Madison AL Chiropractors Tell You How to Put a Spring Back in Your Step

By: Dr. Justin Walbom, DC and Dr. Greg Millar, DC CCEP
Millar Chiropractic - Madison Al

Regular Chiropractic Care and Freedom of Motion

Efficient and effective mobility is key to good spinal health and good health overall. Spinal mobility depends on interactions between adjacent vertebras, a complex array of small and large muscles, and ligaments that bind the vertebras together. Nerve irritation and soft tissue inflammation may disrupt the smooth biomechanics of normal spinal motion. Left uncorrected nerve irritation and soft tissue inflammation result in a vicious cycle of increasing biomechanical dysfunction, further loss of freedom of motion, and increasing pain. According to Dr. Greg Millar and Dr. Justin Walbom of Millar Chiropractic Clinics in Madison, Alabama, regular chiropractic care helps restore spinal mobility by focusing on the causes of biomechanical dysfunction. By analyzing sources of nerve interference and correcting spinal misalignments, regular chiropractic care optimizes spinal activities such as efficient mobility and weight-bearing. The resulting increased function reduces soft tissue inflammation and pain. Thus, regular chiropractic care helps reduce physiological stress. The overall benefits include improved freedom of motion, freedom of choice, and freedom of action.

We all know people who are light on their feet. Fred Astaire comes immediately to mind, as do tennis star Andy Roddick, the great Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter, and WNBA star Candace Parker. Closer to home, we may recognize similar combinations of grace and athleticism in a family member or friend. We may believe that such qualities are inborn and represent natural abilities. But each of us can develop comparable qualities of fluidity and ease of motion. We may not achieve the skill levels possessed by professional athletes, but we can acquire improved posture, greater balance, and heightened skills in day-to-day tasks requiring dexterity and coordination. In other words, we can all develop a spring in our step.

Such a springiness and lightness are the direct result of efficient biomechanical functioning of the spinal column and weight-bearing bones and joints including the pelvis and hips, knees, and ankles. Such efficient biomechanical functioning is innate, but these abilities are gradually lost as we grow up, encounter the stresses of life, and become more and more sedentary. Over time, our musculoskeletal system loses flexibility, dynamism, quickness, and the ability to respond to sudden changes in the environment. The overall result is an impression of stiffness and heaviness. Gracefulness is lost as soon as physical motion becomes conscious and planned, rather than instinctive and spontaneous. But these losses are not necessarily the inevitable accompaniment to growing up and getting older. The good news is that such lightness can be recovered. We can restore that spring to our step and, in fact, learn to turn back the clock.

The great benefit is that the processes involved in reacquiring gracefulness, lightness, and springiness also lead directly to improved health and well-being. The primary action is to engage in regular, vigorous exercise. Any form of exercise, done consistently, will enhance biomechanical functioning. Your muscles learn how to dynamically support increasingly heavier loads against gravity. Proprioceptors, specialized nerve endings located in weight-bearing joints throughout the body, learn to rapidly respond to mechanical alterations in three-dimensional space. Your heart and lungs become more efficient as your body learns to adapt and respond to increasing physiological demands. You begin to lose weight as your daily desire for excess calories naturally decreases in response to a more physical lifestyle. In many ways, your body becomes much smarter and you soon find yourself noticing a certain ease, a certain economy of physical movement, as you go through your day.

The innate grace that begins to be recovered is the wellspring of the newfound spring in your step. As you continue to exercise and achieve your optimal weight, such physical ease perpetuates and becomes an integral component of your overall enhanced health and well-being.

