In high school, Dr. Sean Drake was a super athlete, playing seven sports. After graduation he headed to college set to specialize in track and field, and with dreams of later joining the Air Force to be a pilot.
Then, he was in a horrific car accident.
By the tender age of 22, he was on seven medications for pain and was told he’d never run again.
Then he found a chiropractor who changed his life.
“He had me back to jogging within three visits,” Dr. Drake says.
In conjunction with chiropractic treatments, Dr. Drake delved into the naturopathic world, using it to help get off all medications.
The unexpected healing sparked a new passion—he wanted to help and heal others, as he himself had been helped and healed.
Dr. Drake headed back to school for both master’s and doctorate degrees, melding his love and understand of sports with a holistic chiropractic and wellness approach—and soon his unique talents were being called upon by major athletes worldwide, as well as to teach at places such as Titleist Performance Institute.
Although he had previously spent 40-50 weeks a year on tour with athletes, in late 2020 he opened a brick-and-mortar location South Scottsdale in order to help everyone from kids to adults to, yes, professional athletes.
His specializations include chiropractic performance care, sports-specific screenings, and functional rehabilitation programs, and services include hyperbaric therapy for healing and recovery, P.E.M.F. (Pulse Electromagnetic Field Therapy), cold laser therapy, a compression recovery station, and Trazer training systems.
Dr. Drake begins with an intricate assessment system designed to discover physical limitations in movement patterns that cause a disconnect between how a patient's body should perform, and how it is actually performing.
“His background and knowledge are second to none,” says golfer Tom Pernice Jr., who plays on the PGA Tour and Champions Tour.
Not long after Pernice moved from California to Scottsdale, he was having issues with spasms and pain in his hamstrings, and ended up spending a few days in the hospital.
“I had a disk fire up and had some nerve impingement and the pain was going down my leg,” he explains.
He’d met Dr. Drake previously through Titleist Performance Institute.
“His passion and willingness to help, to go out of his way, his kindness, how he works around my schedule—mine, not his—it’s remarkable,” Pernice says, saying that his pain is “getting better every day, and I was just able to play in a tournament without any issues. Now I’m working on getting flexibility and range of motion back in my hamstrings, but I was able to play without any issues. It’s been phenomenal actually.”
Baseball pitcher Seth Blair with the Boston Red Sox organization had also reached out to Dr. Drake.
“I really wanted to understand my body to the best ability I could, and I felt like Dr. Sean brought a perspective that made sense to me,” he explains.
Blair says Dr. Drake helped him address body movements that improved his game, as well as alleviated aches and pains he had.
“He has such an understanding that he can teach something complicated and make it seem really easy,” Blair says.
Professional baseball player Jordan Pacheco has been working with Dr. Drake for five months.
“I wanted to become a better baseball player and I felt like I was plateauing with my ability but I believed I had more in the tank,” he says of his reason for seeking him out. “[Dr. Drake] gave me a total body evaluation and told me I was not getting old, that I just needed to clean up a few movement patterns and I would be surprised with how much better I would be able to hit and throw the baseball. He was right. He was able to give me more mobility from my hips to my thorax that allowed me to get into certain position in my swing that increases power and velocity.”
Of course, not everyone Dr. Drake treats is a professional athlete.
“Everybody is an athlete within themselves,” Dr. Drake says. “Most people have just forgotten how to function.”
On any given day at his location in South Scottsdale you would see a range of ages and abilities walking through his door.
“We can help a lot of kids, help them develop better and grow correctly,” he explains of some of his younger patients.
“When you’re a healer, you can’t be anything else.” AthleteChiropractic.com