Category Archives for Chiropractic Care

Hello all.

Dr Brad Ivanchuk here.

 I am a Burlington, Ontario Chiropractor at Life Chiropractic Centre on Guelph Line.

I am also a canfitpro certified Personal Training Specialist and an American Posture Institute certified Posture Expert and Postural Neurologist.

Over the past few weeks we have learned how to tighten and flatten your stomach in a back-friendly way.

Today is for you hard-core gym-goers; the amateur and professional bodybuilders.

It is so very important that you have near perfect spinal and skeletal alignment when you are pushing heavy weight in the gym 4 or 5 times a week.

Muscles and tendons and ligaments are happy when they are attached to a properly aligned spine and skeletal joints.

The benefit of this is full range of motion of your joints, maximum strength of muscle contraction, better stamina, increased growth of muscle tissue,less soreness and stiffness after working out and most importantly, you will be less prone to those frustrating nagging injuries.

If you are spending more and more time rolling around on a hard rubber ball or a foam-roller, something is not aligned properly – plain and simple!

You should not have to do this!

I will say it again—muscles and tendons and ligaments are happiest when attached to an aligned spine and skeletal joints.
 
So, if you are like me and have no intention of ever stopping working out in the gym, you absolutely need to attend to your posture system; your spine and skeletal joints.

And this irrespective of whether you have aches and pains or not. It is all about maximizing performance.

And this is where I can help you.

Not only am I a Chiropractor and a Posture Expert, but I am also a Personal Training Specialist.

I can help you with any postural issues you may have but more importantly, we can design a training program around your posture distortions so that you do not strengthen a misaligned spine or skeletal joint or seriously injure yourself.

Alignment first before strengthening.

All you have to do is call my office to schedule an appointment for your free initial consultation which also includes a free detailed postural analysis.

Our phone number here in Burlington is 905 335 LIFE (5433) or you can email me directly by clicking on the link found on our home page.

Remember that good posture is always by design and never by circumstance.

Life Chiropractic Centre …. Helping families just like yours build vibrant, healthy, drug-free lives for over 25 years in Burlington, Ontario.

Click Here To Book A Free Initial Consultation With Dr. Brad At The Burlington Clinic

Hello all … Dr Brad Ivanchuk here. I am a Burlington, Ontario chiropractor at Life Chiropractic Centre on Guelph Line.

I am also a Personal Training Specialist and an American Posture Institute certified Posture Expert and Postural Neurologist.

Today we are going to continue our discussion on how to get a nice flat stomach without hurting your lower back and these exercises will be for those of you who are more advanced and have some experience in and around the gym.

Using the vertical chair, you can also do your knee raises where you bring your knees up towards your shoulders alternating side to side.

This will target more of your side abdominal muscles and if you have the upper body strength, you can do all of your knee raises while in a hanging position to challenge your core even more so.

And after doing your 1 minute elbow planks, you can go right into a side plank also on your elbow/forearm – 30 seconds each side.

Again, this will target your side abs and remember to pull your belly-button in towards your spine and squeeze those butt-cheeks together when doing any planks.

A great 3^rd exercise is reverse crunches while on a decline bench. Keep your head, neck and back flat on the board and squeeze your knees up towards your chest. Nice and slow up and down.

And always remember to finish with a little back exercise to balance things out. You can do your good-mornings seated or standing with an empty 45 pound bar across the back of your shoulders to add a little resistance.

All exercises … 3 sets of 12 to 15 reps. Planks … a minimum of 3 with a 1 minute rest in between.

Your goal is to string all of these together so that you do the whole routine every other day or at least 3 times per week.

If any of these exercises bother you – and none of them really should – then stop. And if you are unsure about proper form, you can find out ‘how to’ on YouTube.

We are going to wrap up this topic next time but as always, if you have any questions on this topic or any other health concerns you may have or your kids may have, please call me.

Consultations in our office are always free of charge and these also include a detailed postural analysis.

Our phone number here in Burlington is 905 335 LIFE (5433) or you can email me directly by clicking on the link found on our home page.

Remember that good posture is always by design and never by circumstance.
?
?Life Chiropractic Centre … helping families just like yours build vibrant, healthy, drug-free lives for over 25 years in Burlington, Ontario.

Click Here To Book A Free Initial Consultation With Dr. Brad At The Burlington Clinic

Hello all ….. Dr Brad Ivanchuk here.

