From T-Ball to the Pros: The Crucial Role of Chiropractors in Sports

In this episode of the ICA Sports and Fitness Science Council podcast, Dr. Brant Hulsebus and Dr. Kevin Jackson explore the vital role chiropractors play in sports, from youth leagues to professional teams. Dr. Jackson shares insights into concussion and sub-concussion management, emphasizing the importance of immediate and precise chiropractic care for athletes. They discuss specific protocols for on-field assessments and the significance of collaboration with other healthcare professionals. Additionally, they highlight the benefits of pre-season X-rays for baseline measurements and injury prevention. Join them as they dive into the essentials of being a team chiropractor and the upcoming certification programs designed to enhance chiropractic care in sports.

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နှှခတ်ညျည်ကငွဇ်င Welcome to another ICA Sports and Fitness Science Council podcast. And I'm Dr. Brant Hulsebus, and I'm joined today by a fellow board member, Dr. Kevin Jackson. And today, we talked a little bit about different things that we bring to the table as board members and our actual practices and what we do in chiropractic. And I got to know Dr. Jackson quite a bit. I've heard a lot about his subconcussion work that he's doing literally at the games and Dr. Jackson, you want to take two minutes real quick and help some of our chiropractors watching this that maybe don't understand concussion, subconcussion real quick. So, a concussion is an event where, you know, there's going to be trauma to the brain. Frequent, but not quite as frequent as a concussion. we call a sub concussive hit so and sub concussive hits when they add up, make brain changes as well. Like, for example, if you high school football players are now starting to show signs of changes in their white matter of their brain, just from playing the game, not necessarily having concussions, but having repetitive impacts to the brain. to the head and to the brainstem and to the upper cervical spine. so Accelerate either from a body check, some type of helmet to helmet collision, some type of impact with the ground, but it's very significant, but it does need some education that needs to go with to the coach, to the mom and dads and to the trainers, just to differentiate what it is that you're looking for. Now, I always say that you can't have a head injury without a neck injury. It's impossible. It's absolutely impossible. And, and that being said, you know, there's, there's two types of concussions. There's one where you take an impact, the head accelerates and the brain wobbles. And it it takes about 80 G's of force to make the brain bounce, you know, to and from in the skull. And then you have another one where the head accelerates and it puts a lot of shearing force in the upper cervical area of the cranial cervical junction. And that's where the brainstem is. And that takes about five G's of force. Okay. So, you know, we have to be aware of the two different types of concussions, and then you also have to throw in the subconcussive impacts that also affect the neurology of the player. Now, as a chiropractor, and you've worked with sports teams, whether it's a professional team or whether it's just a youth T ball league team, what are some of the ways you communicate with the trainer or the parents or the coach when you suspect you might see something? Their own. But me as a chiropractor, I'm looking for taking a look at the biomechanics of the cervical spine and I'm looking at the neurology of the, that comes out of the cervical spine, the brainstem and the nerve roots that are attached that go into the arm, other things. I mean, that's my, that's what I like to, to focus on is that upper cervical spine when I'm out on the sports field. That being said, I let patients, I mean, the parents know, That anytime there's any type of impact where the head accelerates either directly from a helmet to helmet contact or helmet to the wrestling mat, or if there's a body to body type of contact or collision, there could be some issues with the upper neck there, and it's a really simple process that we run through. essentially what it is if we're in a sideline and we think someone gets hurt, we just run through real quick, the three planes of range of motion. We go into extension, inflection, lateral bending, and then we go through rotation. If there's any biomechanical deficits, we're going to take a look at adjusting that area. Another way that we are going to assess the nervous system is we're going to use like a handheld. Fossa area from the left to the right. And if it exceeds a 0. 