Armadillo Sports Chiropractic
Dr. Chad Peters and his wife, Nikki Viersen own Armadillo Sports Chiropractic here in Corpus Christi. Chad and Nikki both are well known by most of our clients here at Your Personal Best. If you have spent any time with them, you will find them not only professional and knowledgeable but easy to relate to. They are both athletes and can relate to most of the patients they treat. Their approach to Chiropractic care is one that seriously considers the athlete as well as the aging body. Dr. Chad took a few minutes from his busy schedule to answer a couple questions for us concerning his background and philosophy. Thank you, Dr. Chad.
Could you give us a little bit of information about you and your chiropractic background?
I did my undergrad at South Dakota State for Fitness/Wellness. Basically, to become a personal trainer. I did train at the CCAC for just over a year and focused on sports performance primarily. I then enrolled in Northwestern Chiropractic in Minneapolis, MN. I interned my last semester with my wife, Dr. Nikki Viersen in Miami at a high level sports clinic. I worked alongside Dr. Spencer Baron, the team chiropractor for the Miami Dolphins and the Marlins. Here, is where Nikki and I started to develop our sports specific treatment protocols. Ten years later and a lot of further education and here we are.
What type of chiropractic and sports care do you typically provide?
Almost everyone has a specific injury the first time they come to the office – a shoulder, knee or back issue. We try to fix the issue in 2 to 3 visits. If it’s not something within our scope of practice, (something that would require a different doctor, PT or ortho) we refer them out. Generally and hopefully later we’ve made a good relationship with a client and they feel they can trust us and use us. I try to have all my existing clients come in every 3-4 months for a “tune up” type treatment. Our clients are athletic and push themselves – they generally need a muscle and chiro “once over” every so often so they can continue to push it.
What are some new and innovative treatments that your practice utilizes in the prevention and treatment of the aging spine and common sports injuries?
Our website has a whole list of videos that show some of our newest protocols and techniques. We use Graston and FAKTR techniques a lot and really have liked kinesio-tape and ROCK TAPE. I think the biggest technique that seems to get the best results, is the combination of the muscle work, chiropractic treatment and education. We try hand grenade techniques- meaning we want to really cover the whole area and start treating the body as a functional unit – not just sore body parts.
What types of concerns or ailments do you most frequently see in 45-85 year olds?
Our office is probably 50% shoulder issues. With most people, it almost always seems to be the area that is being over worked the most. Most of the stress lies here. There seems to be a little weakness in the shoulders that makes the big trap muscles always seem hard. We also see a lot of hip and knee issues in our athletes.
The nature of the job is to see sore necks and low backs but that’s a surprisingly low percentage of our office visits. As I mentioned before, throughout the week, we see clients just looking for a once over – often they will have a massage and follow it up with seeing one of our doctors for a full body experience.
What are some suggestions, from a health & fitness standpoint, that our clients could apply to keep their musculoskeletal system healthy and strong well into their senior years?
I push all my clients to lift weights. Use the muscles or you will end up with all kinds of injuries. Walking and water aerobics are fine but they are not enough. Every healthy living plan has to have weight lifting involved. Don’t be afraid to enjoy life – find the balance between health and diet without making it a chore or job and most of all…find something that makes you happy – happy people are healthier!
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