Corrective Movement for Chronic Pain Management

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hello, this is Blair Stanisleo, with the Happy Lion Center. Welcome to our podcast. Mystical and Infamous where we have playful and easy conversations about anything mystical, getting to the heart of all things strange and weird. Join us in a bit of magical tomfoolery, spreading the alchemy of love and light. And now we invite you to enjoy the show. I find it really funny that people do respond to the energy that you're talking about, but they don't always even know that they're doing them.

Speaker 2: 0:33

Oh, correct, that's called the amnesia unconscious walking dead. They're just not awake, and I was one of those, so I cannot point fingers because, honestly, that was. Oh yeah, Very okay saying that.

Speaker 1: 0:53

Yeah, well, I think that. Yeah, I mean, everybody is like so yesterday my husband had surgery on his foot Right, yeah, and boy, he went into that. People go under surgery and basically whoever they are, just really comes out, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:16

And that's one of the things I want to share. Pain affects a person to the core in ways that are unexpected and the coping mechanisms aren't there, because pain overrides everything and it does change personalities. That's really and truly what got me into what I do, to tell you the truth, but physical, pain, chronic pain relief Okay, yeah, so let's go there.

Speaker 1: 1:49

We were going to talk about that anyway, so let's go there. Yeah, some ideas of what we're going to talk about. But I mean, I certainly have experienced plenty of chronic pain, let's see. Oh, you sent him on email.

Speaker 2: 2:06

I did.

Speaker 1: 2:10

So what has been your experience in terms of shifting chronic pain through that kind of work?

Speaker 2: 2:19

Well, what got me into this kind of work is, as a personal trainer, I was seeing all my clients coming to me saying hey, I can do all of this stuff except lift my arm above my head, and so I just don't do anything that requires my arm going above my head. So if you can just design a program that I don't have to do that and I'm thinking that doesn't seem right we always have to lift our arms up over our head. You fly on an airplane, you have to put your luggage up overhead. You put your dishes away, you have to. You know what I'm saying? There's so many things that we do physically that require us to lift our arms overhead.

Speaker 2: 2:59

So I went into structural assessment and corrective exercise to further my education from just being a personal trainer, and it opened a whole new world to me of people who deal with chronic pain on a daily basis that have absolutely no relief or anywhere to go.

Speaker 2: 3:22

And so what I do is I do a structural assessment joint by joint. I start from the ankles and I work my way all the way up through every joint of the body, ending at the neck. So I go for let's look what's causing your pain, not the pain itself. Pain is a symptom of something else bigger going on, and physical pain can manifest as mental, emotional pain. So one of the things I dig into is ourselves have memory, and nine times out of 10, this injury let's say, let's just stick with the shoulder is revisiting trauma from childhood probably, or it could be even past life, and so what I do is I work with myofascial release. I don't know if your listeners are aware of what this is, but it's something you can do for yourself to release chronic pain. You don't necessarily have to go to a professional. So I developed a program, a foam rolling program, that assists with releasing chronic pain, depending on where it is.

Speaker 1: 4:42

And so let me slow you down here. Okay, so you're saying that you assess all of the joints and you're looking for what's causing the pain. So how do you know what's causing the pain?

Speaker 2: 4:53

Well, let's say it's shoulder pain, and their foundation, which is their feet, are for lack of a better word pronated. Okay, so the arches are caved in. What this does is it causes a chain reaction and pulls the knees together. So they're not knees, and so then you have a hip hinge which causes you to lean forward at the hip and then internal rotation at the shoulders. So maybe the shoulder pain isn't just hey, I have this drag shoulder pain. Sometimes, correcting the arches of the feet change the chain reaction and allow the joints to line up over each other and correct the posture. So then the shoulder is not rotated forward, it's more in alignment, because when you stand straight up, your hands should face the sides of your legs, not the front of them. A lot of people wouldn't even think of that, and I really didn't either, until I understood what correct postural alignment even looked like. Does that answer your question?

