124. Live Pain Free Naturally with Rick Olderman
Live Pain Free Naturally with Rick Olderman
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In this week's Wellness Wednesday episode Evan is joined by Rick Olderman. Rick is a Sports and Orthopedic Physical Therapist with over 25 years of experience in the field. Rick has written multiple books on how to live pain free from The Fixing You series to his most recent book, Solving the Pain Puzzle. Rick is truly dedicated to helping people discover the cause of their pain and teaching them how to correct it and live a life free of pain without the use of pain medications. Through Rick's years of work as a PT, he has been able to understand how the body over compensates for injuries that later lead to common pains such as sciatic pain, knee pain, and back pain.
In this episode Evan and Rick break down specifically issues and causes of hip pain by using Evan as an example. Being that Evan has had some pain in his left hip, Rick took this as an opportunity to break down how he would explain hip pain to one of his patients while providing knowledge and actionable steps that Evan can take to improve the pain in his hip without the use of medication or surgery. This is a great episode for anyone dealing with any type of physical pain and can help you understand your body and prevent a life of pain in the future.
I hope this episode leaves you feeling empowered and serves as a platform of knowledge for you to access and use in your life to improve your health and wellness in any way possible. My goal with all of these episodes is to provide you with knowledge, so that you can make the best decisions for your health. As always, do everything with good intentions and connect to your elements.
Disclaimer:
This podcast is for educational purposes only, it is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. Evan Roberts is not a medical professional and this podcast is provided on the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. Statements and views expressed on this show are not medical advice, this podcast, including Evan Roberts and any guests on the show, disclaims responsibility for any possible adverse effects from the use of information contained in this episode. If you think you have a medical problem please consult a medical professional.
Transcript
Hey, what's going on everybody?
Speaker:Welcome back to the Elemental Evan Show.
Speaker:Thank you all for joining me on this beautiful Wellness Wednesday.
Speaker:Today I am joined by the one and only Rick Alderman.
Speaker:He is a sports orthopedic physical therapist with over 25 years
Speaker:of experience, as well as an author of, uh, the Fixing You
Speaker:book series, is that correct?
Speaker:As well as a, a new book called Solving the Pain Puzzle?
Speaker:That is correct.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Thanks.
Speaker:Thanks for having me on.
Speaker:Yeah, no, thank you so much for, for joining me.
Speaker:And, uh, I'm, I'm really excited.
Speaker:I love talking with, uh, people who are very experienced with the
Speaker:workings of the body, uh, from a anatomically to physiologically.
Speaker:And, uh, I, think we.
Speaker:Kind of, uh, use and abuse our bodies without thinking about the functioning of
Speaker:it and, and focusing on form and how we, you know, the way we carry our bodies is
Speaker:gonna play a role out in the long term.
Speaker:Um, so I'm really excited to have you on here.
Speaker:And first I wanna start with how did you get into this field?
Speaker:So, uh, I became a physical therapist.
Speaker:I had back pain myself.
Speaker:I wanted to see what the insider's secrets.
Speaker:Those never came in PT school.
Speaker:And, uh, that kind of bore out in, uh, after PT school, my first job, I
Speaker:felt Evan, that I was complete failure as a phy physical therapist in terms
Speaker:of helping people with any kind of more chronic or complicated issue.
Speaker:Uh, I felt school prepared me really well for acute issues, sprains, strains,
Speaker:post-surgery, pre-surgery, all that kind of stuff, did really well with that.
Speaker:But anyone with any kind of chronic.
Speaker:I was a failure at, and, and basically I sunk into a deep depression for a few
Speaker:years until I realized that it wasn't just me who was failing with people with
Speaker:chronic pain, it was most of medicine.
Speaker:And, uh, I realized that when I moved to Denver eventually and my schedule
Speaker:immediately filled with tons of people with chronic injuries, and these were
Speaker:all, this was at an elite health club.
Speaker:I worked at downtown.
Speaker:And, you know, twenties to 70 year olds, well, to do well educated,
Speaker:access to all medical facilities, specialists and so forth.
Speaker:All of them had chronic issues that no one could solve, I thought.
Speaker:And that's when I realized it wasn't just me.
Speaker:And so my last 25 years, I've been just trying to figure out what's going on here.
Speaker:And that's what my books are about and that's what my current
Speaker:book and home programs are about.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Uh, thank you for sharing that.
Speaker:Yeah, I know.
Speaker:Um, I, I always like to ask that question because I feel like there's
Speaker:always a story behind our passions and, um, you know, like, like you said,
Speaker:like feeling kind of like a failure.
Speaker:Uh, I dealt with a lot of gastrointestinal issues as a kid and I felt kind of
Speaker:failed by the medical system as well.
Speaker:They really told me that.
Speaker:It's just like, Hey, i b s and, and, you know, all these symptoms you're feeling
Speaker:are just kind of things you're gonna have to deal with for the rest of your life.
Speaker:You know, like there's no kind of real known cure.
Speaker:Um, and you know, it's through that feeling like a failure that sometimes
Speaker:you either rise to the challenge or you allow it to take you down.
Speaker:But, um, obviously you've, you've risen to the challenge and, and exceeded.
Speaker:So, um, that's really awesome.
Speaker:And in terms of, You, you say that you had a lot of people dealing with
Speaker:these chronic pain and, and issues.
Speaker:Uh, what were more of the common pains that they were feeling like,
Speaker:was there, was there a th uh, like a common theme there with, with
Speaker:certain injuries that you were seeing?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, by far back pain, sciatic pain, things like that, chronic
Speaker:neck pain, headaches, uh, were the, were the most prevalent by.
Speaker:Then, then there was also, you know, hip pain.
Speaker:And then after that, everything else, knee pain, foot pain, elbow
Speaker:pain, shoulder pain, you name it.
Speaker:But those, those were the top ones.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And, uh, I, I gotta ask, why, why do you think it is that?
Speaker:Um, cause I, I, even for myself personally, not even being in the
Speaker:physical therapy realm or anything, um, just kind of in the health and
Speaker:wellness, I, I hear a lot of people who are dealing with sciatica, pain,
Speaker:and even, uh, like hip pain as well.
Speaker:Um, yes.
Speaker:And for myself personally, I, uh, in my left hip kind of right where the
Speaker:femur bone comes into the pelvis, Um, is where I have a bit of pain as well, and
Speaker:I, I'm guessing it's a hip imbalance.
Speaker:Um, I'm not completely sure on that.
Speaker:But why, why is this such a common issue?
Speaker:Is it because of all the muscles that, you know, the, you know, the
Speaker:gluteus maximus is just like with so many different, uh, muscles coming in
Speaker:together or, or what is causing that?
Speaker:Well, most back and sciatic pain.
Speaker:The reason why they're so common is because they're com so commonly
Speaker:misunderstood and that's, that's why we have chronic issues, chronic issue.
