Jonathan Greenberg, DC, CCEP, helps elite athletes focus on their entire body, not just their spine

Barely 1 year out of chiropractic college, Jonathan Greenberg, DC, CCEP, already had patients flocking to his New Jersey office. Among those patients were professional football, hockey, and tennis players.

They had been to many places in search of help for their extraordinary musculoskeletal problems, but only under the care of Greenberg did they find it.

Yet, he insists—just 2 years later now—that he’s no wunderkind.

“I’m just a chiropractor who recognized very early the importance of evaluating a patient’s entire body, not just the spine, and treating accordingly, because all the parts affect one another’s condition,” Greenberg says.

Greenberg came by that awareness, oddly enough, while pretty much laid out flat on his back. Two months after starting chiropractic school, a surfing accident left him with a fractured sacrum and two discs herniated in his lumbar spine.

For most of his remaining time at Life Chiropractic College West in Hayward, Calif, Greenberg suffered severe, debilitating pain. Some of the best orthopedists and neurologists in the country tried to aid him, to no avail. About the same results occurred with the numerous chiropractors he subsequently saw, although the DCs did manage to produce at least a measure of symptomatic relief. Even so, his prognosis was grim. “After 9 months of being worked on, I was unable to stand up for longer than 2 minutes,” he says.

Greenberg decided he was going nowhere fast on these paths to healing, so he took matters into his own hands. Literally.

“Unable to engage in any physical activities, I had plenty of time to do research in the hope of finding the answers I needed,” he says.

Soaking up knowledge from a couple of his forward-thinking professors, and then poring over stacks of books and journal articles from the fields of chiropractic, orthopedics, neurology, and physical therapy, Greenberg over a span of 2 years developed an approach to care that ultimately freed him from the pain and put his frame in stronger, better-stabilized shape than even before the accident.

Pictured from left are Massage Therapist Erika Dice; Daniel Greenberg, DC; Office Manager Barbara Greenberg; and Jonathan Greenberg, DC, CCEP.

High-Performance People
At that point, Greenberg stopped seeing his injury as misfortune but, rather, as a godsend.

“Thanks to all that extensive research and hard work I did in my quest for healing, I ended up with a unique understanding of the body,” he says. “Mainly, I came to appreciate that there’s a lot more to the human body than just the spine, that also affecting health and performance are extremity and soft-tissue mechanics.”

Take, for instance, a chronic SI subluxation patient. In Greenberg’s view, there has to be a reason—a true underlying cause—why the pelvis and the side joint are subluxating, continually. If you dig deep enough, he says, you might find that the patient’s arch is slightly decreased on one side, which would create a buckling in the kinetic chain of the lower extremity. “The result of that would be an altered gait and, thus, an SI joint that’s thrown off—something that can, of course, cause a subluxation in the lumbar spine,” he says.

Insights along those lines helped Greenberg later recognize that the typical elite athlete possesses a body analogous to a Ferrari sports car.

“These people have bodies that have to be kept finely tuned. Everything has to be working perfectly for them,” Greenberg says.

With the most perplexing of his elite athlete cases, part of Greenberg’s clinical approach entails watching the athletes perform out on the field (or rink or court, as the situation warrants). This, he says, helps him more readily detect biomechanical deficiencies that need to be worked on in the office. For example, he recently watched a tennis player who was having difficulty with his knee every time he served the ball.

“I was able to see that, as he pushed off to hit the ball, a buckling was occurring at the knee, which affected not only his knee but his back as well,” Greenberg says. “But I never would have known this without making him go through his routines on the court.”

Going First Class
Between 100 and 120 patients each week pass through the doors of Greenberg Chiropractic. He sees them all day Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, then mornings only on Friday.

“My practice is today almost entirely sports-related,” Greenberg says, noting that his patient base today includes players from the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles, Oakland Raiders, and Kansas City Chiefs; pro hockey’s Edmonton Oilers; and several Iron Man triathletes.

His main office occupies 1,700 square feet of rented space in a freestanding building that also serves as home to an occupational therapist and a health spa, both of which present ample cross-referral opportunities.

Greenberg reveals, though, that he chose to set up in this particular building not because of the neighbors but because it was among the city’s most desirable addresses.

“In my situation, a premium office space is crucial—price is not really a consideration. To attract sports superstars, you must have a great-looking office; elite athletes are accustomed to going first class all the way.”

