Speaker 1: Welcome to Moving Conversations, a podcast for movement professionals, by
Speaker 1: movement professionals. If you coach, train, or teach movement, pilates
Speaker 1: or fitness than this podcast is for you. With more
Speaker 1: than sixty years of experience and fitness and pilates, your host,
Speaker 1: Brian Ritchie and North Saint John explored to science of
Speaker 1: human movement, diving deep into the facts, myths, and common misconceptions,
Speaker 1: hoping to spark thought and conversation about how we view
Speaker 1: fitness and movement. Now let's jump into Moving Conversations and
Speaker 1: welcome back to Moving Conversations. I'm Brian Ritchie, join me
Speaker 1: as always the ner same John Morton, Nora.
Speaker 2: How you doing very well? Brian? I understand you just
Speaker 2: got back from China. Are you feeling okay? Getting over
Speaker 2: jet lag and all?
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, No, it's gonna take a little while. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know if it's the fact that
Speaker 1: I'm getting older or what, but it seems to take
Speaker 1: just a little longer each time, just a little bit.
Speaker 1: And yes, of course the longer you're gone, the longer
Speaker 1: usually takes. But that whole you know, it takes a
Speaker 1: day for every hour ten years ago. No, that that
Speaker 1: didn't even dawn on me. It's like three or four days.
Speaker 1: I'm twelve hour time difference, but it took three or
Speaker 1: four days. I'm back now it's like, oh, I'm at
Speaker 1: least a week, and it seems to be prolonging even further.
Speaker 1: By the end of the day, I find myself as
Speaker 1: though the plug has been pulled out of me. I'm
Speaker 1: just sort of sitting there like, uh.
Speaker 2: Oh, good, Alan, I want traveled so much for for
Speaker 2: bounced body basically said, we don't have jel like, we
Speaker 2: just have lag, Like we're just perpetually not at our
Speaker 2: best from so much travel. At some point you just
Speaker 2: stop recovering and in just as a nightmare.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I've asked a bunch of clients who travel.
Speaker 1: I have a client that does four used to do
Speaker 1: four to five hundred thousand miles a year. Yeah, basically
Speaker 1: he travels all the time. Yeah, and he just he
Speaker 1: just said, you just wherever you go, you don't even
Speaker 1: think about it. You just you go to bed, you
Speaker 1: wake up, you work, you go to bed, get on
Speaker 1: a plane, you go to the next place, you go
Speaker 1: to sleep. You just you eventually don't realize that you're
Speaker 1: a six hour time difference or four hours. It's just
Speaker 1: it's time to sleep, sleep exactly. It's almost militaristic. You
Speaker 1: just time to sleep, time to wake up, it's time
Speaker 1: to exercise. He said, that's how it has to be,
Speaker 1: and I understand, and I'm sure if I did it
Speaker 1: a lot more regularly, my body would get used to that.
Speaker 1: But man, this jet lag stuff is no fun.
Speaker 2: That's brutal. So with that in mind, I know we
Speaker 2: did an episode right before you left where we were
Speaker 2: talking about kind of complex cases and how you identify
Speaker 2: skills and then work with them and be kind of
Speaker 2: wanted you. Did you take that same idea of developing
Speaker 2: effective programming for complicated situations and talk it through from
Speaker 2: a case study perspective. I'll give you some practical examples
Speaker 2: and that kind of thing. So I think that's kind
Speaker 2: of where we were headed today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that episode really sort of struck home because you
Speaker 1: and I both talked about this. It's it's easy to
Speaker 1: get caught up in the day to day. I must
Speaker 1: fix this person who's in front of me, because they're
Speaker 1: you know, they come and broken, and you feel as
Speaker 1: though it's our job to fix what's broken and get
Speaker 1: them out of here. And honestly, you and I are
Speaker 1: both good at what we do, and a lot of
Speaker 1: times we can make them feel a lot better once
Speaker 1: they leave leave us. But it's also our job to
Speaker 1: progress them to the point where they don't need to
Speaker 1: be broken every week when they're coming to see us,
Speaker 1: when they should be getting better and making progress and
Speaker 1: heading in the right direction so they get injured less
Speaker 1: frequently and they're able to really excel at life and
Speaker 1: not just you know, pick up the pieces every single week.
Speaker 1: So I think that's an important thing that we need
Speaker 1: to remind ourselves of as fitness professionals and movement professionals,
Speaker 1: that it's still our job to get them moving better
Speaker 1: throughout life and not just picking up the peace and
Speaker 1: putting them back together again, you know, old humpty dumpty
Speaker 1: sort of thing every week, right.
Speaker 2: Not just managing the acute at the moment issue, but
Speaker 2: by continuing to look ahead at where we're headed. And
Speaker 2: it's really oftentimes I find that that's an important role
Speaker 2: that we have, which is that outsider role. And I
Speaker 2: use this analogy a lot instead of getting in the
Speaker 2: boat with them and kind of managing whatever leaky hole
Speaker 2: is in the boat that day. Like our job really
Speaker 2: and I'm just again, is to stand on the dock,
Speaker 2: or stand on the ocean, or stand on the sand
Speaker 2: and hold onto the boat so that we really can
Speaker 2: see where it can go, how we can progress them forward. Again,
Speaker 2: just take that slight step back to see the longer
Speaker 2: tradictory of things and also use that to prioritize where
Speaker 2: we want to start, where you want to go, analyzing
Speaker 2: what you've done, Is it really working all that?
Speaker 1: Yep? I think also putting the responsibility in the client's
Speaker 1: hands instead of taking on all the responsibility ourselves.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, absolutely, because because we can't do so much in
Speaker 2: an hour or two hours a week, like that's really
Speaker 2: what not so effective?
Speaker 1: I think? I told you I had a physical therapist
Speaker 1: who told me that said, look, there's one hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty eight hours a week you see them, how many
Speaker 1: of those all the other hours they are not with you.
Speaker 1: You cannot be responsible for every single thing that they
Speaker 1: do and for all the pain that they're in. And
Speaker 1: that struck home like nobody's business, because before that I
Speaker 1: took responsibility for every little thing that happened in now
Speaker 1: it's like, no, all right, if you're silly on your own,
Speaker 1: that's your business, right exactly. It's like if I did
Speaker 1: something silly, Okay, that's my mess up. I screwed that up. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll take I'll take ownership of it and move on.
Speaker 1: It's the same thing. We need to make sure that
Speaker 1: they take responsibility for what they do outside of us,
Speaker 1: but also that they're taking what we teach them and
Speaker 1: are able to do it outside them the homeworn Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and make it trying to make it a habit,
Speaker 2: whatever the thing is you're trying to get them to do,
Speaker 2: trying to help them make that a habit rather than
Speaker 2: just an occasional thing they think about for the one
Speaker 2: hour there with you.
Speaker 1: Exactly. And let's face it, most of our clients, most
Speaker 1: of my clients at least would pay me if I
Speaker 1: could exercise for them, Let's face it, exactly.
Speaker 2: You know, maybe and i'd work out instead and you
Speaker 2: get the benefit all day long.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd have the lines around the block and we
Speaker 1: can promise that. Yeah, you still got to do the work, guys,
Speaker 1: if you want. Everybody wants a certain body, Everyone wants
Speaker 1: a certain image. They see something in their head that
Speaker 1: they want, whether it's to be thinner, whether it's to
Speaker 1: be more fit, whether it's be injury free, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: they have an image in their head. It's whether or
Speaker 1: not they're willing to do it. I forget who it was,
Speaker 1: but in a class once said it was about nutrition,
Speaker 1: and it said, all of your diet comes down to
Speaker 1: seven words? How bad do you want it?
