Exercises and Activities that Put the Most Pressure on Your Back and Body

Record numbers of us are packing into the gym this month, some due to New Year’s Resolutions, some due to wanting to get a head start on that beach body before the summer months saunter in. At any rate, people will be hitting it hard in the gym and in their extracurricular fitness activities, and we just wanted to issue a word of caution to our patients and readership. Barton Chiropractic Clinic believes in providing excellent chiropractic care for a variety of patients from all walks of life, but we also believe in patient education and preventive medicine, which sometimes is something as simple as knowing the difference between a positive activity for your back and a risky one.

Stay Away from These Lifts at the Gym

Here are some exercises you might want to think twice about doing in the gym, especially if you’ve recently experienced a back injury or are living with any degree of back pain:

• Straight-legged Deadlift — we don’t really know many folks who actually relish performing this workout, so it’s usually a pretty easy compromise. This is a lift that requires perfect form. Some like it because of its old-school, blue collar appeal, but how many of those old powerlifters do you see having active lives in their advanced years? If you perform this lift wrong, you risk rounding out your spine, making it do all the heavy lifting.
• Behind-the-Neck Lat Pulldowns — we really don’t like this lift. It’s actually considered poor form in this day and age to go behind the back. You’re not Magic Johnson in the gym, so don’t try to be. Bringing the bar behind the neck puts pressure on your shoulders, so much so that you risk tearing your rotator cuff. There’s a simple solution here. Just pull down the bar in front of your body, down to your nose or thereabouts.
• Torso Twists — these might seem like an awesome idea, and you might feel the burn in your obliques, but your spine is going through a ton of stress. You might end up causing nerve damage with this lift. Instead, opt for side plank oblique crunches.

Take Care of Your Back with Barton Chiropractic Clinic

If you’ve been hitting it hard in the gym and your back isn’t holding up the way you’d like, schedule your consultation with Dr. Barton today. We have the personnel, the expertise, and provide the compassionate care you need to get back on your feet and into the game.

When people think of the chiropractor, they usually associate it with those of middle and more advanced age. But the truth is, many children require chiropractic care as well. In numerous cases chiropractic care is an essential part of a child’s wellness plan in an overall sense. As a matter of fact, 17% of chiropractic patients are under the age of 18, as reported by the National Board of Chiropractic Examiners.

Given that each year in the US 38 million children play organized athletics, it’s easy to understand that kids might need to see a chiropractor just due to injury alone. This competitive athletics enthusiasm results in 3.5 million medical visits annually. It’s not just up to your kid, either. 52% of coaches questioned in a survey conducted by SafeKids.org said that there is an acceptable amount of hard contact. 1 in 3 kids surveyed in the same study said that they would continue to play hurt, despite being injured. Injuries aren’t limited to game time, either — 62% of injuries happen while your child is at practice.

Why Pursue Chiropractic Care?

Even if your child isn’t experiencing symptoms related to their back or spine, chiropractic care could relieve or vastly improve symptoms associated with ADD/ADHD, colic, torticollis, ear infections, chronic bed wetting, allergies, gastrointestinal problems, asthma, seizures, and more, according to the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association.

These problems can amount to:

• Pain / Discomfort
• Anxiety
• Decreased Mental Clarity
• Lack of Sleep / Insomnia
• Immune / Digestive System Dysfunction

Your Body is Complicated, No Matter Your Age

Doesn’t matter if you’re five or fifty five, your nervous system is complicated. Your brain, spinal cord, and nerves are all inextricably linked. Misalignments (also called Subluxations) in the spine can cause miscommunication from brain to body.

Don’t wait for your child to experience an injury. Even small traumas like bumps and bruises can accumulate, resulting in pain and discomfort, which can affect school performance and overall well-being. Think of us as a family practice here at Barton Chiropractic Clinic. We treat back and spine problems for you and your loved ones in Homewood, IL, providing quality chiropractic care from infancy to advanced age.

It’s the new year, which means New Year’s Resolutions galore. You might have found evidence of this at the gym, where foot traffic will be the most congested it will get all year. That means newbies hogging the machines, half marathons being ran on the treadmill, and everything in between to make things extra inconvenient.

But persistence is key. It’s unfortunate that many times we get caught up on weight because of aesthetic reasons, which is what drives us to change. How we look plays a big role into why we start rigorous diets and training programs to shed unwanted pounds. Many of us don’t think about the overall health benefits we glean from losing excess fat; we only think about how good we’re going to look in a bathing suit. But losing weight sends wellness reverberations throughout your entire body and mind.

Do it for Your Back

SpineUniverse.com offers up some great ideas for losing weight for the sake of your back. Having a protruding belly can cause undo stress on your back due to carrying excess weight around. Try carrying around a 10 pound weight with you all day; you’ll quickly find that it gets heavy, and it starts to put pressure on certain areas of your body more than others — your back and spine, for instance.

Think of being overweight as being in a jam-packed car. Think of all that pressure being put on the struts and shock absorbers of the automobile. That’s exactly what’s happening to your intervertebral discs. This can accentuate spinal curvature and increase injury risk.

Exercise with Your Back in Mind

Certain exercises and working in a yoga practice a few days a week can actually help you manage and alleviate your back pain in addition to helping you lose weight. Finding a workout buddy will also help motivate you to get to class on time and on schedule, too.

We hope some of this advice helps. If you have back pain in 2018 that persists in the face of losing weight, exercise, and diet change, then schedule a consultation with Barton Chiropractic Clinic today and we’ll put you on the path to lasting recovery.