Speaker 1: 6:07

I mean, I think that that describes how an incorrect functioning joint affects the whole thing. But my question was how do you know what I mean? Okay, so a flat foot, I can understand how it would affect your entire body, right. But my question is, because you're talking about potentially, you know, could come from past lives, or it could come from emotion, or what have you. How do you know if it's emotion or if it's just well, really, is there ever a time that it's not emotion? Because if something gets out of alignment and you're holding your foot or something a different way, isn't that how it works in emotion?

Speaker 2: 6:52

Yes, there are times when it's an immediate injury, and I'm going to use my husband, for example, because he's just a great example. I had him chopping Brussels sprouts and he had to do them a certain way because we didn't have a mandolin right, so he had to shave them and it took quite a while. So what he was doing was repetitive injury movements to his shoulder at a counter height. That wasn't ergonomically correct and he ended up not being able to sleep. He didn't have a shoulder injury previously, ever. So this is an example of immediate physical pain.

Speaker 2: 7:36

What I did is take him through some foam rolling techniques and addressed what he was doing with his shoulder when he was working, you know, incorrectly for a long time. He immediately got physical relief. Now, if it's emotional, you won't have the release or the relief. That's how I know the difference. So let's say the shoulder pain individual that comes to me that has pronated feet. I put them into correct postural alignment, do the foam rolling techniques, the corrective exercise, the stretching they still do not have relief. Then we go to the emotional.

Speaker 1: 8:18

Okay, I want to interject something because it's my favorite thing Great In terms of physical stuff, because I did it for a year. So there's something called muscle activation technique. Are you familiar with that? Absolutely Okay. So very similar for the listeners who may not know about this. So muscle activation technique is? This?

Speaker 1: 8:35

Practice is basically like a modality where whoever's trained in this you're working out with them and, let's say, you do leg extension, which means you're sitting on the seat and you've got weight on the front of your shins, down by your feet and you push out right so your leg is straightened. Okay, so if you're doing that and then you feel a pain in your knee, you tell your practitioner, the person who does the MAT, and he said oh, I've got pain right here when I do that. Oh, it hurts when I do that. And so what I experienced is he would let me do it a few more times and make sure that the pain was where it was and it kept staying. It didn't need to get warmed up or what have you. And if it stayed there, he would say, okay, let's go get on the massage table.

Speaker 1: 9:16

And so I was doing an activity, I go get on the massage table and what he does is palpate, which just means touch where the muscles for that particular movement in, where they insert, which is where they connect to the bone closest to the body, to the core of the body, and oh no, that's, that's at the other end. The insertion and origin are the two connections for the muscle to the bone right. So he would essentially palpate wherever that was. And so touching the muscles stimulates blood flow. It's it's it's not really massage, but it's similar, it stimulates, but it's very similar to the foam rolling right, but it also activates those nerves. And I will tell you that I did this for about a year and every single time he did it, it either completely went away, it moved, or it got significantly better. So is this very.

Speaker 2: 10:18

it's very similar to foam rolling, myofascial release and muscle activation technique. Is you use active release? I do that as well. They're just two different modalities, for sure. I can palpate the muscle. I can also physically remove the knots with my hands and with shoulder clients. That's typically what I do, just to get in there, but it is a form of muscle activation what I'm doing as well. My method is called the biomechanics method and very similar, very similar ideas, just different ways of going about it, for sure.

Speaker 1: 10:59

Somebody can do this on their own. They don't have to have somebody else there with your.

Speaker 2: 11:03

Well, they probably need to get an idea of what is causing the pain, I would say. But then they get homework, like if they come to me and they go, I don't even know where to start. This is what's going on. I do the assessment, I go okay, here's your homework, and then this can be done remotely too, by the way, after the assessment can be.

Speaker 2: 11:28

The assessment can be yes, because all it takes is a camera for me to look at what's going on. I look at their gate. I can see pronated versus supinated feet. Yeah, yeah, everything can be done, and that's what got me excited to create the foam rolling program. And it's free just because everyone can benefit from it, and sometimes when you foam roll, you don't think you have pain or soreness.

