Edmond chiropractor keeps women's volleyball team in line

Eleven athletes who train at the University of Central Oklahoma are in Amsterdam this week getting used to the time zone and practicing for the Paralympic Games.

Opening ceremonies are Aug. 29.

Dr. Ryan Hanson works with paralympic athletes to help make them healthier and play better volleyball by keeping their spines in line.

Hanson is one of 170 chiropractors in the United States who uses the Maximized Living concept that includes chiropractic care, nutrition, exercise and mental conditioning programs to help athletes and others.

Hanson uses a hand-held instrument with high-velocity, short-stroke thrusts to straighten the spine, which he said eases the players' nervous systems so they become healthier and perform better.

“This is not only for the sport now, but for their overall health for a lifetime,” Hanson said. “It will increase their performance and give them an edge that other people don't have.”

U.S. sitting volleyball team member Kari Miller, 35, said she was apprehensive when her coach first wanted her to go to a chiropractor.

“I thought of voodoo,” said Miller, who in the late 1990s lost both her legs while a passenger in a car that was hit by a drunken driver.

She tried it and now gets adjustments almost daily.

“I can really tell a difference,” said Miller, a military veteran from Washington. “The bottom of my back is uneven, and it is better. My reflexes are quicker.”