Christian's Blog

Hey National,

I have rounded up and combined my favorite exercises that address the most common deficient movement patterns and muscle imbalances in golfers. This program is designed to do the following (all of which I've proven using myself as a case study): 

• Increase your drives by 20+ yards
• Decrease your pain
• Increase your practice time without pain
• Increase swing balance/stability

My Golf Workout Plan Goal 

Get as strong as possible with heavy weights and incorporate functional movement/mobility and stability and golf specific performance exercises:

1.  Incorporate Massive Strength

2.  Mobility/Stability

Workout Plan

• Functional Day - Monday
• Strength Day - Wednesday
• Performance Day - Friday

Functional Day

30 min workout (go one to the next, alternate upper body lower body)

1. Hip Mobility Lunges
2. Thoracic Spine Rotation w/hand behind neck
3. Monster Walks
4. Scapular Wall Walks
5. Dead Bugs
6. Lower Trap Activation Exercise Kneeling Ys
7. Bird Dogs
8. Chop and Lifts
9. Kettlebell Swings 
10. Prone Scapular Contractions
11. Side Bridge Endurance
12. Curl Ups
13. Glute Bridge
14. Open Books Rib Cage and Reach Turn
15. Shovel Pass (standing Russian twist essentially)
16. Quadraped Hip Abduction And Mobility Rom Maintaining Core

Strength Day

30 min: Heavy Compound Exercises. 2 Sets 5 Reps. Max Exertion.

1. Seated Row/Yates Row
2. Squat
3. Bench Press
4. Tricep/Close Grip Press

Performance Day

Golf movements with weight and balance exercises and Nike golf exercises.

• Extremely important for increasing proprioception. Balance with eyes open/closed
• Training in all 3 planes is KEY
• Add in an aerobic run ( 180 - age - 10) to prevent adrenal burnout and maximize fat mobilization and utilization. True cardiovascular endurance replicated on the golf course/tournament round.

If you're into golf or treating golfers, I hope this helps. :)

Stay classy,
Christian

Hey NUHS,

Last week I got a pretty awesome text I wanted to share. It was from my old high school golf teammate, Kim Donovan, who was an All American on the Duke Women's Golf team. Kim said, "OK, I've decided I'm going to make a push for the LPGA tour IF you get me out of pain."

YYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Seriously, best text ever. Why? It's been my childhood dream to become a professional golfer and make the tour. My dad and I used to always joke about moving to Florida when I made it and playing golf all over the world. Fast forward: I didn't make it...as a golfer...BUT, could I make it as a treating physician? Yes, I believe I can.

TIP: You interested in treating golfers? At any level? Check out Titleist Performance Institute Seminars.

Golf Seminars and Free Info: http://www.mytpi.com/

So what can chiropractors do for golfers?

Here's my thought process for a high level golfer who seeks both pain elimination and increased performance... (After watching her swing)

Initial Swing Evaluation: Searching for the Cause of Her Pain

*Patient appears to lack anterior stability through the hitting zone and into the follow-through that allows the lumbar spine to hyperlordose and jam the facets. I also imagine there is some lack of hip internal rotation causing the lumbar spine to get chewed up into excess rotation through the swing causing pain and inflammation locally.

*Initial Rehab and Functional Corrections will focus on 3 things:

1. Core Stability: This will stabilize the excess movements through the lumbar spine and reduce the risk for further injury and progress treatment faster and hold treatment pain relief longer through the round by building endurance.

• Side Plank hold until failure
• Dead Bug
• Bird Dog
• Curl Up 
• Glute Bridge
• Glute Med Walk with Band

2. Hip Mobility: Increasing hip internal rotation. (If congenital antroverted hips, may need to flare out lead foot to get this.)

• Side Line Hip Internal Rotation with Band
• Tri Planar Hip mobility to open up all ROM

3. Thoracic Mobility:

• Kneeling Thoracic Rotation - 2x sets 10 reps each side
• Cat Camel 10-15 reps focusing on only thoracic mobility

*Progression into performance once stability and endurance have been established

• Chop and Lift
• Russian Twists with Med Ball
• Advanced Ball Work
• Kettle Ball Swings
• Tri Planar and Single Leg Glute Firing in all Planes
• Farmer Walks with Different Weights For Side Bracing Endurance

All of these will improve with physical treatment as I work on fixations, soft tissue adhesions, facial train hypertonicity, and the rehab will improve her instability. I will also look to balance her adrenal/thyroid axis for ligamentous integrity and inflammation levels. Supplements, homeopathy and emotional work will be used on an as-needed basis through physical exam, history and manual muscle testing. Restoring normal breathing patterns, abdominal bracing, and increasing intra-abdominal pressure with DNS and Triple Flexion positions is definitely in order for lasting relief, stability and performance.