Millar Chiropractic - Madison AL
1908 Slaughter Rd. 
Madison, Alabama 35758
(256) 430-2700
http://millarchiro.com/millarchiropractic-madisonal-chiropractor.html

1. Iorio JA, et al: Biomechanics of Degenerative Spinal Disorders. Asian Spine J 10(2):377-384, 2016
2. Du CF, et al: Biomechanical response of lumbar facet joints under follower preload: a finite element study. BMC Musculoskelet Disord. 2016 Mar 15;17(1):126. doi: 10.1186/s12891-016-0980-4
3.  Huang ZY, et al: The location of Modic changes in the lumbar spine: a meta-analysis. Eur Spine J. 2016 Feb 25. [Epub ahead of print]

Madison AL Chiropractors Tell You How to Take Care of Your Body

By: Dr. Justin Walbom, DC and Dr. Greg Millar, DC CCEP
Millar Chiropractic - Madison Al

Chiropractic Care and Total Health

You may have noticed that chiropractic care is extremely efficient. By addressing your spinal health and the health of your nerve system with chiropractic care, many of your body's other systems are also positively affected, indirectly. Your central nerve system - your brain and spinal cord - is your body's master system controlling every part of your body. Every other organ, tissue, and cell receives instructions on when and how to do its job from the nerve system, via spinal nerves and smaller nerve branches. Simply put, when your nerve system is not functioning properly your body as a whole will not function properly. You may have pain. You may have symptoms of specific diseases. It is important to address these symptoms. But to really correct the problem, it is also critically important to address possible causes which lie within the nerve system. Using gentle correction of spinal misalignments, chiropractic care helps optimize the functioning of your nerve system. A healthy nerve system helps ensure good health in your cardiopulmonary, gastrointestinal, and endocrine systems, as well as other body systems.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if you were born with an owner's manual for your body? Ideally you would find out the best ways to care for this most precious possession. By finding out how to use your body optimally, you could ensure a lifetime of maximum health and vitality and top performance. You could keep your originally perfect physical vehicle from systematically breaking down.

By developing the most effective practices and techniques now and making them a habit, you could be spared the common experience of many years of avoidable physical discomfort, which often also includes significant emotional/mental suffering.

The good news is that it's never too late to make an effort to improve and optimize your health. The sooner you begin, the quicker you will begin experiencing the rewards.

Imagine the table of contents of your body's owner's manual. What subjects would it cover? Ideally, the manual would cover the usual suspects - good posture, exercise, nutrition, and proper rest - four important requirements for health, that almost everyone knows about but hardly anyone actually puts into practice. One of the best things about having your body's own personal owner's manual would be that you'd automatically know what works best for your body without having to go through a long drawn out process of figuring out what works and what doesn't work. Even more importantly, you would have the knowledge and ability to take proper care of your body - keeping yourself healthy from the start rather than trying to regain your health.

What can a person do to reclaim and maintain their optimal health? Since people aren't born with an owner's manual, and most also never had coaches or teachers who are very knowledgeable, they usually just struggle along. Their posture gets progressively worse, their muscles get progressively tighter as they begin to experience joint problems, and eventually they start to notice various aches and pains that quickly become long-term and unrelenting.

Fortunately our bodies have amazing resilience and recuperative powers. Once we find someone who can guide us to improve our posture and participate in exercise that is appropriate for us, we begin to find that it really is possible to feel better.

A doctor of chiropractic is an excellent choice because these physicians are very familiar with the musculoskeletal system and natural health strategies, and are therefore a good choice to help you figure out the secrets to your own body. Dr. Greg Millar or Dr. Justin Walbom of Millar Chiropractic Clinics in Madison, Alabama can help you get all the benefits of having an owner's manual without having to suffer through the trial and error yourself.

Take posture for example.Dr. Greg and Dr. Justin can share with you the same secrets that most high level competitive athletes, dancers and gymnasts learn from coaches and other mentors. You can be taught about your center of gravity, and how to balance the majority of your weight over the front part of your feet rather than your heels. You can be taught to stand tall and straight without tensing your muscles. You can learn how to breathe deeply and freely - opening your chest while relaxing your chest muscles - so that your lungs can take in all the oxygen you need to function optimally. You can be taught to keep your shoulder muscles relaxed, as you sit with your spine lengthened and your and back and neck muscles relaxed. You can be taught to properly strengthen and engage your core abdominal muscles, to provide a strong foundation for your lower back and throughout all of your daily activities.

Our chiropractors at Millar Chiropractic Clinics are experts of the nerve and musculoskeletal systems, and has extensive knowledge of how your posture and the health and integrity of your spine affects how you feel, as well as what you need to do to take care of your precious body.

If you want to take the best care of your body, as if you had your own personal owner's manual, contact your Millar chiropractor and get started on the path to optimal health and wellness today!