Speaker 2: Is?
Speaker 1: That seven words? Close enough? But it was sort of
Speaker 1: it hit me. I said, that's true, because if you
Speaker 1: don't want it badly enough, then you're really not going
Speaker 1: to make the changes you need to make to make
Speaker 1: it happen. You're really going to just sit on the
Speaker 1: and I hope that it happens. And that's what a
Speaker 1: lot of our clients do, let's face it, yep.
Speaker 2: And even in that case, our job is still if
Speaker 2: our clients keep coming to us and keep paying us,
Speaker 2: and we I would say, whether it's for their satisfaction
Speaker 2: or for our satisfaction, feel like I feel like I
Speaker 2: need to be making progress somewhere. Just you know again,
Speaker 2: I mean, you and I both know that's that's what
Speaker 2: gives us satisfaction, That's what makes us feel like we're
Speaker 2: useful and valuable. That's our self worth in a lot
Speaker 2: of ways, is we you know, we made something happen.
Speaker 2: So some of the two is understanding. Like like sometimes
Speaker 2: I've I listened to a client. I haven't said this.
Speaker 2: I listened to them, and I hear what they're saying
Speaker 2: and blah blah blah, and then I'm like, I'm I'm
Speaker 2: I'm also then looking at them and observing what's happening
Speaker 2: and assessing how they're moving or not moving, and then
Speaker 2: I'm making my plan and then I'm just executing my plan. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and sometimes I have full buying from the client and
Speaker 2: they want to know and we've got a really good
Speaker 2: communication going. Sometimes I'm just going to make them do
Speaker 2: the work. Yeah, you know, it's just okay, we're gonna
Speaker 2: go over here, we're gonna do this. We're gonna go
Speaker 2: over here, we're gonna do this. And they mean again,
Speaker 2: if they're not as involved, we know this from lots
Speaker 2: of studies. If they're not as involved mentally conceptually, it's
Speaker 2: not going to be as effective, but it will make
Speaker 2: change anyway, right, even so they can still make change
Speaker 2: anyway even if they're not fully involved. But yeah, getting
Speaker 2: that idea.
Speaker 1: Through and they've got it. They've got to execute. Yes,
Speaker 1: they've got to execute the plan. Yeah, we can have
Speaker 1: the greatest plan in the world, greatest quarterback in the
Speaker 1: world can call the most awesome play. If the players
Speaker 1: aren't going to play it's been asked of them, you're
Speaker 1: never going to score. And it's the same thing here.
Speaker 1: If your client is not prepared and willing to buy
Speaker 1: in and willing to do what's necessary and to focus
Speaker 1: and to do it properly, then it doesn't matter. So
Speaker 1: you need buy in from the client as well. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: I think that sometimes can be the easiest job that
Speaker 1: we have because we can get them to think of
Speaker 1: the big picture and have them focus back on their
Speaker 1: goals and say, here, what do you want to accomplish?
Speaker 1: What are your goals? You said you wanted this, so
Speaker 1: guess what. If you want this, then you need to
Speaker 1: do that.
Speaker 2: Right, I think really tying in the goal to our
Speaker 2: goals to their goals if you will less time. I
Speaker 2: know we talked a bit about you know, what are
Speaker 2: my goals? And my goals are often increase their posture
Speaker 2: or improve the flexibility of a handstringer, whatever more specific
Speaker 2: movement based things and their goals are I want to
Speaker 2: play golf more, or I want to be able to
Speaker 2: walk more comfortably, or my back hurts when I wake
Speaker 2: up the morning, whatever it is. And really tying those together,
Speaker 2: creating that motivation is a key part of it. And
Speaker 2: again sometimes that will motivate clients. Sometimes they're still going
Speaker 2: to want to not do the job. But over time,
Speaker 2: even with my most recalcitrant triumph clients, if that's my
Speaker 2: turn there, over time, I still find that I can
Speaker 2: make a difference. Even if they're not as bought in
Speaker 2: as I would like them too and not really doing
Speaker 2: the homework that i'd like them to be doing, I
Speaker 2: still can get some progress, just a whole lot slower
Speaker 2: and a whole lot less effective.
Speaker 1: You are the first person to bring this concept up
Speaker 1: with me, and I think when it comes to goals,
Speaker 1: this is something that I was thinking about after we
Speaker 1: talked last. Was the whole global to local viewpoint. You
Speaker 1: look globally, then you look locally. I find that their
Speaker 1: goals are the global goals and they're more generalized. It's
Speaker 1: sort of like you said, I want to play golf,
Speaker 1: I want to get up off the floor, I want
Speaker 1: to be able to get down and play with my grandkids.
Speaker 1: I want to be able to get up out of
Speaker 1: bed without Oh, sounded like an eighty year old man
Speaker 1: every time.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: And our goals are the local ones, because we see
Speaker 1: those big pictures and we say, Okay, in order to
Speaker 1: accomplish that, we need to focus on meat, strength, you know,
Speaker 1: thorastic extension and rotation. We can break things down into
Speaker 1: that sense, but we break it down seeing, Okay, you
Speaker 1: want this, here's what it's going to take. And we
Speaker 1: have our sort of checklist that make that happen. What's
Speaker 1: also on that checklist though, or what we're seeing because
Speaker 1: sometimes even to get to there, it's like we need
Speaker 1: to build a big foundation before we even try and
Speaker 1: do any of that.
Speaker 2: Right exactly, So, so I'm thinking about that we start
Speaker 2: with that assessment of what are their goals or are
Speaker 2: their global goals? I like that you broke that down
Speaker 2: that way, and then we look kind of locally. Is
Speaker 2: it a posture issue, is it a strength issue, is
Speaker 2: it a mobility issue? Is it a coordination issue? Like
Speaker 2: what's the what are the issues that we're seeing? Is
Speaker 2: it a gate problem? Like what are we seeing? And
Speaker 2: then you know, our clinical reasoning says, how do I
Speaker 2: address that peece? And one example, and I'm just trying
Speaker 2: to think of there's one example that I had for
Speaker 2: a client who had low back problems, low back issues,
Speaker 2: lebec pain, particularly kind of as securarly a joint area,
Speaker 2: so more like in that area. And she also had
Speaker 2: a seriatic arthritis, which is a you know, kind of
Speaker 2: an autoimmune condition. You know, you think of psirisis as
Speaker 2: being a patch on the skin. Well, this also is
Speaker 2: also can have an internal component kind of like rheumatoid arthritis,
Speaker 2: but just a little different aspect. And so her she
Speaker 2: was she was naturally somewhat inflamed or inflamable.
Speaker 1: In her joints.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it seemed to have kind of settled in
Speaker 2: this low back area. And with her it was it
Speaker 2: was this is this is This is a simple version, guys,
Speaker 2: in terms of a case study. So I was watching
Speaker 2: her posture and she was very posterely tilted, very slung back,
Speaker 2: kind of a little bit of a knee hyper extension
Speaker 2: and really tucked under her back when she stood was
Speaker 2: really flat, and she just kind of hung out on
Speaker 2: the ligaments there. And one of the things I always
Speaker 2: look at when I'm thinking about the low back is
Speaker 2: where is the force coming in, and how is the
Speaker 2: force coming in? And if I can change that, sometimes
Speaker 2: I can decrease pain just by changing how the structures
Speaker 2: are getting force put through them. In her case, say yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean you know, just that those joints are a
Speaker 2: little funny anyway, and the spine too, And if I
Speaker 2: just change where the force is, it might just take
Speaker 2: the pressure off the ears that are sore because they're
Speaker 2: getting too much pressure, right, just just bearing that, and
Speaker 2: so on her case, I said, okay, so what I
Speaker 2: want you to think about is I want you to
Speaker 2: just stick your butt out. Basically, I want you to
Speaker 2: be a little bit more extended in your lumbar spine.
