February 12, 2025 • 42 mins
I'm thrilled to announce the latest episode of our podcast featuring an inspiring conversation with my client, Rob H. For over a decade, Rob battled debilitating low back pain that limited his life and left him searching for solutions. After trying traditional physical therapy with limited success, Rob found a breakthrough approach—understanding the psychology of pain and incorporating strength training.
Now, Rob is not only pain-free but also stronger, more confident, and thriving in ways he once thought impossible.
Here’s what you’ll learn in this episode:
- 🔑 How to Develop a Resilient Mindset
Gain the confidence to face movement and exercise without fear. - 💬 The Power of Words in Recovery
How the language you use impacts your path to pain-free living. - 🚀 Steps to Building Autonomy and Self-Efficacy
Learn actionable strategies to take charge of your recovery and pave a way forward.
This episode is perfect for anyone struggling with chronic back pain—or for those looking to help a loved one take back control of their health and well-being.
Please help share word if you care for someone that might need hope, and a path to pain-free living.
If you benefit from episodes like this, hit that ‘Follow’ button, and leave a 5-star rating on Spotify or Apple. This would really help this podcast to grow and reach more people who could benefit from living a pain-free life.
Interested in working with us? We're looking for healthcare workers, busy parents, and working professionals over 30 who want to eliminate chronic pain from their life so they can enjoy a more active life with their friends & family. We've helped over 550 people find long term success in becoming pain-free. Book a call here to speak with us: https://www.flexwithdoctorjay.co/book
Here's a few other places to find me:
Join my pain relief support group for busy parents to get weekly live trainings by me and access to my free 6 module pain relief course: http://www.flexwithdoctorjay.online/group
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
All right, welcome to the WonBody Won Life Podcast.
Hi, I'm your host, Dr.
Jason Won, lifestyle physicaltherapist.
What I love to do is I help alot of busy professionals, even
parents discover a path tosustainable freedom from pain.
And I do that in a very holisticway, whether it's strength
training, mobility, alsotreating the mindset, treating
the psychology, because chronicpain Can be very debilitating.
It can weigh into a lot of otherpsychosocial measures that are
(00:23):
oftentimes overlooked.
So I do have actually a reallyspecial guest and, one of my
friends, one of my clients thatI've gotten to work with really
closely.
His name is Rob and I'm Rob'sfrom the Bay area.
And he is somebody that I thinkhas been a Testament, a true
Testament to, you know, wherehard work, perseverance, asking
the right questions changingyour mindset.
(00:44):
I think that he's a trueTestament to anybody that has
had.
Any sort of chronic low backpain has had chronic injuries
that have Left them in a placewhere they feel like, it's going
to, they feel like a lot oftimes it's going to be hard for
them to recover from, or theyfeel like they're going to live
in pain the rest of their life.
This is somebody that I thinkyou can definitely listen to.
So Rob, thank you so much forblessing us with your time.
(01:04):
And hopefully you've been doingwell.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you so much for having me,dr.
J happy to be here.
Perfect.
Why don't you just, share maybesome like really brief
background questions, so likejust who who you are, what you
do and what's been your generalexperience with.
exercise and things like priorto, low back pain.
Yeah, sure.
(01:25):
Yeah.
So like you mentioned, my nameis Rob.
I'm here in the San FranciscoBay area.
This is where I was born andraised.
I'm a software engineer, whichmeans I'm like pretty desk bound
most of the day.
But in terms of like my historywith like exercise especially
like prior to lower back pain,I've been physically active most
of my life.
I started weight lifting, Ithink in 2009.
(01:45):
And still weight lift today.
And, in between that time andtoday I've done also like a lot
of other physical activitieshiking, rock climbing, did Muay
Thai for a couple of years allsorts of things.
And yeah, physical activity isreally important to me in my
overall happiness and myphysical health is extremely
important as well.
But yeah, as you mentioned,chronic lower back pain is quite
detrimental.
(02:05):
So yeah.
That's just how I came acrossworking with you.
Absolutely.
So I guess we're, what, to startoff what kind of intrigued you
initially before we even.
Started talking and developing arelationship together.
And we'll dive into thosespecifics because I think that's
the meat and potatoes of whatpeople want to hear is like, how
did, how were you able toovercome these chronic pain
issues, but what kind of stuckout to you or intrigued you
(02:28):
about the practice and some ofthe things that I was doing.
Yeah.
Regarding your practice inparticular prior to, to actually
working with you or evendiscovering your practice, I.
Was already having lower backpain for quite a while.
I had a I have a few herniateddiscs, which when aggravated
cause a lot of numbness pain.
(02:49):
And I'm basically like, out ofcommission for weeks.
I tried treating that withregular physical therapy at a
very standard clinic.
And that definitely helps, but Ifound that a lot of those
clinics really helps me from themoment where I have pain to
like.
healing and recovering from it,but not really getting me to the
point where, you know, I nolonger felt pain or I felt
(03:11):
stronger.
It was really just from negative100 to 0, 0 being just like no
pain, but I want to feel strongand I wanted to also reduce the
rate in which I get hurt.
And I felt like regular P.
T.
Didn't really do that for me.
So when I found you, I saw that,you were someone who also had
suffered from chronic issuesyou're an athlete yourself, I'm
(03:32):
sure if you look at yourInstagram or any of your pages
you're a fit guy, so I can trustthat not only do you know what
you're talking about because ofyour education, but I also knew
you, you went through what Iwent through, you can be
empathetic, but you can alsohelp me get to the strength
levels in which I aspire tohave, right?
So that's why I reached out.
And then, you and I had such agood conversation initially, and
(03:53):
I And yeah, I was like, I got totake a stab at doing this
because I don't want to besomeone who suffers from chronic
lower back pain for the rest ofmy life.
Yeah, for sure.
So can you take us, can you takeus back to some of those moments
of chronic back pain?
Because I know that some peoplethey develop chronic back pain
over time.
A lot of times it's just morebecause there's a lot of avenues
(04:13):
that people can get chronic backpain.
Some people they go throughtraumatic episodes, even like
family trauma, even.
A lot of other chronic diseaseswhether it's COVID and a lot of
people could get COVID, they getsomething called long COVID.
So with you.
So yours was more like a seriesof, I believe, injuries that
kind of set you back multipletimes.
And a lot of times that weighson you mentally.
(04:34):
So can you date us back to thefirst time that you injured
yourself, how you try toovercome it?
And then, there, there was aseries of episodes that happened
after that as well.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like I mentioned, I startedweightlifting in 2009.
I think I first like reallyfelt.
The pain of a herniated discsomewhere around like 2011,
2012, maybe, and, I was reallyyoung.
(04:56):
I was starting to get toweightlifting when you're in
college.
And, you're like 20 years old.
You feel indestructible, right?
You're like, I would never gethurt.
And so you push yourself beyondyour limits.
You don't always have the bestform.
And so I think that was like thestart of it.
Now, given that I was thatyoung, it was very easy for me
to bounce back for sure.
But as I've gotten older, asI've continued to push myself,
(05:16):
not only through weightlifting,but other physical activities, I
kept finding that certainexercises would cause issues.
So then I would stop doing thoseexercises.
And then, like with climbing, Ihad an incident where I was
doing something I've done somany times, but for whatever
reason that caused issues.
Which then put fear in me, andthen I was unable to climb with
confidence after that, and itjust felt like over time, as the
(05:38):
cadence of those injuriesincreased, the rate in which I
would do these activities that Ienjoyed would just decrease
yeah, I think before I saw you,I got to the point where I was
like, mildly weightlifting, Istopped running, I stopped
biking, I stopped hiking,climbing.
And yeah, I found that I didn'thave a lot of joy in physical
activities anymore.
(05:59):
But that's where I was at beforeI started working with you.
Yeah.
We can definitely talk aboutthat, which is one of the more
important things I wanted to hiton today was a lot of, we talk
about the psychosocial aspectsof what chronic pain can do to
us.
It's not just physical, right?
You don't separate physical frommental.
Because mentally speaking, ifyou have a lot of if you're
(06:23):
feeling helpless in certainsituations, or if you have a
fear of moving or fear oflifting or fear of doing
something, that in itself can bemore debilitating than the
actual sensation of feeling thepain because we're limiting
ourselves.
We're limiting our quality oflife, we're limiting our social
aspects.
If somebody asks us to hike andwe're like, I don't know if my
(06:44):
back can tolerate it, I'm goingto say no.
These are all the psychosocialaspects.
So in what ways do you feel likethe series of back pains, how
did it impact you the most froma mental perspective or even a
psychosocial perspective?
Yeah.
I think that was probably thehardest part.
Mentally I really struggled, Ithink, because I lost so much of
(07:05):
the joy that came with beingphysically active.
I loved, especially even on thesocial side, I loved hiking, I
loved biking and running andclimbing with friends.
These can be very socialactivities and to basically say
no to these things constantly.
It's such a bummer, right?
But on the kind of more anxietyfear driven side of things Yeah,
it was really hard.
(07:26):
I would struggle with liftingweights.
I would be so extra cautious,I'm like, my back was basically
constantly bracing everythingthat I did, not even just
weightlifting, right?
I'm like, brushing my teeth andbending over to spit out.
Everything in my mouth and I'mlike hinging as if I'm doing a
deadlift like, it's like itshouldn't be necessary.
And then also created so muchinflexibility in my lower back
(07:47):
as well.
I think you saw that on thefirst day when you tested how
well I could round my back.
It was not very round at all.
And yeah, I, I think that wasreally difficult for me, but I
think the other thing that wasthat made me fearful as well is,
I, at the time when I startedworking with you, I think I was
maybe 32 or so, right?
I'm 33 now.
(08:09):
But I was fearful.
I was like, What if in eightyears time when I'm 40, I like
can't do anything.
What if I'm even worse off thanI was back then?
And then what if I have kids andI can't even just run around
with them?
I think there was also like fearof the future and how that my
condition at the time wouldimpact my future.
That really weighed on me.
And so then I was extra careful,but the more careful I was and
(08:31):
the less I was doing, the worsemy condition got.
Yeah, I would say it took a hugetoll on me.
And that's something that isvery hard for me.
What's really hard for me tolearn on my own, like how to
overcome either throughtraditional physical therapy or
just like online.
And I think that's somethingthat, your program really helped
me out with.
Yeah.
And degrees, the degrees ofmovement, because when you are
(08:53):
20 years of age, you canessentially bounce back.
You perceive, you have aperception that your body is
limitless.
It's, it has the, it haslimitless capacity to do what it
wants to do.
So even if you hurt yourself.
