Friday, July 16, 2010

Tips on Golf Exercise That Can Change Your Score


Chiropractors can help golfers to enhance the quality of the game they play. They analyze the physique of the golfer through golf shape Rx and golf body screen and shortlist the golf exercise that could provide golf fitness to the golfer.

Golfer's Dream

Every golfer dreams of playing the best and most fit game. The game demands fitness with flexibility and stamina. A good physique is a must, and can only be attained through exercises. The chiropractor can analyze your physique and prescribe the best course of golf exercise to overcome your physical limitations.

Exercises for Golf Fitness

First your physical limitations should be identified before adapting to a regular exercise schedule. For muscle flexibility and stamina, stretch between each exercise. These warm-ups stabilize your neuromuscular system and ensure golf fitness. Your physical and mental strength are both interlinked. When well coordinated, it can easily help to overcome tiredness and weakness.

Simple Golf Exercise Tips

For perfect golf fitness, chiropractors suggest a few tips for golfers.

a. Walking - tones your heart by strengthening the cardiovascular muscles.
b. Stretches - helps you to warm-up and pushes your performance to the best level
c. Body twist - develops your core and empowers your swing as you twist your torso at hip level with a club in the hands at chest level.
d. Lunges - strengthens your thighs and legs - with one leg forward, bent at knees and the other stretched out touching the ground.
e. Back swing with clubs and weights - stretches the muscles of the core.

For a Good Core Stretch

To keep your game fresh, precise and controlled, you need to do the following:-

1. Exercise your back

The rowing exercises on a seated row machine improve your posture and strengthen the back muscles. At each repetition, squeeze your stomach muscles and exhale. Sit upright throughout the 12 to 24 repetitions.

2. Exercise your arms

This improves your golf swing by increasing your arm strength. Using a barbell, do a 90 degree bend, and stretch each arm by lying flat. With dumbbells at the shoulder, lift overhead with palms facing each other for 12 to 20 repetitions.

3. Exercise your legs

Your legs are the powerhouse and balance toward a good swing. To develop the leg muscles use the incline sled machine and push weights up the incline with your legs; repeat 10 times with each leg. Sit with straightened legs, extend and contract 10 to 15 times.

4. Exercise your abs

Your mid-section supports your back and provides stability for a strong swing. With barbells in hand, stand straight and lift overhead. Direct your mid-section muscles up towards the spine. Take deep breaths to pull your tummy in, hold longer. Doing this 15 to 20 times strengthens your abs.

5. Exercise your wrist

A strong wrist leashes out the power generated by your body for a powerful golf swing. Rotate the hip and the upper torso for a forward swing. Hold the club without wobbling. Mimic your swing to hit a ball. Do weight lifting to exercise your wrist.

6. Exercise your brain for mental fitness

Regular physical exercises provide greater blood flow to the brain and thereby increase your memory.

Chiropractors and golf exercise:

Chiropractors can put you on an golf exercise spree during the off season and help you to develop your physique. Exercises will increase your mobility and flexibility. These motivate your upper and lower body muscle stamina.

Take your chiropractors advice, improve your golf fitness, and play a great game!


Golf - Dealing With Swing Faults


Every golfer aims to perform a perfect golf swing. This muscle-stretching sport needs chiropractic advice and assistance to avoid back-related injuries, get rid of pain due to these injuries, and play better. Many golfers have faults in their swing. Swing faults can break a golfer's career.

What are swing faults?

If your swing affects the club face alignment, swing path, angle of attack, hitting the sweet spot, or club head speed, then you have swing faults. So, review yourself and correct the swing faults.

First analyze your swing and identify the features which cause swing faults. A solution can be found by altering stance, swing amplitude, hip/shoulder turn ratio, grip, etc. Swing faults can be rectified by rectifying the imbalances in the musculoskeletal structures of your body.

The nervous, muscular and skeletal systems combine to create the neuromechanical system which is responsible for a good swing. The neuromechanical system's state of readiness is based on the following.

