How Functional Neurology Gives Athletes a Competitive Edge

How Functional Neurology Gives Athletes a Competitive Edge (with Dr. Kyle Hoeft)

How does an athlete's brain process a fast-paced game when millions of stimuli are firing all at once? Whether it is a hockey player tracking a puck through heavy traffic or a quarterback reading a defensive line downfield, top-tier performance relies on a highly tuned nervous system.

In this episode of ChiroCast, host Dr. Brant Hulsebus is joined by ICA Sports and Fitness Science Council board member Dr. Kyle Hoeft to review recent literature on the intersection of functional neurology, sports performance, and chiropractic manual therapy. Together, they break down how specific adjustments radically alter an athlete’s spatial awareness, baseline recovery speeds, and overall load tolerance.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Neuromuscular Control & Stimulus Tolerance: Why legendary players like Wayne Gretzky and Barry Sanders excelled at processing chaotic sensory information in real time, and how chiropractic care optimizes that exact pathway.
• Acute Recovery & Load Tolerance: How regular adjustments prevent the cumulative physical toll of intense tournament schedules, such as AAU basketball weekends or grueling Ironman events.
• The "Sixth Sense" (Proprioception): A deep dive into how the brain maps the body in space, why upper cervical (C1/C2) subluxations destroy coordination, and how adjustments restore optimal midbrain firing.
• The Pink Dumbbell Story: Dr. Hulsebus shares a hilarious personal rehab story involving professional hockey players, a 1-pound dumbbell, and an inverted BOSU ball that accidentally unlocked a powerful clinical training protocol.
• Wobble Board Integration: Creative methods to layer functional neurological exercises directly over an athlete’s sport-specific training post-adjustment.

Ready to level up your sports chiropractic skills? Keep your calendar clear for the last week of July 2027 for the ICA Sports and Fitness Science Council's ultimate clinical symposium!

If you enjoyed this research breakdown, please hit Subscribe, leave us a 5-star review, and share this episode with a fellow practitioner. For more resources or to share a research paper with the council, visit chiropractic.org

