Peak Healthcare, Peak Performance: Northeast Alumni Support Elite Teams and Athletes
More than ever, athletes turn to a core team of healthcare professionals, including chiropractors and nutrition experts, to attain optimal health. Northeast College of Health Sciences is busy preparing students to take on these trusted roles to help competitors reach peak performance and prevent and recover from injuries.
Northeast's Whole-Body Approach Ranks High with Aspiring Sports Chiropractors
As chiropractic care and expert nutritional support play an increasingly pivotal role in the health and performance of athletes, the Northeast College's whole-person approach to healthcare education has catapulted many alumni into successful careers in sports chiropractic and healthcare.
While earning a Doctor of Chiropractic (D.C.) degree, Northeast students learn movement screening, assessment, evaluation and rehabilitation, preparing them to be an asset to athletes and sports teams upon graduation. Northeast M.S. in applied clinical nutrition (ACN) grads also have become an essential part of many training teams, creating highly individualized, optimized nutrition plans to improve athletic performance and recovery.
A graduate of the College, Dr. Jose Balseca specializes in sports chiropractic and said working in athletics is a "natural fit for practitioners interested in biomechanics, bioenergetics and whole-body fundamentals, all of which are aspects of the chiropractic curriculum at Northeast College." Balseca is currently the only Diplomate of the American Chiropractic Board of Sports Physicians® (DACBSP®) in western New York state and is Internationally Certified in Sports Chiropractic (ICSC).
Chiropractors Part of NFL's Big Game, Northeast Alumni Work in Elite Sports Worldwide
According to the Professional Football Chiropractic Society (PFCS) every National Football League (NFL) team currently has at least one chiropractor on staff. The PFCS also states that the average pro football chiropractor provides 30 to 50 treatments per week during the season. With the in-season (game-playing) duration lasting 18 weeks, 40 chiropractors on average give 28,800 adjustments to these elite athletes during these four months.
Most National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball and National Hockey League teams also have chiropractors on staff too. And behind the scenes, Northeast College alumni are busy working with athletes at many popular sporting events across the country and on international stages at events, including the Olympics and World Games. Dr. Balseca provided chiropractic care to inline hockey players, artistic roller skaters, swimmers, wheelchair rugby players and even the Singapore Women's Canoe Polo team during the 2022 World Games.
"Chiropractors provide a whole-body, pro-active approach to healthcare. We evaluate, diagnose and look at an athlete's capabilities and provide recommendations and treatments for the faults," Balseca said. "The paradigm in healthcare in general is shifting, as people realize the importance of keeping their bodies functionally optimal, therefore the role of a chiropractor is evolving and becoming more prominent. Athletes are starting to understand that chiropractors can be that one-stop shop for them."
Northeast College Professor Specializes in Sports Chiropractic, Inspires Students
Also a Northeast College Assistant Professor and former athlete, Balseca has been a team chiropractor for the Rochester Lancers soccer team and the Rochester Razorsharks basketball team, both near his practice in Pittsford, N.Y. Balseca has also treated international athletes at a USA Women's Ice Hockey championship and in extreme sports events such as the World Kickboxing Championship in Italy and several Nitro Circus motocross events, where he served as the event medical manager.
Balseca enjoyed giving Northeast students a peek inside the world of elite athletic training and care when he took the College’s Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation Club for a private tour of the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Training Center in Lake Placid, N.Y. Students shadowed the Sports Medicine Clinic with Clinic Director Dr. John Faltus and spoke with Ambrose Serrano, strength and conditioning coach.
"It helped students understand the correlation between basic chiropractic skill sets and incorporating it with elite athletes as well as our non-athlete patients," Balseca said about their Olympic site visit experience. "This clinical thinking is what we try to emphasize at Northeast College and the students do a phenomenal job implementing this."
Northeast Alumni Well Represented in Sports Chiropractic, Nutrition
Among the many College alumni working with athletes, Buffalo Bills Team Chiropractor Zachary Musial (D.C. '11, M.S. '11*) earned national recognition in 2023 as part of the training staff honored for saving the life of Bills player Damar Hamlin after he went into cardiac arrest on the field. Fellow alumni Joshua Kollman (D.C. '06) and Nevin Markel (D.C. '08) also work with an NFL team, both chiropractors with the Carolina Panthers.
Brad Klueber (D.C. '08, M.S. '08*) works closely with the professional head trainer of the Pittsburgh Steelers, assistant athletic director of the Pitt Panthers and head trainer of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Neuromuscular therapist Curtis Bell (M.S. '17) received his master’s degree in the College’s Applied Clinical Nutrition program, to support his work when he was the head athletic trainer of the Tampa Bay Lightning, the New Jersey Devils and the Florida Panthers. Bell is now the athletic director for the Vancouver Canucks NHL team.
As for Balseca (D.C. '14), working with athletes was always part of his plan. He knew he needed to learn more about the human body to guide athletes in seeking optimal health and performance. That is why he first turned to Northeast College for his education. Now, Balseca educates and inspires future leaders in healthcare as a professor at this alma mater, and has treated athletes from more than thirty countries, including Argentina, Iran, Guatemala, India, and Poland, and still counting.