Summertime is here! It is time to open your pool and if you have back pain there is nothing better. Water therapy can provide a lot of benefits to ease the pain. Being in the water strengthens and stabilizes your back, decreases pain, and increases joint range of motion.

Here are five great pool exercises to ease back pain:

1. Knee-to-Chest: Stand on your right leg with your knee slightly bent and hold on to the side of the pool with your right hand for support. Bend your left knee and raise your left leg up until your knee reaches your chest. Lower it back down. Complete five reps and then switch sides.
2. Sideways Walking: Face the pool wall (you can hold on if you need) with your feet and toes facing straight ahead. Take about 15 steps to one side and then 15 steps back. Repeat once or twice more.
3. Leg raises: This movement is performed with one leg outstretched and the supporting leg slightly bent while one hand holds onto the side of the pool. It strengthens and stretches the muscles in the leg, hip, and lower back.
4. Water Walking: Once you’re in the water, start by simply walking around the pool, feeling the tug of the water. Take long strides both forward and backward, starting in the shallow end and graduating to chest-high water. Be sure to keep your spine straight and torso stable while swinging your arms.
5. Kickboard balance: Sit on a kickboard or swim bar (a long flotation dumbbell) and balance yourself. Try to keep your spine in a straight line and engage your abdominals. Your legs should be resting naturally; your arms can be raised out to your sides, or your hands can be on your hips or gently holding the ends of the kick board. Hold for 60 seconds. You can also try kneeling on the board for a greater challenge.

Be sure to use proper techniques. Your main goal should be strengthening your core, which will help protect your back and improve your posture and balance. Water therapy is fun and it buoys the spirit!

Start your day with stretches and have more energy throughout the rest of the day. This blog post is for you. Life can be hectic at times, so it’s important to take time out for yourself and do something that will benefit your body.

Stretching first thing every morning can relieve any tension, stiffness, or pain from sleeping the night before, Stretching could help you to relax, increase your flexibility, reduce lower back pain, and help to manage some other health conditions.

If you don’t stretch each morning your body gets cold, and your muscles tighten up. This can cause your muscles to pull on your joints and trigger pain and discomfort. With a daily regimen, you can expect lasting improvement in flexibility.

Stretching can improve posture, improve range of motion, prevent injury and decrease muscle soreness.

Your muscles lose tone and fluid tends to pool along your back when you sleep. It helps to massage the fluid gently back to normal. Your muscles protect themselves from over-extension by inhibiting the nerve impulses as they approach their limit.

Finding enough energy to make it through the day can sometimes be hard to do. Stretching in the morning helps give you energy and will support that energy throughout the day as it prevents feelings of tiredness.

There are lots of stretches you can do that actually help you wake up.  It can be planks, moving knees from side to side, pelvic lifts, and even yoga.  Take it slow. When you just wake up if you overdo it you can cause injury. It only takes minutes a day to stretch and you feel better all the way around! Wake up, stretch, maintain your energy for the day to come.

There's a lot of chiropractic care benefits you'll receive by seeing a chiropractor.

Chiropractic may appear to be designed only for people with injuries or chronic back or extremity pain. While this is correct, its benefits extend to other areas of health. In this way, chiropractic care can be enjoyed by people with generalized pain such as fibromyalgia or by people who suffer from dizziness, vertigo, headaches or migraines, instability, back pain, etc. But chiropractic is not just a momentary remedy to relieve pain or discomfort. If we talk about prevention, chiropractic gives a boost of nerve impulses to our body to get it to intensify its activity in those parts that had lost their constancy, thus avoiding future health problems. In addition, chiropractic is potentially indicated for pregnant women helping the correct positioning and fitting of the baby, as well as for newborns and children increasing their defenses with chiropractic adjustments at an early age, since it helps fortify the immune system.

The older population also benefits from chiropractic care since it provides greater mobility to their joints. This is why the elderly patients who have followed regular chiropractic care have a more dignified old age in regards to the quality of life as it pertains to mobility, physical and mental agility, reduction of inflammatory processes, reduction of pain, etc.

