Not all exercises are created equally.

All you have to do is Google “back exercise” to see what typical back exercise is. What you will find are exercise that are down on the floor, using balls or bands, some variation of planks, or weight lifting maneuvers like deadlifts and kettle bell swings. Why would any one pay top dollar (or have their insurance company pay top dollar, which is partly why we have such high insurance costs) for exercise people have been doing for years and you can get for free in the internet?

More importantly, those “old school” directions don’t do much to truly restore functional health after pain or injury — especially when it comes to the spine.

What research has confirmed clearly is that pain essentially “shocks” the nervous system, resulting in altered movement pathways and weakness. Back and neck pain more specially cause deep core muscle weakness in as little as 3 days of back pain. These weaknesses have been shown to contribute to poor movement control, spine structural loading, and recurrent pain. There’s nothing good about that!

Better pain and injury recovery require more targeted functional conditioning to overcome the hidden longer-term effects of pain and injury that cause future problems and pain recurrence.

Other issues to know about better exercise.

When it comes to spine and core conditioning, the better pathway is through “new school” strategies using dynamic force control and natural muscle integration. This requires more knowledgable steps to truly hit the mark, and also requires progressive challenge and consistency. The one real way to ensure consistency is to engage better exercise as part of a home care program.

Sadly, most typical exercise being given to patients in chiropractic and physical therapy care is limited to “old school” approaches where benefits drop off quickly. There are also patients who are not given anything at all in the way of therapeutic exercise and self-care, but instead told to just keep composing back for treatment.

Spine and core functional fitness has also been shown to help painful extremity condition (hip and knee pain, foot pain, shoulder pain, etc), and help reduce future injury risk.

We are your functional rehabilitation chiropractor in Tacoma.

At Proactive Spine Care, we specialize in leading-edge, research-supported, “new school” exercise and active care recommendations, which engage the nervous system for brain-body training, engage the core properly, create optimal progressive challenges, and transfer to meaningful and convenient home care programs to help put you in better control of your own personal health and fitness. This helps reduce overall care costs, and help free you from recurrent pain and escalating care needs.

About deep spine/core weakness, low back pain, and progressive back problems.

For well over 20 years, clinical research recognized that back pain is strongly associated with the state of functional health in the spine – which includes the functional health of the deep musculature (known as multifidus, rotators, and transversarii muscles) that control and stabilize force and movement around the discs, joints, and nerves. This controls strain and stresss imposed on spinal tissues. Back pain has been shown to cause rapid atrophy of these deep spine/core muscles, with muscle tissue getting replaced by fatty tissue (fatty infiltration). This does not return to normal when pain resolves. Deep muscles have to be reactivated, reengaged, and reconditioning with specific exercise protocols. Sadly, deep spine and core muscle atrophy is often missed or improperly addressed in routine traditional care. Deep spine weakness has been linked to recurrent pain, disc problems, spinal arthritis, spinal stenosis, sciatica, and even spinal osteoporosis compression fractures.

Take note: deep spine/core muscle weakness often remain hidden, much like atherosclerosis in heart arteries, and missed by inadequately trained doctors, therapists, and radiologists. What is not identified remains problematic, and contributes to poor outcomes.

At ProActive Spine Care, we fully understanding the importance of restoring functional spinal health – both to control and speed recovery of recurrent pain, and to help longer-term functional health. We utilized specific testing for deep spine/core muscle health, and specific protocols to maximize training results. Dr. McMillin has been researching, developing, pioneering, and teaching spine and core functional health protocols, including targeting deep spine muscle health.