“How Can You Help Me Escape the Pain I’m in?”
This is a question I receive quite often when potential patients in Portland, Oregon and other places in the U.S. and Canada call me, email me or contact me through the Optimum Function Website.
At Optimum Function, patients not only have access to various chiropractic and soft tissue techniques, they also have access to functional rehabilitation and training that includes kettlebells, TRX suspension systems and body weight exercises. My patients have access to nutritional interventions to decrease pain and inflammation that include diet and lifestyle counseling, body composition analysis, anti-inflammatory supplements, and blood work or other lab work if necessary.
In fact, there are not many chiropractic, nutrition, functional medicine and hypnosis clinics in Portland, Oregon; and even fewer that treat patients from all over the U.S. and Canada. As a doctor, I decided to pursue treatments that allowed me to help my patients from a few different avenues.
- Chiropractic, soft tissue therapies and manual medicine allow me to restore motion in joints and balance tension throughout your body. Techniques used include; Graston Therapy, Kinesiotape, Cold Laser, Electrostimulation, Arthrostim, Vibracussor, Adjusting, Active Muscle Release, and more!
- Functional rehab. and training allows me to “turn-on” the muscles that are your prime movers. After this is done, I can give you full-body functional workouts to help solidify your body’s stability and reduce your risk of re-injury.
- Nutrition and functional medicine allows me to look at and treat your particular chemical and physiological processes. Often, diet, exercise and lifestyle changes are the first line of defense against diseases like type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension and obesity
- Hypnosis helped me round-out my treatment paradigm by allowing me to help my patients on a subconscious level, dealing with habits, issues and problems on a level deeper than the conscious mind for long-lasting, effectiveness.
Well, there you have it, at Optimum Function in Portland, Oregon, you get one-on-one treatments that address many of your health concerns. Escape pain and live the life of your dreams!
Yours in Health,Tim Irving DC, MS, LMTOptimum Function: 819 SE Morrison St. ste. 215, Portland, OR, 97215Optimum Function = Optimum Health
TRX Suspension Fitness: Functional Training at Home or On-The-Go
I have been using various suspension traning systems for a bit now at home. I recently found one that is high enough quality to utilize in the office for functional traning and rehabilitation. It’s called the TRX Suspension system. I will soon have 1 or 2 stations set-up at Optimum Function to utilize in my Portland, Oregon office for Functional movement/traning and to compliment my chiropractic, rehabilitation and nutrition programs.
Click on the following link for more info: TRX Suspension Training
As always, you can email info@OptFunction.com, leave a comment on this entry or click on the following link for more information about my Portland, Oregon Chiropractic, Nutrition, Functional Fitness and Functional Medicine office: Optimum Function: Portland, Oregon Chiropractic, Nutrition, Functional Fitness and Body Fat Testing
Yours in Health Tim Irving DC, MScan. LMT, CKTP, Nutritionist Optimum Function: Portland, Oregon, 97214 Optimum Function = Optimum HealthYours in Health,Tim Irving DC, MS, LMTOptimum Function: 819 SE Morrison St. ste. 215, Portland, OR, 97215Optimum Function = Optimum Health
Performance and Optimal Movement Require the Correct Balance of Mobility and Stability:
Your body moves in very complex and concerted (when moving properly) ways. You develop these movement patterns as an infant and young child; first learning things like rolling over and pushing yourself up, then crawling, touching your toes, squatting and walking (which requires you to stand on one leg). As a child, you had all the mobility in the world but little stability.
As you gained stability, you had to “reign-in” some of your mobility (joint movement and flexibility). Through injuries and trying to perform complex tasks before you were ready, the balance between your mobility and stability became dysfunctional. You lost some mobility in certain areas while losing stability in others. Here is a list of the major joints and areas of your body that are assessed in my Optimal Movement Screen (Next to the area/joint, I list whether they usually require mobility or stability):
- Ankle=mobility
- Knee=stability
- Hip=mobility
- Low back=stability
- Mid and upper back=mobility
- Neck=stability
- Shoulder=stability
- Elbow=mobility
- Wrist=stability
- Hand=mobility
Over the past twenty years, the training and physical medicine industry has progressed from a very myopic and incorrect approach of training by body part (even though you can go into any gym at any given time and see people working-out like this) to a more intelligent approach of training by movement pattern. The “train movement not muscles” push is gaining ground, albeit slowly. To train movement, you must first have enough of it available in some joints (mobility) while being able to control the amount, speed and vector of movement in others (stability).
For Optimal Movement and hence beneficial training, this balance must exist. If it does not, it is fairly simple….. dysfunction occurs. Here are some examples of what can happen:
- Lose ankle mobility, get knee pain/injury.
