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Keeping rodeo riders ready Grants Pass chiropractor works to alleviate aches, pains and stiffness of cowboys roughed up in the rodeo By BILL KETTLER The cowboy winces as Lori Inkrote presses his hip with the palm of her hand. "Let's have you on your back," Inkrote says to Bobby Alexander, and the Redmond calf-roper dutifully rolls over on her portable chiropractic table. She prods him gently but firmly around the waist and hips, trying to isolate the pain. Across the room, rodeo cowboys are paying their entry fees and getting their number bibs, talking about the competition and teasing each other as they get ready for Sunday's final events of the Wild Rogue Pro Rodeo at the Jackson County Expo. Inkrote examines Alexander just as though she were in her Grants Pass office and interviews him about his symptoms as she feels around. "Does it hurt going up stairs?" she asks. "Getting your leg in or out of the car?" Soon Alexander will be tearing across the Expo arena on horseback, trying to rope a fleeing calf. He's come to see Inkrote, hoping she can loosen him up a bit before he chases a calf for big bucks. "Relax with me," she says, cradling his head in her hands. As she feels him go limp, she twists his head smartly, and a half-dozen sharp little pops crackle across the room. "That wasn't too bad, was it?" she asks. "I think you thought it was gonna kill you." Inkrote has been easing the miseries of stove-up cowboys and cowgirls for more than a decade. She's one of a half-dozen Oregon chiropractors who volunteer their time at rodeos from Canby to Joseph and dozens of towns in between. "I do maybe two or three a year," she says. "Typically the ones close to home, or somewhere I want to take a vacation." She says rodeo chiropractors don't so much treat new injuries as they try to keep the competitors supple and limber. "The big thing is you don't over-adjust," she says. "The guys are already stiff and sore. Our primary purpose is to get them loose enough so they're ready to ride." Inkrote sees a generous assortment of low-back strains, sore necks and stiff shoulders from on-the-job falls, but a surprising number of complaints come from cowboys who spend too much time sitting still while they travel to the next competition. "They're real active for 8 seconds," Inkrote says during a break between patients, "and then they're inactive for hours." Inkrote has honed her patient-interviewing skills to get laconic cowboys to describe how they feel. They know she might have to tell them not to compete if they have symptoms that might suggest a serious injury, and if they don't compete, they won't get paid. "A lot of times they don't want to tell you they fell on their head last night," she says. "You kind of have to be an investigator a little bit." She discovered cowboy chiropractic when a colleague invited her to come to a rodeo. "I was doing post-graduate sports medicine. The guys were so appreciative and I learned a lot, so I just kept doing it." She also enjoyed the camaraderie of the rodeo circuit. "These guys are so supportive for each other. You can't tell the weekenders from the big-money winners." Patients bring symptoms that can often be traced to the events they compete in. Cowboys in the rough-stock events - bull riding, bareback-riding and saddle-bronc riding, - take hard falls that can end in bad sprains and strains. Those who compete in the timed events such as calf roping often have repetitive stress injuries from doing the same movements over and over. She prescribes exercises and stretches to help them try to avoid those injuries in the first place. People who work in the rodeo often drop in, too. Flint Hemsted, a pickup man who plucks bronc riders off their horses when their 8-second rides are finished, gets periodic neck adjustments. "They're grabbin' on however they can get a hold," the Redding cowboy says. "After about 150 performances, I start to feeling pretty sore." Inkrote's biggest surprise was the riders' good manners. "I was a little reluctant to start working with these guys at first," she says. "I thought they would be just a bunch of rough cowboys. But they're so polite. I've never been called 'Ma'am' so much in my life." Reach reporter Bill Kettler at 776-4492, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.