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Chiropractic Care and Your Personal Lifestyle

Regular chiropractic care is an important component of any lifestyle change you're planning to put into place. Whether you're improving your diet by eating at least five servings of fresh fruits and vegetables each day, engaging in regular vigorous exercise for at least 30 minutes five times per week, or both, the benefits you obtain will be enhanced by regular chiropractic care. To derive the most benefit from the healthful food you're eating and the exercise you're doing, your metabolism must be working properly. Your metabolic systems require your nerve system to be functioning at peak capacity. Nerve signals must arrive on time and must be processed properly. Spinal nerve irritation interferes with these activities. Regular chiropractic care helps make sure your nerve system is free of interference and, as a result, helps make sure you're getting the most out of your valuable time and effort spent in implementing your new lifestyle upgrade.

Feeling 30 at 50

Getting Fit at Fifty and Beyond

Chiropractic Care and Returning to Fitness

Chiropractic care is an important component of any exercise program and is especially important for those who are beginning a fitness program or returning to exercise after a long absence. Regular chiropractic care helps ensure spinal fitness, which is the starting point for all aspects of health and well-being. Your spinal column is the mechanical center of your body. Major muscle groups involved in strength training, such as the latissimus dorsi and rhomboids, and major muscle groups involved in aerobic exercise, such as the quadriceps and hamstrings, attach directly or indirectly to the spine and pelvis. Regular chiropractic care helps ensure optimal functioning of your spinal column, which in turn helps ensure a full range of motion and mechanical availability of muscles critical for successful exercise. By helping you get the most out of your exercise, regular chiropractic care helps you achieve your long-term goals for good health.

What if you used to be really fit and now you're not? What if, as the years have gone by, you've added a couple of pounds here and there, and you suddenly notice you're 30 pounds heavier than you were at your 10th high school reunion? Or, what if you've never enjoyed the idea of exercising, exercise was never part of your world-view, but you're not feeling as good as you'd like to feel and think that exercise might help improve your overall health and sense of well-being?
Many people want to get fit or want to regain a former level of fitness for a variety of considerations, including the above scenarios.^1,2 But most of us need guidance in the process of getting fit. We need information and even instruction on what to do and how to do it. For example, it would be a serious mistake for someone older than 50, and even older than 40, to simply go out and try to run 4 miles if he had never run before. Muscle strains, shin splints, or even a stress fracture of one of the bones in the foot would be a likely and unwanted result. Similarly, going to the gym and trying to "work heavy" would assuredly create various problems for an out-of-shape person who wanted to "get fit" as quickly as possible. The injured tendons and sprained ligaments resulting from trying to rush would set back your hoped-for progress by at least four to six weeks, further delaying achievement of improved health.
The best way to get fit or return to fitness after a long period of inactivity is to start slowly, progress in small increments, and gain an authentic, long-lasting level of fitness over months and years. Being a smart exerciser means not doing too much too soon, in other words, respecting your body's capabilities. Also, smart exercise involves engaging in a blend of activities, usually on alternating days. Persons who only bike or run and persons who only lift weights will never be as healthy and fit as those who do both aerobic activity and strength training.³ Developing a two-week schedule will provide a thorough, balanced fitness program. In week A you do aerobic exercise (walking, running, biking, swimming laps) on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. You do strength training on Tuesday and Thursday. In week B you reverse activities, doing strength training Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and aerobic exercise on Tuesday and Thursday. This alternating pattern ensures you are getting the full benefit of your valuable time spent exercising.
It is important to remember that what works for you, works for you. Each of us needs to find his or her best way forward. Some methods of exercise will be experienced as intuitive and enjoyable. Others will be experienced as the opposite. You probably won't want to continue any of the latter. For example, the exercise program suggested by your friend may not be effective for your physical makeup and may even be harmful. Your chiropractor is an expert in healthy exercise and will be able to recommend fitness activities that will be right for you.
¹Johanssen NM, et al: Categorical analysis of the impact of aerobic and resistance exercise training, alone and in combination, on cardiorespiratory fitness levels in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus: results from the HART-D study. Diabetes Care 2013 July 22 [Epub ahead of print]
²Stanton R, el al: Is cardiovascular or resistance exercise better to treat patients with depression? A narrative review. Issues Ment Health Nurs 34(7):531-538, 2013
³Lorenz D, Reiman M: The role and implementation of eccentric training in athletic rehabilitation: tendinopathy, hamstring strains, and acl reconstruction. Int J Sports Phys Ther 6(1):27-44, 2011