Prognosis and Goals:

• Pain Relief:  1-2 weeks
• Rehab Level 1: 2 weeks
• Advanced Rehab: 2-4 weeks with ongoing RE-eval for increased performance, variety and goals.

Well, that was just a window into my head on what I was thinking while treating a Division 1 athlete and hopefully a professional athlete soon! Chiropractic has a lot of incredible tools, my friends! LEARN THEM! You can never have too many tricks in your pocket for the tough patient that comes along.

Stay Sharp,
CC

Hey, everyone! 

Hope everyone had a great week. I thought I'd drop some random city adventure tips as well as some school/career tips. When I was going/got to school, I sought out people that gave great perspectives and fun tips from the locals. Thought I would pass them on. :)

Museums in Chicago

Do you have a Bank of America card? Did you know you can get into any museum in Chicago for FREE the first weekend of every month! Holy Toledo! The Shedd Aquarium and Museum of Science and Industry are my FAVORITES. I was raised right by the ocean and I love all things related to water, so Shedd was extremely cool. This past weekend I ventured to the science and industry museum. It's south of the city a couple miles and it's loaded with visually intriguing displays and mind bending science.

Me in a mini tornado at the Museum of Science and Industry.

Fun tip: There is a parking lot not associated with the museum right off Lake Shore Drive that is $5 instead of $20 that the museum lot brings in. Winning.

Lastly, the Lincoln Park Zoo is fantastic and its FREEEE. You can park there for 20 bucks or you can somehow get there another way (cab, El, bike, it's too far to walk from the Metra). I went there with my sister in August and the animals were great and the views of the city were profile pic worthy!

Willis (Sears) Tower vs. Hancock Tower

So you want to see the big city views? The Willis (Sears) Tower is $16 to go to the sky deck, which I've heard is pretty awesome. An alternative you ask? The Hancock Tower. Go to the 96th floor and there is an epic view that you can enjoy almost equal to the Willis (Sears) Tower. All you have to do is order a drink or appetizer and sit at a nice little table with amazing views of the city. The cocktails are steep ($11-$15) but just go for one drink and enjoy a unique experience in Chi Town!

Adjusting at National

Just in case you didn't realize...you're going to be a chiropractor. Chiropractic means "done with HANDS." Please, please, PRACTICE adjusting and palpating. I am constantly surprised at how many people let this critical piece of their education go. The ONLY bad thing about National is you can get through the program without being an exceptional adjustor. I understand they can't hold people back and that students need to take it upon themselves to refine and improve, but hey, let's get better with our hands, okay? Just think about what the public expects of you: ADJUSTMENTS. At NUHS we obviously learn A LOT more, but our basic toolset is the art of adjusting.

Tip: Find upper classmen that can adjust everything and everyone (you'll know who they are) and constantly pick their brains on how they set up, thrust, practice, etc. Even consider asking them to tutor you weekly. If you're going to spend money on tutoring for all these academic classes why not pay someone to teach you how to adjust? Which do you think will have a bigger payoff for your practice? Yup.

Tip: Don't feel bad if it doesn't come naturally. It's hard. But it's learnable! Also, do NOT let your ego prevent you from setting up and adjusting people for fear they think you'll stink. Do it anyway; it's better to mess up now with students than on your patients!! Hah   

Tip: Go to CLUBS. Go to Clubs. Go to Clubs. AK, Motion Palp, Sports Rehab. Your face should be in there. Period. ;)      

Public Speaking

Here's a shocker - LEARN IT. Across all the docs I've spoken with, the overwhelming biggest thing they did to build a practice was learn to effectively communicate and speak to people. You think you'll just throw a sign of "chiropractor" up and they'll pour into your office knowing everything you're capable of? Negative. Get out there and constantly get used to being uncomfortable. How do you know you're making progress? When you are terrified! That means your pushing the envelope and expanding your bubble. How you do you when you are moving forward? When you are less and less nervous speaking in situations that used to scare you to death. Do it. Get uncomfortable!

Tip: Toastmasters is a great organization to check out for local public speaking practice around the country.

Tip: Always offer to present whatever class project you're involved with. Little wins. Big leverage.

