Today was my first real day of chiropractic care. My chiropractor told me to not gauge the entire experience on my previous adjustment, and he wasn’t wrong.

My appointment began with some measurements on my range of motion. They have this awesome handheld device that can track the motion on the fly, which was pretty interesting. It was just a benchmark to gauge my progress over my seven weeks of care.

Next came the adjustment. He focused on my midback. For the first adjustment, he had me lying on my stomach and popped the middle of the table up, then dropped the piece while pushing. There was a pretty pronounced crack that took my breath away for a second. He then tried to adjust a spot that was slightly higher and got no response, so he rolled me until it cracked. Both brought up a little forced vocalization of pain. It wasn’t a sharp hurt, but definitely a bit of pressure. And that was that.

One of the (incredibly friendly) staff then walked me through the (in the future, self-guided) therapy. First, the vibe! It’s this little podium you stand on that vibrates your whole body. Though there’s no belt, the effect totally reminds me of this. She put a weighted headband on me (!) that will theoretically help my posture. It was really uncomfortable and squished my face. Seven minutes of jiggling left my limbs feeling wobbly and itchy. I get the concept, but I’m a little iffy about this particular therapy. I can see myself having headaches from the headband. That sucker was heavy!

Next, was an exercise to help curve my neck. Basically, it consisted of putting my neck against padded tubing and putting my head into it in a squat. This is a really simple exercise that I totally get. It’s really easy to see how it’s helping me. I did ten squats, holding one for 45 seconds. It actually felt like something I should be doing more of.

Third, the wobble chair. I did this for 12 minutes, 30 wobbles side-to-side followed by 15 seconds of rest. I know that the chair should be helping to strengthen my core. They said it should help rehydrate the discs in my back? It was really difficult for me to use because it wobbles in all directions and getting a solid side-to-side was hard. Plus, counting reps while wobbling for that long is unpossible. I just did it and gave myself random breaks. I see this stool as a way better alternative to active sitting on a balance ball, but why the eff is this thing so expensive? The only consumer version I could find was listed at $450 and hahaha no.

Finally, I did twelve minutes of stretching on this guy. This is obviously much more for improving flexibility in my mid and upper back, which is swell by me. They had me do three positions for four minutes each, doing the stretch for four second reps. Totally needed considering that I have crappy flexibility in my back.

Not sure if the therapy lineup will change during my progress, but I’m going for thirty minutes three times a week.