At Midwest Movement, we take an integrative, holistic, and evidence-based approach to your care.

Healing is a team effort. We’ll do everything we can to help you feel better while you’re in our chiropractic office, but you will leave your appointments with exercise “homework” after each visit. By performing your exercises at home, you will help to train your muscles and joints to work the right way, and this will help maintain any changes we’ve made after adjusting or other therapies.

Research shows that the combination of manual therapy (like chiropractic adjusting and muscle work) is most effective when paired with rehabilitative exercise, and we see that effect with our patients. When we integrate chiropractic care with rehabilitative exercise, we have found that our patients not only feel better sooner, but they are able to stay feeling good much longer.

Here’s what your rehab exercises may include:

McKenzie Method (MDT)

McKenzie or MDT is an assessment and treatment protocol that uses repetitive movements to treat disc problems and other joint limitations. It can be used for any joint in the body, but it is most well known for helping with spinal disc pain.

If we determine a directional preference for the joints involved in a problem area, which happens during the exam, then we will give you repetitive movements in that direction. These repetitive exercises (McKenzie exercises) can very effectively decrease and/or prevent symptoms.

The exercises used in MDT are also helpful for patients who don’t want to (or shouldn’t) be treated with chiropractic adjusting.

Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization (DNS)

Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization (DNS) is a hands-on rehab approach based on developmental kinesiology, the study of how babies learn to move and grow. We use DNS to improve motor control, strength, and stability.

We look to infant development for proper muscle activation because, unlike adults, babies don’t have years of poor posture, lots of sitting, or injuries to affect how they move. Babies have relaxed muscles, no low back pain, and a strong and stable core, so it just makes sense for us to model our movement off them.

Our patients will often call these their “baby exercises,” because we use positions and movements that babies learn in their first year of life. DNS exercises or baby exercises seem simple, but many patients are surprised at how difficult (and humbling!) it can be to perform them correctly.

By using these fundamental, developmental positions and movements, we are able to “wake up” muscle groups to work how they were intended to. Many of these exercises will involve breathing, rolling, and crawling on the floor, which can then be applied to more complex positions, movements, and sports. DNS exercises and principles can be effectively applied with infants, children, adults, pregnant and postpartum women, and elite athletes. DNS perfectly complements chiropractic care because inefficient movement patterns often lead to tight muscles and pain.

Performance Rehab

Active rehab in our office often looks a lot like training.

Once we’ve 1) relieved your pain through chiropractic adjustments, dry needling, McKenzie exercises, muscle release, or other therapies and 2) optimized your muscle and joint control through DNS exercises, it’s time to load your body.

You aren’t coming to our office so you can do “exercise homework” for the rest of your life — you’re here so you can do the things you love!

Whether you want to do bodyweight exercise, power lift, or just pick up your child, we want to make sure you’re performing that activity as efficiently as possible. We apply DNS principles to common movements like deadlifts, squats, overhead presses, kettlebell carries, and more. Our goal is to transition you back to function and performance, whatever that looks like for you.