5 degrees Fahrenheit threshold, we're going to say there's some Okay. You Okay. Okay. game changer for the athlete. I think. I work a lot with athletic trainers and they all have their hip bags and their shoulder slings of all their equipment. You, you might be the first chiropractor I've met that has your own chiropractic sideline bag in order to do assessments, which is awesome because Yeah, not guessing. You're trying to use as much scientific data as you can on the sideline in the situation you're at. And that's, that's, that's chiropractic right there specific. Parents and the players and everybody understands range of motion. So if, if you put them through a simple range of motion test and you see a deficit or they more so if they feel a deficit, it's, it's one of the best indicators that you can have. And then if you can match it up with a heat reading from left to right, which is just inflammation, chin. Everybody understands that. So the optics are real good. And then if you're not taking a player who just been traumatized and you're going to, you know, do a double rotary break on them without any clinical findings, like pre and post test, that's, that doesn't have good optics in my opinion, but if you take something really gentle, like an activator and you just gently, When you adjust the you can demostrate to eveyone watching, Especially the player that their range of motion has improved and their thermography has evened out, a win win situation and it's just a really, really good look for chiropractic and I, one day my goal is to standardize that approach where it's just universal that we have a universal protocol, which I have. And, and everybody, it doesn't matter what size the chiropractor is. It could be like a 90 pound woman taking care of a 300 pound lineman when it comes to this type of care. And obviously, you know, the next day, you're going to go into your office. Every tool in your clinic is now free game to use. This is not the end of this, of the assessment. This is the beginning of the assessment That's right. That's right. So we'd follow up if, if need be, if there was, if they were an established patient then we could do x rays. We do our orthopedic tests and and, and mind you to say you have to, when you're on the sideline and you're dealing with collision sports, you have to know the difference between when it's an emergency situation and it's a. You know, a chiropractic situation, but I, you know, that's again, a discussion for a different time. That's something that we learn as a graduate chiropractor. You should be well versed in that anyways. There shouldn't be any any problems differentiating when someone needs clearly medical care versus chiropractic care, but the overwhelming, the overwhelming amount of athletes out there are going to need the actual chiropractic care. And it's going to be for functional issues and it's going to be to enhance their athletic performance. And if you can get yourself out of the injury game and you can put yourself more into the functional or performance side of things, it's just huge. with that too. And I think the other thing that you're doing, which is so crucial, if it was my kid or myself, it's time, you know, the longer that upper cervical subluxated. The longer you have time to learn how to be wrong and be bad and develop things, and the faster you can assist the situation and make a correction, the faster the healing starts. And especially when we're talking about the brain, how important is that? Oh my goodness. That, I mean, if there wasn't a truer statement, that was it right there because You know, at the, at the moment of the impact, if if you can assess someone and gently restore their biomechanics and neurological function, oh my goodness, that, that, that's huge. You know, if it's a two or three week delay until you see them, it's just absolutely sets up time for making the scar tissue develop and making that much more difficult. So that's an amazing point, you know, getting adjusted right afterwards. And then right up front, people need to know that because they'll shy away of if someone's been traumatized. A lot of times we're thinking, no, no, don't touch me. I'm, I've been hurt, but if it's a gentle, precise precision based procedure, it's, it's really, really helpful. And, and that's the push that we're going to do, you know, through the Okay. very exciting. Much of the fact that you're going to walk up and you're going to say, this is our standard procedure. We already know what we're doing. And when you portray that confidence, the trainer, the athlete and the parent already knows, Oh, well, this must be exactly what we're doing. Even if we're the small minority of people actually doing it, even if the player gets that benefit, it's just that learn that confidence and knowing that's what you're supposed to do. And I'm very excited for the ICA certification coming out just on topics like this, just to give that chiropractor that certainty. To know what they're doing. Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, as a chiropractor let's say you're in a situation where you're dealing with the team as you're well aware of, you're going to have a trainer, a physical therapist, you might have a medical doctor out there. But the deal is this is, is as chiropractor, what you want to do is be separate, unique, and distinct. Offer a service that no one else does. Certainly we don't want to duplicate physical therapy, which is really great stuff, but that's not our line of work. You know, we don't do massage. And, and, and if we stick to really what is relevant and stay in our, stay in our lane. Oh my goodness. It just, it's just such a good work environment when you include everybody as a team, but yet not step on, you know, anybody else's professional boundaries there. It's been my knowledge and my experience of that. They don't want to work with concussion patients. They just want you to sit and wait and keep retesting you. And I'm like, hey, when it's a subconcussion, concussion, or whatever it might be, you guys go ahead and do all the tests you want. Let me do the care. Exactly, exactly. You know, concussion ends up being mostly an opinion piece and I'm sure if there's a big hit, that's part of it. You know, if there's there's some neurological tests that you can do. But again, if you, if you take a person who has a full blown concussion and you can gently adjust their upper cervical area. They are going to recover very, very, very quickly than if they don't. And, and that's just, that's very, very, very important. And, but it's, it's good to have that kind of discussion with the trainer, with the physical therapist prior to going in there where you're all working as a team, but you know, I've never heard a, a, it was a great statement. The sooner, the better, sooner, the better, and the more precise, the better. And I guess what a lot of the newer carpenters want, they want to know what to do on the sideline. I know I have got four daughters and I was told to always carry a medical emergency bag because a lot of times I'll be the only health care provider of any type at their sporting events. A lot of times you see something hurt and you're like, okay, now what am I supposed to do? So having this protocol written up, taught to the ICA sports and science fitness council, and you have that certainty, you have that certificate, and you'll know exactly what to do on the sideline. I think that's going to be huge. So I'm glad you got this together for us. I'm glad you're going to share it with our council and with our family. absolutely. It's going to be my pleasure, and I'm hoping to really set a standard for all of us, and it takes teamwork to make the dream work. I always ask everyone, final words, any final thoughts, something I didn't talk about or cover that you wanted to bring up, Well, my final thoughts are this. Things are changing in the field of chiropractic and the healthcare field, if I could say one thing, And and appeal to all of our chiropractors is at the heart of chiropractic is the chiropractic adjustment. you do your pre test and your post test, sorry, tripping over my tongue here. If you can do your pre and post test. And you can deliver a good quality chiropractic adjustment. It is second to none as far as healthcare for our athletes and for our patients. And I just pray and hope that in the future that we back towards specific chiropractic care and it's unique philosophy, and that would be my hope for everybody. and I'll throw on real quick that to be, me to be your team chiropractor, the one thing I require, whether it's middle school, whether it's high school, whether it's, you know, professional whether it's NHL hockey, everybody has to have an x ray before the season starts because we want to have that baseline to what to look at in case there is an injury so then we can do a post x ray down the road and be able to get you back in. Don't be afraid to take those pre season x rays. For us, the way we sell to the owners is at the season's over, the player might sue you for lower back issues. And if you had a pre x ray to show their back wasn't perfect, you're going to save the owners a lot of money. Players come and go, but owners stay. So make the owners happy. So get those x rays. that's a great idea. That's a great idea. And that's a lost art in chiropractic too, is the lack of taking x-rays. But that's very, very, very important. That's a great point. All right, everybody. So if you want to learn this protocol, if you want to learn more of the stuff we're talking about in the certificate that we've been talking about, contact the chiropractic. org and that's the ICA's main webpage, the main website. And we're taking this show on the road and we're going to be coming to your state associations and your groups. And we're going to put together a four to five hour presentation with the two of us and the rest of our board. And we're going to teach you the skills, the tricks that you need to be a chiropractor for an athletic team. And this is every level of athlete. This is going to be for the Superbowl champions. This is going to be for the eight year old kids that play T ball or the, the soccer swarms, you know, we had the one soccer ball and all the kids just followed around. We're going to teach at all levels the adult league, hockey leagues, whatever it is. So if you want to get more involved in sports and you want to have that confidence, when you walk into that room, that's what we're going to be teaching. And we're going to give you a certificate CE hours and everything, so reach out to us, follow us more. If you like this podcast, please share this podcast, subscribe, like us, share us, and we're going to keep coming at you with the latest things in chiropractic, sports, and fitness. Thanks for tuning in. Dr. Jackson, thanks for joining us. Thank you so much. All right. Thanks everybody. We'll talk to you next time. I'm not sure what it is, but I'm sure it's a good idea.