Cleveland Chiropractic CollegeKansas City

Caring for World-Class Athletes and Everyone Else
Interview with Jeff Spencer, DC

Interview by Daniel Redwood, DC

(pdf) (161.9 KB)

Jeff Spencer was an Olympic cyclist and was named the 2004 "Sports Chiropractor of the Year" by the International Chiropractors Association. Best known as cycling champion Lance Armstrong’s chiropractor, Dr. Spencer has been directly involved in over 40 World, Olympic, National and Tour de France championships and has worked with PGA, WTA and NASCAR champions and a World Series MVP. Spencer received his undergraduate degree and master's in physical education from the University of Southern California and his doctor of chiropractic degree summa cum laude from Cleveland Chiropractic College – Los Angeles.

Spencer has taught postgraduate sports rehabilitation courses and lectures internationally on cold laser technology. He is the author of the self-help book, Turn It Up! How to Perform At Your Highest Level For A Lifetime and an audio coaching program, Top 10 Tactics From the Champions Playbook. For further information, www.jeffspencer.com

Please tell us about your own background as an athlete.

My most notable athletic achievement was becoming a member of the 1972 United States Olympic Cycling Team. This was after several years of preparation to be able to gain that privilege. Then I went on to be a member of the U.S. National Cycling Team. I can certainly say that without the help of mentorship, both in terms of equipment, technical skills and training, there’s no way that I could have done it. So whatever I accomplished, I owe completely and 100 percent to my mentors.

How does your background as an athlete help you when you work with athletes as patients?

I always look at the body as the body, whether it’s a geriatric, a child or an athlete. The one thing that athletes have that maybe others don’t is that they’re very in touch with their bodies. They have a sense of their commitment to getting well and their role in that. It’s an active, a verb, type of process that demands the partnership of the practitioner plus the patient. There are certain things that the practitioner, the doctor, can do for the patient that they can’t do for themselves, and then there are other things only the patient can do for themselves, in terms of creating the fitness and the change that’s necessary to take their body as it exists and make it competition-ready, or ready for the activities of daily living.

When you worked with Lance Armstrong in his Tour de France victories, were you part of a health care team? And if so, how did you work out issues of shared decision making and collaboration?

Yes, I was a member of the health care staff for all eight Tour de France victories. My official role as chiropractor was such that no one knew exactly what to call me, because of the broad scope of clinical excellence that I brought to the program. My domain was to make sure that the riders were 100 percent mentally and physically ready to put in the rides of their lives, on each and every one of the 24 stages that make up the 2400 mile Tour de France, which is the most brutal and difficult sporting event on the face of the earth. The medical side of it was really for administering medicines, if a person happened to be sick, or stitching if that was required, or laboratory tests that needed to be done and interpreted. So most of the burden really fell on me to get the riders well and keep them well.

Could you speak more about that broad scope of skills that you as a chiropractor bring to a patient, or, in this case, a world-class athlete that you are working with?

It would be the same for anybody, because an athlete is a patient and a body is a body, whether it’s an athlete or a child or a geriatric. There’s really no fundamental difference. They all require the exact same strategy to get well and stay well. My philosophy is that you need to truly remove all of the interferences that get in the way of the body getting itself well, so that they can beat their expectations for how complete and how long that will take.

There are many different types of interferences that one needs to be able to resolve, to be able to accomplish that. You need to be well versed in a variety of different techniques; you need the right tools in your tool kit to be able to resolve the interference. There are nutritional deficiency, postural distortions, acute traumatic injury, global body inflammation, pain, muscle strength and balance. A multitude of interferences can prevent the body from getting well and that is the basis of my clinical strategy.

I never try to make a patient fit what I know; I evaluate them and then determine what tools I need to use in order to resolve that particular interference. Once we have restored ideal tissue length and tone, and the body’s cells are talking to each other to create quality movement, then there’s nothing that the body can’t do given its particular set of circumstances.

You mentioned “global body inflammation.” Could you say more about that and your strategies for dealing with it?

This goes back to the time when I was doing an internship with Dr. Jeff Bland’s Institute for Functional Medicine. There was quite a bit of emphasis placed on this and the conclusion is that inflammation can be caused by anything that stresses the body—whether it’s an emotional encounter, a bacterial infection, overtraining, lack of sleep, toxic exposure, blood sugar dysregulation or allergy. And subluxation falls into that category. Anything that strains the body creates global body inflammation, which is an immune system response that creates free radicals, which are very destructive molecules to the body. If those aren’t controlled and neutralized, they can create ill health in the body. This can lead to a wide range of diseases, whether it’s cancer or lupus, irritable bowel syndrome or diabetes. Inflammation is the gateway.

To resolve inflammation, a person should get adequate sleep and follow an anti-inflammatory diet. They also should be around positive people, they have to have purpose in their lives, and should have purposeful pauses of recreation and time off built into their busy schedules. They also need an appropriate and comprehensive exercise program, along with proactive, regular chiropractic care that includes adjusting and other methods.

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"It would be the same for anybody, because an athlete is a patient and a body is a body, whether it’s an athlete or a child or a geriatric. There’s really no fundamental difference. They all require the exact same strategy to get well and stay well. My philosophy is that you need to truly remove all of the interferences that get in the way of the body getting itself well, so that they can beat their expectations for how complete and how long that will take."