1. Muscle Balance and Flexibility
2. Static and Dynamic Postural Stability
3. Strength
4. Power

Analyze your performance based on your neuromechanical system and identify the reasons for a faulty swing. Ball flight is controlled by muscle balance and flexibility and static and dynamic postural stability which directly influence joint mechanics, muscle recruitment patterns, and consistency of movement. Strength and power also have a role to play in the angle of attack, club head speed, and hitting the sweet spot.

What can a chiropractor do for you?

A chiropractor can do the following

1. Analyze your physique
2. Help you to improve your game
3. Relieve you of pain.

Analysis

A chiropractor could run a golf body screen and golf shape Rx and assess and reveal the factors that influence your swing faults by analyzing the following.

• Dynamic & static posture
• Weight distribution
• Weight transfer
• Swing center movement
• Center of gravity positions
• Rotation
• Wrist position
• Head movement
• Spine angles and more

Help you to improve your game

A golf body screen and golf shape Rx help a chiropractor to identify your swing faults, the physical cause, and the corrections necessary to change your game. If you follow a chiropractors's advice, from driving to putting, you will be able to improve your ball striking, to hit the ball farther and with greater consistency, to get stronger and more flexible, and to watch yourself get over the hurdles you have faced so far in playing the game.

Relief from Pain

The golf shape Rx factor becomes dangerous when the swing method does not allow the golfer to keep his shoulder and pelvis parallel. Without this rigid parallelism, the rotational faulty swing will lead to back pain. To get back to the golf link at the earliest, the golfer uses some pain-killers to be relieved of pain. But it only provides a temporary relief. A good chiropractic could relieve you of this pain and help you play better.

The golf swing puts an unusual demand on your body. Due to the unilateral rotation of the spine when you aim for a full swing with your club head, the stress is on your back muscles and you could injure your back, elbows, shoulders, wrists/hands, knees or hips in a swing. So, it is essential that you know yourself first, so that you can avoid being injured and enhance your playing skills with power-packed swings. A chiropractor could be of great help to analyze yourself, improve your game and also get rid of pain in case you are injured.


Simple Questions About DTS Therapy




Do you suffer from back pain due to spinal disc compression? A chiropractor can do wonders to your back and relieve you of pain with DTS Therapy. I can sense the number of questions that cross your mind when I say this. Here are answers to a few of them.

What is a DTS Therapy?

Decompression Traction System or DTS Therapy avoids surgery, and relieves you of pain through a simple technique.

What ailments can be treated through DTS Therapy?

This therapy treats all disc-related syndromes such as pinched nerves, damaged discs, degenerated discs and cervical spines. It can even treat severe neck pain and lower back pain.

Who suffers such compression?

Today's life style leads to spine compression and damages the disc. The following are some of the reasons.

1. Long periods of work

2. Unhealthy postures

3. Work that involves a lot of travelling

a. Traveling strains and jerks the vertebral column

4. Food habits

a. Fast foods
b. Poor intake of liquids

Is this DTS Therapy a new treatment?

Not at all; chiropractors have been practicing it more than 58 years. It is a gentle, very efficient and safe therapy involving a mild stretch of muscles.

How do chiropractors help?

This therapy is a natural and drugless treatment. Specific attention is paid to the patient's health, comfort and well-being by doing the following:

1. Search for the root cause

2. Manipulate and position the muscle, the spine, the tissues of the spine and the joints

3. Ease the compression gently

4. Improve the blood flow and supply the needed nutrients to the compressed areas

5. Soothe the areas affected

6. Relieve the pain off the neck and lower back.

How different is the DTS Therapy?

It provides relief from pain at a low cost with no surgery, no painkillers and no side effects.

Chiropractors spend their time:

1. To provide health care

2. To prescribe regular home exercise programs

3. To assure spinal health

4. To reduce the recurrence of the pain, and

5. To enhance the quality of the patient's well-being.

How are patients treated?

Chiropractors treat the disc and muscles supporting the spine. They stabilize them by heat, stimulation, gentle massage and home exercises.

How does the patient feel during the treatment?

The patient feels very comfortable. Chiropractors identify the patient's most comfortable position and then start the treatment. Treatment involves sessions stretching and relaxing the muscles. The patient will feel a gentle stretching at the lower back or around his hips; it provides such a relief that sometimes they even fall asleep. Each session lasts at least 20 minutes.

