by Dr. Jeffrey Ptak, DC, DSS, MSS, MA | Oct 29, 2026 | Chiropractic, Health
After forty years of practice, the questions I believe are worth asking while you still have a say in the answers.
Ten questions worth asking before something goes wrong: what you want to still be able to do, how steady you are, whether you are losing strength, whether your memory or mood has changed, why you take what you take, who you are still connected to, how you are sleeping, what you have quietly stopped doing, what you would struggle to get back after six weeks down, and what you are avoiding finding out. Each one includes what to do about your answer. None of them requires a symptom to begin.
Over forty years of caring for patients, I’ve learned that some of the most important questions about our health are the ones we don’t think to ask until something goes wrong.
We tend to pay attention when something hurts, when an activity becomes difficult, or when a test reveals a problem. But what about the things that change so gradually we barely notice them?
What are we no longer doing? What are we taking for granted? And what would we like to still be capable of doing ten or twenty years from now?
These are ten questions I believe are worth asking before something goes wrong.
Some are supported by established medical and public-health research. Others come directly from what I’ve observed in my patients and experienced in my own life.
All ten are questions we can begin asking ourselves today.
1. What Do I Actually Want to Be Able to Do — and Does Anyone Know?
Every other question on this list is a means to this one. Without an answer, care gets organized around whatever is loudest rather than around what you are trying to protect.
I will say this much for starting here: it is where the people who study aging start too. The framework most widely used in American geriatric care — the 4Ms, from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and the John A. Hartford Foundation — does not begin with a disease. Its first M is What Matters: what the person in front of you actually wants to be able to do.
My answer. I want to still be practicing. I want to still be writing. I want to still be a beginner at something, which matters more than it sounds. Everything I do physically is in service of those three things.
What to ask yourself. Name one specific thing you intend to still be doing ten years from now. Not a value — an activity, with a verb in it. Then ask whether the person who looks after your health knows what it is.
2. How Steady Am I — Really?
Balance is a capacity many of us never deliberately learned to train. It is also one of the first things I check, because unsteadiness tends to be noticed late and explained away early.
There are three questions I would ask anyone over 65, and they are the same three the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention puts in front of clinicians in its fall-prevention program. Have you fallen in the past year? Do you feel unsteady when standing or walking? Do you worry about falling?
Vision and hearing belong in this question too. Both feed your balance, both are assessed in the World Health Organization’s framework for older adults, and both can go unchecked for years.
My answer. I work on balance deliberately, in a way that costs me no extra time: I stand on one leg while I brush my lower teeth, then switch legs for the upper. That is my routine, built on top of years of practice, and it is not where I would start someone who is already unsteady.
What to ask yourself. Answer those three questions honestly. Any yes is worth an examination rather than a resolution to be more careful. Start balance work on a firm floor with something solid to hold, at a level you can hold comfortably, and have someone guide the progression if you are unsteady or have fallen.
3. Am I Losing Strength — and Would I Know?
Muscle mass declines with age and strength tends to follow. The part that matters is that it is not a one-way street. Older adults gain strength when they train, and that has been shown repeatedly.
What strikes me is how few people know which direction they are moving. Nothing in an ordinary year measures it, so the change registers only when something becomes difficult.
My answer. I weight train two or three days a week and practice yoga three or four days a week. Not to be stronger than I was at 40. To keep what I have, and to know where it stands.
What to ask yourself. Pick one thing you can measure now and write it down — how many times you can stand up from a chair without using your hands, how long you can carry a loaded bag, how far you can walk before it becomes an event. None of those is a verdict on your health; they are markers you can repeat. Check one again in a few months. And if something is already limited, there is no reason to wait for the second measurement to start working on it.
4. Is My Memory or My Mood Different Than It Was a Year Ago?
This is the question people are most likely to notice privately and least likely to raise. It is also on every expert list I have seen, including the 4Ms, where it is the third M.
I raise it because some causes of changed memory or mood are treatable and some are reversible. That is not a promise about any individual. It is a reason to ask rather than to wait.
What to ask yourself. Has anything changed in how you remember, concentrate, or feel most days, compared with a year ago? Has anyone who knows you well mentioned it? If the answer to either is yes, that belongs with your physician, and it is worth raising early rather than after a year of wondering.
5. Do I Know Why I Take Each Thing I Take — and When Was It Last Reviewed?
In a 2019 national survey, 89% of adults 65 and older reported currently taking a prescription medicine, and 54% reported taking four or more. Every one of those was started for a reason. Not all of those reasons are still current, and nobody finds that out unless somebody looks.
Let me be clear about what I am not saying. This is not an argument against medication. Some conditions are not negotiable, and some of the healthiest people I know take something every day. It is an argument for knowing why.
My answer. I take no prescription or over-the-counter medications. I am not in a position to tell you why. Some of it is what I do. Some of it is luck, and the absence of a disease that would have made all of this harder.
What to ask yourself. List everything you take, including what you buy without a prescription and every supplement. Beside each one, write why. Then bring that list to the physician who prescribed them and ask which ones still need to be there. Do not stop anything on your own.
6. Who Am I Still Connected To?
I did not expect to be putting this on a list about physical health, and then I read the research.
In 2023 the U.S. Surgeon General issued an advisory naming social isolation and loneliness as independent risk factors for cardiovascular disease, dementia, depression and premature death. The meta-analysis underneath that finding associated social isolation with roughly a 29% higher likelihood of mortality, loneliness with about 26%, and living alone with about 32%.
Those are associations across populations, not predictions about any one person, and that is still a larger signal than most of what people worry about.
What to ask yourself. Name the people you would call. Then ask when you last actually did, and what you are doing to keep those relationships alive rather than assuming they will keep.
7. Am I Sleeping — and If Not, Do I Know Why?
This one is mine. It is not a named domain in the frameworks, and I think it should be.
Sleep sits underneath pain, recovery, mood, memory and balance all at once, and it is the thing I hear about last. People will describe a year of poor sleep as background rather than as a finding.
What to ask yourself. How long does it take you to fall asleep, how many times are you up, and do you wake rested? Persistent poor sleep is worth evaluating rather than absorbing. It can have identifiable and treatable causes, including some that are medical.
8. What Have I Stopped Doing — and Did I Decide To?
This question comes from watching it happen for forty years.
People rarely quit things. They stop one at a time, sensibly, for a reason that made sense that week. Something gets handed to someone else. A route gets changed to avoid the stairs. A standing arrangement quietly lapses. Together those decisions are the shape of a life getting smaller, and almost nobody notices while it is happening.
