Posts Tagged ‘chiropractic’
Promote Spinal Balance with a Walk
Walking your way to a more healthy life is not as far-fetched as it might feel. During a busy workweek, it is easy to get stuck in a routine that looks, at its most abstracted form, like: waking up àcommuting à working à relaxing on the couch à and back to bed, with allowances for eating. Often there is not enough time or motivation to make it to the gym; this is where a quick walk can rescue your spine on a lazy night. Taking 30 minutes out of an evening and dedicating them to a walk makes all the difference in the world: it gets your joints moving, muscles and bones strengthening, and circulation flowing. For people with back pain, the boon can be even greater. Here are some of the cut and dried benefits of a walk:
- Reduces back pain: mild endorphin release helps manage pain.
- Helps manage weight: body weight is the number one factor that burdens adult spines.
- Increases range of motion: by allowing the spinal joints to move, simultaneously making you more resistant to injury.
- Improves circulation: possibly the property that helps the most people. Walking allows your blood to get flowing throughout the entire body, bringing oxygen and nutrients to cells who have been suffering from stagnation on the couch.
Finding the time or initiating the desire to walk daily is often difficult when you are at the mercy of life’s many engagements. At Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture of Park Slope, we can help you make minor lifestyle adjustments that will compliment our chiropractic and acupuncture treatments on the path to achieving any health goal you have set for yourself. Call our office in Brooklyn at (718) 398-3100 to schedule an appointment today.
Dr. Karen Thomas, D.C., L.Ac.
Acupuncture for Fitness (Part 2)
The benefits of acupuncture seem to be almost as far-reaching as the time it has endured as a healing procedure. For fitness fanatics, acupuncture has a wealth of benefits. By boosting your psychological well-being, you will perform better in the gym. After just one session, people experience reduced stress and anxiety, catharsis and general sense of well-being. In fact, the more you work out the more you can get out of acupuncture. Here are some of the other benefits:
- Muscle and joint injury rehabilitation: re-oxygenating tissues, reducing inflammation.
- Improved stamina: improving circulation generally means you will see a boost in your energy at the gym.
- Weight loss: curbing hunger, improving digestive efficiency and allowing the body to burn more fat.
- Muscle relaxation: provides a way for your muscles to recover and grow in the wake of exertion.
Acupuncture is an integral piece of our holistic approach to health at Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture of Park Slope. No one piece will be the magic ingredient by itself; instead, we would like to put all of our modalities at your disposal as part of a healthy lifestyle. No matter what your affliction or idea for self-improvement, we have tools to help. Call our office in Park Slope at (718) 398-3100
Dr. Karen Thomas, D.C., L.Ac.
Acupuncture for Fitness
Muscle and joint pain is a regular side-occurrence of athletic performance. This pain could begin as a byproduct of aging, derive from a genetic inheritance or result from a direct injury; no athlete wants to be sidelined by a limited muscle or joint. Acupuncture is a direct and natural method that gets to the root of the injury: thin needles are strategically entered along anatomical pathways of the body, creating micro-wounds that the body is quick to heal. In the process, the body focuses on healing the surrounding area by reducing inflammation and re-oxygenating the tissue. The endorphins that are naturally released help control pain and regulate the nervous system.
At Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture, we know that the body relies on a balance between exertion and rest to grow effectively. A key pathway to injury is by over exerting yourself without the proper rest or nutrition. If you have overdone yourself, acupuncture is a great therapy for speeding the recovery of torn muscles or worn down joints. The body’s natural healing ability is boosted by acupuncture needling because it promotes circulation and blood flow.
For athletes of all ages looking to maximize their physical potential, acupuncture offers an advantage that is too good to ignore. If you are interested in finding out more about the potential of acupuncture for your athletic routine, call our office in Park Slope at (718) 398-3100 to schedule an appointment today.
Dr. Karen Thomas, D.C.
Fitness Planning
At Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture, we practice holistic care that benefits you for an entire lifetime. Because our practice focuses on the nervous system and the biomechanics of the human body, our treatment has wide-reaching implications in overall health.
