Beyond Adjustments: Essential Exercises for Chiropractors with Coach Mason

In this episode of the ICA Sports and Fitness Science Podcast, Dr. Brant Hulsebus is joined by Coach Mason, who specializes in athletic training and return to play. They discuss the common overuse injuries among chiropractors and introduce a routine of stretches and exercises to combat these issues. Coach Mason highlights the importance of mobility work and strength training to increase endurance and prevent injuries. The episode covers specific stretches such as the prayer stretch, door stretch, thoracic rotation, couch stretch, and lateral squat. The goal is to help chiropractors maintain their health and enjoy their lives both on and off the field. Coach Mason also shares his Instagram handle for further engagement. - Coach Mason Instagram @mason_chockley

Transcript

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Hi, welcome to another ICA sports and fitness science podcast. I'm Dr. Brant Hulsebus, and today we have a guest. I'm introducing my friend here, Coach Mason. Coach Mason specializes in return to play. is an athletic trainer and a certified strength conditioning coach, and his specialty is getting the athletes back on the field after they've been injured. Is that about right, coach? That's right. Yep. And working with the everyday population as well. So working with some chiropractors, kind of help them keep them playing. Yeah, those of you who don't know me, I'm a third generation chiropractor and I have a unique thing of watching my dad and his friends as retired chiropractors and how they get around. And when Coach Mason and I first got together, I said, hey, I see a lot of older chiropractors with bad hips, bad elbows, and bad shoulders. So I wonder if you could come on and kind of give us some tips for the chiropractor. Not, I mean, you can share with your patient, of course, but this is more for you, the chiropractor, in order to keep working and more importantly, enjoy time when you're not working anymore. So Coach Mason, you want to talk to us a little bit? We just brought up there. Yeah, definitely. So a lot of the prior, a lot of the issues that it seems that chiropractors are dealing with are going to be those overuse injuries. And those are going to be the injuries to the wrists, the elbows, the shoulders, the hips. So just those main joints, right? So 50 percent of almost all of those injuries are going to be overuse. And I did a little research because I wanted to come in here and learn a little bit more about chiropractors and just the forces and everything that's going through you as bodies as you're doing these adjustments. So correct me if I'm wrong here Dr. Brandt, but the average adjustment, you can have about 15 pounds of force all the way up to 180 pounds of force. That you're going to be putting into your shoulders, your wrists, your elbows with each of those adjustments. And then you can be doing up to 30 to 60 of those adjustments every single day. So we're talking about repetitive use, repetitive injuries. Well, right there, those are the things that we're doing. Repeated forces, heavy loads. You said 30 to 60, that's 30 to 60 patients. So Yes. five or six adjustments per patient, let alone. So take that number times five or times six, and it's even a bigger number, right? Yes. So that's just crazy. Cause yeah, rarely are you probably doing one adjustment on a patient, right? So I'm getting multiples of those then. But yeah, so all those repeated stresses are really just just going to cause a lot of stress onto the body. So I decided, or Dr. Brant and I kind of came together and decided what would be a good routine that a chiropractor could do, middle of the day. And they don't need to get onto the ground necessarily to do some of these things and they could just do them throughout the day that could maybe combat some of this repeated stress that you guys are dealing with. So some of the, go ahead. all the time about their, their neck posture, right? You're going to sit, you know, sit behind a computer all day. You got to counterbalance that with stretches. Maybe we need some of our own advice is what you're saying. Exactly. That's right. That's right. So I'll put together just a couple movements. I have some pictures of those and we can kind of put those up later, but there's going to be a prayer stretch. So stretching out those flexors and extenders on our arms. A door stretch. So making sure we're loosening up our shoulder there a little bit. And then some rotational stuff that we'll have to, I'll have to stand up to show some of those and then just really stretching out the hips as well. Okay. But just that little routine can really just go a long way, especially if you're able to do that once or twice just throughout your day. Okay, so all of us, you know, we'll start early in the morning and we'll go to about lunchtime and take a little bit of a break. Then we'll, after break time, we'll go back and do it again. So would you find that the 1st of the day, maybe before we start our quote unquote 2nd shift, or maybe afterwards? What would you, how would you do that? Yeah, I would definitely recommend that being the first thing in the day to kind of open up some of that mobility for you and then definitely revisiting that right after your lunch and Right before you're about to get those things your adjustments going for the afternoon, I always recommend to people to do their exercises first thing in the morning, and then lunch, and then maybe later in the day, but not always right before you go to bed, because I want them to kind of gain some mobility and then do their everyday activities. To use utilize that new range of motion that they've opened up. And then it's still great to stretch before bed and all of those things, but really let's do something after we've done these mobility work or done this mobility work. So maybe like before you hit your favorite chair at the end of the day. That's right. Maybe not before bed, before that favorite chair. Before the favorite chair, Alright, so you talked about some of these by name. You talked about the prayer stretch. yeah, of you who are listening and not watching, going to have this on the website. If you go to the ICA's website, go to sports. And fitness science council, you'll see that the videos are there you can watch along too, but we'll do our best to help you audio people follow along too. So why don't you go ahead and coach and walk us through some of these. yeah, definitely. So on that prayer stretch. So essentially, we're just going to go with our palms together, just right in front of your shirt. And then you're going to push your elbows up. So you're going to feel a stretch right there in the bottom portion of your forearms. Then I went, so yeah, a good 30 second stretch on that one, and then for you advanced individuals that want a little bit of an extra stretch, really just trying to point those fingers down to the ground, still remaining contact with all five fingers and those palms touching, so you'll feel that extremely close to the elbows is just a