Bosscher Chiropractic, PLLC

Bosscher Chiropractic, PLLC Doctor of Chiropractic serving the Holland and Zeeland area

12/10/2025

You ever feel that grinding sensation in your neck?!

Well, good news is it’s not really anything to be majorly concerned about. 👍

There will likely be various thoughts on the cause of this, but this is what makes the most sense to me ☝️ (compared to gas bubbles, tissues snapping..)

We need to look at 2 main things with crepitus.
1. The facet joints (cartilage)
2. The synovial fluid

As mentioned, cartilage thinning or damage will not allow as smooth of a gliding surface area. This is to be expected as we age. Some “damage” worse than others…

The synovial fluid, hyaluronic acid, and overall hydration decreases as we age. This = less slippery joints.

More “sticky” joints and less surface area for the synovial fluid to actually move through motion is likely the cause of the “slushing or grinding” feeling.

There may be advanced ways to improve the actual cartilage (another future post), but more MOVEMENT actually helps production of the synovial fluid!

You notice the more you move, the less sandpaper feeling in the joints? 🙋‍♂️

So as always, and for MULTIPLE reasons, keep moving 🤝

Is this news to you? Share with someone who you think would like to know 🤝

Here are the 3 most common muscles than can create headaches ☝️The upper traps, suboccipitals, and the SCM. ALL of which...
12/08/2025

Here are the 3 most common muscles than can create headaches ☝️

The upper traps, suboccipitals, and the SCM.

ALL of which can be affected by a prolonged forward posture. Not saying that is the sole reason for headaches, but the tone of these muscles will be affected negatively with a forward posture…

I mention other things like stress and water + nutrient intake, for example, in relation to the tissues causing symptoms.

*there’s multiple potential reasons for a headache obviously…

Trigger points are often developed by LACK of blood flow and oxygen. This is the reason to try to increase localized blood flow through manual techniques 👍

Heating the tissues is also something I commonly recommend to improve trigger points/hypoxic tissues.

I also recommend MOVEMENT! What do you know 😉 movement will improve blood flow and get muscles to contract/relax.

Are you getting headaches and think it’s from tight muscles? I’m happy to help. Don’t let the DC scare you from someone touching your neck…Gentle, easy movements in effort to free up trigger points and improve joint mobility 🤝 pretty straight forward and easy to work on 👍

Had an interesting case of RIB pain recently…As a “rehab” doctor, I’m used to primarily working with muscles, bones, joi...
12/05/2025

Had an interesting case of RIB pain recently…

As a “rehab” doctor, I’m used to primarily working with muscles, bones, joints and exercise, movement mechanics, injuries, etc..

I’m not a gut specialist, but this case ☝️I thought was interesting as it MIMICS what I would normally see on a weekly basis.

Important to note… questions. I take time and ask a lot of questions, as a good history should tell you most of what you need to know/treat 👍

12/03/2025

If someone is presenting with low back pain, I need to know what structures are involved.

Unfortunately, there’s not ONE way to treat back pain. One stretch, one movement, one exercise, one adjustment, one supplement…etc. that’s not to say those things won’t work, but it’s not universal for everyone’s pain 🤷‍♂️

So is it the soft tissue? The joints? The intervetebral discs? Nerve involvement?

You can have multiple structures involved as well, and in fact I would expect it (think of muscle guarding with a disc injury).

Joint vs. disc issues would likely require different stretches/movement and suggestions for at home.

Certain positions may feel better/worse when comparing these two, for example.

So the next time you see “THE stretch to cure low back pain,” just know there’s not one particular thing that works for everyone. You need to understand the anatomy, movement mechanics, and how to treat whatever you’ve got going on 🤝

12/01/2025

Anyone else bust out the shovel over the weekend? 🙋‍♂️😅

Here are 2️⃣ easy cues for shoveling I like to keep in mind.

1. Lift with your legs, duh… pretty straight forward but you’ll notice if you ONLY hinge or bend through the spine, that’s likely where you’ll feel it.

I’m obviously not saying you’ll for sure get hurt or feel sore, but you’ll be using some smaller muscles that are *more easily* strained 🤝

So to me it makes sense to do your best to use larger and likely stronger muscles to help move weight around!

2. Play around with your hand position. You’ll notice a closer grip is much harder to hold heavier snow than a wider grip. More leverage..

So use larger muscles, which requires your movement mechanics to be on point 👌 and play around with your grip and hand position.