I am a Burlington, Ontario chiropractor at Life Chiropractic Centre on Guelph Line.

I am also a Personal Training Specialist and a American Posture Institute certified Posture Expert and Postural Neurologist.

Today, we are going to continue to learn how to flatten that stomach without hurting your low back.

These tips are going to be for those of you who are just starting out.

And none of these exercises will be sit-ups. Sit-ups do not exercise the deeper core muscles which are the most important ones,and they can be very harmful to your lower back. So, never ever do sit-ups!

The first thing is, you need to do your core or abdominal exercises every other day or at least 3 times per week.

And just like any other muscle, they need to be consistently challenged to become tighter and stronger.
 
So, here are 3 easy exercises you can start with …

The first one is vertical chair knee raises or V-ups. If you belong to a gym, most of them have a vertical chair.

But if not, you can easily do V-ups at home just like you can the rest of these exercises. You want to work up to 3 sets of 12 to 15 repetitions per set.

On the 2nd day, you do elbow planks. Your goal is to be able to plank for 1 minute and you eventually want to be able to do three 1 minute planks with a 1 minute rest in between.

Remember when you are doing your planks to pull your belly-button in towards your
spine and squeeze your butt-cheeks together.

This way you are sure to engage and activate all your core muscle fibers.

The third exercise is a bicycle crunch.

Do these within your comfort zone; nice and easy.

You want to work your way up to 3 sets of 12 to 15 repetitions.

To finish off, we are going to do a 4th exercise which will focus on your lower back to balance out all the work you have just done on the front part of your body.

And the easiest and safest one to do is seated good-mornings using your upper body weight only.

Again, you want to work up to 3 sets of 12-15 repetitions.

Now, if any of these exercises bother you, and none of them really should, then stop doing them.
 
And if you are not sure how to do them with proper form, you can easily find instructional videos on YouTube.

To recap – vertical chair knee raises or V-ups (one or the other).
Elbow planks.
Bicycle crunches.
Seated good-mornings.

Your ultimate goal by the 2 or 3 month mark, is to do the whole routine (all 4 exercises) every other day or at least 3 times per week.

Next time I am going to go through some more advanced exercises for those of you who have a better level of fitness.

In the meantime, if you have any questions on this topic or any other health concerns you may have or any of your children may have,please call me.

Consultations in our office are always free of charge and they also include a detailed postural analysis.

Our phone number here in Burlington is 905 335 LIFE (5433) or you can email me by clicking on the link found on our home page.

Remember that good posture is always by design and never by circumstance.

Life Chiropractic Centre …. Helping families just like yours build vibrant, healthy, drug-free lives for over 25 years in Burlington, Ontario.

Click Here To Book A Free Initial Consultation With Dr. Brad

Hello.

Dr Brad Ivanchuk here.

I am a Burlington, Ontario chiropractor at Life Chiropractic Centre on Guelph Line.

I am also a Personal Training Specialist, a Posture Expert and a Postural Neurologist certified through the American Posture Institute.

Over the next few weeks, we are going to learn how to get a nice, flat stomach safely without hurting your lower back.

Remember that a strong stomach (core) is so very important to stabilize your lower back and pelvis (Posture Quadrant #3) which is the foundation of your entire posture system.

The very first thing you need to do is stop eating junk food.

Not everyone does, but if you do and you want to flatten your stomach, this is an absolute must!

And it is very easy to do. No processed foods, no refined sugars and nothing with high-fructose corn syrup.

This will allow your body to maintain stable blood sugar levels and not put un-do stress on your pancreas.

Remember that excess sugar is stored in fat cells that typically accumulate around your waist and cover up your stomach muscles.

Lean meats, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and the occasional piece of fruit will not do this.

Next, stop doing long, slow cardio workouts.

If you are trying to lose weight and firm up your stomach, these are an absolute waste of your time.

Do your HIIT instead (high intensity interval training).

We went over how to do this in a previous post but just to recap, HIIT uses intense bursts of activity scheduled throughout your cardio workout.

This is a sure fire way to rev up your metabolic rate and shrink your stored fat.

We will pick it up from here next time, but as always if you have any questions on this topic or any other health concerns you may have or your kids may have, please call me.

