📍Pure Balance Center, 1425 Broad St, Suite 4, Clifton, NJ 07013
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Karen Moore walked into a chiropractor’s office 17 years ago because of a stubborn neck. She’s been returning ever since.
The 68-year-old Nutley resident still drives to Pure Balance Center in Clifton, still sees the same doctor, Dr. Michael Magwood, and still cannot quite explain why she stuck around this long, except to say that nothing else worked the way this did.
“When I first came here I had been to chiropractors before, but he was different,” Ms. Moore said. “And when I left I felt much better. I’ve had many problems throughout the years that he’s corrected.”
Pure Balance opened in 2001 as a chiropractic office. Twenty-five years later, it has grown into something closer to a small wellness ecosystem: a treatment center, a Pilates studio, and, more recently, a testing ground for new muscle-stimulation technology.
A Baseball Injury, Then a Practice
Dr. Michael Magwood did not set out to become a chiropractor. He wanted to play baseball.
“When I was younger, I thought I was a baseball player. Wishful thinking,” Dr. Magwood said. Chiropractic care, he said, was something he turned to in search of a competitive edge. The search became a career, then a practice, then, in 2001, a building of his own.
He describes the office less as a business than a philosophy. “This is an ultimate place to be well, to do things that are good for you from a doctor’s perspective,” he said. “We want people who are looking to correct problems, treat sickness and disease, but from a natural perspective.”
Much of what Dr. Magwood does is aimed at helping people avoid surgery in the first place. His team works alongside a network of orthopedic surgeons they trust and refer to, but surgery, he said, is always the last resort, not the first option.
“We’re also doing a regenerative medicine program, regenerative medicine involving PRP therapy for joints, even mesenchymal stem cells for joints, anesthetics, other soft tissue injuries, even metabolic cases,” Dr. Magwood said.
The same PRP therapy also shows up on the aesthetic side of the practice, where it is used for facial microneedling, paired with a serum developed in-house.
From Newborns to Half MarathonERs
The waiting room draws a wide range of patients: infants days old, and adults training for endurance races.
Newborn visits, Dr. Magwood said, often center on what he calls communication through touch, gentle work aimed at issues like difficulty latching during breastfeeding. “Sometimes it’s the cranial or upper cervical spine of the baby. Sometimes it’s the jaw. Sometimes it’s just the connection between mom stress and baby stress,” he said.
Older patients see results they do not always notice building. “This fella did a personal best in a half marathon where he thought he wasn’t running at all,” Dr. Magwood said.
The Pilates Studio That Grew Out of an Injury
Sarah Inez teaches the clinical Pilates classes at Pure Balance now, but she started as a patient, after a hip injury sent her looking for help. Chiropractic adjustments and targeted strength work, she found, reinforced each other.
“It’s a really intimate setting,” Ms. Inez said of the studio. “I get to know each person individually, what they’re working through. It’s a lot of strength, mobility, flexibility training. You get it all in one session.”
Ms. Moore has been coming to the Pilates classes for close to 16 years. “I love Pilates. I have a lot of friends here too that go. We’ve got a retired crew,” she said.
Testing the Machine That ACCELERATES a Six-Pack
The practice’s newest addition does not resemble either the treatment rooms or the studio. EmSculpt Neo uses high-intensity focused electromagnetic energy, paired with radio-frequency heat, to trigger thousands of muscle contractions a patient could not produce on their own.
Dr. Magwood offered a demonstration. The verdict, after several minutes of heat and pulses, was enthusiastic, if slightly winded.
For all the equipment in the building, Dr. Magwood traces the results to something simpler. “The power that made the body is the thing that heals the body,” he said. “We’re just able to leverage principles and science.”
It is a version of that idea that keeps Ms. Moore coming back, 17 years on, for reasons that have little to do with a six-pack.
“Because of that, I can get up and down off the floor, and I can do all kinds of things that other people my age can’t do,” she said.
Pure Balance Center is at 1425 Broad Street in Clifton. Book an appointment, ask about the EmSculpt Neo demo, or just stop in to see the Pilates studio for yourself at purebalancecenter.com. Tell them Farnoosh and Mike sent you.