Speaker 1: 11:58

Oh yeah, wait until you roll on it.

Speaker 2: 12:00

Yeah, and then it comes out and you're like, oh hello, I didn't know you were there.

Speaker 1: 12:06

What's going on? Yeah, no, I can attest to that Matter of fact, I didn't. So I've actually had shoulder surgery. I had a torn labrum Now, those are tough, those are tough.

Speaker 1: 12:17

And then, well, it was from chronic use, right Like I played volleyball, of course. So I didn't recognize that there was anything there, but it wasn't until I went to go get a massage and I was, like you know, I was aware of a sensation. I wouldn't have called it pain, but I was aware of a sensation that didn't necessarily feel great. But when I get on the massage table I'm like, can you just like, really dig into my shoulder? And so she did really, really a lot of pressure and deep tissue stuff. And the massage therapist in me wants to say that's not the same thing.

Speaker 1: 12:48

But she did do both of those things and I didn't notice until she actually did both arms. So she pulled one arm, pulled my arm up above my head to do the work, and it was not until I was able to compare both of them. So she did the one that was injured and I knew what that sensation felt like. But when she did the one that wasn't injured, I was like, oh, that doesn't feel the same and I didn't say this to her or anything like that, like I was just noticing, oh, that's a lot different. But then she went back to the injured shoulder again and I was like, oh, that's a weird sensation. And then eventually I realized, oh, that's pain, that's what that is. So not until you have somebody actually work on that do you sometimes even really recognize that something is off.

Speaker 2: 13:34

That's true and that's why, if you truly want injury prevention and blood flow to the muscles so you can increase your stretching and your flexibility, all my clients are taught how to foam roll Every single one. That's the first thing they do when they come into the studio, Just because it's so beneficial. And I have to say I have 100% injury free rate. There's not anyone that's been injured on my watch just because I believe in it so much.

Speaker 1: 14:08

Yeah, I mean, I'll say, even as a massage therapist I can tell when somebody does that it doesn't matter what activities they do or they don't do If they do that. First off, I don't have to work to get into the muscle because the muscles already function For sure, yeah, and it's kind of there's so much more pliable. Yeah, that's for sure. Yeah, okay, so you assess what's going on, so you're looking at them physically to try and figure out what's off. And then you said, if you do the foam rolling and the pain doesn't get better, then you know it's emotional.

Speaker 2: 14:43

Yeah, and I can actually test their body. I can ask basically yes or no questions and I can go fishing. But the biggest thing is, let's say it's a shoulder injury and when was the first time that you recall? Did you ever injure your shoulder? Well, I went on a bike ride and, yeah, I had a crash and I fell on my shoulder. So nine times out of 10, they really can directly relate the injury to something that happened a long, long time ago.

Speaker 1: 15:19

And I said okay how old were you?

Speaker 2: 15:21

What was going on in your life? Well, I was really mad at my mom and so I went on a bike ride. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, so it's connected to some sort of emotional thing that was going on. Well, how did it make you feel? This is really a great story I love to share because it's so telling if you want to hear a really great client story.

Speaker 2: 15:45

I had a client come to me with a sore big toe and she kept stubbing it and making it more sore and basically tripping over her own feet and she's like I can barely walk, my big toe is so sore. So we did the whole joint by joint assessment and went through some foam rolling, gave her some corrective exercises to do, and she goes honestly, I can't even do these exercises, it's so painful. The myofascial techniques didn't even work, we couldn't even get in there. And so I said when did you first start stubbing your toe? And she goes wow, I guess I've always stubbed my toe like she never could really relate it to an event, but she was able to recall when she was playing with her sister and her sister teased her for stubbing her toe and it was really interesting. After she said the words, she related it to her sister. She was able to foam roll it, we were able to do the exercises and then it was like literally gone.