Speaker:I've come to believe are really just acute issues that no one
Speaker:seems to be able to solve.
Speaker:And so they just become a chronic issue because no one is able
Speaker:to understand the acute issue.
Speaker:So with regards to what you're talking about with your left hip, and, uh, and
Speaker:if we talk about sciatic pain, there's a common thing in with hips that's called,
Speaker:uh, an anterior femoral glide syndrome, and that just means that the, the femur
Speaker:head is gliding forward in the hip.
Speaker:And it shouldn't.
Speaker:It should just be pivoting in the hip socket.
Speaker:But this is a very common problem, and it can cause pure
Speaker:former syndrome in the back.
Speaker:It can cause bursitis in the side.
Speaker:It can cause groin pain in the front.
Speaker:It can cause global hip pain.
Speaker:You can imagine it's like a washing machine that's out of balance, just
Speaker:coring around in there and banging against the sides of the ASCE tablum, right?
Speaker:And so that breaks down things more rapidly.
Speaker:And this is the, this is the focus of my whole approach is it's not,
Speaker:it's not so important to understand.
Speaker:I mean, it's, it's important to understand that that's happening.
Speaker:But really in order to solve these kinds of problems in all problems,
Speaker:chronic problems in the body, you have to understand why this is happening.
Speaker:And so if we can solve the why's, then we're gonna solve our chronic pain.
Speaker:And so many people would say, oh, you've got an anterior freal Gly syndrome,
Speaker:so let's treat the tissues in the hip.
Speaker:But that's not addressing the reason why it's happen.
Speaker:So the reason it's happening is because of poor gluteal muscle or butt muscle
Speaker:function, the butt muscle runs from the sacrum basically to that hip bone.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:And it's job, it's massive, right?
Speaker:It's hugely powerful.
Speaker:So it's designed architecturally to be working all day long, and when it's not
Speaker:working, that's when the deeper muscles, like the pure Forus, jamus, all these kind
Speaker:of a little tiny guys inside, they start overworking because the big guy is under.
Speaker:And that's generally how it works in the body.
Speaker:So then the next question to answer why is, why is the butt muscle not working?
Speaker:And that has to do with your behavior and how you're
Speaker:standing and how you're walking.
Speaker:And so the most common reason that this is getting turned off the
Speaker:butt muscle is because of lock locking the knee while walking.
Speaker:When you lock the knee while walking or standing, it turns
Speaker:off all your pelvic muscle.
Speaker:Because now you're standing on joints and you don't gotcha, need mu muscular
Speaker:activity to hold yourself up, and so this eventually starts shutting this down.
Speaker:Then you get the slow migration of the femur head.
Speaker:It starts careening around in there.
Speaker:Pretty soon, labral tears occur.
Speaker:Arthritic changes happen.
Speaker:Veritis starts to happen.
Speaker:All sorts of things start to complain.
Speaker:And you go to a doctor or other, you know, medical practitioner
Speaker:and they'll identify all those tissues that are getting irritated.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:And we have a thousand te different tests to understand
Speaker:which tissue is getting irritated.
Speaker:We have X-rays, MRIs, orthopedic tests, and physical therapy chiropractor,
Speaker:but we have zero tests that identify why those tissues are irritated.
Speaker:And that's what I feel we've been missing in at least physical.
Speaker:And from what I've been talking with, chiropractors feel the same way too.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Uh, no, I, that was an excellent explanation.
Speaker:Uh, something I haven't heard before.
Speaker:And, uh, yeah, I, I really like the way you, you, you kind of addressed
Speaker:that, you know, I think a lot of our, um, medical field in a way is kind of
Speaker:all about just treating the symptoms and not finding that root cause.
Speaker:And like you're saying right here with, you know, all these hip pains,
Speaker:it's like, yeah, we can address the muscles that are in pain and, and.
Speaker:You know, do something with those.
Speaker:But if we're not getting to the reason why they're in pain, then
Speaker:it's just gonna keep reoccurring.
Speaker:Um, so definitely Then in terms of trying to combat this, uh, pain
Speaker:in the hip or sciatica, it, it, you're saying it mainly comes down
Speaker:to, uh, like I know you mentioned.
Speaker:Locking out the, the, the knees, right?
Speaker:And just basically using the joints to support ourselves
Speaker:and not activate our muscles.
Speaker:Uh, so that's one reason why, uh, we might be relaxing this glu,
Speaker:uh, this glute muscle too much.
Speaker:Um, are there other things like, for example, maybe favoring a side, like
Speaker:when you're talking with someone and you kind of lean over to one side,
Speaker:or maybe even when you're in the gym doing a workout, if you're not.
Speaker:With your feet in the correct positioning and, and doing your lift correctly
Speaker:and maybe lifting more with one of your, whatever your favorite side is.
Speaker:Uh, do those all play a role in these pains?
Speaker:Uh, by all means.
Speaker:And, uh, you know, you're touching on a lot of things we can go very deeply
Speaker:into, but one of the things I wanted to say first was, I don't think you'll ever
Speaker:find a practitioner who says that they're not addressing the root causes of pain.
Speaker:Every practitioner is trying to and believes that they.
Speaker:And regardless of whether they're addressing symptoms or not, uh, you, you
Speaker:know, you will not find a practitioner who says, I'm not, I, I I'm not gonna
Speaker:address the root I'm gonna address.
Speaker:You know, I'm, you know, I'm gonna, so the, it's, it's our, it's
Speaker:finding a practitioner that really understands what the root causes are.
Speaker:That's the difficult problem.
Speaker:It's not finding a practitioner that says that they're treating the root cause and
Speaker:the, the clue that you have that someone isn't really addressing the root cause.
Speaker:If the problem keeps coming back again and again, do you have to keep going
Speaker:back to that practitioner for weeks, months, years, for the same type
Speaker:of treatment in order to stay well?
Speaker:Well, our, we're not born needing continual adjustments to our body in
Speaker:order for our body to work correctly.
Speaker:What's missing there is your own idea of how you should be using your body.
Speaker:That's where the problem.
Speaker:The practitioner is trying to reduce your pain for you.
Speaker:They think that they're addressing the root cause.
Speaker:But again, if your, if your issues keep returning, they are not, no
Speaker:matter what their good intentions are, they don't understand how
Speaker:all of this is fitting together.
Speaker:Now, to go on to your other question about the hip.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So I would almost guarantee Evan that if I were to measure your pelvic
Speaker:height, we would find, especially since you said that your left hip is.
Speaker:Yeah, that we would find that your left side of your pelvis
Speaker:is higher than your right.
Speaker:Gotcha.
Speaker:And you may have been told that your left leg is longer than your right.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:And, uh, so what happens is when we have a chronic problem,
Speaker:In, in one of the legs, right?
Speaker:It could be an old ankle injury, knee, hip, whatever.
