Administering waves of relief

Newport Beach sports chiropractor Dr. Tim Brown, also known as the “Beach Doc,” still tries to surf every day, even at age 49.

He knows the importance of flexibility. In his business, he’s trying to stress it to the athletes he works with.

Last year, Brown sold the rights to his latest sports performance invention, the S3, to Alignmed, Inc. of Santa Ana.

The S3, which stands for spine and scapula stabilizer, is a synthetic shirt worn beneath a uniform or normal clothing to improve posture, reduce pain and speed up injury recovery time.

Alignmed is currently testing the product, and the company, in conjunction with Brown, hopes to deliver a retail product soon.

It’s the latest in a long line of inventions from Brown, who also developed the “Brown strap” knee brace and the “shoulder controller” while working as the director of sports medicine for the AVP Tour in the early 1990s.

The S3 is just one more invention that helps his patients, who include Estancia High graduate and AVP Tour player Matt Fuerbringer, and seven-time pro surfing world champion Kelly Slater.

“We’re stimulating the nervous system to help the body support the injury, instead of just using the tape or the brace,” Brown said. “And it’s not cumbersome or restrictive. It came to me one night. I woke up in the middle of the night and starting cutting up a wetsuit and sewed it together to use on [former pro volleyball star] Randy Stoklos.”

Humble beginnings, but so are the Beach Doc’s. Brown played volleyball and football while at Newport Harbor High, playing cornerback and backup quarterback on the gridiron. But after graduating in 1974, he went on to quarterback the University of Redlands for four years, reaching the 1976 NAIA national championship game.

The summer before Brown was to take the Medical College Admission Test, he read an article about Dr. LeRoy Perry, a sports chiropractor who was treating many of the great sports stars of the time, like Carl Lewis, Dwight Stones and Bruce Jenner.

Perry emphasized treating the whole person, rather than the specific injury. It’s a philosophy that Brown still carries today.

“I was an often-injured athlete in my career,” Brown said. “It made sense to have the athlete learn about their body, and healing their body … our philosophy is education.”

After graduating from the Cleveland Chiropractic College of Los Angeles in the early 1980s, Brown got involved with the Assn. of Surfing Professionals, which he has now been working with for more than 20 years. He said he is director of sports medicine for the next main ASP event, which will be the Boost Mobile Pro tournament, Sept. 12-16 at Trestles.

“My dad surfed, so, naturally, he was just the coolest guy on the block,” Brown said of his father Bill Brown, a longtime assistant football coach at Newport Harbor High.

“Of course, surfing is the coolest thing anyway. It was something I became passionate about. It was like breathing, just kind of a part of life.”

Along with being director of sports medicine for the AVP Tour throughout the late 1980s and ‘90s, Brown also dabbled as a pro beach volleyball player.

However, he quickly realized that his future was on the sideline.

“There was a saying, ‘Uno, dos, adios,’ and that was me for a lot of the tournaments,” Brown said. “I usually played early in the tournament, then worked on the athletes later.”

Brown still works with players like Fuerbringer, who said the S3 is an important part of his training.

“I worked with Tim twice a week last year,” Fuerbringer said. “[The S3] really works well. Tim used to do tape jobs on me, but that’s why he invented it, so he doesn’t have to be there. Tape only lasts for so long, and it’s a pain to get off.”

Brown has also operated Newport Spine and Sport along Mariner’s Mile for about 20 years, but said he is taking a break from the business to work on individual athletes.

That list is quite impressive. Brown has also worked with basketball star Kobe Bryant, former heavyweight boxing champion Lennox Lewis and baseball star Jeff Kent, among other impressive names.

He estimated that 70% of his clients are athletes.

Justin Frandson is the president of sports training company Athleticism, which has a branch in Corona del Mar. He also works with Fuerbringer and many other professional and collegiate athletes and employs the S3 device in his training.

“[I] really connected [with Brown] because we spoke the same language,” Frandson said. “All of the various exercises we do with our athletes, they have to have good posture. That really plays an instrumental role in it. The S3 corrects posture instantly and it actively corrects it, which is a very positive thing.”

Frandson said the device also leads to many other benefits for athletes.

“With improved posture, your strength, energy and stamina are better,” he said. “You’ll be able to perform at a higher level for a longer duration. We focus on working at a deeper level with our athletes, and posture is something that a lot of people miss.”

Even after all of these years, surfing is something that the Beach Doc tries not to miss. He said it’s something he finds therapeutic.

“When you project into the future, you get stressed,” Brown said. “Surfing makes you deal with the now and that’s really, really healthy. It’s pure therapy and pure joy.”