Dr Peter Goldman: Zone Healing For the World's Best Fighters

By Ben Cohen: CAT Scans, x-rays, surgery and physiotherapy are words familiar to most professional athletes. Injuries can hamper an athlete's career and personal life to the point where retirement often seems the best option.

Injury is frequently a major part of an athlete's life, and an issue many are willing to live with. The process of rehabilitation is sometimes too prolonged and expensive for many professionals to take seriously. For fighters, inactivity spells disaster for their already fragile careers. If they cannot fight, they cannot get paid.

Chronic shoulder, neck and back problems are often dampened with painkillers and cortisone shots so that a fighter can perform. Sometimes, they will just fight through it. Fernando Vargas suffered serious lower back issues. Evander Holyfield has fought with chronic shoulder pain, while Vitali Klitschko retired at the peak of his career due to the plethora of injuries sustained over the years.

There is a man who says with the utmost confidence, that he can help you in a few sessions. And those sessions take no longer than 2 minutes each.

Dr Peter Goldman, DC, or 'Dr Pete' as known to his patients, is open for 2 hours a day, 5 days a week in his Los Angeles practice. He is a licensed chiropractor, a former competitive full contact karate fighter and one of the very few 'Zone Doctors' in the world.

Although it seems too good to be true, the testimonials of his high profile patients suggest otherwise. Lucia Rijker, BJ Penn, Rigan Machado, and Rob Kaman (all world champions in their various combat sports), have been, or regularly go to see Dr Pete.

Former welterweight UFC world champion BJ Penn was so impressed with Dr Pete's healing, that he flies him out to wherever he is fighting.

Says Penn: "I had suffered for months with a major neck injury that had been diagnosed as multiple herniated discs in my neck. I was in constant pain, especially if I tried to train. Nothing I had tried to heal myself had worked at all. After only 3 Zone Healing sessions with Dr. Pete (which took about 2 minutes each!), my neck was 100% healed and has remained that way. I can't believe it. In fact, as strange as this may sound, I didn't want to believe it".

Upon examining other testimonials on Dr Pete's website, www.drpetergoldman.com, other amazing healing experiences are not the exception, but the norm.

The legendary Heavyweight Kick Boxer, Rob Kaman (regarded by many to be the best ever), was in serious pain after surgery on his neck before seeing Dr Pete.

"After 110 professional fights I had surgery on my neck for a herniated disc but never really recovered and I was always in pain", says Kaman as part of his testimonial.

"After a couple of treatments with Dr. Pete, I was as good as new. I met in my career many healers, and Dr Pete is by far the most simple and effective healer I have met, and I have been around, believe me. In my book Dr. Pete is # 1."

So how exactly does the system, created by a man named Dr Thurman Fleet in the early 1930's, actually work?

"Zone Healing is a way to adjust the whole person physically, mentally and spiritually", says Dr Pete.

"Zone Healing is something that realises that the body is a reflection of the life, or the soul, an as the soul goes, the body goes," he continues. "Meaning that, because we live in a very physical world, and people are familiar with what they call cause and effect, when they have something wrong in their body that is physical, they always look for a physical cause, so they'll say, 'Oh, my stomach hurts, I must have ate the wrong thing', or 'my neck hurts, maybe I turned the wrong way', but actually that is almost never the cause."

And what then, does Zone Healing attribute physical illness to?

"The cause is on a soul level," he answers sincerely.

Given modern medicines philosophy of treating the symptoms, rather than the cause, how can this be explained to the average person raised on popping pills and visiting traditional doctors?

"If someone is angry all the time, your stomach is probably going to hurt", says Dr Pete, emphasising the relationship between the soul and the physical. "Another example would be if people don't express their creativity, their glandular system can break down".

And how does the Zone Healing system correct this?

"What zone healing does is it takes the physical manifestation of the imbalance and it balances it, addressing the six main systems of the body; the glandular, the eliminative, nerve, digestive, muscular and circulatory systems."

"On a physical level, zone healing will determine which of those systems need balancing, and then go about balancing them."

When patients come into Dr Pete's office, they are told to lie face down on his adjusting table. He then prods at the back of the patients head, which tells him exactly which of the six zones are off.

"Your 4th zone is off. That's your digestive system. I'll balance it for you", he says matter-of-factly.

Dr Pete then runs his hands down the patients back, and adjusts a spot on the spine. A popping noise is usually heard, followed by a huge sensation of relief. He follows with further prodding of the head, and further 'adjustments' along the spine and the neck.

Overall, the process takes 1-2 minutes. He sits the patient up, pats them on the back saying, "You're done. See me a couple more times".

The physical side to Zone Healing is only the first stage to genuine health though, says Dr Pete.

"The next step Zone Healing takes is to heal people not only on a physical level, but on a spiritual level. And when that level is also addressed the physical can heal more efficiently"

Lucia Rijker, regarded almost universally as the greatest female boxer ever, is a regular at Dr Pete's, and one of his patients who has taken Zone Healing beyond just the physical.

"Lucia is a good friend of mine, and she does get adjusted by me, and she really understands the philosophy of Dr Fleet and she loves it herself", says Dr Pete.

"She's a healthy girl. I met Lucia before her scheduled fight with Christy Martin, and she had some problems, nothing horrible, a few things that were not healing, and then unfortunately on an unrelated note, she busted her Achilles tendon while she was training for that fight. She's a good friend of mine, and I keep her in tip-top condition."

Despite being a licensed chiropractor, and uses many of its technique when working with, his patients, he believes the profession is not what it once was.

"Chiropractic has just fallen apart as a profession in general", he says candidly. "There are still some great ones out there, but in general it has become very limited. Chiropractic is great, there are many different techniques, and what they all want to do is find out how the spine needs to be aligned and they go about aligning it. So, I'm a chiropractor by degree, but Zone Healing, according to its founder, Dr Fleet, has to do with stimulating the spinal chord to balance the brain centers, which is quite a few steps above chiropractic as it is known today."

"The actual manipulation of the bones, any chiropractor could do it, but it is the consciousness behind it that creates the healing," he says.

Although Dr Pete treats many professional athletes, he does not see himself as a sports doctor.

"I like it when a woman, or a man, comes into to see me who has had asthma their whole life, who has been puffing on an inhaler, and after a few treatments breathes perfectly and never has to use their inhaler again. That's what I like to see. I like it when someone comes in who has had migraine headaches for 10 years and after a few sessions never have one again. That's what is really cool to see".

December 18th 2006.


Ben Cohen can be reached at benfu1@yahoo.com