Speaker:What happens is the, the brain taps into this refl ancient reflex
Speaker:pattern that we're born with called a withdrawal or reflex pattern,
Speaker:and it says, you know what?
Speaker:You know, in order for you to do what you say you want to be doing, you know,
Speaker:running that, you know, playing that sport or lifting in the gym or whatever it.
Speaker:I think, you know, in order to get off of this problem area, I'm just gonna
Speaker:hike up this pelvis a little bit here.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:And get you off of that.
Speaker:It's like if you had a pebble in your shoe, you wouldn't land hard on that
Speaker:pebble every time you would start walking a little bit lighter on that foot Right.
Speaker:To get off of that.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And that's what your brain is doing, is it's unloading the problem area.
Speaker:And it does that by lifting up the pelvis.
Speaker:Well, the muscles that are lifting up that pelvis attach the ribcage.
Speaker:So then it also pulls down the rib.
Speaker:And for those of you just listening, you can imagine, I
Speaker:call this a side bending problem.
Speaker:You can imagine one side of your pelvis up and the same side down, and the same
Speaker:side ribcage down, which then creates compression on this side of the spine.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Well, the nerve roots that are on that side of the spine
Speaker:comprise the sciatic nerve, right?
Speaker:So then this then creates sciatic nerve.
Speaker:So, but then it's blamed on the perfors or, you know, SI
Speaker:joint or something like that.
Speaker:And so you get treatment to those tissues, but it's not addressing the
Speaker:older problem that's causing this whole pattern to occur in the first place.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:And so in 80, 80 to 90% of people with a sciatic nerve pain or si joint pain
Speaker:or unilateral back pain, when, when they have this pattern, it's, it's
Speaker:due to an older problem in that same.
Speaker:In 10 to 20% of the people, it's due to a compensation pattern
Speaker:from a problem in the other leg.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Interesting.
Speaker:Uh, makes a lot of sense.
Speaker:And in, you know, like, now thinking of it, like everything you're saying,
Speaker:I'm like, okay, that, yeah, I kind of can notice the hiking up of that hip
Speaker:or even, you know, the, the ribs coming down closer to the, to the hip area.
Speaker:Um, so in terms.
Speaker:Yeah, I definitely, after this, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna get this checked for sure.
Speaker:Um, so, and then in terms of, you know, combating that or trying to correct
Speaker:that, are there practices, and I know you have all of these books that you've
Speaker:written, and I'm, I'm sure a lot of them cover it, but are there some
Speaker:tips that you have for people dealing with, like either that pain or a
Speaker:sciatic pain or, or anything like that?
Speaker:Oh, sure.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean, this.
Speaker:We can solve in 10 steps.
Speaker:So it's super fast and easy to solve this because amazing.
Speaker:Ultimately, just like what we talked about with your, with your butt muscle
Speaker:getting turned off is due to the fact that you're locking your knees.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:So this pattern is occurring because of a gate pattern issue.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:The gate pattern issue is occurring likely because of that old.
Speaker:And that's why I can solve this by just, I mean, you can do it if, if you
Speaker:have someone test this in you and you find that that pelvis is higher and
Speaker:the ribcage is lower, take 10 steps with your left hand arm up in the
Speaker:air and have them remeasure it again.
Speaker:And I can almost guarantee that your pelvis and ribcage will be level.
Speaker:Whoa.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:And the reason it's level is because that what you're doing by lifting the hand
Speaker:up in the air is you are interrupting a compensation pattern that's occurring
Speaker:in your body, that's contributing to the pattern developing in the first place.
Speaker:Mm.
Speaker:You're forcing your body to be used more correctly.
Speaker:And therefore it fixes the side bending pattern.
Speaker:But this, you can't do this for the rest of your life, right?
Speaker:You can't walk around with your left arm up in the air, right?
Speaker:So you have to keep, keep asking, well, why is this thing happening, right?
Speaker:Why does my pelvis keep going up like that?
Speaker:Yes, I can correct it, but that's not the solution.
Speaker:The solution is why it's happening in the first place.
Speaker:And most people we're not trained to think of our old injur.
Speaker:20, 30 years ago as the progenitor of our current pain.
Speaker:I see it all the time.
Speaker:And so when I tell people, oh, you've got a side bending problem.
Speaker:You've got some older problem on this side.
Speaker:No, I have no injuries on that side.
Speaker:Well, I'm sorry, your body is telling me something different.
Speaker:You know?
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:And so we work, and what happens is if you can't identify what that old thing.
Speaker:As we correct how your body is being used, what it's gonna do is it's gonna
Speaker:put more pressure on that older injury and that old injury will surface.
Speaker:Huh, you know what?
Speaker:Now that my pel, my, this is all better, but gosh, my knee is hurting a lot.
Speaker:That's where the problem is.
Speaker:That's what you have to solve is your knee.
Speaker:That's what's causing all of this, because when we make everything work the way it
Speaker:should be, it's gonna put more stress on the thing that's not working well,
Speaker:and then that's gonna surface again.
Speaker:Does that make sense?
Speaker:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker:Um, and just you even saying that makes me remember.
Speaker:Uh, so I, I've actually fractured both of my ankles at different times.
Speaker:Um, and my left ankle, I believe it was on the, uh, the frontal
Speaker:part of my ankle, like on the, almost like the top of my foot.
Speaker:In that area.
Speaker:Um, so yeah, I'm sure that it's gonna be coming back to that, uh, that injury and
Speaker:probably dealing maybe with like pain.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:I explain to you what that, what that connection might be.
Speaker:All right?
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:So let's say that you, you've got this ankle fracture, all right?
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:And, and I would almost then guarantee that the ankle does not
Speaker:bend forward as well as it should.
Speaker:All right?
Speaker:So you've got probably a loss of Dorsa flex.
Speaker:Because the knee has to travel over the foot when we're walking or running right.
Speaker:Or anything like that.
Speaker:So what happens is now it's restricted.
Speaker:You've got a slight restriction in that range of motion.
Speaker:And then what happens is the tissues in the calf and soleus
Speaker:complex then become tighter.
Speaker:Mm.
Speaker:And so they become tighter and they start to also restrict that forward motion.
Speaker:Well, one of two things happens at, at, at this point, either
Speaker:the foot has to collapse more, cuz there are 26 joints in the.
Speaker:So it has a lot of accommodation in the foot that can occur, and
Speaker:therefore, and that's when you get things like plantar fascitis, chronic
Speaker:Morton's, neuros, things like that, and the foot weird things, right?
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:That don't seem to resolve.
Speaker:Or if your foot says, no, I'm not gonna take that load, I'm gonna
Speaker:throw you back up to the knee.
Speaker:Then the knee starts to get irritated or something.
Speaker:All right?
Speaker:But when the cap and soleus muscles start to lose their range of
Speaker:motion, they start to push the knee.
Speaker:Into that locked position again.
Speaker:Mm.
