Dr. Travis Parry (00:01.09)
Hey, welcome to the Travis Parry Show. Today I am just fortunate to have a friend in studio with me, Dr. Spencer Wade. he is a practicing chiropractor of 16 years who specializes in advanced posture correction with a background in biomechanics and is just an all-around great guy. Welcome to the show, Spencer. Appreciate you being here.

Spencer Wade (00:24.621)
Absolutely. Thanks, Doctor Parry.

Dr. Travis Parry (00:26.774)
Yes, yes. So talk to us a little bit about how you became Doctor Wade. Talk to us a little bit why chiropractic. A little bit about, you know, your background story.

Spencer Wade (00:35.215)
You bet. People love to hear that. Even my patients ask me, like, why did why did you choose to become a chiropractor? So

Yeah, so it's good to have a story behind it. I went to school actually with somebody, a nice guy from Canada, and I remember asking him, so why'd you decide to become a chiropractor? Like asking him, like, what's your story? Have you had crazy amounts of pain? The guy said, You know, I just knew somebody who's a chiropractor seemed like a good life. Well, have you had back pain? No, never have actually had any pain. But yeah, I've always wondered, man, what would it be like to be a chiropractor if you didn't have like the story that drove you into chiropractic? So

Yeah, I do have a story. I was a sickly kid. I wasn't very well. I was that child of my mother's seven kids who was fraught with all kinds of medical health problems. And I just figured it was just genetics. I had asthma and allergies. Doctor told my mom I was allergic to everything but rabbit meat and venison.

through skin prick, IgA, antibody tests. and and I was a headache sufferer and it was it's really those headaches and still, you know, to a degree headaches that continue to be the focus, my my personal health focus in life. When I was older, about twenty years old, I was in a head on collision and that messed me up. I mean, such that if I didn't get eight hours of sleep, I could I'd land myself a giant migraine.

And when I ask my patients, hey, of your back pain, your neck pain, your wrist pain, and your headaches, what would you like to see disappear? If they're truly a headache sufferer, they always say they're headaches. You know, anyone who really is a headache sufferer, it's not like having your shoulder hurt. It's like if you have a headache, you're dysfunctional. Like those physically, mentally, emotionally, you become a handicapped on all those levels. So after that head on collision, those headaches got really bad and

Spencer Wade (02:31.254)
I had some exposure to chiropractic care and I sought out more and I was getting relief from it, but I wasn't it wasn't really fixing the problem. One chiropractor where I had liked his touch and his bedside manner, it was very professional. He had taken x-rays of me and I asked him, Hey, so what do you think is wrong with with my my headaches and does it have anything to do with my spine, my neck? And he showed me a side view of my of my neck.

And I had just like a ton of like forward head posture. I wasn't aware of it at all. but he said, Yeah, that's that's a lot, and that's gonna be a huge added strain to your body. And of course, then I asked, Well, what do we what do we do about that? And he said, Well, that's just how you're born. And of course, I was like, man, and my heart sank. So I have this big problem, and there's really nothing to do about it. And really, none of the chiropractors ever had that.

Proactive conversation with me, where you and I formerly were talking about this idea. Like, are you a proactive or a reactive chiropractor? And I am proactive when it comes to health. And it was a year or so later I came in contact with a different chiropractor, a different approach, different methodology. And that's who really opened my eyes to the shape of my body. We call that posture, the structure.

And how that's impacting my health, particularly by way of headaches. About that time, I remember I saw a side view picture when we used to develop photographs back in the day before digital cameras. And I would I was fly fishing in a river in Colorado, and I remember looking at that picture thinking, man, like that chiropractor from long ago is right, and this newer chiropractor I met is right. Like my forward head posture is like outrageous.

And from that time I was considering chiropractic as a career, and I was shadowing this guy with this new methodology I hadn't heard of called chiropractic biophysics. And it it really changed my perspective about chiropractic. It allowed me to start thinking in a proactive manner. Allowed me to start thinking about not just a bone being out of place, but maybe like my whole spine is out of place.

Spencer Wade (04:50.982)
And so receiving treatment there and then shadowing, and then I worked for him in the office. I had exposure to this stuff long before school. Then I finished my undergraduate degree and went to a chiropractic school that taught these methods in San Francisco, in the Bay Area. And then I got out of school and I was kind of the club president and I really focused in on this posture stuff, and I flew around the country a little bit to get additional training certification. And then I left when I graduated to go to.

