Is there a chiropractic book out there that can show you how to adjust yourself?!
Question: I can usually adjust myself. I would rather do it than go to a chiropractor.
Answers: I can usually adjust myself. I would rather do it than go to a chiropractor.
You probably belong to a small minority of the population which is hypermobile and have high levels of flexibility enabling you to cavitate (Adjust / crack) joints.
I see patients like this all the time. Often what happens is the patient can't adjust a joint specifically enough and ends up adjusting a joint which moves easily.
Re-adjusting the joint on a regular basis makes it even more mobile.
In response to this in order to create stability the other joints surrounding the hypermobile joints tighten up and become less mobile.
By the time patients see me they have spinal segments with ridiculous mobility surrounded by segments with are locked solid. This scenario leads to musculo-skeletal pain.
Sometimes they are locked so tight they can't be adjusted until several treatments down the track after lots of soft tissue work and articulation and mobilisation exercises.
I've met very few people who can adjust themselves specifically enough to target stiff joints. They just end up moving the loose ones. You may be one of those people but i doubt it.
I tell all of these patients to stop adjusting themselves and if they don't want to keep seeing me for regular treatment they have to do mobilisation and strengthening exercises to create a combination of stability and mobility in the joints.
If you don't want regular chiropractic or manual therapy treatment you'd be best placed taking up pilates rather than continually trying to adjust yourself. I don't know of any such book and wouldn't recomend taking this action.
There is a difference between cracking the joints in your spine, and actually adjusting yourself.
Can you specifically target one segment?
Can you determine which direction you adjust it in?
Is there a change in the movements of the joint after you adjust it?
I would think you are better off getting an actual adjustment rather than simply cracking your joints. To answer the question, no, there isn't simply a book that tells you how to do it. This is why Chiropractors spend so many years at college....