Stay Classy,
Christian

Hey all, 

Since most of the time you have to wait until 6/7th trimester for Dr. Solecki to review the TMJ and the treatments involved in actually FIXING the TMJ, I figured I would give a brief introduction from the seminars I've attended. 

Did you know one study by Pennfield and Rasmussen found 35-40% of all the motor nerves in the body are related to the TMJ--and they concluded it was the MOST IMPORTANT JOINT IN THE BODY! Wow. Maybe we should learn how to treat it, huh? 

First: The TMJ is COMPENSATORY to the spine and the feet. If you do a good job on the spine (especially C1/C0, fix SCM and upper Trap) and the feet, most of the TMJ issues will clear up. Don't believe me? Assess the jaw before and after a treatment. Guarantee if you know what you're doing, it improves. Might not be perfect, but that's for the next part :)

Step 1

Assessment:
Put your fingers on each side of the temporomandibular joint. Ask the patient to slowly open their jaw. Does it pop? Does it click? Does it DEVIATE? If they can't get 3 knuckles of their NON-dominant hand in their mouth, they have TMJ dysfunction. It might not hurt, but when was the last time we chased pain? We don't. We fix dysfunction. I've seen a girl who couldn't get 2 knuckles in her mouth with constant painful popping and after a 10-minute treatment, she could get 3.5 knuckles in with no more popping upon opening and closing. That will get your patients noticing! Measure before and after; the patients love not only feeling better but also having PHYSICAL results they can see!

Muscles of Importance in Fixing TMJ Problems: 

1. External Pterygoids  
2. Internal Pterygoids
3. Temporalis m (anterior, middle, and posterior divisions)
4. Masseter (deep and superficial fibers)

14 different divisions in total. Muscles move bones (duh! lol). Fix the muscles and the joint will move accordingly. It's not rocket science. 

Couple Keys:
The jaw will DEVIATE AWAY FROM THE TIGHT EXTERNAL PTYERGOID m.
The jaw will DEVIATE AWAY FROM THE TIGHT EXTERNAL PTYERGOID m.
The jaw will DEVIATE AWAY FROM THE TIGHT EXTERNAL PTYERGOID m.

It's that important to remember.

In other words, it deviates TOWARDS the WEAK external pterygoid m. You might notice the orbit/eye is SMALLER on the side the jaw deviates away from. Why? What does the external ptyergoid attach to? Sphenoid. The tight muscle will 'tilt' the sphenoid and distort the orbit. Don't believe me? Fix the jaw and usually the posterior atlas on that side, and then reassess their eye. It works! (I fixed it on my brother.) Time to get out the gloves! Get up in the lateral pterygoid pocket and with your pinky finger 'swipe/strip' the muscle quickly. It will be PAINFUL. This technique facially flushes the tight pterygoid and will balance the external ptyergoids and prevent deviation. MUSCLES MOVE BONES. 

So, how do you figure out which of the other muscles are screwing with the jaw mechanics?

Well, you could just guess and start stripping away. Ouch. Don't try this. Believe me. It hurts.

Or you could use your tool of manual muscle testing.

So, have the patient sit on the edge of the table and test their rectus femoris m. A strong muscle in the clear can be used as a diagnostic indicator.

1. Have patient Bite Down and Test strong indicator muscle. If strong, move on. If the muscle weakens, we know there is a problem. Check  the Closing Muscles  of the TMJ. When you bite down, you stimulate the periodontal ligament, which reflexively inhibits the closing muscles to allow the opening of the jaw again. If you have hypertonic closing muscles, you will mess with that reflex and your TMJ range of motion. It's a beautiful reflex that allows us to shovel food in after biting down. We take it for granted. Closing muscles of the jaw: masseter, temporalis and internal pterygoid. Recheck which muscle negates the previous weakness. Facially flush those fibers.

2. Then Deviate the Jaw to a Side and Test a strong indicator muscle. If strong on both deviations, move on. If weakens on one deviation, Check  the Ipsilateral fibers  of temporalis muscle (check anterior, middle and posterior fibers) or Contralateral internal pterygoid. Facially flush to balance the muscles on either side of the mandible. Tip: bring gloves because you need to go into the mouth to fix the pterygoid muscles. Make sure you know what you're doing because it's not comfortable!

3. Next, Protrude  the Jaw  forward, test a strong indicator. If strong, move on. If weakens, check the external pterygoids. It's the pterygoid that the jaw deviates away from upon opening (during your initial assessment you note this). Strip it out with a pinky finger with one quick swipe.

