Sports Chiropractor · Downtown San Francisco · ProActive Systems-Based Bodywork™
Elite athlete-level care. For every body.
First visit guarantee — seen, heard, and hopeful
The diagnostic framework we developed working with Team USA athletes doesn't require you to be elite or an athlete. It requires a body.
If you've tried PT, massage, rest, an orthopedist, YouTube, AI — even another chiropractor — and the problem keeps returning, you don't have a pain problem. You have a pattern that hasn't been identified yet.
Pain is a signal, not a location. The site of discomfort is rarely the source of dysfunction — it's where the system finally ran out of compensation capacity. We work forward from the mechanism.
Fragmented care produces fragmented results. A hip problem that shows up as knee pain. A shoulder issue rooted in thoracic restriction. We see the pattern, not the part.
Fixed and re-injured. Temporarily better, then back to square one. When a problem keeps returning, the issue was never the injury site — it was the pattern driving it. Most protocols work backwards from the symptom and call it done when the pain quiets. We work forward from the mechanism. More on sports chiropractic →
Dismissed. Told to rest. Sent home with a referral. These aren't complicated cases — they're just being looked at wrong. Dr. Cohen's story →
Range of motion loss, rotator cuff injuries, and frozen shoulder are among the most mismanaged conditions in musculoskeletal care. The mechanism is almost never where the shoulder is. More on shoulder pain →
Knee pain is rarely a knee problem. It's a load transfer problem — from the hip, the foot, or both. We find where the chain broke. More on knee pain →
A sprained ankle that keeps re-spraining isn't bad luck. It's a stability pattern that never got corrected the first time. More on ankle pain →
Jaw dysfunction is one of the most underreferred conditions in chiropractic. Cervical mechanics drive it more often than people expect. Most patients are surprised it's even on the menu. More on TMJ →
Not a sales line. We're confident enough in our diagnostic process to back it. Most patients leave their first visit understanding their bodies better — not just feeling temporary relief, but knowing why something has been happening and seeing a path to fixing it. We won't undo in one visit the patterns your body has been running for years. What we will do is make sure you feel genuinely heard by someone who can read what your body is actually doing — and leave knowing what it will take to change it. If that's not your experience, we'll refund your first visit in full.
The patients who understand their bodies best — elite athletes, people who've learned the hard way — all know the same truth: the moment something starts feeling off is the moment to act. Not when it becomes pain. Not when it becomes chronic. Pain is your body yelling because you ignored every quieter signal it sent first. Fix the whisper. Don't wait for the shout.
You also don't have to accept "you're just getting older," a generic exercise sheet, or the same advice every TikTok algorithm and insurance-driven protocol hands to everyone. Your body has a specific history and a specific pattern. You deserve a diagnosis built around that — not a treatment built around a billing code.
22 Battery St., Suite 600 · Downtown San Francisco
Most people have no real record of their body's past — just a patchwork of symptoms, quick fixes, and conflicting advice. We've designed a step-by-step process to help you map your body's full history: what it's carried, how it's compensated, and what it's still trying to tell you. A review this thorough gives Dr. Cohen the full picture that fragmented care was never designed to provide — and that's where the real patterns emerge.
This is where we turn on muscle groups that have been compensating instead of cooperating. We'll make adjustments, release long-held tension, and show you how your body actually wants to move. You'll see where you're overcompensating, what's working too hard, and what's been offline without you even knowing.
In the days between your first and second sessions, we watch what your body holds onto — and what it reverts to. What stays? What doesn't? This is how we observe your system integrating change.
By the second session, the deeper patterns begin to emerge. This is where we move beyond the surface and start listening for what your body isn't saying out loud — the compensations it's been making, the places you've been overriding instead of recalibrating. We take what we've observed during incubation and connect the dots between movement, history, and compensation patterns. This is the beginning of true re-patterning — addressing not just where it hurts, but why it hurts, and how to shift it for good.
