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Hello and welcome to this week’s episode of ChiroSecure’s, Empowering Women in Chiropractic. I’m your host, Dr. Cathy, and this week we are going to talk about a different kind of risk management. This is February, it’s the Love month. So why not talk about a little bit as. Self-love and how to prevent injury so that you can continue to practice and enjoy not only your business, but the lifestyle that it provides for you.
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So let’s jump right in because I know as a woman, you are probably bending over that table, adjusting people who are bigger than you. Sometimes people who are twice your size. Now, I’ve worked with a lot of male chiropractors. I’ve had a lot of male interns come through my office. It is rare for those big guys to ever have to adjust somebody twice their size, but as women, five three, a hundred twenty five pounds.
Some of you are four foot 11. I know I work with some of the smaller women in this profession. Sometimes you’re adjusting those 6, 4, 350 pound patients that are coming in and they are twice your size. It can take a toll on your body if you plan to be in this game for a long time, and listen, this month, I’m celebrating 19 years in this building, 25 years in practice, but 19 years in this building, serving this community.
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If you plan on being in practice for a long time, you have got to protect yourself. So risk management, to me, when I teach it around the profession and for the different states, it’s not just about being aware of what patients. Say or do, or any kind of offense that they can bring against you. It’s also about protecting yourself and protecting your reputation so that you can continue to serve for as long as you like to.
So first and foremost, let’s talk about those shoulders. You have got to protect those shoulders. If you are not. Actively doing range of motion, stretching, exercising, strengthening your shoulders. You’re setting yourself up for failure. You’re setting yourself up for a risk, and you’re setting yourself up for potential injuries that could be career ending.
Anybody ever hurt their shoulders, their elbows, or their risks? You know that every adjustment when you hurt yourself hurts. Every time you have to thrust into somebody else, you feel that impulse into your joints. And every time you’ve gotta go up against somebody big or you’ve gotta get into those cervicals, that motion is gonna do some serious pain into your joints.
So what are you doing right now on a regular basis to make sure that you can maintain your practice and. I love doing range of motion for shoulders. I will typically grab either an exercise band or.
A broom handle. You can use a stick, you can use whatever you’ve got around, but you want something that’s gonna force you to have to extend your arms, and you wanna go full range of motion all the way back, all the way front. You wanna do motions that are gonna take your arms into the different ranges of motion, because ultimately what you wanna do is you want to mobilize your joint.
Remember that shoulder is the most mobile joint in the body. We know that. We talk to our patients about that all day long, but what are we doing to maintain not only the mobility? The integrity. The strength of the rotator cuff, of the Dels, making sure that our pecs are strong, that our back muscles are strong.
What are you doing on a daily basis? First and foremost, you’ve gotta warm them up. You don’t have to do this every day. Maybe some of you do it before you see patients. I do it in the mornings at the gym before I come into the office. But you’ve gotta warm them up. You’ve gotta go through some range of motion.
I love rotator cuff exercises. They’re very small, very isolated motions, very lightweight. Where I’m gonna be doing some rotational movements for the shoulders, right? Or I’m gonna do some. Very strategic rotational motion for the shoulders. Or I’m gonna work full the through the full range of motion, but in small chunks of motion instead of going full range all the way, which is too damaging.
I’m gonna do half the range of motion and I’m gonna do the other half, but I’m also gonna work the delts on a regular basis at the gym. I’m gonna maintain that mobility. But I’ve also gotta stretch. Are you stretching through your arms, through your wrist, through your hands? A lot of times chiropractors will come to me at continuing ed seminars and say, you know what?
You’re right. I don’t have full range of motion in my hands anymore. I can’t even get in this position. Or my hands feel tight. They’re crampy. I like to teach patients four positions that you can do with your hands. I know you’ve probably done some of them before, but if you’re not doing ’em on a regular basis, you might wanna add this in.