4. Then Retrude  the jaw backward and test. If strong, move on. If weak, check the DEEP fibers of Masseter and the posterior division of temporalis m. Facially flush.

Hopefully your patient doesn't want to punch you in the face after all the facial flushing!

Reassess their jaw by asking them to slowly open and close. Put 3 knuckles in. Listen for pops. If you did it right, they should have a look of shock on their face because it will be working correctly for the first time in a while. :)

And that's how you fix 85% of TMJs in 10 minutes. There are a few more steps for advanced cases but I don't have the room. If your TMJ has been bothering you, come find me on campus. I need some more practice!

Keep Smiling Big!

CC

I hope everyone has gotten into the swing of things with classes picking up speed and a brand new trimester fully underway! Part of me is extremely excited and part of me is extremely anxious because I'm back on the full track (26 credits) again.

What is AK? (Applied Kinesiology)

This weekend, I attended the first seminar of the trimester. Dr. Timothy Francis came into town and taught the first of seven AK seminars we will be attending until August to sit for the certification test. I've only met one genius in my life thus far. This doc was the second. From 9:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m  straight (Sat. and Sun.) we covered so much information! We learned to fix:

• adrenal disorders
• thyroid
• sprain strain injuries (whiplash, etc.)
• nutritional deficiencies
• fixations
• gait imbalances
• dietary imbalances
• emotional imbalances
• postural faults
• acupuncture meridians
• etc., etc., etc.

It was enlightening to see how it all tied in. In my opinion, at school, we are given a lot of tools--some useful, others not. However, one glaring 'deficiency' is putting it all together for a patient in an efficient and REPEATABLE system. This comes with experience and a lot of practice. I believe this is why the Motion Palpation Institute has had a lot of success and popularity. It is a wonderful system for chiros.

The draw for me to AK has not only been that it works better than anything I've ever tried (and I've tried A LOT of things), but it is also a logical system of finding the ROOT cause of the patient's problems and treating them on a 'WHOLE'-istic basis. This includes 3 parts--structural, chemical, emotional--often depicted in an equilateral triangle with structural being the base.

As chiropractors we LOVE and are very competent at the structural part of our patients. Some more enlightened docs will dabble into nutrition (anti-inflammatory diet, herbs, supplements, etc.) realizing that it is crucial to the success of their patients' long-term health and disease prevention. The one glaring problem is how we don't address the emotional component of human health or the energetic (acupuncture and homeopathy).

Normally, we are just told to 'avoid stress' and 'deal with emotions'. Huh? We live in a GO, GO, GO society. If you live out in the woods by yourself, you may be able to 'avoid stress' but almost everywhere and everything has stress in our modern lifestyles. Don't think emotions play a role in our lives? How about the bunny study? Two groups of identical bunnies were given the same diet, same living conditions. One group was petted every day and the other group was ignored. The ignored group developed heart disease and died MUCH earlier. The petted group died old, with no diseases.

So, should we just pet each other every day? NO! Ha ha. We do have to address all three aspects of human health though!

With Applied Kinesiology, you use manual muscle testing as a window into figuring out where to adjust, when to adjust, what is primary, what nutrition they need and how much, as well as deal with emotions that make certain conditions unfixable when not addressed.

Ask yourself this: If you've needed the 'same' adjustment for weeks, months, years, are you really treating the root cause of the patient's problems? The answer is no. Motion palpating and restoring joint motion is important. MUSCLES MOVE BONES. Period. So you need to treat the muscle imbalances, too. If you can't fix the muscular imbalances, you will never stabilize the spine. Also consider Viscerosomatic reflexes have influences on certain muscles as well.

This area of functional neurology has been around for 50 years and the pioneering work was actually started by the allopathic profession, but was eventually adopted into Applied Kinesiology and chiropractic by George Goodheart, DC, in the 1960s. Therefore, if you're not treating the patient internally (proper diet, nutrition, supplements), then the correlated muscles may never function the way you want them to, therefore leading to imbalances and chronic fixations in the spine that we as chiropractors palpate and adjust continually year after year.

Dr. Goodheart used to say, "I know the answer, but I don't know the right question." How true is that? AK helps you ask the right question.

Applied Kinesiology isn't perfect, as nothing in life ever is, but it's pretty darn close. If you've ever met me, you know I want as many TOOLS in my treatment toolbox as possible so every patient that walks in my door I can fix as fast as possible.

Peace out cub scouts,
CC