From another perspective, it should be noted that chiropractic is increasingly recognized and used among athletes. When we practice sports, a fundamental point is that our muscles are in good shape and good tone to help us prevent injuries. With the vertebral adjustments, we get our muscles to receive the right information from the brain at the right time, thus giving us the right dose of strength and endurance in our workouts. In addition, by improving the functioning of our joints, we decrease the chance of getting injured and speed up the recovery time for any injury. Chiropractic treatment provides greater agility, flexibility, strength, endurance and there are even athletes who have improved their records after starting chiropractic care.

Other Chiropractic Care Benefits:

1. Promotes natural healing: The basis of chiropractic is that it enhances the body's own healing capacity. Any vertebral misalignment can influence the deterioration of the body because our body cannot receive the necessary nerve impulse to continue its proper functioning. By receiving vertebral adjustments, the homeostasis or self-regulation of our body is reinforced and improved, which leads to a better functioning of the body at all levels, avoiding the abusive intake of medication.
2. Increases flexibility and mobility to the joints: Chiropractic adjustments improve the range of motion of our joints, thus promoting our physical activity. This helps reduce sedentary lifestyles and keep us more active. Exercise or physical activity helps improve people's quality of life.
3. Improves posture: If our posture is adequate, our breathing patterns will also improve helping us to maintain the energy that flows throughout our body. In turn, this helps us reduce the risk of back pain, joint problems, and fatigue.
4. Decreases stress levels: Chiropractic care improves the functioning of the nervous system. This, by itself, helps to lessen the effects of stress. If a person's nervous system is not working properly, this can increase doses of stress which, in turn, trigger migraines, headaches, instability, joint pain and anxiety.
5. Decreases blood pressure: High blood pressure can be the cause or contribute to a number of health problems or diseases. By improving the flow of nerve impulses, the flow of energy through the body is also improved, which in many cases leads to a natural reduction in blood pressure, preventing the person from having to draw on medications to improve their condition of health.

Do you know what to expect when visiting a chiropractic office for the first time? We’ll walk through the process and answer any questions you may have. The most important thing is that it’s important to be open-minded about your visit, as we want you to feel safe and comfortable.

First Visit to a Chiropractic Office

During your first visit to a chiropractic office, the doctor will perform a medical history intake and then a physical exam will be carried out. It is important that when taking your medical history you mention all the details about your condition in order to determine your state of health based on the deteriorations that may be present, the activities that you stopped doing due to your condition, and how this affects you in your daily life. It is important to mention that in the case of detecting a health problem that cannot be solved by your chiropractor, you will be referred to a different specialist. After the history intake, a physical examination will be performed. This exam consists of mobility tests, orthopedic exams, functional evaluation, and neurological evaluation. Then an x-ray of the affected region will be taken to rule out any fracture or pathology as well as to quantify the extent of any potential spinal misalignment. Finally, the treatment plan along with its objectives will be determined. It should be noted that each treatment plan is different and unique according to each individual patient’s needs. The duration of the treatments is usually three to five months, depending on how compliant the patient is with the treatment and how the body responds to it.

Neck and lower back pain are two of the most common conditions treated by chiropractors after an accident or fall. These can be due to either an injury, herniated vertebral discs, poor posture, muscular tension, or vertebrae out of place causing irritation to the nerves (radiculopathy). It is important to know that it is possible to have cervical (neck) or lumbar (lower back) radiculopathy without experiencing any pain in the area. The symptoms of radiculopathy are sensory problems such as the sensation of tingling or numbness, and motor problems such as lack of coordination, muscle weakness, and loss of reflexes in the arms. With cervical radiculopathy, the symptoms can spread to the shoulders, arms, or hands, while lumbar radiculopathy can produce similar symptoms that can spread to the back of the thigh, calf, and into the bottom of the foot. The most common treatment for neck and lower back pain is manual manipulation performed by the chiropractor either with the hands or with specific instruments. Manual manipulation consists of moving a joint back to its normal place in the affected region thereby reducing nerve irritation and stimulating proper motion. The specific name of this manipulation is called chiropractic adjustment. A chiropractic adjustment is a subtle, specific movement and it does not cause any pain. If the pain is due to muscle tension, a fall, or an accident, in addition to the chiropractic adjustment, a chiropractor can utilize physical therapy techniques such as hot/cold packs, laser, electrical muscle stimulation and/or ultrasound in order to accelerate healing and reduce pain. The chiropractor may also use mobility and stretching exercises to speed your recovery. Spinal decompression is also used for lower back pain. Non-surgical spinal decompression therapy consists of separating the vertebrae of the spine in an intermittent and controlled manner using a traction table. This process reduces pressure on the spinal disc, thus on irritated nerves, and promotes the passage of nutrients into the disc to promote a better recovery environment and decrease pain.

