What to Know About Tight Hamstrings

Almost every patient that we evaluate for back pain in our chiropractic office has tight hamstrings.

This is because tight hamstrings cause stiffness and limit mobility.

The hamstrings are a group of muscles that can be viewed as the unsung heroes of the upper legs.

The three muscles in the back of the thigh allow us to bend our knees and pull our legs back as we walk.

They also assist the gluteal muscles, which are the powerhouses that propel us forward when getting up from a chair, leaping across a room, or climbing stairs.

The glutes (butt muscles) help us come to a stop from a run or walk and lower our bodies to sit down or squat.

Weak gluteal muscles wind up overburdening the hamstrings.

This is because there’s a strong interplay between the glutes and our hamstrings. When the glutes are weak, which is common in the age of sitting too much, the hamstrings are continually overworked and overloaded, resulting in tight hamstrings.

Tight hamstrings can make it difficult to walk or stand comfortably, which in turn impacts our posture and activities of daily living.

In this article, we discuss symptoms, causes and a few treatments for tight hamstrings.

Symptoms of Tight Hamstrings

The hamstrings are a group of muscles that run down the back of the leg.

There are three muscles that make up what we refer to as “the hamstrings”:

biceps femorissemitendinosussemimembranosus

Together, these muscles support our ability to walk, run, and jump.

Some of the more obvious signs of tight hamstrings include:

crampingpainswellingbruisingtendernessredness

Having tight hamstrings can also increase the risk of injury.

Less common signs and symptoms would include:

pulled muscle (muscle strain or tendonitis)weakness of the hamstring (ligament sprain)weak hip flexorsconstant back painknee pain or injuriesfoot pain

What Causes Tight Hamstrings?

The most common cause of tight hamstrings is exertion or intense forms of exercise.

The tightness will usually occur after starting a new exercise routine or suddenly increasing workout intensity. In some cases, this can be completely normal due to lack of physical activity and training.

It could also be argued that tight hamstrings is most often caused by sedentarism or physical inactivity.

It is well documented that tight hamstrings occur after long periods of sitting or inactivity.

For example, sitting at a desk for two to three hours at a time will invariably lead to tightness.

In other cases, the tightness might be due to injury, possibly a recurring injury that makes the hamstrings more vulnerable to tightness.

Although it may seem as though tight hamstrings are due to tight muscles, the reality is, most of us with tight hamstrings have abnormal posture and alignment that causes these muscles to continuously overload.

This is where balancing our posterior chain (hamstrings and glutes) with a strong anterior core (abs) to maintain hip alignment becomes detrimental to overcoming tight hamstrings.

As with most mechanical problems, strength and good movement are the answer.

What Treatments to Consider for Tight Hamstrings

Tight hamstrings are usually not a cause for concern but left unchecked, they can absolutely wreck your body posture and alignment.

We should always start with a strong foundation of maintaining good posture throughout the day, working on our flexibility and mobility and strengthening the muscles that support our body.

Strengthen The Posterior Chain

The posterior chain is the most influential muscle group in the body.

The posterior chain is quite simply the backside of the body including part of our core musculature.

Its primary muscles include the lower back, glutes, hamstrings and the calves. Other muscles include the trapezius, posterior deltoids and latissimus dorsi, transvere abdominus and diaphragm.

All these muscles play an essential role in our ability to move and stabilize, and therefore not only affect our day to day movements but also our athletic performance.

Therefore, to truly overcome your tight hamstrings, you’d want to make sure that you are activating and strengthening these muscles.

Some of the best exercises to maintain the health of these muscles include:

Weighted or Body Weight SquatsDeadliftsWeighted or Body Weight LungesExtension based exercisesHip Thrusters

Fix Your Posture & Alignment

Because the hamstrings attach to the top of the back of the pelvis when sitting, sitting itself contributes to tightness. The problem isn’t necessarily the inactivity, but a faulty position that we place our body in.

If the pelvis is tilted too far forwards, as is often the case when seated, this puts the hamstring in to a lengthened and weakened position. This inevitably results in us ‘feeling tight’, yet the muscle is actually long.