Remember that consultations in our office are always free of charge and they also include a free detailed postural analysis.
 
Our phone number here in Burlington is 905 335 LIFE (5433) or you can email me directly by clicking on the link found on our home page.

Remember too that good posture is always by design and never by circumstance.

Life Chiropractic Centre… helping families just like yours build vibrant, healthy, drug-free lives for over 25 years in Burlington, Ontario.

Click Here To Book A Free Initial Consultation With Dr. Brad At The Burlington Clinic

Dr Brad Ivanchuk here.

I am a Burlington, Ontario Chiropractor at Life Chiropractic Centre on Guelph Line.

I am also a posture expert, a postural neurologist and a personal training specialist.

As promised, today I am going to give you some tips on how to combat sitting disease which we have learned about over the past 2 weeks.

If your lifestyle requires that you do a lot of sitting, it is highly recommended that you sit on an exercise ball or a dynamic stool or a ball-chair or a posture cushion.

A stand-up desk is also an option but any of these will go a long way in minimizing the stresses that will cause tech neck, hump back and all those terrible conditions and diseases we talked about last time.

Another benefit is that these will help to prevent brain fatigue so that you stay alert and focused for longer periods. Your brain craves and thrives on movement and complexity.

So active sitting is far better for your brain than stationary sitting.

Another thing you need to know about is the blue light that is emitted from the screen of every single electronic device that you use.

Blue light overstimulates the part of your brain called the mesencephalon.

When this part of your brain is overstimulated it will cause an increased sensitivity to stress, headaches, light sensitivity (eyes), and insomnia.

So if you are looking at any type of screen for more than 3 hours a day, it is a very good idea to use blue blocker or red lens glasses.

And it is also best not to look at any screen for at least an hour before bedtime to allow your brain to sleep properly.

I hope you have found this to be helpful and as always, if you have any questions on this topic or any other health concerns you may have or your kids may have, please call me.

Remember that consultations in our office are always free of charge and these also include a detailed postural analysis.

Our phone number here in Burlington is 905 335 LIFE (5433) or you can email me directly by clicking on the link found on our home page.

Remember too that good posture is always by design and never by circumstance.

Life Chiropractic Centre …. Helping families just like yours build vibrant, healthy, drug-free lives for over 25 years in Burlington, Ontario.

Click Here To Book A Free Initial Consultation With Dr. Brad At The Burlington Clinic

Dr Brad Ivanchuk here.

I am a Burlington, Ontario Chiropractor, Posture Expert, Postural Neurologist and Personal Training Specialist at Life Chiropractic Centre on Guelph Line.

Over the past few weeks we have learned about the 4 different postural archetypes; the structural, dynamic, ergo and neuro.

It is very important for you to understand that they all have a propensity to developing thoracic hyper-kyphosis or hump-back. Especially the structural, ergo and neuro postural patterns.

These are our beloved seniors who have done very little if anything at all to maintain a healthy posture system.

They will have postural distortions in all 4 posture quadrants. Forward head posture in the first, thoracic hyper-kyphosis (humpback) in the second, various pelvic distortions in the third, and arthritic hips and knees in quadrant number 4. This is why hip replacement surgery and knee replacement surgery is almost epidemic in this posture group.

The neuro’s will also suffer from chronic pain, have balance issues and a fear of falling, have a higher risk of developing heart disease and this where we are going to see the onset of dementia.

When the neuro’s were surveyed, their aspirations are to be pain-free most of the time, avoid all those nasty surgeries (hips, knees, heart), and maintain a relatively normal degree of functional movement and mental acuity.

Remember that everything is all connected. A posture distortion in even just one posture quadrant will eventually affect the entire posture system when left undetected and uncorrected. And this is going to have a significant impact on your lifespan and your health-span both.

But it does not have to be this way. All you have to do is call to schedule an appointment for your free initial consultation which also includes a free detailed postural analysis. Then I can show you exactly what your issues are when it comes to your posture and we can take it from there.

Our phone number here in Burlington is 905 335 LIFE (5433) or you can email me directly by clicking on the link on our home page.

Remember that good posture is always by design and never by circumstance.

Life Chiropractic Centre … helping families just like yours build vibrant, healthy, drug-free lives for over 25 years in Burlington, Ontario.

?
Click Here To Book A Free Initial Consultation With Dr. Brad At The Burlington Clinic