Speaker 2: I want you to think about Angela tilty. The pelvis
Speaker 2: are kind of simple because as soon as she did that,
Speaker 2: even when we were standing, because if she stood for
Speaker 2: more than about five minutes, she really could feel the discomfort.
Speaker 2: I said, okay, well, let's have you stand in a
Speaker 2: different posture. And she's like, oh, that doesn't hurt. And
Speaker 2: that was one of those really no, a B this hurts.
Speaker 2: This doesn't if I just stand differently. And you know,
Speaker 2: she used to be able to tolerate standing for like literally
Speaker 2: five to ten minutes. Then she'd really been in pain
Speaker 2: and that would go up. And then so she came
Speaker 2: in two days later and said, oh, you know, I
Speaker 2: had a party last night. I had to stand for
Speaker 2: like forty five minutes, and I was actually pretty good.
Speaker 2: So it's a little bit sore by the end. So
Speaker 2: that was again, that's a simple version. Okay, it's not
Speaker 2: always that. We're not always that lucky, but that was
Speaker 2: one of those ones where this posture is not serving you.
Speaker 2: Let's try this one. This one seems to be less painful.
Speaker 2: Let's work on that. And then she applied.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But I gotta say oftentimes, though, when it comes
Speaker 1: to a lot of our clients, sometimes finding that is
Speaker 1: the key to unlocking a lot of other things. Because
Speaker 1: I have a client that was very similar. He had
Speaker 1: he has the noosis in his low back, he has
Speaker 1: you know, had si joint problems, YadA yah, and he
Speaker 1: didn't want to work hard. So his pt was like,
Speaker 1: you gotta kick his butt, you got to work him
Speaker 1: super hard, you got to do this, you got to
Speaker 1: do that. So he fought me a lot at the beginning,
Speaker 1: and once I went over his trust, it took a
Speaker 1: little bit of time. What I noticed was every time
Speaker 1: something bothered him, it was because his feet were too
Speaker 1: close together and he was arching his back. He'd stand up,
Speaker 1: he'd put his hands behind his back, and he'd arch
Speaker 1: his back. And I watched him do that like three times.
Speaker 1: If someone does it once, okay, they're just trying to
Speaker 1: stand up, fine. But I watched him do it, and
Speaker 1: I told him, I said, we've just been working the
Speaker 1: last hour on getting you a little bit more posterity
Speaker 1: tilted to open up those facet joints, get a little
Speaker 1: bit of less compression on the nerves. And every time
Speaker 1: you arch your back like that, guess what happens. You're
Speaker 1: undoing everything that we just did. And it struck me.
Speaker 1: He said, Oh, said, so that's your homework this week.
Speaker 1: I said, everything else is what we've done that I
Speaker 1: told you for homework. Forget it. Just every time you
Speaker 1: stand up, don't do that. I mean, I got in
Speaker 1: his face a little bit about it, because yeah, he
Speaker 1: did in front of me. And I have these very
Speaker 1: very soft foam balls, and there are times when I
Speaker 1: catch a client doing something I'll like toss it at
Speaker 1: their feet or something, or at their knees, just weigh,
Speaker 1: just a reminder, and they'll go sorry. You know, negative
Speaker 1: reinforcement does work. And I'm not going to do the
Speaker 1: whole you know, squirting water in their face like a dog. No,
Speaker 1: I'm not going that route. But you know, just something
Speaker 1: that's that's a physical reminder, and it does sometimes work.
Speaker 1: Because the next time he came in, he said, it's
Speaker 1: been a lot better this week. I said, you stopped
Speaker 1: doing I caught myself a few times I said good.
Speaker 1: And each time he says he's doing it less, he's
Speaker 1: doing it less. Those habits, those perpetual habits, can be
Speaker 1: so challenging to break on some people, but they can
Speaker 1: be undermining and erasing all the good, hard work that
Speaker 1: we're doing. So your client standing there, you know, with
Speaker 1: their back in the wrong position for such a long
Speaker 1: period of time, was obviously causing her issues. Same with
Speaker 1: my guy, And so times, those simple things make a
Speaker 1: huge world of difference.
Speaker 2: And honestly, like I wanted to start simple because sometimes
Speaker 2: if you can identify it and if they can make
Speaker 2: the changes, sometimes it is that simple. And I think
Speaker 2: of a couple of other clients where it wasn't posture related,
Speaker 2: it was ergonomic related. Right. I've got clients who sit
Speaker 2: a lot, and one of them was like, your client
Speaker 2: was very very stanotic, right, And and they, for some reason,
Speaker 2: which is unusual, kind of like to sit on a
Speaker 2: hard chair at the front corner, which is weird, right,
Speaker 2: and kind of like I think I think they'd been
Speaker 2: taught to sit that way as a child, so they
Speaker 2: would actually kind of, yeah, they're almost sitting in extension, yep,
Speaker 2: which is weird. Most people sit inflection, right, that's kind
Speaker 2: of more normal. But this guy was just odd because
Speaker 2: I would see him sit, and he would sit and
Speaker 2: he would just always be very upright, and I could
Speaker 2: see his pelpos was even a little and tearly tilted,
Speaker 2: and that's where he would kind of live. And I
Speaker 2: the same discussion, I said, you know, you might want
Speaker 2: to think about finding a chair that is a little
Speaker 2: more like a little lower in the front or lower
Speaker 2: in the back, right, could you can off an adjust
Speaker 2: your seat that way and actually sit back a bit?
Speaker 2: And in his case, which is totally not the advice
Speaker 2: I give to most people, but in his case, he
Speaker 2: needed to flex just a little more in his because
Speaker 2: he was a slouch lawyer. He needed to slouch, which
Speaker 2: is weird, but because he was a lawyer and he
Speaker 2: spent a whole lot of time at his desk, and
Speaker 2: he'd been taught for years to sit up like that.
Speaker 2: But that was in his case causing some compression there.
Speaker 2: So it's the same idea, but it was just changing
Speaker 2: the ergonomics instead of the posture.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I was literally just in China. I was teaching
Speaker 1: my two day low back course and one of the
Speaker 1: first slides I show is posture in a seated position. Say, look,
Speaker 1: if you're sitting, if you're standing, and let's call that
Speaker 1: one hundred percent load on your spine. As soon as
Speaker 1: you sit, if you're sitting at ninety degrees, it's a
Speaker 1: hundred and forty percent. You lean forward a little bit,
Speaker 1: it goes up to one hundred and ninety percent. But
Speaker 1: guess what if you lean back five degrees just or
Speaker 1: five to ten degrees, not much, it reduces it to
Speaker 1: like one hundred and ten percent. If you go back
Speaker 1: fifteen degrees, it's one hundred and five percent. So I said,
Speaker 1: so those clients who have those issues that are really
Speaker 1: compressing too much on their spine. Guess what, Having them recline,
Speaker 1: even just a little bit can sometimes take the pressure off.