This is a very important concept to understand. When we feel tightness, the muscle itself may not be shortened or tight, but rather lengthened and inactive.

The solution therefore is to not stretch or lengthen the muscle further, but to change or correct our position and strengthen the muscle.

True Tightness or Shortened Muscles

Though the need to stretch hamstrings is not the most common cause of tightness, there absolutely occasions where we need to stretch our hamstrings.

In these cases, rather than just folding forward and grabbing your ankles, you’d want to focus on a low-load, long duration type of stretching.

This involves gently restoring muscle range using braces, beanbags, resistance bands, splints and pillows.

A few examples would include:

Lying hamstring stretch with a bandSeated hamstring stretch while on a chairDownward DogBended knee hamstring stretches

How Chiropractic Can Help

If you’ve ever gone for a run or a workout without stretching first, you can probably remember the feeling of your leg muscles tightening and being sore the next day.

Hamstring tightness is a common problem for many people.

Consistent tightness in the back of the legs is not only uncomfortable but can also make exercising extremely difficult.

However, many people stretch every day to relieve hamstring tension, only to see no results.

While this can be frustrating, it likely indicates that the problem does not lie in your muscle’s length.

Instead, there may be another underlying problem that needs to be identified and addressed.

Family Health Chiropractic utilizes Chiropractic BioPhysics (CBP), a chiropractic approach that diagnoses and treats the root of your pain, not just the symptom, with chiropractic adjustments.

If you are frustrated by hamstring tension, make an appointment with a our chiropractor to get help identifying the true issue.

The post Tight Hamstrings: Symptoms, Causes and Treatment appeared first on Family Health Chiropractic.

By: Dr. Daniel Gonzalez
Title: Tight Hamstrings: Symptoms, Causes and Treatment
Sourced From: www.familyhealthchiropractic.com/tight-hamstrings-symptoms-causes-treatment/
Published Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2021 16:30:30 +0000

With each passing year, more and more evidence is mounting supporting the benefits of regular chiropractic adjustments.

Every year, scientists are publishing scientific chiropractic-based studies aimed at gaining a little more understanding as to how chiropractic influences your health and wellness.

While theres a lot of work yet to do, the evidence is pointing to a world of possibilities when it comes to neuroplasticity (changes in nerve and brain tissue) and human performance.

Still, there are new frontiers yet to be explored.

One of these is the area of vagal nerve stimulation.

Recent research indicates that decreased neuro-inflammation is associated with higher vagus nerve activity. [1]

So what is the vagus nerve and how exactly does a chiropractic adjustment stimulate the vagus nerve?

The Vagus Nerve is a Key to Well Being

Take a deep breath.

Hug a friend.

Reach for the ceiling and stretch your limbs.

Each of these simple acts bestows a sense of calm and comfort.

And each works its soothing magic in part by activating a complicated system of nerves that connects the brain to the heart, the gut, the immune system, and many of the organs.

That system is known collectively as the vagus nerve.

The vagus nerve is one of the twelve cranial nerves, which spread out from brain and into the body like an intricate network of roots.

These nerve networks act as lines of communication between the brain and the bodys many systems and organs.

Some of the cranial nerves interpret sensory information collected by the skin, eyes, or tongue.

Others control muscles or communicate with glands.

The vagus nerve, also called the 10th cranial nerve, is the longest, largest, and most complex of the cranial nerves, and in some ways its also the least understood.

Experts have linked its activity to symptom changes in people with migraine headaches, inflammatory bowel disease, depression, epilepsy, arthritis, and many other common ailments.

The more scientists learn about the vagus nerve, the more it seems like a better understanding of its function could unlock new doors to treating all manner of human suffering.

We know that depressed people have low vagus nerve activity.

A separate branch of the vagus nerve runs down to the gastrointestinal tract and decreased activity is associated with slowed gastric function, which interferes with proper digestion.

Still other branches of the vagus nerve are connected to the heart, the lungs, and the immune system.

The vagus nerves activation or deactivation is tied to the ebb or flow of hormones such as cortisol and the digestive hormone ghrelin, the amount of inflammation the immune system produces, and many other internal processes that shape human health and experience.

