Pickle ball and Chiropractic

Ask the Chiropractor- thinking about starting to play Pickle Ball?  Dr Hulsebus explains why a trip to the Chiropractor first might be a good idea. #healthy815 #icachiropractor #palmerproud

www.rockforddc.com

Transcript

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- Hi, I am Dr. Brant Hulsebus, chiropractor, and welcome to another episode of "Ask the Chiropractor.""Ask the Chiropractor" is my podcast that I do for people who have questions about what chiropractors do, whether or not chiropractic can help them, or whether or not they make a good chiropractic case. I always say if you have a question about chiropractic, you should ask a chiropractor. Just like if I had questions about my teeth, I would ask a dentist, not my family doctor. Family doctors are really good family medical doctors, but they make really, really bad chiropractors. Just like chiropractors make really bad dentists, and dentists make really bad family doctors. You should always ask the healthcare provider that you're looking for. Me, myself, I'm about to enter my 20th season with the Rockford IceHogs, taking care of the pro hockey team here in Rockford, and I'm also a proud graduate of Palmer College of Chiropractic. And I also have the honor to serve as the Illinois delegate of our national association called the ICA, the International Chiropractic Association. So today's question comes from pickleball players. So those of you who have never played pickleball, it's like the hottest sport in America right now. It's taken off like crazy, and it's invaded my area now too, and I think it's a great game. I played it myself. What makes pickleball so cool is that the ball is not as fast as a tennis ball, and the court is not as big as a tennis court. It's a little smaller. And you're so you're playing with a hard racket, hitting something which I think resembles a whiffle ball from those old baseball days. So you're hitting the plastic ball back and forth with your paddles, and the most steps you're usually taking is usually about two or three steps to get to the ball. Because of this, people of all ages, skill sets, and everybody has fallen in love with this game, which makes it crazy popular, and I'm so excited to see it's so popular because I love people being moving, right? I talk all the time about how the spine heals when it moves. When it doesn't move, it's not healing. So if you go back and look at our earliest textbook in chiropractic from the 1920s, it's all about get up and move, get up and go. I talk about how orthopedic doctors now when they do surgeries, get you up moving in a couple days. I think it's so cool that they're using the same philosophies we've used for over a hundred years. Get you up, get you moving. The Northern American Spinal Society says the number one thing you can do for acute lower back pain is get in there and move those vertebraes, and that's what chiropractors do. We get in there and move those vertebraes. The number one treatment recommended by the Northern North America Spinal Society is get in there, manipulative therapy, move those, give it a chiropractic adjustment. No one's better at the manipulative therapy, we call it adjustment, than chiropractors. So getting up and moving. So, pickleball is so cool because people are getting up, they're moving, they're getting up a sweat, they're exercising. And not only that, but there's a huge social aspect with it, too. You get your little pickleball groups, you get to play in doubles. Man, it's so cool to see a game that is so many people can play for so many years. My mother-in-law used to run the league in the Quad cities. I think it's just really, really cool this game's here and the people are playing it, and it's really, really caught on. But with that being said, we've had people come in, obviously, after, you know, not ready to play pickleball. They're a little sore, a little achy. And they've always said to me,"Hey, Dr. Hulsebus, I wanna keep playing pickleball." Well, what I've learned about pickleball, there's two very common things where people get injured. Now, although injuries are very low, don't misinterpret what I'm about to say. Pickleball doesn't create a lot of injuries, but every sport there's gonna be prone to an injury. And the two injuries that we see the most are the knee and the lower back. Those are the things I hear and see the most. So as chiropractors, we're able to look at your lower back, get your lower back adjusted, get the motion back in there, get rid of those fixations, we call them subluxations, and get the back moving and flowing really good. And we also teach you how to keep your back strong. So if you have not been active for a couple years, basically you've been stuck at a chair at work for many, many years. Maybe before you try pickleball, you wanna go see a chiropractor, have them do a chiropractic exam. And a chiropractic exam would maybe just see how far you can bend and twist. Probably gonna lay you down, move your legs different directions, see where you're out of alignment, see where you're balanced, out of balance. A lot of times we lay you on your face and we measure your feet. Yhen we bend your knees and we see did the length change and this and that change. You know, more than often we also do a chiropractic x-ray to see what's going on with your spine, too. That's the biggest way for us to detect arthritis. Matter of fact, that's really the only way for us to detect arthritis. And we can actually see if you might be prone to having a disc problem before you get involved in the game. So if you've been considering getting involved in pickleball, maybe playing pickleball, a great stop first would be at the chiropractor and have the chiropractor do an evaluation of your lower back and see where you're sitting. The other thing, too, they talk a lot about knee problems. A lot of people hurt their knees because they're just not used to doing those motions. And more and more research is coming out all the time about a bunch of simple tests that a physical therapist or a chiropractor could do to see if you're prone to knee injuries. Wouldn't that be cool? I had this test done to see whether or not I may or may not hurt my knee. If I'm shown that I'm not probably gonna hurt my knee, that my hips and my lower back and everything's in alignment, that the stress is not on my lower knee and I can go play, I could be a little less stressed about injuries. So that's the coolest thing is the two most common injuries a chiropractor and a physical therapist or a combination of the group of us, we can actually do a pre-screening of you before you start playing and help determine whether or not you are high risk and low risk. And if you are high risk, like your lower back's got a really bad curve, we got big ugly spurs in your lower back and your discs aren't very good, or you got a rotated pelvis and upper lumbar that's out, we're able to help make those areas better and improve those areas through chiropractic care, through some strength stuff, through some stretching. And we're able to customize it to you, so then you're able to go play pickleball without