Author: drgauthier

Keeping your muscles, tendons, and ligaments flexible through regular stretching is an important, but an often-ignored piece of the overall health puzzle. Many people find stretching to be time consuming and boring, but it helps prevent scores of different injuries and has an anti-aging effect on the body. We see many patients at our Sterling chiropractic clinic that may have been able to avoid their back pain, neck pain, or shoulder pain with a quality stretching routine.

Important Reasons for Stretching

Perhaps the most important reason to incorporate regular stretching into your life is because it lengthens your muscles and increases flexibility. Many muscle tears and strains could be avoided if those muscles weren’t so short and tight. Additionally, stretching the larger muscles of your quadriceps, hamstrings, and calves helps to lengthen your lower back muscles, increasing the benefit even more.

When Should I Stretch?

Static stretching, or stretching performed without any bouncing or movement should be done before and after exercise to reduce your risk of injury. You may want to do some light calisthenics prior to stretching cold muscles, just to reduce your chance of injury.

Stretching Tips and Tricks

When you schedule a consultation at a Sterling chiropractic clinic, we can help to provide you with stretching resources. The first thing to remember about stretching technique is not to rush through it. Even a mildly pulled muscle can cause pain and hinder your ability to exercise for quite some time. Take your time when you stretch, even if it cuts into your exercise time.

Another tip you should follow is to stretch gently and focus on what you are doing. Reaching for a little bit more is a good way to cause an injury. Just relax and breathe and be in the moment and you’ll know how far to go. Using visualization is an effective tool when it comes to stretching. Try to keep a mental image of the muscle group you’re stretching and watch it elongating. Breathe deeply while you’re stretching and visualizing to help create a stronger brain / muscle connection.

You’re bound to pick up little bits of stretching advice here and there, but the main thing to remember is that it is supposed to feel good. If you get into a situation where stretching any muscle is causing pain, it’s best to stop and reconsider what you are doing. With proper treatment and proper stretching on your own time, you’ll be able to avoid injuries and keep all areas of your body feeling great.

At Alternative Wellness Clinic our team is here to help answer your questions.  Please feel free to contact us today.

A body in motion is a beautiful thing, but through poor lifestyle choices, injuries, and general aging our range of motion can diminish to the point that we can barely bend over to pick something up off the floor. Everyone seems to take their flexibility and ease of movement for granted when they are younger. However, as time goes by those simple movements become more challenging and you are more prone to tightness and injury. Sterling chiropractors help patients with range of motion issues on a daily basis, and they can help you too.

Range of Motion for Daily Activities

Activities like brushing your teeth or hair, tying your shoes, or backing the car into the driveway all require joints in your body to move. Whether it is your shoulders, elbows, wrists, cervical and lumbar spine, knees, or neck; joints have to move freely in order to complete basic daily activities. Most of the time, you’ll never even notice these joints working. But if you have an injury or degenerative condition in even one of these joints, you’ll often feel the pain everyday and simple tasks will become a challenge.

The Spine and Range of Motion

Your spine is one the primary areas of treatment for Sterling chiropractic doctors and when your spinal range of motion is reduced, it affects many areas of your life. Issues with your spine are responsible for conditions such as carpal tunnel syndrome, headaches, and debilitating back pain.  As your spinal range of motion continues to decrease, it’s likely you’ll be able to do less and less and experience greater discomfort. Having your spine in alignment is crucial for free and easy range of motion. There are so many ways that your vertebrae can become misaligned that visiting a chiropractor is a good idea even if you still feel good.

Chiropractic Help

Our Sterling chiropractic team at Alternative Wellness Clinic can work wonders when it comes to increasing range of motion in your spine and other areas of the body. Even if you’ve been out of commission for years, a few sessions with a reputable chiropractor can help restore blood flow, improve nerve impingement, and get your discs back in alignment.  Chiropractic treatment for range of motion issues may include spinal adjustments and possibly manipulation to other parts of the body. You might also be given specific stretches or exercises to strengthen supporting muscles and lengthen tendons and ligaments in the affected areas. Once your range of motion is restored and you’re feeling good, you should be able to get back to normal activities without any pain or restriction.

