Chiropractic Rehabilitation

Chiropractic rehabilitation is used for a variety of purposes. It can be an intensive therapy program for anyone who has experienced an injury, or it can prevent an individual from sustaining an injury or reinjuring the same joint or muscle over and over.

What It Is

Chiropractic rehabilitation is a term that many people are not familiar with. It is a specialized service that we offer at Family Chiropractic Plus that combines spinal manipulation with other treatments that will work together to reduce and even eliminate pain.

Different than therapeutic massage, it focuses on movement and self-massage techniques that keep your muscles, connective tissues and joints working properly. The therapists and chiropractors at Family Chiropractic Plus employ several tools and techniques to carry out chiropractic rehabilitation.

01

Manual Adjustment

Of course spinal manipulation will be a part of your chiropractic rehabilitation! Depending on the severity of your condition, we will recommend spinal adjustments to be done a few times a week, weekly or monthly to correct any alignment issues in your back. Chiropractic rehabilitation is intensive treatment for people who have been suffering with back or joint pain for a long time. These patients often want to avoid surgery and medications, and they are willing to adopt a new physical routine to achieve the results they want. Adjustments are the biggest part of chiropractic rehabilitation, but they are supplemented very well by the practices below.

02

Foam Rollers and Massage Balls

These are amazing tools in the world of chiropractic rehabilitation. They allow patients to perform self-massage any time they feel tightness developing in a particular area. Practically any area of the body can be massaged using these therapy tools, without the assistance of another person. These practices can be done at home every day. Muscle flexibility is important, but foam rollers and massage balls take it one step further. They work on the myofascial tissue, which exists between the skin and muscle tissue and which connects muscles to one another. Myofascial tissue can tighten just like muscles, and it can cause you to feel pain or sustain an injury. Incorporating these tools into your chiropractic rehabilitation will help keep this tissue flexible.

03

Stretches

Chiropractic rehabilitation will also focus stretches on specific muscle groups that are giving you problems. Most people don’t know the proper way to stretch, so we will detail this process for you in order for you to get the maximum benefits from your stretching routine. For example, did you know that it sometimes takes 1 to 2 minutes for a stretch to actually relax and lengthen the muscle? Chiropractic rehabilitation is much more than simply touching your toes and reaching to the sky once or twice! Many times, patients need to combine the use of their foam roller with stretching in order to relax the muscles completely. A stretch cannot be effective if the muscle stays tense the entire time. And as we know, tight muscles can lead to back pain and injury.

04

Strengthening Exercises

Just like with physical therapy, strengthening exercises are very important for chiropractic rehabilitation as well. Strengthening a muscle group will ease pain in that area and reduce your risk of injuring or reinjuring the area, including the muscles and joints.
Strengthening exercises include everything from balance exercises to full-blown weight training. Your personalized activities will be determined by your doctor based on your current physical functionality.

05

Joint Mobility Practices

Joint mobility is a set of techniques that will most likely be incorporated by your chiropractor after you have been doing chiropractic rehabilitation for a while. It is a more advanced practice, and you will probably have to build up to some of the exercises so that you do not feel pain or discomfort. The purpose of joint mobility is to further extend the range of motion in your joints to reduce your risk of injury. Two major practices are involved in joint mobility. One of them is advanced stretching. Your doctor will tell you when he or she feels that you are ready for these more challenging stretches. Compare this to the practice of yoga…some poses are for beginners while others are for more advanced students. Another common joint mobility practice is to place a foam roller or massage ball on the floor and position your body on it so that it is between spinal joints. You can do this with each joint or just with ones that tend to get irritated.

A Word of Caution

The main thing we’d like to stress to our patients – to anyone considering a chiropractic rehabilitation program – is that it is a process. Much like exercise or a healthy diet, you won’t see results in a single day. However, we guarantee that over time you will experience constant improvement toward a healthy, active body. The pain, soreness and stiffness that you have felt in your back or neck for so long can be managed with chiropractic rehabilitation. This fact seems unbelievable to many of our patients who have experienced chronic pain for months or even years. But just like diet and exercise, if you revert to your old practices, your symptoms will return. Therefore, it is something that we recommend working into your daily routine, like your morning coffee or reading the paper.

Make Time For Rehabilitation

You must make time each day for chiropractic rehabilitation. Whether it’s stretching, weight training or making a visit to Family Chiropractic Plus in St. Petersburg, you need to be consistent about your therapy and take it seriously to achieve the results you want.
Also, remember that chiropractic rehabilitation is a process that may take some tweaking along the way. Always talk to us about practices that you don’t feel are working or ones that you don’t understand so that we can answer any questions you have and adjust your activities so that you receive the maximum benefits.

Schedule Your Appointment Today!

Depending on your fitness level, age and stamina, your chiropractic rehabilitation could vary greatly from someone else’s. It’s best not to compare your activities with another patient’s, but to compare how you felt yesterday with how you feel today.
Call us today for a consultation!
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