Your brain like bounces backreally quickly.
So your body bounces backquickly from a physiological
standpoint, or you're like, youhurt something, but you tweak
it, but you're 20.
(09:14):
So your body does bounce backrelatively quickly, your
metabolism faster.
You can just eat a time andsleep and then all of a sudden
you're back to what you want todo.
And also from a mentalperspective, just the fact that
you are 20 you're just like,Hey, this is my first time.
No problem.
I'm just going to get back toit.
But people fail to realize thatyeah, you get knocked over, over
(09:35):
and over and over again.
Physiologically, you're like,I'm older, but also you're
starting to feel older becauseof the repeat injuries.
And that is where people dodevelop a sense of.
kinesiophobia of your movements.
And then you saw it.
It's like the degrees ofmovements, your windows of
movement started to decrease.
You, your body has found a wayof protecting itself where when
(09:56):
we see you bend forward a lot ofpeople are just born inflexible
and that's a different topic,but then over time you start to
realize okay, he can, he hasgood hip mobility.
But his back is completelystraight, like it doesn't round
whatsoever.
And you're, the rotation aspectsyou're, because a lot of people
have that fear.
Actually, doctors tell youthere's still old school doctors
(10:18):
out there to say, don't bend andtwist, don't bend.
And that narrative, even thenarrative itself plays into the
psychosocial aspects.
You're like, I got to just.
Brace hard every time I got tokeep my back straight with
literally everything frompicking up a pencil off the
floor to something as simple asbrushing your teeth.
So maybe we can dive into thatto what, I guess you can
(10:41):
consider what I do like nontraditional, but what was, what
was, how did we, how did youfeel?
We, we got together when westarted developing this
together, we built out an,obviously an exercise program,
that's a huge part of it, buthow were we able to.
Overcome some of those fears.
Some of those helplessness.
How are we able to overcome someof that negative inducing
(11:02):
thoughts that you felt, 10 yearsforward?
I'll always be living this thingbecause these are the exact
issues that I had to.
How were you able to overcomethose aspects?
Yeah, that's a really goodquestion.
I think there were like multiplethings that really go into
working with you in particularthat kind of helped me overcome
a lot of these.
Yeah.
Mental hurdles 1 of which wasjust even listening to your
(11:23):
story.
The 1st time we met in personand train together and you did
assessment over my own kind oflike mobility.
Yeah, just sharing your ownstory and your own concerns
right about having chronic pain.
And so that was helpful tounderstand that somebody else
who went through.
The same level of difficultywith their pain was able to
overcome it themselves, whichtells me that, I definitely have
a path moving forward.
(11:45):
After that, right?
I think it was also just helpingme understand and correct some
of the ideas or the preconceivednotion of what I thought I
should be doing.
For example, you said, some ofthese old school doctors
basically tell you always braceyour back never around it.
And.
Yeah.
I don't think it was like I,it's not that I wanted to always
(12:05):
do that, but it was more like Ijust felt like I had to, but I
think it was you who reallyhelped educate me and help me
understand actually, I reallyshould be trying not to do that
and trying to bend and or and,getting acclimated to that and
not be so fearful and reallyincreasing the degree in which I
can bend.
And giving me a unit ofmeasurements that way, like when
we would reassess it later on, Ican see how I've progressed.
(12:28):
And so having those things andseeing how I've progressed and
how I've been feeling as I'vebeen progressing shows me that,
as I'm running my back more andgetting more comfortable, I, at
the same time, feel stronger.
I don't feel as like in pain.
And so it reinforces the ideathat, yes, this is actually the
right thing to do.
(12:48):
So that was like a big one.
The other thing that I thinkreally helped was when I would
have, like a setback, we'veworked together for six or seven
months or so.
And yeah a key part of workingwith you is like giving me an
exercise program that kind ofworks with me and helps address
my issues.
But I think that's somethingthat like, I can look up online
or, a PT could generally help meout with, but I think the thing
(13:10):
that was really helpful is thatif I got injured due to a
certain exercise, you would helpme not spiral, right?
You would help me take a stepback realize that this is okay.
This is part of the process andhelp me debug, like, why that
particular exercise might haveresulted in an injury, right?
And then the next time aroundwhether it's like, Introducing
extra warm ups or what have youlike, I did find the rate of
(13:33):
injury would decrease.
And so it's about also educatingmyself through those injuries.
Surprisingly it's coming outbetter because of it because I'm
working with you at the sametime.
Yep.
I think there was 1 last point,which I was thinking of as I was
telling you everything else.
So I'm trying to remember whatit was.
Oh, I think the last thing iswhen I would get injured in the
past.
Let's say, for example, with myherniated disc was aggravated
(13:56):
and I basically felt like I wasbedridden.
I couldn't get up.
I couldn't move.
My natural inclination was tonot move at all, right?
To basically reduce any movementthat would result in pain, which
I learned through you wouldactually just expedite, not
expedite, sorry, extend theduration in which I was injured.
You shared with me that actuallyit really helps if I move
(14:16):
through it.
If I get blood into that area,if I don't let those muscles
atrophy during that time and yougave me some exercises I could
do.
And I remember the first time Igot injured, I did what you told
me I think like once every hourfor at least like 8 to 10 hours
that day.
And I would do that for thefollowing week.
And historically, it would takeme like three, four weeks,
(14:36):
maybe, and I would just bereally bummed for those three,
four weeks when I was injured.
And when I was doing what youencouraged me to do, I can feel
myself getting better everysingle day.
I was way more mobile, even onday one, than I was in the past.
And then by day seven, inparticular, like maybe I had
some lingering pain, but I was,80 percent there.
(14:57):
And then I was able to work outlike the following week, which I
think just decrease that, periodin which I can be so upset at
myself for getting hurt.
And then get back into the swingof things and not feel like I
took 10 steps backwards.
It feels like I took a half stepbackwards and now I'm going to
get at it again.
And I think that really helps.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I wanted to summarize what youjust said because it's I want
(15:22):
this to really help a lot ofpeople and I appreciate you
sharing your story because Thisis something that, nine out of
10 people in the world have somesort of back pain in their life,
50 to 60 percent of them willturn chronic because of either
repeat injuries, or they don'tknow the proper recovery
aspects, or how to integratesomething more holistically like
you did.
To summarize one, the very lastthing was really critical.
(15:44):
I was going to mention itregardless, but loading into
pain or like actually gettingyour body moving versus most
people think they think absoluterest.
They think.
Avoid the pain.
They think stretch the painaway.
And we've consistently always,I've always consistently told
you is no, we need to get thebody moving.
That's one.
But sometimes it's actuallyreally important that when
(16:05):
there's a pain area, you need toload that area up because then
you're getting more blood flowand you're getting the muscles
to actually get stronger aroundthe area.
So it makes you feel morestable, even if there is an
injury present frequency is, Ithink, okay.
Something that I practice themost because I've been through
situations like you were reallybad, low back pain, or I'll feel
(16:25):
like a pop in my neck.
And I'm just like, dude, I can'tmove it.
So most people they'll pop apill or they'll rest it up and
they'll try to go to sleep.
They'll take, and they'll takehim weeks to recover or months
to recover the same thing, likeyou said, but my craziness is
let me test things.
So I was like, let's trysomething.
If for every hour you do someexercise, 8 to 10 times, if it's
getting you worse.
(16:46):
Let's try a different direction,but it's getting you better.
You keep going and you do itmore frequently.
And I think that's somethingthat you learned when you texted
me, you're like.
My back has C7 and I was likelet's try this.
So let's try this like onceevery one to two hours and you
have, and I think I told yousomething that was really
important is if you rested up,the pain will still be there the
(17:06):
next day.
If you do some sort of movement.
And whether it gets rid of thepain or not, you're still going
to be in the same situation.
So you haven't lost ground.
Like it's worth experimentingsomething different than what
your natural tendencies are.
So you tested it.
And thankfully enough, the nextday I was like, how are you
doing?
You're like, the pain is like70, 80 percent better the very
(17:27):
next day.
And I was very excited for thatbecause frequency is really
critical.
Traditional PT, they're like, dothree sets of 10, do it once a
day.
I'm like, no, let's spread thisbaby out.
Let's spread this out throughoutyour work shift because you're
even your work shift.
We didn't talk about that, butyour work could be a trigger
because you're sitting still.
So we need to get enoughexercise and mobility in.
(17:47):
To outweigh any sort of sittingthat you're going to do.
But I appreciate all that.
And I guess that does the factthat I use exercise as my drug,
as my go to thing to help, andit does play into the
psychosocial aspect.
So maybe can we talk about howexercise.
And even the assurance of me,like telling you these things,
how does exercise play intothose cycles?
(18:10):
So aspects, social aspects, howdoes that made you more
confident?
And I guess less like less thanthis, like fear bubble, if you
will, yeah, I guess when you'reasking about exercise, do you
mean like, how does like thework that I did with you and the
exercise as like the solution,how has, yeah, how has exercise
translated into one of the.
(18:31):
Primary tools that have helpedyou overcome a lot of the other
psychosocial aspects associatedwith a low back pain.
Oh, yeah.
Very similar to what I saidbefore.
It's like the exercise thatreally strengthens and heals.
I've tried a lot of differentthings.
I've tried, steroid injections.
I've done PT.
I've even used like tens machinewhere they do the electric
(18:51):
signals, to your body.
I've done like normal PT.
But I feel like actuallydeveloping strength, doing
something a little bit moreholistic.
And working through the pain, Ithink you said loading through
the pain or loading the pain toheal has helped me tremendously.
And because of it, I am not sobummed.
I think when I get hurt, Irealized that, it happens.
(19:13):
Maybe I was being a bitcareless.
Maybe I wasn't sleeping as well.
And so I'm a bit more aware thatthere's other things I could
probably correct in order toreduce or prevent this from
happening again.
But, with the exercise,especially having worked with
you, I feel so much stronger nowthat I'm not, it hasn't, it
doesn't negatively impact mymental health quite as much
anymore, I'm bummed for a fewhours and then I'm like, okay,
(19:36):
it's fine.
What's the right thing to donow?
And then within the week againI'm back on it and.
It's like it never happened.
Whereas, historically, I wouldjust be bummed for quite a
while.
And then it would just happenmonths later.
And, basically, I'd look back atthe year and I'm like, I was
injured for a third of it.
And that's not my favorite.
Yeah.
So nobody goes into a situation,especially work with me, I'll be
(19:58):
very candid about this.
Nobody comes.
Through my program successfully,and I can promise them the rest
of our life that they're goingto be pain free.