So your four positions, hands are down on the adjusting table, there’s position one. You lean in the direction of your fingers. So I would keep my arms straight Lean. Position number one, position number two. You follow me? You probably got it. Position number three. And position number four. So you can do this on your adjusting table and you can demonstrate that to your patients and take advantage of that time to stretch through the wrist yourself.
Because really we’ve gotta maintain that mobility so that we can adjust. We’ve gotta maintain that motion they hear, right? Gotta maintain that motion through the elbows, the wrist, the shoulders. But there’s another area that chiropractors tend to hurt, and it’s usually. I it’s your hip flexors. It’s leaning over the table all day long.
Thrusting using your body. Get in the habit of allowing the patient’s body to do the majority of the work for you, but also get in the habit. Of stretching your SOAs. Best way to stretch your SOAs is anything that takes you backwards, whether you’re going backwards over a foam roller backwards, over an exercise ball.
If you’re able to do a back bend, if you wanna just walk your hands down the wall. If you wanna rest your head against the wall, walk your hips forward. If you wanna lean back over the bathroom, counter the kitchen counter. If you wanna hang your leg off the adjusting table, there’s so many ways to stretch your SOAs.
The key thing is that you have to do it because if you’re bent over that table serving all day long and you’re not getting yourself backwards into extension, then you’re tightening up, and you’re gonna end up with either low back pain pulling on that disc. ’cause remember, the so is muscle attaches to the disc, you’re gonna end up with radiating pain down the legs, or you’re gonna have that, that can’t get up out of a chair and can’t straighten up real easily, and it takes you a moment to do that.
Big joints I see is a problem with most of the chiropractors I’ve worked with. Shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips. If you start taking care of those, you’re going to extend your ability to take care of your patients for a lot longer period of time, and you’re gonna extend not only your enjoyment, but your quality of life because nobody wants to be achy and joints hurting when we leave the office.
What’s that old saying? Shoemaker’s kids are usually the last ones to get shoes. Don’t be that person. Don’t be the last one to take care of your body. Don’t be the last one to go get adjusted by another chiropractor. Don’t be the last person to take care of your own joints so that you’re hurting yourself to help other people.
I made a decision years ago that there are certain people I will side posture and certain people I won’t. And it’s not based on size, it’s not based on weight. It’s not based on how much space they take up on the table. It’s also not based on flexibility. It’s based on are they able to help position themselves.
Inside posture so that they can at least do a little bit of the work so that I can get in there, utilize their body to thrust. If not, then that’s a lot of risk and a lot of work on your body as well. So you have to make the decision if that’s a drop table person, if that’s a side posture person, right?
Think about your patients and what they’re doing all day long to get them in the situation that they’re in when they walk in your door. And then how can you facilitate their healing process without injuring yourself, without risking your own body? That’s a big part of being able to maintain this profession for a long period of time, especially as women who typically as women, and I’m trying not to stereotype, but it is.
Typically as women, we are smaller. We have less muscle mass. Typically as it’s women. We’re not as big as our biggest patients, so we have to be expert adjusters. We have to have very fine skills. I always say as women, we have to make sure square peg goes right into that square hole. We’re not gonna be muscling it in, we’re not gonna be pounding it in.
We’re gonna use finesse. We’re gonna line it up, line of drive straight through speed force. It’s gotta be there, it’s gotta be fast, but line of drive and making sure that we are in the right position with the right joint is essential. That’s how we protect our bodies. That’s how you get to stay in practice for a long time.
That’s how you get to continue serving your community and changing lives and impacting the people who come into your office. And that’s my hope for you. So this month, with it being the month of love and a little bit of self love, if I can impart on you some wisdom from lemme think about this for a minute.
Started teaching at a gym in 1988. I don’t even wanna think about how many years that is. I started lifting weights and helping the football team in 1984, so we’re going on 40 years, I think. So this is something that I’ve been doing my entire life and helping people on a daily basis. I help over a hundred people outside the office.
