What are the opening hours?

Monday 8:30am - 6:30pm Tuesday 8:30am - 6:30pm Wednesday 8:30am - 6:30pm Friday 8:30am - 5pm

Body Works Clinic

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United States
Cannon Falls, MN
Body Works Clinic

Celebrating 30 years of helping people achieve healthy lifestyles. Chiropractic • Massage Therapy • Acupuncture • Nutrition

Open M, T, W, F 8:30am - 6:00pm

We specialize in helping patients achieve long term pain management and general wellness using an individual approach combining chiropractic care, acupuncture therapy, nutritional intervention, and massage therapy.

11/21/2025

HAPPY THANKSGIVING ! The office will be open for regular hours on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Dr. Demel and Harmon are out of the office on Friday but there will be a front desk staff from 10am-noon. Massage hours by appointment resume on Saturday.

11/20/2025

BLACK FRIDAY DEALS THAT MAY BE WORTH YOUR MONEY, PART 2
As we tackle part 2 of our list of Black Friday deals, I reiterate my disclaimer that this is not an exhaustive or static list, and that I have no personal financial connection to any of those products.

GROUNDING MATS

Probably not on the radar of many people, but nonetheless a very useful tool that's been around for a while now, grounding mats allow you to discharge some of the static electricity that can easily build up in a modern indoor tech heavy environment. Natural occurring electricity in nature flows in a direct current but our modern electricity grid is based on alternating current. In addition, modern humans lack the normal grounding mechanism which happens when electricity to which your body is exposed is naturally discharge to the ground through your feet (and incidentally the reason why so many people feel so rejuvenated and calm when they get to walk bare feet on natural ground like as earth or sand). It's beyond the scope of this brief blog to talk about some of the symptoms associated with static electricity overload, but there are many and you can look them up for yourself. Grounding mats plug into the ground part of your electrical outlet and will mimic the natural grounding mechanism that normally happens to your feet when any part of your skin touches the mat. A lot of people end up not using the mats because they assume that you need to have your bare feet on the mat which is not always feasible or comfortable in the home office setting especially in the winter months, however any part of your body can discharge and I personally have found it most useful to put my grounding mat underneath my keyboard on my desk, where my bare hands and wrists continuously touched the mat. At a price point below $100, and with the durability of several years, I definitely think it makes the top 10 list.

INSOLES

The debate is still raging ....

https://www.bwclinic.com/blog/2025/11/15/part-2

11/18/2025

BLACK FRIDAY DEALS THAT MAY BE WORTH YOUR MONEY, PART 1

With Black Friday right around the corner and many folks wondering how to stretch out their hard earned dollar on which rockin' deal, I thought about sharing my top 10 list of self-care items I am willing to spend my hard earned dollars on. (Which is saying a lot being I am Swiss and we are historically frugal). Finding the top 10 cut off was really really really hard since there are so many options out there, and many more than 10 that could be beneficial, especially depending upon your individual needs. However I think that as a whole those are items that will stand the test of time in their cost-benefit ratio in improving your long-term health and well-being. As with all things health and wellness, it's going to be a dynamic list subject to change in a rapidly changing consumer market, some already putting myself a note to do a 2026 update.

Please note: I have no personal connection with any of these products and will derive no financial benefit from recommending any of these products

WALKING PADS

We spent the last 20 years trying to mitigate the damage done by the sedentary lifestyle of our deskbound workforce. The 1st step was to move people from 8 hours of sitting into alternating sitting to standing, which was no doubt a huge benefit. The next frontier is to get people actually moving at a normal physiological speed during their workday. The walking pads are a form of very rudimentary treadmill which are motion activated by the movement of the worker. They take little room, are very simple machines with less opportunities to break down, and have significantly come down in cost over the last 2 years. The walking pad is associated with a standing desk set up. You walk on them at approximately 1 mile per hour, which feels like a very leisurely stroll. It may not feel like much but after an 8 hour workday you could have basically walked 8 miles. The benefits are huge. There's a great deal of attention placed on NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis), the energy expenditure associated ....

https://www.bwclinic.com/blog/2025/10/30/black-friday-deals-that-may-actually-be-worth-your-self-care-money

11/16/2025

FEMORAL NEURITIS: THE "OTHER SCIATICA"

Sciatica enjoys quite a bit of popularity, and rightfully so. It is not technically a medical diagnosis but the description of symptoms encompassing pain in the leg, generally assumed to stem from the low back. The sciatic nerve originates at 5 levels spanning the last two lumbar vertebrae/discs, and the upper three sacral segments. It travels through several soft tissue structures in the buttock, down the posterior thigh, before splitting into two different branches at the knee, covering the lateral and posterior calf and foot. As such, sciatica describes referred pain affecting this distribution pattern.

Patients often use the term “sciatica” pretty liberally, to describe any sort of pain in the leg, including pain in the front of the thigh, which is not a sciatic nerve distribution. Enter its lesser known cousin, the femoral nerve.

