Treatment & Service
At Fiola Sports Chiropractic, our mission is to provide the highest quality, individualized treatment that yields effective injury care and enhancement of performance results. When someone’s livelihood depends on the performance output of their body, the “band-aid” model of healthcare will not suffice. When pain is merely covered up, it will either come back, or manifest somewhere else down the road. Working with elite athletes across a wide range of sports— (NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB and PGA)—assessing and correcting acute injuries, chronic pain and performance deficits. Whether you’re an active individual or a professional athlete, the benefits of this customized treatment will get you back to being pain free, improve your athletic performance, and get you to the next level.
Chiropractic Care
At Fiola Sports Chiropractic, we pride ourselves on doing things differently than the status quo. Dr. Fiola combines diversified chiropractic treatments with Active Release Technique (A.R.T.) and his extensive Bio-mechanics knowledge to offer patients the best in individualized care. Here, we believe that chiropractic is a great tool, but not the only tool that should be used when working to help individuals with functional and performance oriented goals. Our treatment will always be dictated by what the client requires.
Active Release Therapy (ART)
ART is a patented, state of the art soft tissue system/movement based technique that treats problems with muscles, tendons, ligaments, fascia and nerves. Headaches, back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, shin splints, shoulder pain, sciatica, plantar fasciitis, knee problems, and tennis elbow are just a few of the many conditions that can be resolved quickly and permanently with ART. These conditions all have one important thing in common: they are often a result of overused muscles.
How do overuse conditions occur?
Over-used muscles (and other soft tissues) change in three important ways:
- Acute conditions (pulls, tears, collisions, etc)
- Accumulation of small tears (micro-trauma)
- Not getting enough oxygen (hypoxia)
Each of these factors can cause your body to produce tough, dense scar tissue in the affected area. This scar tissue binds up and ties down tissues that need to move freely. As scar tissue builds up, muscles become shorter and weaker, tension on tendons causes tendonitis, and nerves can become trapped. This can cause reduced range of motion, loss of strength, and pain. If a nerve is trapped you may also feel tingling, numbness, and weakness.
What is an ART treatment like?
Every ART session is actually a combination of examination and treatment. The ART provider uses his or her hands to evaluate the texture, tightness and movement of muscles, fascia, tendons, ligaments and nerves. Abnormal tissues are treated by combining precisely directed tension with very specific patient movements. These treatment protocols - over 500 specific moves - are unique to ART. They allow providers to identify and correct the specific problems that are affecting each individual patient. ART is not a cookie-cutter approach.
What is the history of Active Release Techniques?
ART has been developed, refined, and patented by P. Michael Leahy, DC, CCSP. Dr. Leahy noticed that his patients' symptoms seemed to be related to changes in their soft tissue that could be felt by hand. By observing how muscles, fascia, tendons, ligaments and nerves responded to different types of work, Dr. Leahy was able to consistently resolve over 90% of his patients' problems. He now teaches and certifies health care providers all over the world to use ART.
Selective Functional Movement Evaluation (SFMA)
SFMA is a series of 7 full-body movement tests designed to assess fundamental patterns of movement such as bending and squatting in those with known musculoskeletal pain. When the clinical assessment is initiated from the perspective of the movement pattern, the clinician has the opportunity to identify meaningful impairments that may be seemingly unrelated to the main musculoskeletal complaint, but contribute to the associated disability. This concept, known as Regional Interdependence, is the hallmark of the SFMA. The assessment guides the clinician to the most dysfunctional non-painful movement pattern, which is then assessed in detail. This approach is designed to complement the existing exam and serve as a model to efficiently integrate the concepts of posture, muscle balance and the fundamental patterns of movement into musculoskeletal practice. By addressing the most dysfunctional non-painful pattern, the application of targeted interventions (manual therapy and therapeutic exercise) is not adversely affected by pain. SFMA offers doctors and physical therapists a new approach to the treatment of pain and dysfunction. Our standardized clinical model ensures isolating the cause of injury and efficient care.
Clinical Application
Once Clinical Predictive Rules and diagnosis-specific techniques are exhausted, applying the SFMA model will allow for individualized exercise prescription and progression, which encompasses the concept of regional interdependence. As musculoskeletal system experts, it is essential that healthcare providers understand the relationships between body segments and how impairments in one body region may adversely affect function of another body region. Approaching therapeutic exercise prescription from a movement perspective model allows the concepts of muscle imbalance and regional interdependence to be addressed in a logical, methodical manner. Modeled after Cyriax's selective tissue testing, each test of the SFMA is scored as functional/non-painful, dysfunctional/non-painful, functional/painful or dysfunctional/painful. The goal for the clinician is to identify the most dysfunctional non-painful movement pattern and break the pattern down to identify the underlying cause of the dysfunction. This includes using traditional muscle length and joint assessment tests which lead to corrective manual therapy and exercise interventions. Emphasis is placed on identifying the most dysfunctional patterns. The model calls for the intervention to be directed only at the non-painful patterns. This ensures that the adverse effects of pain on motor control will not hinder corrective strategies.
Titleist Performance Institute Golf Assessment and Training
Because of his mentor Dr. Troy van Biezen, who travels with several of the top PGA players on tour, and the golf atmosphere in Dallas, golf inherently became a specialty niche for Dr. Fiola. Andrew has extensive experience working on and with some of the bigger names on tour as well as forging great working relationships with Dallas’ most reputable teaching pros. He provides clients with an all-inclusive approach to their golf game that is typically reserved only for PGA professionals. He combines his knowledge with his experience as a collegiate athlete to provide his patients with the most comprehensive and integrated approach to assessing, detecting and correcting dysfunctional movements that create injuries and swing faults. A big reason many golfers struggle is because they’re playing with pain or dysfunction. The game of golf is an asymmetrical sport which inherently creates imbalances in the body. Andrew’s understanding of the golf swing and how it relates to the body is critical when trying to recover. Dr. Fiola’s approach will keep your body moving freely, pain free and ensure long term ability to swing optimally and therefore lower your score.