This is Columbia Advanced Chiropractic’s blog site, ‘Body at Work.’ A special thanks to Tammy Hepps for helping to get the blog going. Topics will vary and we would love to have your feedback regarding what you would like to see discussed. Please keep in mind that you are an integral part of the blog experience and the more information we cover, the more you can learn about your health and how to maximize it. We hope you enjoy Body at Work and help make it the best health blog in Columbia / Ellicott City, Howard County, Maryland, and everywhere else, for that matter! The old newsletters from ‘The Spinal Column’ are now here on the blog and you can read/comment as you wish.
Please feel free to send us comments on this page about what topics you would like to see discussed in future blog discussions. Although we will try to get your comments posted as quickly as possible, please allow up to 48 hours to do so.
On February 7, 2012, Grant Stoddard wrote a rather critical assessment of CrossFit (on Yahoo Health and licensed by Men’s Health). Although I understand his concerns, I think a lot of what he wrote about generalizes CrossFit too much and does not present a fair representation of what CrossFit is all about!
As a sports medicine doctor, I have the pleasure of working closely with 3 area CrossFit facilities. Each is run by highly motivated, intelligent, and hard working individuals who pride themselves on proper form and technique. I have a lot of experience dealing with CrossFitters and as an educator of Fitness Professionals, I feel as though I can comment better than most on many of the aspects of different types of fitness. Read More »
So, hopefully everyone remembers the cool tape that Kerri Walsh wore on her shoulder at the Olympics back in 2008. Since then, the use of kinesiology/functional tape, be it RockTape, KinesioTape, or others, has really boomed! Has anyone had any personal experience with the tape, and if so, please share it so others can learn. Thank you…
Dr. Manison was published in the Journal of Chiropractic Medicine (JCM), one of the two medically indexed chiropractic journals. This is a huge accomplishment and he is very excited about this. Writing the paper and going through the editing process took about 100 hours of time. It was a very tough and humbling experience, and he is very happy with the end result.
Most clinicians, or field doctors, do not have the time or skill to write a paper for medical publication. Dr. Manison feels that it is important to continue to work hard to be the best doctor he can be as well as give back to the field. If there are no studies on the successes of chiropractic, it is hard to justify the care. The more those in the chiropractic field publish the good work we do, the better.
Dr. Manison would like to thank his wife and editor extraordinaire, Jennifer Hepps, MD, for her help with the paper. Dr. Hepps is very accomplished in her field and her insight and direction were critical to the success of his paper. When they say behind every man there is a great woman, this is truly the case!
Stay tuned as Dr. Manison will be working on another case study soon. The topic will be of a very different nature, but it should help to revolutionize how a particular condition is treated. Once this paper is published, Dr. Manison will aim to work with a few like-minded doctors on a Case Series.
We would include the entire study here but are not allowed to do so…however, please click the link below to view the abstract.
Low back pain is quite prevalent in our society and still, to this day, I see people doing sit-up exercises in the gym. Be they old or young or male or female, it doesn’t matter. For some odd reason, people still like to lock their ankles into a decline bench and then bend their bodies all the way. Many times, they’ll hold onto a weight for an extra effect…(I have no idea why they do this)….other times, they’ll have someone throw a medicine ball back and forth with them.
So, this begs the question…do these people really know what they are doing? What muscles do they think they are training? What muscles are they actually training? Are the exercises dangerous? For that matter, are the exercises beneficial in any way?
Those of us who exercise usually need some sort of guidance somewhere along the way. Whether we are training for a particular sport, strength, power, agility, endurance, or any combination of such, many of us have not had the proper training/instruction to take our bodies through the rigors of ‘tough’ training.
This is where a trained professional comes in. My other business, Pro Form Instruction, LLC, offers continuing education credits to fitness professionals for most of the major fitness certifying bodies in the country. It also has a branch that works with elite fitness instructors and high level athletes. I have seen my share of great trainers and those who can do more harm than good.
On this end, I see injuries due to ‘working out’ and also due to poor instruction from ‘fitness instructors’. It’s important to note that the more specialized the athlete, the more vital it is to have someone qualified to work with him/her, otherwise injury is sure to occur. Would you want a fitness instructor to advise long-distance running for an athlete whose sport doesn’t have any long-term aerobic needs? How about a young athlete being advised to do hundreds of crunches at a time…for what? Does any of this make any sense? Read More »
If you’re interested in a shoe to help you with toning up and you’re considering purchasing an expensive pair of one of those new and cool rounded shoes on the market, please read on.
Sketchers and MBT lead the way in this category with their ‘shaping’ shoes, or shoes that are supposed to help you tone up while you walk. In theory, this sounds great…work on an activity that should tone you up just by doing it, and tone up because of the footwear you choose versus the activity you are performing…and, of course, there is no downside?? Read More »
Within the last year or two, there have been significant additions to the ‘types’ of footwear available for athletes. Sketchers and MBTs have their ‘shape ups’ type of shoes and Vibram, the maker of soles for many shoe and boot companies, has come up with its own concept. (We’ll save the topic of shape-ups for the next discussion and you’re gonna wanna read it!!!) Vibram’s first foray into the shoe world comes in the form of a glove-looking neoprene withVibram sole product.
It is born from sound principles of gait and markets to the those looking to benefit from being as close to being barefoot as possible without actually being barefoot. Vibram’s FiveFingers might just be that product and they are certainly onto something. Read More »
I’ve had the great fortune of working many pro beach volleyball competitions over the years. As a whole, beach volleyball players are great guys/gals, and they really appreciate the care they receive. They are wonderful athletes to work with.
When one considers volleyball injuries, usually the shoulder is the region that gets blamed most. This makes sense as we usually envision volleyball players ‘spiking’ the ball. The rotator cuff and other structures of the shoulder take a beating from the high force and movement that is required of the shoulder…in many cases, the players have dysfunctional scapular movement to begin with and this predisposes them to injury…add that to frequent forceful acceleration and deceleration movements, and you have a nice recipe for injury.
What is sometimes surprising when working with volleyball players is seeing all the other injuries that they sustain as a result of the game. I have seen more neck, knee, hip, low back, toe, foot, ankle, and elbow injuries than I would’ve ever imagined! Shoulder injuries are actually about half of the way down on the list of injuries. Why is this? Read More »
I have been asked by a LOT of my patients who have this condition to write a blog about it…so, here we go…hope it’s informative!
Spondylolisthesis, generally considered to be an anterior slippage of parts of our vertebrae following a pars interarticularis (the region between the two facet joints) fracture or due to degenerative changes can be a very serious condition. In most all cases of the fracture type, it does not heal, and it can be a source of pain. I remember learning about this condition in school and thinking to myself, well, I’ll likely never see any of these…hopefully. I mean, how common is it to see spinal fractures? Certainly, these are are more-so orthopedic concerns than chiropractic ones, right? Read More »
Tennis Elbow, or lateral epicondylitis, is a common medical catch-phrase condition for individuals who experience pain on the outside (lateral) portion of the elbow. Classically, it has been called ‘Tennis Elbow’ because tennis players tend to get this problem, generally from hitting backhands. However, labeling everyone with lateral elbow pain as having ‘Tennis Elbow’ is just simply not correct. Newer research is moving away from using the term ‘Tennis Elbow’ and ‘Lateral Epicondylitis’ and is moving towards calling the condition ‘Lateral Epicondylosis’. Regarding all these complex medical terms, what are we actually describing? Read More »
