The Clinic That Acts Like a Team: Inside Dr. Mary Trumpy’s Sports Chiropractic Model
By Stephen Cyrus Sepher
Most people think chiropractic means one thing: the spine.
Dr. Mary Trumpy built her practice around a different idea. Not “spine-only,” not “one modality,” not a quick adjustment and out the door. Her model is closer to a small performance clinic, designed to treat the whole body and keep patients moving with fewer handoffs and fewer dead ends.
That difference matters, because it changes the kind of business she’s running.
It is not just a chiropractor’s office. It is an integrated service environment.
A sports chiropractor, by definition
Early in our conversation, Dr. Trumpy clarifies something most patients never hear clearly:
There are different types of chiropractors. She’s a certified chiropractic sports physician, which means she did her chiropractic doctorate and then pursued additional training that allows her to treat more than the spine.
In plain terms, her lane includes ankles, knees, shoulders, and common sports injuries that walk in the door whether a patient plays professionally or simply lives in a body that gets tweaked.
That “whole-body” scope is the foundation. It affects what she can diagnose, how she triages, and how she designs care.
The origin story is not branding. It is the business seed.
Her path into chiropractic is not a neat “calling.” It starts with a mistake.
She slips in her kitchen while prepping for a bodybuilding show, pinches a nerve, and spends a month or two with her arm locked in the only position that doesn’t hurt. At the time, she didn’t even know chiropractic existed.
That moment becomes the entry point. Not because someone magically fixes her overnight. But because she sees there’s another way to treat the body that sits between “ignore it” and “full medical pipeline.”
She had already studied human physiology and neuroscience at UC San Diego. Chiropractic became a practical bridge: still clinical, still physical, still hands-on, but with a different patient relationship than a rushed medical system.
The mentor model: copying what works, then improving it
What stands out in her story is not just education. It is apprenticeship.
She worked under a mentor, Dr. Alex Kalyaken, who ran a business model she later replicated:
A chiropractic practice
Supported by a medical corporation
With a medical doctor involved for additional services
Built to offer broader care and to access insurance-based pathways for treatments beyond chiropractic alone
You hear the logic immediately. It is less about “adding bells and whistles,” and more about solving real friction:
When a patient’s issue goes beyond the spine, a strict “adjustment-only” clinic becomes a bottleneck. People get referred out. They delay care. They bounce between providers. They lose time and momentum.
Her practice is built to reduce that.
One roof, multiple services, one direction
Her current office structure is intentionally multi-service:
Chiropractic care (her core practice)
Physical therapy
Massage therapy
Acupuncture
A medical doctor who comes in periodically for checkups and, when needed, injections
This is a business design decision as much as it is a clinical one.
Instead of building a practice that depends on a single modality, she built a setting where a patient can move through different types of care without leaving the ecosystem.
For other business owners watching: that is retention. That is continuity. That is operational leverage.
What her patients actually come in for
When I asked about the “Gold’s Gym Venice” world, he heavy training culture, she didn’t glamorize it. She described what she sees.
Two patterns come up again and again:
1) Shoulder issues
Impingements and rotator cuff problems show up constantly in people who lift heavy.
2) Low back injuries
Especially around deadlifts and forward-loaded movements.
Her point is not that everyone has bad form. It is that the spine is a small structure carrying a disproportionate load, and some people simply don’t tolerate certain loading patterns—even if they’re strong.
That’s a subtle message, and it’s one a lot of athletes resist: injury isn’t always a morality tale about discipline. Sometimes it is structure, repetition, and the wrong stress at the wrong time.
The belt debate: her answer is practical, not ideological
She’s pro weight belt, with conditions.
Not for every exercise. Not for vanity. But for heavy forward-bending loads and extreme one-rep efforts where spinal pressure spikes.
She pushes back on the fear that “it’ll make you weak.” Her caution is simpler:
If you wear it all the time, you might become dependent. If you use it intelligently in high-risk loading, it can protect you.