And that is just not realistic.
I don't control your sleephabits.
I don't control your lifesituations.
If you have kids and you stopworking out.
I don't control how you move abarbell up and down.
(20:19):
I don't control whether there'sa twig on the road and you
injure your ankle.
But I think what I try toempower a lot of my clients
through is that movement isindeed medicine.
But at the same time, if you canlearn that when you have pain in
your life and it is going tohappen in your life, Rob more
times than none, because we haveanother 50 60 70 years of life
(20:41):
to live is you are empowered,you know exactly what to do.
And that's assuring the factthat tools now, and you have a
different mindset about thingswhere you're like, I, I'm not
going to get super emotional orbummed about this.
I'm going to control myemotions.
And I'm going to work throughit.
And when you work through it.
It's like you can severelyexpedite that process, within
(21:04):
days versus, suffering with itwithin for weeks and months.
That is something that I wantedto hit on, which is language.
And you're like, what islanguage?
Language was something that wehit on to negative language,
negative self talk.
Making it all about like poorme.
I recall one time where I waslike, there, you gotta watch
what you say to yourself, Rob,you gotta watch how you say I'm
(21:26):
dealing with this versus I'msuffering with this.
If I'm dealing with it, it's, itseems more mellow if I'm
suffering with it.
It's this pain is consuming meversus you should be in the one
in control.
There there's worry, right?
There's I'm worried that, when Ihave this pain, I'm going to,
now I'm out of commission forweeks.
And I was like, watch what yousay, watch what you say.
(21:47):
It's you don't worry, try toseparate the emotion from pain.
If you do recall, is thatanything that you I don't know
if you've had any pain episodessince us, ending our stuff, but
have you thought still aboutsome of the language and some of
the self talk and how that kindof plays into your overall
health fitness?
Yeah, it's been maybe like 8months now since I've worked
(22:08):
with you.
And I've only had maybe 1setback.
In that time, and that'sactually just three weeks ago,
and I recovered in a week.
Yeah I find that doesn't happenquite as often anymore.
I think 1 thing that you told mefrom the get go really is to not
consider myself as someone wholike.
Suffers from chronic lower backpain but rather somebody who
(22:29):
like has lower back pain, butI'm going to address it, it's,
yeah, it's along the lines ofthe idea of watch how you not
only what's not only what yousay, but even how you identify
yourself, right?
I think for so long, I wasidentifying myself as basically
someone who always had lowerback pain.
And so it was like, socommonplace when I would, say no
to things would be like, oh,sorry my lower back or oh,
(22:50):
sorry, it's acting up today oroh, maybe tomorrow.
But no I totally agree with you.
I think it's really important tobe very mindful of the words
that you use to describe yourpain and how you're addressing
them.
I think it's like indicative ofalso like how you think about
your pain.
And so if you can at least usewords that are maybe a little
bit more mellow, as you said,it'll help change your own
(23:12):
psyche about what kind ofcondition you're in.
But yeah I, at the start, Ithink I was using language that
wasn't great.
And then over time, andespecially now I don't feel like
I really use that kind oflanguage anymore to describe
like the suffering that I.
Suffering the pain that I gothrough from time to time.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That cause you hit on identity.
And I was going to say that we,it takes a long, it can take a
(23:34):
long time.
There's a lot of books aboutneuro, there's a lot of books on
the psychosocial aspects of painand pain neuroscience.
And it's a real thing, right?
That if you ever look up asubject around like
neuroplasticity is that likecertain people with.
Abuse or trauma in their life.
The research shows that personis more likely to be one in an
abusive relationship or two.
(23:56):
They end up having their ownphysiological diseases like
irritable bowel or peptic ulcersor chronic back pain, or they're
more likely to seek out drugsfor relief.
And it's a real thing.
And so if identifying as someonedifferent is really critical,
switching Yourself from achronic pain sufferer where it
(24:18):
feels like you are the smallperson and you're in this house
of chronic pain where it'sconsuming and you can't escape
the house, versus you are,you're the bigger person.
It's like I this quote that I'vealways used is like you don't
live with chronic pain.
Chronic pain lives with you.
So who's the bigger per who'sthe bigger thing here?
You are the bigger thing.
You are the person that is incontrol of this pain.
(24:40):
And so if you switch it up andyou feel like this pain is
always consuming.
That's how you're going to feel.
That is going to be youridentity.
But I've always even said it toyou.
It's you identify as somebodythat, that, that is a strong
athlete.
You're an athlete, you're abadass, but you're a person that
simply just has this pain.
That's.
That's limiting you to anextent, but we can overcome this
relatively quickly.
(25:00):
So language about yourself andalso language that the
practitioner uses, right?
Because you, if you seek out thewrong practitioner too, and I,
and that's strong language, butif you seek out the wrong
practitioner, that will say,Avoid lifting, avoid brace with
everything that you do keep yourspine neutral with everything
(25:21):
that you do stop doing runningstop doing this because it's
going to damage your back more.
I will say that you are seekingout the wrong practitioner.
You're seeking out somebody thatmay disempower you, strip the
power away from you, create lessautonomy, create less self
efficacy.
And we'll not instill the beliefthat getting rid of this chronic
(25:41):
pain fully is actually possible.
Instead, you'll always besomebody that simply just
manages your chronic pain,right?
And simply suffers with it.
In some ways, Rob, like, how, inwhat ways do you feel like, in
the future, now that you aresomebody that, has overcome it,
(26:02):
you're a success, you've had alot of success.
I guess when you do have Let'ssay it's back pain or let's say
it's like shoulder pain or kneepain.
How do you feel like you respondnowadays?
So let's say hypothetically, ifyou have a low back pain
episode, if you have a neck painepisode, can you speak from like
more of a critical sense of likestep by step?
(26:24):
Like, where do you tend to gonow?
Do you like to evaluate?
Do you just move morefrequently?
What is like a step by stepprocess that you use now?
Yeah.
And you're asking like, whatwould happen if I did have some
kind of pain, right?
What I would do to overcome it.
What is your detailed process?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think for me, I would probablystart by evaluating it, seeing
(26:45):
like where exactly the pain is.
So let's say for example, it'ssomething in my neck.
I would try to move my neck invarious directions to try to
understand like, oh is it to myleft?
Is it to my right?
Okay, it's over here.
And then I would probably try tofigure out, okay what can I do
to start loading that a littlebit, right?
Sometimes that's going online.
Sometimes that means texting youand just getting a little bit of
(27:05):
advice, which has always beenreally helpful.
And then what I do is I just tryto load it as often as I can, or
at least the first week or so.
And even if I'm at work, I'lllike, we have these kind of like
wellness rooms, which gives us alittle bit of privacy.
So then I just go in there everyhour or two.
And I try to load up however Ican, right?
I try not to get too immobile,and I try not to stay too
(27:28):
stagnant, so I'll even setalarms or whatever I can do to
help, because I know that justbeing mindful and putting in the
work will really expedite therecovery.
And then I would, yeah, just tryto be conscious okay, like, how
can I preventive this in thefuture?
And then just be more mindfulwhen I do whatever I'm doing.
Again, yeah the mindfulnessaspects of being aware and how
(27:50):
you can fix that in the future.
Prioritizing movement,prioritizing, potentially
loading into the pain, settingalarm.
So that, that's a part ofhabits, right?
It's that sometimes we getcaught up in work.
So if we sit still, maybe theneck gets stiffer, but you
setting an alarm to remindyourself as like an auditory
trigger to get yourself moving,I think are all like huge
(28:12):
pieces.
That's a huge part of like myprogram too, is like preaching
more of the habits andlifestyle.
So like when the pain's gone,can you continue to do the
things that you were doing toget rid of this pain?
Because if you stop, then you'reallowing stiffness and pain to
settle back in.
How do you feel like your, doyou feel like your habits have
changed at all in terms of likeyour movement, mobility
(28:34):
exercise?
Oh yeah, for sure.
My habits have changed quite alot.
I think I'm much more activethroughout the day.
Something I think you inspiredme to do was basically find
avenues throughout the day whereI can just do something, right?
It isn't, yeah, especially withme, I have a desk job, so I'm
sitting there quite a bit.
Every 20 minutes or so, I like,get up, stop looking at my desk
(28:58):
or rather my monitor and just atleast look around, just move a
little bit.
I'll, switch from going seatedto standing a lot.
Make sure I move around everyhour or so.
And then especially if I'mfeeling like tight that day I'll
actually do stretches, andthere's some stretches that you
shared with me that could bedone at my desk.
There's some that maybe wouldlook a bit odd in the workplace.
So then I just go into thewellness room I talked about and
(29:20):
maybe I do some stretches there.
Sure.
I've also made like walking ahuge habit.
So everywhere I go, I try towalk as much as possible.
I'm hitting and what I used towalk maybe four or 5, 000 sets a
day.
And I thought that was a lot.
Now I hit 10, 000 every daywithout fail.
I think I did 15 yesterday and Iwas working a full life, nine
hours.
So if I could do that, likesurely other folks can too.
(29:40):
Yeah.
And yeah, all of these smallthings really add up.
Oh, I think my favorite was youmentioned like when you would
brush your teeth, like you wouldeven just do squats, or
something like that.
Yeah.
And yeah like just, it's notlike you're trying to build
muscle in that way, but youbuild mobility.
You grease the groove a littlebit and just all of those small
things really add up.
And I feel like making me feelway more functional and healthy.
(30:01):
Yeah.
Curious on considering that 80percent of people are sitting at
a desk nowadays.
And as I'm filming this podcast,I'm standing on my treadmill.
I'm just not walking right nowbecause trying to not let that
get into the audio.
How Oh, Okay.
How are you going about fittingin and I guess the word is
that's a bad word to say becauseI don't like to say fitting in
because fitting in means likeyou're prioritizing all the
(30:22):
other stuff and then you're justtrying to fit in exercise.
How are you, incorporating thatamount of steps?
Because it seems like impossiblefor some people that make the
excuses of I have a sitting joband I'm super tired.
How are you going about doingthat?
The 10 to 15 case steps, evenwith a full time job.
Yeah, I think there's a coupleways that I do this.
(30:42):
So I personally wear an AppleWatch.
And I, I make tracking my stepsa priority.
So it's on my Apple Watchscreen.
I can always see how many stepsI've done that day.
Every morning I try to get outand walk at least for 10 minutes
or so.
I think this maybe is likereally the crux of it all is
that I don't do it all in onego.
I do it in like small burststhroughout the day.
(31:03):
So I do it in the morning forabout 10 minutes.