Speaker 1: And you and I both know what do they do
Speaker 1: In China they have these ramrod straight chairs. Everybody sits
Speaker 1: on the front edge of the chair and sits up
Speaker 1: perfectly straight, which I admire.
Speaker 2: It generally is a good idea, like really, that's sly
Speaker 2: a good.
Speaker 1: Idea, not away, But for some people it's maybe not.
Speaker 1: And you can just see them go oh and that
Speaker 1: it wasn't dawning on them that you know what, just
Speaker 1: a little recline can take pressure off because it's just
Speaker 1: taking gravity off your spine. So making those small changes
Speaker 1: like you did with this person can make a huge
Speaker 1: world difference. I found with automobiles getting them in the
Speaker 1: right absolutely, you know, those kind of ergonomics can make
Speaker 1: a world of difference. And again we're starting easy here
Speaker 1: because sometimes it is just looking. Yeah, I mean you
Speaker 1: taught me this a long time ago. Find the first
Speaker 1: queue that makes the biggest difference.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and then work on it. Then work it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go next exactly. And I think if
Speaker 1: you can do that in just in general by finding
Speaker 1: that one thing that makes the biggest difference, and say okay,
Speaker 1: we're going to start here and you're going to work
Speaker 1: on it this week, but I want exercises. You're going
Speaker 1: to work on this this week. And then they say, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: this is good, this is this makes me feel better.
Speaker 1: All right, now we can start working on other stuff.
Speaker 2: I think too, about another client who I was not
Speaker 2: particularly successful with, who had a lot of low back issue,
Speaker 2: and I think he's the story before, but he was
Speaker 2: a classic. He had very very little hamstring range of motion,
Speaker 2: like if he leaned over, he really if he hit
Speaker 2: a flat back, his hands would touch his knees like
Speaker 2: that's how much hamstring did. And if he rounded his
Speaker 2: back and got as much as he could through his
Speaker 2: back and his hamstring, he still only came to maybe
Speaker 2: midshin maybe wow, so super super tight in the hamstrings.
Speaker 2: And because of that, when he sat, anytime he sat,
Speaker 2: he was fully flexed. I mean he was really really
Speaker 2: tucked under because the hamstrings. It was, legs were straight
Speaker 2: in front of him. And he was a client. He said,
Speaker 2: well what do you do? And he said, well, I
Speaker 2: have a sports car and I drive to Los Angeles
Speaker 2: every weekend. I'm assuming you he had a girlfriend or
Speaker 2: a friend or something down there. Now Bay Area in
Speaker 2: this case to Los Angeles is a good six hour drive.
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah right.
Speaker 2: And he was doing this like Friday and Sunday. So
Speaker 2: he was doing this like sports car in a sports car.
Speaker 2: And I said, well, let me go down and see
Speaker 2: your car, just because I was curious to actually take
Speaker 2: this into real life. And I went down and he
Speaker 2: had either had a did you have a Porsche? I
Speaker 2: think he had a portional like a Porson at eleven
Speaker 2: where the seat, the bottom of the seat was maybe
Speaker 2: a foot off of the floor, maybe less. So when
Speaker 2: he was sitting in it and at his feet on
Speaker 2: the pedals, his legs were pretty much straight, and his
Speaker 2: back was completely pushed into the mat, right into the
Speaker 2: back of the seat, and he was completely flexed the
Speaker 2: whole time, for six hours or twelve hours really every weekend.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, okay, I see, so this is the
Speaker 2: problem because his back would hurt a whole lot on Monday.
Speaker 2: It was better by Thursday, but then he'd go back
Speaker 2: and back on Monday again. And you know, I had
Speaker 2: the conversation with him, Well, I said, you can either
Speaker 2: loosen your hamstrings up and do some hamstring stretches every
Speaker 2: day and see if we can get any more mobility
Speaker 2: that way, or you can change your car and maybe
Speaker 2: not drive to LA every weekend. Well, he wasn't going
Speaker 2: to change his car or that, and he really didn't
Speaker 2: like the hamstring stretches, so he was one that he
Speaker 2: left pretty quickly. And I'm like, well, clearly you're not
Speaker 2: my You were not my client because you rarely weren't
Speaker 2: willing to make any of the changes you need to
Speaker 2: make to get out of the pain you're in. But
Speaker 2: you know that was an example.
Speaker 1: Norah, don't you understand that's your job. He shouldn't have
Speaker 1: to be focusing on any of this, that you're the
Speaker 1: I hate to say it. I get that from clients
Speaker 1: every now and then when they say, but that's what
Speaker 1: you're supposed to do. I say, no, no, no, no, no
Speaker 1: no no. I live in this body, responsible for everything
Speaker 1: this body does. You're responsible for your body. You are,
Speaker 1: absolutely and you give me one to two maybe three
Speaker 1: hours per week, Okay, I'll take that, But the rest
Speaker 1: of it is you and you got to work with
Speaker 1: what you got.
Speaker 2: One of the things that this is an image that
Speaker 2: I have, which I'm sure I've used before, but it
Speaker 2: just always cracks me up for a long time. Like you,
Speaker 2: like many of us, I would feel like I was
Speaker 2: responsible for my client's bodies. I was the one who
Speaker 2: was trying to do everything, and at one point somebody said,
Speaker 2: you got to let that go, Like you just said,
Speaker 2: you just got it. It's their responsibility. And so I
Speaker 2: would have this image of at two images won the
Speaker 2: Wicked Witch of the West, Right, she goes away and
Speaker 2: she's got Toto's basket on her bicycle, and then you know,
Speaker 2: Toto jumps out in that moment. But I would basically
Speaker 2: I would picture a little basket of all the problems
Speaker 2: that they have, whatever it was, and I would when
Speaker 2: they walked out the door, I would picture them carrying
Speaker 2: their own basket, like here, this basket is yours. Take
Speaker 2: it away, because otherwise otherwise I'd have the basket and
Speaker 2: I would be worried about what was in that basket
Speaker 2: for you know, until I saw them again. That isn't
Speaker 2: really helpful. It was.
Speaker 1: It can be challenging. I think sometimes I have a
Speaker 1: client who love her a piece. She's awesome, and she
Speaker 1: is very determined to solve some physical issues. It's very determined,
Speaker 1: but it's difficult to have me let go when she
Speaker 1: walks out because she texts me multiple times a week.
Speaker 1: She'll find something new, she'll try something, she'll do that,
Speaker 1: and so it's like she's constantly needing that either validation
Speaker 1: or checking in and wants to give up some of
Speaker 1: that responsibility. And a lot of times, you know, I'll
Speaker 1: help out, and sometimes I just have to say this
Speaker 1: is the weekend. I'h answer you on Monday, because you know,
Speaker 1: there's not a whole lot I can do without a
Speaker 1: body in front of me, you know, right.
Speaker 2: It's also there can also come a point where they're
Speaker 2: just too focused on it in a way. Now clients
Speaker 2: to every single little thing they want to report to you,
Speaker 2: and they've got, you know, all their data and their
Speaker 2: awarenesses and the other which is which in many ways
Speaker 2: is great, Like don't get me wrong, that is often
Speaker 2: a really lovely client to have, but there's some times
Speaker 2: when it's like you are over were thinking this. You
Speaker 2: need to just walk or do the thing, or just
Speaker 2: let it go a bit, because if you keep going
Speaker 2: what's wrong, what's wrong, what's wrong, you're looking for what's
Speaker 2: wrong always. If that's if that's the voice in your
Speaker 2: head that says, oh, what, you know, what problem am
Speaker 2: I having today? What isn't working today? You're going to
Speaker 2: find what isn't working that day? Yep, and you're going
Speaker 2: to focus on that, and you focus on that, and that,
Speaker 2: you know, what we pay attention to grows. That's that's
Speaker 2: kind of that simple. It's true in the body as well.
