What my own neck taught me about why the direction of the adjustment matters

My neck doesn’t like generalised rotational manipulation-type adjustments. They hurt and they don’t tend to “hold” well. It is one of the things that drew me toward Gonstead Chiropractic and once I understood why, it changed the way I adjust every patient who sits in my chair.

Here’s the simple version of what’s actually happening in your spine.

Each bone in your spine is meant to sit directly on top of a disc (all except one, but that is a blog post for another time). Specifically, the vertebra sits on the nucleus, the soft centre of the disc that acts like a cushion and a pivot point. That’s where the bone is supposed to rotate and move from.

When a bone shifts off that centre point, even slightly, it no longer puts weight evenly on that gel. Picture it like this: one side gets squashed, it pushes the gel toward the other side and the other side bulges out. The fibres around the nucleus, which are meant to hold everything evenly in place, end up stretched on one side and compressed on the other. These stretched fibres become painful and over time lose their integrity and strength.

This is the part most adjustments don’t address. A generic twist or crack might create movement and temporary relief, but it doesn’t get the bone positioned and moving onto the centre of the disc. The uneven pressure is still there, the weight is still not over the cushion where it should be, the fibres are still stretched and the weight-bearing on the disc has not been resolved. The disc may continue to degenerate, as without normal motion it does not receive adequate blood supply, and in the short term - it is still inflamed and painful, causing nerve pressure.

This is why in the Gonstead system we adjust straight, from the back of the bone, forward, with no rotation. The goal is simple: get the bone back onto the nucleus, sitting evenly, so the disc can bear weight the way it’s designed to. Once that happens, the fibres around the disc aren’t under uneven tension anymore, and they can finally start to heal. The ultimate goal always - to reduce pressure and dysfunction on the nervous system.

This also explains why this approach still works on spines people assume are too far gone or too delicate for chiropractic care. Such as long-standing degeneration, post-surgical joints, old injuries and fusions. The disc is always the target. It doesn’t matter how compromised the spine is, the correction is the same: get the bone back where it belongs on the disc.

Hugs,

Glenn