Post lunch when I'm, alreadyfeeling a bit heavy because I
just ate all this food.
I try to go on like a 10 to 15minute walk.
And then even after work,especially so after work,
because you maybe have beensitting like all day.
I'll walk for a little bit more.
I tried to take the stairswhenever I can, unless it's 6
flights of stairs and, this isnot something other people have
(31:23):
to do, but I actually do walk up7 flights of stairs twice a day
at work after lunch inparticular.
And then, in the evening if Iwant to watch TV or something or
at least just be stimulated bysome kind of media, I'll instead
try to listen to a podcast, evenif it's like a true crime one.
So that way it's maybe a littlebit more fun.
I would say if that's your cupof tea and I'll just want a
(31:45):
short walk as well.
I think you can incorporate allthese things which has been
really helpful one other way,which I haven't done really
recently, but I want to get backinto is that I enjoy watching
like TV and movies and playingvideo games.
And so walking treadmills areactually excellent for that,
right?
It's you don't have to move thatfast.
You can still play games.
You can still watch TV and justlike walk for 15 minutes out of
(32:06):
the hour that you watch TV.
And again, like the culminationof all of these small things
really add up.
I'm standing on my walkingtreadmill right now.
And, I incorporate my kids.
My kids are, one kid is 20 somepounds.
I was like, that's a 20 pounddumbbell right there.
The other kid is he's gettingheavier.
He's 32 pounds.
That's a 32 pound dumbbell rightthere.
So I even use my kids to myadvantage and put them on my
(32:28):
back, do pushups.
And yeah, during times that areanother strategy I use is
whenever there is idle timetimes where I know this is a
relatively sedentary activity.
Yeah.
I try to be like, how can I makethis less sedentary?
So Bulgarian split squats whilewatching trauma shows with my
wife.
It's I can be that person.
And sometimes, like you said,there's certain things where I
(32:52):
guess from a cultural or ifpeople are watching, there's
times where you enter a wellnessroom and I can get stuff done
there, but there are times whereyou're just like, Hey, I know
I'm doing my body a service.
And it doesn't really matter asmuch like what people are
thinking.
They know what you're doing, butyeah, just anybody that is
listening to Rob right now,especially if you do have a
mixture of chronic low back painand you have a desk job, walking
(33:13):
is quite frankly, one of theabsolute best things you can do
for.
Low back pain or prevention fromthe amount of pelvic and lumbar
rotation to the fact that whenwe usually are mechanisms of
when we have bad back pain issit still, rest it up, lie down,
take some medication.
Hopefully it goes away walking.
(33:33):
I've there has been so manytimes where I felt a tweak in my
lower back and the best thingyou can do if you don't even
know what to do.
Everybody from the age of threeto four years old, everybody
knows how to walk.
You might not know the exactloading mechanisms and stuff
that Rob does that are might,that actually might reduce the
pain faster.
But everyone knows how to walk.
And so I think walking, ifyou've only had one episode in,
(33:57):
eight, some months, I did notwalking amongst the many things
you're doing has dramaticallychanged the amount of episodes
that you've had to along with,again, the psychosocial aspects.
With that being said, likehabits and lifestyle is
something that I've preached issomething that I will continue
to preach in the way I practice.
I don't like.
I don't like my typical generic3 sets of 10 protocols.
(34:18):
I don't like to just get peoplefrom negative to 0.
I like to transcend that.
So 1 of the things that I'vereally pushed for time and time
again is habits and lifestyle.
So how can you speak to, yourexperience, working with me?
How has that kind of.
Translated to what you do today.
Habits and lifestyle.
Yeah.
Yeah, working with you anddeveloping better habits.
(34:39):
Yeah, I can speak to how it'sbeen helpful, but maybe I can
also describe like how I wasable to learn some of these
things.
Like working with you washelpful because unlike a regular
PT or rather, a PT at a standardclinic you definitely have a
more holistic approach.
Even at the end of our workingsession where we're
weightlifting and you'reteaching me new exercises and
stuff.
You're asking about my habits.
You're asking about my sleep.
(34:59):
You're asking about my diet,right?
And then giving me tips.
And yeah, I've incorporated alot of habits around being just
like, more mobile to the day.
So very similar to what you'resaying about analyzing the
activity that I'm doing andfiguring out, like, how can I
make this less sedentary?
So I do that a lot.
So if I'm, watching TV at nightand I'm like, Oh, I haven't
stretched in a little while.
Let me do some mobility andstretching.
(35:20):
And I can still watch TV.
And it's totally fine, but nowI'm doing something productive.
And I do that pretty much everynight now, the same thing with
kind of like moving a little bitmore when I'm doing things like
brushing my teeth.
Like I, I will walk around thehouse, as opposed to just
standing there or saying,they're looking at my phone or
watching a video or something.
And I'll do squats or I dolunges.
And so all of these things havebeen really helpful and it's
(35:42):
really in the habits thatchanges your lifestyle rather
than exercising, three, fourtimes a week and doing strength
training.
I think it's really the habitsthat make the difference in
addition to the strengthtraining, of course.
Because then it goes, that helpsyou shift from this more
sedentary lifestyle to a muchmore kind of active and
functional one.
So that's been very helpful.
There's also a bunch of stuffrelated to like diets and how it
(36:04):
can be better at that, that Iwon't get too deep into, but
yeah, I think everybodyunderstands, especially if they
find me through like Google orYelp, that strength training is
a huge part of what I do.
And some people are like, okay Imight be inclined to not work,
with Dr.
J because.
Lifting too much weight, right?
It's I don't want to do that.
I don't want to bulk up.
(36:25):
I don't want to look like that.
And I'm not saying that everyonehas to.
But the fact is like what otherpeople do get is changing their
mindset and perspective aroundhow important movement is,
there's a mixture of mobilityand maybe there's some
stretching.
Obviously, a big portion of thatis strength training.
You don't need to lift heavy inorder to get results like you,
you were interested in barbelltraining.
(36:45):
So I was like, I'm going to meetyou exactly where you are and
let's put a barbell in your handas fast as possible and empower
you to fix it.
But I still think that everybodyneeds to understand how potent
of medicine strength trainingis.
It empowers you, it gets youbeyond your typical, just
getting rid of pain and goingback to zero strength training
bolsters that aspect.
(37:06):
It dramatically reduces thechances of you injuring yourself
time and time again.
So you need to learn some sortof system on how to
progressively increase.
Volume or intensity or makeexercise more intense, and you
should have the mindset ofgrowth like that being 1 percent
better daily and making yourexercises harder, more complex,
(37:27):
because if you're just going tobe stagnant, you will be
potentially somebody they maynot find their path to getting
out of chronic pain.
So having a predictable system.
And the last thing I'll say isthat even if, let's say, there's
times where you might, there'sdefinitely times where you
probably didn't trainconsistently in a week.
Those happen all the time, butwhat can you still rely on is
(37:47):
the habits.
So you're still getting in thesquats.
You're still getting in 10 Kstep today.
You're still stretching on thefloor.
When you're watching TV, you'restill probably doing some sort
of like core hip strengtheningstuff, almost on autopilot.
So even if you're not in thegym, strength training is not
like your body is like becomingmoist or it's getting atrophied,
you can rely on the habits andlifestyle stuff outside of the
(38:10):
strength training, but I'm justsaying that like you're doing
all of it, which is great.
And that's what's reallybolstering the resilience that
you've developed mentally andphysically.
I guess in some ways, I don'treally have much else to say.
I think that this was just areally good insightful talk
about somebody that has hadReally debilitating chronic
pain.
And it wasn't just pain.
It was like when I met you, youweren't like nine at a 10 pain,
(38:32):
but again, the mental and thepsychosocial aspects was
probably the more limitingfactor.
Is there, to ask one morequestion, is there anything else
that you might want to sharewith the audience?
Maybe somebody that.
Seemingly they quote unquotethey're suffering with chronic
back pain.
They feel disabled.
They feel like a shell ofthemselves.
They do worry about their futurelike you did.
(38:54):
And that's how I felt when yousaid that, that got me
emotional.
Cause when I had chronic backissues too, I did say to myself
what I even want kids, what Ieven want to be at a place where
like my kid jumps on my back andI have to worry about them
jumping on my back.
So that hit a, definitely strucka chord, but for somebody that
maybe is in a very similarsituation, even a worse your
situation.
(39:15):
Is there anything that you wouldsay within a minute span that
is, because you worked with mefor six months, but is there
anything you can say within aminute that would say that I'm
like, yeah, there, there is lifeout there.
There is hope.
Is there anything that you wouldleave them with?
Yeah, that's a great question.
I would say that, unless youhave extreme pain and there's
and exercise doesn't help.
(39:37):
Definitely.
Consider, whether or not you'reyeah, definitely consider taking
to heart this idea thatexercises medicine especially in
this day and age where I wouldsay we rely a lot on like
medication to solve ourproblems.
I think it's about being.
Proactive, right?
Rather than waiting until wehave issues and then trying to
(39:59):
address them and not reallytrying to keep them from coming
back.
But yeah, if you're sufferingfrom the same kind of pain that
I am, whether it's, lower backpain or whatever, but if you
feel like it's chronic, itdoesn't have to be right.
I felt the same way.
I've been through it.
Dr.
J has been through it.
And there is a path movingforward.
So whether you work with Dr.
J or someone else, right?
(40:20):
I think the most important thingto do is to basically not view
yourself as a chronic suffererright?
And to do the work in order toreally heal.
I think that's really important.
But yeah there's a path movingforward for sure.
Yeah.
So just to strike the courtagain, it's take action, use
exercise as medicine, usemovement as medicine, stop
(40:43):
identifying as somebody thatsuffers with chronic pain and
that realized that there is apath moving forward.
I think that was a great way toend things.
It's just to assure people thatthere is a path and that's
everything that I've stood fortoo, when I first met you is.
Is even if I didn't have theexperience, but a good
practitioner will give absolute100 percent assurance that
(41:03):
you're in the right place.
This is the right time for youto start taking action.
And there's no doubt in my headthat it's not a matter of if you
get results just when.
So I think that's.
Hopefully the mindset is stillinto you and I'm really thankful
for you just being on thispodcast, but to just being a
light a beacon of light foranybody for giving hope for
anybody that is suffering, orI'm going to stop using the word
(41:24):
but struggling or dealing withchronic pain.
Is that your attestment to that?
And I'm glad that if you neverstep into my office again, that
is a win for me.
If I hear occasional questionshere and there, I definitely
will always be here to supportyou.
So yeah, myself and I'm verythankful again, Rob.