At the end of the treatment plan, patients are advised to remain under chiropractic care as a preventive method for other injuries or deterioration of the musculoskeletal system. It should be noted that the frequency of chiropractic wellness care is less than that of injury treatment and has many benefits for general health. Atlas Total Health Chiropractic invites you to seek treatment for your injury and to maintain a healthy lifestyle after your recovery. Call us today at (866) 668-0108.

The importance of chiropractic care after a car accident cannot be overstated. After you have been in an auto collision, the likelihood is that your neck and back are hurting badly. Chiropractors can help work out all those kinks in order for you to get on with your life again. You'll avoid driving around with that constant tension headache or the stabbing pain shooting down your arm. Instead, you will experience relief from chronic pain as well as regain flexibility and range of motion. There's no reason to suffer any longer when it doesn't have to be this way.

Chiropractic is a field of health that deals with the diagnosis, care, and prevention of musculoskeletal conditions and the effects these disorders produce on the function of the nervous system and health in general. The nervous system is directly related to the performance and health of the body in general, therefore a better functioning of it will provide you with a better quality of life and a better state of health. The nervous system is the communication between the brain and the body. The nerves go through the vertebrae of the spine to all the organs and tissues of the body. Sometimes we are not able to adapt to the physical and emotional stress that our body constantly experiences and this results in muscular tension that in turn displaces the vertebrae out of place and causes irritation to the nerves that pass through them. This irritation not only causes pain, but also influences the normal functioning of other body systems, and consequently health.

Now, let's talk about how a car accident can affect general health. After a car accident, the pain and discomfort may not manifest immediately, which is why regardless of how insignificant you may think the accident was, it is a must to consult with a health professional. The force of the impact that causes an accident can cause, among other things, a lot of stress in the neck, shoulders, and back area. One of the most common injuries in car accidents is known as a whiplash injury. Whiplash is a neck injury caused by rapid back-and-forth movement of the neck. This forced movement causes the muscles and ligaments in that area to tense and cause pain in the neck, shoulders, arms and even the head. Many people believe that they do not suffer any damage after an accident because the injuries are not visible to the naked eye but if an injury is left untreated, not only does it delay the treatment that you will inevitably have to take, but it can lead to future complications that can greatly challenge your everyday life. Visiting a chiropractor quickly after a car accident is essential to diagnose the presence of any injuries and begin treatment to restore the individual's original health.

Chiropractic care is a non-invasive form of alternative treatment used to treat a wide variety of injuries. Chiropractic treatment consists of spinal adjustments, manipulations of the extremities, and spinal decompression to relieve pressure on the nerves. Many chiropractors also use physical therapy to speed up the rehabilitation process. The most used physical therapy modalities are hot /cold packs, electrical muscle stimulation, ultrasound, laser, as well as strengthening and stretching exercises to restore the functioning of the muscles. Such treatments help reduce irritation and swelling around the tissues in the affected area and can also restore strength, mobility, flexibility, and optimal functioning of the nervous system, eliminating symptoms and improving general function and health.

You should visit a chiropractor of Atlas Total Health Chiropractic if you experience symptoms such as headache, back pain, neck, shoulder, and arm pain, stiffness, numbness, and tingling, ringing in the ear, blurred vision, or unexplained dizziness. A chiropractor can effectively evaluate these health problems and determine the presence of an underlying injury or illness, which could be the cause of the symptoms. Remember that every time the body is in a car accident, the spine and spinal cord receive most of the impact and trauma. Call us today at (866) 668-0108.