At Alternative Wellness Clinic our team is here to help answer your questions.  Please feel free to contact us today.

Being healthy from a physical perspective and being healthy from a wellness perspective are two separate things. Many world-class athletes look healthy and perform well in their chosen field, but they would fail an overall wellness test that incorporates all the different elements of wellness. Keep reading to discover what a Sterling chiropractor thinks about wellness care.

Your Physical Body

More often than not, when all aspects of your health are not in balance your physical body ends up paying the price. Chronic diseases and chronic pain are a big part of many people’s lives and they don’t always stem from being inactive or having poor nutrition. These elements are definitely important if you wish to keep your physical body fine tuned and working well, but they aren’t the only things.

Emotional Wellness

It’s not uncommon for a Sterling chiropractor to see patients with chronic pain that originates in an emotional trauma. Emotional wellness refers to letting go of past traumas and expressing yourself openly and freely. Pent up emotional baggage has to go somewhere, and a lot of the time it ends up as pain in your back and neck.

Social Wellness

Being socially active and having a network of family and friends to spend time with is another important aspect of total wellness. It’s true that some people are more introverted than others, and may not require the same amount of social stimulation, but everyone needs someone. It’s important to be able to share both the good times and the bad times with other people.

Tying It All Together

When all of these different aspects of wellness are firing on all cylinders and working together in unison, it’s almost impossible not to be healthy. Your Sterling chiropractor treats the whole person and not only the physical ailments that accompany your greater health issues. Chiropractic care focuses on treating the underlying cause of the physical symptoms. Much of the time, this means misaligned spinal vertebrae causing pain in some part of the body, but it can mean other things, too.

As part of a total wellness plan, your Sterling chiropractic team at Alternative Wellness Clinic will get to know you as a person to help untangle any wellness elements that may not be working in your favor. Once the cause of your problem is brought out into the open and addressed, you can start working on a solution so the pain will go away.

At Alternative Wellness Clinic our team is here to help answer your questions.  Please feel free to contact us today.

How many times daily do you stop and think about your spine? If you are like a lot of us in Sterling that number sits a solid “zero”. As long as we can carry on daily we simply assume everything is just fine, that is unless you suffer from back pain. Those suffering from chronic back pain or back injury have a difficult time getting it off their mind, whether it is the pain itself or coupled with the chain reaction of events that are caused due to it. Back pain is not without cost, monetarily and emotionally. Contact our chiropractic clinic in Sterling to for more information.

While most of us do not think of our spinal health on a daily basis, statistics have shown that nearly 80-90% of the population will be affected by spinal issues and back pain at any point during a lifetime. Accident victims aside, those who run the highest risk are smokers, the overweight and heavy lifters. With such a high likelihood there is a solid argument in favor of leading a healthy lifestyle, and in turn, striving for a healthy spine.

Below are some proven strategies for a healthy spine/back:

Healthy Diet and Exercise

• Know your ideal body weight and stay within 10 pounds of that weight. Common sense supports the biomechanical logic that carrying around unnecessary body weight will put stress on all areas of the human frame, including the spine.
• Strengthen your core muscles. Lack of muscle in this area can pull your entire body out of alignment, starting with your lower back.
• Work diligently on eating a reasonably portioned and healthy diet. Couple this diet with a consistent exercise program that fits into your schedule, and you will see results not only in your weight, but in your overall health and confidence.
• Always stretch before and after your workout.
• Consult with your physician before beginning any diet or exercise program. There may be issues specific to your health conditions that warrant professional guidance.

Smoking Cessation

In terms of physical healing, smokers are far worse off than non-smokers. Blood flow is severely restricted throughout the body by the more-than 4000 chemicals in cigarettes. This restriction slows the healing process to all parts of the body, and the spine is no exception.

