chance of breaking down, pulling a muscle or having pain where then the activity they enjoy to do, running for example, they have to shut down and rehab their body to be able to do that activity.
For runners, how can chiropractic care help prepare their bodies for long outdoor runs?
Dr. Luke Stringer: Yeah, so obviously all gait function comes through the lower back, the hips, and then the kinetic chain, right? So just knees, the foot, and the ankle. When we’re moving, the first thing we need to do is have joints that are in alignment and moving. If joints are shifted and they’re not moving, that’s going to create stress and tension which is going to lead to pain, dysfunction, injury. Where your tailbone, your hips come together, your sacroiliac joint, that joint’s designed to move. Again, if we’re pinned to our desk and we’re sitting and that joint locks up, and then we start moving, if that joint’s not moving well, all of a sudden someone else has to move too much. Some other muscles have to compensate for muscles that aren’t allowed or getting that joint to move. This can increase stress and tension in the joint. It can trickle down the kinetic chain, lead to movement dysfunction, compensation in other joints.
By being under chiropractic care, we can make sure the joints are in alignment, we make sure they’re moving. We can make sure the muscles that we are intending to use, so runners, we need to make sure our core’s really switched on, we need to make sure our hamstrings are long and strong, make sure our glutes are really switched on because they’re the muscles that are going to create stability and move us along. Obviously, we’re sitting all day or standing all day, those muscles get weak and lazy. They then go to move, joints are stuck, muscles aren’t engaging. Over time, that’s just going to lead to obviously us breaking down, pain, dysfunction, compensation. If you’re a runner, you need to make sure the ankles move well, the knee moves well, the hip moves well, the low back moves well. We need to make sure they’ve got full range of motion. Not only are they moving well, they’ve got stability during that movement, so all the muscles that are going to be moving us along and create stability are switched on.
So, by seeing a chiropractor, if you’re going in saying, “I’m a runner, I’ve got a couple of marathons coming up. I’m about to start my training, we just got through winter. I want to be assessed for my gait function”, many chiropractors out there will be able to do that through multiple assessments, individual evaluation of the joint and/or functional examinations of the gait. By finding the missing balance or the imbalances, the joint restrictions, the muscle aren’t engaging, we can adjust, get them in alignment, treat the soft tissue, get it healthy, give rehab and create stability in the joints.
Then as you are moving and running, by being under chiropractic care, we can get on top of things that might not be an issue in regards to not creating any pain or dysfunction that we can feel but are creating dysfunction that we’re not aware of which obviously, the more miles we put into our legs, the more we run, the more chance we have of breaking down. So, by being under chiropractic care, you can prepare your body for training, and then while you’re training, you can obviously make sure that everything that should be in alignment and moving well with freedom and stability is doing exactly that.
In what ways can chiropractic care help people improve their golf game?
Dr. Luke Stringer: Yes, so golf is a massive rotational sport and we do a lot of bending forwards, a little bit backwards and side to side, but we don’t do much rotation. Obviously, the lower back, there’s a massive amount of that rotational work so there’s an adjustment specific to chiropractic. It’s a side posture adjustment essentially where the patient’s lying on the side and then we’re essentially taking the spine through rotation via an adjustment. Obviously, spines that rotate better than spines that don’t rotate well, that’s going to allow us to create more backswing. It’s going to allow us to follow through and get more follow through. It’s pretty important for playing golf. I watch Rory McIlroy play golf, his backswing and follow through is ridiculous, so he’s got a great rotation of his lumbar or thoracic spine. So, if you’re restricted and you’re stuck in those movements, it’s going to limit your mechanics, obviously limiting mechanics is going to affect your quality of the golf swing.
Again, chiropractors aren’t just going to adjust the movement of the joint. They’re going to make sure the tissue is healthy, muscles, cross joints, move joints. We could perform an evaluation of those joints that are going to be required to move and evaluate them while they’re moving. If they’re not moving well, we can perform soft tissue treatment on that joint to clean out adhesive and adhesion. It’s like glue in a muscle. It’s going to limit range of motion. Remember, if the range of motion in the joint is limited, it increases stress and tension. Stress and tension is going to break us down. That’s when we’re golfing and we’re pulling our low back, for example.