Here is a table that lists common patient goals along with lifestyle considerations that directly impact this goal.
| Your Goal | Your lifestyle |
| Pain relief | Posture, repetitive stress or direct trauma, degenerative injuries, workplace ergonomics |
| Healthy aging | Weight, mobility, healthy joints, level of activity, stiff joints |
| Improved range of motion | Stretching, posture, workplace ergonomics |
| Strengthening, muscle building and athletic performance | Weight lifting, nutrition, overtraining, lung mechanics |
| Weight loss | Exercise, nutrition |
| Something else | All of the above |
Chiropractic and acupuncture are powerful forms of treatment that can help you achieve any personal health goal that you have set. But we cannot begin to create a personal fitness plan until we have conversed regarding your specific history and your thoughts regarding the outcome of a fitness plan. Along with all of the lifestyle considerations above comes a good dose of awareness: this is the first ingredient of change.
Call our office in Park Slope at (718) 398-3100 to schedule an appointment and begin creating a plan for a future you, full of health.
Dr. Karen Thomas, D.C., L.Ac.
Exercise and Chiropractic
Perhaps in response to what has been deemed an obesity epidemic, America has become serious about getting fit. There is more information and misinformation than ever in regards to what makes you fitter or happier.
At Park Slope Chiropractic, we use exercise to help patients manage back pain and boost their well-being. Cardiovascular and strength building exercises synergize with chiropractic care to relieve pain, repair injury and make your body more resilient moving forward.
For patients suffering from low-back pain, we utilize flexion and extension stretches and exercises that help lengthen restrictive muscles and restore flexibility to stiff regions. Core muscles are very important to support the lower back: pelvic stabilizing muscles, adductors (tendons that connect thigh to pubic bone) and the abdominals are all muscles that we promote for strengthening. We also want you to be aware of your thoracic vertebrae (encompassing shoulders and chest) and their role in movement. Learning to use the thoracic region properly can relieve much of the burden of movement from the lumbar region.
Aerobic exercise is another great supplement to chiropractic care: leaving the couch behind and going for a brisk walk has innumerable benefits including keeping muscles toned and promoting circulation.
Call our office in Park Slope at (718) 398-3100 to schedule an appointment and find out how you can start using your body’s full mechanical advantage.
Dr. Karen Thomas, D.C., L.Ac.
Overtraining as a Syndrome
Listen to your body! In all aspects of life, your body’s internal monitor can be an ally or foe in your quest for health. It is always a good metric for athletic endeavor: getting in tune with your limits is important.
Your body will send sublte warning signals when you are approaching the brink of overtraining, and you should definitely know when you have overdone it. But overtraining is a syndrome: it goes against our nature to stop working out just because our body feels strained. After all, how are you supposed to build more muscle or endurance if you can’t keep going?
But at a certain point, more work stops equaling more reward. Injury and sickness accrue when you keep pushing past these warning signs.
Here are sure signs that you’ve overdone it in the gym:
- Chronic fatigue
- Depression
- Underperformance
- Aches and pains
- Feeling drained after a usually productive workout
- Personality and mood changes
- Loss of concentration
Many of these symptoms can be traced back to nervous system imbalances, which may be aggravated by too much physical stress and not enough rest. So take a day or week, if need be, off weights. Switch to light cardiovascular exercise and give your body a chance to catch up. Rest and ingest healthful ingredients and plenty of hydration and before you know it you will be back in the gym performing at an even higher level.
At Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture, we specialize in helping people get in tune with their bodies to maximize their health. Call our office in Park Slope at (718) 398-3100 to schedule an appointment today.
Dr. Karen Thomas, D.C., L.A.C.
Overtraining
At Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture, we want to encourage athletes of all disciplines to train smarter if they are going to train harder. The science and study of strength training has evolved immensely as more and more money is pumped into professional sports, creating a windfall of information for those of us who are happy to play at our own level. We can help you identify exercises and habits that may be actually working against your attempts to build muscle and endurance.
At our office in Park Slope, we want athletes to be aware of the pitfall of overtraining: when muscles are not given enough time or nutrition to rebuild after vigorous exercise.
Overtraining is a great way to injure yourself and it is entirely avoidable. With the proper attention to hydration, nutrition and rest, you will enter the gym refreshed and inspired rather than tired and ragged. This will in turn, allow you to get the most out of your exercise. For many people, a simple conversation is all it takes to catalyze an entire program of health and efficient muscle building.
