Some of these patients ask directly. Others almost boast that they can crack their own spine. A few subtly inquire to see whether or not it’s healthy. That said, the “crack” noise has nothing to do with whether or not there’s a helpful realignment taking place. There are plenty of adjustment methods that don’t get an audible sensation. Conversely, there are plenty of audible sensations that don’t have anything to do with getting a proper adjustment or realignment. There’s a big difference between a chiropractor working to realign the spine, as opposed to just moving it around, and a chiropractor working to bring proper motion into a joint, instead of just any motion. When patients are rattling their own spines around, they might want to call it an adjustment, but they are not providing any specific focus. In fact, when people say they’re cracking their own back or neck, they’re actually moving their spine through a forced range of movement beyond their normal range of motion. And the vertebrae that are creating that audible release, most likely, aren’t the ones that are locked up. Instead, they are often the ones that are above and below the issue. With the very best-case scenario, if you crack your back at home, you’re bringing a little bit of relief. After all, any type of audible release can trigger an endorphin rush. At best, you’re not making a problem worse when you do this. If you stretch your back or do yoga and you happen to hear an odd click, it’s a sign that there could be some locked-up fixation somewhere in your spine. In this case, I recommend seeing a chiropractor to get an assessment of where the actual real problem is. A chiropractor will only be working on the segments or the regions of the spine where there is a problem. Chiropractors really do believe that if it’s not broken, don’t fix it—and we support this philosophy by only targeting spinal regions and segments that are dysfunctional. For example, if a patient’s spine is curved to the right, we obviously want to adjust right to left. If the pelvis is rotated forward on the right, we want to rotate it back. I challenge my patients who feel this urge to crack their own backs: “Do you feel a need, right now, to snap the joints in your back?” The answer is often that they don’t need to crack joints because there isn’t a problem there at the moment. If a patient does feel a need to snap or rattle around a joint in their spine, it’s usually because their body is aware that there is indeed a problem there. So, can you work on your own spine? While it can generally be safe, as a chiropractor who has seen the potential problems this can create, I recommend that you don’t crack your own back. Once a chiropractor starts working on the actual problem, you shouldn’t feel the need to do it yourself. Plus, it’s not going to help your alignment anyway. Listen, I understand that these things can become a habit because of that endorphin rush. A lot of habits take time to break. One of the best ways to break this habit is to start doing new things that actually do help your body and mobility, like the exercises that a chiropractor might have you do. While you’re breaking out of that old habit, consider chiropractic care along with strengthening exercises to guide your body in the right direction.