Speaker:Because they're becoming shorter, because you're not using the length
Speaker:that they're designed that they need in order to stay supple and at their
Speaker:proper length tension relationships.
Speaker:Does that make sense?
Speaker:Correct.
Speaker:Oh yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:That's, that's how that ankle can start promoting knee hyperextension.
Speaker:Right, which then shuts off the but muscle, which then causes
Speaker:the anterior femoral glide.
Speaker:Which then causes whatever issues you have here, and then your brain says,
Speaker:oh, I've gotta get off of this thing.
Speaker:Now you've got sciatic pain or SI joint pain.
Speaker:Uh, that's wild.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So, uh, yeah.
Speaker:So then kind of going to that, that route then, so is working on mobility in
Speaker:that area of where the previous injury was, is that kind of going to be key
Speaker:to then fixing everything up the way?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:We have to work on that mobility.
Speaker:Now we have to also understand is, you know, if the calf and sous
Speaker:are tighter on that side, what is the primary driver of that?
Speaker:Is it the ankle?
Speaker:Because it's also our sleeping habit.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:So when we sleep at night, and if you're a back sleeper, your covers
Speaker:are resting on your toes and they point the toes away from you,
Speaker:which shortens the calf and soleus.
Speaker:For that six to eight hours, if you're a stomach sleeper, the bed
Speaker:is, is forcing the foot to be in that position, which then shortens it.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:And if you sleep on your side, you'll notice that you're, you point your
Speaker:toes away from you, which also shortens the cap in so, of this complex.
Speaker:So not only could the ankle have been the, the thing that initially entered
Speaker:this, but your sleeping behaviors are the things that are perpetuating that.
Speaker:Yeah, makes sense.
Speaker:I mean, you're, you're laying in a position for eight hours every single day.
Speaker:It's gonna, it's gonna play out a large role.
Speaker:Um, yeah.
Speaker:And, and on that note, is there a perfect way to be sleeping that you know of?
Speaker:Is, is, uh, belly sleeping, side sleeping or back sleeping preferred or, um, does
Speaker:it just kind of depend on the person?
Speaker:Yeah, I, I, you know, there's a lot typically, especially
Speaker:if you have macrocytic pain, you're told never sleep on your.
Speaker:That's absolutely correct because that's, that's the, that's the
Speaker:worst position for your back.
Speaker:However, if that's your preferred sleeping position, then let's
Speaker:just figure out a better way for you to sleep on your stomach.
Speaker:Cuz I want you to sleep in a way, in a position where you're gonna sleep
Speaker:deeply, cuz that's when healing happens.
Speaker:You're arrested in the morning.
Speaker:So, uh, rather than say no, don't ever do that because.
Speaker:I, I've seen too many patients who are, who have been told not to do
Speaker:that, and then they end up tossing and turning all night because, and
Speaker:they can't get a good night's sleep.
Speaker:And now years have gone by and they're miserable because they're, now, they're in
Speaker:pain and exhausted from not sleeping well.
Speaker:Yeah, so it's really simple.
Speaker:I mean, just put a pillow underneath your chest if you're gonna, if you need
Speaker:to sleep on your stomach and you've got VA sciatic, Put a bell underneath your
Speaker:chest, introduce some flexion into the hip joint, and that will solve all the stress
Speaker:that's causing your back or hip pain.
Speaker:That way you can get a nice deep sleep.
Speaker:And if you have neck pain, that'll help take the torque off of your neck.
Speaker:Cuz now your head doesn't have to be turned like this.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So severely now you've got more space between your head and the bed
Speaker:and your and your head can be turned this much instead of cranked this.
Speaker:Mm.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Makes sense.
Speaker:Um, no thank you personally, thank you for, for that information.
Speaker:Uh, that's beneficial for not only myself, but hopefully a lot of the listeners.
Speaker:Um, now one, one question I get very often from people is, uh, you know,
Speaker:they work desk jobs, obviously with C O V D and everything like remote
Speaker:working has, has been on the rise.
Speaker:And, uh, you know, even before that people were sitting at
Speaker:desks for long periods of time.
Speaker:Uh, but what are.
Speaker:For one, what, what are some of the common symptoms people are
Speaker:getting from sitting too much?
Speaker:And then also what are some of the either exercises or stretches that
Speaker:we can do to help combat that?
Speaker:And um, you know, is it even like maybe breaking up your work and getting up
Speaker:every hour to have a little movement?
Speaker:Um, what, what's kind of your recommendation and,
Speaker:and what do you see on that?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, uh, this can be a big problem.
Speaker:There are a lot of, a lot of people who sit for eight to 10 hours a
Speaker:day at a, at a desk and have no pain at all, or repercussions.
Speaker:And, and so sitting isn't necessarily the evil that it's being made out to be.
Speaker:What, what's, what's wrong is a match between your body and how you're,
Speaker:how you're set up ergonomically.
Speaker:And if you, unfortunately, if you go online, you'll see that all ergonomic you.
Speaker:Literature just says, oh, your knee should be bent at 90 degrees.
Speaker:Your hips should be bent at 90 degrees.
Speaker:Your elbow should be bent at 90 degrees.
Speaker:You know, and okay, now what?
Speaker:I still have pain, right?
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:So what's going on is, is that, uh, most people, you know, everyone's bodies are
Speaker:different, and so the ergonomics need to be different, and it's, it's okay for
Speaker:your knees to your hips to be flexed more than 90 degrees, especially if you have
Speaker:a certain pattern that's feeding your.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Uh, but typically, and we can go more deeply into ergonomics for, for upper
Speaker:body issues, typically when you sit down, your arms should be bit at the seams of
Speaker:your shirt right down here by your side.
Speaker:And when they're here, wherever your hands are in this position
Speaker:is where your keyboards should be.
Speaker:If you're gotcha reaching forward for your keyboard, then you've lost the
Speaker:support of your, of your, of the arms, of your chair at this position, okay?
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:And now you're using shoulder and neck muscles to hold up your arm
Speaker:instead of letting your arms rest and let your fingers do the working.
Speaker:Now, you know, if you reach forward or your elbows are out to the
Speaker:side or something like that, now all of this stuff starts to work.
Speaker:So from an upper body standpoint, that's what needs to occur.
Speaker:And what happens is most people who, most people's office chairs are too cavernous
Speaker:to for their bodies, and so mm-hmm.
Speaker:The arms will come in, but they'll only come into here.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Instead of all the way into here.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So how do we solve that problem?
Speaker:Well, you just bring a, a pillow in from your bedroom.
Speaker:You fold it in half and you shove up between your body
Speaker:and the arm and the chair.
Speaker:And what that'll do is it will support the, the arm a little bit higher than it's
Speaker:used to, but now you've got this broad.
Speaker:Cushy thing to rest your elbow on and your hands in the perfect position and suddenly
Speaker:this whole system, the neck, shoulder, and head system gets to relax while you
Speaker:work instead of being under constant tension to hold this whole arm up cuz
Speaker:the arm weighs, you know, 20, 25 pounds.