Pro athletes, by nature, also happen to be individuals who want to associate themselves at all levels of their lives with success, and Greenberg’s upscale location does just that. Lining the walls are framed and autographed glossies of the many sports heroes that Greenberg has helped.

Elsewhere in Greenberg’s airy and fashionably decorated office, back beyond the waiting room, is a 500-square-foot exercise center. He spends quite a bit of time with patients there.

“I like my patients doing a lot of work with Thera-Bands, wobble boards, balance balls, and lighter free weights,” Greenberg says. “I’m a big fan of functional-type exercises involving either resistance training or balance training, or a combination of the two, depending on the patient’s needs.”

Don’t bother looking for high-tech equipment in Greenberg’s office. There is none.

“Occasionally, I’ll employ a drop table or an activator, but by and large, I use my hands for everything from muscle testing to palpation and adjusting,” he says. “My hands are very sensitive to the presence of problems.”

Greenberg works on touring tennis professional, Meg Gallagher.

The Eyes Have It
Greenberg didn’t think much about chiropractic as a kid growing up in Margate, NJ. Back then, he was focused on following the footsteps of his uncle, an orthopedic surgeon with a practice in the neighboring state of Pennsylvania. However, that idea fell by the wayside after young Greenberg discovered in himself an aversion to the sight of blood.

Greenberg went to Boston University (class of 1993), then spent the next 4 years traveling abroad. It was while globe-trotting that he decided to become a chiropractor.

“I knew I wanted to be in a profession where I could help people, and chiropractic seemed perfect,” he says.

Greenberg returned to his hometown in 2001, straight out of chiropractic college, to open his solo practice.

“After my time in California, I realized I was an East Coast guy through and through,” he says. “Plus, there weren’t any chiropractors in Margate, so I knew I’d have the local market to myself.”

Indeed, he was in business only a few weeks before he had more patients than space to accommodate them. Good marketing was one factor.

“At first, I marketed my practice by walking around town and talking to people about chiropractic in a general way,” he says. “In the gym, I’d see someone whose body I could tell wasn’t mechanically functioning properly, so I’d go up to that person and describe what I’d observed, then offer my suggestions for how to correct the problem. Usually, they’d be blown away that I even knew they had pain or a performance problem just from looking at them across the room. I’d give them my business card and invite them to stop by my office. I picked up a number of patients that way, and then they started referring all their family and friends because they were so satisfied with the help I provided.”

Among the initial batch of patients was an arena football player who had foot and hip problems. After getting good results from Greenberg’s care, the patient began referring people—mostly athletes—to Greenberg. They included a man who for years had maladies that prevented him from playing as a football kicker.

“I told him, ‘listen, you’re going to kick again.’ He didn’t believe me. But, 2 months later, he came in with a smile on his face and announced he was ready to make a comeback in his sport,” Greenberg says.

Life on the 50-Yard Line
From that emerged a referral involving a knee-injured hockey player who, in turn, brought along his roommate, a wide receiver from the Philadelphia Eagles. The Eagles player began enthusiastically referring friends—several of whom were Eagles teammates.

Before long, Greenberg was seeing so many football players and other types of athletes that he opened a second office, this time right next door to the Eagles’ home stadium. This satellite was focused on providing care to athletes only. The ribbon-cutting ceremony to inaugurate the additional site came just before the cutting of the cake celebrating Greenberg’s first anniversary as a private practitioner.

Now, as Greenberg gears up to mark his third anniversary in practice, he finds himself in the running to become the official chiropractor for the Eagles. He came under consideration for the job after Greenberg helped a patient—a part-owner of the Eagles—for a problem that seemed to defy solution at the hands of other providers. The appreciative patient invited Greenberg out to the team’s training camp, where he was introduced to the coaching and support staffs. The patient also gave a strong pitch on Greenberg’s behalf.

In the event that Greenberg lands this assignment, it will require him to travel 2 or 3 times per week to Philadelphia (a 90-minute car ride away) during regular-season play. He will need to be at the stadium for about 3 hours on each of those days. He’ll also be away from home on weekends whenever the team travels.

“I don’t think the demands on my time will adversely affect my practice, since I’m only in the office 31¼2 days now as it is,” he says.

For his personal life, however, that could be another matter entirely.

“It will mean some sacrifice there, but my opinion has always been that, if you have a high goal, sacrifice is what you have to do in order to achieve your dreams.”

Whether or not Greenberg is chosen, clearly his dreams already have come true.

Rich Smith is a contributing writer for Chiropractic Products.