great stretch, especially if anybody's experiencing shoulder or elbow pain, wrist as well. So that's going to be our prayer stretch. So then the door stretch will be the next one that we go into. So you just need a door. Most of us have those in the house or at the clinic. So you're going to take your elbow up to 90 degrees. So abduction there. And then you're going to want your arm right along the doorframe. I like to tell people to step forward into it. So you'll feel a stretch right where your arm connects to your torso. And then the really the additional piece of this, really, that feels great. It's turning your chin away from the arm that you're stretching. So, and you try to line that up with that opposite shoulder, and you just control your head back to a neutral position up front, and I like to get 10 of those turns right there. It's a good stretch to write on our pec or pec minor a little bit, but then as you got that little chin turn. It really helps get stretch out that SCM a little bit and really gets really gets in there. I mean, you chiropractors should understand the neck posture and all that, because you should be teaching that to your patients all day. So that right. just assume that we know that part. Oh, I love it. And then a some thoracic rotation. So it's a V stance T spine is what it's called. So this one you will be standing for. So you're going to go nice and wide with your feet, and then you're going to try to keep your knees straight. And bending down, you're going to try to put your palms flat onto the ground. Cause sometimes I know, is going to come right to the pelvis. yep. So pushing the palms all the way to the ground there, and then you're going to rotate up. So you're going to keep one hand down. So keeping your right arm down and then you'll rotate your left arm all the way up to the sky. And then still remain in contact with that right hand on the ground. And then you'll bring the. Left hand back down to the ground, and then you go up with that right hand. So always gonna have one hand on the ground, knees are nice and straight in a V position. And we're just gonna go side to side 10 times. I like to keep those reps. should we be watching the hand that goes up so we Yes, moving the same direction? exactly. Yep. So we definitely want that chin to follow your thumb is what I always like to say. As you come up to keep that good neck position. Awesome. So, so yeah, those are going to be most of our upper body stretches and mobility movements. And that last one we said that definitely gets the hips in as well. But then the next two are going to be our couch stretch and our lateral squat. So that couch stretch great for those anybody with those tight hip flexors. So you're going to go with your back foot up on something that's about couch height. So it could be an adjusting table if you take that all the way down. So you'll go with just your shoe or your shoelaces or your toes on, and then you'll drop your knee to the ground. So let's clarify, that's probably our pelvic benches in our rooms would be perfect height. Oh, there we go. Yep. But yeah, so that back foot's up on that, and then your knee is going to be on the ground and then your other foot is going to be right out in front of you. So one knee on the ground, kind of like a half kneeling position, but that back foot's elevated essentially is what that is. And you're really going to feel a stretch right in the front of your hip on that one, all the way up through down to the right on top of your kneecap. So that's going to be our couch stretch. And then the last thing is going to be a lateral squat. So we're going to go back into that wide footed position, that V stance, and then we're just going to squat down to one side while keeping the other side's knee relatively straight. So really looking for depth on that one. I always like to throw a big compound strength movement after we do some mobility work so then we can gain strength in that new range of motion that we've kind of gained from all of those mobility drills. And then all And then, you talked about. So if I'm just listening, I could find all these on the internet real easy, right? Just by typing in couch stretch, I'd see tons of examples of it, yes, strip maybe, maybe I've had hip problems and I maybe want to find a different way of doing it. Those would all be easy to find. yes. Very easy. Just, you just type those in right by name. You get a bunch of different variations of them as well. So progressions, regressions as well. For those of you who Maybe potentially it's hard to put that knee directly on the ground or some other variations like that. Awesome. So that's our little routine that we need to start working on doing it when I first walk in before I see my patients maybe during the middle of my break and then after the day is over before I want to recline and relax, that'd be a good time to sneak one more in. That's great. Yeah, getting those three times in would be perfect, but it's also a great warm up routine because I know everyone's getting their strength training in three times a week, two to three times a week. So making sure that you're doing that as a warm up as well. I can vouch that I get those in. So Coach Mason you have like an Instagram or something like that you can share with us that I can put up at the end of this in case somebody has a question or wants to ask you, is that something that you're available to? Yes, definitely. So yeah, my Instagram is just at Mason Chockley and just give me a follow right there. I'll give you a little shout out if I can. And I'd really appreciate the support. All right. Well, I always finish if you have any final words that you want to throw in there, I always give the floor to my guests. So any final words? Yeah, definitely. The best mobility work is going to be getting your strength training in. And as we talked about. Earlier about those repetitive forces that you guys are experiencing that you're dealing with every single day. Well, the best way to combat a lot of those things is going to be to raise your capacity. So if you're going to be doing those adjustments and you're going to be getting anywhere from those 15 to 150, 180 pounds of pressure, well, why don't you raise the capacity that a shoulder can take and just gain a little more strength to it. So then that way you don't have to worry so much about that overuse. All right. Well, thanks a lot. Well, in the comments, we'll put Coach Mason's links on there so you can get a hold of them if you have questions. And other than that, I just want to thank everybody for tuning in. Listen to another edition of the ICA sports and science podcast. You know, I struggle with that name every, every week. I'm going to try to change that name if I ever get my way. But if you like what you heard, you want to hear more, like and subscribe, please share us and come back, go to the ICA webpage, chiropractic. org to learn more. And other than that, thank you, coach Mason. We appreciate you and everybody have fun and let coach Mason say his tag phrase. Thank you and be great today. All right. Thanks.