Blog 3: Endurance Therapeutics FAQ
Part 3: What You Do Between Appointments Matters More Than You Think
Welcome to the 3rd part of Your Questions Answered!
Part 1 addressed the misconceptions about chiropractic care and what makes my approach at Endurance Therapeutics different. Part 2 explained how the body actually heals, the role of the nervous system in pain and movement, and why treating the site of pain so often misses the driver. Part 3 is the one that changes how most patients think about their recovery.
What happens in the clinic matters. What happens outside it matters more.
Why do I feel better after a treatment but then the pain comes back?
This is the most common frustration I hear from patients who have been in the cycle of temporary improvement followed by return of symptoms. And it almost always comes down to the same thing.
Treatment reduces the inflammatory response, restores joint mobility, releases soft tissue tension, and resets neuromuscular firing patterns. All of that is real and meaningful. But if the patient goes back to the same movement patterns, the same training load, the same sitting posture, and the same lifestyle habits that created the problem in the first place, without doing the specific work that addresses those drivers, the same structures are going to load the same way and the pain will return.
Treatment buys you a window of reduced symptoms and improved tissue quality. What you do in that window determines whether the improvement sticks or fades.
What should I actually be doing between appointments?
This varies significantly based on the individual, the injury, and where they are in the recovery process. I will always build out a plan that is unique and specific to what you need. But the categories of between appointment work that matter most:
Activation work:
The glute activation, hip stability, and neuromuscular exercises that re-establish proper firing patterns before those patterns are challenged by training. As we covered in our Activate Before You Train series, five to ten minutes before every session makes a measurable difference to how the body loads under sport demand.
Mobility work:
The specific stretches and joint mobility exercises targeting the restrictions that are driving compensation. Hip flexor length, thoracic rotation, ankle dorsiflexion, the targets that matter most for your body and your sport. These need to be done consistently, not just in the days before an appointment.
Prescribed rehabilitation exercises:
The specific loading exercises that drive adaptation in injured or vulnerable tissue. These are not generic exercises from a YouTube search. They are chosen based on what your assessment revealed and they need to be done at the right load, the right tempo, and the right frequency to produce the adaptation they are designed for.
Load management:
Not increasing training volume faster than the tissue can adapt, taking deload weeks seriously, and accounting for total load including life stress and sleep quality. This is the part most athletes find hardest to do because it requires restraint when the impulse is to do more.
Sleep:
The most powerful recovery tool available and the one most consistently sacrificed. Tissue repair, hormonal regulation, and neuromuscular pattern consolidation all happen during sleep. Cutting it short cuts the recovery process short.
How important is strength training for recovery and injury prevention?
It is not supplementary. It is foundational.
The vast majority of the overuse injuries I treat have a strength deficit somewhere in the picture. Weak glutes driving knee and lower back pain. Inadequate hamstring eccentric capacity contributing to hamstring strains. Poor rotator cuff endurance leading to shoulder impingement. Insufficient calf and Achilles loading contributing to tendinopathy.
Strength training builds the tissue capacity that allows the body to absorb and adapt to the demands of sport and daily life without breaking down. It is also one of the most important longevity investments available to any athlete regardless of age. After 35, muscle mass declines at approximately one percent per year without deliberate resistance training. For athletes who want to keep training and competing into their 50s, 60s, and beyond, strength training is not optional.
Two sessions per week of targeted, sport specific strength work is enough to maintain and build the tissue capacity that protects athletes. It does not need to be complicated. It needs to be consistent.
How do I know when I actually need to come back in?
There are a few clear signals that warrant booking an appointment rather than waiting:
Pain that is not improving after five to seven days of appropriate management including activity modification and prescribed exercises
A symptom that is progressively worsening rather than fluctuating or improving
A new symptom that is sharp, localized, or associated with neurological signs like numbness, tingling, or weakness
A return of a previous injury that was fully resolved: this almost always means a compensation pattern or strength deficit was not fully addressed
A desire to maintain rather than wait: regular maintenance care catches what is building before it becomes a problem, and for athletes in heavy training this is often the highest return appointment available
What is the goal of care at Endurance Therapeutics?
To get you to a point where you need me less, not more.
I am not interested in creating dependency on the clinic. I am interested in giving every patient a thorough understanding of their body, the specific tools they need to manage their own health between appointments, and the foundation of movement quality and tissue resilience that allows them to train consistently, perform well, and stay in the sport they love for as long as they want to.
The patients who get the most out of working with me are the ones who engage with the education as much as the treatment. Who do their activation work, who build their strength, who manage their load intelligently, and who come in for maintenance before something breaks rather than only when something is already wrong.
That is the model that produces lasting results. And it is the model Endurance Therapeutics was built around.
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Has this series so far answered questions you have had about chiropractic care and whether it is right for you? If not the next step is a conversation. Reach out to book a free 15 minute phone consultation or a full assessment with Dr. Keirstyn at Endurance Therapeutics. We would love to be part of your athletic journey!
📍 Endurance Therapeutics | Oakville, Ontario
📞 905-288-7161
Optimizing The Endurance Athlete’s Mind, Body & Performance.