Speaker:It's a lot to hold up during the day if you're typing on your computer all
Speaker:day, like, From a back standpoint, from a back standpoint, the most common
Speaker:pattern that's causing most back pain is one of too much arch in the low back.
Speaker:All right?
Speaker:And you can test this really easily if you lie down on your, on the
Speaker:floor, on your back, with your legs straight for 30 seconds, and then
Speaker:after 30 seconds, then you bend your knees like this, so your feet are
Speaker:flat on the ground for 30 seconds.
Speaker:If your back feel is better with your knees bent, then you've got a
Speaker:problem with too much arch in your.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:So what do we need to do about your chair to, to solve that?
Speaker:Well, again, get some pillows from, from the bedroom because chances
Speaker:are you're sitting at the front of your chair and you're leaning into
Speaker:that computer, and so your back is unsupported in an arched position.
Speaker:So what you're doing now is causing the back muscles to contract in the
Speaker:position that they're uncomfortable.
Speaker:And by putting pillows behind you in the chair and leaning against
Speaker:those, cuz it's uh, what that does is it signals your back to back
Speaker:muscles to turn off and relax, right?
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:You're sitting in front of your chair because for some reason
Speaker:you believe you need to do that.
Speaker:So let's not make you sit in the back of your chair, cuz frankly
Speaker:that just isn't gonna happen.
Speaker:You've already proven that that's not gonna happen because you sit in the front.
Speaker:So instead, let's bring the back of the chair to.
Speaker:And that's how, that's what you use those pillows for.
Speaker:And so for those same people, if you feel better with your back, with your
Speaker:knees bent, then you might wanna consider putting something underneath your feet
Speaker:to lift your knees up higher so that throws your back into more flexion.
Speaker:I had a woman cry once in the clinic from Joy because I went over these changes.
Speaker:I put pillows in her, in her, you know, in the chair, and showed her
Speaker:how her chair should be set up.
Speaker:And she literally started crying cuz she never thought that she could sit without.
Speaker:Wow, because no one had ever showed her these kinds of things before.
Speaker:And so, you know, she could work eight to 10 hours without, completely,
Speaker:without pain and come home feeling refreshed rather than, you know,
Speaker:tormented at work all the time.
Speaker:So it's a big deal ergonomics.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, uh, no, a hundred percent agree.
Speaker:And so mainly then with, you know, having pain in sitting, you're saying
Speaker:it's, it's more important to kind of look at the, like you said, the
Speaker:ergonomics and, and the design of where, how you're sitting, and really
Speaker:focus on that because that can make a.
Speaker:Big role in how you're feeling later.
Speaker:Um, which definitely makes sense because if you are sitting at your
Speaker:desk, it's like with sleeping eight hours, if you're at your desk for eight
Speaker:hours, that's a long period of time in which your body is being shaped.
Speaker:So making sure that we're having it in a, in a proper, uh, shape
Speaker:is, is going to be very key.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You want, you want muscle relaxation.
Speaker:You don't want muscle tension while you're sitting like that.
Speaker:And so are, you're sitting right now, right.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So here's, here's yet another thing.
Speaker:Uh, we talked a little bit about your left hip.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:And the possibility that your left pelvis might be higher than the right side.
Speaker:So let's, since we're talking about sitting, what if, does your
Speaker:hip hurt when you're sitting?
Speaker:If I sit for a little, like a little over an hour, maybe around the two
Speaker:hour marks around there, that's when I start to feel a little discomfort.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So, so what most people will do, let's say they have.
Speaker:What that's hurting when they're sitting or si pain or sciatic
Speaker:pain or back pain or whatever.
Speaker:What they'll do is they'll start to migrate to the opposite
Speaker:butt cheek to unload that side.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So go ahead and do that in your chair and notice what, just do it
Speaker:to your right side and notice what just happens to your left pelvis.
Speaker:When you do that, what do you notice?
Speaker:Uh, kind of lifts up a little bit, but also, uh, take absolutely.
Speaker:I feel a little bit, almost more like, uh, like blood flow to that
Speaker:area too, like it's coming back.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So, so what you've just discovered is that when you shift over to your
Speaker:opposite hip, this hip lifts up.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:But we just talked about the fact that that li hip lifting up is the problem
Speaker:that's late into the sciatic pain.
Speaker:So by shifting your weight to the opposite hip, which is makes total intuitive sense,
Speaker:you're actually perpetuating the pattern.
Speaker:That's causing the pain in the first place.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Which is the fact that that elevated that hip is elevating.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So what you need to do, learn to do instead is learn to weightbear on
Speaker:that hip, but not allow compression to occur while you're weightbearing.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Does that make sense?
Speaker:So when don't we weightbear on a, on a painful hip, what tends to happen
Speaker:is that, uh, if people really analyze their sitting, they'll notice that they
Speaker:tend to slouch on onto that side a.
Speaker:It's disengaged or they're leaning harder on that elbow or something like that.
Speaker:So what they've got to, and so what, what they're doing is causing
Speaker:this compression to occur, the side bending pattern problem.
Speaker:So what I have people do is just simply weight shift over to the painful hip
Speaker:and again, raise that arm up in the air.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:And what that does is it breaks up that compression pattern
Speaker:that you've created typically.
Speaker:And then you just go back to work again feeling that your pelvis is
Speaker:level and your ribcage is level.
Speaker:And when you do that, then you're, then this space here is level
Speaker:between your spine instead of sitting like this all the time.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So that's a, that's a, that's one of those things where it seems counterintuitive,
Speaker:but once you see that, that's what's happening, it only makes sense not
Speaker:to perpetuate the pattern that's causing your pain in the first place.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And that's how you solve.
Speaker:Oh, that's amazing.
Speaker:No, I, I love that so much.
Speaker:I'm, I'm taking mental notes here and I'm gonna, uh, uh, definitely
Speaker:go back through this because I'm, I, I want to apply a lot of this
Speaker:to, uh, to, to my work essentially.
Speaker:Um, now I did, I, I also wanted to ask, um, You know, cuz I, I, I know you're all
Speaker:about trying to become pain free without the use of, you know, medications and,
Speaker:and any kind of, uh, external substance.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So in terms of, let's just say the average person, if this even works,
Speaker:because I know everyone is so unique and has different, you know, our bodies
Speaker:are all going through their own path.
Speaker:So are there certain practices though, that we should be doing
Speaker:every single day that are going to help kind of balance the body or.
Speaker:Correct any imbalances or maybe just strengthen certain muscles that are being
Speaker:underused and, uh, should be strengthened.
Speaker:Well, I think all, all of those practices would stem out of your awareness of what
Speaker:the problems are in your body, right?
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:So it's if, because you're absolutely right, there isn't a blanket
Speaker:practice that everyone should do that's gonna fix everything.