Rather than fearing injury, we want you to be confident that your biomechanics are in solid order when you perform your first deadlift, which is incidentally, when performed properly, quite a good exercise for lower back strengthening. We monitor, identify and correct muscular imbalances that could be setting you up for a muscle tear if you push yourself too hard.
Call our office in Brooklyn at (718) 398-3100 to schedule an appointment today.
Dr. Karen A. Thomas, D.C. L.Ac.
Muscle Building
Make the most out of every muscle building movement by ensuring the health of your spine and nervous system.
Muscle building begins when motor neurons send a signal to a muscle telling it to contract. The easier your brain can activate the muscle contraction, the quicker you will build muscle. This means that ensuring the nerve pathways are clear of interference is a key to muscle building. Therefore, subluxations are extremely counterproductive for a person attempting to gain muscle. Chiropractic adjustment corrects these misalignments, ensuring that your brain can activate the muscles without interference.
Overtraining is also counterproductive: weight lifting for too many reps, or at too high a weight can cause joint sprain, muscle spasm and tissue damage. If you have pushed the envelope too far, we offer rehabilitation modalities that will speed blood flow to the injured area, helping it to heal quicker with oxygen and other nutrients.
Chiropractic care provides the assistance athletes need to excel. At Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture, we want you to get the most out of every lift while contributing to an overall body of health.
Call our office in Park Slope at (718) 398-3100 today. Together, we can institute a combination of strengthening, stretching, eating and chiropractic to ensure your overall health.
Dr. Karen Thomas, D.C. L.Ac.
Improving Athletic Performance
Athletes regularly demand their bodies perform above and beyond the standard call of duty. The difference between a split second on either side of your personal best can often be determined by the tiniest intangible: in this world of fine margins, chiropractic gives you the edge every time.
Simply regulating the nervous system is the most tangible benefit we have to offer: if spinal nerves are pressurized due to subluxation, the brain and body suffer communication breakdown, a condition which can affect all of your anatomical systems, including the ones most often used in athletic endeavor: the respiratory, cardiovascular and muscular systems. Here are some ways that we boost athletic performance from our office at Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture:
- Increase lung capacity and breathe more efficiently. We offer advice on proper breathing techniques to make sure you are getting the most out of every breath. If subluxation is impinging on nerves that power the breathing muscles, we correct this situation to be sure you can breathe effectively.
- Enhance muscle tone by improving blood flow with trigger point therapy and massage.
- Build muscle more efficiently: when the body is misaligned, muscles contract and release over a shorter or longer meridian, meaning you may not be getting the most out of every lift or muscle building movement.
Another huge benefit of chiropractic is keeping the body flexible and resistant to injury. When you kick a ball, swing a club, or slam-dunk a basketball, muscles are strained; the level that they can be strained without incurring damage is an important factor in determining your success and enjoyment of sport.
Call our office in Brooklyn at(718) 398-3100.
Dr. Karen Thomas, D.C
Eating to Alleviate Allergies
Brooklyn is alight with airborne allergens. If your airways are inflamed, nose running and raw, you may be looking for any little trick to manage your allergies. Consider the simplest trick of all: nutrition. Augment acupuncture and chiropractic treatment of your allergies by eating the right ingredients to stay above the weather during this beautiful season. High quality, high-power ingredients provide your body with two key ways of fighting allergies: preventing and lowering inflammation, and regulating the immune system.
Here are some great ways to get started:
Vitamin C comes in at the top of the list, for its role in helping antibody production and antihistamine action. Be sure to eat plenty of citrus fruits, bell peppers and leafy greens. Maximize Vitamin C’s effect by consuming the minerals Sulfur and Selenium, by eating nuts, fish and seeds.
Eat fish. Omega-3 fatty acids, found in high concentrations, particularly in salmon and halibut, as well as nut oils, are strong, natural anti-inflammatories.
Consume Calcium and Magnesium, complementary alkaline minerals. Calcium reduces histamine production. When magnesium levels are low, allergies are high.
Cut down on sugar: even little doses can suppress your immune system, an effect that can last for up to 5 hours, leaving you at the mercy of high allergy season.
At Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture, we want to be your first line of defense against allergies. Call our office at (718) 398-3100 to find out how our services and expertise can help you reduce symptoms and your dependence on allergy medication.