Reasoning Behind Regular Chiropractic Care

We like to use imagery when we’re trying to explain to our clients exactly what it is that a chiropractic adjustment does for your spine. Think of it like this. Imagine your spine is a bicycle chain. Now imagine that chain looks like the chain in the image to the left of this sentence. If you were the person riding this bike you would probably have a tough time quickly become tired. Likewise, you can probably imagine that the gears this chain was running on will likely wear out quicker than normal. These are very simple concepts for us all to understand. Well, the muscles, bones and joints that comprise your spine aren’t much different. You can think of the muscles like the rider of the bike with that rusty chain, and the joints of the spine like the gears that the chain is running on. If your spine does not have its proper range of motion, you will begin to experience muscle tightness and pain around the affected area. At the same time, the joints that make up your spine will wear out at an increased rate. This can lead to disc degeneration and osteoarthritis. I recall a study that was done on rabbits. In this experiment the observers surgically wired the back part of the spines of rabbits to limit the movement of the spinal joints. After a short time they removed the wire and observed the results. They were astonished to find that the rabbit spines were already exhibiting early stages of osteoarthritis in response to the limited range of motion. We have many clients at Walk In Chiropractic who love to come in on a regular basis to keep the function of their spine as good as it can be for them. These folks retain their spinal range of motion into their later years and we feel that increased movement keeps people more active and healthier for a longer period of time. So if it makes sense to maintain your bike chain for longevity, maybe it will make sense to maintain your spine as well. If you have questions or comments about this article leave a comment below.