Bryan Hapka, DC

10/03/2025

07/25/2025

07/24/2025

Posted • The majority of golfers who are plagued by lower back pain also present with limited hip or thoracic spine mobility.

Because they can’t rotate through their “mobile joints” they may be asking their lumbar spine to do more work, potentially resulting in excessive stress.

06/26/2025

I can attest to having low back issues caused by lack of hip mobility. I also see this with golfers in the office all the time! If you need help finding out what is causing your low back pain let me know and lets get you started working on real solutions.

10/14/2024

A good dynamic warm up can help mitigate many future issues. If you are not warming up properly, your setting yourself up for injuries down the road.

Maximize performance while mitigating risk of injuries with the 6-phase dynamic warm up blueprint…

Phase 1 - Soft Tissue Work

Foam roll tight painful areas OR big movement muscles to be trained in the workout of the day. Prioritize one single area.

Phase 2 - Dynamic Stretching

Whatever key area you rolled, now you’re going to stretch it. Keep active posture, add a little “rock” to unlock mobility.

Phase 3 - Corrective Exercise

Choose a multi joint mobility or skill drill and focus on smooth movement, range of motion and symmetry between sides.

Phase 4 - Muscle Activation

Break out your bands and hammer high mind muscle connection work for the shoulders, lats, glutes, hamstrings.

Phase 5 - Movement Pattern Prep

Grease the groove of the movement patterns your training that day. Use bodyweight or light load to practice pattern.

Phase 6 - CNS Stimulation

Get twitchy and move explosively with jacks, jumps, throws, tosses, skips, athletic movement to prime nervous system.

*Invest 1-2 minutes per phase to get in and out of your dynamic warm up in 10 mins or less. Minimal effective dose.

And be sure to plug and play appropriate exercise selection for your tight painful areas, performance goals of the day, or chronic weak links you need more cumulative work on.

Now THAT is how you warm up to perform and prevent🙏

03/23/2024

Great Info!

Discs don't slip. This is not a thing that happens. This is typically said in reference to a bulging or herniated disc and paints a very inaccurate picture of what is actually happening. Check out my blog about it. https://rfr.bz/fa0eoc5

01/22/2024

Shockwave Therapy available at Active Spine & Sport Therapy

05/12/2023

100%

05/12/2023

I may be working on certain muscles or joints but this concept is what I live by in my work. Trying to affect the nervous system in positive ways so that it can relax and move better.

When it comes to physical pain, it's important to recognize that the root cause may not always lie within the musculature.

In fact, the muscles that feel the tightest and exert the most tension are often weak due to inhibition.

This means that stretching can actually worsen the issue by further inhibiting these muscles.

Instead, the key to relieving this type of pain is to focus on restoring strength.

However, it's important to note that sometimes physical interventions such as massaging, stretching, cupping or acupuncture to an area won't be effective, if the nervous system has determined it's unsafe to release the tension.

This is because the brain and spinal cord communicate with our joints, muscles, and spine through our nerves, sending and receiving signals to control movement.

When these signals misfire or malfunction, chronic pain can develop.

This occurs when the brain and spinal cord adapt improperly to these malfunctions and become "short-circuited."

The spinal cord amplifies harmless pain signals, making them seem unbearable and creating a loud, chronic pain signal.

In other words, treating the nervous system is key to addressing chronic pain as it has the ability to act as the greatest pharmacist in the world.