People give things up for all sorts of reasons — priorities change, money changes, someone needs caring for, an illness intervenes. But some of those decisions were made to avoid discomfort rather than after anyone examined what the discomfort was. Those are the ones worth revisiting, because they may not need to be permanent.
What to ask yourself. Name three things you did five years ago and do not do now. Then ask, for each one, whether you chose it or whether it simply happened.
9. If I Lost Six Weeks, What Wouldn’t Come Back on Its Own?
A fall, an illness, a surgery, a hospital stay. Six weeks of doing very little.
Some of what you lose in that time returns by itself. Some of it takes work, and some of it takes help. How much strength, endurance and mobility you had beforehand can make a real difference in what it takes to recover afterward — and that is built in advance, never during.
This is the question on this list I care about most, because the answer is only useful before you need it.
What to ask yourself. If you were flat for six weeks, what would be hardest to get back? Build that one now, while nothing is wrong.
10. What Am I Avoiding Finding Out?
This is the uncomfortable one, and I have saved it for last on purpose.
Most people are not failing to check. They are declining to look. There is a test they have not scheduled, a symptom they have not mentioned, a question they have not asked because they are not sure they want the answer.
I understand it. And over forty years of caring for patients and their families, I have watched it happen on a larger scale than one person’s test result.
People do tell me what they are afraid of, once they trust me enough to say it out loud, and it is never abstract. They are afraid of needing someone to bathe them, dress them, help them in the bathroom, get them in and out of bed. Of taking pills they never used to take. Of catching everything that goes around. Of giving up the things they love doing on their own — not because they decided to, but because their body or their memory stopped cooperating. Of leaving their home for somewhere they did not choose. Of becoming a burden on the people they spent a lifetime taking care of. Of running out of money before they run out of years. And of dying.
I have also watched it from the other side — families making hard decisions about caregiving, nursing homes and money, and trying to provide what someone needs without exhausting the people providing it. Watching my own parents grow older gave me another view of the same questions.
Many people never face most of that, and plenty stay independent and engaged into very old age. But these are the fears people actually carry, and the hardest questions inside them are not medical. Will I be able to stay in my home? Who will care for me if I cannot care for myself? How will we afford it? What happens when someone I love needs more help than I can give?
I have heard those questions in my office for four decades, and almost always after a crisis had already forced them.
Not knowing does not buy time. It spends it.
What to ask yourself. Two things. What is the one thing you suspect about your own health and have not had looked at? And what is the one conversation with your family you have been putting off? Each of those is a next step, with whoever is the right person for it.
What All Ten Have in Common
Not one of them requires a symptom to begin.
That is the whole point. And when medical care becomes necessary, you want people who know exactly what to do. But that care starts after the thing you were hoping to avoid.
Every question above can be answered this week, by you, with no appointment and no test. Several of the answers will point you toward a clinician, and that is what they are for.
One assignment, if you take nothing else from this article: answer question 1 and question 9. What do you intend to still be doing in ten years, and what would be hardest to get back if you lost six weeks. The gap between those two answers is your work.
I cannot promise anyone more years. I can tell you which questions are worth asking while you still have a say in the answers.
An Invitation
Whether you live in Santa Monica or are reading this from somewhere else, you are welcome at Ptak Family Chiropractic.
We’ll look at how you move, how your joints function, and what your strength, balance and neurological findings show us. What we find determines what we do — and if what you need belongs with your physician or another specialist, we’ll tell you that too.
Two of these questions are ones we can take straight into an examination — question 1 and question 8. What do you intend to still be doing in ten years, and what have you stopped doing without deciding to? Bring us those two answers. We never charge you to sit down and talk about your needs. Call Ptak Family Chiropractic at 310.473.7991 and make an appointment.
Or visit ptakfamilychiropractic.com.
Selected References
Institute for Healthcare Improvement and The John A. Hartford Foundation. Age-Friendly Health Systems: the 4Ms framework. Issue brief, March 2022.
World Health Organization. Integrated care for older people (ICOPE): guidelines on community-level interventions to manage declines in intrinsic capacity. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2017.
Sarmiento K, Lee R. The CDC’s STEADI initiative: promoting older adult health and independence through fall prevention. American Family Physician. 2017;96(4):220–221.
Holt-Lunstad J, Smith TB, Baker M, Harris T, Stephenson D. Loneliness and social isolation as risk factors for mortality: a meta-analytic review. Perspectives on Psychological Science. 2015;10(2):227–237.
Office of the Surgeon General. Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation: the U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community. Washington, DC: U.S. Public Health Service; 2023.
Kaiser Family Foundation. Data note: prescription drugs and older adults. KFF Health Tracking Poll, February 2019.
Volpi E, Nazemi R, Fujita S. Muscle tissue changes with aging. Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition and Metabolic Care. 2004;7(4):405–410.
World Health Organization. WHO Guidelines on Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2020.
Sherrington C, Fairhall NJ, Wallbank GK, et al. Exercise for preventing falls in older people living in the community. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 2019;1:CD012424.
About the author. Dr. Jeffrey Ptak, DC, DSS, MSS, MA, founded Ptak Family Chiropractic in Santa Monica and has practiced since 1986. He is the author of the forthcoming book It’s Like You Never Left, to be published by Indigo River Publishing.
Educational information only; not a diagnosis or a substitute for individualized care. The personal practices described here are one person’s choices and are not recommendations or treatment for any condition. Do not start, stop or change any prescribed or over-the-counter medication or supplement without consulting the prescribing physician. Begin new physical activity at a level appropriate to your current health, and practice balance only with stable support and, where appropriate, supervision. Seek prompt medical evaluation for new or progressive weakness, persistent numbness, unexplained weight loss, fever, night pain that consistently wakes you, or new changes in memory, mood or speech. Seek emergency care immediately for sudden loss of balance with slurred speech, facial drooping, one-sided weakness, double vision or a severe sudden headache.
Ptak Family Chiropractic
We listen… We care… We get results…
Chiropractic for Adults and Children
3122 Santa Monica Blvd., Suite 102 · Santa Monica, CA 90404
310.473.7991 · ptakfamilychiropractic.com
Mon / Wed / Thurs 8:00–12:15 and 2:00–6:00 · Tues / Fri 8:00–12:00 · Sat 10:00–12:00
by Dr. Jeffrey Ptak, DC, DSS, MSS, MA | Oct 27, 2026 | Chiropractic
You’re getting older. But how much of what you’re experiencing is inevitable and how much can you still influence?