Speaker 2: 17:00

All her body wanted was her to acknowledge it was connected. So she started doing the corrective work and then she started stubbing her toe again and she came back to me. She goes okay, what's going on? And I said is there a situation with your sister that you're dealing with right now? And she her mouth just dropped and she says, oh my God, yes, I'm totally dealing with my sister and what? She's trying to break my personal boundaries and all of this stuff.

Speaker 2: 17:37

And immediately her toe pain was just like gone. And so the fun thing about this is, yes, it was physical pain, but it had manifested emotionally. There were trapped emotions we removed. There was a whole bunch of other things that we did, but her awareness of connecting that specific toe issue to her sister freed her. It allowed her body to relax enough because it wasn't in protect mode, right. It allowed her body to relax enough to where we could foam roll, we could do the exercises. She's completely pain free and now she protects her boundaries when it comes to her sister. I love that story because it's just a great testimonial.

Speaker 1: 18:23

Yeah, and then, honestly, it aligns with all this other kind of stuff that we do. So I know that. Well, quantum healing hypnosis is the foundation of the hypnosis that I do. But they teach you that there's always an emotional, same kind of questions. You're asking like okay, when did this happen the first time and what feelings did you have around that and what was going on? And then I've also do some stuff with a chiropractor yeah, exactly, and it's called neuroemotional technique and other stuff.

Speaker 1: 18:57

So it wasn't necessarily physical. Well, it was physical because I wasn't able to sleep, okay. So I was having difficulty sleeping because my back was hurting. Now, if you go, I go get an MRI of my back. My back is in great condition. I actually was told that your back looks fantastic. Right, I'm thinking I'm miserable, right, that was years and years ago. But this time I was like okay, so last night it was like a memory of many years past. When my back is killing me, I can't lay in the bed that long, long enough to get enough sleep.

Speaker 1: 19:26

And so he did some testing, some muscle testing, and it turns out to be an emotional thing and go through that whole process and it's like, okay, when you were 28 years old, you had this here's a feeling associated with a male in your life, and so the same kind of thing where you say what's going on right and you give enough clues that the person can kind of pull out the situation that's happening.

Speaker 1: 19:50

And with that neuroemotional technique you actually do some. He pushes on a meridian which actually hurts kind of, of course, but it goes away. Like as you're doing it, it kind of goes away and it's really crazy. I mean, there have been a couple of times where I've done this and it's like okay, you can't deny that your body is having this situation. That's what I find really interesting about all of this is you do the muscle testing or you have an ailment and you go to somebody like you and you know they ask certain questions and it's like you can't deny what your body is physically saying, whether you're conscious, they are aware that or not.

Speaker 2: 20:30

Right. Our body is the biggest indicator of truth and it's also what motivates us to get help is pain? It's the only way it can speak to us. And I want to go back to because you're into astrology I am too. I can also tie astrology into when the physical pain manifested, like you said, when you were 28,. Well, you're going into your first Saturday turn, so that can also be a huge shift. Okay, what was going on at that age? Were you getting married? Were you having a baby? Were you getting divorced? Did you have a miscarriage? You can go on and on, and every single person could go oh my gosh, that was a huge change in life.

Speaker 1: 21:21

Yeah, what's amazing to me is it doesn't matter what method you use, whether you use astrology, right, neuromotional technique or any of the ones that you use, they all point to the same thing. So they're all ready to tell you hey, look at this part of it, what's going on?

Speaker 2: 21:36

Yeah, you have lots of confirmation when you have the different modalities that you can draw from. Yeah, and then you're just like voila, and then you have. Of course, we do need to address our physical body right. We do need to exercise, we do need to drink water, we do need to feed it beautiful, healthy, vibrant food, we do need to take care of it and stretch it, and there are the physical things that we do need to do to keep it operational. Besides getting to the emotional core, it's all tied together. That's the beautiful part of being a personal trainer and being able to take it that step further and address the body, the mind and now the spirit. The spiritual side of our body is very spiritual. It's connected to divine. It is truth. Our brain tells us lies right. So I love being able to connect the dots and really help people become the best versions of themselves physically, mentally and emotionally, where they are not in pain. I mean, that was my biggest driver. I just. Chronic pain is such an interesting thing and how it changes people.

