Episode 98: A Whole Body View - with Doug Bertram, Owner of the franchise "Structural Elements"

Whether you are an elite athlete, a PTA mom who runs marathons or a grandparent who plays on the floor with their grandchildren, you are subject to injuries which limit your mobility.  You can seek treatment through physical therapy or even surgery, if needed, to eliminate your pain.  But you come out of that treatment in the same shape you were in when the injury occurred.   Doug Bertram, founder and CEO of Structural Elements®, has developed a new approach to treating orthopedic problems.   His orthopedic wellness clinics focus on prevention of injury, joint preservation and training a body to function optimally.  Practitioners in his clinics are like engineers who evaluate the safety of a bridge before cars can drive over it.  These body engineers not only fix issues as they arise but can find deterioration of a joint before an injury occurs by looking for mechanical compromise or weakness.  When you come to them in pain, they don’t focus just on getting rid of your symptoms.  They focus on retraining your body so the same injury doesn’t happen again or lead to new injuries. Success should be measured by the ability to get back to a heathy active lifestyle.  

The Structural Element clinics are made up of chiropractors, physical therapists, acupuncturists and massage therapists.  They all use different tools in the scope of their practice, but they look at the body through a similar lens and see it as one whole functioning unit.  If someone has an issue with a specific area such as a knee, they look at the body from the ground up and the head down, finding and treating the areas that are affecting the knee.

Each person’s body has a unique optimal position.   There is a balance point that makes it function efficiently.  As a way to understand this consider tuning a piano.  If it was tuned to perfect mathematical harmonics, it would sound terrible because it did not take in factors such as wood hydration, temperature or humidity which all affect the sound.  Tuners have to take all those variables into account when creating the perfect sound.  With the body, care has to be taken to evaluate each individual’s unique body and circumstances and make changes accordingly.

The big picture is posture.

Even though everyone is different, there is one area that needs attention in almost everyone.  That is posture.  Most people have a significant inefficiency in how they use their muscles.  They use their big muscles, known as prime movers, to stabilize their posture causing numerous compensations and changes in connective tissues.  They are working too hard just to stay up.  With treatment to fix things like rotations or misalignments and training to keep their head back and open their shoulders, people can get their balance back.  Then their prime mover muscles can focus on moving.  Everyone can benefit by starting there.  

An exercise given to almost every patient to benefit their posture:

            Lay flat on your back on floor with knees bent, feet flat.  

            Tuck chin to the back of your neck.

   &nbs