Went to see a chiropractor yesterday to see about help with recovery and prevention with this back strain. It was my first visit to this doctor, but I was impressed as hell. They required a 2-hour block for a first visit as a get to know you period, and we used up all that time very well. Primarily with discussion of my background: how I lift, how long I've been lifting, how I prepare for lifting, how life was before lifting, my day job, my diet, etc.
I told her I had gotten this strain twice in the past year, once back-squatting and once front-squatting. She brought in some kind of padded bar and had me demonstrate my technique on both lifts, then called her partner in to watch me do them again. They looked at each other and basically said in unison "abs." And they discussed the knee possibly not tracking correctly, and hyper extending at lock-out which they would like me to avoid. I've NEVER heard or seen discussion of knee hyper extension with squats before, and I see no reason not to take that advice. Very interesting. She prescribed some transverse abdominus work, and a neat little VMO exercise. She also asked me to get in some short-ROM swiss-ball crunches and abductor work in full hip extension.
When I discussed all the varieties of ab work I've been doing over the last year, she felt that a lot of that was very hip-flexor dominant, and not enough actual abdominal isolation. That was also very interesting to hear. She discussed the role of the abdomen in bracing the trunk, and even taking some load off the spine, and that being weak in that area was likely causing me these problems with the squat even though my form looked good on both variations. We also discussed the anterior hip strain I got around the new year, and she agreed that it was likely the TFL, and that it was also symptomatic of asymetrical hip mobility
Another impressive thing she did, and I've never had a chiropractor do this, is that after deciding that the problem is with my right hip not moving very independently, she only adjusted my hips. Not once have I been to a chiropractor, and not gotten a full adjustment from skull to tail-bone. She didn't say anything about this one way or the other, it's just what she did. Looking back on the session, that just made a lot of damn sense to me. Find the problem, work on the problem, why fuck around with my neck, or thoracic spine if the problem is down around the sacrum?
The awesome news I got is that she's fairly certain I don't have a herniated disk. This was my number one concern going in for the consultation. She went to great lengths to say that she doesn't expect my disks are "perfect" (no surprise to me, based on what I've read about the spinal health of the general population), but that she saw no evidence of herniation.
I've got a follow-up with her partner in 2 weeks for massage therapy and reevaluation. Only one visit, and I've still got to implement the recommendations and see what the results are, but at this point I would say that if you live in or around the Northern Chicago area, Andersonville Chiropractic might be worthwhile if you are looking for these kinds of services.