Speaker 1: And with this client, what I discovered was the first
Speaker 1: quite a while, it was the constant band aid every week,
Speaker 1: focus on what was going on? What was going on?
Speaker 1: And I can't tell you I had the number of
Speaker 1: times she's come in saying, you know, I'm feeling pretty good,
Speaker 1: please don't screw it up, right. I might go okay, thanks,
Speaker 1: and she goes, you know, I'm just teasing. I said, yeah, but.
Speaker 2: No, you're not really choosing. There's there's some truth in that,
Speaker 2: or you wouldn't say it as often as you do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And a lot of things for me when I'm
Speaker 1: focusing on this is Yes, part of my job is
Speaker 1: to help you get better, to get stronger, and to
Speaker 1: hopefully get you into less pain, hopefully no pain. If
Speaker 1: that's even possible. Sometimes it's not, but it's also to
Speaker 1: get you to your goals, So pain can't be the
Speaker 1: only goal or else they're always going to be focused
Speaker 1: on it, always going to be chasing it. And I
Speaker 1: think what's necessary is to establish a bigger picture. You
Speaker 1: want to get stronger, okay, which means we're going to
Speaker 1: have to go beyond a one pound weight. We're going
Speaker 1: to have to go beyond doing this. I know your neck,
Speaker 1: I know you're this, I know you're that, but we
Speaker 1: still need to and you know, I would say, go
Speaker 1: get your backpack. Oh I feel how heavy that is? Okay,
Speaker 1: this is a two pound weight. It's not that much different.
Speaker 1: And sometimes it's just okay, we just need to focus
Speaker 1: on movement, just you know, let's dance, let's do something,
Speaker 1: just to get the broady moving. But reminding them each
Speaker 1: time of what the big picture is, I think is
Speaker 1: so necessary because that's going to influence my programming. But
Speaker 1: if it's always band aid, band aid, band aid, it
Speaker 1: could become very challenging because all they're focusing on is
Speaker 1: what's wrong and the pain, and not the good stories,
Speaker 1: which occasionally I hear from these clients. It's oh I
Speaker 1: was able to do this and this and this around
Speaker 1: the house and man, I didn't hurt the next day. Yes,
Speaker 1: you're getting stronger, and at those moments I try and
Speaker 1: reinforce it. That's all the stuff we've been doing. See,
Speaker 1: that's been helping.
Speaker 2: And one of the one of the key features, if
Speaker 2: you will, of modern pain science is exactly that is
Speaker 2: not keeping the focus on the pain. And you know,
Speaker 2: I talked to my friend Lindy Ryer, who I've done
Speaker 2: a lot of work with this on a lot of
Speaker 2: it is how how you frame the really relationship and
Speaker 2: how you frame the question yes and this. There's a
Speaker 2: fine line here, So I'm going to see if I
Speaker 2: can pull out this fine line. So some of it
Speaker 2: is rather than how much is your back hurting today? Right,
Speaker 2: which which means somebody is going huh. I mean maybe
Speaker 2: the back wasn't hurting right, but if they think about
Speaker 2: it like oh yeah, no it's not that comfortable, but
Speaker 2: they might not even have been noticing it. It may have
Speaker 2: been a one or two or you know, what's the
Speaker 2: number on your knee pain today? It's like how are
Speaker 2: you today? You know? And even beyond that, what's going well?
Speaker 2: Like are you able to I heard you had your
Speaker 2: grandkids this weekend. How did that go? Oh? You know,
Speaker 2: I was able to do more and more, or or
Speaker 2: you're just on vacation, you know, how did you go
Speaker 2: walking around Italy? And like, hey, you know it's actually
Speaker 2: pretty good. So some of it. Two is just trying.
Speaker 2: And this is a queueing thing. This is a relationship
Speaker 2: talking queuing thing to steer them towards what's working when
Speaker 2: you can and it's this doesn't mean you ignore the problems,
Speaker 2: because you can also just everything's fine, everything's fine. It's
Speaker 2: really not fine. But this is really like, how do
Speaker 2: I just get them focusing on the things that are working,
Speaker 2: the things that are improving, so they have that sense
Speaker 2: of progress and they're not mired in everything hurts. It's
Speaker 2: tricky because some personalities just don't go there. They're just
Speaker 2: they just don't. But those that do, or you can
Speaker 2: start to steer them in that way, it's really helpful.
Speaker 1: I think people with chronic pain issues in general are
Speaker 1: very challenging just because that's been their life and that's
Speaker 1: all that they have felt for X amount of years, months, whatever,
Speaker 1: and when that's all that they've focused on and eighty
Speaker 1: percent of their life, if not more, has been focused
Speaker 1: on trying to figure this out. And I'm guilty of
Speaker 1: that with my own body because I've had I've had
Speaker 1: a number of health issues and sometimes I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm chasing down rabbit holes and I got to stop
Speaker 1: doing that sometimes and just say stop it, because you
Speaker 1: can go down the wrong rabbit hole and they can
Speaker 1: make things a lot worse. But if all you're doing
Speaker 1: is focusing on something, it's like underlining it, highlighting it,
Speaker 1: making it this giant neon sign that's over your head,
Speaker 1: constantly going look at me, look at me, look at me.
Speaker 1: It becomes that elephant in the room. And it's not
Speaker 1: only the elephant, but he's wearing a pink mumu and he's,
Speaker 1: you know, dancing a jig. I mean, it's your constant
Speaker 1: attention is you know, being drawn to it. I find
Speaker 1: with those clients sometimes you just got to figure out
Speaker 1: what they can do. Even if it's Okay, we're going
Speaker 1: to focus on doing something simple today. You're going to
Speaker 1: do a squat. Oh you're doing that great. Okay, how
Speaker 1: about stepping to the side. We'll do a stepout squat. Oh,
Speaker 1: check that out. You're doing great, you know, something small
Speaker 1: and easy and then working our way into it. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm not talking even weighted. I'm just talking let's just
Speaker 1: get your but closer to the ground and stand up again.
Speaker 1: That's all I'm looking for. But sometimes having that positive
Speaker 1: reinforcement can help.
Speaker 2: Absolutely and creating success. So yes, right, creating success for
Speaker 2: them whatever that means. And sometimes it's you know, they've
Speaker 2: got a neck problem, so I do footwork, or they've
Speaker 2: got a shoulder, or they've got a knee problem, so
Speaker 2: we do a lot of upper body work, a lot
Speaker 2: of ways of getting the body moving that don't necessarily
Speaker 2: address the issue. And I'm going to say was we
Speaker 2: talked about some simple situations where either there was just
Speaker 2: a postul or an ergonomic solution that made a difference.
Speaker 2: What I find is harder is somebody like the guy
Speaker 2: I mentioned, the guy who was back pain with the
Speaker 2: tight hamstrings. That problem is going to be a lot
Speaker 2: harder to solve. Yeah, right, So if I one thing
Speaker 2: I say often is if the client can make the correction,
Speaker 2: for example, could sit correctly in his car, that's much easier.
