Our Approach · Sports
The Nervous System Behind the Athlete
Built for Performance
A complete system for the care of the athlete, from the nervous system that produces the edge to the rehabilitation that restores it. Sixty-four lessons on how performance is built, protected, and brought back, written for the athletes who can choose anyone and the people who vet their care.
This section is organized in five parts: the athlete's nervous system, assessment and movement, injury and return, recovery and fueling, and the whole athlete and the team. The sixty-four lessons sit inside those five parts, from the foundation up.
Sixty-four lessons · Five parts · Foundation to peak output
The Brain Runs the Body
Proprioception and Joint Position Sense
Reaction Time and Motor Control
The Cerebellum and Timing
Sport Vision and Eye Movements
The Vestibular System and Balance
Cortical Drive and Force
The Autonomic Nervous System
Assessment and the Pre-Participation ExamReading the Athlete
Before performance is built it is measured. The examination that maps an athlete's structure, movement, and nervous system, and decides what is ready and what is not.
The Pre-Participation Exam
Injury Assessment and Analysis
Clinical Biomechanics
Upper-Extremity Screening
Lower-Extremity Screening
Imaging the Athlete
The Functional-Neurology Workup
Movement and MechanicsProducing Force
How force is generated and transferred through the body. Gait, the kinetic chain, and the spine as the axis every powerful movement is organized around.
Injury by RegionThe Body, Mapped
Region by region, how the athletic body is hurt and how it is read. From concussion to the ankle, the mechanism, the assessment, and the path back.
How Sports Injuries Happen
Concussion
The Cervical Spine
The Thoracic Spine and Ribs
The Shoulder
The Elbow
The Wrist, Hand and Fingers
The Hip and Groin
The Knee
The Ankle and Foot
Rehab, Prevention and Return to PlayThe Comeback
Rehabilitation is a science with stages, criteria, and a finish line. How tissue is rebuilt, load is managed, and an athlete is cleared to compete again.
Recovery and ResilienceBetween Efforts
Adaptation happens in recovery, not in the session. Heart rate variability, vagal tone, sleep, and the stress response that decide whether training builds or breaks an athlete.
Heart Rate Variability
The Vagus and Recovery
Sleep and the Athlete
Adaptation and Supercompensation
Inflammation and Healing
Stress, Cortisol and the HPA Axis
Physiology and FuelingThe Engine
The energy systems that power sport and the fuel that feeds them. Physiology, nutrition, hydration, and the systemic conditions that quietly limit output.
The Whole AthleteEvery Athlete
Performance is personal. The female athlete, the youth and masters athlete, the para-athlete, and the mind, body, and environment each athlete competes within.
The Female Athlete
The Youth Athlete
The Masters Athlete
The Para-Athlete
The Psychology of Performance
Heat, Cold and Altitude
Special Populations
On the Field and at the Highest LevelThe Standard
What care looks like when it operates at the level of professional sport. Field emergencies, brain-based training, the performance team, and the standard elite athletes expect.
Is chiropractic good for athletes?
Yes. Athletes ask more of their bodies than anyone, and chiropractic care is built around the system that coordinates every movement, the nervous system. An adjustment is an input to joint motion and to the mechanoreceptors that report it, and that afferent stream is what the brain uses to organize the next movement. This section states what is measured, what each measurement means, and where the model's own reading begins.
Can chiropractic care improve athletic performance?
Performance is a neurological event before it is a muscular one, and this practice works at that level rather than promising a result. Joint position sense in degrees, reaction time and its variability, and cortical drive are all measurable, and these lessons report what the trials found, including the trials that found nothing.
What is a chiropractic neurologist?
A chiropractic neurologist is a chiropractor with advanced board certification in functional neurology, a credential held by a small fraction of the profession. Dr. Jason Dulberg is a board-certified chiropractic neurologist (DACNB, FACFN), which means an athlete is assessed and cared for through the lens of the brain and nervous system, not the joints alone.
Do professional athletes use chiropractors?
Chiropractors work alongside athletic trainers, strength coaches and team physicians across professional and collegiate sport. The measured proportions are more modest than the figures that circulate: the only peer-reviewed audit of National Football League medical staffs found 31 percent of teams, and it is more than twenty years old. This section is written to the standard those athletes expect.
Can chiropractic help with concussion recovery?
Concussion is a brain injury and is treated as one, with graded return-to-play and a team around the athlete. Functional neurology examines the systems a concussion disrupts, including the vestibular system, eye movements and autonomic regulation. The concussion lesson covers recognition, assessment, and recovery in depth.
What is heart rate variability and why do athletes track it?
Heart rate variability is the small beat-to-beat variation in heart rhythm, and it is one of the clearest windows into the autonomic nervous system. Higher variability generally reflects a body that is recovered and ready, while a sustained drop signals accumulated stress, which is why HRV has become a standard readiness metric in elite sport.
How is this sports section organized?
In five parts. Part one covers the athlete's nervous system, the foundation everything else rests on. Part two covers assessment and movement. Part three covers injury by region, rehabilitation, and return to play. Part four covers recovery, heart rate variability, and fueling. Part five covers the whole athlete, field care, and the standard of care at the highest level.
Where should an athlete or trainer start?
Start with part one to understand why the nervous system sets the performance ceiling. Start with part three if you are dealing with a current injury or a return-to-play decision. Coaches and trainers building a season usually want part two for screening and part four for load and recovery.