I help over a hundred people every week with mobility practices, balance, flexibility, endurance, making sure that they can continue to do what they do. Pain free and with the energy and the enthusiasm so that they can enjoy their lifestyle. So if that’s something that you need to learn, please reach out to me.
Please reach out to me. You can send me a message on social media. I’d be happy to speak with you and help you out in any way possible. But really what it comes down to in the Month of love in the February month of love is self love. Self love comes first. You love you, then you love them. And when you love you, you are better at loving them, whether them is your patience.
Your children, your spouse or your partner, your family, your parents, whoever it may be. You love you first and you love you so much and so well that you are overflowing with love and abundance to share with others. That’s the epitome of the whole give love, serve mindset. That lasting purpose is to give for the sake of giving to love, for the sake of loving, and to serve the sake of serving.
Out of your own abundance with no expectation in return. And when you can do that, when you truly love yourself, you’re able to go and love your patients, love your staff, love your practice. Love your community. Love your family. Love your kids. I love my kids. I know you love your kids, right? Love your kids.
Love your partner. I love my partner, right? And love your family. I love my family. But it starts with I love me, and I know you love you, but you gotta make sure that you’re showing yourself. Dedicating time to yourself, whether it’s a day of the week that you commit to, this is my day. Maybe you go get a massage.
Maybe you do a bubble bath. Maybe you spend extra time at the gym, in the hot tub and the sauna and the shower, and you just let the water wash over you. Maybe you go hiking, maybe you plan to travel. Maybe you just use that day to get stuff done, to get it off your mind so you could free up your time when you’re with your family or when you’re doing other things.
Whatever self-love means to you. Commit to making sure that you are an example of how to take care of yourself and how to love yourself so that other people look and say that’s the life I want. That’s the lifestyle I want. That’s how I want to take care of myself. That’s how I wanna feel. That’s how I wanna bring myself out into the world.
Be that example of what self-love is, whatever that means for you, for me. It’s something different every day. It’s something different every month. It’s something different every year because the way we love ourself is based on who we are at that moment in time and what we want to bring to the world through ourselves.
So risk management this month, I think really what it comes down to is that self-love and taking good care of yourself. If you need help with any of the shoulder exercises, wrist exercises, elbow exercises. Elbow. I do know the difference. If you need help with any of that stuff, if you need help with how to stretch your SOAs or your iliacus, or how to really get more mobility in the hips and the shoulders, please just reach out to me.
I’d be happy to show you how it’s so simple, but it has to be done. It’s so simple, you can forget to do it, but it’s also so simple that you can do it every day or every other day, or whatever your schedule allows, or in between patients so that you can make sure that you are protecting your body so that you can continue to serve.
Ladies, I love when I get to talk to you. I love when I get to hear from you, and I’m so appreciative of all the messages that so many of you have been sending me over the last month and a half. I know I haven’t responded to everyone. I’m just trying to catch my breath and breathe, but listen. We are such a beautiful profession, and we have such a closeness because of what we share, our love for chiropractic, our love for serving humanity, and our love for helping people become the best version of themselves.
So because of that, as Dr. Sid would say, I love you because you love. What I love now go out and make the rest of this month fabulous. Enjoy the month of love. Enjoy. As the weather’s starting to change by us, the flowers are starting to pop up out of the ground. The grass is starting to get a little bit green and it’s really starting to look like spring is coming soon.
So I’m loving life. I’m loving you. I’m loving, kind, secure for doing this for women in our profession. We’ve been doing this for several years now, and the feedback that we continue to get. Is that you love what we’re doing, so we’re gonna keep doing it. We’re gonna keep seeing you. We’ve got a lot of great hosts coming up for the rest of this year.
Stay tuned. Keep an eye on this program right here. Empowering Women in Chiropractic is all about you. So I will see you next time. Go have a fabulous week, have a fabulous month. Don’t forget to love yourself. I’ll see you next time.
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