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Your spine has two opposing tasks it must  accomplish;  flexibility and stability.

Flexibility  means  the spine is capable of bending, stretching, and moving with ease and fluidity.

Stability is defined as resistance to change, deterioration, or displacement.  Stability is being strong enough to perform the tasks required in your life and strong enough to maintain posture and alignment of your spine when standing or lifting heavy objects.

Loss of flexibility and stability will lead to serious health problems.

Subluxation is the term applied to areas of the spine that have lost their flexibility.  Subluxations cause arthritis and interfere with your nerve system.   Lost flexibility can lead to pain, swelling and disability.

Chiropractic treatment is specific to restoring flexibility.  Chiropractic adjustments, motorized inter-segmental traction (roller tables) and seated spine range of motion exercises (Warm-ups) all help to restore flexibility.

To restore stability to your spine,  specific exercises must be done.   Moving with your body in proper alignment is necessary to correct faults in stability.  You must learn to “sense” or “feel” when your body is in proper alignment and practice moving in those positions.  After you learn to hold your body in proper position, it will be necessary to use weights.  Doing weighted movement with your body in proper alignment will rehabilitate and strengthen your muscles, ligaments, cartilage and bone structures.  You will feel better, move better and be stronger. 

Wow, look at this!

by Dr. Bill Houghton 

Vertical Shins!  Came across this Pic at Rainier CrossFit.  Nice looking squat with near vertical shins.   This position greatly reduces shear force on the ACL (anterior cruciate ligament of the knee).  Bad squat form, with the knees tracking way out over the toes, really loads the ACL and is “hard” on the knees.  Learning to squat with vertical shins takes some time (2 – 5 years for most adults), but the process is worth it.  Along the wasy back posture improves (squatting is excellent for the extensor muscles) as does the health of the back, hips, knees and ankles.  As strength returns to the movement, balance and agility also improve.  The reason that it takes 2 – 5 years to re-learn to squat properly is from disabled hip function from sitting.  Sitting in charis, benches, auto seats, etc… prevents us from using the full range of motion (ROM) of the hip structures and we also atrophy and lose neurological control of the assocaited structrues.  But I know from my chiropractic expereince and my experience as a CrossFit trainer that hip function can be recovered.  Hip function has to be recovered or we are disabled and will suffer some pretty dire consequences later in life. 

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We’ve observed that every quantifiable measure of health that typically declines with age is improved by exercise. Furthermore, these measures can be placed on a continuum that ranges from sickness to wellness to fitness. From this view fitness is seen to be a hedge against sickness. Blood pressure, body fat, bone density, triglycerides, “good” and “bad” cholesterol, flexibility, and muscle mass each follow this pattern. Done right, fitness provides a nice margin of protection against the ravages of time and disease. Fitness is and should be “super-wellness.”

(from CrossFit.com website, May 28, 2003)

Mobility issues are the most common cause of back problems.  I have been practicing chiropractic for 25 years and have treated thousands of patients with back and neck problems.  By far the most common cause of back and neck pain have to do with improper movement. 

 Most people have some level of imbalance with their muscles.  Muscles attach across joints and create movement.  With altered muscle balance, there is no way proper joint alignment can be maintained.  Improper movement and misalignment cause wear and tear that will eventually become painful.  The pain may come on suddenly.

 My job as a chiropractor is to find, diagnose and treat these areas of imbalance.  Gentle pressure and movement is used to start correcting the misaligned and imbalanced areas.  If you are in a lot of pain, I can increase the movement just above or below where you are hurting.  Overnight this will often bring relief as the body starts to correct.  As your pain eases, I will work on the areas where there is the most damage. It will take time to get totally out of pain, but relief starts right from the first correction.

Check out this vido of 92 year old man who is still very active.  Trains at a gym, swims every day, amazing:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkg_mxMZlXU

It is well established from research that exercise improves health.  You find out your blood pressure is starting to go up and you start an exercise program and the blood pressure  comes back down.  Same with cholesterol.  Bone density improves with exercise.  I could go on.  As far as I have been able to find, ALL the measures we take of the human body improve with exercise. 

So, here is the conclusion; health is a CONSEQUENCE of exercise.  Movement, function, exercise.  

Chiropractic is a movement based intervention.  When your mobility is reduced from problems with posture, sitting, small repetitive activities or injury, movement changes.  You can’t have hunched shoulders and have normal neck mobility.  You can’t have a swayed low back and not have mobility issues. You can’t sit for hours and hours and expect to have healthy tissues.   EVERY tissue will deteriorate when mobility is altered.  Muscle, disc, ligament, cartilage, even bone are all going to deteriorate from altered movement.  You bend over one day or wake up with pain and wonder “what happened”?  You think in terms of “I didn’t do anything.”  You show up at my office, I check your posture and movement and find long standing changes.  Your x-rays show long term changes.  It is the straw that breaks the camel’s back.  You are in pain now from a long standing problem. 

What do you want to do?  Take meds and hope the pain goes away?  Have surgery to cut the tissue that is degenerating?  How about get under a program of care to restore the altered movement?  Remember exercise and improved health?  When movement is restored, tissues heal.  Pain is  a signal that something is wrong.  The pain itself isn’t the problem, the tissue that can no longer support a load is the problem.  

If this makes sense to you and you are ready to get moving, give me a call.

I think the average perspective on the street is that chiropractic is an effective intervention for pain. Be it back pain, neck pain, headaches, nerve or muscle pain – it is pretty certain that chiropractic can help.

Today, a growing number of people are using chiropractic in a more holistic way. This is not a new idea but one that is gradually being embraced by more and more people. What is it?

It is improved health through regular, long term chiropractic care. Here is how it works; people join a gym and take vitamins because they believe that it will help them stay healthier, live longer and have more productive lives. In a similar way, more and more people are seeing their chiropractor monthly because they know it will help them stay functional (one definition of health) for the rest of their lives. Increased function is a well documented outcome of chiropractic care and at the “heart” of any exercise program. If your movements are limited, your ability to realize the beneficial effects of any exercise program is going to be hampered. By getting chiropractic care on a regular basis, you are helping assure that you will be able to compete at a higher level in any sport or activity you take part in. Or just increase your capacity at living life.

Give us a call at 228-3324 and schedule an appointment. Find out how we can help you regain lost abilities as well as improve and increase you capacity for living. Dr. Houghton holds certifications in CrossFit training, nutrition and other strength and conditioning methods.

Hello, my name is Dr. Bill Houghton.  We opened Marquette Chiropractic & Wellness in 1986.  This is my 26th year of providing chiropractic and wellness services to our community.  I graduated from Palmer College of Chiropractic in 1985 with a doctor of chiropractic (DC) degree.  I am a certified  CrossFit fitness trainer and have certifications in nutrition, strength and conditioning, weightlifting and others.   When you are under care at my office, I can teach you how to regain muscular and structural stability to your spine, pelvis, hips and knees.  Without these exercises, I find most patients don’t hold their adjustments and have frequent relapses of pain.  Call today to schedule a free consultation to find out if chiropractic care might help your condition.