Stiff mornings, slower recovery, less strength, the same ache returning, shakier balance. Too often, changes like these get filed under age and left there. For each of the seven questions below: what may be going on, what you can do about it, and when to have it looked at. Some changes are part of aging. Some deserve medical attention. And there may be more opportunities for improvement than you realize — at 45, at 65, at 85.
When do we start getting old?
At 40, when we notice we don’t recover quite as quickly? At 55, when getting out of bed takes a little longer? At 70, when someone tells us, “well, you’re not getting any younger”?
Or does something else happen along the way — do we gradually begin accepting limitations without ever asking whether we can do anything about them?
Some version of this walks into my office most weeks. Someone in her late sixties says her right hip has been bothering her for about a year. She stopped her Tuesday walking group. Getting out of the car takes a plan now. She had it looked at: ten minutes, an X-ray, and a sentence. Must be arthritis.
She’s 68. Her right hip hurts. Her left hip is the same age, and it doesn’t.
Could arthritis be part of the explanation? Absolutely. But is it the whole explanation? That is what I want to find out.
She is not unusual in having the question. In a national poll of adults aged 50 to 80, 70% reported current joint pain and 60% had been told at some point that they have arthritis. Among those with joint pain, about half said it limited their usual activities.
After forty years in practice, here is what I have learned. The number of birthdays we have celebrated does not tell the whole story. Some changes are inevitable. Others deserve a closer look. And a great deal of how we move and function remains open to improvement.
And let me say one thing before the list. If you are reading this at 70 or 80, you have almost certainly already tried things. You have been given advice, some of it contradictory. You have started programs and had them interrupted by a flare, an illness, a surgery or a winter. None of what follows assumes you have not thought about any of this.
What follows also isn’t a prescription. Where you start depends on your health, your history and what you are currently able to do — which is exactly what an examination is for.
So whether you are 45, 65, 75 or 85, here are seven questions worth asking. These are the questions patients bring me, not a ranking of what people search for online.
1. Why Am I So Stiff When I Wake Up?
What may be going on. Stiffness after a night of stillness is ordinary, and in mechanical and age-related joint problems it usually eases within a few minutes of moving. Joints need input, and sleep provides none. What matters is how long it takes to loosen up and whether movement helps.
What you can do. Time it for a week. Five minutes, twenty, forty-five, more than an hour. Then notice whether moving improves it or makes it worse.
When to have it looked at. Stiffness lasting substantially longer, involving several joints, appearing on both sides, or arriving with swelling is a different pattern. Prolonged morning stiffness is one of the features clinicians look for in inflammatory conditions, and it deserves medical evaluation rather than patience.
2. Why Does Everything Take Longer to Recover From?
What may be going on. Some of this is real and physiological: tissue repair and the muscle-building response to exercise do change with age. But a great deal of it is capacity. If the demand stayed the same while strength and endurance quietly declined, the same Saturday in the garden now sits closer to your limit than it used to.
What you can do. Rather than doing less, build more headroom. Raise the capacity so that an ordinary week stops landing at the edge of it, and spread demanding work across days instead of stacking it into one.
When to have it looked at. Soreness that lasts well beyond a few days, or recovery that keeps getting worse rather than holding steady, is worth examining.
3. Why Am I Losing Strength When Nothing Has Changed?
What may be going on. Muscle mass declines with age — by some estimates in the range of a few percent per decade from midlife, and faster after 60 — and strength tends to go with it. The important part is that this is not a one-way street. Older adults gain strength when they train, and that has been demonstrated repeatedly.
What you can do. Resistance work on two or more days a week is the general recommendation for every adult, with no upper age limit attached. Hard for you is what counts, not heavy by anyone else’s measure.
When to have it looked at. Strength that is clearly worse on one side, or weakness that comes with numbness, tingling or changes in sensation, is a neurological question and should be examined.
4. Why Do I Keep Getting the Same Ache in the Same Place?
What may be going on. A problem that resolves and returns to the same spot may be telling you that something about the demand, the load or the movement has not changed. There can be other explanations, which is why the pattern is worth examining rather than assuming. Pain tends to settle before capacity does, so people often return to the same week that produced the problem with slightly less to meet it.
This is also where imaging gets complicated. In a review of 33 studies of more than 3,000 people with no back pain at all, disc degeneration was present in 37% of 20-year-olds and 96% of 80-year-olds. In pooled studies of adults over 40 with no knee symptoms, 43% had cartilage defects and 37% had osteophytes. Findings like these are common in people who feel fine, which is why a finding needs your history and your examination beside it before anyone can say it is the reason you hurt.
What you can do. Count the pattern rather than the pain. How many episodes, how far apart, and what you have stopped doing since the first one.
When to have it looked at. Recurrence that is arriving more often, lasting longer, or spreading is worth examining rather than waiting out.
5. Why Is My Balance Different?
What may be going on. Balance is built from three streams of information — your eyes, your inner ear, and the sensors in your joints and feet — and your brain compares all three. It is also a skill, and it is kept by use. Most people were never given a balance program at any point in their lives, so it is often the capacity with the least in reserve.
What you can do. Practice balance where it is safe to practice it: on a firm floor, in a corner or beside a counter or sturdy rail you can hold, and start at the level you can hold comfortably. For many people that is standing with the feet close together while holding on, then with lighter support, and only later on one leg. Progress by ability rather than by calendar, and if you are unsteady or have fallen, have someone guide the progression rather than working it out alone. Have your vision and hearing checked. Vary the surfaces you walk on as your confidence allows.
When to have it looked at. Sudden loss of balance together with slurred speech, facial drooping, weakness or numbness on one side, double vision or a severe sudden headache may be a stroke. Call 911 immediately — do not wait, and do not drive yourself. Sudden severe vertigo with vomiting or an inability to walk is also an emergency.
Short of that: balance that has changed noticeably, unsteadiness that comes with numbness or weakness, and any fall or near-fall should be assessed promptly rather than practiced around. The ability to stand on one leg for ten seconds has been studied as a marker of health in middle-aged and older adults, and exercise programmes built around balance and functional movement reduce the rate of falls by roughly a quarter.
6. How Do I Know What’s Normal Aging and What Needs Attention?
What may be going on. Some changes are related to aging, some to how we use our bodies, and some to medical conditions that deserve attention. The pattern matters, but it doesn’t tell the whole story.