Speaker:So you have a left hip side bending problem.
Speaker:Someone else might have a right hip side bending.
Speaker:Another person may have chronic neck pain or headaches that they need
Speaker:to solve, you know, and their lower body system is working just fine.
Speaker:Other people will have plantar fascitis.
Speaker:So it really depends on, you have to know your body.
Speaker:And so that's what, frankly, my, my books, my downloadable home programs are about
Speaker:this new book Solving the Pain Puzzle.
Speaker:It kind of describes this whole approach that you don't, it,
Speaker:the, the thing is, is it's much simpler than, than you can imagine.
Speaker:I've owned a physical therapy clinic for the last 10 years and that's helped
Speaker:me understand that all of these things that we're kind of talking about today
Speaker:are occurring in patterns in people so that, for instance, this side
Speaker:bending problem that I was describing earlier, maybe that causes mm-hmm.
Speaker:Uh, sciatic pain in you, but in another person it would
Speaker:cause si joint pain in another.
Speaker:It would cause unilateral back pain and still another, it would be hip.
Speaker:So it all depends.
Speaker:So how it's, how the patterns are manifesting in each person
Speaker:may be different, but it's always the same pattern.
Speaker:And that's why solving pain has become so simple is because I don't have to get,
Speaker:because I, I get questions, but I've got si joint pain, but I've got sciatic pain.
Speaker:But my sciatic pain goes down to my foot, but my sciatic pain goes
Speaker:to my knee, but I've got hip pain.
Speaker:It's all the same.
Speaker:It's just manifesting in your body differently because of your genetics,
Speaker:your exercise history, your injury history, your work history, all sorts of
Speaker:things can cause the same pattern to be expressed differently in different people.
Speaker:Does that make sense?
Speaker:Yeah, no, a absolutely makes sense.
Speaker:Um, yeah, and, and I, like you said, it is, it's going to be very specific
Speaker:to each person, but, um, I think it's kind of neat to see that, uh, even
Speaker:though it might be a different pain, it still is coming typically from,
Speaker:you know, the same kind of issue.
Speaker:Same thing.
Speaker:Same thing.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And then, uh, another thing I wanted to talk a bit about was, uh, you
Speaker:know, headaches and migraines, cuz I know this is something that a lot
Speaker:of people are dealing with as well.
Speaker:Uh, a lot of people that I, I know personally, so in terms of headache
Speaker:and neck and, and migraines and, and all the pain in the neck.
Speaker:Is that coming from down in the body, like in the back and kind of like
Speaker:the posture or, or what's kind of the main cause of a lot of these headaches
Speaker:and migraines that are occurring?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And neck pain too.
Speaker:So, uh, I can link it to the lower body if I need to, but basically if we, if
Speaker:we look at the skeleton, And folks at home, you know, if you're not watching,
Speaker:you can type in skeleton on Google and you'll see one, and you'll see
Speaker:that most of the bones in the skeleton are like these long bones, right?
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:But there's two places in our skeleton that we don't have long bones.
Speaker:We have flat bones.
Speaker:One is the pelvis, and we all know that the pelvis is the center of function
Speaker:for our lower body system and our back.
Speaker:The other is the shoulder blade.
Speaker:That's the center of function for our upper body system, our neck, and our.
Speaker:So the surprising cause of most chronic neck pain and headaches
Speaker:is that the shoulder girdle system is not operating correctly.
Speaker:Well, how can this possibly relate to the neck or the head?
Speaker:Because if you, again, Google the, the muscles of the shoulder blade,
Speaker:you'll see that there are significant attachments into the neck and the
Speaker:base of the skull, and therefore, and so when there's dysfunction in the
Speaker:shoulder, It's transmitted via these muscles into the neck, bones, and
Speaker:the base of the skull causing chronic headaches, neck pain, and so forth.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:What's the most common problem with the shoulder blade?
Speaker:It's that the shoulder blade system.
Speaker:It tends to rest too low.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:And there's a really easy test that you can do to determine whether this is
Speaker:happening to you or your friends, Evan.
Speaker:It's really simple.
Speaker:You get your person who has neck pain or headaches to stand in front of you, and
Speaker:they turn their heads left, right, look up and look down, and get a sense for where
Speaker:their pain is, how bad it is, how much they have to turn before they have pain,
Speaker:and then you stand behind them and you put your hands in their armpits like this.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:And lift up their shoulder blades a half inch or an inch.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:And you kind of jiggle those around to make sure that they're relaxing into
Speaker:your hands as completely as possible.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:After about 15 or 30 seconds of that, you ask them to move their
Speaker:head to ground, left right up and down again, and almost guaranteed if
Speaker:they have any kind of chronic neck pain or headaches, they're gonna feel
Speaker:relief from you doing this for them.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Now, why is that working?
Speaker:Because their shoulder grid system, it's showing us that the shoulder
Speaker:griddle system is sitting too.
Speaker:And simply by lifting it up, we're unloading the tissues that are going
Speaker:into the neck and the base of the skull.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Simple.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Now there'll be some people out there who have had chronic neck pain and
Speaker:headaches so long, or maybe it's due to a motor vehicle accident that
Speaker:they've got all this tension and it, they can't let go of the shoulder
Speaker:girdle system in 15 to 30 seconds.
Speaker:Oftentimes, and they'll say, I don't feel any difference.
Speaker:Well then the next part of the test is to lower the shoulder blades
Speaker:back down and take your hands away.
Speaker:And that's when these people will usually say, oh my gosh,
Speaker:now I can feel my pain again.
Speaker:I didn't realize it was gone.
Speaker:Oh, right.
Speaker:So that's further confirmation that the shoulder blade system is the cause of
Speaker:the chronic neck pain and headaches.
Speaker:And frankly, Evan, in the past 20.
Speaker:I have not run into anyone with chronic neck pain or headaches, that it has
Speaker:not been the shoulder g griddle system.
Speaker:Hmm, okay.
Speaker:And I, I, and zero of these people have ever had anyone look at their
Speaker:shoulder as the source of their pain.
Speaker:And that's why we're so successful at solving it.
Speaker:Migraines, attention, headaches, it doesn't matter.
Speaker:And so what causes the shoulder girl to rest, uh, lower as opposed to higher?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So in the case of unilateral neck pain or headaches, the shoulder blade
Speaker:is kind of resting on the ribcage.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Well, we just talked about that.
Speaker:Sigh of any problem, right?
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Well, if the si, if the ribcage is also low, now the shoulder blade is
Speaker:low and that's setting up the shoulder blade cuz there are rules about how
Speaker:this should be resting and moving.
Speaker:And when the shoulder, when the ribcage is sitting lower like that,
Speaker:it throws a wrench into these rules.
Speaker:And so, gotcha.
Speaker:That's when we, that's one of the reasons that causes unilateral
Speaker:neck pain and headaches.