Speaker 2: Then you just have to build endurance in that situation.
Speaker 2: If the client doesn't have the strength or the mobility
Speaker 2: to attain the better movement pattern or the better posture,
Speaker 2: that's what takes time and patience, and that's really where
Speaker 2: where you kind of got to commit to whatever that is,
Speaker 2: whether it's mobility work or whether it's strength work. And
Speaker 2: that's what I find. I've got to start at whatever
Speaker 2: level they can succeed at and then work it up.
Speaker 1: And that's a challenge for a lot of people because
Speaker 1: we all want the aspirin to get rid of the headache.
Speaker 1: We all want something that's going to be quick and easy.
Speaker 1: And you know my history. When you first met me,
Speaker 1: I was in utter agony because of Sherman cayphosis. It
Speaker 1: was literally every moment of every day. I was in
Speaker 1: pain and like a knife in my back. So I
Speaker 1: was constantly searching, constantly striving to and it wasn't until
Speaker 1: I just said, Okay, I'm going to program this like
Speaker 1: I would for a client, and I'm just going to
Speaker 1: do what's on the paper. I'm just going to do
Speaker 1: those exercises and understand that it might take me six months,
Speaker 1: might take me a year, may take me five years.
Speaker 1: I don't care. I've got nothing better to do. I'm
Speaker 1: here anyway, I may as well make the best of this.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't until I saw doctor who had done
Speaker 1: X rays on me years before, a couple of years before,
Speaker 1: after doing this for a long period of time and realizing, yeah,
Speaker 1: my back is hurting a little bit less, he took
Speaker 1: a look at me and said, man, your posture has
Speaker 1: improved unbelievably. What have you been doing. We live in
Speaker 1: our bodies day to day. We see ourselves in the mirror.
Speaker 1: We don't see the small changes that other people might see.
Speaker 1: But for me, it was only about how I felt.
Speaker 1: But when he said that, I said, oh, maybe that's
Speaker 1: why I'm feeling better. Okay, I am making these small
Speaker 1: these small exercises are getting better, even though I don't
Speaker 1: feel like it all the time, they were making progress,
Speaker 1: and it took time. That was probably eighteen months, two years.
Speaker 1: But that constant working at it and just saying okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to do it anyway, but not focusing and
Speaker 1: over focusing on it really can help a lot.
Speaker 2: So, surprit, how many exercises were you committing to to
Speaker 2: make that change?
Speaker 1: Three to four? I was going to say three to four, right,
Speaker 1: it wasn't It wasn't much. It was a little bit
Speaker 1: of thoracic extension, little retraction, thorascic rotation, and a little
Speaker 1: bit of lumbar flexion. That's really what it was, and
Speaker 1: that's all I was focusing on for that portion. I
Speaker 1: was doing other things obviously, but for that portion, but
Speaker 1: that was almost three times a week, four times a week,
Speaker 1: I would do cardio. I would hop off, I would
Speaker 1: do this, and I would focus on this, and sometimes
Speaker 1: I would say, oh, let me try this, see if
Speaker 1: I can get a little better by adding this or
Speaker 1: changing slightly that, And sometimes successful, sometimes unsuccessful. But normally
Speaker 1: I'd wait a long enough and thinking I think I
Speaker 1: can do it, and you try a little bit more.
Speaker 1: But again, it wasn't an hour long. I do have
Speaker 1: a couple of clients that they're so focused on getting
Speaker 1: out of pain that they do an hour, hour and
Speaker 1: a half of exercises every day because it's from this
Speaker 1: physical therapist gave me these three pages, and this physical
Speaker 1: therapist gave me these two and you wanted me to
Speaker 1: do these in this and I'm like, let's let's condense,
Speaker 1: let's do a little less, because that's a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff for your body. But it's working. But it's working. Said, Okay,
Speaker 1: sometimes you can't convince them, but sometimes just doing a
Speaker 1: little bit, but doing it consistently can really create a
Speaker 1: great amount of change.
Speaker 2: In the end, you have clients. I've only had two
Speaker 2: clients like that that do everything they've ever been told to.
Speaker 1: Do on the paper I've got you.
Speaker 2: Well, you've got some. I'm sure you've got some seriously,
Speaker 2: like OCD lawyer times.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, now you got a little bit of that,
Speaker 3: because you know, typically that's kind of why I asked
Speaker 3: you how many exercises did it really take to make
Speaker 3: that difference?
Speaker 2: Because you could probably do those exercises in ten to
Speaker 2: fifteen minutes presu right, maybe in like seven minutes. And
Speaker 2: so for me, a lot of times it's okay, what
Speaker 2: are the I kind of stick to three, maybe four,
Speaker 2: three things that I would like them to do every
Speaker 2: day or three times a week. And if I say
Speaker 2: every day.
Speaker 1: I'll probably three times a week, say every day.
Speaker 2: It also means that at least every day they're thinking
Speaker 2: they should be doing it, which reminds them to do
Speaker 2: it if they haven't done it today, right, And a
Speaker 2: lot of times it's really honing down on those three
Speaker 2: things and whether it's stretching their hamstrings or doing squats
Speaker 2: or going for a walk like whatever it is, whatever
Speaker 2: it is we're going to focus on. And I really
Speaker 2: do find limiting the things they have to do. And
Speaker 2: for me, program designed too, Like I know in every
Speaker 2: program I have to do these things. It maybe and
Speaker 2: minutes of their program, but this is like the meat
Speaker 2: of the issue, got just every single time and connitut
Speaker 2: for myself as a programming person as well, I'm not
Speaker 2: going to get bored like I will get bored. I'm
Speaker 2: too bad. Not my problem. Keep doing it right. So
Speaker 2: finding those few things.
Speaker 1: And that's I think that is one thing that as
Speaker 1: fitness professionals, as movement professionals, we have a tendency to
Speaker 1: get bored with certain exercises. I have to remind myself
Speaker 1: that it's only because we're doing so much. We're constantly
Speaker 1: involved in this and we're constantly thinking about this. Our
Speaker 1: clients aren't. Now, if you give them three things and
Speaker 1: you say, okay, I'm gonna give you three exercises, you
Speaker 1: do these religiously, You do these every day, you do
Speaker 1: these five times a week, whatever it is, you're gonna
Speaker 1: get better. It's gonna take six weeks, it's going to
Speaker 1: take eight weeks, it's going to take a period of time.
Speaker 1: I'm not giving you a number. It's gonna take some time.