Our ongoing sessions are where change becomes permanent. Every session treats what's active and builds your ability to read what your body is communicating. Running through all of it is the Proactive Protocol™ — Dr. Cohen's muscle testing method, applied at every step throughout every session to test, adjust, and confirm that what he's doing is actually landing. You'll begin to move more freely, breathe more fully, and know what you're feeling and why — not just in isolated moments, but over time. You'll leave not only with physical shifts, but with language and clarity around what's happening inside your system and how to support it between sessions.
"I love seeing Andrew as he understands human bodies unlike any medical professional I've seen — knowing within minutes if the challenges are musculoskeletal and/or emotional/psychological. I've been coming to ProActive for different issues over the last two years. Most importantly the extraordinary chiropractic care Dr. Cohen offers. He comes from several generations of family practitioners and has been practicing bodywork/healing since he essentially was a kid."
"He doesn't do a cookie cutter treatment plan — he listens, understands, asks the right questions, then explains what he thinks is happening. I trust him with whatever technique he thinks is best. Recently I had severe tendonitis for 6+ months with no help from Kaiser. Dr. Cohen introduced me to Shockwave Therapy he'd been working with at the Olympic Training Center. After a couple months of treatments, I'm feeling fantastic. Life changing."
"I have been in a health-related industry for over 30 years and I am very particular about who I allow to influence my health and well being. Dr. Andrew Cohen far exceeds any expectations one might have concerning sports chiropractic care. These are a few of the conditions I have experienced: spasms, spinal mis-alignments, scoliosis, spinal stenosis, herniated discs, low back pain, shoulder pain, rotator cuff injury, hand, leg and arm pains. Thanks to Dr. Cohen's gentle yet powerful skills, I am pain-free, travel extensively, and spend time regularly at the gym. One last thing: He's the Best!"
"ProActive's approach, without question, is 100% the best, most targeted, most effective bodywork I've ever done."
"Dr. Andrew Cohen is the closest I've ever gotten to experiencing magic. During the sessions, Dr. Andrew gets in tune with your body as he discovers and addresses the source of your pain. Everything he does feels so natural, and you have complete confidence you will walk out from the session with less to no pain."
"I ran over to Urgent Care — the doctor took X-rays, found nothing serious, told me to rest and take Ibuprofen. 40 minutes with Dr. Cohen, and I left the office feeling so much better and with more knowledge about what my issue really was. He took the time to explain what's going on."
"Visiting Dr. Cohen is one of the best decisions I've ever made. He completely changed my life. None of that is hyperbole. I was dealing with chronic foot/ankle pain preventing me from enjoying all of my favorite activities. PT didn't help. Steroid injections didn't help. Surgery didn't help. Then I found Dr. Cohen. I just finished 10 months of travel in Southeast Asia — running through rice terraces, climbing volcanoes — and it may not have been possible without him."
"His ability to figure out what is wrong is pretty remarkable — he finds connections between things you would probably never expect. I have been going to Dr. Cohen for over 10 years now and am really grateful I found him."
"I have suffered from lower back (SI joint) pain for 3 years and went through 4–5 providers of various types including osteopaths, acupuncturists, and specialized massage — and considered doing PRP. Dr. Cohen was methodical in his assessment and finally gave me the answers and results I had been searching for."
Because the injury isn't the problem — it's the symptom. Something in the way your system is loaded or moving is creating the conditions for that injury to happen, and if that pattern isn't identified, it will keep creating the same result. Rest doesn't fix a pattern. Neither does treating the site. We find the mechanism.
PT and chiropractic ask different questions. PT builds capacity and restores function. Dr. Cohen wouldn't still be in practice without the expertise of his PTs. Chiropractic identifies the structural mechanism driving the problem — and determining whether any downstream treatment will hold. Many of our patients are referred directly by their PTs for exactly this reason.
