Chirorpactic Health Wellness & Food Blog

​Research: Chiropractic care can increase strength, decrease fatigue and improve the brain’s ability to drive muscles

“What we can say based on this study(1) is that when we adjust subluxations, we improve strength, we prevent fatigue and we change the way the brain drives our muscles. That’s pretty cool.” said Heidi Haavik, one of the brains behind this recent study.

Haavik is referring to subluxations as dysfunctions that occur when the nervous system isn’t controlling movement of the spine as well as it should be.

“When we adjust…subluxations, we change the way the brain processes what’s going on in our bodies. Hence we are able to better process all that sensory information from throughout the body, and control the body in a better way.” says Haavik.

In this recent study, researchers asked groups of people to perform maximum contractions of their leg muscles. For the ones who did receive chiropractic adjustments, they saw a major shift in the way the brain drove the muscle. “The brain was changing that…effect. Our subjects got stronger (in comparison to the control group)” observed Haavik and her fellow researchers.

The study showed:

• an increase of almost 60% in the electrical activity readings from specifically targeted muscles
• a 16% increase in absolute force measures
• a 45% increase in the drive from their brain to their muscle Another interesting finding occurred when Haavik compared these results to another study that looked at three weeks of strength training

​“Our results were almost identical to three weeks of strength training.” These are compelling research outcomes which backup what chiropractors and people under chiropractic care already know: that people function better with chiropractic care.

Republished with permission from the Australian Spinal Research Foundation

1. Changes in H-reflex and V-waves following spinal manipulation. Experimental Brain Research. Vol 233, 4 , pp 1165-1173