Speaker:All right?
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:And to answer your question, that's how we can connect something from the.
Speaker:Gosh, I've got this left ankle injury.
Speaker:Do you think that has anything to do with my neck pain and
Speaker:headaches on my left side?
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:And this is how it's connected.
Speaker:Gotcha.
Speaker:But the other thing, if you have bilateral neck pain and headaches, the reason is
Speaker:because of people's posture strategies.
Speaker:All right?
Speaker:They're going about, uh, achieving posture incorrectly, and they're using their
Speaker:shoulder blades to create posture instead of using their core to create posture.
Speaker:I can go into that if you want to.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:I, I think, uh, the core is such an important muscle group as well.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So, uh, one of why would someone be using their shoulder blades to create posture?
Speaker:And it's because in many classes, uh, you'll hear the cue to bring
Speaker:your shoulder blades down and back into your opposite back pockets.
Speaker:Well, that cue is to create the aesthetic beauty of a long neck.
Speaker:Mm.
Speaker:And by doing that, what we're doing is also pulling our spine into this
Speaker:extended what we think is a better posture position, which is fine, but
Speaker:we're using the wrong system to do that.
Speaker:The shoulder blades are not designed, if you look at the architecture of them,
Speaker:they're not designed to create posture.
Speaker:They're designed to help the arm move over.
Speaker:What is designed to create posture is our core.
Speaker:And so the way that we, so we have to change that strategy, and once we change
Speaker:that strategy, you'll notice that neck pain and headaches will melt away.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:So the way that we change that is we put one hand on your chest
Speaker:and the other hand on your belly.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Go ahead and try this.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So we got one hand here and one hand here.
Speaker:Take a nice deep breath in and you'll feel your chest lift.
Speaker:And then exhale and you'll feel your chest lower again.
Speaker:Can you feel that?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So now take another deep breath in, feel the chest lift, and then when
Speaker:you exhale, exhale all the way.
Speaker:But don't let the chest fall down all the way.
Speaker:Let it fall down 99% of the way, but not 100.
Speaker:So you're gonna hold it up maybe.
Speaker:Maybe that much Really?
Speaker:Really little.
Speaker:And you'll notice that when you don't let that chest fall down on
Speaker:the way that your stomach muscles have just engaged ever so slightly.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Maybe 5%, maybe 10%.
Speaker:So that is your core, holding up your ribcage, which is
Speaker:what it's designed to do.
Speaker:That's why we have a broad flat all.
Speaker:If you again, Google the abdominals, you'll see massive
Speaker:muscles all over the place.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:And many layers.
Speaker:This is why we have those is to hold up this whole system up here, right?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And this is how we do it.
Speaker:We lift the ribcage ever so slightly, and that engages the core naturally.
Speaker:The second part of this equation then is to bring your arms down by your
Speaker:sides and jiggle your arms around, make them like two loose ropes.
Speaker:They should just be dangling by your sides.
Speaker:Now you'll notice that when you relax your shoulders completely, you've probably
Speaker:just relaxed your core completely, though.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And that's because you've tied shoulder engagement to posture
Speaker:instead of core engagement to posture.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:So what you need to do is learn to do this while keeping the shoulders relaxed.
Speaker:You need to be able to hold the ribcage up ever so slightly, which will naturally
Speaker:engage the core as much as it's needed.
Speaker:You don't need a hundred percent maximum contraction, right?
Speaker:We're talking 5%, maybe very little.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:And then also relax your should.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And that's how you create a better posture strategy rather than using the shoulder.
Speaker:And once you stop using the shoulder blades to create good posture, once again,
Speaker:neck pain and headaches will melt away.
Speaker:That's, no, that's, that's absolutely amazing.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Even right now, just doing that, I can feel my shoulders, uh, the
Speaker:shoulder blades, but also just the whole entire shoulder feeling much
Speaker:more relaxed and even coming to a lower position like you were saying.
Speaker:But, um, Still having the support of my ribs, like not fully, just wanting
Speaker:to almost like hunch over, like still feeling the support of the abs and, and
Speaker:wanting to keep the, the posture up.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:That feels much better.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And, and so that's, so, uh, that, that is a big deal for a lot of people.
Speaker:And, you know, unfortunately, I, I like this is taught a lot in yoga, Pilates,
Speaker:personal training, even physical therapy.
Speaker:And I believe the reason that this is, I don't believe that this is a true yoga,
Speaker:uh, instruction from centuries ago.
Speaker:I think it's slipped in recently fr because of, uh, the aesthetics of dance.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:I think has, has, has married over into gymnastics, yoga.
Speaker:You know, all sorts of things.
Speaker:And a lot of dancers are trained to have these long necks.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Well, the only way to achieve a long neck is by depressing the shoulder blades.
Speaker:Mm.
Speaker:And that's why the, a lot of dancers have chronic migraines, headaches,
Speaker:neck pain, and so forth, and a lot of 'em end up leaving dance because
Speaker:of their own training, right?
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:And so this is, I, because I, I think yoga is amazing and Pilates
Speaker:and, and all this kind of stuff.
Speaker:That one q I think is, is not, I, I think that's an artificial queuing system that's
Speaker:come, that's bled into yoga that wasn't originally there with, with the masters.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I, I agree on that.
Speaker:I think, um, And, and, and you notice it for sure in, in a lot of the yoga
Speaker:practices, like, uh, cause I do a lot of yoga as a yoga teacher and,
Speaker:um, yeah, yeah, you, you definitely see a lot of western style practices
Speaker:being integrated, like you said, with gymnastics and all this.
Speaker:Um, so mm-hmm.
Speaker:Highly, highly agree with that.
Speaker:Uh, now real quickly, Rick, uh, cuz we are.
Speaker:I, I've, I've been having my mind kind of blown right now with all the information.
Speaker:I'm, I'm absolutely loving it.
Speaker:Um, but we are coming towards the end of our podcast and I did want
Speaker:to talk a bit about your books and, um, they just, Sound like they're
Speaker:packed with so much information.
Speaker:So, uh, for example, would you mind kind of explaining a little bit of
Speaker:what the Fixing You book series and the solving the, uh, pain puzzle, what,
Speaker:what those two different books would be kind of addressing in terms of, uh,
Speaker:the body and, and pain and all that?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So I wrote the Fix Fixing You series of books about 10 or 15 years ago because
Speaker:after taking a course with another pt, You know, that, that was transformational in
Speaker:my understanding of, of pain in the body.
Speaker:Uh, I, I, I talked to him and he said like, no big deal.
Speaker:I'm just like, well, what are you talking about?
Speaker:This is huge.
Speaker:This is how the body works.
Speaker:And he said, well, this is becau, I, I'm a manual therapist, so I'm
Speaker:probably not gonna use this stuff.
Speaker:Which means that he is someone who, you know, does soft tissue
Speaker:work or joint manipulations to solve people's pain, which is.
