Can Chiropractic Adjustments Make You Stronger? | Podcast Ep. 111

Hello and welcome to the Evidence Based Chiropractor. I AM your host, Dr. Jeff Langmaid. This week we have an extraordinary study that you are going to want to hear about and it is emerging research, very interesting, just released in January of 2018, which means this month, and it is all about increased strength after a chiropractic adjustment or manipulation. So it is a good one. So as I touched on at the top this week, we are looking at a very exciting piece of research. As a matter of fact, this was released just this month for all members of the Evidence Based Chiropractor as their monthly research brief with their practice information in the header in the footer. You've heard about how we help docs build relationships with other providers in their community through research. And this was a study we drove right to the top of the list and put it out immediately. And the feedback that I have gotten from the members has been overwhelming. Neck pain and back pain I think are actually fun and interesting. But studies like this show where chiropractic research can go and allude to much more than simply the relief of pain. And that is exciting. So the title of this study was the Effects of a Single Session of Spinal Manipulation on Stress and Cortical Drive in Athletes. This was from the European Journal of Applied Physiology and again, that title was the Effects of a Single Session of Spinal Manipulation on Strength and Cortical Drive in Athletes. So I like this study for many different reasons. But one of the reasons why I think this study is interesting not only to me and to you, but to other healthcare providers in your community is that there's probably never been a time where more people are more active, where more practitioners, healthcare providers, are seeing more athletes. So with CrossFit workout a day, everything that's really taken hold from a health standpoint, people are probably as active as they've ever been in the last 20 years, especially if you compare it to maybe the last hundred years or so. So in many people that are athletic, whether it's, you know, a weekend warrior or somebody who enjoys, you know, CrossFit, they're not only looking to stay pain and injury, but performance and competition is certainly a part of that. And we've looked at tons of studies that again, have shown chiropractic care is universally considered safe and effective for taking care of and improving musculoskeletal conditions. But this study is really one of the first to take a look at the adjustment or the manipulation's application as a performance enhancer, so to speak, in an athletic population. And the researchers in this study found that the adjustment or the manipulation provided the subjects with an increased maximum voluntary contraction for 30 minutes and an elevation of corticospinal excitability for at least 60 minutes. So that is very, very interesting because it speaks to one thing that we've talked about earlier with the evidence based chiropractor podcast was increased cortical drive. And there was a paper that came out just last year talking about that. And this takes it even one step further where they see that increased corticospinal excitability for up to an hour. But what they also did was they tested the soleus muscle and they tested kind of the power created and the increase in strength after that adjustment compared to the control group. And the athletes in this study were elite taekwondo champions. So we know that, hey, a single chiropractic adjustment or manipulation doesn't magically turn you into the world champion deadlifter by any stretch. But it's very exciting when we can see the chiropractic adjustment, spinal manipulation impact simply much more than simply pain relief on itself. So let's take a look at a few quotes from the researchers here that they found in this paper. The researchers found, quote, improvement of neural adaptations such as the H reflex and the V wave contributes to enhanced motor performance. So they were looking at what they're calling the H reflex and the V wave as markers of that motor performance. This researchers also found the main finding in this study was the maximum plantar flexion force and corticospinal excitability to the plantar flexors, which they called the V wave, increased following spinal manipulation, but not in the control group. I'm gonna read that quote one more time. The main finding in this study was that maximum plantar flexion force and corticospinal excitability to the plantar flexors. That's what they evalu evaluated as their V wave increased following spinal manipulation, but not in the control group. And finally, the researchers found the increased V wave amplitudes observed in the current study possibly reflected increased cortical drive in the corticospinal pathways and corresponding increased excitability of the motoneuron following spinal manipulation. So that really is it in a nutshell. These researchers took elite athletes, some of and they did a one adjustment. So this was not a ten year study, this was not a five year study. This was a single session adjustment on elite taekwondo athletes. After that adjustment, they looked at 30 minutes and 60 minutes and they were trying to determine is there increased force, power, strength, is There increased plantar drive, they looked at the soleus muscle for that. They additionally looked at is there increased corticospinal excitability? Are those nerve tracts firing at a higher level? Have they been influenced by that adjustment? And what the researchers in this paper found was the answer is yes. So this is setting the stage for a great year of research when we can look at January 2018, brand new cutting edge research that again just came out in the European Journal of Applied Physiology and I'm gonna read the title of it one more time. The effects of a single session of spinal manipulation on strength and cortical drive in athletes. Additionally, if you look at this paper or certainly if you are a member of the evidence based chiropractor and you received a research brief that touched on this study here, you will find that they really put together a fantastic graph and we talked about that V wave and that's what they were utiliz to really measure what was going on. And what you can see between the control group and the spinal manipulation group is it's drastic from pre to post, so before the adjustment, after the adjustment, then from before Pre to post 30 and Pre to post 60. So they measured at three markers directly before the adjustment, directly after, directly before the adjustment and 30 minutes afterward, directly before the adjustment and 60 minutes afterward. And there is a clear delineation in all three of of those subgroups, spinal manipulation had an increase. They had improvement from baseline at a substantial percentage. Whereas in all three categories in the control group it went south of zero. In other words, you know, spinal manipulation, it went north. There was positive change, control group, it went south. There was not that positive change to be seen. And in my opinion this is a great, again a fantastic study to be able to share with other healthcare providers in your community because it shows the different applications of what we do within chiropractic. Chiropractors have never been more present on professional athletic teams. I know Dr. Bishop and Dr. Allen with the professional Chiropractic Baseball Society. I know there's a football society, there is an upcoming hockey society. All of these sports teams are utilizing chiropractors at an exceptionally high level. Basketball, also Olympics of course. All of these high end athletes are utilizing chiropractors on their team. And I can't help believe that, yeah, some of that is about maintenance, some of that is about pain relief, some of that is about optimum range of motion. But this is a very interesting study when you start to pair together what we can see in the emerging realm. Hey, there might be performance enhancements naturally after a chiropractic adjustment. So I'm excited to see where this research goes. This is obviously just the tip of the iceberg regarding it and we need to be careful on how we extrapolate out the results. But it is a very, very exciting study and it is great with to share with other healthcare providers because again, they've probably seen lately in the last five years really the proliferation of chiropractors in the sports realm and this kind of draws it back to, you know, why, why is that the case? And this touches on one aspect of it. I think it's fantastically exciting. I know the feedback from the members, all my members of the Evidence Based Chiropractor were really universal in terms of saying wow, thank you for sharing this. This is really cool and interesting and I feel the same way. So if you'd like to build relationships with other healthcare providers community in 2018 and beyond, it is not too late. We are just starting the year off. Check out what we have going on@the evidencebasedchiropractor.com you can see everything we do to put together the plan for you, help you execute and help you get more new patients into your practice. By bridging the gap through research and through case notes and through meetings. We help guide you on all three accords. But research like this helps us make our job a lot easier when we can stand behind what we say and when there is research showing the benefits that we can provide through chiropractic care day in and day out in our practices. So I hope you have a fantastic day in practice and I will talk to you soon.

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