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Frequent Flying

Frequent Flying

Chiropractic Care and Healthy Travel

Travel by air, rail, or highway takes us out of our daily routine and causes us to encounter unusual stresses and strains. Regular exercise and a healthy diet help us prepare for such circumstances. Regular chiropractic care is an additional critical component of our overall program for ensuring good health when on the road. Regular chiropractic care helps a person's spine maintain its full mobility. Such optimal range of motion helps reduce irritation and inflammation of spinal muscles, tendons, and ligaments. The result is a core musculoskeletal system that is able to withstand the unexpected shocks and traumas that are part of the normal travel experience. Regular chiropractic care helps your body be more resilient and the result is better overall health.

Most of us, at one time or another, have traveled for business. Some of us do this fairly often, and when we travel for business, we're usually getting where we're going by plane. Air travel used to be quick and easy. But lately, within the last ten years, maybe not so much. By now, we're used to long lines at security checkpoints, extended downtime waiting for our scheduled flights to depart, and an almost total absence of healthy food choices on our travel days. That said, there are several steps a smart traveler can take to help ensure that necessary travel does not take a toll on our health and overall well-being.
The key to healthy travel is preparation. We want to avoid two main problems. First, we want to prevent the strains and sprains that may befall us when we battle unwieldy luggage in the cramped quarters of airplane cabins. Next, we want to avoid the colds, coughs, and other ailments we might contract by prolonged close contact with our fellow passengers and fellow conference attendees (or other business associates).
The best means of avoiding travel-related sprains and strains is to make sure we're stretching and doing vigorous exercise on a regular basis. Ideally, exercising and stretching has been a part of our weekly routine for a long time. If not, the good news about exercising is that the best time to begin is right now. Begin your fitness program at least four weeks before your travel date. Don't try to cram everything in. That would be a big mistake. Rather, consult with your chiropractor to learn a beginner's fitness routine that will work for you.
Begin your program and gradually build-up your capabilities over four or more weeks. Your fitness activities will prepare you for the physical work of lugging your bags around the airport and maneuvering them once you're inside the plane. Your stretching and exercise routines will improve your strength and flexibility, so you'll be better able to withstand the physical stresses of travel without suffering an annoying injury.
The best approach to guarding against travel-induced ailments is to ensure that you're providing your body with sufficient sources of energy.^1,2 Healthy nutrition is the key here. Again, ideally, you and your family have been engaged in healthy eating for some time. But it's certainly easy to get off track. As with exercise, begin your program of good nutrition at least four weeks before your trip. Make sure, on a regular basis, you're eating from all the major food groups. Make sure, too, that you're eating at least five servings of fresh fruits and vegetables per day. Such a daily diet will provide your body with the requirements for good health and sufficient energy that will enable a strong immune system.
Your two key action steps, a regular exercise and stretching program and a balanced and complete nutritional program, will help you maintain good health and enhanced well-being when you're traveling and when you return home.^3
1Rizzoli R, et al: Nutrition and bone health: turning knowledge and beliefs into healthy behaviour. Curr Med Res Opin Sep 23 2013 [Epub ahead of print]
²Roberts CK: Modification of insulin sensitivity and glycemic control by activity and exercise. Med Sci Sports Exerc 10:1868-1877, 2013
³Taggart J, et al: A systematic review of interventions in primary care to improve health literacy for chronic disease behavioral risk factors. BMC Family Pract 13:49, 2012

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The Problem of Radiating Pain