Speaker 1: 22:57

So yeah, I mean, I certainly have experienced that.

Speaker 2: 23:01

I think we all have. I mean, I certainly have.

Speaker 1: 23:04

Well, here's another question I have about that. So when it becomes chronic, eventually you just kind of forget, like you might remember, initially a specific injury like for me, my shoulder I didn't even notice. Like I noticed that when I quit playing volleyball, because I went from playing volleyball all the time to clicking a mouse for 10 hours a day, of course that means I'm sitting at a computer, right. So I noticed a huge difference in terms of strength and I felt like, oh, I can't do that, you know. And then it probably did turn to pain or what have you, but I didn't really notice it per se, especially when it's chronic. How do you help somebody kind of pull out that first time? Like I mean, you've kind of demonstrated it, but do you have a suggestion for somebody to questions they can ask themselves to try and figure out? Yeah, this is beautiful.

Speaker 2: 23:59

So the first questions I ask is so what was the biggest shift that has happened in your life, like for you specifically? So you went from an active lifestyle to sedentary, where you used your mouse? Is your arm at a 90 degree angle or are you ergonomically set up incorrectly at your desk? Take a picture, send it to me, let me look. So, first of all, we have to get you in the right alignment. First of all, if you're going to be working at your desk, it needs to be in correct alignment, okay. Second, now I want to address the thing that's going to happen when you sit. A lot is tight hip flexors. It's going to shorten to so, as it's in the hip flexor muscles which are in the front of your, you know, on the top of your quads, your thighs, and it's going to pull on your back. Now, are you strengthening your core? What kind of core work are you doing? Because your core becomes weak when you sit too long.

Speaker 2: 24:57

So my job is to give corrective exercises, because they're different than you just need to do crunches and bicycles. Now, corrective exercises address specific issues that a person who's sedentary and sits at a desk is experiencing. We have different exercises called flasher, the angel wave, goodbye. It's kind of like physical therapy in a way. It is. It is, but it addresses the cause, not just the pain symptom.

Speaker 2: 25:32

I know you're feeling shoulder pain, but I also know there's something else happening. Now, if you're using a mouse, yeah, that's repetitive. So that's going to be directly related to what you're experiencing, but there's going to be other things too that are probably happening. Are you sitting with your legs crossed? Are you sitting with your feet flat on the floor? Are your hips square? Are you leaning forward? There's so many different things that come into play with just the shoulder. I want to look at it all. I want it to address it all. So you're not just looking at the shoulder, because what if we correct just the shoulder and you still have shoulder pain? So I want to address all the other things that are linked to it.

Speaker 1: 26:24

So okay, so I just wanted to say that I mean, I've done a ton of physical therapy in my life and I've had better physical therapists and I've had worse physical therapists. And of course I want to encourage anybody you know the dynamic between people is always different but I want to encourage anybody who's trying to correct something to be completely open and honest. So, for example, an ally, somebody like you, you know you're you kind of like encourage people to open up. And I think a lot of times when people go to physical therapy, especially if they have an injury, they've already sort of started protecting themselves anyhow, and that's not even something we can control. Even on a massage table, if somebody's getting a massage and they kind of tighten up when you do something, it's not a conscious thing, it's like you've got an injury and your body physically will automatically kind of tighten the muscles to protect that.

Speaker 1: 27:21

But what I've noticed and of course it's a give and take thing is if somebody's, as a practitioner, somebody who's open and willing to, you know, address all of these things, like actually acknowledge that they're real, like actually acknowledge that the experience with her sister was for lack of a better term traumatizing to her, you know spending the time there, right, it really does kind of open up like it's okay. But the thing that I find really great about it and I probably would have liked even before going to any of this was that when you do these little corrective correct me if I'm wrong, but corrective motion, so you're doing like an exercise or an activity or something where it's corrective, so you're doing something to kind of fix the way the muscles are functioning, it's like an immediate response. I mean, like you do the activity and then you know 30 minutes later it's gone. Right, it comes back, you do the activity again and boom, it's gone again. When it doesn't do, that is when it's frustrating, but that sounds like that's when you're going more towards an emotional situation.