What you can do. Notice the pattern and bring it with you. Problems that vary with position, load and time of day, and that respond to movement, are often mechanical — but that is a clue, not a way to rule anything out on your own. Problems that progress steadily regardless of what you do deserve attention sooner.
When to have it looked at. Do not file these under aging: new or progressive weakness, numbness that does not resolve, unexplained weight loss, fever, or night pain that consistently wakes you. Those warrant prompt medical evaluation.
And one is more urgent than the rest. New loss of bladder or bowel control, or numbness around the groin or inner thighs, particularly alongside back pain or leg symptoms, should be treated as an emergency — go to an emergency department rather than waiting for an appointment.
7. What Can I Do Now to Keep Doing What I Love in Ten Years?
What may be going on. This is the question underneath the other six, and it is the one most worth answering while nothing is urgent.
What you can do. Three things carry most of the weight: strengthening work on two or more days a week, something that challenges balance on three or more days, and continuing to do the things you want to keep — because abilities we stop using can become harder to maintain.
And notice the advice you have been given. If everything you were told was something to stop doing — stop running, don’t lift that, give up the garden — then half the plan is missing. Avoidance has a place, especially early. Nothing is built by subtraction alone.
One assignment, if you take nothing else from this article: write down one activity you want to still be doing ten years from now. Then name one thing you can begin this week that helps preserve that ability.
When to have it looked at. If something has been limited for more than a few weeks, that is the moment to have it examined, while there is less to undo.
What Age Does Explain
And here is the part worth knowing: structure does not have to change for symptoms and function to change. In knee arthritis the X-ray and the symptoms line up poorly — across studies, somewhere between 15% and 81% of people with arthritis visible on film actually had pain. Which means that “the X-ray shows arthritis” and “this is why you hurt, and nothing can be done” are two different statements.
I don’t want to oversell this. Tissues change. Recovery slows. Some conditions become more likely with each decade, and sometimes an examination confirms exactly what you were told — that part of this cannot be restored, only managed and worked around.
The difference is that you will know. An examination may confirm that aging-related changes are contributing. But the explanation should come from what we find, not simply from the number of birthdays you have celebrated.
Getting older may explain some of what changes. It doesn’t mean we should stop asking why.
Where Chiropractic Fits in This
I’m a chiropractor, so here is the part of this that is mine. Several of these questions involve how your joints move and how your nervous system is controlling that movement: the stiffness that eases once you start moving, the ache that keeps coming back to the same place, strength that has changed on one side, balance that depends in part on what your joints and feet are reporting.
Imaging and lab work are very good at finding what I would call hard lesions — a fracture, a tumor, an infection, a tear. Those have to be found, and when one of them is what you have, that is where you belong. What I am examining for is the soft lesion: joints that aren’t moving the way they should, muscles that fatigue early, patterns that load one area over and over, and what all of that does to the nervous system controlling it. It usually doesn’t appear on an image. It appears in how you function — and it is often what is still there after the hard lesions have been ruled out.
It is not a fringe position. The American College of Physicians’ guideline on low back pain lists spinal manipulation among the non-drug treatments to try first, for acute and for chronic pain alike, before medication.
One more thing, and it matters more than people expect. The body heals on its own timeline, not on ours. I can restore motion where it is restricted, examine how the joints and the nerves serving them are working, and help you change the demands you keep putting on them. I cannot decide when your tissue will respond, and neither can you — wanting the headache gone by Thursday has never once set the schedule. Most of the disappointment I see comes from stopping at the point where something felt better rather than at the point where something had actually changed.
Your capacity to repair is also finite and shared. If you are sleeping badly, fighting something, recovering from surgery or carrying an untreated condition, less is available for the hip. And if you are not responding the way the findings predicted, that is information too — sometimes it means the plan needs to change, and sometimes it means something else is going on that we haven’t found yet. Either way it is a reason to look again, not a reason to wait longer.
And some of what turns up isn’t ours. Being examined is how you find out which it is.
An Invitation
Whether you live in Santa Monica or are reading this from somewhere else, you are welcome at Ptak Family Chiropractic.
We’ll look at how you move, how your joints function, and what your strength, balance and neurological findings show us. What we find determines what we do — and if what you need belongs with your physician or another specialist, we’ll tell you that too.
If you have been told to live with something, bring us the question you’ve been asking yourself. We never charge you to sit down and talk about your needs. Call Ptak Family Chiropractic at 310.473.7991 and make an appointment.
Or visit ptakfamilychiropractic.com.
Getting older is inevitable. Giving up the things you love doing shouldn’t be automatic.
Your age tells us how long you’ve lived. It doesn’t tell us everything about how well you can live from here.
Selected References
University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging. Arthritis and joint pain. January–February 2022 survey; published September 2022.
Bedson J, Croft PR. The discordance between clinical and radiographic knee osteoarthritis: a systematic search and summary of the literature. BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders. 2008;9:116.
Qaseem A, Wilt TJ, McLean RM, Forciea MA. Noninvasive treatments for acute, subacute, and chronic low back pain: a clinical practice guideline from the American College of Physicians. Annals of Internal Medicine. 2017;166(7):514–530.
Brinjikji W, Luetmer PH, Comstock B, et al. Systematic literature review of imaging features of spinal degeneration in asymptomatic populations. American Journal of Neuroradiology. 2015;36(4):811–816.
Culvenor AG, Øiestad BE, Hart HF, Stefanik JJ, Guermazi A, Crossley KM. Prevalence of knee osteoarthritis features on magnetic resonance imaging in asymptomatic uninjured adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis. British Journal of Sports Medicine. 2019;53(20):1268–1278.
Volpi E, Nazemi R, Fujita S. Muscle tissue changes with aging. Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition and Metabolic Care. 2004;7(4):405–410.
Araujo CG, de Souza e Silva CG, Laukkanen JA, et al. Successful 10-second one-legged stance performance predicts survival in middle-aged and older individuals. British Journal of Sports Medicine. 2022;56(17):975–980.
Sherrington C, Fairhall NJ, Wallbank GK, et al. Exercise for preventing falls in older people living in the community. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 2019;1:CD012424.
World Health Organization. WHO Guidelines on Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2020.
About the author. Dr. Jeffrey Ptak, DC, DSS, MSS, MA, founded Ptak Family Chiropractic in Santa Monica and has practiced since 1986. He is the author of the forthcoming book It’s Like You Never Left, to be published by Indigo River Publishing.