The Problem of Radiating Pain

Chiropractic Care and Radiating Pain

Although a few problems involving radiating pain require further investigation, the large majority of cases involving neck pain with arm/hand pain or low back pain with leg/foot pain can be addressed by your chiropractor. Your chiropractor will take a thorough history, do a detailed examination, and order tests if needed, with the overall goal of designing the most effective care plan to help solve your specific problem. Chiropractic adjustments may be part of the care plan. Chiropractic care may also include a rehabilitative stretching and exercise program, as well as recommendations for improved posture, safer lifting habits, and ergonomic enhancement. Your personalized comprehensive chiropractic care plan will help you return to improved health as quickly as possible.

Many people experience radiating pain as a component of neck pain or low back pain. A person with neck pain might have pain that radiates down her arm, possibly into the hand.¹ A person with low back pain might have accompanying leg pain, possibly traveling into the foot. Such arm/hand pain or leg/foot pain can represent a serious underlying health problem. However, not all types of radiating pain are of equal importance. The key is to be able to identify which patterns require prompt attention and which merely appear to be significant but are not.
Authentic radiating pain is most often caused by pressure and/or irritation of a spinal nerve root.² The spinal nerve becomes inflamed and sends pain signals to the brain that are interpreted as pain in the region of the body supplied by that nerve. Inflammation of a certain spinal nerve in the neck region will result in the experience of pain down the outside of the arm and forearm and into the thumb and possibly index finger. Inflammation of a certain spinal nerve in the low back causes the person to feel pain traveling along the back of the thigh and calf and into the fifth toe.
Specific patterns of radiating pain are associated with inflammation of specific spinal nerves. Such inflammation may be typically caused by pressure from a herniated intervertebral disc. Other disorders which may create local space-occupying pressure need to be considered as well. A thorough history and physical examination will help to identify the cause of the problem. X-ray studies may be needed, as well as an MRI scan. The underlying problem, including the pattern of pain radiation, may be termed a radiculopathy or radiculitis.
But most cases of what appears to be radiating pain are not, in fact, related to pressure on a spinal nerve. Most patterns of radiating pain are not associated with a radiculopathy or radiculitis. Rather, the large majority of pain patterns involving the arm/hand or leg/foot are caused by normal, everyday aches and pains. Our run-of-the-mill physical problems involve relatively large muscles such as the trapezius (overlying the upper back, shoulder, and mid back) and relatively small muscles such as those that overlay the spinal bones themselves and help move the spinal column. Ligaments that hold bones together and tendons that attach muscles to bones may also be involved in these everyday ailments.
Irritation and inflammation of muscles, ligaments, and tendons may cause more difficulty than mere soreness and tightness. Such inflammation may also cause radiating pain, but in broader, more diffuse patterns than those caused by inflammation of a nerve root. A person might experience neck pain with arm and hand pain, or back pain with leg and foot pain, but in a broad pattern not associated with a spinal nerve. This is actually good news for the patient, as such forms of radiating pain (known as scleratogenous patterns), are usually more easily treated than those associated with a radiculopathy or radiculitis.
The bottom line is that your chiropractor is experienced in the diagnosis and care of such problems. Your chiropractor will be able to determine if your radiating pain is associated with muscles, ligaments, and tendons or if it is related to pressure on a spinal nerve.³ Your chiropractor will make specific recommendations for care of your specific health problem and help guide you in the process of returning to good health.
¹Caridi JM, et al: Cervical radiculopathy: a review. HSS J 7(3):265-272, 2011
²Magrinelli F, et al: Neuropathic pain: diagnosis and treatment. Pract Neurol 2013 Apr 16 [Epub ahead of print]
³Mena J, Sherman AL: Imaging in radiculopathy. Phys Med Rehabil Clin North Am 22(1):42-57, 2011

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Strength Training for Beginners (and Experts, Too)

Strength Training for Beginners (and Experts, Too)

Chiropractic Care and Strength Training

Regular vigorous exercise is a requirement for good health. Ideally, every adult is exercising for at least 30 minutes five times per week. Regular chiropractic care provides fundamental support for this necessary level of physical activity. Regular exercise requires optimal functioning of muscles, joints, and bones. In turn, such optimal performance requires full and free functioning of your nerve system. The nerve system sends timely instructions to all the rest of your body systems, informing cells, tissues, and organs as to when to do their jobs and exactly how much of a job to do. Regular chiropractic care removes irritation and inflammation from spinal nerves and other critical nerve tissue, helping ensure that exercising muscles receive the information they need to do their jobs well. By helping keep your nerve system healthy, regular chiropractic care helps you get the most out of your investment in exercise.