the fear of getting injured. And if you had the knee problem, it's almost a lot of the same things. We go right back to the hip and the different muscles of your legs. So just because you test positive that you can, you're probable for a knee injury, it is so easy for us to start teaching you the little things you have to do to improve your situation. So therefore you can improve your knee and make it feel better before you go play pickleball. Then you don't have to worry about it as much. So, we're able to help you with those things. So if you've never played and you want to get playing, I highly recommend a trip into the chiropractor. And maybe with a knee, you know, if you come to see me, I got some good friends right down the road that I'm good friends with that can do these evaluations and see what's going on with your knee and help make sure that you're not gonna have that knee injury. It's really cool research. As a chiropractor that knee research was given to me, but I'm gonna worry about your spine. I'll let my friends worry about your knee. When your friends look at your knee, they tell you there's a problem. A lot of it goes back to your spine, so then I'll jump back in again and help out in order to get your spine back in alignment so you can enjoy pickleball. So we really enjoy this. We think this is really cool and we're really, really excited for it to come to our community. There's a brand-new 16 indoor pickleball court being made in my community right now called Victory Pickleball, and I've been out there quite a bit looking at it. I've been out there quite a bit looking at and been very, very involved in the building of it, and the way they're laying out the course and the dynamics of the place for one simple reason. I'm gonna put an adjusting table over there. I'm gonna be able to adjust people who wanna play pickleball. So if you're a patient in my office and you wanna go play pickleball, you could come see us first, get your back in alignment, get your hips in alignment, take that pressure off your back, get that pressure off your hips, and indirectly take a lot of pressure off your knee, so then you go enjoy yourself. You don't have to worry. The rates of injury go down so much for athletes that get adjusted before doing chi. Let me start over. The rate of injuries go down so much for an athlete gets chiropractic care before competing. So if you see the chiropractor before the game, you're most likely to get hurt than you are if you don't. So that's what we do with the hockey team, right? 20 years of this. People say, "Boy, you work on the IceHogs. You must be there all game. I bet they keep you busy all game long." They don't. They don't. But they keep me really, really busy before the game. I go down there, adjust them all before the game starts. During the game I just kinda sit there and enjoy myself with the fans. I don't really do a lot. Every once in a while I'll have to check somebody if they got hit the wrong way, but that's like every once in a while. That's not a common thing. And after the game sometimes I stick around and see a couple players, but the bulk of my work is done before the game. And it's not just for hockey players, right? That's why we're gonna go join this pickleball place and that's why we're gonna be there in person. It's gonna be probably be primarily Dr. Dace, those of you come in the office, because he is an avid pickleball player. So I figured the best doctor to have there is not only a great chiropractor, but a pretty good pickleball player. I don't really, I've never seen him play. He claims he's really good. I'm assuming he's really good. We'll give him the benefit of the doubt. But if you wanna go there and get adjusted before the game. The other nice thing is also when his clinic hours are there, if you wanna stop by and see him, even if you're not a pickleball player and you just, you know what? Hey, that pickleball place is right, I'm right next door to that right now. Maybe I don't want to drive all the way south to your clinic. I just wanna run in there and see him real quick. You can. You can go in there and see him, too. You can go to either location to get your adjustment. But yeah, he's gonna be over there a couple hours a week. They're not done building it yet, so we don't really know when he's gonna be there, but he's gonna be over there and we're gonna have a table over there. The table's all set. We got it all ready to go. We have the computers all set up. So just like an ice hockey player, you can get care before you play. And that couldn't, you know, worst case scenario, if you get a little sort after you play, he'll be there too to give you an adjustment afterwards. That way we don't walk around with it for a few days and start to change your back and change your alignment issues. He'll be right there to help you in order to keep you straight and keep you aligned. So yeah, that's pretty cool. It doesn't open for a little while, but we're super excited. The paperwork's signed. It's all official. We are gonna have a adjusting table at the Victory Pickleball Center. So we really hope to see some of you there. We really hope some of you wanna try pickleball. They're gonna have teachers there and instructors, as well. If you've never played and you're a little intimidated of it, don't be. They're gonna have people there to teach how to play. They're gonna have professionals there to show you how the game, how the game's played. And it's far from intimidating, I promise you. I just picked up the paddle one day and started playing. I really, really recommend it. So take a look at it, check it out. And again, to make you feel better about playing and making sure you're safe, we're gonna be there. And we got some of our friends joining us over there too to help out with other issues. So, super excited about this. Super excited to see some of you over there at the Victory Pickleball place. And do me a favor. If you are a pickleball player and you're over there and you're playing pickleball, come down and say hi to us. Come down and let us know you're there. We might have a dead time and come up and watch you play. Maybe we'll notice, Dr. Dace will notice a bad habit you have or some area that he can maybe give you a tip. Or maybe not how to play, but maybe you about your alignment and you're stretching and you're warming up. Not only that, but if you're a friend of ours and you see us over there, go down and see him, he might give you a couple stretching things to do before and afterwards. All right, everybody? Look forward to seeing you over at Victory Pickleball. Look forward to seeing you over here at Hulsebus Rockford Chiropractic. Look forward to seeing you next week on the next week's podcast. Remember, if you have a question about chiropractic or chiropractic care, go ahead and leave me a message. DM me, call the office, stop by the office, stop by the Victory Pickleball. Let me know your question and I'll be happy to answer it for you. The website, like always is rockforddc.com. That's R-O-C-K-F-O-R-D-D-C.com. You can find us there and you can find all the previous podcasts there, too. Thanks, everybody.