Educational information only; not a diagnosis or a substitute for individualized care. This article does not suggest that imaging is unnecessary or that a clinician’s explanation is incorrect; it describes questions worth asking. Begin new physical activity at a level appropriate to your current health and ability, and practice balance only with stable support and, where appropriate, supervision. Seek prompt medical evaluation for new or progressive weakness, persistent numbness, unexplained weight loss, fever, or night pain that consistently wakes you. Seek emergency care immediately for new loss of bladder or bowel control or numbness around the groin or inner thighs, and for sudden balance loss, slurred speech, facial drooping, one-sided weakness, double vision, severe sudden headache, or severe vertigo with an inability to walk.
Ptak Family Chiropractic
We listen… We care… We get results…
Chiropractic for Adults and Children
3122 Santa Monica Blvd., Suite 102 · Santa Monica, CA 90404
310.473.7991 · ptakfamilychiropractic.com
Mon / Wed / Thurs 8:00–12:15 and 2:00–6:00 · Tues / Fri 8:00–12:00 · Sat 10:00–12:00
by Dr. Jeffrey Ptak, DC, DSS, MSS, MA | Oct 22, 2026 | Chiropractic
What straightening teeth taught me about getting out of pain — and staying well.
Imagine wearing braces for a year.
Your teeth look straight. You’re happy with your smile. So you tell your orthodontist you’re finished.
There’s just one problem.
Your orthodontist isn’t finished.
Take your braces off before the correction is finished. What happens? And when the braces finally come off, throw away the retainer. What happens then?
The teeth may look better before the correction is complete. And even after treatment, they may shift without the retention plan. Looking better, finishing correction, and maintaining the result are not the same thing.
After forty years of caring for patients with back pain, I’ve noticed something remarkably similar.
What I Have Watched Happen for Forty Years
Maybe you’ve experienced this. Something hurt. You got help, or you waited it out, and a few weeks later you felt fine. So you went back to your life exactly as it had been.
And then, some months later, the same thing. Same side, same story.
Over the years I have watched patients make different choices once their pain subsides. Some choose relief and stop there. Others keep going — through rehabilitation, through stabilizing what they have rebuilt, and into a plan for holding on to it.
After forty years, I can tell you what I’ve seen. The people who do the work beyond getting out of pain are often the ones who do better in the long run. I see them return to activities they had abandoned, grow more confident in movement, and take a more active role in caring for themselves.
I also see people come back months later with a familiar complaint after stopping at relief. Sometimes an unresolved limitation may have contributed. Other times it is a new strain, a different condition, or simply the recurring nature of back pain. I cannot tell which without examining the person again.
This is not about blaming anyone for stopping care. Patients have different goals, finances, schedules and medical needs. It is about understanding what was accomplished, what remains, and what it would take to go further.
Have we restored what was not working well, or have we reached the point where it no longer hurts?
Those are not always the same thing. Sometimes the problem truly has resolved and no further care is needed. Sometimes pain improves while limitations remain. We find out by reassessing, not by guessing.
We Base Our Recommendations on What We Find
I don’t believe a treatment plan should be determined simply by how much pain you are in, or by how quickly that pain disappears. We begin with a thorough examination and objective findings.
When it is clinically indicated, that examination may include functional spinal X-rays. We use seated imaging because we want to look at the spine under specific, reproducible conditions that can reveal findings another position may not show. What am I looking for? Evidence that helps explain what the examination is telling us and what you are experiencing.
Those findings guide the recommendations, and they give us something to reassess as care goes on. I don’t want to guess whether you are improving. I want to examine you and look for meaningful evidence of it.
And when the findings don’t support further treatment, that matters just as much.
The Road to Recovery
In our office, I explain care as a progression. It is not a rigid schedule, and people do not all need the same steps or the same number of visits. The examination, your goals and your response to care guide the plan. Here is what each stage sounds like in ordinary language.
1. Relief
What you notice: “My back doesn’t hurt as much.”
Get out of pain. This is often the shortest phase, although it may take weeks or months, and sometimes longer. The objective is to reduce symptoms and make everyday activity more comfortable. For some conditions, that may be all the care you need.
2. Rebuild
What you notice: “I can move and do things I couldn’t do comfortably before, and I can keep doing them.”
This is where we work on correction, rehabilitation, strengthening and stabilization. Getting out of pain was the first step. Now we’re working on what your body needs to function better. That may mean restoring movement, building strength, and making those gains reliable enough to hold up outside the treatment room. Can you lift, bend, walk and do the things you want to do with more confidence?
These two phases overlap. Some rehabilitation and gentle strengthening can begin before the pain is entirely gone — you do not have to be pain-free before rebuilding starts.
3. Maintain
What you notice: “I have a plan for keeping what I’ve gained.”
Now we work on keeping what you’ve gained—and building on it. That may mean home exercises, weight training, movement breaks, or periodic reassessment and chiropractic care when appropriate. Maintenance doesn’t mean you’ll never have another problem. It means you have a plan to keep taking care of the progress you’ve made. The habits can last a lifetime, even though the professional care someone needs will vary.
These are illustrative experiences, not guaranteed outcomes.
I Know This Process Because I’ve Lived It
Years ago, I had herniated discs.
I spent two years receiving medical care without getting the recovery I was looking for. Eventually, surgery was offered.
I declined. That was my decision, in my circumstances. Surgery is the right answer for some people, and nothing here is advice about yours.
My own recovery was not quick or simple. I also had asthma, one of several health factors that had to be accounted for along the way.
My relief phase took about a year. Rebuilding my strength and physical capacity took another two.
And maintenance?
I’m still doing it. I see my chiropractor once or twice a week. I weight train two or three times a week. I practice yoga three or four days a week.
Not because I am still trying to get through that original episode of back pain. Because I value what I worked to regain, and I want to keep building on it.
I don’t expect anyone to follow my schedule. My recovery was mine, and other people need very different approaches. But it taught me something that has shaped the way I practice: getting out of pain, rebuilding your body, and maintaining your progress are three different jobs.
I didn’t spend three years recovering so I could stop taking care of myself the moment I felt better.
The Gym Explains the Rest
Nobody expects to build strength at the gym, stop exercising indefinitely, and keep every improvement. We understand that getting into shape and staying in shape require different kinds of effort. Yet when our backs stop hurting, we sometimes assume the work is finished.
