Dr. Jenn Turner (right) also works with Canadian BMX racer Tony Nyhaug (left), who placed 5th overall at the Rio Olympics. Although Dr. Jenn Turner (left) is now looking after the BMX team, Jasmin Glaesser (right) still seeks care from her favourite chiropractor. competed in high-level triathlon in the past. She opened her practice in 2006 – a year after graduating from Cana-dian Memorial Chiropractic College – and set up her clinic focused on serving active individuals and recreational athletes, understanding that she can’t build her practice just on professional athletes’ business alone. “I started treating a lot of cyclists and triathletes because that was the environment I was immersed in myself,” says Turner who, as a triathlete, has competed internationally and won the gold medal at a world championship in Den-mark in 2005. “The athletes that I trained with and that I raced with wanted to come and see me because I knew what they were going through as well,” she says. Since becoming a team chiropractor for Cycling Canada, Turner has been to two Olympic Games – in London in 2012 and in Rio last summer. Turner agrees that chiropractors – and other sports medicine practitioners – have a unique patient-doctor re-lationship with their athletes. These health professionals usually spend so much time travelling and training with the athletes, even seeing them more often than they would their regular patients at their clinics. “That’s part of the reason that you become so close (with 26 Canadian Chiropractor February 2017 TEAM EFFORT Taking care of high-level athletes involves more than just administering the right techniques – although, Turner finds www.canadianchiropractor.ca Photo: Dr. Jenn Turner the athletes)… you become intertwined in so many aspects of that athlete’s life and training and daily environment,” Turner explains. It’s only natural then for the chiropractor to feel proud of what her athletes have accomplished and actively root for them to succeed and do well. Aside from Glaesser, Turner has also been working closely with Tory Nyhaug, a BMX racer from Coquitlam, B.C., who made his Olympic debut in London in 2012 as Canada’s only contender in BMX racing. He was the first Canadian BMX rider to make it to the finals at the Rio 2016 Olympics, finishing fifth overall. That was a proud moment for Turner. “It was an inde-scribable feeling,” Turner recalls. “It’s almost like I accom-plished what Tory had accomplished.” Seeing their athletes avoid injury during competitions is also somewhat of an accomplishment, Turner says. “With BMX, injuries are quite common and quite serious. So that was also part of where my heart was in Rio – yes, I was wanting him to do well, but I was also not wanting him to crash.” Injuries from BMX racing or track cycling are not the typical conditions she would see among her regular patients at the clinic, Turner says, as these high-level sports injuries are usually more serious – fractures, dislocations, and sometimes, internal injuries, which she needs to be able to recognize on the field and refer appropriately. “The stakes are a lot higher and definitely a lot more out of my comfort zone,” Turner says.
Chiropractic + Naturopathic Doctor February 2017: Page 26