Speaker 2: 28:31

Right and corrective exercise is different than working out, and I do want to make this distinction, because working out you're going to break a sweat and you're doing heavy lifting or you're doing cardio or something like that.

Speaker 2: 28:46

Corrective exercise is nothing like that. It's very small movements that are being monitored by, you know, a practitioner, or by you understanding what is your pain level, and you never work past the pain. You go to the edge of it and then return, because every time you go past the pain, you re-injure it, and this is one of the things that people who really want to push themselves or are driven, I find, go into the pain and don't get better. Because that's not how the body works. The body is very gentle, it's very tender and it's protecting you by giving you the pain signal. So the best thing you can do is say you know what? I'm going to go right to the edge of this pain and return back to normal to allow my body to see hey, I hear you, I acknowledge you, I'm not going to re-injure you. So then your body can respond by healing.

Speaker 1: 29:53

Yeah, it's interesting you say it like that because what I've. So I'm American. I played volleyball in college and I don't remember I think it was my sophomore year I don't remember the actual thing. I do remember what I was doing is run across them. They were bleachers, but our bleachers had seats instead of a bench and I just decided, oh, I'm going to run, that way It'll be faster, I'm going to run up.

Speaker 1: 30:18

And I twisted my foot and it heard like crazy, like I was crying but hiding it, you know, trying to make sure I was moving. So the coach didn't get on to me about warming up or what have you. And then I proceeded to get it wrapped every day. I was in immense pain, but because I feel like it was because of what I had been taught and or our culture, it was like, well, I don't want to be a wimp, I don't want to be somebody who gives up, so I'm just going to keep going.

Speaker 1: 30:47

I did tell them this hurts, you know, it hurts right here, it hurts like this. But they couldn't really, you know, play in the sport. They couldn't really do much of anything. They did everything they could. Well, nine months later, my foot still hurts and it's literally two or three seconds out of every day. That doesn't hurt when I'm not on it. Eventually, I figure out that I probably tore a tendon. So that's a perfect example of exactly what you're talking about, and what it does is it causes a disconnect between the spirit and the body, and it's like the feedback loop is just so messed up that you just know what to do.

Speaker 2: 31:25

Right, it becomes broken. Now I will say with ankles, there are times to walk it off and there are times to not. And if you can walk off a sprain, let's just say you kind of tweak it and then it goes away. You're golden. But if it doesn't go away, you're like this needs to be looked at.

Speaker 1: 31:46

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 31:48

And and it's the same with them. Sometimes you just tweak something and you can say, okay, okay, I'm okay, I'm okay, let me see if I'm okay. Okay, I'm going to walk it off. Okay, I did it, I walked it off and it's just a little small, and and then nothing, nothing's broken. But once you break, like you said, that feedback loop, you do have to rebuild it and you have to rebuild the trust. You have to rebuild the trust with your body to to to believe that you're not going to continue to injure it.

Speaker 1: 32:16

Which is, I would have said that's probably what toddlers do, right, like that's what they're doing all the time. All the time, yeah.

Speaker 2: 32:23

All the time they're so connected, I mean, but as they grow up, you know, how many times did your parents say, okay, you're fine, get up, quit your crying, you're okay, right, yeah, what if they're really not? What if they had a concussion? I mean, there's, there's so much, so much to it, um. But you know, it's also part of our healing and part of our lessons in this lifetime and what we're trying to learn, you know.

Speaker 1: 32:54

Yeah. So the phone rolling that you mentioned, I've also had some experience with that too. I did work with another personal trainer who, of course, thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread, which I happen to kind of agree. I don't really do it as much because I get on the roll around like, oh God, I don't even know if I can do that, like because I've had the shoulder stuff, especially if I'm doing the legs, which I need help on the legs, right, you know, sometimes like I find that with yoga too is you know you want to do this activity, but if you've got a joint that's really messed up or it's weak, if you don't make the modifications, it doesn't work.

