Life Doesn't Slow Down: Logan Engelstad on Pain, Adaptation, and Why You're Not Broken

There's a moment that Logan Engelstad sees repeat itself in his practice, over and over: a patient walks in convinced something is fundamentally wrong with their back. Maybe they threw it out shoveling the driveway. Maybe they woke up one morning and couldn't turn their neck. Maybe it's been building for months — a dull ache that's graduated to sharp pain, and the fear that accompanies it has become almost as debilitating as the pain itself. The sense that their body has betrayed them. Engelstad's first job, before he lays hands on anyone's spine, isn't to fix the problem. It's to change the story the patient is telling themselves about it.

Engelstad practices at Crosstown Chiropractic in Ham Lake, Minnesota, where he treats a wide range of musculoskeletal conditions with an approach that blends manual therapy, movement rehabilitation, and something less tangible but equally important: patient education that shifts the relationship between pain and fear. His philosophy starts with a question most practitioners skip entirely, and it sets the trajectory for everything that follows.

Pain as Limitation, Not Diagnosis

"At the end of the day one of the most important things is to understand what the pain is limiting or restricting them from accomplishing in their daily lives. I like to say that life doesn't slow down just because we're hurting. It could be having pain in the low back preventing you from picking up grandchildren or neck pain preventing you from driving your kids to hockey practice because you can't check your mirrors. A thorough exam and history is essential to identify these issues."

Logan Engelstad, DC

Crosstown Chiropractic · Ham Lake, MN

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This functional framing — pain as a barrier to living, not just a sensation to suppress — fundamentally changes how treatment unfolds. When you know that a grandmother can't pick up her grandchild, or a parent can't safely check mirrors while driving their kids to hockey practice, the clinical target becomes specific, measurable, and deeply personal. It's not "reduce pain by 30% on a visual analog scale." It's "get you back to picking up that kid." The difference matters because it connects treatment to meaning, and meaning drives adherence in ways that abstract pain scores never can.

Research supports this patient-centered approach with striking consistency. A 2018 study published in JAMA Network Open found that adding chiropractic care to usual medical treatment produced moderate but clinically meaningful improvements in both pain intensity and disability for low back pain patients — with the greatest gains observed when treatment was functionally oriented rather than purely symptom-focused.^[1] The UK evidence report on manual therapies, one of the most comprehensive reviews of its kind, concluded that spinal manipulation produces clinically significant improvements for both acute and chronic low back pain, with benefits that extend beyond pain reduction to functional restoration.^[2] Understanding what chiropractors actually do in practice — this combination of manual therapy and functional rehabilitation — helps explain why patient satisfaction with chiropractic care consistently outranks satisfaction with conventional medical management for back pain.

You're Not Broken — You're Adapting

"Just because we're having pain doesn't mean we are broken or there is 'something wrong.' Our bodies are incredibly adaptable, but can take a bit of time to get used to a new stimulus that is being introduced. Like someone being 'super sore' or 'throwing their back out' after shoveling snow the first time for the year. The body just is not used to that level of strain yet."

Logan Engelstad, DC

Crosstown Chiropractic · Ham Lake, MN

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This reframe — from "broken" to "adapting" — is one of the most clinically powerful things a practitioner can offer someone in pain. The fear-avoidance model of chronic pain, now one of the most well-established frameworks in pain science, demonstrates that a patient's beliefs about their pain are among the strongest predictors of whether an acute episode resolves or becomes chronic. When someone believes their back is damaged, they stop moving. When they stop moving, the muscles decondition, the joints stiffen, and the nervous system recalibrates its threat assessment upward. Pain persists not because of ongoing tissue damage, but because the alarm system is stuck in the "on" position.

Engelstad's snow-shoveling example is a perfect illustration. The first heavy shovel of winter produces soreness — sometimes intense soreness — not because the spine is injured, but because the muscles, tendons, and joints haven't performed that particular loading pattern in months. The body needs time to adapt to the stimulus. This is the same mechanism that makes the first day back at the gym brutal and the third week manageable. The tissues aren't damaged. They're deloaded. The solution isn't rest and avoidance — it's graduated re-exposure.

Neurophysiological research confirms this at the cellular level. A 2021 review in the European Journal of Pain found that spinal manipulation produces measurable changes in pain processing at both the spinal cord and brain levels — essentially recalibrating the nervous system's threat assessment downward.^[3] The adjustment doesn't just mobilize a joint. It sends a flood of mechanoreceptor input to the central nervous system that competes with and ultimately dampens nociceptive (pain) signaling. Combined with the cognitive reframe — "you're not broken, you're adapting" — the effect is both neurological and psychological. The body moves better. The brain worries less. And the pain resolves because both the mechanical restriction and the threat perception have been addressed. The systemic connections to chronic pain, including gut health and inflammation, can also play a role in how the body processes and perpetuates pain signals.

Five Minutes a Day Changes Everything

"A stretch or rehab regiment does not need to be elaborate. 5-10 minutes throughout the day can have meaningful impact to your pain and symptoms you are experiencing. Movement can help maintain a healthy spine and life full of exploring."

Logan Engelstad, DC

Crosstown Chiropractic · Ham Lake, MN

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There's a reason Engelstad doesn't hand patients a 45-minute exercise program printed on a sheet of paper. He's seen where those sheets end up — folded in a jacket pocket, buried under mail on the kitchen counter, forgotten within a week. Compliance with home exercise programs for back pain is notoriously poor, with studies showing adherence rates dropping below 50% within six weeks. The programs that patients actually follow aren't the comprehensive ones. They're the simple ones.

Five to ten minutes of targeted movement, scattered through the day — a hip hinge stretch while the coffee brews, a neck rotation at a red light, a cat-cow between meetings, a standing extension after an hour at the desk — those micro-doses of movement add up. They keep the synovial fluid circulating through joint capsules, maintain the extensibility of muscles and fascia, and continuously reinforce to the nervous system that movement is safe. That last piece is critical. Every pain-free repetition is a data point that the brain uses to update its threat model. Move without pain enough times, and the alarm system recalibrates.

A 2004 randomized trial comparing chiropractic and medical care for low back pain found that patients who received chiropractic treatment combined with exercise reported greater satisfaction and better long-term outcomes than those receiving either intervention alone.^[4] The combination works because it addresses both the immediate mechanical restriction — the joint that isn't moving properly, the muscle that's guarding — and the underlying capacity deficit that allowed the problem to develop in the first place. The adjustment restores mobility. The movement builds the resilience to keep it. And a 2023 Cochrane Review update confirmed that spinal manipulation for acute low back pain leads to enhanced pain relief and improved function compared to alternative interventions, further validating the manual therapy component of this combined approach.^[5]

For anyone navigating back and neck pain treatment options, Engelstad's message is quietly radical: you're not fragile. Your body just needs permission — and a little guidance — to remember what it already knows how to do. The path from pain to function isn't paved with rest and avoidance. It's paved with movement, done consistently, in doses small enough to be sustainable. And when that movement is paired with skilled manual therapy that addresses the mechanical barriers to pain-free function, the results can be faster and more durable than either approach alone.

If you're dealing with chronic back or neck pain and want to explore whether structural factors are contributing, understanding how chiropractic pairs with other therapies can help you build a more complete picture. And for those whose pain is connected to broader systemic issues — chronic inflammation, stress-related hormonal shifts, or persistent inflammatory load — addressing those root causes alongside the musculoskeletal component often produces the best outcomes.