Advanced Chiropractic Care: More Than Just Spinal Manipulation

When it comes to chiropractic care, spinal manipulation is just the beginning. Not only can you receive spinal manipulation and back adjustments, you can also explore even more treatments from advanced chiropractors. By expanding the scope of treatment, they can help you better maintain the wellness of your body.

Don’t limit yourself. Advanced chiropractors can show you a variety of exercise programs and treatments that can be done in your home or in their office. They help get to the underlying cause of pain.

 By exploring all of the treatment options that your chiropractor has available, you could find a treatment program that works better than you could imagine. Learn more below and explore a few chiropractic treatments that you may want to consider.

Disc Decompression

Disc decompression is a treatment that can help with relieving pain from degenerative disc diseases and other issues like sciatica, and spinal stenosis. It is a non-surgical procedure and offered by many advanced chiropractors. Pain relief is important for reviving normal exercise and work routines.

Using a traction table the spine is gently stretched releasing pressure on spinal discs. When pressure compresses the discs in the spine, irritation and inflammation can occur, causing pain. All of these factors contribute to issues that cause lower back pain. Accompanied by active and passive treatment options, disc decompression can completely remove pain and return you back to your normal life.

Laser Therapy

Laser therapy is a chiropractic treatment where lasers are used to stimulate body tissue. This stimulation reduces pain by enhancing the body’s natural healing process. Lasers emit light to different areas of the body, allowing tissue to regenerate and heal the area. It also reduces inflammation with can also cause pain.

Low-level laser therapy is the use of red and near infrared monochromatic light. It is a short term treatment used to treat conditions such as, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, and other causes of acute pain. Cold laser therapy is another name for low-level laser therapy. Doctors use small hand held lasers so treatment is fast and you can be back to your normal routine quickly. Take a look at this real world example of how a Berkeley chiropractor use laser therapy to treat his patients.

Exercises to Balance the Muscular System

Combined with chiropractic care, exercise is important to help manage pain. Different exercises are taught by the chiropractor but can be done in your home. By strengthening muscles and conditioning the heart, digestion and blood circulation is increased enhancing the body’s healing ability.

With a well-balanced muscular system, the chances of acquiring a debilitating injury are reduced. Different stretch and strength movements aid in the support of back bones and nerves. Exercise helps to improve muscle and bone function and that is important for the control and prevention of muscular and neurological disease.

Advanced chiropractors can demonstrate proper exercise techniques to prevent injury while exercising and doing everyday things. Safety is important and the tips they provide can lead to an improved and long lasting function of the back.

Remember to keep an open mind when visiting the chiropractor. An advanced chiropractor can do much more than just back adjustments and spinal manipulation. They can provide other treatments such as laser therapy and disc decompression. They can also show exercises that can improve, enhance, and preserve the function of the muscles and nerves.

For more information on advanced chiropractic care, visit:

Hamilton Chiropractic
1313 Gilman St, Ste B
Berkeley, CA 94706
Phone: (510) 526-3362
ChiroMik.com

Best Exercises for Retirement Community Residents

There is no doubt that exercise is very important for people of all ages. As you grow older, you should not despair and quit exercising. To maintain a healthy body, everybody needs physical activity that keeps your body moving. This helps in keeping a good physique, strong mental health, and also weight loss.

For older adults in retirement communities, the amount of exercise to do depends on factors like sickness and age. There are several types of exercises that older adults can do. They are not very intense and will not affect your health. Below we suggest a few great options that go well with retirement communities.

Endurance exercises

Examples of such exercises are jogging, biking, swimming, walking and dancing. These types of exercise help to stabilize your breathing rate and are good for your heart. Do not over work yourself by doing so many exercises per day. Your goal should be to have 150 minutes of exercise in a week. Depending on your health status, you can choose to do any of the endurance exercises. If you cannot ride a bike then swimming and light jogging could be the right exercise for you.

Weight lifting

Weight lifting helps in making you gain enough strength for your body. There are several weights that are recommended for older people. Do not go for the heavy weights because you might overwork your muscles and get a bad injury. Weight lifting should be done for a maximum of three days in a week. You should make sure that you have a rest between sessions or days to gain your strength. In the rest day, you can have other exercises. If you feel like you have the energy to lift weights ever day of the week, then you should ensure that you interchange the working muscles.