Sleeping Habits

• Try to support your body as you sleep. Pain at any time is not normal, and if you are feeling pain while you are trying to sleep, find a position that alleviates the pain.
• Back sleepers on average place nearly 50 pounds of additional pressure on the spine that can be reduced by nearly half if a supportive pillow is placed under the knees.
• Side sleepers can reduce pressure on the spine by placing a pillow between the knees.

Standing

• Standing with the knees locked places pressure on the lower back. Relax your stance by placing one foot in front of the other, slightly bending the knees.
• Avoid standing bent at the waist for any period of time, this places undue stress on the spine as well.

Lifting

• Always engage your legs when lifting. Do not lift solely with your back muscles.
• Avoid twisting when lifting anything.
• If pushing or pulling an item is an option, choose it. Always choose pushing before pulling, and engage your leg muscles to lessen the strain on the back.
• Ask for help.
• If carrying the object after lifting, keep it close to the body and spread the weight evenly between both hands.

Sitting

• Avoid slumping in your chair. Keep the shoulders back and the spine straight. Do not let your shoulders become rounded or allow your lower back lose its natural curve.
• Knees should be slightly higher than the hips.
• Keep the head up and looking straight forward.

Bending/Reaching

• Bend the legs to pick up items below waist level. Do not bend at the waist.
• If reaching for an item higher than shoulder height, use a stool. Straining to reach something above the head can cause injury to the neck, shoulders, and mid-back.
• Place your body as close to the object as you reasonably can to further reduce any potential strain.
• Like anything in life, there are no guarantees you will avoid back pain, but employing these simple, commonsense strategies certainly increase your chances of leading a pain free, healthy life!

If you have any further questions don’t hesitate to contact our Sterling team at Alternative Wellness Clinic today.

Athletes are always looking for an edge to take their performances to another level. No matter what sport you play, the competition is always getting bigger, faster and stronger which means you have to continually improve in order to keep up. Some athletes turn to dishonest methods like performance enhancing drugs to get ahead, but most look to nutrition, enhanced training concepts and similar methods to get better. One way athletes can improve is through chiropractic care at our Sterling chiropractic clinic.

Enhanced Injury Treatment

Injuries are an unfortunate part of all sports, and recovering from injuries quickly and completely is critical. Chiropractic care helps athletes recover from injuries the same way it can help an auto accident victim recover from injuries. Spinal adjustments can align your vertebrae so your tendons and muscles heal correctly. If you’re experiencing pain from a past injury, chiropractic care can get to the root of the injury and correct the problem so your symptoms lessen or disappear.

Improved Performance

Sterling athletes can also expect improved overall performance with regular chiropractic care. High-impact athletes can minimize their risk of injury and reduce pain, and low-impact athletes can relieve much of the strain placed on the body while playing their sport. This is true for sports like golf, bowling, and tennis.

With improved strength, balance, stability, flexibility and range of motion, it stands to reason that athletes will notice improved performance with regular chiropractic treatment. For athletes that play through longer seasons or play year-round, the improvement will be noticed as competitors start feeling fatigued and suffering minor injuries. The ability to “stay fresh” from the beginning of the season until the end provides a tremendous advantage to most athletes.

How Chiropractic Helps

Whether it’s to enhance performance or help heal an injury, chiropractic helps Sterling athletes by taking pressure off nerves in the spinal column. When your spinal vertebrae are misaligned, the impulses sent from your brain to parts of your body through your spine may not be as clear as they should be. When these impulses are restricted, your body is not operating at full capacity, and your athletic performance can suffer. If you are truly looking for an edge and want to take your performance to the next level, try chiropractic treatment and see if it helps. Once the pathways between your brain and muscles, heart and lungs are clear, you’ll be amazed at what you can do.

At Alternative Wellness Clinic our team is here to help answer your questions.  Please feel free to contact us today.