Home

www.westfordchiropractic.com

My Account Login

Featured Article

    A publication for patients and friends of Westford Family Chiropractic

        Westford  Family  Chiropractic's

        Spinal Times of 2012 

Dr. Richard J. Leigh * 288 Littleton Road * Westford, MA 

 (978) 692-4476    www.westfordchiropractic.com

 

To all of Westford Family Chiropractic patients; welcome to our bi-monthly health newsletter!

             

Find us on Facebook   Like Us!

  

Every two weeks we will attempt to address two or three areas that will help improve your health.

 

westfordchiropractic@yahoo.com 

Please comment in the BLOG section of the website.

 

February 2012, Edition 5   

 

In addition to the electonic Newsletter,

Westford Family Chiropractic will be providing a

  paper Health Newsletter which will be issued through the mail.

If you wish to receive this Newsletter you can sign up

 in the office, call, or send us an email.

Dr. Leigh

 

 

  I

Core Fitness - What Is It and What Is It Good For?

jumping_jacks_200.jpg
Chiropractic and the Core

Chiropractic care helps make almost everything better from a physical point of view. The process of chiropractic helps your body become the best it can be, by removing limitations to growth and development.

When you exercise, it's important for your muscles and joints to be freely movable. If you're exercising and you have joints with restricted mobility, particularly in the spine, it's easy to get injured. This is analogous to pressing down on the accelerator with one foot while applying the brake with the other. That would be a pretty bumpy ride. Extending the metaphor, chiropractic care helps open up your spinal highways and byways, smoothing out your biomechanical journey and helping you get the most out of your exercise.

When you're exercising your core it's important for all the parts involved to have their maximum range of motion. Chiropractic care helps you get there.
Core training is a no-longer-new catchphrase on the fitness landscape. The concept of core fitness, by now, has been promoted by every Pilates school, yoga center, and chain of fitness clubs around the world. Many doctors, including chiropractors, physiatrists, orthopedists, and even cardiologists, emphasize the importance of core training with their patients. Practically every physical therapist and personal trainer has learned a variety of core exercises to use with their clients. Core fitness has become an advertising buzzword, helping to sell all kinds of health-related products. The overall result is raised awareness of the importance of core strength and the opportunity to engage in a critically important form of healthy exercise.1,2,3

What exactly is the "core" and what are you training when you train it? Your core muscles are your four abdominal muscle groups - the transversus abdominis, internal obliques, external obliques, and rectus abdominis. Back muscles, too, are included in the core group - specifically the erector spinae, longissimus thoracis, and multifidus. The importance of the core muscles is their ability to provide a "center" or focus for the physical work your body is doing. If your core is not fit other muscles will have to take over, leading to the likelihood of strains, sprains, and other injuries.

Who even knew we had a core? Plenty of people did, long ago, but in those days no one talked about a "core". For many decades football coaches, ballet instructors, and gymnastics coaches trained their athletes in vigorous and strenuous techniques that all focused on core strength. High school gym teachers knew about the core. Remember squat thrusts, jumping jacks, and push-ups? All those ancient exercises (that we used to groan and moan about) train deep core muscles. We were doing core fitness before there was "core fitness".

Why do we need core fitness today? More and more our work involves sitting down. We stare at computer screens for eight hours a day. Instead of doing physical work such as farming or building, we type on a keyboard and talk on a cell phone. The long-term result is that muscles, tendons, and ligaments lost their integrity. Tight neck muscles, tight lower back muscles, and weak abdominal muscles are the result, and these issues lead to more serious problems such as chronic headaches, cardiovascular stress, impaired digestion, and depression. We need fitness activities that start building us back up again, and the right place to start is at the center - by engaging in core fitness.

The best thing about core fitness is that you don't need any equipment. You could get a mat and a physioball, but those items are optional. Take a yoga class. Take a Pilates class. Learn a few core exercises and begin to do them several times a week. You'll soon begin to notice that you feel better, in general. You have more energy. You're sleeping better. Your mood is improving. All due to a few squats, a few planks, and a few push-ups. That's a pretty good deal.

1Kennedy DJ, Noh MY: The role of core stabilization in lumbosacral radicuopathy. Phys Med Rehabil Clin North Am 22(1):91-103, 2011
2Behm DG, et al: The use of instability to train the core musculature. Appl Physiol Nutr Metab 35(1):91-108, 2010
3Dunleavy K: Pilates fitness continuum: post-rehabilitation and prevention Pilates fitness programs. Rehab Manag 23(9):12-15, 2010

 

*From the February 15, 2012 Health Newsletter* 

Back Pain - Am I At Risk?