So anyways that's what I got fortoday, guys.
Hopefully if you found thatsuper insightful, just to hear
(41:45):
about somebody's, experiencewith chronic pain definitely I'd
love for you to give a follow orshare it with a friend.
No, share it with somebody thatyou feel would benefit from,
this interview with Rob and ifyou have any questions,
definitely drop me a line.
You have my email, my cell phoneis across many different
platforms.
So definitely email me, give usfeedback.
jason@flexwithdoctorjay.Com.
(42:06):
And yeah, if you.
If you do have any questionsfor, me specifically look here
for a path moving forward.
And I guess I'll leave you withthis quote that I always leave
everyone with is we only haveone body, one life, make every
action you take me one thatmakes you a better version of
you.
So take care.
And Rob, thank you so much foryour time.
Really appreciate it.
Cool.
Thanks Dr.
Jay.
All right, welcome to the WonBody Won Life Podcast.
Hi, I'm your host, Dr.
Jason Won, lifestyle physicaltherapist.
What I love to do is I help alot of busy professionals, even
parents discover a path tosustainable freedom from pain.
And I do that in a very holisticway, whether it's strength
training, mobility, alsotreating the mindset, treating
the psychology, because chronicpain Can be very debilitating.
It can weigh into a lot of otherpsychosocial measures that are
(00:23):
oftentimes overlooked.
So I do have actually a reallyspecial guest and, one of my
friends, one of my clients thatI've gotten to work with really
closely.
His name is Rob and I'm Rob'sfrom the Bay area.
And he is somebody that I thinkhas been a Testament, a true
Testament to, you know, wherehard work, perseverance, asking
the right questions changingyour mindset.
(00:44):
I think that he's a trueTestament to anybody that has
had.
Any sort of chronic low backpain has had chronic injuries
that have Left them in a placewhere they feel like, it's going
to, they feel like a lot oftimes it's going to be hard for
them to recover from, or theyfeel like they're going to live
in pain the rest of their life.
This is somebody that I thinkyou can definitely listen to.
So Rob, thank you so much forblessing us with your time.
(01:04):
And hopefully you've been doingwell.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you so much for having me,dr.
J happy to be here.
Perfect.
Why don't you just, share maybesome like really brief
background questions, so likejust who who you are, what you
do and what's been your generalexperience with.
exercise and things like priorto, low back pain.
Yeah, sure.
(01:25):
Yeah.
So like you mentioned, my nameis Rob.
I'm here in the San FranciscoBay area.
This is where I was born andraised.
I'm a software engineer, whichmeans I'm like pretty desk bound
most of the day.
But in terms of like my historywith like exercise especially
like prior to lower back pain,I've been physically active most
of my life.
I started weight lifting, Ithink in 2009.
(01:45):
And still weight lift today.
And, in between that time andtoday I've done also like a lot
of other physical activitieshiking, rock climbing, did Muay
Thai for a couple of years allsorts of things.
And yeah, physical activity isreally important to me in my
overall happiness and myphysical health is extremely
important as well.
But yeah, as you mentioned,chronic lower back pain is quite
detrimental.
(02:05):
So yeah.
That's just how I came acrossworking with you.
Absolutely.
So I guess we're, what, to startoff what kind of intrigued you
initially before we even.
Started talking and developing arelationship together.
And we'll dive into thosespecifics because I think that's
the meat and potatoes of whatpeople want to hear is like, how
did, how were you able toovercome these chronic pain
issues, but what kind of stuckout to you or intrigued you
(02:28):
about the practice and some ofthe things that I was doing.
Yeah.
Regarding your practice inparticular prior to, to actually
working with you or evendiscovering your practice, I.
Was already having lower backpain for quite a while.
I had a I have a few herniateddiscs, which when aggravated
cause a lot of numbness pain.
(02:49):
And I'm basically like, out ofcommission for weeks.
I tried treating that withregular physical therapy at a
very standard clinic.
And that definitely helps, but Ifound that a lot of those
clinics really helps me from themoment where I have pain to
like.
healing and recovering from it,but not really getting me to the
point where, you know, I nolonger felt pain or I felt
(03:11):
stronger.
It was really just from negative100 to 0, 0 being just like no
pain, but I want to feel strongand I wanted to also reduce the
rate in which I get hurt.
And I felt like regular P.
T.
Didn't really do that for me.
So when I found you, I saw that,you were someone who also had
suffered from chronic issuesyou're an athlete yourself, I'm
(03:32):
sure if you look at yourInstagram or any of your pages
you're a fit guy, so I can trustthat not only do you know what
you're talking about because ofyour education, but I also knew
you, you went through what Iwent through, you can be
empathetic, but you can alsohelp me get to the strength
levels in which I aspire tohave, right?
So that's why I reached out.
And then, you and I had such agood conversation initially, and
(03:53):
I And yeah, I was like, I got totake a stab at doing this
because I don't want to besomeone who suffers from chronic
lower back pain for the rest ofmy life.
Yeah, for sure.
So can you take us, can you takeus back to some of those moments
of chronic back pain?
Because I know that some peoplethey develop chronic back pain
over time.
A lot of times it's just morebecause there's a lot of avenues
(04:13):
that people can get chronic backpain.
Some people they go throughtraumatic episodes, even like
family trauma, even.
A lot of other chronic diseaseswhether it's COVID and a lot of
people could get COVID, they getsomething called long COVID.
So with you.
So yours was more like a seriesof, I believe, injuries that
kind of set you back multipletimes.
And a lot of times that weighson you mentally.
(04:34):
So can you date us back to thefirst time that you injured
yourself, how you try toovercome it?
And then, there, there was aseries of episodes that happened
after that as well.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like I mentioned, I startedweightlifting in 2009.
I think I first like reallyfelt.
The pain of a herniated discsomewhere around like 2011,
2012, maybe, and, I was reallyyoung.
(04:56):
I was starting to get toweightlifting when you're in
college.
And, you're like 20 years old.
You feel indestructible, right?
You're like, I would never gethurt.
And so you push yourself beyondyour limits.
You don't always have the bestform.
And so I think that was like thestart of it.
Now, given that I was thatyoung, it was very easy for me
to bounce back for sure.
But as I've gotten older, asI've continued to push myself,
(05:16):
not only through weightlifting,but other physical activities, I
kept finding that certainexercises would cause issues.
So then I would stop doing thoseexercises.
And then, like with climbing, Ihad an incident where I was
doing something I've done somany times, but for whatever
reason that caused issues.
Which then put fear in me, andthen I was unable to climb with
confidence after that, and itjust felt like over time, as the
(05:38):
cadence of those injuriesincreased, the rate in which I
would do these activities that Ienjoyed would just decrease
yeah, I think before I saw you,I got to the point where I was
like, mildly weightlifting, Istopped running, I stopped
biking, I stopped hiking,climbing.
And yeah, I found that I didn'thave a lot of joy in physical
activities anymore.
(05:59):
But that's where I was at beforeI started working with you.
Yeah.
We can definitely talk aboutthat, which is one of the more
important things I wanted to hiton today was a lot of, we talk
about the psychosocial aspectsof what chronic pain can do to
us.
It's not just physical, right?
You don't separate physical frommental.
Because mentally speaking, ifyou have a lot of if you're
(06:23):
feeling helpless in certainsituations, or if you have a
fear of moving or fear oflifting or fear of doing
something, that in itself can bemore debilitating than the
actual sensation of feeling thepain because we're limiting
ourselves.
We're limiting our quality oflife, we're limiting our social
aspects.
If somebody asks us to hike andwe're like, I don't know if my
(06:44):
back can tolerate it, I'm goingto say no.
These are all the psychosocialaspects.
So in what ways do you feel likethe series of back pains, how
did it impact you the most froma mental perspective or even a
psychosocial perspective?
Yeah.
I think that was probably thehardest part.
Mentally I really struggled, Ithink, because I lost so much of
(07:05):
the joy that came with beingphysically active.
I loved, especially even on thesocial side, I loved hiking, I
loved biking and running andclimbing with friends.
These can be very socialactivities and to basically say
no to these things constantly.
It's such a bummer, right?
But on the kind of more anxietyfear driven side of things Yeah,
it was really hard.
(07:26):
I would struggle with liftingweights.
I would be so extra cautious,I'm like, my back was basically
constantly bracing everythingthat I did, not even just
weightlifting, right?
I'm like, brushing my teeth andbending over to spit out.
Everything in my mouth and I'mlike hinging as if I'm doing a
deadlift like, it's like itshouldn't be necessary.
And then also created so muchinflexibility in my lower back
(07:47):
as well.
I think you saw that on thefirst day when you tested how
well I could round my back.
It was not very round at all.
And yeah, I, I think that wasreally difficult for me, but I
think the other thing that wasthat made me fearful as well is,
I, at the time when I startedworking with you, I think I was
maybe 32 or so, right?
I'm 33 now.
(08:09):
But I was fearful.
I was like, What if in eightyears time when I'm 40, I like
can't do anything.
What if I'm even worse off thanI was back then?
And then what if I have kids andI can't even just run around
with them?
I think there was also like fearof the future and how that my
condition at the time wouldimpact my future.
That really weighed on me.
And so then I was extra careful,but the more careful I was and
(08:31):
the less I was doing, the worsemy condition got.
Yeah, I would say it took a hugetoll on me.
And that's something that isvery hard for me.
What's really hard for me tolearn on my own, like how to
overcome either throughtraditional physical therapy or
just like online.
And I think that's somethingthat, your program really helped
me out with.
Yeah.
And degrees, the degrees ofmovement, because when you are
(08:53):
20 years of age, you canessentially bounce back.
You perceive, you have aperception that your body is
limitless.
It's, it has the, it haslimitless capacity to do what it
wants to do.
So even if you hurt yourself.
Your brain like bounces backreally quickly.
So your body bounces backquickly from a physiological
standpoint, or you're like, youhurt something, but you tweak
it, but you're 20.
(09:14):
So your body does bounce backrelatively quickly, your
metabolism faster.
You can just eat a time andsleep and then all of a sudden
you're back to what you want todo.
And also from a mentalperspective, just the fact that
you are 20 you're just like,Hey, this is my first time.
No problem.
I'm just going to get back toit.
But people fail to realize thatyeah, you get knocked over, over
(09:35):
and over and over again.
Physiologically, you're like,I'm older, but also you're
starting to feel older becauseof the repeat injuries.
And that is where people dodevelop a sense of.
kinesiophobia of your movements.
And then you saw it.
It's like the degrees ofmovements, your windows of
movement started to decrease.
