The Aspen Back Institute’s master healer, Clinton Phillips, has got your back—and then some
Back pain can kill you. That’s what Tim Semrau, a 55-year-old builder from Aspen, thought when his lower spine seized up so badly while he was heli-skiing last year that he was virtually paralyzed mid-run.“I got home, went to a physical therapist, a chiropractor, and then a back surgeon,” says Semrau. “The surgeon told me”—predictably—“that I’d need surgery and never do a sit-up again.”
Nice as no sit-ups sounded, the hardcore athlete—who skis, and plays basketball year-round—had resigned himself to the knife when he was saved by a Greek chorus of buddies intoning, “Aspen Back Institute.” Semrau promptly headed over to the nearby St. Regis Hotel.
With its heated outdoor pool, charming international staff, and 179 luxury rooms, the regal St. Regis, located just a couple blocks from the gondola, is as good as Aspen digs get. Around the corner from the leather chairs and crackling fire in the lobby, ABI is a spa-like space with peak views, futuristic-looking machines, and a staff headed up by a South African who has worked his magic on more than 1,500 battered backs—from Bode Miller’s to Jimmy Buffett’s.
“We can progress people all the way to the Olympics,” says Clinton Phillips, the 33-year-old expat who founded the institute six years ago. “It’s just a matter of goals.”
For those who’ve spent any time in lumbar hell, Phillips might sound like the sort of false prophet found on infomercials. After all, back pain is virtually epidemic in the U.S.: According to the American Pain Society, about one in four adults suffer from lower-back problems—with the majority of those reporting over 45 years old—and back pain is the fifth-most-common reason for doctor visits, totaling $26 billion in direct health-care costs per year. Yet the pain persists.
“Most of the people we get in here are high-stress financial guys with Type A personalities,” says Phillips. “They need the best possible therapy in the quickest possible time.”
In 2001, after graduating as a doctor of chiropractics in Johannesburg, Phillips moved to Aspen to play rugby. Through odd jobs, he met two influential Aspenites who had serious back troubles and were given frightening diagnoses, based on MRIs, from traditional docs. Using a unique hands-on approach—combining physical therapy, massage, and acupuncture—plus exercise psychology, Phillips was able to rehabilitate their backs within eight weeks. The men were so grateful that they asked him to stay, offering to help with Phillips’s visa and living costs. This patronage, unheard of in physical therapy, saved Phillips thousands of dollars as he got his business off the ground. It was also a testament to his prowess. He immediately opened up shop and refined his technique, which stands on four pillars: strength, flexibility, alignment, and the mind-body connection.
“The main cause of back problems is weakness,” says Phillips. “We get out of bed, into a car, at a desk, into another car, and then back into a bed again. People need to learn how to use their backs.”
Strength and flexibility are crucial, says Phillips, as is aligning the spine to make sure that each segment is moving. But the real key is psychology: helping people understand what repetitive stress does to their bodies. “People get scared when they hear they have a degenerated disk,” he says. “We empower them by explaining what’s going on in their minds and bodies.”
Follow Clinton Phillips’s plan for a better back
If a trip to Aspen this fall or winter isn’t in the cards, order Phillips’s Heal the Back beginner or advanced DVD (beginner, $30; advanced, $20; both, $40; aspenback.com/dvd.html). In the beginne...
If a trip to Aspen this fall or winter isn’t in the cards, order Phillips’s Heal the Back beginner or advanced DVD (beginner, $30; advanced, $20; both, $40; aspenback.com/dvd.html). In the beginne...
“The first thing we do is find out how much the mind is affecting this person,” says Phillips. “It can be as much as 90 percent.”
To that end, each client completes a 16-statement form, ranking items such as “I have a fear of developing back pain” and “I lack a social network” and “I have trouble sleeping.” After Phillips studies the questionnaire, he’ll ask for more information around disconcerting answers.
“Just the question ‘How are you sleeping at night?’ usually leads to a whole host of other issues,” says the chiropractor. “People will say, ‘I can’t sleep because my boss is putting me under pressure’ or ‘I can’t sleep because my kids are little bastards.’ We don’t try to be psychologists, but we try to help people understand they can have pain from emotional causes. I can’t help you with your divorce, but I can get you stronger and prepared for stressful events.”
After that, Phillips will look at your body’s strength, flexibility, alignment, and trigger points, determining where muscles are under- or over-utilized. “We like to get our hands on people,” without getting too touchy-feely, explains Phillips. “The biggest problem in the American medical system is that people don’t touch. You may get an X-ray, an injection, an MRI, and some counseling, but nobody says, ‘Let me feel.’ ”
Some clients stay a day; some stay six weeks. Either way, Phillips and his staff of three physical therapists, an orthopedic doctor, and three personal trainers, plus Pilates, Gyrotonics, yoga, and boxing instructors, will put clients on a few key machines after the mental assessment. One is the Vibra-Gym, a platform that vibrates while you stand on it—the novel idea being that the extra movement loosens you up and also disrupts your equilibrium so your core muscles work harder. Then you might graduate to the medieval-looking “flexion-distraction table” to open up your spine, an underwater treadmill to improve alignment, or the gym to work on strength. Ultimately, the goal is to get you back to the activities you love the most.
“Clint is a master at tuning in to a degenerative back and joints,” says Semrau. For the builder’s seized-up back, Phillips designed a three- to four-time-per-week program of stretching and strengthening that centers around the Vibra-Gym (Semrau loved it so much he bought his own) and Phillips’s Heal the Back DVD, a series of ten to 15 easy-to-follow core back exercises.
“I’ve learned how to keep my back pain in remission,” says Semrau. “If I go out and ski bumps for five hours, it’s going to hurt some—I’m not 25. But at least I don’t need surgery.”
“We can’t remove problems,” Phillips adds. “But we can remove the response. Just because your back isn’t perfect doesn’t mean you can’t be pain-free.”
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