February 2007

From adjusting table to table tennis

by Laurent Goldstein

When I was about 10 years old, my brother and I used to follow our dad to various weekend table tennis events in the French countryside. He competed with his league in regional and then national championships. Later, I joined a club and started training once or twice a week and spent my weekends away competing against other clubs. I still train today, several times a week with Chris Xu, professional player in the female Canadian team and Olympic player as well.

Although it hasn't caught on in the US, table tennis -- like soccer -- is immensely popular in the rest of the world, with 40 million competitive registered players. According to American Sports Data Inc., table tennis is the most popular racket sport and the second most participated sport overall in the world after soccer, leaving a large market that has yet to be pursued in the US. Not that it's unknown in the US: more than 600,000 people in the US say it's their favorite activity.

The physics of the game is incredible. Traveling more than 100 miles per hour, the ball can cross the length of the table four times before a baseball pitcher's fastball reaches the batter, leaving players half a second to decide where to position themselves to return the ball, to assess what type of spin, if any, the ball has, and how and where to return it. The amount of spin on the ball can reach 10,000 RPMs, equivalent to a Formula One's racing car engine maximum RPMs.

In his book "Making a Good Brain Great," Dr. Daniel Amen, MD, a famous neuroscientist with 19 published books and the pioneer in the use of brain imaging in clinical psychiatry practice, argues that table tennis is the best sport we could indulge in to keep our brain young.

As I have a passion for both table tennis and chiropractic, I wanted to find a way to combine the two. I started by securing a booth at the US National Championships held in Las Vegas on Dec.13-16, 2006.

This was a major event with 1,000 players registered and 100 tables going strong 12 hours a day. Others came forward to assist with the project. ProSport Chiropractic provided help with a banner, Biofreeze donated free samples, and three chiropractors -- Rae Kelly, DC and Gregg Jarrett, DC, from ProSport and Angela Cherniawski, DC -- offered their services to provide free chiropractic checkups and adjustments.

In addition, Dr. Cherniawski brought a Subluxation Station and Dr. Kelly supplied the adjusting table and his newly acquired Mediadoc system with a 27" LCD at the booth. Their generosity and enthusiasm went way beyond my initial expectations!

Kelly looked at table tennis from a chiropractic perspective and noted that "the amount of forceful body or trunk twisting associated with this level of play is truly amazing. Some of the top players can produce a 70-mph plus slam. This does not occur without core body rotational forces. Repetitive twisting produces significant repetitive rotational injuries... Many players came back to us before their matches, for repeat treatments because it helped reduce their pain, increase their range of motion and improve their overall performance. Others stated that they believe they won their matches because their game had improved after chiropractic care. Chiropractic has proven itself in other athletic venues to be the health care paradigm of choice and it can do the same for table tennis. I hope that this initial association of chiropractic and USATT will continue for the benefit of the players and all involved."

Biljana "Biba" Golic, the former US Collegiate Woman's Champion and two-time Yugoslavian champion had never had chiropractic care before. After the first adjustments, she felt an increase in her energy level, her muscle tightness was dramatically improved and so was her overall performance. It helped so much so that she came back several more times during the tournament to be adjusted. She said she hopes we continue attending USATT events and would recommend chiropractic care for all the USATT athletes.

The DCs at the meet enjoyed special benefits as well. "Working with the athletes was a very rewarding experience," Cherniawski said. "It was great opportunity to introduce chiropractic to people who really need the care and then see the excitement in their eyes when they realize what it is and what it can do to improve their game and their overall health. Over the course of the weekend it was especially rewarding to see athletes multiple times, to educate and adjust them and to note the extraordinary difference an adjustment can make to a persons physical and mental health!"

Teodor Gheorge, 15-time Rumanian Champion and executive director of USATT, told the chiropractors, "Your presence made a difference in the performance of many athletes attending 2006 Nationals. They discovered that increasing the energy level and cure the pain could be accomplished within 5 to 10 minutes of chiropractic care. It is like magic in a real world. Definitely, we will try to use chiropractic in preparation for our Olympic team."

The US Women's team is ranked seventh in the world right now. It's getting chiropractic involved before physiotherapists or massage therapists decide to step in that will truly help both the players and the profession.

For this reason, we have invested in the sponsorship of eight major table tennis events in 2007 and have given Life and Life West Chiropractic colleges the opportunity to have their names and presence associated with two of these events. Chiropractors will be able to be present at all these events, adjust and educate the players and get more new patients.

In his mission statement, Robert Blackwell Jr., president of Killerspin , a revolutionary company dedicated to re-branding table tennis in the US, says, "Our mission is to help people around the world enjoy a better life through table tennis."

I feel a synergy between Blackwell's statement and the mission statement of so many chiropractors around the world. Simply replace the words "table tennis" with chiropractic! Brican's purpose has always been to help DCs get more patients under chiropractic care. We welcome your help and input to make the connection happen in 2007 between chiropractic and table tennis.

(Laurent Goldstein is president of Brican Systems Corporation. He can be reached at 800-644-1055. Visit www.bricancorp.com/tabletennis to see him in table tennis action with Chris Xu.)