The reason why I have gotten into doing what I do as a chiropractor and trainer is to deliver to my patients and clients what I have desired so much in healthcare, and had a hard time finding. It is why I moved from Rochester, NY away from the life I knew to work on something that I could put one hundred percent of my effort behind. I love doing what I do, not only because the concepts of health are ubiquitous to humans and I get to apply my philosophies to myself, but because it allows us to look at the body in real-time instead of snapshots and recollections. The concept of chiropractic without movement makes little sense to me since it does not encompass what is happening as soon as that person gets off the table, let alone the rest of their day or week. On top of that, lots of patients are interested in maintaining relatively pain-free movement, so if their goals within care involve movement, why wouldn’t we include it as part of our treatment?
Now it is understandable that not everyone is trying to be an elite athlete; not everyone has the same goals out of treatment, but everyone does move. Think of movement as the conduit for healing; the catalyst that ignites our body’s regenerative powers. The regenerative qualities and traits we possess can only be fully harnessed by signaling their necessity to the body through the forces and demands created by movement. I often use an analogy for my patients, “blood to muscles is like water to clay.” Clay needs water to be mobile and fruitful for art, and the same goes for our muscles when it comes to movement. It is the same reason why we would use heat or do manual muscle therapies before a chiropractic adjustment; we want as much fluidity within the tissue as possible before inducing movement. It is also the same reason why we encourage our clients to continue to move outside our sessions; keep the good blood flowing!
Now this is where I believe we become distinct from other chiropractic clinics. If you talk to any other chiropractor, they would agree with just about all these statements thus far, especially because it is not a far-fetched concept that using your body is good for you. But how commonly can you think of care extending outside of the treatment room when you go to the chiropractic office? If 15-30 minutes is spent in a chiropractic appointment, yet all the same motor patterns that ended us up there in the first place are repeated, is the cycle ever going to end? Well, the short answer is not really, at least the chronic patterns. That is where our specific knowledge of body mechanics and movement patterns becomes essential in the long-term improvement of chronic pain, which we utilize in a space specifically designed for maximizing the rehabilitation benefits! If you have yet to explore the back of our clinic, we have a full size gym to house all of our patients’ individual needs.
Now again, most chiropractors would agree with the rehabilitation component of care, equipping their offices with a corner for a mat and a couple of 3-5lb dumbbells, which works well for base-level rehabilitation exercises for those who are severely deconditioned or within the acute phase of an injury, but what about everyone else? What about that amateur cyclist whose hip only starts hurting after mile 20, or that teacher who only notices her low back is sore at the end of the day? They already possess the strength to perform those base-level rehabilitation exercises well. We provide a space, where depending on the course of action our patients want to take, they have the space and professionally trained faculty with years of personal experience to take them as far as they want to go.
We believe that moving well is essential for living our best lives, and the better we can consistently move while continuously overcoming greater and greater demands in the absence of injury the better equipped we will be for potential future demands. When that approach is at the forefront of our care here at Evolve Health and Wellness the future suddenly becomes a bright place of growth; a place to look forward to. We can only hope for easier lives for ourselves, but we can reliably count on our bodies to rise to the occasion when this approach is taken. I tend to see success in other areas of life when I see this approach taken, so it naturally makes sense when applied to the musculoskeletal system. Invest in movement like you invest in your health because they are the same.