Again, that’s her tone throughout the conversation: not internet certainty. Practical thresholds.
The part most people don’t talk about: identity and body composition
The most revealing section isn’t anatomy. It’s psychology.
We talked about performance-enhancing drugs, cycles, and what happens when someone comes off and loses size. What she notices is not just physical change.
It’s behavioral change.
The baggy sweatshirt replaces the tank top. The confidence dips. The “big strong guy” identity gets shaken, even if the person is still muscular by normal standards.
Her observation is quiet but sharp: when identity is tied to body size, losing size feels like losing status. Even if nothing else in life changed.
That’s a real insight for anyone who works in fitness, health, or performance.
Desk workers are athletes too, just in the worst possible position
The other half of her practice isn’t bodybuilders.
It’s people who sit.
She describes what happens when people live in a forward position all day:
Mid-back stabilizers stop holding posture
Pec muscles tighten and shorten
The brain adapts to “this is normal”
Shoulder mechanics degrade, overhead movement becomes painful
People assume something is torn, damaged, surgical
She tells a story about a patient who thought he needed an MRI and possibly surgery, because he couldn’t overhead press without pain. The fix wasn’t exotic.
It was posture and positioning.
Stand upright. Lift the chest. Put the shoulder blades “in the back pocket.” Suddenly the press works.
That is not a miracle story. It’s a mechanics story. A daily position became a two-year problem.
Her spine lesson, simplified
When she brings out the skeleton, she explains it in a way most people actually understand.
Bone, disc, bone, disc.
Discs don’t “slip out” like people imagine. They can bulge. They can swell. They can compress nerves.
That compression is what creates patterns: down the arm, into the fingers, down the glute, into the leg.
And her deadlift warning comes back here:
Forward loaded bending under weight is one of the fastest ways to irritate the low back discs, because those lower levels already carry the brunt of daily compression from sitting.
Then she says something that lands because it matches real life:
People don’t always blow out their back moving a couch.
Sometimes they blow it out picking up a pencil.
Her explanation is simple: the structure was already stressed and weakened. The pencil wasn’t the cause. It was the moment the body couldn’t absorb another load.
Degenerative disc disease: the word scares people more than the reality
She reframes “DJD” (degenerative disc disease) as what it often is: aging and disc dehydration over time.
Some people have terrible imaging and no pain. Others have similar imaging and chronic discomfort.
Her management philosophy isn’t dramatic:
Keep spinal mobility
Strengthen the support system around the spine
Build boring, consistent stabilization habits
Reduce fear-based avoidance that shrinks a person’s life
That’s not a slogan. That’s a long game.
Heat, ice, and the real-world protocol
She respects both.
Her practical rule in acute disc-type pain: ice helps reduce swelling, heat feels good but may not reduce inflammation.
Her baseline protocol:
Heat for circulation and loosening
Then ice to control swelling
Avoid endless heat exposure that can cause an opposite rebound response
Keep sessions around 20 minutes
She also mentions topicals—CBD creams, menthol-based products, as temporary relief tools, not fixes.
The theme repeats: relief matters, but it should not be confused with correction.
What makes her practice a blueprint for other service businesses
This conversation isn’t only about chiropractic.
It’s a business case study in how expertise becomes an ecosystem.
Dr. Trumpy didn’t build her practice around one skill. She built it around an outcome: helping patients recover, stay functional, and avoid the “lost in the system” spiral.
The operational moves are clear:
Specialized training (sports certification) to widen the scope of care
A mentorship period focused on business model learning, not just technique
A multi-service clinic structure that reduces referrals and improves continuity
A communication style that makes complex anatomy understandable
A willingness to talk about behavior, identity, and compliance, not just anatomy
If you’re another business owner reading this, whether you’re in health, hospitality, real estate, or personal services, the takeaway is not “start a clinic.”
It’s this:
People don’t just pay for a service. They pay for clarity, continuity, and a system that gets them to the result without confusion.
That’s what she built.
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