Are there risk factors for back pain? And, if there are, what can I do to keep myself healthy and well?Learning about potential risk factors and taking appropriate action will help ensure a stronger, more flexible, and healthier lower back.\r\

 Your Family and You

For the most part back injuries are caused by mechanical issues, and the tendency to get such injuries is not inherited.

However there are family-related behavioral tendencies, and these behaviors - while not "inherited" as such - may easily be passed down from parents to children. When we grow up, these ingrained habits of daily living may lead to back injuries.

Poor posture, lack of interest in exercise, and a tendency to be overweight are all patterns of behavior we learn from our parents. As adults, its valuable for us to make conscious efforts to revise these unhealthful patterns, being proactive in developing new behaviors that support our goals of health and well-being.


And, various health issues that actually may be inherited can increase a person's susceptibility to back pain and back injury. Your chiropractor will be of assistance in identifying such additional risk factors.

Are there risk factors for back pain? And, if there are, what can I do to keep myself healthy and well? Your chiropractor can help answer these questions and more.

One primary risk factor relates to exercise. Everyone has heard, "if you don't use it, you lose it". If you're not exercising regularly, your back muscles are deconditioned and much more susceptible to injury - the strains and sprains we're accustomed to calling "back pain".

Muscles get stronger when they're required to do work. Also exercise helps "train" the soft tissues around a joint - the ligaments and tendons - these supporting structures "learn" how to withstand mechanical stresses and loads without becoming injured. Basically, when you exercise - when you do any kind of exercise - your body gets "smarter" and you're less likely to get those annoying back problems.1

A related risk factor is weak abdominal muscles. When you were a kid, at some point one of your gym teachers probably told you to "suck in your stomach". Actually, it turns out that was pretty good advice. Your abdominal muscles support the muscles of your lower back. If your abdominals are weak or if you're not using them - letting them hang out and droop instead of keeping them activated - your body weight has to be held up by the muscles of your lower back. They're not designed to do that - they're designed to move your spine around. And eventually, these lower back muscles will give way under the excess strain. The result is a very painful lower back injury.

There are many easy-to-do exercises for your abdominal muscles. The key is to actually do them - and do them after you're finished doing the rest of whatever exercises you've scheduled for that day. How often? Three times a week is plenty. Abdominal routines are quick - no more than 10 minutes. And, remember to use your abdominal muscles throughout the day. Imagine your abdominals are being pulled in and lifted up. This is not a "tightening" - your thought should be "activate". Your body will know what to do, once you've started adding consistent abdominal training to your exercise routine.

Risk factors for back pain may also be found in your personal and family medical history.2,3 During your initial visit your chiropractor will ask you about accidents and surgeries you've experienced, and discuss any important elements in your family history. For example, surgery to remove an inflamed galllbladder or appendix or to repair a hernia may result in weakened abdominal muscles. A motor vehicle accident or a fall from a height may have caused injuries that healed with soft tissue scarring.

Learning about potential risk factors and taking appropriate action will help ensure a stronger, more flexible, and healthier lower back.

 

 Look for our "hardcopy" Health Newsletter coming soon....in the mail. 

A Westford Family Chiropractic "ALERT"!  90% of prospective patients will find their chiropractor ON-LINE.  Positive reviews are so important...and we / I hope that you feel Westford Family Chiropractic and myself provide you with top quality (5 star) chiropractic care.  I ask that each of you who receive a newsletter would kindly take the time to "write" positive review on one (or more) of these sites:   

     Click on the logo for the site which you may wish to provide a "review" and type "Chiropractor near Westford" in the search box.  Click on the Westford Family Chiropractic heading...Thank You! 

       google.png     Bing.png          Yahoo.png

         Yelp.png   BOTW2.png    DexKnows.png 

       superpages.png  CitySearch.png     insiderpages.png

When creating a "review" you will need to "verify" your authenticity by providing an email address.   THANKS!

   

February 2012 Special !!!

Dec_Special.png

Positioning Roll exclusive to persons NEW to our office.  Westford Family Chiropractic will always be happy to provide x-rays and evaluations to past and present patients for$25.00.

For any existing patient that refers someone to our office; we will provide you with a neck or back roll as our thank you!

Call Westford Family Chiropractic today!

(978) 692-4476   or

request an appointment on-line.

Top

Newsletter Sign Up

3D Spine Simulator


Launch 3D Spine Simulator

Community Content

Member Wellness

Member Login

Send Password | Sign Up