The Effects of Chiropractic Care on Sports Performance: Mind
Over Body
Dr. Ryan Durand
During
my years as a professional athlete, I always wondered why I had a superstition
about getting chiropractic care before an event. I never kept tabs or logs on being adjusted
and how I performed in a successive game, but I always felt incomplete without
doing so. I do know that getting
adjusted was of great importance to me and once my career in the NFL was over I
became a chiropractor. In my curiosity
as a student and new graduating doctor I wanted to find out what it was that
made my body crave adjustments before competition.
My
search for answers to how chiropractic effects sports performance led me to the
book “The Reality Check” written by Dr. Heidi Haavik whom is a chiropractor and
neuroscientist. Like myself, Dr. Haavik was curious about what effects the
chiropractic adjustment had on the body. Going even further, what effects do the
chiropractic adjustments have on the brain. The brain, which is the master
controller of the entire body, dictates everything you do including the muscles
and the coordination of these muscles’ movement.
When it
comes to sports performance, all movements are coordinated by the brain. The higher learning center of the brain
(cortex) learns new movement patterns and creates reflexive movement patterns
(‘muscle memory’) in the cerebellum.
Communication to the tissues in the body (like muscle) occurs through
the spinal cord. The spinal cord is a
super highway for nerve communication from the brain to the body which is
housed within the spine. The primary function of the spine is movement and
protection of the spinal cord. When the
spine is not able to move properly, the ability of the brain to sense its
environment is inhibited and higher cognitive demands like coordination of movement
are inhibited. That is the short version
of why we are interested in treating the spine.
Dr.
Havvik makes a beautiful analogy to help explain how decreased spinal movement
effects the ability of the brain to control the body. Imagine you have lived in a house all your
life and at the end of a long hallway is your circuit breaker. One night the power goes out and having lived
in that house all your life, you are easily able to walk down that long hall in
the pitch black and reset the circuits. How
would you fare if your child put a toy bicycle in the hall without you
knowing? Would you make it to the
circuit box without tripping? Eventually
you would make it and turn on the power back on, but not without the high
probability of tripping over the unknown obstacle. This is the analogy Dr.
Haavik used to describe how a spinal fixation can be like a toy bike that the
brain trips over because it cannot see down the hallway and assumes that
nothing is blocking the path (1).
The brain is always analyzing data
about our environment. It utilizes our
five senses and the proprioceptors found throughout our body (mainly in
muscles) and makes determinations based upon this information concerning our
body’s current state. There are very
small paraspinal muscles located around the spine that are known to be loaded
with proprioceptors. These receptors are
providing constant data to the brain about our body’s position. The spine is like the rudder of the brain; it
allows the brain to sense where the body is in space. A portion of the proprioceptors located in
the muscles are called spindle cells which detect muscular stretch; Dr. Havvik
refers to them as “The eyes of the brain” (1). When an area of the spine is
immobile, the muscle spindles found within those local paraspinal muscles are
not able to communicate to the brain.
The brain is blind to the spatial orientation in that area of the spine.
Instead of shutting down, the brain will fill in the missing information the
same way the brain does for our visual blind spot. Every person has a blind
spot in their vision where the optic nerve enters the eye. We do not notice this blind spot because the
brain fills in the missing visual information from input of the other eye and
using assumptions based upon the environment. This can not be prevented but
spinal fixation and immobility can. When there is fixation in the spine the
brain is unable to receive 100% accurate data. Also, these spinal paraspinal muscles contain
many pain sensors and can get triggered when there is spinal fixation (1).
The research in this book also
points to how chiropractic care can positively affect the strength of muscular
contractions, improve balance, prevent injury, reduce pain, etc (2-5). I recommend those who are curious about this
topic to check out “The Reality Check” by Dr. Heidi Haavik. People that experience chiropractic care know
that it works and experience ‘miracles’ every day. There is still so much for the medical
community to discover about how the brain works and how chiropractic care can
affect the nervous system. Research is
still being conducted as we speak and hopefully more light can be shed on how
chiropractic care can allow the brain to function optimally pushing the body to
perform at peak levels.
1)
Haavik, Heidi. The Reality Check. Haavik
Research: 2014
2)
Hawk, Pfefer, et. Al, “Feasibility Study of
Short-term Effects of Chiropractic Care In Older Adults with Impaired Balance.”
Journal of Chiropractic Medicine. Dec 2007; 6(4):121-131.
3)
Hillermann, Gomes et. Al, “A Pilot Study
Comparing the Effects of spinal Manipulative Therapy with Those of Extra-spinal
Manipulative Therapy on Quadriceps Muscle Strength.” Journal of Manipulative
Phisological Therapeutics. Feb 2006;30(23):2614-2620.
4)
Qaseem, Amir, et. Al, “Noninvasive Treatments
for Acute, Subacute, and Chronic Low Back Pain: A Clinical Practice Guideline
From the American College of Physicians.” Clinical Guidelines Committee of the American College of Physicians.
Apr 2017.
5)
Suter, McMorland, et. Al, “Decrease in
Quadriceps Imbibition After Sacroiliac Joint Manipulation in Patients With
Anterior Knee Pain.” Journal or
manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics. 1999; 22(3): 149-153.
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