About Chiropractic and Osteopathy
7th September 2026
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Your body is constantly talking to itself. Right now, tiny sensors in your joints, muscles and tendons are sending millions of messages to your brain. Your brain reads those messages and sends instructions back. This two-way conversation is called a feedback loop. It controls everything from how you move to how you feel pain. When these loops work well, your movement feels smooth and pain-free. When they break down, you can end up with muscle tightness, dull pain and injuries that just won’t go away. As a chiropractor, I see this every single day in my practice. The good news is that chiropractic care can help restore these feedback loops. In this blog, I’ll walk you through how your nervous system uses these loops, what goes wrong, and how we can help get you back on track.
Let me start with a simple analogy. Think of your nervous system like a thermostat in your home. The thermostat checks the room temperature. If the room gets too cold, it turns the heater on. Once the room warms up, it turns the heater off. That is a feedback loop. Your body works the same way.
Your joints and muscles are loaded with tiny sensors called proprioceptors. Proprioception is your body’s ability to sense where it is in space. These sensors constantly report to your brain about your joint position, muscle tension and movement speed. Your brain processes all of this and sends instructions back to your muscles. This is how you keep your balance, coordinate your movement and protect your joints from injury.
When your proprioception is working well, your movement feels effortless. You can walk on uneven ground without thinking. You can catch yourself before you stumble. But when these feedback loops get disrupted, things start to go wrong. Your muscles might feel tight even when you haven’t done anything. You might notice a dull ache in your lower back or a stiffness in your hips that you just can’t shake.
Think of proprioception as your body’s GPS. It tells your brain exactly where every part of your body is. Without good GPS signals, your brain makes mistakes. Those mistakes can show up as hip tightness, neck pain or achy joints.
A 2025 randomised controlled trial published in Scientific Reports found that spinal manipulation influenced the proprioceptive weighting ratio in patients with chronic low back pain. This ratio reflects how the central nervous system selects between lumbar and ankle proprioceptive input for postural control. Disruption of this weighting process may be a hidden driver behind persistent tightness and movement dysfunction that patients often cannot explain (Nature Scientific Reports, 2025).
So what happens when I perform a chiropractic adjustment? When your spinal joints become restricted, the proprioceptors in and around those joints start sending distorted signals to your brain. Your brain then makes poor decisions about muscle tension and movement. This can lead to your muscles becoming tight as a protective response. You might feel that as hip tightness, a stiff neck or an achy lower back.
A chiropractic adjustment restores motion to those restricted joints. This changes the signals flowing from those joints to your brain. Research shows that spinal manipulation improves sensorimotor integration. That’s the process by which your brain combines sensory information to plan and control your movement.
A landmark randomised controlled trial by Holt and colleagues in 2016 studied 60 older adults over 12 weeks. The chiropractic group showed significant improvements in ankle joint position sense and choice stepping reaction time compared to the control group. These are direct measures of how well your proprioceptive feedback loops are working (Holt et al., JMPT, 2016).
A 2024 study published in Brain Sciences found that four weeks of chiropractic care in people with chronic low back pain produced measurable changes in brain wave activity. The researchers found significant changes in the somatosensory evoked potentials, particularly the N30 peak. This peak is thought to reflect early sensorimotor integration involving your prefrontal cortex. In simple terms, chiropractic adjustments changed how these participants’ brains processed body-position information (Haavik et al., Brain Sciences, 2024).
When your spinal joints get stuck, the messages they send to your brain become scrambled. A chiropractic adjustment is like rebooting your router. It clears the scrambled signals so your brain can communicate properly with your body again.
One hidden pitfall is assuming that a single adjustment permanently resets these loops. The 2024 Brain Sciences study showed that while immediate changes occur after one session, four weeks of consistent care produced more robust and sustained neuroplastic changes in the default mode network. Clinicians should set realistic expectations about the timeline for neurological adaptation.
This next section is fascinating and explains something many of my patients find confusing. Have you ever wondered why your lower back pain sometimes comes with a weird stomach ache? Or why your neck pain seems to affect your energy levels? The answer lies in a special group of nerve cells in your spinal cord called Wide Dynamic Range neurons, or WDR neurons.
WDR neurons sit in the deeper layers of your spinal cord’s dorsal horn. What makes them special is that they receive signals from both your somatic nerves and your autonomic nervous system at the same time. Your somatic nerves carry information from your muscles, joints and skin. Your autonomic nervous system controls your organs, blood pressure and digestion. These two different types of signals converge, meaning they meet, at these WDR neurons.
A 2024 review published in the Journal of Pain Research described how WDR neurons respond to every type of stimulus. They process light touch, deep pressure, temperature and even organ signals. The researchers confirmed that somatic and visceral afferents converge on these same neurons. This convergence explains why organ irritation can show up as muscle pain and vice versa (Zhang et al., Journal of Pain Research, 2024).
This is important for understanding your pain. When your autonomic nervous system is under stress, those stress signals can amplify the pain signals from your muscles and joints. The WDR neurons don’t just add these signals together. They can actually wind up. This means repeated stimulation causes them to fire more intensely over time. This wind-up phenomenon is one reason your dull pain can gradually become more intense and persistent.
Imagine a busy phone operator handling two phone lines at once. One line is from your muscles and joints. The other is from your organs. When both lines start ringing at the same time, the operator gets overwhelmed and things get confused. That operator is like your WDR neurons. When they get overwhelmed, your pain experience gets amplified and can feel worse than the actual tissue damage warrants.