You, your body has found a wayof protecting itself where when
(09:56):
we see you bend forward a lot ofpeople are just born inflexible
and that's a different topic,but then over time you start to
realize okay, he can, he hasgood hip mobility.
But his back is completelystraight, like it doesn't round
whatsoever.
And you're, the rotation aspectsyou're, because a lot of people
have that fear.
Actually, doctors tell youthere's still old school doctors
(10:18):
out there to say, don't bend andtwist, don't bend.
And that narrative, even thenarrative itself plays into the
psychosocial aspects.
You're like, I got to just.
Brace hard every time I got tokeep my back straight with
literally everything frompicking up a pencil off the
floor to something as simple asbrushing your teeth.
So maybe we can dive into thatto what, I guess you can
(10:41):
consider what I do like nontraditional, but what was, what
was, how did we, how did youfeel?
We, we got together when westarted developing this
together, we built out an,obviously an exercise program,
that's a huge part of it, buthow were we able to.
Overcome some of those fears.
Some of those helplessness.
How are we able to overcome someof that negative inducing
(11:02):
thoughts that you felt, 10 yearsforward?
I'll always be living this thingbecause these are the exact
issues that I had to.
How were you able to overcomethose aspects?
Yeah, that's a really goodquestion.
I think there were like multiplethings that really go into
working with you in particularthat kind of helped me overcome
a lot of these.
Yeah.
Mental hurdles 1 of which wasjust even listening to your
(11:23):
story.
The 1st time we met in personand train together and you did
assessment over my own kind oflike mobility.
Yeah, just sharing your ownstory and your own concerns
right about having chronic pain.
And so that was helpful tounderstand that somebody else
who went through.
The same level of difficultywith their pain was able to
overcome it themselves, whichtells me that, I definitely have
a path moving forward.
(11:45):
After that, right?
I think it was also just helpingme understand and correct some
of the ideas or the preconceivednotion of what I thought I
should be doing.
For example, you said, some ofthese old school doctors
basically tell you always braceyour back never around it.
And.
Yeah.
I don't think it was like I,it's not that I wanted to always
(12:05):
do that, but it was more like Ijust felt like I had to, but I
think it was you who reallyhelped educate me and help me
understand actually, I reallyshould be trying not to do that
and trying to bend and or and,getting acclimated to that and
not be so fearful and reallyincreasing the degree in which I
can bend.
And giving me a unit ofmeasurements that way, like when
we would reassess it later on, Ican see how I've progressed.
(12:28):
And so having those things andseeing how I've progressed and
how I've been feeling as I'vebeen progressing shows me that,
as I'm running my back more andgetting more comfortable, I, at
the same time, feel stronger.
I don't feel as like in pain.
And so it reinforces the ideathat, yes, this is actually the
right thing to do.
(12:48):
So that was like a big one.
The other thing that I thinkreally helped was when I would
have, like a setback, we'veworked together for six or seven
months or so.
And yeah a key part of workingwith you is like giving me an
exercise program that kind ofworks with me and helps address
my issues.
But I think that's somethingthat like, I can look up online
or, a PT could generally help meout with, but I think the thing
(13:10):
that was really helpful is thatif I got injured due to a
certain exercise, you would helpme not spiral, right?
You would help me take a stepback realize that this is okay.
This is part of the process andhelp me debug, like, why that
particular exercise might haveresulted in an injury, right?
And then the next time aroundwhether it's like, Introducing
extra warm ups or what have youlike, I did find the rate of
(13:33):
injury would decrease.
And so it's about also educatingmyself through those injuries.
Surprisingly it's coming outbetter because of it because I'm
working with you at the sametime.
Yep.
I think there was 1 last point,which I was thinking of as I was
telling you everything else.
So I'm trying to remember whatit was.
Oh, I think the last thing iswhen I would get injured in the
past.
Let's say, for example, with myherniated disc was aggravated
(13:56):
and I basically felt like I wasbedridden.
I couldn't get up.
I couldn't move.
My natural inclination was tonot move at all, right?
To basically reduce any movementthat would result in pain, which
I learned through you wouldactually just expedite, not
expedite, sorry, extend theduration in which I was injured.
You shared with me that actuallyit really helps if I move
(14:16):
through it.
If I get blood into that area,if I don't let those muscles
atrophy during that time and yougave me some exercises I could
do.
And I remember the first time Igot injured, I did what you told
me I think like once every hourfor at least like 8 to 10 hours
that day.
And I would do that for thefollowing week.
And historically, it would takeme like three, four weeks,
(14:36):
maybe, and I would just bereally bummed for those three,
four weeks when I was injured.
And when I was doing what youencouraged me to do, I can feel
myself getting better everysingle day.
I was way more mobile, even onday one, than I was in the past.
And then by day seven, inparticular, like maybe I had
some lingering pain, but I was,80 percent there.
(14:57):
And then I was able to work outlike the following week, which I
think just decrease that, periodin which I can be so upset at
myself for getting hurt.
And then get back into the swingof things and not feel like I
took 10 steps backwards.
It feels like I took a half stepbackwards and now I'm going to
get at it again.
And I think that really helps.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I wanted to summarize what youjust said because it's I want
(15:22):
this to really help a lot ofpeople and I appreciate you
sharing your story because Thisis something that, nine out of
10 people in the world have somesort of back pain in their life,
50 to 60 percent of them willturn chronic because of either
repeat injuries, or they don'tknow the proper recovery
aspects, or how to integratesomething more holistically like
you did.
To summarize one, the very lastthing was really critical.
(15:44):
I was going to mention itregardless, but loading into
pain or like actually gettingyour body moving versus most
people think they think absoluterest.
They think.
Avoid the pain.
They think stretch the painaway.
And we've consistently always,I've always consistently told
you is no, we need to get thebody moving.
That's one.
But sometimes it's actuallyreally important that when
(16:05):
there's a pain area, you need toload that area up because then
you're getting more blood flowand you're getting the muscles
to actually get stronger aroundthe area.
So it makes you feel morestable, even if there is an
injury present frequency is, Ithink, okay.
Something that I practice themost because I've been through
situations like you were reallybad, low back pain, or I'll feel
(16:25):
like a pop in my neck.
And I'm just like, dude, I can'tmove it.
So most people they'll pop apill or they'll rest it up and
they'll try to go to sleep.
They'll take, and they'll takehim weeks to recover or months
to recover the same thing, likeyou said, but my craziness is
let me test things.
So I was like, let's trysomething.
If for every hour you do someexercise, 8 to 10 times, if it's
getting you worse.
(16:46):
Let's try a different direction,but it's getting you better.
You keep going and you do itmore frequently.
And I think that's somethingthat you learned when you texted
me, you're like.
My back has C7 and I was likelet's try this.
So let's try this like onceevery one to two hours and you
have, and I think I told yousomething that was really
important is if you rested up,the pain will still be there the
(17:06):
next day.
If you do some sort of movement.
And whether it gets rid of thepain or not, you're still going
to be in the same situation.
So you haven't lost ground.
Like it's worth experimentingsomething different than what
your natural tendencies are.
So you tested it.
And thankfully enough, the nextday I was like, how are you
doing?
You're like, the pain is like70, 80 percent better the very
(17:27):
next day.
And I was very excited for thatbecause frequency is really
critical.
Traditional PT, they're like, dothree sets of 10, do it once a
day.
I'm like, no, let's spread thisbaby out.
Let's spread this out throughoutyour work shift because you're
even your work shift.
We didn't talk about that, butyour work could be a trigger
because you're sitting still.
So we need to get enoughexercise and mobility in.
(17:47):
To outweigh any sort of sittingthat you're going to do.
But I appreciate all that.
And I guess that does the factthat I use exercise as my drug,
as my go to thing to help, andit does play into the
psychosocial aspect.
So maybe can we talk about howexercise.
And even the assurance of me,like telling you these things,
how does exercise play intothose cycles?
(18:10):
So aspects, social aspects, howdoes that made you more
confident?
And I guess less like less thanthis, like fear bubble, if you
will, yeah, I guess when you'reasking about exercise, do you
mean like, how does like thework that I did with you and the
exercise as like the solution,how has, yeah, how has exercise
translated into one of the.
(18:31):
Primary tools that have helpedyou overcome a lot of the other
psychosocial aspects associatedwith a low back pain.
Oh, yeah.
Very similar to what I saidbefore.
It's like the exercise thatreally strengthens and heals.
I've tried a lot of differentthings.
I've tried, steroid injections.
I've done PT.
I've even used like tens machinewhere they do the electric
(18:51):
signals, to your body.
I've done like normal PT.
But I feel like actuallydeveloping strength, doing
something a little bit moreholistic.
And working through the pain, Ithink you said loading through
the pain or loading the pain toheal has helped me tremendously.
And because of it, I am not sobummed.
I think when I get hurt, Irealized that, it happens.
(19:13):
Maybe I was being a bitcareless.
Maybe I wasn't sleeping as well.
And so I'm a bit more aware thatthere's other things I could
probably correct in order toreduce or prevent this from
happening again.
But, with the exercise,especially having worked with
you, I feel so much stronger nowthat I'm not, it hasn't, it
doesn't negatively impact mymental health quite as much
anymore, I'm bummed for a fewhours and then I'm like, okay,
(19:36):
it's fine.
What's the right thing to donow?
And then within the week againI'm back on it and.
It's like it never happened.
Whereas, historically, I wouldjust be bummed for quite a
while.
And then it would just happenmonths later.
And, basically, I'd look back atthe year and I'm like, I was
injured for a third of it.
And that's not my favorite.
Yeah.
So nobody goes into a situation,especially work with me, I'll be
(19:58):
very candid about this.
Nobody comes.
Through my program successfully,and I can promise them the rest
of our life that they're goingto be pain free.
And that is just not realistic.
I don't control your sleephabits.
I don't control your lifesituations.
If you have kids and you stopworking out.
I don't control how you move abarbell up and down.
(20:19):
I don't control whether there'sa twig on the road and you
injure your ankle.
But I think what I try toempower a lot of my clients
through is that movement isindeed medicine.
But at the same time, if you canlearn that when you have pain in
your life and it is going tohappen in your life, Rob more
times than none, because we haveanother 50 60 70 years of life
(20:41):
to live is you are empowered,you know exactly what to do.
And that's assuring the factthat tools now, and you have a
different mindset about thingswhere you're like, I, I'm not
going to get super emotional orbummed about this.
I'm going to control myemotions.
And I'm going to work throughit.
And when you work through it.
It's like you can severelyexpedite that process, within
(21:04):
days versus, suffering with itwithin for weeks and months.