Speaker 1: 33:30

So how I know you said you had 100% success rate with that, but how would you deal with somebody who's got essentially I mean, I've had shoulder issues. I've dislocated my shoulder twice and the last time it actually got better in like a month or five weeks. Like really I did a lot, I did PT, but because I had done so much PT after the first time, the first time I dislocated it, it came back really fast in terms of function. But I probably will always be aware of that joint being or feeling a little bit weak. So, with the foam rolling, how do you deal with somebody who's got joints that are weak, that maybe they can't Like? How would you modify the leg rolling for somebody who can't be up on their shoulders?

Speaker 2: 34:20

Okay, great question. So multiple ways to do leg rolling. You don't need to use, like, your arms to lean back or your shoulders. You can actually brace yourself up against a wall and you can move the foam roller with your other leg to do your foam rolling and to address like shoulder dislocation. That is legit. It's always going to be a thing for you. But it's not the joint that's weak, it's the muscles around it. They become hyper flexible. So what I would do is work on strengthening the muscles surrounding the shoulder joint and so then the integrity of the joint becomes a little bit tighter and the muscles become stronger. Then you're able to hold yourself up when you do foam rolling. That's actually one of my goals. Especially, it doesn't matter what age the clientele is. I want them to physically be able to hold themselves up on the floor. Let's say you know, when you get older and you fall, I fall in and I can't get up. I want everyone to be able to put weight on their shoulders once we get the integrity of the shoulder joint solid.

Speaker 1: 35:37

Yeah, and it's interesting you say that because you know we think, oh well, we don't need it, but I sleep on my side and when I injure my shoulder like that, there's no sleeping on the side. You don't even realize how much strength you have to have in that just to even to be able to do that.

Speaker 2: 35:53

That's the truth. I also address their sleep habits and their sleep patterns, and especially for shoulders and hips. Hips are always problematic too, but it's really important to retrain your body to sleep on your back. Put a pillow under your knees. Make sure your cervical neck is supported. Don't have this really big, fluffy pillow that pushes your head forward. When you're lying flat on your back, your eyes should be looking straight up, not at an angle. There's different things that you want to really address.

Speaker 2: 36:33

Now, if you have shoulder pain, you would put a pillow under each elbow right, so they're propped up, they're not falling down and causing you more pain. Back sleeping is probably the smartest, safest thing for recovery. Yeah, so I address all that. If you're going to sleep on your side after you're recovered because a lot of people toss and turn I'm one of those Put a pillow between your knees and a huggy pillow between your arms so your body still is in correct alignment. Make sure your head is not angled down and it's not angled up. The point of your head is pointing straight at your headboard.

Speaker 1: 37:12

Your eyes are pointing straight at the wall. I love that you're describing this in such detail, because I also find it so funny. So, yes, I've had foot problems and yes, I've had shoulder problems, but I could because I was spending so much time in the computer. Yeah, I don't know what it was that caused me to be concerned about this, but, like if I felt some sort of weird sensation in my arms meaning my forearms and such I would always move until it was correct.

Speaker 1: 37:39

So maybe my shoulders weren't ergonomically correct, but my hands were always that way. And what I noticed because it was this time where, like, all these young people were getting carpal tunnel, like I mean, you see it now and they're like 20 and they've got carpal tunnel. But at that point it was kind of new. It was like, all of a sudden, everybody's getting carpal tunnel. I was like I had seen this with my mother, had it, and I was like, yeah, there's no way I'm doing that. I don't care what I have to do, but I'm going to fix this. So what I did was I really fine tuned my ability to page into oh, there's a twinge there, I'm not doing this right, and so I would make an adjustment and I can totally see how that would matter in sleeping, if anybody's you know anytime anybody's slept in a position that's awkward and you wake up and you're like I can't move for half the day, or something like that.