Speaker:But then I realized that all of his patients were not understanding then
Speaker:getting the training to how to use their body better so they didn't
Speaker:have to go to this person again.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:And so I decided to do an end around practitioners and write my fixing new
Speaker:series of books, which are self-help books designed to help people solve their pain.
Speaker:And that's, that's what those are about.
Speaker:Well, after that, I owned my clinic for about 10 years and that's when I
Speaker:saw, after seeing thousands of these patients, like all at once, uh, that's
Speaker:when I realized that, oh my God, it's the same pattern of issues is causing
Speaker:the pain, the different pains in people, but it's the same patterns.
Speaker:This is all a pattern problem.
Speaker:And so that's when I created my downloadable home program.
Speaker:Those are designed to help solve all of these patterns
Speaker:that are causing chronic pain.
Speaker:Well then, uh, so over the years I've gotten a lot of people who've read
Speaker:my books and been helped by them.
Speaker:And in those books are these little stories of client connections.
Speaker:Where I use a biomechanical piece of information and I show how I solved it.
Speaker:Someone's problem with that.
Speaker:And over the years, so many people have commented to me
Speaker:about these client connections.
Speaker:They're these little like one paragraph stories, like, oh, that, that was like me.
Speaker:You know, that I decided, you know what if I turn this on its head, and I wrote
Speaker:a book about all these case studies and how I help these people solve their.
Speaker:Not from talking about all the biomechanics and anatomy and so forth,
Speaker:but talking about this whole point of view of looking at the body as a system rather
Speaker:than this component thinking, which is how we're trained as physical therapists.
Speaker:So these, this solving the pain puzzle is, is the latest book and their case
Speaker:studies for my 25 years of, uh, being a pt, how I saw these really difficult
Speaker:things and how I came up with this whole.
Speaker:To solving pain.
Speaker:And it's completely unique.
Speaker:It's, it doesn't exist out there, but it's so helpful and I think it's what
Speaker:we've been missing in medicine is this system's approach to solving things
Speaker:in terms of musculoskeletal rehab.
Speaker:Anyway, uh, it's amazing.
Speaker:I I love that.
Speaker:So in, uh, in the solving the Pain puzzle book, that's where you kind of
Speaker:show the patients that you've worked with and, and kind of their experience
Speaker:and, and break it down that way.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So you get more of the excellent patient and how it's changed their life and, and
Speaker:how we work together as people rather than me just clinically talking about
Speaker:the anatomy, biomechanics and so forth.
Speaker:Right, right.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And then you also said you do have, uh, like in-home, uh, like downloadable
Speaker:content that people can, can use.
Speaker:Yeah, I've got five different programs.
Speaker:One's for backend, sciatic pain, the other's for neck pain and headaches.
Speaker:And then I've got one for hip, knee, and then foot.
Speaker:And those are all digital programs that people, and they're really
Speaker:affordable, but they solve everything.
Speaker:Not only, I mean, we haven't even touched on a lot of the stuff, the
Speaker:ways that I self solve people, people's pain, but they're very comprehensive,
Speaker:but very simple and fast and easy to.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:No, I, I, I love that so much.
Speaker:And also just being able, I, that's one thing I do love about technology
Speaker:is having access to people like yourself, but not being in the same
Speaker:state where we can physically be in person, you know, and, but still being
Speaker:able to benefit from your teaching.
Speaker:So, uh, that's incredible.
Speaker:I'm definitely gonna be checking that out myself.
Speaker:Um, as far as your books go, are those available through Amazon
Speaker:or, or just through your website?
Speaker:Everything's on Amazon, and I've also created a practitioner's training course
Speaker:to treat, to teach other practitioners how to see the body like this.
Speaker:I, I feel that if, if coaches through surgeons understood all of this type
Speaker:of stuff, that we would eliminate chronic pain from our society because
Speaker:we could nip this stuff in the bud right in the beginning if everyone
Speaker:understood really how the body works to both create and solve pain.
Speaker:It would put me out of work and that would make me very happy.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:No, I, I love that.
Speaker:You know, it's, uh, that is, I think that is the goal of being in the
Speaker:health and wellness field is not to have a returning client, right?
Speaker:Uh, you want to give them the tools to, to live a life that's sustainable.
Speaker:So, um, I think that speaks a lot towards you as a person
Speaker:and as well as your practice.
Speaker:I, I love to hear.
Speaker:Um, Rick, this is going to bring us to the end of the episode, but
Speaker:I do want to give you a moment to share any other final thoughts
Speaker:where people can connect with you.
Speaker:Um, of course, I'm gonna link everything in the show notes
Speaker:for all of you listeners.
Speaker:So his books, programs, his website.
Speaker:We'll have that all linked, but please feel free to share anything else, Rick.
Speaker:Yeah, I, I, my message I think to most people is that they end up feeling
Speaker:broken after being in our medical system because, You know, practitioner after
Speaker:practitioner has tried to solve them and, and they've only been met with failure,
Speaker:and so they, a lot of people are, are blame, you know, the blame is placed
Speaker:on them instead of their practitioner.
Speaker:And I wa I, my message is that you're not really broken, it's just that you haven't
Speaker:been looked at in the right way yet.
Speaker:And the common denominator of the way that you've been looked at from now, from up
Speaker:to this point, Is this component thinking.
Speaker:People have been focused on the tissues that are damaged, not the reasons
Speaker:those tissues are damaged, and my programs and my books and everything
Speaker:is about these, this more systems approach that we're not trained in,
Speaker:but I think is desperately needed.
Speaker:The very fact that common, that chronic pain is so prevalent, not
Speaker:only in the United States, but in the world, means that we're missing
Speaker:something because our bodies have the essential elements to heal.
Speaker:So if, if we can just get the barriers out of the way that healing will
Speaker:happen, and that's what my program does for a lot of musculoskeletal pain.
Speaker:It's incredible, Rick.
Speaker:No, I, I, I'm totally on board with it.
Speaker:I, I think the stuff that you're talking about is, is really what we
Speaker:need to be focusing on, um, and can lead to some serious changes, like
Speaker:you said, with, with living pain free, you know, and, uh, just through
Speaker:understanding the way our bodies work.
Speaker:So, Um, yeah, honestly, Rick, it has been an absolute pleasure having you
Speaker:on this show for, for just myself.
Speaker:Um, yeah, I mean, like, I, I know our listeners are going to benefit
Speaker:greatly, but for me personally, this has been a real treat.
Speaker:Um, I've, I've greatly enjoyed this talk, so thank you for coming on the show.
Speaker:Oh, it's absolutely my pleasure.
Speaker:And thank you for having me.
Speaker:Yeah, a hundred percent Rick.
Speaker:Well, everyone that is going to do it for today's episode,
Speaker:you know the motto of the show.
Speaker:It's do everything with good intentions and connect to your elements.