That is something that I wantedto hit on, which is language.
And you're like, what islanguage?
Language was something that wehit on to negative language,
negative self talk.
Making it all about like poorme.
I recall one time where I waslike, there, you gotta watch
what you say to yourself, Rob,you gotta watch how you say I'm
(21:26):
dealing with this versus I'msuffering with this.
If I'm dealing with it, it's, itseems more mellow if I'm
suffering with it.
It's this pain is consuming meversus you should be in the one
in control.
There there's worry, right?
There's I'm worried that, when Ihave this pain, I'm going to,
now I'm out of commission forweeks.
And I was like, watch what yousay, watch what you say.
(21:47):
It's you don't worry, try toseparate the emotion from pain.
If you do recall, is thatanything that you I don't know
if you've had any pain episodessince us, ending our stuff, but
have you thought still aboutsome of the language and some of
the self talk and how that kindof plays into your overall
health fitness?
Yeah, it's been maybe like 8months now since I've worked
(22:08):
with you.
And I've only had maybe 1setback.
In that time, and that'sactually just three weeks ago,
and I recovered in a week.
Yeah I find that doesn't happenquite as often anymore.
I think 1 thing that you told mefrom the get go really is to not
consider myself as someone wholike.
Suffers from chronic lower backpain but rather somebody who
(22:29):
like has lower back pain, butI'm going to address it, it's,
yeah, it's along the lines ofthe idea of watch how you not
only what's not only what yousay, but even how you identify
yourself, right?
I think for so long, I wasidentifying myself as basically
someone who always had lowerback pain.
And so it was like, socommonplace when I would, say no
to things would be like, oh,sorry my lower back or oh,
(22:50):
sorry, it's acting up today oroh, maybe tomorrow.
But no I totally agree with you.
I think it's really important tobe very mindful of the words
that you use to describe yourpain and how you're addressing
them.
I think it's like indicative ofalso like how you think about
your pain.
And so if you can at least usewords that are maybe a little
bit more mellow, as you said,it'll help change your own
(23:12):
psyche about what kind ofcondition you're in.
But yeah I, at the start, Ithink I was using language that
wasn't great.
And then over time, andespecially now I don't feel like
I really use that kind oflanguage anymore to describe
like the suffering that I.
Suffering the pain that I gothrough from time to time.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That cause you hit on identity.
And I was going to say that we,it takes a long, it can take a
(23:34):
long time.
There's a lot of books aboutneuro, there's a lot of books on
the psychosocial aspects of painand pain neuroscience.
And it's a real thing, right?
That if you ever look up asubject around like
neuroplasticity is that likecertain people with.
Abuse or trauma in their life.
The research shows that personis more likely to be one in an
abusive relationship or two.
(23:56):
They end up having their ownphysiological diseases like
irritable bowel or peptic ulcersor chronic back pain, or they're
more likely to seek out drugsfor relief.
And it's a real thing.
And so if identifying as someonedifferent is really critical,
switching Yourself from achronic pain sufferer where it
(24:18):
feels like you are the smallperson and you're in this house
of chronic pain where it'sconsuming and you can't escape
the house, versus you are,you're the bigger person.
It's like I this quote that I'vealways used is like you don't
live with chronic pain.
Chronic pain lives with you.
So who's the bigger per who'sthe bigger thing here?
You are the bigger thing.
You are the person that is incontrol of this pain.
(24:40):
And so if you switch it up andyou feel like this pain is
always consuming.
That's how you're going to feel.
That is going to be youridentity.
But I've always even said it toyou.
It's you identify as somebodythat, that, that is a strong
athlete.
You're an athlete, you're abadass, but you're a person that
simply just has this pain.
That's.
That's limiting you to anextent, but we can overcome this
relatively quickly.
(25:00):
So language about yourself andalso language that the
practitioner uses, right?
Because you, if you seek out thewrong practitioner too, and I,
and that's strong language, butif you seek out the wrong
practitioner, that will say,Avoid lifting, avoid brace with
everything that you do keep yourspine neutral with everything
(25:21):
that you do stop doing runningstop doing this because it's
going to damage your back more.
I will say that you are seekingout the wrong practitioner.
You're seeking out somebody thatmay disempower you, strip the
power away from you, create lessautonomy, create less self
efficacy.
And we'll not instill the beliefthat getting rid of this chronic
(25:41):
pain fully is actually possible.
Instead, you'll always besomebody that simply just
manages your chronic pain,right?
And simply suffers with it.
In some ways, Rob, like, how, inwhat ways do you feel like, in
the future, now that you aresomebody that, has overcome it,
(26:02):
you're a success, you've had alot of success.
I guess when you do have Let'ssay it's back pain or let's say
it's like shoulder pain or kneepain.
How do you feel like you respondnowadays?
So let's say hypothetically, ifyou have a low back pain
episode, if you have a neck painepisode, can you speak from like
more of a critical sense of likestep by step?
(26:24):
Like, where do you tend to gonow?
Do you like to evaluate?
Do you just move morefrequently?
What is like a step by stepprocess that you use now?
Yeah.
And you're asking like, whatwould happen if I did have some
kind of pain, right?
What I would do to overcome it.
What is your detailed process?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think for me, I would probablystart by evaluating it, seeing
(26:45):
like where exactly the pain is.
So let's say for example, it'ssomething in my neck.
I would try to move my neck invarious directions to try to
understand like, oh is it to myleft?
Is it to my right?
Okay, it's over here.
And then I would probably try tofigure out, okay what can I do
to start loading that a littlebit, right?
Sometimes that's going online.
Sometimes that means texting youand just getting a little bit of
(27:05):
advice, which has always beenreally helpful.
And then what I do is I just tryto load it as often as I can, or
at least the first week or so.
And even if I'm at work, I'lllike, we have these kind of like
wellness rooms, which gives us alittle bit of privacy.
So then I just go in there everyhour or two.
And I try to load up however Ican, right?
I try not to get too immobile,and I try not to stay too
(27:28):
stagnant, so I'll even setalarms or whatever I can do to
help, because I know that justbeing mindful and putting in the
work will really expedite therecovery.
And then I would, yeah, just tryto be conscious okay, like, how
can I preventive this in thefuture?
And then just be more mindfulwhen I do whatever I'm doing.
Again, yeah the mindfulnessaspects of being aware and how
(27:50):
you can fix that in the future.
Prioritizing movement,prioritizing, potentially
loading into the pain, settingalarm.
So that, that's a part ofhabits, right?
It's that sometimes we getcaught up in work.
So if we sit still, maybe theneck gets stiffer, but you
setting an alarm to remindyourself as like an auditory
trigger to get yourself moving,I think are all like huge
(28:12):
pieces.
That's a huge part of like myprogram too, is like preaching
more of the habits andlifestyle.
So like when the pain's gone,can you continue to do the
things that you were doing toget rid of this pain?
Because if you stop, then you'reallowing stiffness and pain to
settle back in.
How do you feel like your, doyou feel like your habits have
changed at all in terms of likeyour movement, mobility
(28:34):
exercise?
Oh yeah, for sure.
My habits have changed quite alot.
I think I'm much more activethroughout the day.
Something I think you inspiredme to do was basically find
avenues throughout the day whereI can just do something, right?
It isn't, yeah, especially withme, I have a desk job, so I'm
sitting there quite a bit.
Every 20 minutes or so, I like,get up, stop looking at my desk
(28:58):
or rather my monitor and just atleast look around, just move a
little bit.
I'll, switch from going seatedto standing a lot.
Make sure I move around everyhour or so.
And then especially if I'mfeeling like tight that day I'll
actually do stretches, andthere's some stretches that you
shared with me that could bedone at my desk.
There's some that maybe wouldlook a bit odd in the workplace.
So then I just go into thewellness room I talked about and
(29:20):
maybe I do some stretches there.
Sure.
I've also made like walking ahuge habit.
So everywhere I go, I try towalk as much as possible.
I'm hitting and what I used towalk maybe four or 5, 000 sets a
day.
And I thought that was a lot.
Now I hit 10, 000 every daywithout fail.
I think I did 15 yesterday and Iwas working a full life, nine
hours.
So if I could do that, likesurely other folks can too.
(29:40):
Yeah.
And yeah, all of these smallthings really add up.
Oh, I think my favorite was youmentioned like when you would
brush your teeth, like you wouldeven just do squats, or
something like that.
Yeah.
And yeah like just, it's notlike you're trying to build
muscle in that way, but youbuild mobility.
You grease the groove a littlebit and just all of those small
things really add up.
And I feel like making me feelway more functional and healthy.
(30:01):
Yeah.
Curious on considering that 80percent of people are sitting at
a desk nowadays.
And as I'm filming this podcast,I'm standing on my treadmill.
I'm just not walking right nowbecause trying to not let that
get into the audio.
How Oh, Okay.
How are you going about fittingin and I guess the word is
that's a bad word to say becauseI don't like to say fitting in
because fitting in means likeyou're prioritizing all the
(30:22):
other stuff and then you're justtrying to fit in exercise.
How are you, incorporating thatamount of steps?
Because it seems like impossiblefor some people that make the
excuses of I have a sitting joband I'm super tired.
How are you going about doingthat?
The 10 to 15 case steps, evenwith a full time job.
Yeah, I think there's a coupleways that I do this.
(30:42):
So I personally wear an AppleWatch.
And I, I make tracking my stepsa priority.
So it's on my Apple Watchscreen.
I can always see how many stepsI've done that day.
Every morning I try to get outand walk at least for 10 minutes
or so.
I think this maybe is likereally the crux of it all is
that I don't do it all in onego.
I do it in like small burststhroughout the day.
(31:03):
So I do it in the morning forabout 10 minutes.
Post lunch when I'm, alreadyfeeling a bit heavy because I
just ate all this food.
I try to go on like a 10 to 15minute walk.
And then even after work,especially so after work,
because you maybe have beensitting like all day.
I'll walk for a little bit more.
I tried to take the stairswhenever I can, unless it's 6
flights of stairs and, this isnot something other people have
(31:23):
to do, but I actually do walk up7 flights of stairs twice a day
at work after lunch inparticular.
And then, in the evening if Iwant to watch TV or something or
at least just be stimulated bysome kind of media, I'll instead
try to listen to a podcast, evenif it's like a true crime one.
So that way it's maybe a littlebit more fun.
I would say if that's your cupof tea and I'll just want a
(31:45):
short walk as well.
I think you can incorporate allthese things which has been
really helpful one other way,which I haven't done really
recently, but I want to get backinto is that I enjoy watching
like TV and movies and playingvideo games.