An extra tip: take more steps if you’re just throwing snow over your shoulder. I’d normally say rotate through your hips not your back, but to simplify, just take a few more steps and actually FACE the direction you’re throwing the snow. This takes away the need to twist in the back 🤝

11/19/2025

You notice just about everything we do with our arms is IN FRONT of us…? Hence, try this stretch reaching behind you ☝️ 🤝

Tightness in the front of the shoulder is very common. In fact, I expect chronic tightness to this area in just about everyone I assess 🤷‍♂️

Pec stretches are often then recommended in effort to lengthen the chest muscles. However, I find that adding this stretch in ☝️ really helps target the front of the shoulder.

In particular, the anterior deltoid, coracobrachialis, biceps, and the anterior part of the shoulder capsule are lengthened when doing this stretch.

Reach arm back WITHOUT compensating. Compensation would likely look like a trunk bend forward in effort to get more range of motion, or a shoulder hike ❌

Don’t compromise quantity of motion with quality 👌

A little cue is to keep arms close to body and internally rotate the arm so palms face upward. This will allow for the greatest stretch anteriorly at the shoulder 👍

Just an easy tip and stretch to try out. If you’re dealing with ongoing shoulder issues, I’d be happy to assess it. Therapy is very hands on with a lot of soft tissue treatment likely followed by exercise prescription 🤝

Call in or DM to schedule ☎️

11/03/2025

The tibialis anterior is a muscle on the front side of the shin that functions to lift your ankle upward (dorsiflexion).

Weakness here is very COMMON, and unfortunately can put increased load and stress through the knee over time.

Since this muscle brings the ankle upward, you can expect to see a “slapping” of the foot on the ground if this muscle is fatigued or WEAK. 👎

It helps to “decelerate” and bring the foot in contact with the ground in a smooth fashion. Remember our normal gait pattern of walking should be heel to toe.

Two common compensations for weakness here, or lack of ankle dorsiflexion are:

•swinging the leg in a circular motion to clear the ground (circumduction)
•bringing foot out (external rotation), which won’t require as much ankle mobility (kind of a cheat…)

Especially important in RUNNERS, or athletes ☝️☝️ do not WAIT until you get shin splints or knee pain. Test the strength and endurance of this muscle and motion 🤝

10/30/2025

Bechterews test is one I do with all my new patients coming in with low back pain ✅

Quick and easy way to determine if the sciatic nerve is truly involved (compressed, irritated…). If so we can call that sciatica 🤝😉

A reminder that muscles, joints, and discs can refer pain down into the hip/thigh. These are the things most often causing someone’s low back pain.

Good thing is what I do manually with my hands and what I show you 🫵 to do at home are pretty straight forward in treating these issues!

Also a reminder, true sciatica will likely present with significant PAIN, perhaps numbing/tingling, and possible loss of muscle function 😳

Still treatable, but pretty significant discomfort with sciatica.

I walked into a treatment room last week with this written from a patient. Good question, seems pretty straight forward,...
10/29/2025

I walked into a treatment room last week with this written from a patient. Good question, seems pretty straight forward, but I can potentially make an argument on either side 🤷‍♂️

For one, I am often dealing with people in PAIN or getting out of pain. They may require more gentle isometric holds for example compared to multiple reps or increased load.

For the woman who asked this question ☝️it was pretty easy as I would prefer her to increase weight with less reps.

I find most of my patients (over 50) tend to gravitate toward gentle/easy exercise. “I walk,” is probably the most common form of exercise I hear from most.

Not to downplay the importance of walking, but if you want to function somewhat like you did when you were younger, it will require you to do things more than just a brisk walk 🤷‍♂️ and with making things harder.

My point being, we need to maintain our muscle mass as we age if not gain more! It gets more difficult as we age, but that doesn’t mean it’s not possible.

So as a generalization, I’d prefer increasing the weight or load with less reps for the idea of maintaining or putting on muscle mass/strength.

For muscular endurance or stability-type of exercises I’d actually prefer more holds than high rep exercises 🤝

10/27/2025

This is for the people who can’t help but have to SIT for extended periods of time.

Whether a student, a driver, or the typical desk worker…

Tricky thing with me bringing this topic up is that you can sit in an “improper” position for a really long time with zero symptoms. That doesn’t mean this position is good for you. Let me elaborate 👇

When sitting in that “bad” rounded position, it puts increased load through the lumbar spine. Increased and sustained muscle tone, greater load through the anterior (front) of the disc while “stretching” its posterior components and facet joints.