How long does the therapy last?

It depends on the complexity of pain. With 3 sessions per week for 6 to 8 weeks the patient is able to manage effectively. The therapy relaxes the vertebra to reduce the disc pressure on the site of pain. It increases muscle strength supplying blood and nutrients to the dehydrated disc.

Is the treatment over with reduction in pain?

No, it doesn't mean that there is a total healing or that the pain will not recur. Rehabilitation exercises are prescribed. The healing will be slow when muscle control is poor. In combination with regular exercise and visits to chiropractors, DTS Therapy can help to live without pain.

So, say YES to your chiropractor and NO to pain!


Steps involved in DTS Therapy


Decompressive Traction System - DTS Therapy is a leading non-surgical alternative for disc related syndromes of the lumbar and cervical spine.

The therapy comprises of three phases:

• Treatment

• Stabilization of Structure

• Support of Muscular System

PHASE I: The Treatment Begins

DTS Decompression Therapy is performed on a specially designed table in either a face up or face down position. Clinical consideration and your comfort are used in deciding which position will be best for you. You may begin in one position but in later sessions it may be necessary to change positions. You will remain fully dressed during the treatment though we recommend wearing loose fitting clothes, and removal of you belt and objects from your pockets.

You will be comfortably positioned on the table and fitted with a wrap-around harness. This restrain is what allows the unloading of the spine and discs by the traction motor. Your position on the table, the harness, and angle of the gentle distraction allows for accurate and focused treatment to the affected disc. Once comfortable on the DTS, the computer controlled traction device is programmed to deliver a gentle stretching force to the spinal vertebra. This force is delivered directly to the harness system. The DTS system applies the gentle force then releases it approximately every minute throughout the session. The total treatment time is usually less than 18 minutes and often just 10 minutes initially. Most patients report simply feeling a subtle and gentle stretching at their lower back or around their hips. Since DTS Therapy is a comfort-based procedure, patients usually report a sense of relief and relaxation during the session. Many patients even fall to sleep.

Imbibing the Discs

The gentle stretching and relaxing of the spine fosters a phenomenon called "imbibition". In the simplest of terms, this is the way a normal disc gets nutrition. This pumping action promotes nutrition intake into the discs, something often lost in damaged and degenerative disc conditions. In health discs, imbibition occurs naturally with daily motions and body positions and accounts for the increase of disc thickness in the morning and decrease at night. A disc with poor imbibtion, fewer nutrients and hydration, is more likely to become injured and painful. Stretching or tractioning the spine in a controlled, comfortable manner can help re-establish a more normal imbibition. This can re-supply the disc with nutrients and blood contact that help the disc heal from the inside out. Also the dramatic decrease of pressure n the disc (decompression) can foster the drawing in of a bulge and help take pressure off a "pinched" spinal nerve.

Re-establish Structural Support

Although most patients report dramatic reduction of their pain within as few as five treatments, an injured spinal disc needs time to heal. This is why you need to be regular with your prescribed treatments and office visits. Research shows to completely heal some discs a regular program of home exercises, prescribed by your doctor will need to be followed. Spinal disc structures can take months to heal. Even though your pain may be gone, you must stay on the treatment plan in order to keep your spine healthy.

As you become more mobile and more able to return to your normal lifestyle, your increased activity is what your spine needs most. Now you will be imbibing the discs naturally, like people their healthy discs. Movement is life, and your spine depends on the muscle activity to support your spine, and create fluid movement to and from the discs.

PHASE II: Stabilization of Structure

Most patients feel significant pain reduction in as few as five DTS Therapy treatments. That however does not mean the healing process is complete, or that your pain won't return.

During Phase II of your DTS Therapy treatments, your chiropractor will prescribe a series of rehabilitative measures in order to more fully heal your discs, and keep the pain from returning. Most low back pain suffers have two compounding problems that have contributed to their disc injury and limited their natural healing abilities.