Femoral neuritis is actually surprisingly common but getting little recognition ( it is still less common than sciatic neuritis). The femoral nerve originates in the mid lumbar spine and is made up from nerve roots from lumbar segments L2 through L4. It travels in the front of the lumbar spine, deep in the abdomen, through the intersection of the two branches of the iliopsoas hip flexor muscles, through the groin and into the anterior and medial aspect of the thigh. It does not extend very far below the knee, unlike the sciatic nerve, which extends all the way into the foot.

The femoral nerve can be compressed in the lumbar spine, by a mid lumbar disc herniation, and just as commonly by myofascial injuries in the hip flexors. The patient will often present with unexplained groin, hip, thigh and medial knee pain and tingling. Unlike sciatic neuritis, many patients will not initially recognize femoral neuritis as referred pain from the lumbar spine since it manifests in the front of the trunk and leg.

Femoral neuritis will be treated in the same manner as sciatic neuritis, based on the source / cause of the problem: chiropractic adjustments, myofascial release, corrective exercise, supportive therapies etc.

11/09/2025

SOFT TISSUE HEALTH #5: HORMONES

In this section we are trying to condense a very large subject into a blog size entry, meaning we will discuss general concepts without a lot of details.

In sections #1-4, we covered the nutrients needed to build high quality soft tissues, but now we to realize that nutrients are not automatically uploaded into the complex architecture of our soft tissues without some signaling to do so. Part of that signaling involves hormones.

A variety of hormones impact the growth, repair and remodeling of our soft tissues, and as such, hormone imbalances can be a source of low grade chronic poor soft tissue healing and susceptibility to chronic injuries. Below is a summary of the hormone systems that are more closely connected with soft tissue problems.

· Gender variable hormones, including estrogens, progesterone and testosterone. These hormones are involved in improving flexibility, quality and growth of soft tissues. Women suffer the bulk of gender variable hormone problems because they experience more hormonal fluctuations throughout their lifetime. Soft tissue injuries and pain can flare up at certain times of the menstrual cycle, post partum, and especially in the first few years of menopause when estrogens can drop pretty steeply. Women may be on long acting synthetic hormones that suppress endogenous production. Both men and women can be placed on hormone blocking therapies for years at a time for hormone positive cancers. Males often will go through the equivalent of menopause, or andropause, but more gradually starting around age 50, and while the sexual impact of andropause gets a fair amount of medical attention, the soft tissue symptoms of decreasing testosterone do not.

· Thyroid hormones: a huge driver of normal cellular metabolism, active thyroid hormones are crucial for soft tissue repair and resiliency. Ask anyone who has delt with hypothyroidism and they will tell you that every tissue in their body seems to hurt and be intolerant to normal activities. Thyroid disorders can be complex, more widespread than recognized with ..
https://www.bwclinic.com/blog/2024/4/5/soft-tissue-health-4-hormones?rq=hormones

11/08/2025

POSTURE AND WEIGHTED VESTS

Novelties in physical fitness come and go at a surprisingly rapid pace. Although not totally novel, the discussion regarding weighted vests came up during a recent osteoporosis update webinar and I thought we should give it a little nod and attention.

Weighted vests are basically just that, vests that can be weighted with different levels of weights, typically between five and 30 pounds. They are typically worn over athletic garments. The concept is to increase loading on the body during physical activity, with three primary goals in mind: increased bone loading for bone mass recovery in the context of osteopenia and osteoporosis, enhancing muscular endurance and bulk during a set activity, such as a walking, and increasing calorie expenditure for the same workout.

The science is a little bit all over the map yet because it’s a relatively new product, but there are some pretty strong data emerging as follows:

Weighted vests are raising a lot of concern among musculoskeletal providers because they tend to enhance poor posture and common abnormal posture changes, such as increased thoracic kyphosis, lumbar lordosis, and especially anterior head posture and rounded shoulders. So before considering using a weighted vest, you need to address chronic postural changes first.

Weighted vests seem to be potentially beneficial for certain activities, but not others. They seem to give you more benefit when used for short term, strength workouts, and much less for lower intensity cardiovascular workouts. They may be best used to slightly increase loading when doing large muscle activities, such as step ups, squats , but they do not appear to be beneficial when doing walking or light cardio.In that regard they function a little bit like added free weights, bypassing the limitations of having to hang onto weights with your arms, for example when you're trying to add 40 pounds of loading doing squats. One area where I find them remarkably useful is when a patient is trying ...
https://www.bwclinic.com/blog/2025/10/30/posture-and-weighted-vests

11/03/2025

THOUGHTS ON ULTRAPROCESSED FOODS

I recently returned from a short caregiving trip in Finland and was catching up on my weekly research digest on the plane. This particular research article caught my eye because of what I had just experienced the cafeteria of my father‘s senior facility.

https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(25)00549-2/abstract?utm_source=klaviyo&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=%28Email%20-%20Chris%20Kresser%20General%20News%29%20Chris%27s%20Friday%20Favorites&utm_term=recent%20study&utm_content=recent%20study&_kx=ZpXBDTeEF9QJhwDqQXXrImrT_HpFsBz1ZlYMbsx_Vq0.my75y6

In the US, as in some other developed nations, which are unfortunately catching up with US standards in terms of the over abundance of ultra processed foods in that daily plate, ultra processed foods are starting to make up a whopping 70% of our total food consumption. While most people understand on some level that processed food is bad for them, we have a long way to educate people to make them understand what in their grocery basket is a real food versus a highly processed food. And understanding doesn’t necessarily translate into better consistent food choices either.

