Sports Chiropractic & Strength Rehabilitation in Walnut Creek
Recover From Injury. Move With Confidence. Regain Strength.
You do not need to be an athlete to be cared for like one.
Dr. Douglas F. Cancel, D.C. · Practicing in Walnut Creek since 1985
Dr. Cancel personally calls every new appointment request within 24 hours.
1776 Ygnacio Valley Road, Suite 106 · Walnut Creek, CA 94598
What does it mean to be cared for like an athlete?
Professional sports organizations invest heavily in keeping athletes healthy, functional, and available. When an athlete is injured, the objective is not simply to make the pain go away. The athlete has to regain the movement, strength, endurance, and physical capacity required to do the job again.
Athletes are rehabilitated for the demands they need to return to, and we apply that same standard to YOU.
You may not have a guaranteed contract or a financial safety net if pain or injury keeps you from working. Your body may be how you earn a living, care for your family, exercise, enjoy your sport, or remain independent. Those demands matter too.
That means we try to:
- Reduce pain and restore movement so you can begin doing more.
- Preserve as much activity and fitness as reasonably possible by modifying exercise or finding workable alternatives when appropriate.
- Rebuild strength, endurance, flexibility, and physical capability through supervised progressive rehabilitation.
- Recheck your progress and adjust the plan as your condition changes and you move closer to what you need or want to do.
That is what we mean when we say:
You do not need to be an athlete to be cared for like one.
How care works here
Performance Sport Care combines chiropractic and manual care with supervised progressive strength rehabilitation under one individualized, coordinated plan.
Treatment is used to reduce pain, improve movement, and make useful activity more comfortable. Real-world rehabilitation is then introduced to restore the strength, endurance, flexibility, and physical capacity required for what you need to do.
Your plan may also include activity modification, nutritional guidance to support recovery and repair, and follow-up examinations to monitor progress and determine what should change next.
The important difference is that these parts of care are not separated from one another. What we learn during treatment influences rehabilitation. What we observe during rehabilitation influences treatment. Follow-up findings help determine whether you are ready to progress, need a different approach, or have reached the point where active care should end.
The plan changes as you change and can be as dynamic as you want it to be.
You are not going to be trapped in the same unsuccessful routine or model of care.
Supervised rehabilitation means more than handing you exercises
Inattention to proper exercise form. Improper repetition speed. Incorrect resistance selection. Distractions. Loss of focus. Going through the motions. Lack of progress. Exercises that become more aggravating than helpful.
I understand those shortcomings and frustrations, and I built our rehabilitation model to cut right through them with expert guidance.
That is why I created a dedicated strength-rehabilitation facility at Performance Sport Care.
I selected commercial-grade equipment specifically for stability, safety, comfort, adjustability, and biofidelity. By biofidelity, I mean equipment that works in harmony with the body rather than forcing the body to accommodate the machine.
Supervised sessions allow exercise form to be corrected, repetition speed to be controlled, resistance to be selected appropriately, and the exercise or progression to be changed as ability improves.
The exercise is not simply prescribed. It is taught, observed, adjusted, and progressed.
Relieve. Restore. Rebuild.
Relieve
Reduce pain, muscle spasm, stiffness, and restricted movement so you can begin functioning more comfortably.
Restore
Recover the motion, flexibility, strength, endurance, and physical abilities that pain or injury has taken away.
Rebuild
Build the strength, endurance, movement, and physical capacity needed for the demands of your work, exercise, sport, or daily life.
Some people need more emphasis in one area than another. Treatment and rehabilitation can overlap, and the plan can change as your condition changes.
The objective is not simply to help you feel better. It is to help you become more capable and reclaim the activities pain or injury has taken away.
Whenever possible, I try to keep you active
Injury does not always require shutting everything down.
When it is safe to do so, I look for modified exercises, alternate movements, and practical workarounds that allow you to maintain as much fitness and activity as possible while the injured area recovers.
