The Window: Why Your Adjustment Won't Fix You

I sat down with Dr. Eric St.-Onge, a sport-specialist chiropractor and kettlebell lifter out of Canada, and the one idea I keep chewing on weeks later is the smallest one he said. We were deep in the weeds on hips and shoulders and spinal mechanics, and he dropped a line that reframes how most people think about getting "fixed."

Here it is. When a good practitioner puts hands on you, releases tissue, mobilizes a joint, does the manipulation, all they are doing is opening a window. A small, temporary window where you suddenly have access to range of motion you did not have ten minutes ago. That is it. That is the whole job. The window is not the fix. The window is the OPPORTUNITY to fix.

And here is the part nobody wants to hear: if you walk out the door and do nothing, that window closes and you are right back where you started.

Your body is smart, and that's the problem

Eric put it plainly. The body is not fragile. It is not going to permanently rewire itself off a single input. If it did, that would be a terrifyingly unstable body, changing everything every time you got bumped. So your body holds its patterns. Your tight hip stays tight because, as far as your nervous system is concerned, tight IS your baseline. One session does not overwrite years of sitting in a chair.

So the adjustment, the release, the dry needle, whatever it is, gives you a brief taste of what better feels like. Then your body, being smart and stubborn, starts pulling you back toward your old normal. The only thing that stops the return trip is YOU, doing the work inside the window while it is open.

If you get the passive care and skip the homework, you wasted your money and you wasted the practitioner's time. Eric said exactly that, and he is the one giving the care.

What "doing the work" actually means

This is where it gets practical, because "do your homework" is easy to nod at and easy to ignore.

Opening the window looks like a session on the table. Keeping the window open looks like:

• The rehab drills you were prescribed, done on the days you do not feel like it.
• Visiting the full range of every joint, daily. Eric's line is the old one and it is true: if you don't use it, you lose it. He thinks it is harder to GAIN range of motion than to maintain it, which means the maintenance is where the real win lives.
• Changing the habits that built the restriction in the first place. You cannot out-adjust eight hours a day in a desk chair.

He gave a screen I love for its bluntness. Before you load a kettlebell overhead, can you bring your arms overhead UNLOADED without arching your back to get there? If you cannot do that empty-handed, you have no business adding a bell. I have watched plenty of lifters crank their lower back into an arch just to find lockout. That works until the day it doesn't, and then it is your back that pays.

The sequence is not complicated. Screen the movement unloaded. If the joint cannot get there, open the window. Then load it PROGRESSIVELY so the new range gets reinforced under tension and your stabilizers learn to own it. Skipping straight to load is how you collect injuries. Eric collected a few of his own learning that lesson the hard way, which is a story for the full conversation.

Why this is freeing, not depressing

People hear "the adjustment is temporary" and deflate. I think it is the opposite. It means the person who decides whether you stay healthy is the person reading this, not some practitioner you see once a month. You are not waiting to be fixed. You are being handed a window and a set of keys.

That reframe matters for lifters especially, because we want a quick fix for a tight hip the same way we want a magic program for a bigger jerk. There isn't one. There is a window, and there is what you do with it. The athletes who stay in this sport for decades are not the ones with perfect anatomy. They are the ones who treat the daily ten minutes of range-of-motion work as non-negotiable, same as the lifting.

One note, since this touches your body: this is a general principle, not a prescription for your specific situation. If something hurts or doesn't move right, see a qualified professional and let them screen you in person before you start loading anything.

So the next time you leave a session feeling loose and new, do not celebrate the feeling. Use it. The window is open. Go do the work that keeps it that way.

Listen to the full interview here.

If you want eyes on your own movement before you load it, that is exactly what coaching is for. Come train with us at TCKB; we have never turned anyone away over money, and we would rather screen your hip now than rehab it later.

Vokse eller dø. — Coach Jordan