A Word About the Research
There is research worth considering here, too. Back pain often comes and goes, even with appropriate treatment. In one randomized trial, selected patients with recurrent or persistent low back pain who received scheduled chiropractic maintenance care had fewer bothersome days than those treated when symptoms returned. That does not mean everyone needs ongoing visits, or that a particular schedule is right for every person. It does support asking what kind of follow-through makes sense for the individual.
Three Questions Before You Decide You Are Finished
When the pain has settled, ask yourself three questions:
- Can you comfortably do the activities that were difficult when your problem began?
- Have you regained the movement, strength or endurance that your examination showed was limited?
- Do you have a realistic plan for maintaining those improvements?
Your answers may tell you that relief was enough. Or they may show you there is more work worth doing. Either way, you’re deciding based on how you function, not simply because today happens to be a good day.
Feeling better is worth celebrating. But before you call yourself finished, ask: am I just hurting less, or am I functioning better?
An Invitation
Whether you live in Santa Monica or are reading this from somewhere else, you are welcome at Ptak Family Chiropractic.
If the same problem keeps returning — or if you feel better but wonder whether you have regained the function you want — come see us. We’ll listen to your history, examine how you’re functioning, and help you understand what may be contributing to the problem and what your options are. We never charge you to sit down and talk about your needs. Call Ptak Family Chiropractic at 310.473.7991 and make an appointment.
Or visit ptakfamilychiropractic.com.
Selected References
Kongsted A, Kent P, Axén I, Downie AS, Dunn KM. What have we learned from ten years of trajectory research in low back pain? BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders. 2016;17:220.
Eklund A, Jensen I, Lohela-Karlsson M, et al. The Nordic Maintenance Care program: effectiveness of chiropractic maintenance care versus symptom-guided treatment for recurrent and persistent low back pain — a pragmatic randomized controlled trial. PLoS ONE. 2018;13(9):e0203029.
Mujika I, Padilla S. Detraining: loss of training-induced physiological and performance adaptations. Part I. Sports Medicine. 2000;30(2):79–87.
About the author. Dr. Jeffrey Ptak, DC, DSS, MSS, MA, founded Ptak Family Chiropractic in Santa Monica and has practiced since 1986. He is the author of the forthcoming book It’s Like You Never Left, to be published by Indigo River Publishing.
Educational information only; not a diagnosis or a substitute for individualized care. The personal experience described here is one person’s history and is not a recommendation for or against any treatment, including surgery. Seek prompt medical evaluation for back pain with new or progressive weakness, fever, or bowel or bladder dysfunction.
Ptak Family Chiropractic
We listen… We care… We get results…
Chiropractic for Adults and Children
3122 Santa Monica Blvd., Suite 102 · Santa Monica, CA 90404
310.473.7991 · ptakfamilychiropractic.com
by Dr. Jeffrey Ptak, DC, DSS, MSS, MA | Oct 20, 2026 | Chiropractic
After forty years of examining bodies, the people who are still moving well late in life have a few things in common. None of them are secrets.
People who move well in their seventies are rarely the ones who did everything right. They are the ones who kept doing a few specific things: lifting something heavy, standing on one leg, getting down on the floor and back up, walking with purpose, changing position often, dealing with small problems early, and keeping their balance senses in use. Most of these can be started at any age.
I have been examining bodies for forty years. Spines, joints, muscles, nerves, the way people stand up out of a chair and the way they turn their heads to back out of a driveway.
People age differently, and much of that is outside anyone’s control: genetics, illness, injury, circumstance, luck. But some of it is habit, and habits leave marks I can read.
By the time someone is seventy, I can usually tell within a few minutes whether they have been doing certain things. Not because they tell me. Because their body tells me.
Here is what the ones who are still moving well have in common.
1. They Still Lift Something Heavy
Not heroic weights. But something that is genuinely hard for them, regularly.
Muscle is not just for appearance or sport. It is what gets you off the floor, up a flight of stairs, and out of a chair without using your arms. It is also one of the few things about aging that responds quickly to a decision. People in their seventies and eighties gain strength when they train. That has been demonstrated repeatedly.
The World Health Organization recommends muscle-strengthening activity on two or more days a week for every adult, with no upper age limit attached.
What to do: pick two days a week. Carry something, push something, squat to a chair, use weights if you have them. The specific exercise matters less than the fact that it is hard for you.
2. They Can Stand on One Leg
This is the one that surprises people. Balance is a skill, and like any skill, it is kept by practice. (Habit 7 covers the senses that feed it.)
In a study of more than 1,700 adults aged 51 to 75, those who could not stand on one leg for ten seconds had a substantially higher risk of dying in the following decade than those who could. Roughly one in five could not do it, and the proportion climbed steeply with age — about 5 percent of people in their early fifties, more than half of those aged 71 to 75.
Balance is not a separate talent you either have or don’t. It is a skill your nervous system maintains only if you use it.
What to do: build it into something you already do. When I brush my teeth, I stand on one leg for my lower teeth, then switch legs for the upper ones. Keep a hand near the counter. If one leg is too much today, start with your feet together on a firm floor, holding the counter as much as you need.
3. They Still Get Down on the Floor — and Back Up
Researchers have studied exactly this, scoring how much support people need to sit down on the floor and stand back up. In adults aged 51 to 80, the ones who needed the most help were several times more likely to die during the follow-up years than those who needed none.
The test itself is not magic. What it measures is: leg strength, hip mobility, balance and the confidence to commit your weight to a movement. Those four things decline together, and they decline quietly.
Here is the part that matters. Sometimes people stop getting down on the floor long before they physically lose the ability. And the longer they avoid it, the harder it can become.
What to do: get down on the floor once a day for some other reason. Play with a grandchild, stretch, look under the bed. Use whatever support you need. The point is to keep the pathway open.
One caution about those two studies, and about the walking research below. They show that people who can do these things tend to live longer. They do not show that practicing the tests adds years to your life. What the tests measure is capacity — and capacity is worth having for its own sake, whatever it predicts.
4. They Walk Like They Are Going Somewhere
How fast a person walks is one of the better predictors of how long they will live. Pooled research across nine studies of tens of thousands of older adults found that faster usual walking speed was associated with longer survival.
Walking speed is a summary score. It reflects heart, lungs, legs, balance, vision and confidence all at once. That is why it predicts so much.
This is not about step counts. I see plenty of people with high step counts who shuffle.
What to do: once during each walk, pick up the pace for two or three minutes. Walk like you are late. Then settle back.
5. They Change Position Often — and Worry Less About Perfect Posture
This is the item that contradicts most of what you have read.
