Marin Chiropractor Talks The Limits of Exercise

Exercise, attaining and maintaining a good level of fitness, is part of health. It is one of the four Do-It-Yourself parts of health, along with eating well, getting good rest (including good posture), and good mental attitude. Then, there's the non-do-it-yourself, come-to-me part of health... the detection and correction of Vertebral Subluxation Complex (VSC), Chiropractic.

Note that I said that exercise is PART of health, NOT the whole thing. Many people in Marin would disagree, not out of knowledge, but out of fanaticism. You feel healthy, you feel terrific getting up at 7 on a Saturday morning to go 18 miles on your bike, or 5 Pilates sessions a week, or 3 classes at the gym every day, or doing 3 marathons a year? Fine. And I commend you for your dedication. I know that you brag to the less-disciplined exercisers, and certainly the no-exercisers how healthy you are. Well, perhaps not.

We've all heard the stories of famous athletes who dropped dead in their prime, and we wondered why. (We needn't wonder with the steroid cases.) But, CLOSER TO HOME, I urge you to do an experiment. Take a Saturday morning, maybe about 10 or 10:30, and hang out in your local Peet's or Starbuck's. Check out all of the spandexed people, fresh from running, rowing, biking, etc. Look, and listen.

Look? Some are walking with a limp, many are wearing a variety of joint braces. A good number are all bent over, their spines obviously in a state of collapse. (And you were told that exercise prevents osteoporosis.) Obviously, they are not pictures of health.

Now... listen. Listen to their conversations. As the adrenaline dies down, you will hear the same health complaints, the same talk of doctors and tests and pills and surgeries, as you would in most groups of people of the same age bracket.

In my office? I've seen serious athletes with very serious conditions. I have seen the results of old sports injuries, or rather old sports injuries UNCORRECTED, including advanced subluxation degeneration, leading to greater subluxation.

Athletes get subluxated, like everyone else. They are not immune. You can run 50 miles a week, or ride 110 miles a week, but if you have interference to your nervous system, you will have compromised bodily function. you will have dis-ease, leading to disease. AND, as your function is compromised, your athletic performance, however impressive, is compromised.

Is exercise good for you? No question. But if you are not under chiropractic care, if you are subluxated, you are not healthy. You can do better... much better.

Don Harte, D.C.
Corte Madera Straight Chiropractor
Liberator of Innate