Transcript

0:01

hello, and welcome to another edition of the ICA ChiroCast. we're back doing another ICA Sports and Fitness Science Council focused podcast. Brant Hulsebus. I'm on the ICA Sports and Fitness Science Council board, and I'm joined with my colleague on the board, Dr. Kyle Hoeft Thanks for having me again, Brant. It's always fun to discuss sports injuries and how athletes, today's athletes can recover faster, more efficiently, and come back stronger Dr. Hoeft, you're in Fishers, Indiana, right? I said it right this time? That's correct. Fishers, Indiana Yep, and I'm just one state over in Rockford, Illinois, and we both take care of a lot of athletes in our practices. Dr. Hoeft has a lot of individual athletes that come into your practice, and I take care of a couple pro teams. So kinda the same, kinda different. One of us has the athletes that come to our office, and I g- take my chiropractic to the locker room. But these things still hold up. And we did a couple research reviews, and we had a lot of positive feedback from that. A lot of people like those, so we wanted to dive in a little bit more. So I went to Perplexity, an AI engine, I typed in "functional neurology." Now, functional neurology us is chiropractic neurology, but the research term was functional neurology. I typed that in along with "sports performance" and "chiropractic," it put together a cool little synopsis for us that we kinda wanna review. But before we dive into it, I wanna continue to quote our resources because that's what AI does, it tells us where this came from. And the first one, I'm gonna totally butcher this name. It's Escribano-Colmena, and this was from the Neurophysiological Effects of a Single Functional Neurology Intervention on the Semicircular Canals Stimuli Dysfunction from Behavioral Science, Volume 15, Section 3. This is a study. We also have one here from Meyer. is a 2017 study titled "The Unraveling Functional Neurology: A Scoping Review of Theories and Clinical Applications in Context of Chiropractic Manual Therapy," which we call a chiropractic adjustment, from Chiropractic and Manual Therapies, Volume 25. And last but not least, the lead author of the last one is Rey-Mota. is a 2025 again. It's a case report, "The Potential Benefits of a Single Functional Neurology Intervention in Athletic Rehabilitative and Recovery: A Case Study" from the Frontiers of Sports and Active Living, Volume 6. So that was a mouthful, and but we'll put some links hopefully wherever you're watching or listening to this. we kinda came away with three big takeaways by using the AI engines and our own talking back and forth amongst each other on these. the first one I'm gonna dive into here is the neuromuscular control and stimulant tolerance. Dr. Hoeft, do you wanna tell us what that means in English? So let's, let's keep it real simple for our listeners and some of our professionals too can sometimes get lost in some of that technical jargon. So basically a typical athlete, for instance a a basketball player, a football player, a hockey player, they are constantly taking in sensory information whether it's on a, a basketball court, on a ice, on the ice for hockey players. Let's give the example of Wayne Gretzky. A lot of people remember Wayne Gretzky, one of the greatest hockey players ever. It, it was so important for him to be able to locate where that puck was gonna be at any moment in time. And so that in- incorporated certain body movements, certain body mec- mechanics. And same thing with basketball, knowing where the alley-oop is going to be when Le- when, when Dwyane Wade is throwing an alley-oop to LeBron James, for instance. I think a lot of people remember that i- iconic picture. Those are all activities that can be, be good examples of what you're talking about. We've seen improvement in this in the athletes that received chiropractic care versus those who did not. You know, as you said, Wayne Gretzky, he said he wasn't the biggest, the fastest, or the strongest, but he always knew where the puck was gonna be. So be able to process 10 skaters on the ice going in different directions checking, guy come and hit you, this and that, and have the foresight, the nervous re- the ocular vision to know which direction that puck was going while fans are cheering, lights are going off. It's pretty incredible when you stop to think about what it must be like. because I hockey with friends, but there's none of that stimulus going on. I'm sure you play basketball, but nothing like the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden Not, not for me either So the, that's really neat to see. So if you're the athlete and you really wanna have, you know, I think we used to call it in football downfield vision. I always talk about Barry Sanders, the ne- the Detroit Lions great. I know you're a Packer fan for some reason, I like the Bears, but we both can respect Barry Sanders and just being of the way he was able to cut and move and do all that. We're seeing that the athletes under care do so much better Absolutely. Yep. Barry Sanders is one one great example So let's talk about the second thing that came out of this article. We talked about acute recovery and load tolerance. There was quite a bit about that. You wanna talk a little bit about the acute recovery and load tolerance? Yes. So chiropractic treatment or chiropractic care right alongside, for instance, I, I would like to use the example of the AAU season that's upon us for basketball. A lot of my patients are athletes playing AAU basketball, and regular chiropractic care and treatment of these athletes that, you know, sometimes they're playing four or five or more games in a weekend, including the tournaments and so forth, they're gonna have aches and pains. They're going to have sprained ankles. They're gonna have back spasms. They're gonna have joint soreness and aches, and it's overuse. It's, it's excessive pounding and overuse. Regular chiropractic care is been shown to help these athletes bounce back quicker that next morning, whether it be Monday morning at the, the practice that they have to go to or another sport even that they're going to. Very, very important instrumental in keeping these a- athletes active and performing at a high level and staying on top of their game a lot of his vision that NFL football player on Monday morning Yes Takes them a half an hour to get out of bed, 20 minutes to get in their clothes, another hour to get into their car just to drive, the one that has the chiropractor. I think I saw a video on this with Kirk Cousins when they did the show Quarterbacks, and they also had one with Emmitt Smith, a famous chiropractic patient, and how much better they did the next morning for getting adjusted Absolutely, and we see more and more of that. I see that in my practice. I see you know, patients for instance, track season has, has finalized recently in the last few weeks for high school. I've had numerous athletes come in to see me during the course of the season. Some of them never been treated before. They go and get an adjustment. The next meet, the very next competition, they're setting a record, a personal record, a personal time that blows away what they did all season before or even in years, in years past. Same thing with the jumpers, for long jumpers. They're able to jump, maybe it's just an inch, maybe it's two inches, maybe it's more. But we're seeing this more and more, and it just underscores the importance of regular chiropractic treatment and how effective it is in this situation Stay in the game. To keep going week by week, not just for a game. We here in Rockford, not this week but last weekend, we had the Ironman run they swim, they bike, and they run. And then I had