Balancing exercises

As you grow older, you might start facing difficulty in balancing and maintaining your stability. Due to illness or aging, most people can only stand for few minutes without risk of falling. Stability exercises help in strengthening your lower body. You can walk on your toes for short distances or do the stark pose. This is where you hold your arms wide apart and stand on one foot. At first, you might find it hard to maintain your balance but as you progress with your daily sessions, you will start gaining your balance.

Stretching

It is good to stretch your muscles so that your body stays flexible. These exercises are very good for people who have difficulty in walking or movement. Although they do not increase strength, they make your body limber and make movement easier. Stretch your shoulders, calf, thighs, legs and upper arms gently.

Chair exercises

There are several exercises that are chair bound for those people who have wheelchairs. You can use resistant bands for muscle strengthening. As you pull and stretch you are stretching your body and also adding stretch to your hands. You can bind the bands to furniture or even door knobs. You can even stretch the parts of your body that you are able to move without causing yourself a lot of pain. If you are seeing a physiotherapist or any kind of doctor, you can inquire about chair bound exercises that are fit for you.

Develop a Movement Practice to Optimize Mobility and Athletic Performance

With weight loss, strength training, pain relief, and injury prevention being the core purpose for individuals embracing health and fitness, it is important to shade some light on importance of developing a 'movement practice.'

A movement practice is a simple way of defining a pattern of movements, motions and exercises that help to improve physical mobility and overall fitness. A movement practice can be used simply as means to stay supple as well as optimize athletic performance.

Indeed, success in exercising highly depends on the ability to schedule and adhere to a routine of movements. Here is a sneak peak of the importance of maintaining good mobility while practicing Yoga, Pilates, foam rolling and tissue work.

Yoga

Yoga is a transformational exercise program based on ancient Indian culture that incorporates proper exercise, (Asanas), correct breathing (Pranayama), proper diet (Saucha), positive thinking (Dhyana) and complete relaxation (Savasana). It leads to physical and mental awareness, strong and balanced muscles as well as improved breathing system.

Yoga involves several awesome poses such as sun salutations, warrior poses, standing balances, seated, backbends, forward bends, twists and inversions. Most of these poses are done while standing and comfort enhancers such as props and cushions can be used to make the exercises comfortable and interesting.

These poses are important in facilitating good mobility, since they ensure that all the parts of the body are worked out. Moreover, our bodies always reject the changes we desire, and that is why exercising feels like a punishment. The yogic lifestyle also involves a complete life style change which may not be easy to adapt to, but which is crucial if the process is to be successful. This calls for scheduling a movement practice, to avoid disappointments.

Pilates

Pilates is based on six principles namely: centering, concentration, control, precision, breath and flow. Each of these principles should be applied whenever practicing Pilates, since each of them serves a specific purpose. For instance, centering is mainly geared towards spinal alignment.

Remember that Pilates is an elaborate process that requires total commitment in order to attain the so-called noticeable difference threshold. Indeed, gaining fitness by losing weight and regaining it simply by failure to come up with a movement practice is self-defeating logic.

Foam Rolling & Soft Tissue Work

In addition to getting deep tissue massage, physical therapists and athletes mainly practice foam rolling and soft tissue work in order to inhibit overactive muscles. This form of self-massage therapy is mainly geared towards enhancing soft tissue extensibility and to relieve the muscle of knots and adhesiona.

The fact that these exercises are designed for the quadriceps thoracic spine, the hamstrings and the hip flexors among other muscles necessitates planning for a movement practice, to ensure that each muscle is worked out, in order to activate the antagonist muscle.

This is a great movement practice if you can't afford regular massage treatments. A professional massage can cost upwards to $100 for an hour, however, you don't need an hour to dig-into your tight spots. Seek out local massage therapy in your area, and see they offer 20-30 min massages that are deeper and more focal.

Tips for Developing a Movement Practice

All said and done, it is not easy to establish a workable movement practice routine. However, the following tips could be of help.

• One should maintain a physically active lifestyle by experimenting on the various weight fitness programs.
• The proper mix of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity and vigorous-intensity aerobic activity should be emphasized.
• Whenever practicing a certain exercise program, participants should ensure that they maintain the right posture at all times.
• The movement practice should incorporate movement of major body parts (core, legs, chest, neck, etc)

Indeed, taking on a movement program haphazardly is a waste of time. A movement practice must be scheduled and followed consistently if goals are to be achieved.