I am not persuaded that there is one correct way to sit. What I see in my office is that the people who hurt are usually the ones who held one position for hours, whatever that position was. The body tolerates a great deal of loading. What it tolerates poorly is staying still.
What to do: stop trying to sit perfectly, and start moving sooner. Stand up every thirty minutes. Shift. Cross and uncross. Your next position is more important than your current one.
6. They Deal With Small Problems While They Are Still Small
Almost nobody arrives in my office at the beginning. They arrive after six months of a thing they were waiting out.
Sometimes pain settles before normal movement returns. The pain goes away, the person decides the problem is over, and the shoulder that no longer reaches overhead, or the hip that no longer rotates, quietly becomes the new normal. Five years of that adds up, and it adds up where you cannot see it.
The people still moving well at seventy are not the ones who never had problems. They are the ones who did not let problems become permanent adaptations.
What to do: if something has been limited for more than a few weeks, get it examined while the only cost is an appointment.
7. They Keep the Senses That Feed Balance in Use
Habit 2 was balance as a skill you practice. This one is about the information that skill depends on.
Balance is built from three streams of information: your eyes, your inner ear, and the sensors in your joints and feet that report where you are in space. Your brain compares all three. Lose one and you lean harder on the others.
Most people do not lose balance from weakness alone. They lose it because the information has become poorer and the system has stopped being challenged.
What to do: have your vision checked. Walk on varied surfaces — grass, gravel, sand — not only flat pavement. Spend some time barefoot at home, which keeps the sensors in your feet reporting. If the room moves when you turn your head, that is worth having examined rather than avoided.
What These Seven Have in Common
None of them are about preventing anything.
Every one is a capacity you keep by using it. Strength, balance, floor access, pace, variety, early attention, sensory input. The body maintains what you ask of it and quietly releases what you don’t.
Don’t start all seven tomorrow. Choose the one you have neglected most, and begin there.
And almost all of it can be started later than people think. The research on strength and balance training in people in their seventies and eighties is consistently encouraging. The habits above are not a prize for the people who began at thirty.
An Invitation
Whether you live here in Santa Monica or are reading this from somewhere else, you’re welcome at Ptak Family Chiropractic.
We’ll look at how you move, how your joints function, and what your balance and reflexes show us. What we find determines what we do — and if what you need belongs with your physician or another specialist, we’ll tell you that too.
If you’ve noticed changes in your balance, strength, flexibility, or the way you move, let’s find out what’s happening and what you can do about it. We never charge you to sit down and talk about your needs.
Call Ptak Family Chiropractic at 310.473.7991 to make an appointment, or visit ptakfamilychiropractic.com.
Selected References
Araujo CG, de Souza e Silva CG, Laukkanen JA, et al. Successful 10-second one-legged stance performance predicts survival in middle-aged and older individuals. British Journal of Sports Medicine. 2022;56(17):975–980.
Brito LBB, Ricardo DR, Araújo DSMS, Ramos PS, Myers J, Araújo CGS. Ability to sit and rise from the floor as a predictor of all-cause mortality. European Journal of Preventive Cardiology. 2014;21(7):892–898.
Studenski S, Perera S, Patel K, et al. Gait speed and survival in older adults. JAMA. 2011;305(1):50–58.
World Health Organization. WHO Guidelines on Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2020.
About the author. Dr. Jeffrey Ptak, DC, DSS, MSS, MA, is the founder of Ptak Family Chiropractic in Santa Monica, where he has practiced since 1986. His postgraduate study includes Chiropractic Functional Neurology through the Carrick Institute and advanced training through the International Association of Functional Neurology and Rehabilitation. He is the author of the forthcoming book It’s Like You Never Left, to be published by Indigo River Publishing.
Educational purposes only. This article does not diagnose any condition and is not a substitute for medical care. Begin new physical activity at a level appropriate to your current health, and consult your physician before starting if you have heart, lung or neurological conditions, or if you have fallen recently. Attempt the balance and floor tests described here only with support nearby. New or unexplained loss of balance, weakness, numbness or dizziness warrants medical evaluation. Individual results vary and no particular outcome is promised.
Ptak Family Chiropractic
We listen… We care… We get results…
Chiropractic for Adults and Children
3122 Santa Monica Blvd., Suite 102 · Santa Monica, CA 90404
310.473.7991 · ptakfamilychiropractic.com
Mon / Wed / Thurs 8:00–12:15 and 2:00–6:00 · Tues / Fri 8:00–12:00 · Sat 10:00–12:00
by Dr. Jeffrey Ptak, DC, DSS, MSS, MA | Oct 15, 2026 | Chiropractic
Drink more water. Eat a banana. Take magnesium. But what if your recurring muscle cramps have little to do with any of those things?
A muscle cramp does not automatically mean you are dehydrated or low in potassium or magnesium. Many people with recurring cramps have normal electrolyte levels, and magnesium supplements have not reliably prevented ordinary nighttime leg cramps. Cramps have more than one possible cause — fatigue and altered neuromuscular control, an irritated nerve, medications and several medical conditions among them. The useful question is not only what you might be missing. It is why this particular muscle keeps contracting when you want it to relax.
It’s two in the morning, and your calf suddenly turns to stone.
You jump out of bed, grab the edge of the mattress, and pull your toes toward your shin. After what feels like forever, the muscle finally relaxes.
By morning, your calf is still sore.
Someone tells you to drink more water. Someone else recommends magnesium. And, of course, there’s always the banana.
Those suggestions aren’t entirely unreasonable. But if the cramps keep coming back, there’s an important question worth asking:
What if the problem isn’t simply something missing from your diet?
Is It Potassium, Magnesium, or Dehydration?
Let’s start with the banana.
Bananas contain potassium, an electrolyte your nerves and muscles need to function properly. When potassium levels are genuinely low, muscles may become weak or cramp. Magnesium, calcium, sodium, and adequate hydration also matter.
But here’s the distinction: having a muscle cramp doesn’t automatically mean you’re deficient in potassium or magnesium.
In fact, many people who experience recurring cramps have normal electrolyte levels.
Dehydration and electrolyte losses can contribute to muscle problems, especially during prolonged activity in the heat or with certain illnesses or medications. But research has not established them as the explanation for most ordinary exercise-related or nighttime cramps.
And taking magnesium supplements has not consistently prevented common nighttime leg cramps in older adults.
So eat the banana if you enjoy it. Stay sensibly hydrated. Maintain a balanced diet.
Just don’t assume those steps explain every cramp.