Washington State where I practiced with somebody there and then upon finishing up an internship more or less, my wife and I decided to relocate closer to family and we landed ourselves here in Cache Valley. And I don't think we're gonna go there maybe today, but all the while

Been a student of nutrition, and and my studies in nutrition have paralleled my studies in spinal health. Like, what are the root cause, what are the drivers of dysfunction. So I've studied nutrition all along, too. And in Cache Valley, my in Utah here where we are, my perspective on spinal health is has been again focused on this idea of posture, and I think we've really helped a lot of people in some big ways. and it's not always just

the methods I have here, it's it's waking people up to their day-to-day habits that are deteriorating their health and and oftentimes people are entirely unaware.

Dr. Travis Parry (06:21.442)
Yeah. So great. Thank you for for sharing. I have a I have a story they brought me to chiropractic a long time ago. but we won't get into that today. It it definitely has opened my eyes to what's going on with them with with this connection. Like I I'm very big in balance, but you know, time balance and and an area of life sort of thing, but physical balance is very important.

To have that posture is is super important. So talk to me, what do you what would you say is the number one worst habit that people get into that creates poor posture?

Spencer Wade (07:00.526)
it's surely being at a workstation, I think, for most people. No doubt electronics are huge, but let's just say workstation posture. I have had patients through the years that are involved in some activity. Let's just say, for example, they're a dancer or something. There's just there's certain things that tax our bodies and we can't really fix them.

But we do have control over the things that we're doing day in and day out, our workstation, how we drive, how we sleep. And knowing that people's workstations are just a a wreck and they're sitting at this thing for eight, ten plus hours of a day and it's all wrong, yeah, it's it's a wrecker. In fact, yesterday I delivered a health talk, a presentation on posture and ergonomics in a at a business, and one of

the person who invited us, upon finishing my presentation, he said, Hey, can we just like dart into my office so you can look at my setup in there? And see I know I know the shape of his spine.

And and I know his health history. And then when I look at his ergonomic setup, like bingo, you know, it's not it wasn't just happenstance or just coincidence that his spine is shaped the way that it's shaped. He showed me what it looked like and by his own admission, he knew it wasn't perfect and was gonna need some help. But his very setup was creating a dysfunctional shape that in fact was interfering with his love, which happened to be mountain biking.

And so he's he's that kind of guy though, even though he's not been a awakened to these things his whole life, but he's very proactive. So immediately like he's gonna address all this stuff, fix it.

Dr. Travis Parry (08:47.895)
Nice.

Yeah. Well it hits home. I mean I've got an ergonomic desk, you know, a keyboard that comes in and out, like I can lower and and raise it however I want, a microphone that will go where I need it. I've got an ergonomic, you know, chair, I've got the treadmill, like I've got all these things because I've seen this in in my life and I happen to be a mountain biker. so like that that's that's what I care about. But mountain biking is not great for posture.

pelvic tilt issues, all sorts of curvature problems that I'm finding, man, I've been doing this for so long. You know, I've got to get back to it. But clearly most of us, business owners, especially I'm working with, are spending way more time at their desk, right? Than ever before. The laptop posture, the, the hunched over for the phone, all those things. I can I absolutely relate to that.

And I bet a lot of other business owners relate to that. So why don't you tell us a little bit about what your formula for fixing this is? What what are the steps that that you suggest for people or that you use in in your profession to help with posture correction?

Spencer Wade (10:06.36)
Right. So I'll talk about the clinical steps in my office and then I'll talk about the steps that should exist outside of the off my office, right? And in a one's day-to-day life.

So, firstly, one needs a proper explanation as to what their posture is. You know, I I'm a fan of movement and exercise and stretching, but a lot of people do posture-related things because their instructor, their yoga or Pilates instructor, somebody told them. But they're really just kind of arbitrary suggestions that aren't personalized to the shape of the person. For example,

somebody might be in yoga and and they're told by their instructor, hey, we got a pelvic tuck, right? And if you're a woman, especially, you know, all of us probably, but especially they're like, yeah, I I pelvic tuck because you know I want a tight core and a strong body. But pelvic tucking is actually predicated upon whether or not one has too much or too little low back curve, their lordotic curve of their low back.

So in fact, a one person pelvic tucking is beneficial for their health because it is driving the curve of their back more to a natural neutral. Whereas on another person, pelvic tucking is actually wrecking their back like bad, like enough that I've had patients that are facing surgery. I had a lady that was

she was receiving surgical consultation because she had just been an incessant pelvic tucker. And even just a couple weeks ago, I had another person in my office and I looked at their x rays and I said, you've been a pelvic tucker, haven't you? And she was like, Yeah, how how can you tell? And like, because you're getting arthritis.