Speaker 2: 38:23

So Well, and carpal tunnel is such an interesting thing. I have saved many people from carpal tunnel surgery because it's not actually the wrist right that's a symptom is the pain in the wrist. Let's address where it's coming from. You know where it comes from. Most of the time is from the neck, it's from the traps. It's a nerve being pinched and the longest space from the neck the furthest is the wrist that it can travel. So if it's, I look at what we can do to fix the neck and the carpal tunnel goes away. If it's not, that it could be from the elbow. So that's the purpose of the joint assessment is. Someone comes to me with carpal tunnel Like I do not want to get surgery. Okay, let's see what's going on. We foam, roll the neck and the carpal tunnel pain goes away. Yeah, I mean just saved him a surgery.

Speaker 1: 39:23

Yep. So yeah, I mean you're the kind of person like I've been told there was. I mean, the second time I had the shoulder surgery, I mean the shoulder dislocation method I don't know if she was a doctor or the assistant or whatever, but you know, less than five minutes and I like move my arm one way and then she was like, oh well, you need surgery. Okay, yeah, any other assessments? How much that hurt? I'm not doing that.

Speaker 2: 39:49

So Right, I mean, if you truly, the surgery should be the last option.

Speaker 1: 39:55

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 39:56

Always.

Speaker 1: 39:58

I mean, I have had it twice and it absolutely was was worth the effort to go through that, but if I can fix it before going, to Right, right, right.

Speaker 2: 40:08

It's always about prevention and keeping the body pliable, flexible and hydrated. It just really, it really sounds simple, but I know when we get caught up in pain, like I said, it just changes your perspective, it changes who you are and it changes how you think, and all you can obsess about is getting out of pain. And so then people think I just need to go under the knife and I need to get the surgery and I will be pain free and that's all that matters. Yes, yeah, it's a tough place to be in. It really is.

Speaker 1: 40:41

And I understand when the whole world is telling you yes, this is the way, this is the way to fix it, blah, blah, blah. To me it doesn't equate, because it's like, yeah, there are times that you need to have surgery, absolutely, but if you can deal with the issue, if it's smaller than that major part where you're like completely consumed by the pain, like a dislocated shoulder, you're not going to not go to the emergency room, like you cannot think about anything else.

Speaker 2: 41:06

Right? No, and it's so funny because I've had a dislocated shoulder too, and I got it when I was actually lifting. I was able to pop it back into place. I was very fortunate. Yeah, but for the people who aren't able to, yeah, you need to get in, because it's not going to work. Your shoulder just won't work.

Speaker 1: 41:28

No, it just doesn't work. Yeah, that was what happened to me.

Speaker 2: 41:31

A mechanical mechanism isn't there.

Speaker 2: 41:32

No, I can't do it Exactly yeah, and it will always be a thing like I've been able to almost pop it right back out a couple of different times and I'm just cognizant of it. So doing the corrective work to keep the muscle surrounding it very tight makes a huge difference. Weight training is very important for men and for women. It just really is. Strength training, I should say yoga, anything that puts some stress on the muscle. That creates tension. That's going to, you know, tear the muscle fibers a little bit so they can rebuild stronger.

Speaker 1: 42:13

Without it causing pain. Yeah, Exactly, Okay. Well, thank you so much. That was a lovely conversation.

Speaker 2: 42:21

Well, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I do have a link.

Speaker 1: 42:24

Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that. You said the free foam rolling program. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Speaker 2: 42:29

Do you have free foam rolling if people want to check it out? If you want to provide that, yes, I will.

Speaker 1: 42:36

I put it on the description. It'll also be on my website too, so connected to your little bio on the featured speakers page.

Speaker 2: 42:44

Perfect, perfect, and if people have questions they can absolutely reach out, but it really is a great way to prevent injury.

Speaker 1: 42:51

So it's like seven short videos on how to roll Yep.

Speaker 2: 42:56

Cool. The basic foam roll is basics one on one.

Speaker 1: 43:01

Okay, cool. Thank you so much, Blair thank you, thank you. Thank you.