And so walking treadmills areactually excellent for that,
right?
It's you don't have to move thatfast.
You can still play games.
You can still watch TV and justlike walk for 15 minutes out of
(32:06):
the hour that you watch TV.
And again, like the culminationof all of these small things
really add up.
I'm standing on my walkingtreadmill right now.
And, I incorporate my kids.
My kids are, one kid is 20 somepounds.
I was like, that's a 20 pounddumbbell right there.
The other kid is he's gettingheavier.
He's 32 pounds.
That's a 32 pound dumbbell rightthere.
So I even use my kids to myadvantage and put them on my
(32:28):
back, do pushups.
And yeah, during times that areanother strategy I use is
whenever there is idle timetimes where I know this is a
relatively sedentary activity.
Yeah.
I try to be like, how can I makethis less sedentary?
So Bulgarian split squats whilewatching trauma shows with my
wife.
It's I can be that person.
And sometimes, like you said,there's certain things where I
(32:52):
guess from a cultural or ifpeople are watching, there's
times where you enter a wellnessroom and I can get stuff done
there, but there are times whereyou're just like, Hey, I know
I'm doing my body a service.
And it doesn't really matter asmuch like what people are
thinking.
They know what you're doing, butyeah, just anybody that is
listening to Rob right now,especially if you do have a
mixture of chronic low back painand you have a desk job, walking
(33:13):
is quite frankly, one of theabsolute best things you can do
for.
Low back pain or prevention fromthe amount of pelvic and lumbar
rotation to the fact that whenwe usually are mechanisms of
when we have bad back pain issit still, rest it up, lie down,
take some medication.
Hopefully it goes away walking.
(33:33):
I've there has been so manytimes where I felt a tweak in my
lower back and the best thingyou can do if you don't even
know what to do.
Everybody from the age of threeto four years old, everybody
knows how to walk.
You might not know the exactloading mechanisms and stuff
that Rob does that are might,that actually might reduce the
pain faster.
But everyone knows how to walk.
And so I think walking, ifyou've only had one episode in,
(33:57):
eight, some months, I did notwalking amongst the many things
you're doing has dramaticallychanged the amount of episodes
that you've had to along with,again, the psychosocial aspects.
With that being said, likehabits and lifestyle is
something that I've preached issomething that I will continue
to preach in the way I practice.
I don't like.
I don't like my typical generic3 sets of 10 protocols.
(34:18):
I don't like to just get peoplefrom negative to 0.
I like to transcend that.
So 1 of the things that I'vereally pushed for time and time
again is habits and lifestyle.
So how can you speak to, yourexperience, working with me?
How has that kind of.
Translated to what you do today.
Habits and lifestyle.
Yeah.
Yeah, working with you anddeveloping better habits.
(34:39):
Yeah, I can speak to how it'sbeen helpful, but maybe I can
also describe like how I wasable to learn some of these
things.
Like working with you washelpful because unlike a regular
PT or rather, a PT at a standardclinic you definitely have a
more holistic approach.
Even at the end of our workingsession where we're
weightlifting and you'reteaching me new exercises and
stuff.
You're asking about my habits.
You're asking about my sleep.
(34:59):
You're asking about my diet,right?
And then giving me tips.
And yeah, I've incorporated alot of habits around being just
like, more mobile to the day.
So very similar to what you'resaying about analyzing the
activity that I'm doing andfiguring out, like, how can I
make this less sedentary?
So I do that a lot.
So if I'm, watching TV at nightand I'm like, Oh, I haven't
stretched in a little while.
Let me do some mobility andstretching.
(35:20):
And I can still watch TV.
And it's totally fine, but nowI'm doing something productive.
And I do that pretty much everynight now, the same thing with
kind of like moving a little bitmore when I'm doing things like
brushing my teeth.
Like I, I will walk around thehouse, as opposed to just
standing there or saying,they're looking at my phone or
watching a video or something.
And I'll do squats or I dolunges.
And so all of these things havebeen really helpful and it's
(35:42):
really in the habits thatchanges your lifestyle rather
than exercising, three, fourtimes a week and doing strength
training.
I think it's really the habitsthat make the difference in
addition to the strengthtraining, of course.
Because then it goes, that helpsyou shift from this more
sedentary lifestyle to a muchmore kind of active and
functional one.
So that's been very helpful.
There's also a bunch of stuffrelated to like diets and how it
(36:04):
can be better at that, that Iwon't get too deep into, but
yeah, I think everybodyunderstands, especially if they
find me through like Google orYelp, that strength training is
a huge part of what I do.
And some people are like, okay Imight be inclined to not work,
with Dr.
J because.
Lifting too much weight, right?
It's I don't want to do that.
I don't want to bulk up.
(36:25):
I don't want to look like that.
And I'm not saying that everyonehas to.
But the fact is like what otherpeople do get is changing their
mindset and perspective aroundhow important movement is,
there's a mixture of mobilityand maybe there's some
stretching.
Obviously, a big portion of thatis strength training.
You don't need to lift heavy inorder to get results like you,
you were interested in barbelltraining.
(36:45):
So I was like, I'm going to meetyou exactly where you are and
let's put a barbell in your handas fast as possible and empower
you to fix it.
But I still think that everybodyneeds to understand how potent
of medicine strength trainingis.
It empowers you, it gets youbeyond your typical, just
getting rid of pain and goingback to zero strength training
bolsters that aspect.
(37:06):
It dramatically reduces thechances of you injuring yourself
time and time again.
So you need to learn some sortof system on how to
progressively increase.
Volume or intensity or makeexercise more intense, and you
should have the mindset ofgrowth like that being 1 percent
better daily and making yourexercises harder, more complex,
(37:27):
because if you're just going tobe stagnant, you will be
potentially somebody they maynot find their path to getting
out of chronic pain.
So having a predictable system.
And the last thing I'll say isthat even if, let's say, there's
times where you might, there'sdefinitely times where you
probably didn't trainconsistently in a week.
Those happen all the time, butwhat can you still rely on is
(37:47):
the habits.
So you're still getting in thesquats.
You're still getting in 10 Kstep today.
You're still stretching on thefloor.
When you're watching TV, you'restill probably doing some sort
of like core hip strengtheningstuff, almost on autopilot.
So even if you're not in thegym, strength training is not
like your body is like becomingmoist or it's getting atrophied,
you can rely on the habits andlifestyle stuff outside of the
(38:10):
strength training, but I'm justsaying that like you're doing
all of it, which is great.
And that's what's reallybolstering the resilience that
you've developed mentally andphysically.
I guess in some ways, I don'treally have much else to say.
I think that this was just areally good insightful talk
about somebody that has hadReally debilitating chronic
pain.
And it wasn't just pain.
It was like when I met you, youweren't like nine at a 10 pain,
(38:32):
but again, the mental and thepsychosocial aspects was
probably the more limitingfactor.
Is there, to ask one morequestion, is there anything else
that you might want to sharewith the audience?
Maybe somebody that.
Seemingly they quote unquotethey're suffering with chronic
back pain.
They feel disabled.
They feel like a shell ofthemselves.
They do worry about their futurelike you did.
(38:54):
And that's how I felt when yousaid that, that got me
emotional.
Cause when I had chronic backissues too, I did say to myself
what I even want kids, what Ieven want to be at a place where
like my kid jumps on my back andI have to worry about them
jumping on my back.
So that hit a, definitely strucka chord, but for somebody that
maybe is in a very similarsituation, even a worse your
situation.
(39:15):
Is there anything that you wouldsay within a minute span that
is, because you worked with mefor six months, but is there
anything you can say within aminute that would say that I'm
like, yeah, there, there is lifeout there.
There is hope.
Is there anything that you wouldleave them with?
Yeah, that's a great question.
I would say that, unless youhave extreme pain and there's
and exercise doesn't help.
(39:37):
Definitely.
Consider, whether or not you'reyeah, definitely consider taking
to heart this idea thatexercises medicine especially in
this day and age where I wouldsay we rely a lot on like
medication to solve ourproblems.
I think it's about being.
Proactive, right?
Rather than waiting until wehave issues and then trying to
(39:59):
address them and not reallytrying to keep them from coming
back.
But yeah, if you're sufferingfrom the same kind of pain that
I am, whether it's, lower backpain or whatever, but if you
feel like it's chronic, itdoesn't have to be right.
I felt the same way.
I've been through it.
Dr.
J has been through it.
And there is a path movingforward.
So whether you work with Dr.
J or someone else, right?
(40:20):
I think the most important thingto do is to basically not view
yourself as a chronic suffererright?
And to do the work in order toreally heal.
I think that's really important.
But yeah there's a path movingforward for sure.
Yeah.
So just to strike the courtagain, it's take action, use
exercise as medicine, usemovement as medicine, stop
(40:43):
identifying as somebody thatsuffers with chronic pain and
that realized that there is apath moving forward.
I think that was a great way toend things.
It's just to assure people thatthere is a path and that's
everything that I've stood fortoo, when I first met you is.
Is even if I didn't have theexperience, but a good
practitioner will give absolute100 percent assurance that
(41:03):
you're in the right place.
This is the right time for youto start taking action.
And there's no doubt in my headthat it's not a matter of if you
get results just when.
So I think that's.
Hopefully the mindset is stillinto you and I'm really thankful
for you just being on thispodcast, but to just being a
light a beacon of light foranybody for giving hope for
anybody that is suffering, orI'm going to stop using the word
(41:24):
but struggling or dealing withchronic pain.
Is that your attestment to that?
And I'm glad that if you neverstep into my office again, that
is a win for me.
If I hear occasional questionshere and there, I definitely
will always be here to supportyou.
So yeah, myself and I'm verythankful again, Rob.
So anyways that's what I got fortoday, guys.
Hopefully if you found thatsuper insightful, just to hear
(41:45):
about somebody's, experiencewith chronic pain definitely I'd
love for you to give a follow orshare it with a friend.
No, share it with somebody thatyou feel would benefit from,
this interview with Rob and ifyou have any questions,
definitely drop me a line.
You have my email, my cell phoneis across many different
platforms.
So definitely email me, give usfeedback.
jason@flexwithdoctorjay.Com.
(42:06):
And yeah, if you.
If you do have any questionsfor, me specifically look here
for a path moving forward.
And I guess I'll leave you withthis quote that I always leave
everyone with is we only haveone body, one life, make every
action you take me one thatmakes you a better version of
you.
So take care.
And Rob, thank you so much foryour time.
Really appreciate it.
Cool.
Thanks Dr.
Jay.
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