Spencer Wade (11:51.801)
Because you're not somebody who should pelvic tuck and you're doing it. Like, well what do you mean? Well, you've had a flattened low back curve but you want a tight core and abs and so you pelvic tuck.

And and so a person first needs to know this stuff. Now it's very hard just by looking outwardly. Really, somebody should go find somebody that has some background in this and and they should be shown like, do I have too much or too less? You know, there's a lot of other considerations just outside of pelvic tucking too, like neck posture, especially as it concerns the workplace, super important. Nobody needs to be staring down too much. That's bad for us, but that is so detrimental to somebody who has no career.

In their neck or has a reversal of curve. Most people in general are going to be benefited by everything being higher, at least by way of their neck posture. There's other considerations. Symmetry. Sometimes people are asymmetrical, they don't realize it. But let's say, like one of your monitors is two to the it's to the right, and that's your dominant monitor.

And so that you're like this. Well, in time, the person's literally gonna develop like a rotation in their neck where they're stuck. Or they're gonna develop like a lateral shift like that. We call it translation on the x-axis. They're gonna be shifted like that out of their midline. You know, people formerly stuck on a phone like this, where they they did this for many years, a construction worker carrying like all of his weight on his right side.

So again, you gotta you need an appraisal first of like where are you at? Like, am I am I a symmetrical human? Do I have appropriate curvature in my body? So that's that's number one. Once they get into my office, we do three, four different things. We do regular chiropractic adjusting here, whatever methods you know work for the person, drop table, regular manual adjustments, osseous breaks, you know, whatever you want to call them, activator upper cervical work. I specialize

Spencer Wade (13:54.793)
In. But we use what's called mirror image principles. So I adjust people in the mirror image, meaning I know how their spine is shaped, and so I adjust them, putting stimulus into their body, the direction of correction. Then we teach people posture exercises, and the posture exercises are also in the mirror image. So if you're crooked one way, well, we're going to exercise you opposite the way you're crooked. And then lastly, we use

traction and it's not traction like people would imagine in a hospital or their at their physical therapist. We're literally using different machines, ropes, pulleys, and weights to create bending motions in the spine to induce changes to the shape of their spine. And that is done to change the ligaments. And that's a that's a game changer for people. Because like a neck, it let's say there's not curve in one's neck.

there's little to do actively by way of exercises. Like if nobody if somebody doesn't have a curve, they have to do traction that'll change the ligaments so that they can have a new shape to a neck. In fact, I have a friend who he became a patient and we worked really hard on the shape of his neck, but based on some complexity of the shape of his neck, it was really hard to put curve in his neck. and then he went mountain biking and then he landed really bad.

And he didn't have a curve in his neck. And so guess what happened? He herniated discs. Because no curve in a neck, and then an impact injury like that, one is actually more susceptible to disc herniation because curves engineered by God in our spines are what are protective against a load-bearing situation and not having that he herniated discs. So kind of a crazy thing.

Dr. Travis Parry (15:41.485)
Wow. I mean that has that hits home. That hits home. and I've done I've done some traction with a chiropractor years ago, but I found that most chiropractors don't know how to do it, have never been trained. And so it's been one chiropractor years and years and years ago, who talked about it and I've seen and actually have used some some at home kind of traction ish devices. It's more of like a

Spencer Wade (15:45.09)
Yeah, yeah, it's

Dr. Travis Parry (16:11.404)
A you know, a pad underneath to try to correct that. and you know, maybe there's pros and cons to that. But I I like that you have, you know, some chiropractors they just do adjustments. Let's come in, let's adjust. It feels good while you're there. Or maybe it might hurt while you're there, and then you leave, and then you got to keep coming back. And it's like it's never, is it ever not, you know, aligned? But you're doing exercises with that, which I found to be extremely beneficial as someone who really cares about his own health.

And then traction. Like, yeah, the having these three are the these three steps together, you've seen some great results with this. Or is there is there any other steps involved in this protocol?

Spencer Wade (16:53.284)
Those are the main things. I give my patients a posture questionnaire so that I can help them identify what the stressors are in their life. So they can come back to me and we can have a conversation.

those are the main the main things outside of my office, the day-to-day things. Yeah, I I think my patients should be doing just as you described. And frankly, when they come in and I say, Hey, here's how we do it. Here, I want to see you three times a week and I'm gonna see you for like weeks and months, you know. Not everyone wants to sign up for that. And I get it, and I'm willing to work with people, even if they just are doing something on their own and I tell that.

