DO YOU LIKE TO JOG OR RUN? Fort Wayne provides many locations to exercise like this. Well, take into account that the spinal discs in your lower back lose fluid and decrease by greater than 6% when you run. To make matters worse, this is in young adults, not older folks with disc degeneration and advanced aging changes in their spines. Just think about the loss of disc height in them! We chiropractors do, and your Fort Wayne chiropractor worries about your spinal discs. And Cox Chiropractic Medicine Inc confers with Fort Wayne joggers and runners like you to reduce potential damage.

So here is the research behind the worry: Magnetic resonance imaging was used to measure the influence of moderate-intensity treadmill running on the disc height and volume in the mid- and low-backs of 8 healthy young people with no back pain. They ran for 30 minutes on the treadmill. An MRI study of their spines was performed before and after the run. After moderate intensity running, a 6.3% reduction in disc height and 6.9% reduction in disc volume were found. This analyzes the normal day-to-day difference in disc height and volume of 0.6 and 0.4%, accordingly. (1)

At Cox Chiropractic Medicine Inc, the chiropractor can direct you to suitable spinal manipulation, exercises and nutritional adaptations in your diet to help curb this detrimental spine change. Remember, although moderate intensity running is generally advocated for apparently healthy adults, running causes a loss in stature that is thought to reflect compression of the intervertebral disc that causes loss of disc height.

Know that your Fort Wayne chiropractor comprehends that repetitious loading of the low back, such as what happens in running, damages the piece of the disc referred to as the annulus fibrosus which holds in the nucleus pulposus. Such disc failure is unlikely to happen with repetitive bending in the absence of compressive load. Compressive cyclic loading with low peak load magnitude also did not create the failure of the disc. (2) However, we see that the compressive loading of the disc as occurs with running does cause the disc to lose height and volume.

Contact your Fort Wayne chiropractor at Cox Chiropractic Medicine Inc for recommendations on how to exercise as safely as attainable with minimum damage to the spine. Your future spinal health relies on it!