If you are an athlete, recreational or competitive, chances are you have experienced an injury that put you on the sidelines. Or, you’ve experienced the desire to improve your performance and the frustration of your body not cooperating.

Dr. Scott Greenapple and his associates at Greenapple Chiropractic Sports Medicine & Wellness Center (www.drgreenapple.com) “get” athletes. They understand the near frantic urgency to heal quickly and resume our endorphin seeking activities. The faster, more efficiently we can get back to our sport, our passion, our stress reliever and drug of choice, the happier we (and our friends, family and co-workers!) are.
Greenapple Chiropractic has taken traditional chiropractic services to a new and innovative level specifically designed for all kinds of athletes and sports participants. But in order to best illustrate their current services, it’s important to look at how they got to this level.

Scott Greenapple began his career as a Certified Chiropractic Sports Physician in California in 1986, where he treated not only recreational athletes, but also “regular” people with traditional chiropractic needs. His first introduction to the world of professional sports began with a single patient, a US volleyball player, who then opened the door for his affiliation with US Volleyball. This door would lead to a series of others.

By 1992, Scott had been invited to be one of four chiropractic practitioners at the Ironman Triathlon World Championships in Hawaii. The following year, he was courted by a doctor on the US Medical Team to become an official member of the USA Triathlon medical team. In the eight years following, Scott began converting to Active Release Technique (ART), a technique through which abnormal tissue (over-used muscles and connective tissue) is treated with precisely direct tension from the doctor combined with very specific movements on the part of the patient. He became certified as an ART instructor, helping to train others to treat athletes using this technique and today you will find anywhere from 40 to 60 ART practitioners at each Ironman event.

Scott and his family moved from the West Coast to Charlotte just over seven years ago. He opened his chiropractic practice on Park Road and within a short period of time he developed affiliations with many individual Panthers players, with the Charlotte Sting and the Checkers. He also became the go-to-man for local runners, triathletes, cyclists, golf-enthusiasts, soccer players, gymnasts, swimmers, and a range of other every-day-athletes who experience injuries and want to improve performance.

Four years ago, Dr. Mike Duffy, now a partner in the practice and a certified ART specialist, came on board providing a much needed extra set of hands to the growing practice and eventually cultivating another affiliation as the UNC-Charlotte 49ers sports program “official” chiropractor.

But three years ago, with a busy professional life and a growing family, Scott Greenapple experienced what can only be called a “pivotal moment.” This moment of enlightenment came in the form of a cancer diagnosis, a sarcoma in his shoulder area, which would require surgery and likely a year of rehabilitation. While his survival odds were encouraging, the surgery to remove the cancer and the ensuing rehab threatened his ability to perform the physically taxing manipulations necessary to properly treat his patients.

After a year of coping with surgery, rehabilitation, and career uncertainty, Scott returned to work only to discover that he was not mentally or physically prepared for what he experienced. He then made the difficult decision to take another six months off from work. During this period, the doctor became the student. Scott was intrigued by alternative treatments and emerging technologies, immersing himself in trainings and workshops and developing a vision for the next phase of his career.

Today, Greenapple Chiropractic has four key areas of treatment. First, traditional chiropractic care aimed as restoring range of motion, promoting joint flexibility, and optimizing performance and coordination.

The second area of treatment is biomechanical assessment achieved through observation of a person in movement and uses digital analysis (videotaping) to observe pre-treatment and post-treatment mechanics. Third is the Active Release Treatment (ART) discussed earlier. And finally, Scott’s experiences over the past few years have led him to focus on the field of “energy medicine”. This is, in essence, where Eastern medicine and technology come together. Through use of a Frequency Specific Microcurrent (FSM) – think “acupuncture without needles” - the body’s own energy system is stimulated to aid in healing.
Scott provided this analogy: “Think of your body as a computer. The organs, muscles, fascia, connective tissue, etc, are all the components. FSM helps stimulate the body’s own energy system—or the language of the computer—so that all components are communicating optimally”. FSM has been shown to expedite healing by as much as 40 percent and is quite effective in treating sprains and stress fractures.

Scott’s vision for his practice doesn’t stop with these four areas. He is developing several new partnerships in our area, many aimed at adolescents, particularly middle school and high school athletes. He has been working as a consultant with Mike Hartman, a certified trainer and 13-year veteran of the NHL, as he launches Better Life Training (www.betterlifetraining.com), an interval training and wellness program for kids. Their first location is now up and running at the JCC in Charlotte.

Scott hopes to continue developing affiliations with various high schools, middle schools, gyms, sports leagues, coaches and trainers working with kids and teens. With so much pressure being put on kids to achieve, many are experiencing injuries that could be avoided with the aid of videotaping and digital analysis, as well as evaluation of structural, emotional and chemical balance.

So, whether you are a high school athlete, an exercise fanatic, competitive, professional, or just recreational athlete, the next time aches, pains or injuries surface, or you just want to figure out how to improve your technique or performance, Greenapple Chiropractic offers a breadth and depth of diagnostic tools and techniques to get you where you want to go. Check them out at 4300 Park Road or 704-527-7246.

And congratulations to Scott Greenapple on receiving the Charlotte Track and Triathlon Club Brown Cup Award this February. The Brown Cup is awarded annually to a local runner or triathlete who has demonstrated triumph over adversity and a contribution to the sport.