Tell them, look, if you're willing to do anything, I'll help you. You know, so long as we both agree, hey, the shape of your spine, this is a problem. Do something about it anything. And so, yeah, there's some great tools out there. little things you can lay on. The one that's popularized at all is called the Denderole of Dr. Jeb McAbney and Deed Harrison, these people that made this thing out of Australia. That is unique to my technique, chiropractic biophysics. But from that.

Dr. Travis Parry (17:51.182)
That's right.

Dr. Travis Parry (17:59.215)
Cool. I y that's the one that I use. That's great. Yeah.

Spencer Wade (18:01.432)
Yeah, yeah, and that's kind of the original. And now there's a gazillion, you know, different ones on Amazon and I think some of them are pretty good. but yeah, there's things to do for lack of curve in a neck that you can lay on at home or for the low back, even the middle back. There's definitely things to do. There's exercises people can do at home.

To try to create curve in their neck. And they're all helpful. And I believe that the more my patients do those things really, the less need they have for adjustments. I know it, you know. And I'm happy to tell my patients that, which some would say, well, that's that's not really gonna create like a future patient, you know. But again, it's that proactive, reactive. Yeah, a referral.

Dr. Travis Parry (18:31.512)
Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Travis Parry (18:39.584)
It will re it'll create referral. Yeah. It I'll refer people to you because it's not just the one or the other, right? It's not just coming in for a chiropractic adjustment to feel good temporarily. So I think people appreciate that. It's like the dentist that hands out candy at Halloween, like, What? No. I appreciate the dentist that accepts people's candy and pays the money for it. Like it the it makes sense to me that they're being proactive about the actual holistic health. So I

I think I appreciate that. I I love that. What would you say is the one thing that maybe a misunderstanding or something that keeps like a hurdle that keeps people from actually having really great posture?

Spencer Wade (19:24.28)
Yeah. yeah, that's a great question and maybe still conjures up in me the things that w your former question were like what could people be doing like how does your recipe work and then what can people do on their own.

Yeah, if a person doesn't go there to start considering how do I remove the bad and add the good, then they're gonna find themselves in the same place. But again, it's the information age and it's probably phone use that is the biggest wrecker. because almost none of my patients have a curve in their neck.

And we measure this stuff in degrees and an ideal is forty-two degrees. Being in the thirties is optimal. all the studies say that less than in the thirty degrees, it's a risk factor for chronic neck pain and headaches, jaw dysfunction, numbness and tingling, neurological stuff, all kinds of things. So most people again, they just shouldn't be spending time staring down for hours and hours on end.

And phones are probably the biggest, newest culprit, but that's not to exclude laptops, just their regular workstation. The biggest consideration is how high is your monitor, you know. I kind of I'm I'm a tough critic of like ergonomic specialists, you know, they're talking about like 90 degrees at the upper arm and the elbow and you know, your wrists at fifteen, you know, and all these things. Like that's nice, those are cute, you know. How high is your monitor?

It's the number one. It's no doubt.

Dr. Travis Parry (20:56.738)
Yeah. 'Cause if the monitor is up here, that that creates a a weird effect. But if it's also down here, you're looking down at a laptop all day, that's putting that pressure on the neck.

Spencer Wade (21:05.87)
Yeah. Yeah. And some people are just not gonna find that really comfortable. But yeah, the for most people, the higher the monitor is, the better off they're gonna be. And I had a patient who was this big guy, middle back pain, not even neck pain, but he his workstation was on his laptop in his car because he did field work. So he came in to see me like, yeah, doc, I got this middle back pain. I used to see this guy over here, you know, he'd just do the old

You know, and crack me and and that'd take care of it for a little while and then it'd come back. And so I said, Okay, well, how about we investigate your posture? So when he allowed me to X ray him and look at him, I said, Well, let me tell you something. Your problem has nothing to do with your middle back, it's your neck. And I said, I know it's your neck 'cause I've seen it on X ray and I know what you do in your car staring down on a laptop.

So we did the things that we do here, you know, and and of course expected that he was addressing the stuff outside of here. And do you think he had any middle back problems after that? No. He didn't have any.

Dr. Travis Parry (22:07.158)
Right. That's wonderful. so what what would you suggest for those, you know, busy business professionals, business owners, what what would be the one or two things you would say do now? you know, if they're local, obviously come in and see you and they can find you there. But you know, what what what's something they can do today, right now, right after this podcast?