Moving away from ultra processed foods back to whole foods shouldn’t feel like this insurmountable task. But it takes a lot of communal goodwill, and a lot of structural changes in how a country supports food growing, distribution and pricing. Which would be an entirely different complex and lengthy discussion that is not appropriate for this blog entry.

Back to my trip to the senior care cafeteria. I was having lunch with my family and was so delighted to realize that most of the food offerings were so simple and essentially healthy even in the context of mass production (after 20 years of visiting my father in Helsinki I can assure you this is the norm and not the exception). So much so that I decided to immortalize it with my phone.
https://www.bwclinic.com/blog/2025/10/28/thoughts-on-the-ultraprocessed-nation

10/30/2025

Dr Demel will be out of the office on Friday Oct 31st and Monday Nov 3rd. Regular chiropractic hours resume on Tues Nov 4th.

Massage hours will continue on their normal schedule

Front desk staff will be in the office on a reduced schedule to answer your questions on Friday and Monday

10/22/2025

“GOOD PAIN” VERSUS “ BAD PAIN” PAIN FROM ACTIVITY AND EXERCISE

A question that arises commonly as we tackle the rehabilitative phase of a patient’s treatment plan, is what level of discomfort is to be expected and tolerated when patients start resuming normal activities or pursue exercising when being treated for an acute or chronic condition. In other words, what is the defining line between good and bad pain?

First, we should talk about when we start introducing therapeutic activities in the first place, especially when patients are acute, as some patients are pretty eager to start exercising to get better faster. As a general rule, I may not add much beyond in office treatment and light walking, breathing, general movement and active range of motion stretching in the first week or two of treatment. You cannot inherently strengthen or stabilize something that is completely dysfunctional or structurally misaligned.

Usually by the end of the second week at the latest, we can start adding more specific activities. With the input of the patient, we look to find the right balance between pushing the patient enough to make gains, and not pushing so hard as to reinjure. It can be a bit of a balancing act, and I give the patients three guidelines to stay in the safe zone:

- There is a difference between pain and soreness. Soreness is a normal reactivation reaction that is more of a generalized discomfort. Sharp pain is normally to be avoided as a sign that you are pushing too far too fast.

- I like to use the 2 points on the 10 scale rule: during the therapeutic activity, it can be OK to have a little more discomfort than at baseline. For example, if youR pain at rest is a 2 on a 10 scale, it can be at a 4 on a 10 scale, but really you should not let it get much higher.
https://www.bwclinic.com/blog/2024/12/19/pain-and-exercise-good-pain-versus-bad-pain?rq=EXERCISE

10/21/2025

WHAT IS THORACIC OUTLET SYNDROME ?
Another overdue blog about a very common problem that lands a lot of people in our office who have often been worked up medically and released with no good explanation or treatment plan.

The term thoracic outlet syndrome is an umbrella term encompassing several clinical syndromes, which all have to do with compression of nerve and/or vascular structures between the neck and shoulder.

Once the cervical nerves exit the inter-vertebral foramen, a.k.a. the space or hole between two adjacent vertebrae, they will join and repackaged themselves in three branches that will then travel downward into the upper arm and give rise to the three major peripheral nerves: radial, median, and ulnar. Shortly after their redistribution from cervical nerve roots into peripheral branches, they are joined by nerves and arteries exiting from the thoracic cavity, to form the neurovascular bundle. You will often see the abbreviation NAV, to describe respectively nerve artery and vein, that travel together. As a result, any of these thoracic outlet compression syndrome subtypes will almost always include a combination of symptoms due to compression or irritation of the nerve as well as compression of vascular structures. As a result, the symptoms can include not only pain, numbness, but also change in blood flow into the upper extremity that can manifest as sensation of cold and discoloration.

The most common causes of thoracic outlet syndrome is that I find myself treating in the today practices are as follow:

https://www.bwclinic.com/blog/2023/12/3/what-is-thoracic-outlet-syndrome

10/14/2025

OCTOBER SCHEDULING UPDATE

Dr. Demel will be out of the office starting Wednesday October 15th, and returning Thursday October 23rd. Details of scheduling availability can be found on the online scheduling app. Front desk staff hours will be reduced during her absence but there will be staff checking and returning voicemail and email messages every day except Thursday October 16th.

Massage hours will continue on their normal schedule.

Address

424 Mill Street West
Cannon Falls, MN
55009

Opening Hours

Monday	8:30am - 6:30pm
Tuesday	8:30am - 6:30pm
Wednesday	8:30am - 6:30pm
Friday	8:30am - 5pm

Telephone

+15072632393

Website

http://bwclinic.com/, https://www.bwclinic.com/schedule-an-appointment

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