Strength training, otherwise known as weight training, is one of those activities that provides a wide range of benefits for the person who does it regularly. Like yoga, strength straining makes all your muscles stronger, enhances flexibility, and improves cardiovascular capability and capacity. In fact, two strength training sessions per week combined with one or two yoga classes per week will lead to super-fitness for most people within only a couple of months.
Strength training is beneficial for teenagers, young adults, and older adults.¹ Many strength training exercises are done in a weightbearing position, and the process of doing reps and sets with a modestly or moderately heavy load makes your bones stronger. Not only muscles, but also the soft tissues of the musculoskeletal system, including tendons, ligaments, and joint cartilage, are made sturdier by receiving increased supplies of oxygen and other nutrients. Engaging in a regular program of strength training will provide more restful sleep, rid your metabolism of accumulated toxins, add sparkle and tone to your skin, and improve your overall sense of well-being. All at the low price of two to three hours per week.
The key question is how to begin. Many books and online training videos are available. Most fitness centers offer a complimentary lesson or two with a personal trainer to enable you to learn the basics. Simply put, you want to train all of your major muscle groups once per week. For example, you can exercise your chest and back muscles on one day and your shoulders and arms on another day. If you're also doing one or two yoga classes per week, or one yoga class and two walking or running days per week, your leg muscles are covered.²
Let's say this is your chest and back day. Ideally you'll do three different exercises per body part. For your chest you could do lying-down (supine) bench presses with dumbbells, supine flies (in which you hold the dumbbells overhead and then open your arms out to the side), and incline bench presses with dumbbells. For your back, you could do one-arm rows, supine dumbbell pullovers (in which you use both hands to hold one dumbbell overhead and then lower the dumbbell all the way behind your head), and lat pulldowns on a machine. All together, doing these six different exercises, three sets per exercise, should take about one hour.
Then, two or three days later in the week, you do strength training for your shoulders, biceps, and triceps. Shoulder exercises could include seated overhead presses, standing lateral raises, and seated bent-over rows. Bicep exercises could include seated alternate incline curls, machine bicep curls, and seated concentration curls. Tricep exercises could include push-ups, lying (supine) tricep extensions, and machine tricep pressdowns. Again, these nine different exercises, three sets per exercise, should take about one hour.
There are many video clips available on the internet that demonstrate the mechanics of each of these exercises. Good form is critical. In fact, making sure your posture is balanced and your abdominal muscles are activated is more important than the amount of weight you are lifting.
Beginners, especially, need to know how much weight they should be using on each exercise.³ Importantly, lifting too much weight too soon will usually lead to injury. Of course, we want to work-out as safely as possible. Choose a weight at which you can comfortably do eight repetitions. If you can't do eight, the weight is too heavy. If eight repetitions with a particular weight seems ridiculously easy, try again with a weight that is 10% heavier. Repeat the process until you find the starting weight that is comfortable for you. There are many types of weight progression programs that you will employ as you become accustomed to the weight-training process. The main point is to begin to engage in this highly beneficial form of exercise. As your mastery of these techniques slowly improves, a new world of fitness, fun, and satisfaction will be revealed.
¹Conceicao MS, et al: Sixteen weeks of resistance training can decrease the risk of metabolic syndrome in healthy postmenopausal women. Clin Interv Aging Epub Sept 16 2013
²Karavirta L, et al: Heart rate dynamics after combined strength and endurance training in middle-aged women: heterogeneity of responses. PLoS One 2013 Aug 27;8(8):e72664. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0072664
³Van Roie E, et al: Strength training at high versus low external resistance in older adults: Effects on muscle volume, muscle strength, and force-velocity characteristics. Exp Gerontol Epub ahead of print