The clinical pitfall here is failing to consider autonomic contributions to persistent musculoskeletal pain. WDR neurons are significantly activated by sympathetic stimulation, while nociceptive-specific neurons are not. This means that a patient’s stress load, sleep quality and visceral health can directly modulate their experience of neck pain, lower back pain and hip tightness through this convergence mechanism. Assessment should extend beyond the local joint.
Now, let me talk about one of the areas where I think chiropractic care really shines. Tendon injuries are one of the most frustrating problems you can face. Whether it’s your Achilles, your rotator cuff or your elbow tendons, these injuries can linger for months if not managed properly. Tendons have a poor blood supply, which means they heal slowly. But the research is very clear on one thing. Rest alone is not the answer.
A multimodal chiropractic approach combines three key tools: spinal and joint adjustments, soft tissue therapy and prescribed exercise. Each tool plays a different role in restoring your feedback loops and rebuilding tendon strength.
Adjustments restore proper joint mechanics and improve the proprioceptive input from your spine and extremities. When your joints move properly, your brain receives accurate feedback. This means your muscles can activate in the right sequence with the right amount of force. Poor joint function alters your movement patterns. Over time, altered movement patterns place abnormal loads on your tendons. This is how many tendon injuries begin.
Soft tissue therapy such as myofascial release and instrument-assisted techniques targets scar tissue and adhesions within the tendon and surrounding fascia. A systematic review by Piper et al. found that myofascial release was effective for treating conditions like lateral epicondylitis and plantar fasciitis (Piper et al., Manual Therapy, 2016). These techniques also stimulate blood flow and promote collagen remodelling within damaged tendons.
But here is where the real magic happens. Prescribed exercise, specifically progressive loading, is the single most important intervention for tendon recovery. A 2022 controlled clinical trial published in Sports Medicine – Open found that high-loading exercise over 12 weeks produced significant increases in Achilles tendon stiffness and cross-sectional area in patients with tendinopathy. These structural adaptations were superior to both standard eccentric exercise and passive therapy (Radovanović et al., Sports Medicine – Open, 2022).
A 2024 study in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise established tiered loading progressions for patellar tendon rehabilitation. The researchers measured tendon forces during 35 different exercises and ranked them into three progressive tiers. This gives chiropractors like me an evidence-based framework for prescribing the right exercise at the right time in your recovery (Scattone Silva et al., Med Sci Sports Exerc, 2024).
This is where exercise dosage matters enormously. A systematic review by Bohm and colleagues found that the minimum loading intensity likely needed for tendon adaptation was around 70 percent of maximum. Loading too lightly will not create the mechanical stimulus your tendon needs to remodel. Loading too aggressively too early can flare your symptoms. As your chiropractor, my role is to find that sweet spot and progress you safely through each stage.
Think of a tendon injury like a frayed rope. Rest stops the fraying but does not make the rope stronger. To rebuild the rope, you need to gradually load it with the right amount of tension. Too little does nothing. Too much snaps it. A chiropractor can help you find the perfect amount of load, along with hands-on treatment to support the healing process.
A critical and often-missed consideration is the role of central sensitisation in chronic tendinopathy. Emerging evidence suggests that some tendon pain patients develop altered central pain processing. In these cases, exercise prescription must include a graded exposure component alongside the mechanical loading. The combination of spinal manipulation to address disordered sensorimotor integration, soft tissue therapy for local tissue quality, and carefully dosed progressive loading creates a comprehensive approach that addresses both peripheral and central contributors.
Let me bring everything together. Your nervous system is a feedback machine. Proprioceptive signals from your joints and muscles travel up to your brain. Your brain interprets those signals and sends commands back. When your spinal joints are restricted, those signals become distorted. Your muscles tighten. Your movement suffers. Your pain increases.
At the spinal cord level, your WDR neurons integrate somatic and autonomic signals. When these neurons become sensitised, your pain can amplify beyond what the actual tissue damage warrants. Stress, poor sleep and visceral dysfunction can all feed into this loop.
Chiropractic adjustments work by restoring accurate proprioceptive input. This improves your brain’s ability to plan and control movement. Soft tissue therapy addresses local tissue restrictions and adhesions. And prescribed progressive exercise rebuilds the strength and resilience of your muscles and tendons.
This is not just about cracking your back or rubbing your muscles. This is about restoring the communication between your body and your brain. When we get that communication right, your hip tightness eases, your neck pain settles, your injuries heal and your strength returns.
Your nervous system runs on feedback loops that connect your joints, muscles, brain and organs. When these loops are disrupted by joint restriction, tissue injury or nervous system sensitisation, you experience muscle tightness, dull pain and recurrent injuries. Chiropractic care targets these loops through adjustments that restore proprioception, soft tissue therapy that improves tissue quality, and prescribed exercise that rebuilds tendon and muscle strength. The convergence of somatic and autonomic signals at the WDR neurons explains why your pain can be influenced by factors beyond just the local tissue. A multimodal approach addresses all of these layers.
Scott has more than 20 years of clinical experience as a movement expert and musculoskeletal health professional. His thorough understanding of how pain affects your spine, joints, muscles, and total well-being is the result of significant academic study and many many years of clinical experience. Scott’s real interest in movement mechanics enables him to develop individualised care plans that summarise complex problems into clear, simple treatments, leading to quicker healing times. His friendly, attentive approach ensures that you not only comprehend but also feel supported throughout your treatment journey, allowing you to return to the things you like with restored confidence and vitality.