Theres a massive bioelectrical and biochemical series of events that the vagus nerve is responsible for, and all that is almost impossible to map; yet we know that chiropractic adjustments can stimulate it.

Why is that important?

Pick almost any common medical condition thats made worse by stress or inflammation everything from arthritis to inflammatory bowel disease and theres research showing that vagus nerve stimulation can help treat it or relieve its symptoms.

Chiropractic Adjustments Influence the Vagus Nerve

The vagus nerve is especially important to Chiropractors because of the link between essential nerves and the spine and upper neck.

Spinal health plays a significant role in directing the health of the vagus nerve.

If the spine becomes altered in its positioning or ability to move freely, the information to and from the spinal nerves become interrupted.

Chiropractors play close attention to the alignment and movement of the spine to assure better vagus nerve activity.

New research from 2018 proved that chiropractic adjustments boost the function of the vagus nerve by impacting heart rate variability, which is what the vagus nerve controls.

Another study showed that long term chiropractic care (52 weeks) resulted in sustained improvements of heart rate variability.

An improvement in the vagus nerve activity plays a major role in regulating autonomic nervous system function, lowering chronic disease risk, and decreasing mortality rates.

Better health and function within the nervous system represents only a portion of the benefits experienced through regular Chiropractic care.

All people deserve the proven health care option delivered conveniently by a local Chiropractor.

Now you know!

The post Chiropractic Adjustments Influence the Vagus Nerve appeared first on Family Health Chiropractic.

By: Dr. Daniel Gonzalez
Title: Chiropractic Adjustments Influence the Vagus Nerve
Sourced From: familyhealthchiropractic.com/chiropractic-adjustments-influence-the-vagus-nerve/
Published Date: Mon, 06 Jan 2020 13:50:32 +0000

Should I See A Chiropractor?

Every year, Millions of people in the U.S. see chiropractors for relief ofheadaches; back pain, shoulder, foot and neck pain.

People also seek the guidance of a chiropractor when they experience numbness and tingling or a loss of strength in the arms, hands and legs.

Overall, 62% of adults in the U.S. have hadneckorback pain significant enough that they sought treatment from a health care professional at some point in their lifetime.

And according to a Gallup survey conducted by Palmer College of Chiropractic, among patients who sought health care for neck or back pain, 47% saw a medical doctor and 53% sought treatment from a chiropractor.

The estimated number of people who seek chiropractic care is in the tens of millions.

One of the primary reasons why people choose a chiropractor is because it’s a safe, drug less approach to care.

Let’s talk about some benefits of chiropractic adjustments and what chiropractic adjustments actually do.

Benefits of a Chiropractic Adjustment

There is overwhelming research to suggest that chiropractic works well for many conditions.

Chiropractic Helps with Low Back and Neck Pain

One study involving chiropractic patients with neck pain found that96 percent of respondents indicated that they were either Very satisfied or Satisfied with the chiropractic care they received, and that 98 percent said that they Definitely would or were Very likely to choose chiropractic care again if they experienced a similar problem.

Another study published in theJournal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeuticsfoundpatients with chronic low-back pain treated by chiropractors showed greater improvement and satisfaction one month following treatment compared to patients treated by family physicians.

Chiropractic Helps with Sciatica

Compared to most medical treatments, few interventions can initiateback pain reliefand healing like chiropractic adjustments can. TheEuropean Spine Journalpublished findings from a clinical trial uncovering how chiropractic adjustments resulted in a 72 percent success rate in treating sciatica-related symptoms. This can be compared to a 20 percent success rate from treatment with physical therapy, and a 50 percent success rate from corticosteroid injections.

Chiropractic Helps with Headaches

Second only to back pain, headaches bothtension headachesandmigraine headaches are one of the most common conditions regularly managed by chiropractors. There are over 230 peer-reviewed articlesreferenced chiropractics ability to help cure, prevent and ease the burden of headaches and migraines in people all across the globe!

