The Bedford Chiropractic Clinic and Wellness Centre

July sees the start of a summer of festivals across the UK and Europe. Ensure you are back pain free for the festivals season this summer. Appealing to young and old, they focus on food and other activities as well as music; something for everyone. If a festival is on your agenda for this summer, it is important to take care of your back so you can maximise the fun. Many festival-goers just go for the day and some will choose to camp overnight but all will be sitting or sleeping on hard surfaces, carrying bags/rucksacks and standing for hours on end.  Tim Hutchful, British Chiropractic Association (BCA) chiropractor, concludes that, although we all want to have fun, it is also important to remain level-headed and switched on to potential risks: “We all love the chance to let our hair down, but this shouldn’t be at the expense of our health. Simple things, such as remaining on the edge of a boisterous crowd or warming up slightly before dancing can help festival-goers to a...

The majority of episodes of acute lower back pain are caused by damage to the muscles and/or ligaments in the low back. While a muscle strain doesn’t sound like a serious injury, the resulting lower back pain can be surprisingly severe and is the cause of many emergency room visits each year. Lower Back Strain Low back pain from muscle strain can be surprisingly severe. There are two common types of lower back strain: A muscle strain happens when the muscle is over-stretched or torn, resulting in damage to the muscle fibers (also called a pulled muscle). A lumbar sprain happens when ligaments are stretched too far or torn. Ligaments are very tough, fibrous connecting tissues that connect bones together. For practical purposes, it doesn’t matter if it is a muscle strain or a ligament sprain that is causing the pain, since the treatment and prognosis for both are the same. When the muscles or ligaments in the low back are strained or torn, the area around the muscles wil...

Get fit without getting injured The gym; an intimidating testosterone-filled place full of bodybuilders and fitness freaks in lycra. For some, this can already be the ‘nope’ point. I mean, who wants to rock up to a building full of sweaty gym rats?! Once you have gotten over this hurdle, and accepted that your health and fitness comes first, then you can focus on your own mission and get down to work. First, depending on your goals, it’s always a good idea to record your progress in a notebook or phone app. Shedding that extra pound or maybe even lifting an extra rep all adds up in the long run. Evidence of where you started, and proof of your progress, can keep you going through the tough times. So, you’ve got your mind on a goal, your target destination. You’re underway and loving the new body you’re getting. But how do you keep progressing whilst limiting injury? Did you know that the most common gym injury is caused by bad form (wrong or poor technique). Fo...

Regular Chiropractic Care and Effective Exercise When we work on developing new skills in sports or activities we're counting on our nerve system to perform its critical functions of command and control. These functions are required for effective training of muscles, tendons, and joints, so that these musculoskeletal structures can advance in adaptability and performance. As your body's master system, your nerve system is responsible for coordinating all the physiological processes of all your body's other systems. The interrelations among these complex activities must be addressed instantaneously and accurately. Regular chiropractic care helps ensure that your nerve system is free of nerve interference and operating at peak capacity. As a result, regular chiropractic care helps us advance in our exercise and sports activities, gain new skills, and enjoy long-term health and well-being.

Rejuvenation Versus Resignation With the new year and arrival of Spring; we should consider making the commitment to regular chiropractic care at the top of our resolutions list. By detecting and correcting spinal misalignments that are sources of nerve interference, regular chiropractic care helps keep the nerve system in peak condition. With a well-tuned nerve system, the rest of our physiological systems such as the cardiorespiratory, digestive, and immune systems are enabled to function at top capacity. In this way, regular chiropractic care helps to optimize all our physiological functions so that we can enjoy long-term health. This is the time of the year when our recently made resolutions are put to the test. Were they holiday-fueled imaginings or meaningful expressions of our heart's true desires? Are our resolutions sturdy things that will help us carry out our goals and plans for the rest of the year or are they flimsy constructs composed of hopes rather than sub...

You may be sitting, standing, walking, or even running in a way that puts uneven stress on your body, which over time, results in pain. Also, poor posture can cause soft tissue damage, another cause of pain. By correcting your posture and bio-mechanics, we greatly reduce the chance of pain returning in the future!... You only have to look at a spine to see how its various curves may affect the pressure areas on discs, facette joints, spinal nerves, ligaments and muscles. Correct and incorrect posture can alter those curves and result in different stresses by changing the center of gravity. Posture and biomechanical imbalances Posture starts at the head and works its way down or on the other hand starts at the feet and works its way up. Even in books looking at the progress of homo sapiens (homo erectus) in evolution, man is portrayed as somewhat hunchbacked. The head protrudes forward on the neck, the shoulders are rounded, the stomach protrudes forward with a sway back, and...

Flexibility, Ease of Motion, and Regular Chiropractic Care In our day-to-day routine, most of us take flexibility and ease of motion for granted. All the biomechanical processes that result in fluidity of movement take place below the surface, so to speak, and we are not conscious of these physiological actions. We become aware of such mechanisms when they go awry and we experience abnormal or even painful mobility during regular activities. Regular chiropractic care helps restore our ability to seamlessly perform our activities of daily living by detecting and correcting sources of biomechanical disturbance, most of which are located in the spine. As a result, regular chiropractic care helps to reduce pain and assists us in regaining optimal mobility. In this way, regular chiropractic care helps restore our natural mechanical ability to move through our environment with ease and grace and helps us obtain greater levels of health and well-being.

Poetry in Motion Picture by: By RABEHARIVONY Nomena Lalaina - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,  Many "Seinfeld" fans may fondly remember "The Chaperone," the episode in which the characters Elaine Benes and Mr. Justin Pitt meet for the first time. Elaine is interviewing at Doubleday, a publishing house in New York City. Her conversation with the managing editor turns to Jackie O and the ineffable quality of grace. Elaine says, "You know, grace is a tough one. I like to think I have a little grace." Mrs. Landis, the editor, dismisses Elaine's notion out-of-hand, emphatically stating, "You can't have a little grace. You either have grace or you don't." In the next scene, Mr. Pitt, formerly a great friend of Jackie O, tells Elaine, "You don't want too much grace or you won't be able to stand." Grace is a quality we instinctively recognize in many ballet dancers, medal-winning gymnasts, and professional athlete...