Bone
Wolff’s law was established in the nineteenth century by German anatomist and surgeon, Julius Wolff. This law states that bone in any human or animal will adapt to the loads under which it is placed. If loading on a particular bone increases, the bone will slowly remodel itself over time and become more dense to help resist that sort of loading. On the other hand, the inverse is also true: when the loading on a bone decreases, the bone becomes less dense due to the lack of stimulus required for continued bone remodelling.
That sounds fancy, but what does it all mean?
Wolff’s Law has physiological implications for our bodies in two obvious ways.
Firstly, we should understand that weight training exercise is actually beneficial for our bones as we get older. It is NOT damaging to our bones. Many people believe that their bones get brittle and soft as they get older - and as a result they feel like they need to avoid weightlifting to prevent injury. This is an incorrect way of thinking. As we get older, we should continue lifting weights and exercising as a way to promote bone hardening / strengthening. If we avoid lifting weights, then that’s when our bones slowly become weaker.
Secondly, we should not neglect the overall structure of our spine and other weight bearing bones in our bodies as we get older. If things shift out of alignment, it causes an irregular pattern of force and load to be placed on the bones. Certain areas will carry excess load and over time this leads to an imbalance of bone hardening which isn’t healthy. In moderate to severe cases, this causes osteoarthritis aka degenerative joint disease.
How does that relate to chiropractic?
Our examination process involves structural analysis which identifies irregular shifting and weight distribution in the body. We see it often in our practice - a visual distortion in the spine and pelvis causing an imbalance in weight distribution between the left and right half of the body (it’s sometimes as high as 30 or 40 more pounds of pressure going through one side of the body when compared to the other). Our bodies are resilient - in younger people it may cause some minor aches/pains and nothing more. The problem is that over time, if left uncorrected, Wolff’s Law tells us that excessive force will lead to ABNORMAL hardening which then results in arthritis. It’s something we are able to detect with our digital x-ray analysis of the spine, pelvis, and other joints in the body.
At Foundation Chiropractic Co, we focus on NeuroStructural Correction. We try our best to normalize your spine structure to evenly distribute the load and forces being placed on your bones. Doing this keeps things balanced and helps to maintain healthy joint and bone tissue in the body.
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