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Getting Fit at Fifty and Beyond

Getting Fit at Fifty and Beyond

Chiropractic Care and Returning to Fitness

Chiropractic care is an important component of any exercise program and is especially important for those who are beginning a fitness program or returning to exercise after a long absence. Regular chiropractic care helps ensure spinal fitness, which is the starting point for all aspects of health and well-being. Your spinal column is the mechanical center of your body. Major muscle groups involved in strength training, such as the latissimus dorsi and rhomboids, and major muscle groups involved in aerobic exercise, such as the quadriceps and hamstrings, attach directly or indirectly to the spine and pelvis. Regular chiropractic care helps ensure optimal functioning of your spinal column, which in turn helps ensure a full range of motion and mechanical availability of muscles critical for successful exercise. By helping you get the most out of your exercise, regular chiropractic care helps you achieve your long-term goals for good health.

What if you used to be really fit and now you're not? What if, as the years have gone by, you've added a couple of pounds here and there, and you suddenly notice you're 30 pounds heavier than you were at your 10th high school reunion? Or, what if you've never enjoyed the idea of exercising, exercise was never part of your world-view, but you're not feeling as good as you'd like to feel and think that exercise might help improve your overall health and sense of well-being?
Many people want to get fit or want to regain a former level of fitness for a variety of considerations, including the above scenarios.^1,2 But most of us need guidance in the process of getting fit. We need information and even instruction on what to do and how to do it. For example, it would be a serious mistake for someone older than 50, and even older than 40, to simply go out and try to run 4 miles if he had never run before. Muscle strains, shin splints, or even a stress fracture of one of the bones in the foot would be a likely and unwanted result. Similarly, going to the gym and trying to "work heavy" would assuredly create various problems for an out-of-shape person who wanted to "get fit" as quickly as possible. The injured tendons and sprained ligaments resulting from trying to rush would set back your hoped-for progress by at least four to six weeks, further delaying achievement of improved health.
The best way to get fit or return to fitness after a long period of inactivity is to start slowly, progress in small increments, and gain an authentic, long-lasting level of fitness over months and years. Being a smart exerciser means not doing too much too soon, in other words, respecting your body's capabilities. Also, smart exercise involves engaging in a blend of activities, usually on alternating days. Persons who only bike or run and persons who only lift weights will never be as healthy and fit as those who do both aerobic activity and strength training.³ Developing a two-week schedule will provide a thorough, balanced fitness program. In week A you do aerobic exercise (walking, running, biking, swimming laps) on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. You do strength training on Tuesday and Thursday. In week B you reverse activities, doing strength training Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and aerobic exercise on Tuesday and Thursday. This alternating pattern ensures you are getting the full benefit of your valuable time spent exercising.
It is important to remember that what works for you, works for you. Each of us needs to find his or her best way forward. Some methods of exercise will be experienced as intuitive and enjoyable. Others will be experienced as the opposite. You probably won't want to continue any of the latter. For example, the exercise program suggested by your friend may not be effective for your physical makeup and may even be harmful. Your chiropractor is an expert in healthy exercise and will be able to recommend fitness activities that will be right for you.
¹Johanssen NM, et al: Categorical analysis of the impact of aerobic and resistance exercise training, alone and in combination, on cardiorespiratory fitness levels in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus: results from the HART-D study. Diabetes Care 2013 July 22 [Epub ahead of print]
²Stanton R, el al: Is cardiovascular or resistance exercise better to treat patients with depression? A narrative review. Issues Ment Health Nurs 34(7):531-538, 2013
³Lorenz D, Reiman M: The role and implementation of eccentric training in athletic rehabilitation: tendinopathy, hamstring strains, and acl reconstruction. Int J Sports Phys Ther 6(1):27-44, 2011
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Chiropractic Care for Short-Term and Long-Term Health

