Summer Activities That Can Send You to the Chiropractor

In this episode of Ask the Chiropractor, Dr. Brant Hulsebus from Rockford, Illinois, discusses the impact of common summer activities on spinal health. Dr. Hulsebus provides tips and advice for avoiding or managing spinal issues caused by gardening, sports, and traveling. He emphasizes the importance of seeing a chiropractor before engaging in these activities to prevent pain and ensure optimal performance. Whether you're gardening, golfing, or traveling, Dr. Hulsebus shares valuable insights on stretching, hydration, and post-activity recovery to keep you healthy and active all summer long. Tune in for practical chiropractic advice and enjoy your summer without spinal discomfort. Don't forget to leave your questions about chiropractic care in the comments!

www.rockforddc.com

Transcript

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Hello, Dr. Brant Hulsebus here and welcome to another edition of Ask the Chiropractor. Ask The Chiropractor is my little podcast that I do when someone has a question about chiropractic or chiropractic care, I try to answer. I'm a chiropractor here in Rockford, Illinois. I'm a proud graduate of Palmer College of Chiropractic, and I'm happy to be the team chiropractor of the Rockford IceHogs. Let's dive into it. thanks for tuning in. So I'm recording this and we're getting ready for our first real heat wave here in Illinois this summer of 2025, and I want to talk a little bit about summer and trips to the chiropractor. Most people in the summertime want to go outside and do stuff that's fun and exciting and not go to the chiropractor over and over and over again. So we thought we'd take a quick minute here and go over some activities that could send you to the chiropractor. I'm give you some tips and tricks on what to avoid and how to do things better.'cause common activities this summer is gonna be gardening, sports and traveling. And these can all create issues on your spine, in summer games too, like golf and other things, water skiing and things like that. Summer could come at a credit price if you don't do things right. So we want to have fun or freedom and move around, but a lot of people come in here telling me about their neck hurts or their lower back hurts, or most of the time it's actually the summertime. It's more the neck issues we hear about. But just wanna let you know that small, repetitive actions over and over again are awkward postures and stuff. Those things add up over time, so don't quit going to the chiropractor during the summer and make sure you still come in for your tuneups. But let's talk a little bit about some of the things that we do outside that could make it even worse than normal stuff. Let's dive into gardening, right? Because gardening can always do a little bit of a toll on us. We're lifting, we're mulching. This is where I live right now. Most people are finishing up their mulching, but weeding never stops. We're always planting new stuff. We're always having to bend and twist and get stuff. And a lot of you that come in the office know that I know that. When you go to pick something up, a lot of times we do a lunge where we bend one leg and lean the other knee forward and we twist and grab things. That puts a tremendous amount of torque in the lower back. We're all not very good at doing the squat to pick stuff up, so the best way to, obviously to go down and pull weed or do something to a squat, but a lot of you might have bad knees or bad hips, and that's not really an option anymore. So if you can squat the good stuff, but if you. Can't. You're gonna have to do that lunge to get stuff. And then I really wanna talk a lot about warming up your back and getting some stretches. So if you're someone that deals with this, your chiropractor can show you some tips about how to stretch your hip flexors, and then maybe even your pure forus muscle on the backside to get you ready for this activity. A lot of people just die right in the yard work. They don't even think this could actually be a physical activity. It's very important that you stretch before and after you do yard work just like you would a sporting event, because that says a lot of lifting and bending and twisting. I know I might go to the gym, but I actually more sore after I spend a day outside of my yard, pruning branches and pulling weeds. I get a lot more sore from that than I do working out. But, working out, I know to drink extra water. I know to stretch, I know to watch my balance and my posture. And if I don't do it, my friends at Movement Fitness are watching me to make sure that I'm doing it, which is why I use a professional person when I exercise, but that person doesn't come to my house and watch me do those things. So it's very important that you treat working in the yard very much like you would athletic event by doing the pre and post stretching lots of water and work on your recovery. A lot of you have heard me say that you get done work in the yard. You go sit on the couch, you go to get up. You feel 10 years older and that's because you didn't do a cool down or a stretch when you were done or ice maybe sometimes it's ice, that spots that normally hurt. Put it on preemptively. I. When you watch a basketball game, the player comes off the court, the ice, their knees and ankles right away. They don't hurt right then and there, but they know all that basketball running up down the court's gonna make 'em slow up and hurt. So they try to beat it to the punch. Same thing if you always have a sore spot after you work in the yard, as soon as you're done, put ice on it. Don't wait for it to hurt, then ice it.'cause now you're playing ketchup. Just go put some ice on it right away. And then if this does happen to you, that's a sign of a bigger issue. So make sure you explain it to your chiropractor as well. The chiropractor might give you some better ideas on how to stretch and do things, or maybe change your adjustment up to match your complaints. Next I'd like to talk a lot about in the summertime is outside stuff. You heard me talk about water, sports, running, biking, pickleball, tennis, and golf. These are all awesome things to do outside to get yourself into shape and exercise. And nature's detox, sweat, right? Sweating is awesome, but these things can also do a lot of stress to you. It's really good to make sure that you take care of yourself while you're doing these things. Now, I'm gonna talk about this again, but it's good if you know you have a big golf match coming up or a tennis match, or you've got a big pickleball tournament coming up. Go see the chiropractor before the event. Go into the event healthy and strong. Don't go into a weakened soar and say, A lot of times I hear people say, I knew I was gonna need you