What Else Makes a Muscle Cramp?
Your muscles don’t work independently. They receive instructions from your nervous system, which helps coordinate when they contract and relax.
One leading explanation for exercise-related cramps involves altered neuromuscular control. As a muscle becomes fatigued, the signals regulating contraction and relaxation may become less balanced, allowing the muscle to contract involuntarily.
That may help explain why one calf cramps while the other doesn’t, or why gently stretching the muscle can sometimes provide relief within seconds.
But not every cramp is caused by fatigue, and nighttime cramps are not completely understood.
Sometimes the problem involves how a muscle is being used. Sometimes it involves an irritated nerve. Sometimes it’s related to medication or another medical condition.
And sometimes what feels like a muscle cramp isn’t actually a cramp at all.
Is It Really a Muscle Cramp?
This is where paying attention to your symptoms becomes important.
A true muscle cramp is a sudden, painful, involuntary contraction. The muscle may feel hard or knotted, and stretching often helps.
Other conditions can produce similar discomfort:
- Restless legs syndrome: An uncomfortable urge to move the legs, particularly at night, rather than a muscle suddenly locking up.
- Sciatica or nerve irritation: Pain that may travel from the lower back into the buttock or leg, sometimes with numbness, tingling, or weakness.
- Spinal stenosis: Leg discomfort or cramp-like symptoms that often develop with standing or walking and improve when sitting or bending forward.
- Circulation problems: Calf pain that predictably begins after walking a certain distance and improves with rest.
- Peripheral neuropathy: Burning, tingling, numbness, or altered sensation, often involving the feet.
Certain medications, thyroid disorders, kidney problems, and genuine electrolyte abnormalities can also contribute to cramping.
These conditions don’t all require the same treatment. That’s why identifying the pattern matters.
What About Physical, Mental, and Emotional Stress?
We often think of stress as something happening in our minds. But the body responds to it, too.
Physical stress may come from repetitive movements, prolonged sitting, unusual exercise, injuries, or the way we stand and walk.
Mental and emotional stress can interfere with sleep, increase muscle tension, and make it harder to recover from the demands of everyday life.
None of that means emotional stress necessarily causes a muscle cramp or depletes your potassium. It means that when we’re trying to understand recurring symptoms, we should consider the whole person rather than just the muscle that hurts.
How are you sleeping? How much physical activity are you doing? Has something changed in your routine? Are you recovering adequately?
These are useful questions.
Where Does Chiropractic Fit?
If drinking enough water, eating well, and stretching haven’t solved the problem, it may be time for a closer examination.
At Ptak Family Chiropractic, we evaluate more than the cramping muscle.
We examine spinal and joint function, including areas of joint dysfunction sometimes described in chiropractic as subluxation. We also assess possible nerve irritation, muscle function, posture, gait, and movement patterns that may be placing unusual demands on certain muscles.
For example, if your calf cramps are accompanied by lower-back pain, tingling, numbness, or weakness, that raises different questions than an isolated cramp after a long day of exercise.
We also consider physical, mental, and emotional stresses that may be affecting sleep, tension, and recovery.
Not every muscle cramp originates in the spine, and spinal joint dysfunction is not an established explanation for all recurring cramps. The purpose of the examination is to determine whether there’s a problem chiropractic care can appropriately address.
We’ll also screen for signs of restless legs syndrome, sciatica, spinal stenosis, circulation problems, medication effects, and other medical conditions. When laboratory testing or further medical evaluation is needed, we’ll recommend it.
What Can You Do When a Cramp Strikes?
For an ordinary calf cramp, gently straighten the leg and bring your toes toward your shin. Don’t force the stretch.
Then consider what happened before the cramp. Did you exercise more than usual? Spend hours standing? Change shoes? Sleep with your feet pointed downward?
Maintain sensible hydration and nutrition, and increase unfamiliar activities gradually. If the cramps are new or frequent, review any recent medication changes with your prescribing clinician rather than changing medications yourself.
Some symptoms deserve prompt medical attention. A painful, swollen, warm leg needs urgent assessment for a possible blood clot. Severe weakness, a suddenly cold or pale limb, or dark urine after heavy exertion also requires urgent medical care. Persistent cramps accompanied by weakness, muscle wasting, or other unusual symptoms should be medically evaluated.
When the Cramps Keep Coming Back
You shouldn’t have to keep guessing whether you need more potassium, another supplement, or a different sleeping position.
If the cramps continue, come and see us. We’ll listen to what’s happening, examine your spine, nerves, muscles, and movement patterns, consider the stresses affecting your health, and screen for other possible causes. We never charge you to sit down and talk about your needs. Call Ptak Family Chiropractic at 310.473.7991 and make an appointment.
If chiropractic care is appropriate, we’ll explain why. If the findings point to a medical condition, we’ll help direct you toward the right evaluation.
The goal isn’t simply to stop one cramp. It’s to better understand why the problem keeps returning.
Selected References
Garrison SR, Korownyk CS, Kolber MR, et al. Magnesium for skeletal muscle cramps. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 2020;9:CD009402.
Schwellnus MP. Cause of exercise associated muscle cramps (EAMC) — altered neuromuscular control, dehydration or electrolyte depletion? British Journal of Sports Medicine. 2009;43(6):401–408.
Miller KC, Stone MS, Huxel KC, Edwards JE. Exercise-associated muscle cramps: causes, treatment, and prevention. Sports Health. 2010;2(4):279–283.
Maughan RJ, Shirreffs SM. Muscle cramping during exercise: causes, solutions, and questions remaining. Sports Medicine. 2019;49(Suppl 2):115–124.
About the author. Dr. Jeffrey Ptak, DC, DSS, MSS, MA, is the founder of Ptak Family Chiropractic in Santa Monica, where he has practiced since 1986. His postgraduate study includes Chiropractic Functional Neurology through the Carrick Institute and advanced training through the International Association of Functional Neurology and Rehabilitation. He is the author of the forthcoming book It’s Like You Never Left, to be published by Indigo River Publishing.
This article is for educational purposes and does not replace individualized medical evaluation.
Ptak Family Chiropractic
We listen… We care… We get results…
Chiropractic for Adults and Children
3122 Santa Monica Blvd., Suite 102 · Santa Monica, CA 90404
310.473.7991 · ptakfamilychiropractic.com
Mon / Wed / Thurs 8:00–12:15 and 2:00–6:00 · Tues / Fri 8:00–12:00 · Sat 10:00–12:00