Chiropractic Helps with Colic, Acid Reflux and Ear Infections in Children

A 2011 systematic review published in the journalExplore which included a review of 26 articles in total, including three clinical trials and four cohort studies found that chiropractic adjustments helped greatlyreduce colic symptoms.

In addition, any case studies have been documented that describe how children suffering from ailments including otitis media(orear infections) oracid refluxhave experienced complete to near-complete resolution after just a few visits with a chiropractor.

Chiropractic Helps with Neurological Conditions

Exciting research is currently being conducted via upright MRI scans showing how upper cervical adjustments affect various brain-based conditions. What we have seen so far is quite remarkable. Not only are MRI scans revealing that cerebral spinal fluid and blood flow are markedly increased after a chiropractic adjustment, researchers are observing that cerebellar invagination (when the cerebellum drops down below the skull line) is being reversed and brain plaquing (common inmultiple sclerosis patients) isdisappearing!

Chiropractic Helps to Prevent Surgery

While it’s not 100%, chiropractic has long been heralded by natural health care providers as a natural method to prevent back surgery. In fact, the Journal of the American Medical Associationjust recently published its low back pain guidelines and suggested that people suffering from back pain first try chiropractic before resorting to surgery.

Chiropractic Helps Improve Athletic Performance

Theres good reason why for years professional athletes including Michael Phelps, Jerry Rice and Joe Montana have made a point to regularly be treated by chiropractors. In fact, over 50 percent of NFL teams have a chiropractor on staff, this way the players always have access to adjustments, stretches and exercises when needed.

What Are Chiropractic Adjustments?

The Definition of Chiropractic

There are a number of chiropractic definitions depending on who you ask.

According to the World Federation of Chiropractic, the meaning of chiropractic medicine is:

A health profession concerned with the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mechanical disorders of the musculoskeletal system, and the effects of these disorders on the function of the nervous system and general health. There is an emphasis on manual treatments including spinal adjustment and other joint and soft-tissue manipulation.

Heres another chiropractic definition, this time according to the Association of Chiropractic Colleges:

Chiropractic is a healthcare discipline that emphasizes the inherent recuperative power of the body to heal itself without the use of drugs or surgery. The practice of chiropractic focuses on the relationship between structure (primarily the spine) and function (as coordinated by the nervous system) and how that relationship affects the preservation and restoration of health. In addition, doctors of chiropractic recognize the value and responsibility of working in cooperation with other health care practitioners when in the best interest of the patient.

Indeed, chiropractic can be a complementary medicine since most chiropractors are used to working with medical doctors to get people pain-free and prevent future injuries.

The Definition of a Chiropractic Adjustment

Most of the benefits associated with chiropractic care are due to patients receiving specific chiropractic adjustments.

Chiropractic adjustments work by helping to place your body in the proper position that then allows the body to heal itself.

Because the nervous system controls every cell and organ in your body, chiropractorsfocus their attention on the health of the spine being properly aligned.

If the spine shifts out of its proper place, then adjustments are used to help bring the spine back into alignment.

A Chiropractic Adjustment Influences the Spine, Spinal Cord and Brain

Over the past ten years several research groups have demonstrated that spinal adjustments can change various aspects of nervous system function, including muscle reflexes, reaction time, and the speed at which the brain processes information.

Much of this research has demonstrated that when chiropractors apply an adjustive thrust to the spine, it stimulates specific tissues around the spine that feed valuable information the brain.

Chiropractors have known for over a hundred years that movement is important, and now we better understand why that is.

Its not just because exercise is good for you, which of course it is.

But movement feeds the brain with information about what is going on in your body.

You cannot see inside your body and you dont watch everything you do.

So your brain relies on all sorts of information arriving from all around your body to have a clear picture of what is going on and to make the right decisions about how best to respond.

When your spinal segments are not in properly alignment or moving as they should, the different or excessive information that the brain receives may act as background noise in the system, making it harder for the brain to accurately perceive what is going on and respond appropriately.

But out of all the research that has been done on chiropractic adjustments, the most interesting thing that came from all these experiments is that chiropractic care, adjusting the spine to restore spinal function, actually changes the way the brain functions.