afterwards. I was hurting before I started this, so I waited till afterwards to see you.'cause I knew I was coming anyways. You might've been able to see me once before, but now because you waited, I'm gonna see you six times.'cause now you're acute, you're inflamed, your muscles are in spasm. It's harder for me to make that great adjustment on you. Because you went too long, too hard, too far. So go see us before, and you have to understand how much this affects your performance too, right? So if I have a subluxation on my spine, when one or two bones are misaligned, creating pressure and a stress response, I'm gonna lose some of my range of motion. I'm gonna lose some of my power. I'm gonna lose some of my. Everything, my dynamics, how my body functions. If I'm playing golf, I'm gonna lose some of my golf swing. If I'm playing tennis, I'm gonna lose some of my power or pickle ball, some of my power. And as far as running and biking's concerned, you're gonna wear out faster because with the misalignment, your body's working harder and you're not gonna perform at the levels you normally could or get the exercise or the benefits of what you're doing as great as you could if you weren't misaligned before. Four going into things. So make sure you get your spine checked and if you're having these problems, make sure you get checked again afterwards if you didn't get checked before. These things typically don't go away on their own. They stop yelling, but then the next time you go do the sport, they yell louder and longer. That's where signs that something's not right. So then I like to do in the summertime is travel. Get out and see places. Go hiking and travel around. And what do we know about long car rides? They're tough on your spine, right? We weren't designed to sit in a car all day. We designed to walk and move and get around. Air travel's even worse because the seats are. I always cheese that the airplane seats were designed for the chiropractor, not by the chiropractor. They're just trying to wedge you in there as much as they can. And not only that, just the stress of traveling the stress of going to the airport, checking your bags, waiting in this line. Hurry, but waiting over here and hurry. But waiting over there, it's a lot to deal with. The muscle between your ears. A lot of times I recommend people when you do travel, you sleep on a different bed. Now you have a different pillow. Sometimes it's good to bring your pillow with you, but if you're really having neck problems, it's probably already too late. They'll be switching pillows. You have to get that fixed first. So when you go see the chiropractor and you tell 'em you've been having neck problems, you have traveling, coming up, chiropractor will give you some cool stretches and tips and things to do to make your trip more fun. With the issue with the neck going on, make it better. So I do recommend talking to a chiropractor before a road trip. And again, I just talked about this too before. I keep saying before a lot of people want to wait till they're hurting really bad to come see us. They don't wanna waste an adjustment and that's ridiculous. That's backward logic. You know if you break your leg, you don't want to finish the job 'cause you might break it again, finishing the job you want to get the cast on and deal with the job better. So if you've been having these issues you've been having next stiffness, you have a travel coming up, go see the chiropractor before. We don't want you to go out of town and you call us and say, Hey, find me a chiropractor wherever I am. We'd rather see you before you leave and let you just go have a good time. Don't waste a whole day of traveling, trying to find a chiropractor. Don't miss out on a couple weeks of pickleball because your lower back was hurting. You thought you could maybe play through it. Don't let your yard work. Get beyond what you can keep up with because you had some lower back pain. You thought, I'm gonna go and finish this job, but I'm go see the chiropractor on Monday. I don't wanna, I don't wanna waste the adjustment. Get that adjustment first. You probably don't need to come back the next week. If you get your adjustment first, you'll probably do great. And again, if you don't get it first and you go into something with pain or discomfort, by the time you're done, you're gonna be worse. You're gonna wish you would've done it first. You end up having more adjustments and more time at the chiropractor, more downtime than you would've had you just gone in the beginning. So it's so important to go get checked first. So very really important to get your spine checked, get your back adjusted, going to things as healthy as you can. We live up in northern Illinois, right by the Wisconsin border. Our summers are not long. The time to get out there and have fun and play is short-lived, so you don't want to waste time being on the ir, being injured, not being able to perform. So getting that adjustment before your activities can really help ensure you a good activity, a good sport, a good vacation. You know what? Here, I jokingly, I call'em insurance adjustments. They help you ensure that you're gonna have a good time and not have the problems and anxious co plans that you might have. I. And again, if you think you're on the fence with something, maybe this hurts, maybe it doesn't, and you happen to see a physical therapist or a massage therapist, or maybe a primary doctor, even orthopedic surgeon, even a spinal surgeon, and you ask them, Hey, should I get my spine checked? I'm a little tight, little sore. They don't know the answer to that question. They'll probably give you an answer, but they don't know the answer because they're not a chiropractor. I always say, if you have a question about chiropractic or chiropractic care, the only person qualified to answer that question would be a chiropractor. And that's why we have this podcast. So if you have questions that you would like me to answer, feel free to leave a comment below wherever you're watching or listening to this. And maybe next time you'll be the topic of the weekend. Ask the chiropractor. Thanks for tuning in. Have a great summer. And if you're gonna start a new activity, I. Definitely check with your chiropractor first. They might give you some advice on ways to stretch and warm up for things. And if you're gonna have a vacation, get adjusted before you go. If you're gonna go play a huge pickleball tournament, get adjusted before you go. If you've got a awesome golf outing coming up on a great golf course, get adjusted before you go so you can enjoy it. Alright, thanks for tuning in. I hope I answered this question. If you have a question or concern about chiropractor chiropractic care. Leave a comment. We'll get back to you. Thanks you for tuning in.