Speaker 1: But if you commit to these and only these, you're
Speaker 1: gonna start getting better, and then we'll give you different
Speaker 1: ones and get you stronger and progress from there. It
Speaker 1: makes a huge difference. I find what's missing, and tell
Speaker 1: me if you find this too. I find what's missing
Speaker 1: in a lot of people's programming like this, and I
Speaker 1: think it comes from the world of physical therapy. Because
Speaker 1: they stop seeing their physical therapists, they no longer get
Speaker 1: additional exercises and progressions that they forget that it's time
Speaker 1: to get stronger. They can forget about certain exercises and
Speaker 1: move on to more challenge ones. And I think that's
Speaker 1: part of our job, is to take all of their exercises.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I've literally had client walk in with a binder
Speaker 1: of all of their exercises and I say, how many
Speaker 1: of these are you doing? Most of them? I said,
Speaker 1: there's got to be fifteen exercise, there's maybe more. How
Speaker 1: can you do this? It takes me an hour and
Speaker 1: a half every day you were spending it. And again,
Speaker 1: we have a lot of OCD people around here, So
Speaker 1: I said, it's taking you an hour and a half,
Speaker 1: why don't we whittle that down to thirty minutes? And
Speaker 1: you could see the look at I don't know if
Speaker 1: I can do that. I said, let's see. Well, these
Speaker 1: four exercises are doing the exact same thing. So okay,
Speaker 1: let's trim this and pick the best one. You know,
Speaker 1: this last one that's the most progressive one, let's do that,
Speaker 1: or I'm going to give you one that's even better
Speaker 1: for you for that. So a lot of times it's
Speaker 1: taking those fifty getting it down to seven or eight
Speaker 1: and saying but every single day, commit to me, Now
Speaker 1: do it every single day, And you'd be surprised at
Speaker 1: how they feel because they're like, yeah, I'm making the
Speaker 1: same amount of progress, but I'm no longer spending an
Speaker 1: hour and a half. I say, good, Now we can
Speaker 1: do other things. Now you can go do cardio, you
Speaker 1: can go for a walk, you can add other things.
Speaker 1: You've been wanting to learn a sport, you've been wanting
Speaker 1: to do that, Hey, why not try that now that
Speaker 1: you've got the time on your hands, go do that,
Speaker 1: you know, go for a height, go do something. And
Speaker 1: I think that that can make a huge difference for
Speaker 1: us by really narrowing it down, what's the very essence
Speaker 1: that they need.
Speaker 2: So there's that's that's key. And I think for us
Speaker 2: as movement professionals working with complicated people, if we can
Speaker 2: find those key exercise those key principles, right, those key
Speaker 2: skills you're trying to get them to develop thorastic mobility
Speaker 2: or hamstring flank, whatever it is. Trying to get those
Speaker 2: key skills and then make a program to develop those
Speaker 2: key skills makes all the difference. One thing I want
Speaker 2: to add to that, because I know you do it
Speaker 2: and and I certainly do it in the Plott's world
Speaker 2: is there's also a real benefit for a client, especially
Speaker 2: if I'm thinking about a lot of my upper body clients.
Speaker 2: I can't spend an hour on their upper body. That's
Speaker 2: going to torture them, right, They're mostly probably going to
Speaker 2: do too much, honestly, So I also think about I
Speaker 2: want to do the key things they have to do.
Speaker 2: But I also know that, especially in the Plot's environment,
Speaker 2: I can get a whole lot of things working and
Speaker 2: coordinating together while leaving that irritated body part kind to
Speaker 2: the side. So maybe that I focus on that for
Speaker 2: five or ten minutes, and then we do some other
Speaker 2: things and leave that beat, and then maybe we focus
Speaker 2: on it again five or ten minutes an exercise or two,
Speaker 2: and they will leave it be. So some of it, too,
Speaker 2: is in terms of programming, and I know you do
Speaker 2: this as well, like focus on the thing and then
Speaker 2: give it a rest and let it kind of sink
Speaker 2: into the background and give them something successful. Yes, right,
Speaker 2: so it's an operbody thing. I'll let go of the
Speaker 2: neck and shoulders and stop telling them about scalpulu mobility,
Speaker 2: and we'll do squats or footwork or feet and straps
Speaker 2: or something that really doesn't involve the upper body, and
Speaker 2: then we'll come back to another little upper body thing
Speaker 2: and then we'll take a break. And I think that
Speaker 2: also is a really nice way to give them a
Speaker 2: feeling of moving and a feeling of success. And many
Speaker 2: clients in chronic pain are well, many of the ones
Speaker 2: I've worked with anywhere are seriously deconditioned. They're just they
Speaker 2: just don't have the strength to support their bodies anymore
Speaker 2: because they've been in pain for a long time. They've
Speaker 2: often been on bed rest or not moving or whatever, yep.
Speaker 2: And so they just need to get just plain simple stronger.
Speaker 2: They just need to get their body moving and get
Speaker 2: some things going. And so finding that too and working
Speaker 2: on getting the strength and the rest of their body
Speaker 2: will often support the area that's irritated.
Speaker 1: Yep. I find that I call it overlap. You if
Speaker 1: something hurts like their low back, well, guess what if
Speaker 1: I can make their shoulders stronger. If I can have
Speaker 1: them do something that's going to make their upper body
Speaker 1: just a little stronger, They're still working their core because
Speaker 1: I choose positions where their core is going to be
Speaker 1: active a little bit, but their focus may not be
Speaker 1: on it. And that's a light enough weight that we're
Speaker 1: really not straining anything. And then maybe I'll do some
Speaker 1: lower body and all of this. And I've literally had
Speaker 1: clients say, but we're not focusing on this, So, yeah,
Speaker 1: but are you getting stronger? Yeah, it's a painless. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I said, there's an overlap. You're actually getting stronger in
Speaker 1: your core because we're challenging your core in various positions,
Speaker 1: or if it's their knee or something, I'll work their ankle,
Speaker 1: I'll work their hip, I'll work their little back, I'll
Speaker 1: work everything else, and they're like, wow, we didn't do
Speaker 1: a whole lot for it. I'll do a little bit, granted,
Speaker 1: but we didn't do a whole lot. But wow, that
Speaker 1: it's feeling a little better. So yeah, science has actually
Speaker 1: proven that sometimes you can beat a dead horse and
Speaker 1: just keep beating it, beating it, beating it, and you're
Speaker 1: not going to accomplish much except for fatiguing it to
Speaker 1: the point where it's just never going to get stronger,
Speaker 1: or you can get it a little. But the area
Speaker 1: above below to the side, almost like a ven diagram
Speaker 1: that if you have enough of them, guess what, that
Speaker 1: center that you're focusing on is still going to get
Speaker 1: hit a lot. It's just in a abstract in direct.
Speaker 2: All the time. And certainly when you look at fascia
Speaker 2: theory and all that kind of thing. I mean, they
Speaker 2: talk about how when you're training a muscle, imagining that
Speaker 2: you could actually train a muscle, which you can't do
Speaker 2: that a whole lot of that work is happening in
Speaker 2: the areas around it. You've got stabilizers happening, You've got
Speaker 2: other muscles like that are keeping things still while that's moving.
Speaker 2: We've got the the opposite of that muscle doing its thing, right,
Speaker 2: the antagonist of that muscle doing whatever it's doing. And
Speaker 2: so it's actually pretty hard to work in area in isolation,
Speaker 2: very hard, and very often, like especially with the core
Speaker 2: and low back issues. You know, find a safe way
Speaker 2: to work the upper body, to work the lower body,
Speaker 2: to work the feet, to work the hips, to work
Speaker 2: the knees, and the back gets affected, the core gets
Speaker 2: affected without having to move the spine and create pain.
Speaker 1: Exactly one, yeah, exactly, yeah. And I find the more
Speaker 1: complicated cases sometimes require that, whereas it's not necessarily the
Speaker 1: case that you only need to focus on the knee. Okay, yes, fine,
Speaker 1: but guess what by focusing on everything else, it can
Speaker 1: really make a huge difference. And the more complicated the cases,
Speaker 1: sometimes it's just getting them to move, sometimes just getting
Speaker 1: them a little stronger and getting them to take their
Speaker 1: focus off of those issues to make a huge difference.