Prolonged ligamentous lengthening (anyone remember stretch, histeresis, creep? 😉)

Again, what people will argue is that there’s studies that show people with poor posture have NO pain, so why preach this topic 🤷‍♂️

Sorry, but I’m not just focused on pain. This position changes structure in the long term (which very likely can contribute to symptoms). So I see it as a preventative measure 🤝

There’s also always multiple things to take into consideration when looking at someone’s symptoms.

Not harping only on posture. Usually what I’m truly preaching is movement WHEN SEATED. Movement can help offset the negative from the slouched position.

Change positions regularly, or do minor movements when seated. It helps improve localized blood flow (lack of blood flow can cause symptoms), helps mobilize joints (“stiff” joints can be a source of pain), and can help hydrate the discs 🤝

10/23/2025

Who doesn’t have a bit of a forward head position nowadays 🤷‍♂️😅

Tricky thing here is a forward posture won’t necessarily create symptoms immediately. This is why you may see professionals somewhat arguing posture doesn’t matter.

I’m certainly not one of those people because I think posture matters IN THE LONG TERM. Sustained positions can alter muscle tone, joints, discs, and bone for that matter.. (also a reason why I preach consistent movement)

I palpate muscles and bones multiple times a day and can literally feel differences in muscle tone with various positions of the head and shoulders.

With a forward head posture you’ll likely see increase muscle tone to the upper traps/levator scapula and shortening to the suboccipitals (underneath base of skull).

When the head goes forward you’ll likely see extension occurring as well. Think of sitting at a desk and looking at a computer. You’re eyes still need to look somewhat forward and to do this, the neck has to go into extension.

Upper neck going into extension will create lengthening of the neck FLEXORS in the front of the neck.

This exercise ☝️is working to strengthen the deep neck flexors in effort to prevent excessive extension to the upper neck with a forward head posture.

So really, for patients with chronic headaches (suboccipital + upper neck tension), this is ONE of the exercises I may recommend.

I do bring up posture for those desk workers or students. Cues like sit tall, use a back support if you have one, get closer to the desk. I don’t ever want anyone “forcing” a better posture like pulling their chin and shoulders back. I’d rather someone just change positions a bit more regularly if anything 🤝

10/15/2025

You know I’m usually preaching MOVEMENT, but that doesn’t mean I don’t believe in rest…

What I’m NOT a fan of is when other docs say “just go home and rest it.” That to me is basically is saying, I don’t know how to treat you. It’s a bland and easy suggestion. If you don’t do anything it won’t hurt, right?!

What I am a fan of is more of an “active recovery.”

Let’s take an example of a rolled ankle (grade I)…

Rest or a break from certain activity is certainly appropriate in this case. However, minor movement to the ankle has actually been shown to have better and FASTER outcomes!

I can also give the example of yard work causing low back pain, because this was me yesterday! 😅

Repetitive bending and squatting was starting to create some discomfort in my back. I needed to rest and take a break from that activity. Later last night and today I was doing various stretches to help improve how I was feeling. 👍 kind of no duh right?! 🙄

See how resting an injury is appropriate most of the time, however, taking an active approach in “rehabbing” that injury will provide a much better outcome.

So I’m sorry, to the whoever you’ve seen that said just to rest it and wait for pain to go away… that’s an easy suggestion, but very vague and not in someone’s best interest.

Be mindful of what triggers the pain. Would be smart to avoid those things, at least in the acute setting and do more of what makes it feel better 🤝

Bottom line, rest to what’s appropriate for you but just know there’s much more that you can be doing to help heal or make you feel better. 👍

Address

400 S State St #250
Zeeland, MI
49464

Opening Hours

Monday 11am - 7pm
Tuesday 8am - 4pm
Wednesday 11am - 7pm
Thursday 8am - 4pm
Friday 9am - 1pm

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+16167412364

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Chiropractor serving Holland, MI

I am happy to be transitioning to Holland, MI (from Grand Rapids) and offer my services to this community. My effort is get patients out of pain as soon as possible, but truly go after their root cause of discomfort. Many, if not most of the time, symptoms arise due to muscular imbalances through the body. My job is to find these imbalances, treat the dysfunction, and strengthen muscles where necessary. I do not only treat athletes or sports injuries, but I believe in restoring movement and mobility through the body in order to function properly.