As we are out in the community, people often ask us why we chose to add an Athletic Trainer to #TeamWellnessFirst. The truth is in our office the condition of the muscles and soft tissue is almost just as important as the alignment of the skeletal structure. The majority of people we see in our office suffer pain or discomfort from stiff and tight muscles along with spinal misalignments. Dr. Tripps asks every patient how often they stretch and what do they do for stretching. We found that people aren’t stretching enough and they don’t really understand the importance of stretching daily. While we already have a Certified Dynamic Stretching professional on staff, we felt our patients would benefit from a more targeted approach.

By adding a Licensed Athletic Trainer to our team, we can offer our patients a more targeted, yet well-rounded approach to their care. Kyle O’Neal, LAT, has the ability to test the strength of muscles and muscle groups to seek out the weakest ones. He then develops a program of stretches and strengthening exercises for these. By training the weaker muscles we can bring the body back to a more balanced state of homeostasis and often reduce the amount of pain someone experiences.

Take abs for example. Most people think when doing an ab workout your strengthening your core as well. The reality is you’re not. Doing abs only strengthens one portion of the core. Core consist of many muscles that people usually don’t strengthen which causes them to be weak. Core muscles include pelvic floor muscles, transverse abdominals, multifidus and erector spinae. Weak muscles in an area cause other muscles to pick up the slack and may cause pain from overuse. By offering sessions with Kyle, he can test the weak muscles and develop an exercise plan to strengthen them. This often includes core exercises like bridges, leg lowering and planks.