Millar Chiropractic - Madison AL

1908 Slaughter Rd. 

Madison, Alabama 35758

(256) 430-2700

http://millarchiro.com/millarchiropractic-madisonal-chiropractor.html

1Vidal J, et al: Effects of Postural Education on Daily Habits in Children. Int J Sports Med March 4th, 2011 (Epub ahead of print)

2Eriksson MK, et al: Quality of life and cost-effectiveness of a 3-year trial of lifestyle intervention in primary health care. Arch Intern Med 170(16):1470, 1479, 2010

3Huffman DM: Exercise as a calorie restriction mimetic: implications for improving healthy aging and longevity. Interdiscip Top  Gerontol 37:157-174, 2010

Madison AL Chiropractors Talk About Spinal Decompression

By: Dr. Justin Walbom, DC and Dr. Greg Millar, DC CCEP
Millar Chiropractic - Madison Al

Chiropractic Care Can Help Improve Your Coordination, Balance and Flexibility

Coordination, balance and flexibility are innate human functions which give grace and beauty to our physical actions. Even if you are not a professional athlete, you can still enjoy functioning at the peak of your own individual capabilities. Dr. Greg Millar and Dr. Justin Walbom of Millar Chiropractic Clinics in Madison, Alabama say that chiropractic can help you achieve this by making sure that your central mechanism of coordination balance and flexibility (your spinal column and related musculature) is functioning at maximum efficiency. Chiropractic care can help you achieve your best performance - improving your overall health, enhancing your creativity and optimizing your physical abilities.

Your spinal column has intervertebral discs (IVDs) that make up a quarter of this segmented structure's entire length. That works out to a total combined height, of all your spinal discs, that is about six or seven inches. As time goes on, the IVDs start to lose more of their water content, causing the discs to shrink. This is usually one of the reasons people lose some height as they age.

The majority of jobs today require an abundance of sitting. For many jobs, workers sit virtually all day long, five days a week. When you're sitting or standing in an unchanging position, gravity bears down on your spine at a constant rate of 32 ft/s2. Over time, this unrelenting force will compress the spine making each disc thinner.

It is important to do what we can to reverse the trend of disc compression and expand our discs back up instead - restoring our spinal discs, improving our posture, and regaining any lost stature. We can do this by engaging in activities that decompress the spine and help restore fluids to our IVDs.

Yoga is one such activity that can provide a multitude of health benefits, which also includes decompressing the spine. When done correctly, all yoga postures create a lengthening effect in the spine, particularly when you make each posture active - focusing on lengthening the muscles of your core during each pose.

Even taking a yoga class just once each week can result in noticeable benefits, which often includes a sense of being taller. The spinal decompression that results from regular yoga practice will help increase your coordination, balance, and flexibility. Yoga can also be done easily in your own home. You will only need a small amount of space and a rubber mat to get started. Many people enjoy following along to specially produced yoga workouts on DVD. If you're just starting out, choose one that is designed for beginners, and be careful not to overdo it. Beginners will especially benefit from taking at least a few classes with a good teacher though, because they can correct your form and help you to learn how each posture is supposed to feel.  Regular, long-term yoga practice can be very beneficial, especially to your spine.

As wonderful as yoga practice can be though, it is not for everyone. If you already have a significant amount of disc compression and are having any neck or back pain, or pain radiating into any of your extremities, it is vital to have a full chiropractic evaluation first.  If you have a herniated disc or other significant spinal problems, your doctor may recommend a sequence of decompression traction, which is very effective in helping to restore the compressed and herniated discs in many cases.

Millar Chiropractic - Madison AL
1908 Slaughter Rd. 
Madison, Alabama 35758
(256) 430-2700
http://millarchiro.com/millarchiropractic-madisonal-chiropractor.html

1Jeng CM, et al: Yoga and disc degenerative disease in cervical and lumbar spine: an MR imaging-based case control study. Eur J Spine 20(3):408-413, 2011

2Williams K, et al: Evaluation of the effectiveness and efficacy of Iyengar yoga therapy on chronic low back pain. Spine 34(19):2066-2076, 2009