CHINESE ORTHOPEDICS and SPORTS MEDICINE
Bryan Isacks, M.S., L.Ac. has spent the majority of his career training in the unique field of Chinese Sports Medicine, often referred to as Martial Arts Medicine. This branch of East Asian Medicine is very rarely taught in acupuncture schools, because the techniques were most often passed down in Chinese martial arts schools and through apprenticeship. These physical medicine modalities are some of our most effective tools for helping you get better from all varieties of musculoskeletal injuries and trauma. Our manual medicine techniques are so effective that we have become the primary referral for acupuncture from Cayuga Medical Center's emergency medicine department for a wide variety of painful conditions, ranging from sprains and strains to chronic and recurring injuries. We have extensive experience helping you recover from auto accidents and work place accidents, and bill most no-fault auto insurers as well as worker's compensation.
Chinese Orthopedics and Sports Medicine at the Tao Healing Arts Center of Ithaca and Trumansburg is delivered to help you heal from your injuries via several modalities in addition to acupuncture. After your initial intake, we often will utilize a combination of therapies including:
Zheng Gu Tui Na--Chinese Medical Massage: Isacks has completed several years of training in this comprehensive system of bodywork, and it utilizes trigger point release, active and passive stretching, massage, and mobility work to reduces spasms and inflammation, decrease pain, increase mobility, and help reintegrate normal movement patterns. Isacks has worked on many athletes from a wide array of disciplines, ranging from pre-teen gymnasts to professional baseball players. Isacks has utilized Chinese Medical Massage and acupuncture to help athletes from the Cornell Wrestling Team, the Ithaca College Women's Gymnastics Team, Ithaca's Crossfit Pallas athletes, triathletes, marathon runners, competitive cyclists, and numerous martial artists. Our level of training in Tui Na massage and orthopedic acupuncture is unparalleled in the region, and draws athletes from all over Upstate New York.
Rehabilitative Qi Gong: Another modality that sets our clinic apart in the region is our targeted use of Chinese moving arts to help reintegrate injuries into normal movement patterns. We have utilized Chinese Martial Arts strategies to strengthen athletes for sport specific performance, and to correct musculoskeletal imbalances. We offer postural correction, and an extensive array of rehabilitative movement that is drawn from Chinese Martial Arts and Qi Gong systems that we have spent the better part of two decades training in. A typical session may include a slow motion walking exercise, postural correction, and extensive massage specific to the treatment of injury. We also have been hired to teach relaxation and workplace safety at several corporations locally and nationally, and at Colleges all over the state.
Cupping Therapy and Gua Sha: While many acupuncturists utilize cupping and dredging techniques as adjunctive therapies, we have made them one of our primary modalities. We utilize techniques that require extensive training and knowledge to perform, including specialized cupping techniques for neck injuries and post concussive migraine. Gua Sha is a myofascial realignment technique that dredges and realigns tissue, and is one of our specialties in the treatment of injury.
External Herbal Medicine: If you have ever watched a kung fu movie, you have probably seen a fighter get injured and proceed to use a variety of soaks, liniments, and plasters to treat the injury. This form of herbal medicine is applied externally to the skin, often with moist heat, and many of the formulas and techniques were regarded as secret and proprietary in martial arts school for many generations in China. We are proud to be able to rapidly treat sprains, strains, bruises, fractures, tendon injuries, burns, and many other traumatic injuries with these safe, time-tested external strategies. Often, the treatment results are so impressive that they trigger a wave of interest and referrals afterward, and has generated referrals from multiple doctor's offices, as well as the pain clinic and E.R. at Cayuga Medical Center.
Our physical medicine modalities are unique to our clinic, and difficult to find outside of major metropolitan centers, but they represent the cutting edge of sports medicine, and are being utilized by professional athletes all over the world, including by the New York Giants, the New England Patriots, and dozens of other professional teams. Isacks has devoted the better part of the past decade traveling to New York City to gain expertise in these methods. He has helped to craft both the Qi Gong and Tui Na programs at the New York Chiropractic College, where he serves as the lead instructor for both modalites. Additionally, he has become a certified instructor in Chinese Orthopedics, as well as Martial Arts Sports Medicine for Zheng Gu Tui Na International, and Internal Arts International. Isacks has been teaching these techniques at the Master's degree level for several years, and has taught or assisted internationally in their delivery in Montreal and the south of France.
Call 607-387-4577 today to find out how we can help you heal from your injuries!