DOCTOR TO THE (ATHLETIC) STARS
Carol had been in constant pain ever since another player crashed into her hard, knocking her down. The sharp, stabbing pain finally got so bad, she couldn't sleep or concentrate. She went to see Dr. Craig Buhler, a chiropractor in Layton, Utah.
Buhler asked her to describe the impact, then had the athlete lay on her back, arms crossed over her chest. He lifted up her torso, pressed on her back and gave it a kind of shake, then had her sit up. She was amazed. The pain was gone.
"You had a rib jammed into a vertebrae, so it was locked up and couldn't move. I manipulated the head of the rib to release it," he explained.
Craig Buhler is the chiropractor who extreme athletes are making famous. He takes care of players in the NBA and NFL, as well as swimmers, speedskaters, ski racers, snowboarders and athletes in many other sports. Ten of his patients were Olympians in 2006. His patients call him "the man with the magic." But Buhler denies that there's anything supernatural about his technique, though he does admit to being able to predict injuries.
"By evaluating the way the muscles are working, I can tell if there is a weakness or imbalance. That shows where an athlete is vulnerable," he says.
As an example, he describes a basketball player whose stabilizer muscles of the ankle are not working properly. When Buhler diagnoses that, it also tells him that the ankle isn't stable, so the player is more likely to sprain that ankle. Or, in the case of a runner whose hip rotating muscles aren't performing properly, he says, "They are going to be more prone to problems with their kneecaps, thus more vulnerable to knee injuries."
His ability to evaluate muscular function has brought him patients such as Utah Jazz player John Stockton, skiers Picabo Street and Steve Nyman, snowboarder Torah Bright and other famous athletes he declines to name for privacy reasons. But he estimates that at least a fifth of his clients are elite athletes, and even more are recreational and masters competitors.
Some elite athletes first came to Dr. Buhler because they were suffering such severe pain, they could no longer train for their sport. Even with the best medical care, they were unable to recover enough to come back to their former level.
The quickness with which he diagnoses and cures pain and physical dysfunction makes some athletes claim his treatments are magic, which makes Buhler laugh.
He says, "It looks like magic because they don't understand the basic neurology behind it. The body has a language system, and we call those symptoms. But the symptoms are a very precise communication that there's a problem. I don't treat symptoms, I find the cause. Then it's a matter of applying the different therapies that I use. The results are very fast."
But Buhler says that his treatments don't do away with the need for good medical care, and does not eliminate required surgery. "It compliments good medical care, and re-establishes function like nothing else can."
Despite his success, the problem that bothers Buhler is the reluctance of medical doctors to involve themselves with chiropractic practitioners. "I would like to integrate this approach with the orthopedic physical therapy world to produce a better outcome for patients. That's my goal."
The many elite athletes who have had orthopedic surgery to repair torn ligaments of a knee or shoulder, then gone to Dr. Buhler to have their athletic function fully restored, would say his goal is a good one.