Probably. "I've tried everything" usually means you've tried everything that was offered to you which tends to be a fairly narrow set of protocols aimed at the symptom. You likely haven't had a full systems-level diagnostic that maps what's actually driving it. That's what the first visit is. Call us if you think you'll really stump us. If you're right, we'll save you the trouble of a visit and point you in the best direction we can.
Not at all! The diagnostic standard we developed working with Olympic athletes supports every body. We treat runners, Hyrox and hybrid athletes, desk warriors, musicians, kids, teachers, people devoted to their hobbies, people in recovery, everybody, every body. You don't need to be performing at any particular level to deserve our systems-based bodywork.
No — and if you wait until you're in pain, you've already waited too long. The patients who get the most durable results are the ones who come in when something starts feeling off: a tightness that won't resolve, a movement that doesn't feel right, a niggling thing you've been ignoring for three weeks. That's the window. Pain means the pattern is already entrenched. We can still fix it — we do it every day — but the earlier you come in, the less work it takes.
The Body Intelligence Assessment™ has two parts. Before you come in, you complete your Health Autobiography™ — a step-by-step process to map your body's full history. Dr. Cohen reviews it in full before you arrive. Then in the room: the System Reset. A full movement screen, postural and foot analysis, and the actual doctor actually listening to you and interrupting with clarifying questions. We turn on muscle groups that have been compensating instead of cooperating, identify the root mechanism driving the symptom, and you leave with a clear Proactive Protocol™ — what's happening, why it's been happening, and what it will take to correct it. Not a theory. A protocol.
Insurance reimbursement structures reward volume and speed (pills and techs), not the kind of thorough diagnostic work we do. A one-hour intake with a doctor who has over 20 years of experience doesn't fit in a billing code. We opted out of that model. Many patients use FSA/HSA accounts and we provide superbills for out-of-network reimbursement if your plan supports it.
22 Battery St., Suite 600, in downtown San Francisco (Financial District). One block from MUNI, the Embarcadero BART station, and a short walk from the Ferry Building. Street parking exists, but BART is easier. We're on the 6th floor; the building has a lobby attendant. If you take Waymo, get it to drop you off on Bush or Front Street — the bots can't handle Battery after 1pm.
Depends on how long the pattern has been running and how your system integrates change. Most patients feel a meaningful shift after the first visit. The second session — typically two days to a week later — is where we observe what held and begin working the deeper pattern. Some people need four to eight sessions. Others stay in ongoing care, and there's good reason to: the science on regular maintenance bodywork is solid for preventing injury and protecting training gains. We offer five-packs for patients who want them, but we don't push a treatment plan on anyone. You come when it's useful.
Yes. Serious adverse events from chiropractic adjustment are exceptionally rare — the research consistently puts them far below the risk profiles of the medications and surgeries often recommended for the same conditions. Chiropractic malpractice insurance rates are among the lowest in all of healthcare — lower even than family medicine or dermatology — which reflects what the actuarial data actually shows. Since 2001, the Department of Defense has been required by law to make chiropractic care available to veterans, which says something about how seriously it's taken at the highest levels of medicine. Chiropractic care for neck and spine issues in particular has a strong safety record when performed by an experienced clinician. Dr. Cohen has over 20 years of clinical experience and a diagnostic process designed specifically to identify contraindications before any treatment begins. If something isn't appropriate for chiropractic care, we'll tell you — and point you somewhere better.
Regularly. Patients fly in from Europe, Canada, and around the US specifically to see Dr. Cohen. If you're considering traveling, reach out early so we can help you plan a visit that makes the most of your time. For patients who prefer to bring care to them: Dr. Cohen travels with a full kit and is available for single or multi-day blocks at your location — including as part of a competition team or on expeditions where staying healthy and uninjured is the point. Reach out to arrange a call.
Schedule a Body Intelligence Assessment™ — downtown San Francisco. We'll tell you what we find — whether or not you continue care with us.