Spencer Wade (22:33.976)
Well, for one, like I mentioned before, if they do if a person does have x-rays from anywhere, the hospital of their spine, go back and look at them and see, yeah, do I have a curve in my neck? It's so important that it's been called the arc of life.

That naturally everything downstream is affected when you don't have an appropriate curve in your neck. So look and see. And then for most people, and especially your constituents, you know, consider your workstation and really look at your monitor height. You know, having a sit-stand desk or a variable height workstation, that's all good, a ball that creates movement. but but just ask that question: where is my monitor and how do I get it a little bit higher?

Most people they're just gonna do so much better long term the higher their monitor is.

Dr. Travis Parry (23:21.954)
Yeah, well said.

Spencer Wade (23:22.284)
Maybe phones if you know, if we could talk phones, but even I, you know, still have to remind myself regularly to Yeah.

Dr. Travis Parry (23:29.442)
Yeah, I mean most most people I call it Down syndrome. Like they're always looking down at the phone, but you really have to be thinking about it like to l to look at it up here. That that takes work. Like that's effort. You gotta be thinking about that.

Spencer Wade (23:43.855)
Yeah, there's a couple factors there that drive that, and one of them you mentioned, it's it's the fatigue factor. People don't hold their phone out here because now you're you're holding the whole weight of the arm. The other reason that people don't do that is there's more ambient light in the like on the horizon than when you're staring down. So if you're trying, you know, for contrast reasons on your screen, people hold it low because the floor is darker.

And so that's it's a s it's a struggle, but I teach my patients, hey, at least you know, for the fatigue thing, plant your elbow on your torso. Okay, because if your elbow's on your torso, then you're not gonna feel that same fatigue, and you're still gonna be staring down a little bit, but not like having your head buried in your in your lap. So that's that's a real easy one to do right there. Plant the elbow on the torso. For you know, the contrast thing, that's just that's just a hard one, you know.

Dr. Travis Parry (24:28.502)
Not like that, for sure. Yeah.

Dr. Travis Parry (24:39.948)
Yeah. Yeah. Then yeah, screens they're so they're bright and and ev everything anyway, but it the technology's getting I guess better and better for that. well said. you know, if you put this all together and p it's one thing to come in with pain, it's one thing to come in 'cause something's hurting.

But it's likely y people have experienced this pain over a period of time. It's likely that it comes on and off. to bring this back to just normal, everyday functional health, w why why would you end with this idea that it's the arc of life? Maybe expound on that a little bit before we before we end today.

Spencer Wade (25:28.09)
Sure. Yeah, structure determines function. So when you have altered shape in the sh in the structure shape of the spine, then there's altered functionality. Chiropractors in fact study as much almost as much neurology as they do skeletal anatomy, which isn't to say they maintain and keep all that through.

you know, practice, but we we study it a lot. You can't have disrupted shape to the spine and expect the nerves to work right. There's not only susceptibility to arthritis and herniated discs, but there's other concepts that exist out there called cord tension. Literally the spinal cord is put under tension. The nerve roots are not in optimal positions. and this this whether it's the autonomic ner nervous system or whether it's you know this whether it's

just the physical stress on the neck, you're going to have dysfunction in your body because not just the structure's altered, but the nervous system is altered through having a disrupted arc of life. So if you want normal spinal health and avoid back pain and neck pain and headaches and all the things, yeah, you you have to kind of look at the bigger picture and not just strictly ask, am I flexible and can I move and can I bend and

you have to realize that the structure is a very important.

Dr. Travis Parry (26:52.674)
Well, this has been pleasure to interview you today, to have you on the show. people here are local or if they're in town or in their close, what's the best way to to find you, to reach out to you, to to get into your office to start, you know, getting these x rays done?

Spencer Wade (27:06.738)
my office been here yeah thirteen years, fourteen years, integrity chiropractic in Providence, Utah. So we're easy to Google and and

Dr. Travis Parry (27:19.288)
Thank you for your time today. I really appreciate you having you on the show.

Spencer Wade (27:21.284)
You bet. You bet. It's been a pleasure.

Dr. Travis Parry (27:25.519)
Absolutely. And if you've enjoyed this as as much as I have, having Dr. Wade with us on the show, enjoy our other episodes. Stay, you know, tuned to future work that we might be doing together, but also other episodes we have on the Travis Parry show. And until next time, remember, live life on purpose together.

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