Sometimes restrictions are necessary. Occasionally an activity needs to stop completely for a period of time to give healing the best opportunity to occur.
But I do not remove all activity simply because you are injured.
The goal is to protect recovery without sacrificing the fitness, strength, and endurance you worked so hard to build.
Does this sound familiar?
You do not need to know the name of your problem before you come in. Most people know what hurts and what they can no longer do comfortably.
- Your back or neck makes sitting through the workday, bending, lifting, sleeping, driving, or turning your head difficult.
- Your shoulder hurts when you reach overhead, lie on it, or try to return to pressing exercises.
- Your knee bothers you on stairs, during walks, running, squatting, or getting up from a chair.
- You can train, but the same pain keeps returning or forces you to work around it.
- You stopped an activity you enjoy because you no longer trust what your body will tolerate.
Tell me what hurts, what you cannot do, and what you want to get back to. We can start there.
The right treatment depends on identifying the right problem
Pain can look similar and still have different causes. Distinguishing among them is essential to accurately target the problem or problems.
At Performance Sport Care in Walnut Creek, that process includes a detailed history, appropriate physical examination, review of relevant records or imaging, and a clear explanation of what I find and what I recommend next.
Every new patient also receives a written Clinical Evaluation Report within 24 hours, summarizing the findings and recommendations. It is yours to keep, refer back to, and share with another physician or clinician if you choose.
A careful examination is essential. The care that follows should have a reason.
Problems we commonly see
Performance Sport Care in Walnut Creek evaluates and treats musculoskeletal pain and injuries involving the spine and extremities, including:
You do not need to arrive knowing the diagnosis. Tell me where it hurts, what you cannot do comfortably, and what you want to get back to.
What patients say
The best explanation of what this kind of care can mean often comes from the people who have experienced it.
About Dr. Douglas F. Cancel
I have been licensed in California since 1983 and practicing in Walnut Creek since 1985.
My background includes national-level competitive bodybuilding, decades of strength training, and my own experiences with significant injuries and surgical recovery. Those experiences have influenced how I think about pain, lost function, rehabilitation, and what it takes to return to the activities that matter.
Read Dr. Cancel’s Full BackgroundSerious strength athletes are welcome here too
Strength training has been part of my life for decades, including national-level competitive bodybuilding, and I still train.
That background gives me a practical understanding of exercise selection, training volume, fatigue, recovery, and what it takes to return an injured area to demanding exercise.
For bodybuilders, powerlifters, CrossFit athletes, and other serious lifters, the objective is not automatically to stop training. It is to determine what you can keep doing, what needs to be modified, and how to get you back to the exercises and training you want to do.
A few common questions
What if I have already tried treatment and I am still hurting?
Previous treatment not producing the result you hoped for does not tell us why the problem remains. I start fresh, review what has already been tried, examine what is limiting you now, and work from the current findings.
Will I have to stop exercising or playing my sport?
Whenever possible, we want to maintain your hard-earned fitness, so I look for modifications and workarounds that let you remain active without interfering with your healing or your essential programming.
Will I be treated on the first visit?
If the findings support starting care that day, then yes. If imaging or additional specialty medical evaluation should come first, I will explain why and help you to take that next step.
Where is Performance Sport Care located?
Performance Sport Care is located at 1776 Ygnacio Valley Road, Suite 106, Walnut Creek, CA 94598, near John Muir Medical Center, the Walnut Creek Tennis Club, and Heather Farm Park. On-site parking is available.
Ready to get back to what you do?
If pain or injury is keeping you from working, exercising, training, sleeping comfortably, or doing the things that matter to you, start here.
I personally call every new appointment request within 24 hours.
Performance Sport Care
1776 Ygnacio Valley Road, Suite 106
Walnut Creek, CA 94598
Individual results vary. Information on this page is general and is not a substitute for individualized advice from a licensed health care provider.