• Decreased Spine Flexibility

• Poor Muscle Control

A program of focused rehabilitative exercise, with Biofeedback, may begin during or after your DTS Therapy course of treatment. The rehabilitation program involves several clinically effective yet simple, pain-free activities including Biofeedback. Biofeedback allows you to monitor and control spinal motion and re-claim proper spinal movement patterns.

Strengthening the muscles that support the spine and regaining endurance in them, is also vital for spinal health.

All the body systems must work in concert for optimum health so nutritional and lifestyle advice may be given as well as an at-home exercise program. At-home exercises are very important. What you do at home is integral to the overall success. Studies show consistent stabilization and endurance exercises control back pain and reduce injury. At what point you start the exercise program is a function of your pain and overall progress based on the findings.

PHASE III: Support of Muscular System

During Phase III, there will be a structure for an in-office and home-based exercise program that will help to bring your spine back to full health. This exercise program may include in-office resistance training, at home Stabilizer exerciser and resistance training and other "core" exercises.

Regular and consistent home based exercise is one of the keys to long-term relief. Simple home-based exercises will make the therapy most effective. Introduction to the low tech movement exercises you can do to speed the healing process are one of the most important parts of the DTS Therapy System.


Fundamentals of DTS Therapy


What is DTS Therapy?

Today we hear and see a lot of people suffer due to lower back pain, a pinched nerve, sciatica, neck pain, a variety of symptoms related to damaged or degenerative discs, as well as syndromes of the lumbar and cervical spine. Our life style and food habits are definitely to be blamed. Surgery has so far been the only permanent solution. The pain involved in undergoing a surgical procedure, the costs involved, and the side effects of painkillers and other medicines need not be elaborated here as we are all aware of it. Well, why think of the bad when you can easily get relieved of this debilitating pain without surgery. You could try DTS therapy a non-surgical procedure.

A patient undergoes DTS therapy with the help of a simple but sophisticated equipment manufactured in the USA by a leading rehabilitation equipment manufacturer. Disc-related syndromes of the lumbar and cervical spine can be treated with the help of DTS therapy. The advances in this field have lit a lamp amidst the dark for millions suffering from the debilitating pain of damaged or degenerated discs and pinched nerves.

DTS Therapy Treatment

The technique behind DTS therapy is to gently stretch the spine, relieving pressure from the discs, joints, and muscular tissues, while enhancing the body's natural healing process. The treatment is given for a short duration, mostly for an hour or less, and you can remain fully clothed while you undergo the treatment. Improvements, or rather reduction in pain, can be experienced within a few sessions.

A specially designed table is used for this purpose. You can either lie with your face down or up. Your physical condition, clinical considerations, and your comfort are taken into account to decide the position in which you are made to lie down for the treatment. If you are not comfortable, you could always seek the advice of your chiropractor with regard to change of position. It would be best if you could wear some loose-fitting clothes and remove your belt and all other objects you might have from your pocket during the treatment.

You can experience relief from pain as the gentle distractive forces create decompression, i.e., unloading due to distraction and proper positioning, and improve blood flow and important nutrient exchange to the injured area thereby soothing the affected area and providing lower back pain relief, sciatica pain relief, neck pain relief, and also alleviating the pain of a pinched nerve.

During the therapy, it is very important that you are safe and comfortable. The decompression device provides several positioning options. With the help of your chiropractor identify the most comfortable position for you. You will be able to achieve the ultimate objective of complete rehabilitation of your discs and spine only if you are 100% comfortable.

The treatment consists of several cycles of stretch and relaxation, which gently graduate to a peak over a period of several minutes giving you gentle relief from pain. One session could be for less than 20 minutes. The effect of the treatment is felt by the patients within 6 to 10 treatments. Even though there is relief from pain, this does not mean that you are completely cured. This is only a temporary relief from pain. If you want a permanent solution then you should stick to the treatment protocol prescribed by your chiropractor.

By now you must have understood that this a simple pain-free alternative to surgery which can reduce or even eliminate back and neck pain. If you or somebody you know is suffering from chronic, debilitating, low back or neck pain, consult a chiropractor and assess if DTS Spinal Decompression Therapy could provide a solution for you.