We’re going to be able to evaluate diaphragm, core, they’re massively important for golf. Golfers are going to have really switched on diaphragms and cores can create a lot of torque and power through that core. It’s obviously going to follow through into a great golf swing. If you watch the PGA Tour, can’t remember last time I didn’t watch a PGA Tour event on the weekend that I didn’t see some golfer on the side on a bench getting adjusted or getting worked on. We work with a ton of golf clinics in the city. Chiropractic care and golf go hand in hand.
What is the most common sports injury you see during the summer in Chicago, and how do you help people recover from their sports injuries?
Dr. Luke Stringer: Yeah, great question. Honestly, I wouldn’t say this is one that’s most common. Low back pain is the number one cause of disability in America, right? So, pulling our low back is a big one. We see a lot of pelvic dysfunction, so hip pain, knee, foot, and ankle pain. Why? Well, they’re all weight-bearing joints. They allow us to essentially move. So obviously if we’re subluxated, we’re out of alignment, we’re not moving well, muscles aren’t doing their job, allowing joints to move with freedom and stability. Then when we start moving, the pain and dysfunction is going to show up in those joints.
But when you treat any sports injury, thorough evaluation first and foremost, detailed history, orthopedic exam, if there’s been some trauma involved, take some x-rays, get some baseline data. But with anyone treating a sports injury, the first thing we need to do is get rid of the inflammation, right? Because inflammation limits range of motion. So, for example, if you’re out running, you’re rolled your ankle, first thing you can do at home is the RICE protocol. RICE, or rest, get off the joint, ice 20 on, hour off, 20 on, hour off, compress, and then elevate, you want to get rid of that swelling.
Next thing we need to do is restore range of motion. So, range of motion exercises for that joint. If it’s the low back, the hip, the knee, the foot and ankle, take that joint through its intended range of motion. First goal is to restore range of motion. Once we’ve got the range of motion back, then we can focus on stability. So again, another evaluation. Which muscles, ligaments, tendons were damaged during the trauma or which muscle ligaments, tendons, muscle groups essentially weren’t doing their job to allow us to break down, evaluate, find the dysfunction, and then treat. And when you’re treating it, in our office, it’s a blended approach, we’re adjusting the joints to improve mechanics, treating a soft tissue to break down scar tissue, it’s going to increase range of motion. Then we’re going to do a lot of proprioceptive work, stability work, strengthening work off the joint to make sure when you’re loading the joint, it’s got the stability it needs to be stable for then obviously you to perform the activity that you enjoy doing.
In what other ways can chiropractic care prepare the body for a healthy summer season of sports and outdoor activities?
Dr. Luke Stringer: Yeah, great question. Chiropractic care just does so much in regard to how we function, so physically function. Again, if you want to be running some 5Ks, 10Ks, marathons this summer, get to see a chiropractor, get your gait evaluated. Is your ankle limited or is it moving well? For example, shin splints can be a common condition in regard to your last question, shin splints is driven from lack of range of motion in the ankle. Knee pain is a real common pain or dysfunction that we have, particularly with runners, the runner’s knee. Knee pain, unless it’s a big trauma like blowing your knee out playing sport, is a repetitive stress injury so okay is the joint moving well are muscles that should be engaging, not engaging, perform an evaluation, switch them up.
Low back and hip alignment’s pretty important cause all your gait function comes through your low back and your hips. So again, if your hip shifted, it’s not moving well when we go to move, that can create pain and dysfunction in the hip, low back or through the kinetic chain.
So, by seeing a chiropractor, you can make sure you’re in alignment, your joints are moving appropriately and the muscles that should be doing the job are doing the job. And then by doing that, you’d be more proactive than reactive so you’re getting ahead of it so when you’re out there hiking, running, playing volleyball on the beach, whatever it is you’re doing here in Chicago, you’re doing it knowing that your chance of injuries is far less than someone who just gets out there, just starts running after spending six months inside and not doing anything to guarantee there’s not going to be joints that don’t move well, muscles that aren’t engaging. And then when we start loading that joint repetitively, that’s how we can break down.
So yeah, chiropractic care can be more of a proactive than a reactive type of healthcare. We obviously want to be making good or healthcare decisions when we’re being more proactive than reactive. I’m not sure we make too many good decisions when we’re in a big stressful environment.
If you are interested in speaking with Dr. Luke Stringer visit www.southloopchiropractor.com or call (312) 987-4878 to schedule an appointment.
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