Speaker 1: And that sometimes is part of my programming is just okay,
Speaker 1: let's program around it. What can I find to do
Speaker 1: that's not going to bother it, but that's going to
Speaker 1: make other things stronger because guess what they just need
Speaker 1: overall strength. Sometimes I think.
Speaker 2: That particularly with well back and nick are two of
Speaker 2: the things that I find when when the little back
Speaker 2: is really painful, to the neck is painful, it's very
Speaker 2: hard for people to think beyond that. Yep right, it's
Speaker 2: like that there. The neck particularly just takes up the
Speaker 2: entire brain a lot of times, and it's just really
Speaker 2: hard to feel like anything's ever going to feel good.
Speaker 2: It just hurts like heck, and and everything else is
Speaker 2: blocked out. So you know, on footwork, pad up their neck,
Speaker 2: pat up their shoulders, make sure there's no pressure on there,
Speaker 2: do some footwork and some blood supply going, get some
Speaker 2: some areas moving, and get some circulation happening. Like I've
Speaker 2: had many clients where I don't touch their neck at
Speaker 2: all for three or four weeks.
Speaker 1: Exactly.
Speaker 2: Lower body, we might do some armwork, but the armwork
Speaker 2: might be like literally lying on their back, holding on
Speaker 2: to a one or two pound weight with their upper
Speaker 2: arms supported and just doing a simple little bicep curl yep, right,
Speaker 2: and just trying to keep the neck soft as they
Speaker 2: do that. Like that might be all the upper body
Speaker 2: work we do or some variation on a theme, and
Speaker 2: that alone, it's like, Okay, everything else gets a little stronger,
Speaker 2: circulation happens, and that pain starts to just disperse a
Speaker 2: little bit.
Speaker 1: Anyway, I reminded of those, yeah, of a client that
Speaker 1: I had with severe, severe, severe neck issues, one of
Speaker 1: the worst, and she was one of my early clients.
Speaker 1: And what I realized was the more focus I put
Speaker 1: on it, the worst things got. Absolutely What I did
Speaker 1: is I said, okay, well how about we do something
Speaker 1: like this? So I would take I would literally take around.
Speaker 1: This was when I was working at a gym. I
Speaker 1: would take it bench that had an adjustable incline, and
Speaker 1: I would take it over to the cable machine, over
Speaker 1: to the dumbells. I would literally drag it all over the
Speaker 1: gym and everywhere she sat she had to lean back
Speaker 1: at an angle with the pad and I'd have her
Speaker 1: do rows, I'd have her do curl, I have her
Speaker 1: do press, I'd have her do everything. But her head
Speaker 1: was supported. But as she got stronger, everywhere else that
Speaker 1: area started to get stronger. Because her head was relaxed,
Speaker 1: I could say just keep it soft, or I'd remind her,
Speaker 1: you know, don't try and lift your head. Just keep
Speaker 1: it pushed back by a half half an ounce, yes, slightly,
Speaker 1: just make a slight indentation into the towel or whatever
Speaker 1: I had behind her head. And she say, wow, that
Speaker 1: really makes a difference in over a six weeks, six
Speaker 1: month period whatever it was. So she wasn't complaining about
Speaker 1: her neck as much anymore. And then we got away
Speaker 1: from the bench and started doing some things in more
Speaker 1: of a free standing position. She said, wow, this is
Speaker 1: this feels all right. I don't have that kind of
Speaker 1: discomfort and pain anymore. It's like, all right, we're making
Speaker 1: some progress. It was literally finding what I could do yep,
Speaker 1: to not piss at all and make everything else stronger
Speaker 1: around it. And it did work. It worked really well.
Speaker 2: I have to say I felt like a whole lot
Speaker 2: of my time in my practice and St. Francis was, well,
Speaker 2: what can I move? Yes, just what can I move?
Speaker 2: I can't do that. I can't do that, like my
Speaker 2: checklists we go, can't do that, I can't do that.
Speaker 2: I can't Oh, I can do that. So I would
Speaker 2: do that and it might be like I mean literally,
Speaker 2: I think I remember one time having somebody in footwork,
Speaker 2: just work in their ankles, just like pointing and flexing
Speaker 2: because their knees were hurting their hips or hurt their
Speaker 2: backwards are like a bunch of things. We're funky in
Speaker 2: that one. So we're just gonna do some footwork. We
Speaker 2: just do some ankle work, and then then we did
Speaker 2: I think we did some armwork and something else. But
Speaker 2: it's like that moment of what can I do? Not
Speaker 2: always what can't I do? But what can I do?
Speaker 2: And when you've got a complex client who's got a hip,
Speaker 2: then what can you do? Maybe you can do some core,
Speaker 2: maybe you can do some armwork, maybe you can do
Speaker 2: some footwork, like go, whatever you can do, try to
Speaker 2: do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that's something to always keep in
Speaker 1: mind is normally they can do something.
Speaker 2: Normally Yep, you can usually find something.
Speaker 1: You just got to be cre does everything hurt. So yeah,
Speaker 1: you find that one thing they can do and then
Speaker 1: expand on that, expand on that and slowly figure things
Speaker 1: out and believe it or not. What I find is
Speaker 1: once they can trust that, oh I can do that,
Speaker 1: and the pain isn't there, sometimes you can say, well
Speaker 1: how about trying this, Oh that's exactly too. How about
Speaker 1: trying this, and those small different those small things can
Speaker 1: actually help them to relax, get them focusing on something
Speaker 1: else and calm some areas down. So a little distraction
Speaker 1: that does work. Sometimes often the.
Speaker 2: Distraction in a little sometimes called sneakiness. So I've got
Speaker 2: clients who, particularly little back clients who don't want to
Speaker 2: move their back at all in a lot of rotation,
Speaker 2: inflection and anything anything. They just don't want to move it.
Speaker 2: And so for example, I'll do like all fours tailway,
Speaker 2: and you know, it's like you're on all fours. You
Speaker 2: keep both needs on the map and you lift one
Speaker 2: foot up and then you rotate it one direction the other.
Speaker 2: You look at it, so you're getting into latter reflection,
Speaker 2: but they don't know they're getting into lateral.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so sometimes I'll have to find something in
Speaker 2: a weird environment that sneaks some movement in that I
Speaker 2: know they need, that they're scared of.
Speaker 1: So that's the other thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my dear, Well, have we covered a few things here?
Speaker 1: I think we have. I think we have. I think
Speaker 1: we we let people see a little bit into our
Speaker 1: brains a little bit. With some past clients and some
Speaker 1: case studies and I think hopefully giving you some ideas
Speaker 1: on how to work with some of these clients and
Speaker 1: to help them in ways that you may not have
Speaker 1: thought of before and be like, oh yeah, sometimes we
Speaker 1: should try this instead, and sometimes it can be a
Speaker 1: huge help. So hopefully we did. Hopefully we pointed people
Speaker 1: a little bit in the right direction. Do us a favor.
Speaker 1: Hit that like and subscribe button. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: You can always reach out to us at Movingcombos at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. Moving Combos over on Instagram. We are
Speaker 1: posting things all the time. Check us out there. We
Speaker 1: would really appreciate any last words of wisdom.
Speaker 2: You know, guys, just pay attention, pay attention, identify the goals,
Speaker 2: identify the skills, and then just start where it's appropriate
Speaker 2: and build them up.
Speaker 1: That's what we can do. I love it all right
Speaker 1: well from North Saint John. I'm Brian Richie. We will
Speaker 1: see all next week.
Speaker 2: Bye, guys,