- Lose hip mobility, get low back pain/injury.
- Lose upper and mid-back mobility, get neck and shoulder pain/injury (or low back pain).
- Lose wrist stability, get elbow and/or shoulder pain/injury and so on….
To illustrate this further, I will talk specifically about low back pain as it is why most of my patients come to see me initially. Here’s what I am seeing clinically; loss of hip mobility is often THE cause of low back pain. Loss of function in the joint below (in the case of your low back, the hip) seems to negatively affect the joint or joints above; making the low back vulnerable to injury and dysfunction. In other words, if a joint can’t move (your hip) the joints above and sometimes below will move in inappropriate and injurious ways. The problem is that your hip is built to require primarily mobility, and your low back requires primarily stability.
There are definitely cases where there are mobility problems in the low back and in those cases, chiropractic manipulation works wonders to reduce the mobility problems so we can then addressed the stability problem that is at the root of your low back pain and dysfunction.
Would you like to learn how my Optimal Movement screening and treatment program can help you? Go to www.OptMovement.com or click on this link, Portland, Oregon Functional Movement Program, email info@OptFunction.com or call 503-866-9739; schedule an appointment and I can evaluate whether it is a faulty movement patterns that are causing your pain and dysfunction or some sort of tissue damage that will require rehabilitation before fixing your faulty movement pattern(s).
Yours in HealthTim Irving DC, LMT, MScan, CKTP, Nutritionist
Optimum Function: Portland, Oregon, 97214
Optimum Function = Optimum Health
Chiropractic, Nutrition, Functional Movement Patterns, Functional Medicine, Clinical Hypnosis, Graston, Kinesiotape.
Yours in Health,Tim Irving DC, MS, LMTOptimum Function: 819 SE Morrison St. ste. 215, Portland, OR, 97215Optimum Function = Optimum Health
What is a Chiropractic Manipulation/Adjustment?
Manipulations and adjustments lie at the root of chiropractic care; which was first developed by D.D. Palmer over 100 years ago. The chiropractic adjustment, as it is commonly called, is the key element in mobility problems of just about every joint in the body.
The chiropractic adjustment works by restoring normal joint function, position and helping to reduce pain. If a joint does not have full, pain-free range of motion, other joints adjacent or within the same functional unit will have to compensate. This compensation can occur a number of different ways; by altering its position or range of motion or by sending improper signals to the brain about its position in space. In addition, these compensatory patterns can cause important stabilization muscles to reduce their activity and other, more powerful yet less precise muscles to increase their activity. This can all lead to pain and dysfunction and can put you at risk for developing injuries elsewhere.
Joint alignment is extremely important because their position determines how efficiently they work. According to James Cyriax, a British orthopedic surgeon, a mal-position of as small as 1mm in between your vertebrae will change the articular function and congruity by 98%! This means that the amount of contact surfaces between joints changes dramatically with very little mal-position. This lack of congruity can cause early degenerative changes as well as all of the problems mentioned previously. Think of a mal-position like stacking a bunch of similar bowls on top of each other. If you move one bowl aside 1/4 of an inch, the whole stack s affected.
It is important, for the sake of keeping the bowls from falling, that they stay positioned correctly. This same type of congruity is important in joints throughout your body; not just your spine. By restoring alignment and joint function, chiropractic manipulative therapy the first line of therapy when treating joints sprains, muscular strains and other degenerative conditions.
Manipulation is generally a painless procedure and it can be provided through a variety of techniques. To be therapeutic, the adjustment must be directed in a very specific direction or plane of the joint. It is a process, whereby, the joint in question is moderately distracted while a very fast, yet shallow thrust is applied through the joint space to restore normal positions and function of that joint. This thrust moves the joint into what is known as “the paraphysiological space”. A common side effect of the manipulation is an audible ‘popping’ sound. This is simply a pressure change within the joint when it moves into the paraphysiological space, where C02 or nitrogen, in liquid forms, transforms into a gas form under pressure change. This same type of popping sound results when you open a can of pop or other carbonated beverage. Common misconceptions are that this popping sound is the sound of bones moving against each other. It is not as this type of movement would be painful and not therapeutic whatsoever. After the manipulation the distance between the joint surfaces art increased, reducing joint compression; pain is usually reduced and the joint now moves more freely allowing your muscles and adjacent joints to work the way they need to.