Final Thoughts on Chiropractic Adjustments

Final Thoughts on Chiropractic Benefits

Chiropractic adjustments work by helping to place your body in the proper position that then allows the body to heal itself.

One of the key focuses of chiropractic care is realigning the spine and thereby reducing pressure placed on sensitive nerves, which can contribute to dysfunction of the central nervous system.

Chiropractic can be a complementary medical approach to mainstream medicine as well, and its been proven to be one of the safest approaches to naturally and holistically treating patients with a wide range of symptoms or conditions, including: back or neck pain, sciatica, scoliosis, frozen shoulder, acid reflux or digestive issues, headaches, high blood pressure, injuries and neuromusculoskeletal complaints that may require surgery.

The post How Do Chiropractic Adjustments Work? appeared first on Family Health Chiropractic.

By: Dr. Daniel Gonzalez
Title: How Do Chiropractic Adjustments Work?
Sourced From: familyhealthchiropractic.com/how-do-chiropractic-adjustments-work/
Published Date: Sun, 02 Feb 2020 23:24:41 +0000

Do you ever ask yourself why your neck is so stiff, or why you have that nagging headache that doesn’t seem to want to go away? Neck pain is a common complaint for Canadians that can range from mildly inconvenient to completely debilitating. You’re probably aware that poor posture, hunching over a computer, or falling asleep on the sofa can cause your neck pain. But did you know your smartphone might be to blame?

How prolonged use can cause strain

According to a recent poll by Forum Research, more than a quarter of Canadians use a mobile device at least two hours a day.¹ Over the span of a week, that’s 14 hours spent texting, calling and swiping.

So what exactly is happening to your neck while you’re staring at your smartphone? It all has to do with the angle of your head. When you’re sitting or standing in a neutral position, looking forward, your head weighs between 10-12 lbs. As you begin to tilt your head forward 15 degrees, you put stress on your neck, increasing the pressure to 27 lbs. By the time you angle your head 60 degrees to stare at your smartphone, the pressure equates to a whopping 60 lbs. That’s a lot of strain on your neck and spine!

Tips to relieve pain

What can you do to protect your spine and relieve neck pain? We know you can’t completely disconnect from your smartphones – many of us use our devices for work, to stay connected with distant friends and family, and as a source of entertainment after a long day. But there are small changes you can make to reduce the strain over time.

Dr. Sean Lamasz, DC, recommends the following tips to manage “Text Neck:”²

1. Lift your phone up to eye level

“A simple way to help prevent neck pain associated with these devices is to avoid bending your neck forward,” advises Dr. Lamasz. “Looking at your phone while sitting at your desk? Lean on your elbows, bringing your phone to eye level, allowing you to keep your neck in its neutral position.”

2. Take a break

Dr. Lamasz suggests implementing the 20-20-20 rule. For every 20 minutes on your mobile device, take a 20-second break and look 20 feet ahead, which will neutralize your spine.

3. Stretch it out

If you’re looking for something you can do to instantly relieve neck pain, try these eight simple stretches:

SOURCE: www.drseanlamasz.com/blog/2019/2/14/text-neck

Your chiropractor can help

These stretches are often best practiced in combination with manual therapy. Your chiropractor will recommend a course of treatment specific to you which may include spinal adjustments, joint mobilization, muscle release techniques, muscle stimulation, therapeutic exercises, and lifestyle advice.

1Powers, Neil. “Half of Young Canadian Adults Spend Two or More Hours per Day on Their Cellphones.” Financial Post, 26 Feb. 2018, business.financialpost.com/telecom/half-of-young-canadian-adults-spend-two-or-more-hours-per-day-on-their-cellphones.

2Lamasz, Sean. “8 Easy Stretches to Manage ‘Text Neck.’” Dr. Sean Lamasz, Dr. Sean Lamasz, 14 Feb. 2019, www.drseanlamasz.com/blog/2019/2/14/text-neck.

The post Your smartphone could be causing your neck pain appeared first on Canadian Chiropractic Association (CCA) – Association chiropratique canadienne.

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