many athletes coming in as they were preparing for this. When I say athletes, people our age, a little older and younger. Just people who wanted to see if they could do it, not professional athletes by any means. And Right Tuesday, I had a whole bunch of them come in because I told them, "Why don't you make an appointment for Tuesday?" They said why not Monday?" I said you might be resting on Monday. There's a good chance you're not gonna wanna do a lot." Yes of them on Tuesday, and I was so impressed that they were walking normal. They weren't limping, they weren't sore, they weren't tired. And I told them that, you know, getting adjusted before the event helps you heal after the event, so you can actually now go back to real life. Absolutely. So… Very good example next year in the Ironman because I found out that there's time. You have to hit certain time marks, and if you don't hit the time mark, you're automatically disqualified. So my plan is to compete in the Ironman even though I probably won't finish because I probably won't make that first time mark, but I'll get the shirt and the little number tag in the photos. I love it. No, that's good. Just gotta keep pushing. It's very important. Yeah, keep those bodies, joints, and move. All the movement, gotta keep that movement Let's jump into the last one. Common explored modalities. Now this is the one that kinda hit home for me. This is about the multi-sensory strategies designed with stimulant-specific neural pathways. So let me explain that in English. talked about vestibular in your ears and your balance and being able to keep your your eyes level. We call that in chiropractic the righting reflex, where your eyes always stay level. Along with your optical, you know, making sure your eyes are going the right way the o-o-optical reflex. And lastly, proprioceptive inputs. Now, Dan Murphy taught me about proprioception being our sixth sense, like right now, I know where my hand is because if you can see me, it's right in front of my face. I can see it clear as day. But if I put my hand behind my head, I know where my hand is, even though I can't see it, smell it, or taste it. That's called proprioception. And with athletes, proprioception is huge at knowing where you are in space, especially if there's other people coming. Let's say we're playing football, and I got a football in my hand. You wanna know when the other guys around you are coming at you, so you s- protect that football so nobody takes it. And I take care of a hockey team, though. I take care of the Blackhawks farm team, the Rockford IceHogs. We're right below them, so the guys go up and down all the time. And I'm always amazed at these guys' proprioception, the ability to skate that fast, that hard while you're getting checked, while you're getting leveled, and you're bobbing and weaving in between people. they're showing that people under regular chiropractic care who these kind of contact sports… I know basketball is a contact sport, and football, soccer, they're all contact sports. The ability to get hip checked and then reset and get right back to where you were. They're saying that this is a so much higher ref- you get back to that reset so much better if you're under normal chiropractic care. I think that's so impressive because everyone's gonna get hit. Everyone's gonna get checked. Everyone's gonna even trip over your own feet sometimes, the ability to get back up So you, Absolutely Yeah, so that I left out on this one that you wanted to add? No, those are the big points. You know, proprioceptive training, especially when I- w- with what I see in basket- the basketball realm of sprained ankles. And a lot of people have heard of wobble boards. Very, very, very important to properly rehabilitate a sprained ankle. Those can be utilized very effectively to stimulate and regenerate proprioceptive fibers in, in this case, in an ankle joint. So many, many different applications that you can, you can find at your local chiropractor's office. So yep Back in 2015, I ripped my bicep out of my forearm and I had to go back and doing curls at the gym. And I went with the IceHogs strength coach and I had NHL first-round draft picks showing up during my workouts at the gym to get my bicep strength back. know if you know this or not, Dr. Hoeft, but when they have you go back they hand you a pink one-pound dumbbell. So I'm at Oh with all these first-round NHL hockey picks and every guy there is watching us and I'm in the corner with a pink one-pound dumbbell. Ah I gotta look more macho than that. You understand what I'm saying? Oh yeah, that's kind funny I grabbed the BOSU ball and I flipped it upside down with the flat side up, then I stood on that to give the perception I was actually doing balance exercises, not my curls Perfect. There you go my, I did my entire rehab that way, and I couldn't believe how much better my proprioception was afterwards. So what I like to do now is give a good C1, C2 adjustment, stimulate the midbrain, get the proprioceptive things firing, then have the athlete play their sport on the wobble board Gotcha a basketball hoop. Let's say the wobble board's four inches. take that basketball hoop, we'll raise it four inches, and we'll have them shoot free throws on the wobble board So step one, adjust the upper cervical. Step two is get them on a wobble board playing their sport. If you're a volleyball player, bounce the ball off the wall. If you're a soccer player, I guess you butt your head against the wall. Kind of hard to kick the ball on a wobble board. Yes to incorporate that wobble board in your training, it's been incredible Yep. Yeah, that's many different applications. That's another good example. You know, we see this in, in our office on a regular basis as well You can tell when somebody has an upper cervical subluxation because you just see that their coordination's gone. And giving that upper cervical adjustment, you see it come right back Yep. That's pretty cool So if you're an athlete suffering from these things, find yourself a good sports chiropractor. And if you're absolutely a better sports chiropractor, what our council's about. We're putting together a big thing in the-- Keep the last weekend of July 2027 open on your schedule. gonna sit down with you and teach you the basics of how to be a good sports chiropractor. Working with our-- Dr. Haith, myself, we have Dr. Kevin Jackson's gonna be working upper cervical stuff after a head injury for subacute stuff, how to do sideline assessments right there. then Dr. Todd McDougle and Dr. Ray are gonna teach us a lot about taking care of strength athletes, the different techniques you wanna use when using a strength athlete versus, let's say, somebody doing the rodeo. And we got Dr. Jon Stucky. He takes care of PGA golfers and the rodeo. Kind of a weird combination there. So we hope you can-- all of you can join us. Dr. Hoeft, do you have anything you wanna add to this before we wrap this up? Nope, I think I think that sums it up very nicely. And thanks again for having me on to discuss more benefits of chiropractic care for our athletes And if y- I think we're getting a good positive review on these research papers, so if you have a research paper that you've seen about chiropractic and sports, feel free to share it with us because we'd like to go over that with you, maybe even have you join us if you're watching this. So wherever you're watching or listening, make sure you like and subscribe, and you can always find more information at chiropractic.org about us. Other than that, everybody, let's keep those athletes moving because there's nothing better to promote chiropractic than through our athletes Absolutely All right. See you everyone All right. See you later