Chiropractic Care Is Comprehensive Care

Following a complete evaluation, which includes a history and physical examination, your chiropractor will design a care plan that will meet your specific health needs. Your care plan will include chiropractic care focusing on improving function of your spinal column. Your care plan will likely include additional recommendations, such as stretches, exercises, and nutritional planning. Your chiropractic care plan may, depending on the circumstances, include strategies for reducing stress and obtaining proper rest. Your chiropractor is a holistic practitioner who has expertise in many areas of health care. Chiropractic care is well known for its ability to treat musculoskeletal problems such as neck pain, back pain, and headaches. As chiropractic care focuses on the nerve system, your chiropractor may be of benefit in the overall care plan for many other conditions.

Chiropractic care is the one form of health care that keeps on giving. Chiropractic care certainly helps people to recover from short-term health problems, but this powerful method of healing also helps people stay well and assists in preventing new problems from developing.
Your chiropractor treats a wide variety of musculoskeletal problems. Neck pain, back pain, pain that travels from the neck to the arm and hand, pain that travels from the back to the leg and foot, headaches, and muscle spasms are conditions commonly treated by chiropractic care. Your chiropractor also treats many types of exercise- and sports-related injuries, such as rotator cuff injuries, tennis elbow, wrist sprains, knee injuries, ankle sprains, and shin splints. Repetitive stress injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome are also treated by chiropractic care. Also, chiropractic care may be a valuable addition to treatment for sleep disorders, digestive problems, menstrual cramps, asthma, and various allergies. Chiropractic care may also be of great assistance during pregnancy, in helping to relieve neck pain and back pain and to ease the process of delivery.
Chiropractic care can be beneficial for so many health problems owing to the fact that chiropractic care directly affects the functioning of your nerve system. Your nerve system, consisting of your brain, spinal cord, and nerves that branch out to the rest of your body, is your master physiologic system. Your nerve system, by sending signals to every cell, tissue, and organ in your body, controls all the other systems. Your heart relies on the nerve system so that it can pump blood at the right time and in the right amount.¹ Your small intestine relies on the nerve system so that it can complete the digestion of food and transmit usable nutrients to the bloodstream.² Your white blood cells and other immune system agents rely on the nerve system so that they can quickly identify and destroy foreign invaders such as bacteria and viruses.³
But your nerve system can break down, in a sense, if spinal nerve interference is present. Such nerve interference, caused by irritation and inflammation of spinal nerves, is caused by loss of full mobility of spinal vertebras. Limited spinal motion irritates the muscles that move the spinal bones and the ligaments that hold those bones together. Inflamed spinal muscles and spinal ligaments cause spinal nerve inflammation. The immediate result is distortion in the quality and flow of information sent from the brain to the rest of the body. Too much or too little information is sent to the cells, tissues, and organs. The messages they receive are the wrong messages, or the messages arrive at the wrong time. The outcome is decreased functioning and/or inappropriate functioning of many other physiologic systems. Thus, spinal nerve interference is one of the primary causes of the many problems that may bring a person to his or her chiropractor's office.
Chiropractic care helps reduce and remove nerve interference by restoring increased functioning of your spinal column. The direct result is improved overall functioning of the rest of your body. By directly focusing on your spine and nerve system, your chiropractor can help restore quality of life and overall health and well-being.
¹Muller MD, et al: Mental stress elicits sustained and reproducible increases in skin sympathetic nerve activity. Physiol Rep  2013 Mar 1(1). pii: e00002.
²Zhou G, et al: White-matter microstructural changes in functional dyspepsia: a diffusion tensor imaging study. Am J Gastroenterol 108(2):260-269, 2013
³Straub RH, et al: Role of neuroendocrine and neuroimmune mechanisms in chronic inflammatory rheumatic diseases-The 10-year update. Semin Arthritis Rheum 2013 May 31 doi: 10.1016/j.semarthrit.2013.04.008 [Epub ahead of print]