At Optimum Function, I look at a complex balance between mobility and stability. As I just wrote about, mobility is wonderfully and efficiently improved by the chiropractic adjustment and other techniques. Stability comes from orchestrating the concert of all of you small (intrinsic) and larger (extrinsic) muscles s they can create the beautiful music that is pain-free optimal movement. From there, things like performance, power speed and strength can be built onto a stable and moveable base.
To find out more about my Optimal Movement screen and treatments, you can click on this link Portland, Oregon Functional Movement Program or go to www.OptMovement.com. To learn more about all o the programs offered at Optimum Function including; chiropractic, nutrition, diet therapy and food plan generation, body transformation, functional medicine and clinical hypnosis, you can go to www.OptFunction.com or click on this link Portland, Oregon Chiropractor. If you wish to email or call you can do so at info@OptFunction.com or call 503-866-9739.
Yours in Health,
Tim Irving DC, MScan., LMT, CKTP, CHt, Nutritionist, Body Transformation Specialist.
Optimum Function: Portland, OR, 97214
Optimum Function = Optimum Health
Chiropractic, Precision Nutrition Programs, Functional Medicine, Clinical Hypnosis
Yours in Health,Tim Irving DC, MS, LMTOptimum Function: 819 SE Morrison St. ste. 215, Portland, OR, 97215Optimum Function = Optimum HealthPrimitive Movement Patterns: How can they help?
Efficient movement patterns are the foundation of obtaining strength, power and performance. In order to perform functional movements patterns correctly and efficiently, you first must understand and realize the importance of primitive movement patterns. Primitive movement patterns are used to describe those movements most humans explore during growth and development. These foundational movements include rolling, pushing up, being sturdy on your hands and knees and crawling; in that order. Then progressive but still primitive patterns like squatting, touching your toes and the ability to bear weight on one leg develop.
It may be hard to understand how “simple” movements like crawling or rolling relate to strength, power and performance; bear with me as I try and explain. All movements, no matter how simple or complex, exist because of a balance between mobility and stability. When we all learned these primitive movement patterns, we did not, for the most part, have any mobility issues so the ability to perform these primitive patterns relied almost completely on stability. Now, to go back and revisit and many times, relearn these patterns, you must first deal with any mobility issues that you almost certainly have. Then, you will relearn these patterns and see how even more complex movement and tasks become easier and more efficient. I recently received a call from a patient who has been participating in my optimal movement screening and treatment program; he informed me that he played basketball for the first time in “years” and was able to dunk the ball; a feat that he had not be able to do in a while. This foundation, these primitive patterns are often neglected while training, recreating and working-out. You have been literally “learning how to run before you can efficiently walk”.
The first rule of functional training, performance and optimal movement is not forgetting the foundation, these primitive movement patterns. You entered this world as an being with unrestricted mobility; you then learned to stabilize quickly progressing to more complex movement. In order to do this, you first learned to reflexively stabilize your spine, in order to control movement more distally in your arms and legs. This happened naturally during growth and development; however, many individuals lose the ability to naturally stabilize with age due to left and right differences, minor and major injuries, poor training or repetitive daily activities. You, like many of us, have developed compensatory movements, which then create inefficiency and asymmetry with respect to movement. This slowly affects strength, endurance, performance, power and will eventually lead to injury.
Exercise professionals, manual medicine doctors and physical therapists often overlook these primitive patterns because highly active individuals can often perform many high level movements without easily observable deficits. My Optimal Movement Screen consists of techinques introduced by Gray Cook and other functional movement gurus and it gives me greater relative insight into primitive patterns by identifying limitations and asymmetries. It allows me to assess whether you have a primary mobility problem, primary stability problem or some combination of the two. I will almost always begin with helping your mobility to improve before moving to developing better stability. These two components will always come before looking to improve dynamic movements and performance although you, like my other patients in my Optimal Movement program, will undoubtedly notice a greater efficiency in you day-to-day movements and activities. You may, however notice a change in your performance if you are a high-end athlete. This is because I will need to “peel-off” the layers of performance that was built on a shaky movement foundation.
For more info on my Optimal Movement Program, click here
To schedule an appointment, click on the above link to www.OptMovement.com, click on the “Schedule Appointment Online” button and follow the directions; you can always call 503-866-9739 or email info@optfunction.com.
Yours in Health
Tim Irving DC, LMT, Nutritionist, CKTP, MScan.
Optimum Function: Portland, Oregon
Optimum Function = Optimum Health
Chiropractic, Graston Therapy, Kinesiotape, Cold Laser, Nutrition, Functional Medicine
Yours in Health,Tim Irving DC, MS, LMTOptimum Function: 819 SE Morrison St. ste. 215, Portland, OR, 97215Optimum Function = Optimum Health