I'm joined by Maurice Lucre (mlucre@revolutionptwl.com), a Chicago-based physical therapist with a wealth of knowledge on preemptive health measures. Together, we peel back the layers of back and shoulder pain, the perils of a sedentary lifestyle, and the approach for athletes and the over-40 crowd to stay ahead of age-related conditions. This isn't just a conversation; it's a roadmap to taking command of your health with practical strategies that resonate long after the episode ends.
Unlock the mysteries of your muscles with a deep dive into the science of muscle spindles and the absolute necessity of maintaining spinal alignment for a pain-free life. Discover the benefits of dry needling, a ray of hope for those grappling with persistent muscular issues, and how it's distinctly different from acupuncture. We're not stopping at identifying problems; Maurice illuminates the path to proactive health through functional training, with simple at-home exercises that everyone can incorporate into their daily routine. It's not just about hitting the gym - it's about crafting a lifestyle that keeps your body in peak condition.
As we wrap up the episode, we acknowledge the hard truth: the journey to long-term health is paved with consistent effort and lifestyle shifts. We tackle the art of tough conversations about integrating exercise and healthy habits into daily routines, setting achievable goals, and controlling what's in our power. We also delve into the long-term benefits of preventative physical therapy and the profound difference it can make. Whether you're recovering from an injury or striving to optimize your health, this episode is a treasure trove of insights that promise to empower and educate. So tune in, get inspired, and start making those small changes that lead to monumental transformations in your health and well-being.
I'm joined by Maurice Lucre (mlucre@revolutionptwl.com), a Chicago-based physical therapist with a wealth of knowledge on preemptive health measures. Together, we peel back the layers of back and shoulder pain, the perils of a sedentary lifestyle, and the approach for athletes and the over-40 crowd to stay ahead of age-related conditions. This isn't just a conversation; it's a roadmap to taking command of your health with practical strategies that resonate long after the episode ends.
Unlock the mysteries of your muscles with a deep dive into the science of muscle spindles and the absolute necessity of maintaining spinal alignment for a pain-free life. Discover the benefits of dry needling, a ray of hope for those grappling with persistent muscular issues, and how it's distinctly different from acupuncture. We're not stopping at identifying problems; Maurice illuminates the path to proactive health through functional training, with simple at-home exercises that everyone can incorporate into their daily routine. It's not just about hitting the gym - it's about crafting a lifestyle that keeps your body in peak condition.
As we wrap up the episode, we acknowledge the hard truth: the journey to long-term health is paved with consistent effort and lifestyle shifts. We tackle the art of tough conversations about integrating exercise and healthy habits into daily routines, setting achievable goals, and controlling what's in our power. We also delve into the long-term benefits of preventative physical therapy and the profound difference it can make. Whether you're recovering from an injury or striving to optimize your health, this episode is a treasure trove of insights that promise to empower and educate. So tune in, get inspired, and start making those small changes that lead to monumental transformations in your health and well-being.
PT is the most prime profession in the healthcare field to be preventative, yeah, and I think it's where we need to go and it's where there's the biggest deficit right now that I see in America's health in general.
Speaker 2:What's the five P's? Do you remember it?
Speaker 1:Proper preparation prevents poor performance.
Speaker 2:There you go. It doesn't matter how much money we get, if we don't close it's no money, right? So no, close is no money. I'm everything that I am because of my dad's death, and I wouldn't be as successful without his death. All right, well, welcome to the Jason Theory. We are season three, episode four, and we are coming at you with a very interesting nothing that we've really kind of done in the first three seasons, but we're going to be talking about your physical wellbeing, pt, physical therapy, where it's headed, and the fact that everyone should be taking care of their body, and the fact that everyone should be taking care of their body, and maybe once one month, two months a year should be just get yourself hurt to get into PT sessions. Amen, yeah. So, mo, give us a little, just give a little background on yourself and then let's get into what I think is going to be super interesting, because everyone is hurt at all times.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is very true. That's a good way of putting it. My name is Maurice. I'm a physical therapist Super interesting because everyone is hurt at all times. Yeah, that is very true, that's a good way of putting it. My name is Maurice. I'm a physical therapist from Wisconsin. Grew up in Milwaukee, went to Wisconsin-Madison for my undergrad as well as my graduate school and, yeah, now in Chicago Been here for two years.
Speaker 2:And we've known each other for a little bit now. Yes, in the Bucktown location, which is great, revolution therapy, which is just basically on the other side of our office and blocks away from my house, mo at the moment has been working with me and my terrible back and my weak hips and all the stuff that old people have that have not treated their body the right way and I'm not talking drugs, I'm talking about physically not done things right in the gym and is also treating my middle son, has treated my older son and eventually, when my youngest son starts hurting himself, then he'll be there too, which I'm sure will happen. I mean, season starts soon, so James will be in for therapy, for more mental therapy than anything. So what I really want to hit on, which I think is really interesting, well, we're going to get into how PT has changed and how my son's basketball game has really changed athletically, because you just don't, no matter what you look, no matter what you watch on TikTok or IG or these influencers on gyms, they just don't have the knowledge of what you have on the skeletal body, the muscles and the things that you need to do.
Speaker 2:I do start to see a lot of people now that are pros that are broadcasting their workouts and you look at you like this doesn't look like a workout, this is just so slow, it's so methodic bands, and you're like you know you see it. Then you start doing it and you're like, oh my God, this is really a lot of work. So what I want to first get into is in your job right now at Revolution and PT, what are the number one things that you are seeing people come in for?
Speaker 1:So it depends uh along the age spectrum as well as um kind of who generally is coming in. Uh, males versus females might have different pathologies going on, but I would say typically a lot of the pathologies I see right now, low back pain is a huge one. A lot of us have a more sedentary lifestyle, which can lead to a lot of low back stiffness, tightness and leading to pain throughout the hips as well. That's probably the biggest thing I see right now. I do see a lot of shoulder pain as well. A lot of times, I would say that as well is from uh sitting long periods of time. Exactly, a lot of us work with our phones in front of us, typing on a computer. A lot of our lives are in front of us because we see in front of us right Um, that can lead to uh tightness and weakness in specific areas as well. Um knee pain as well with my, with my higher intensity people okay.
Speaker 2:And then when you get into, let's say, 40 plus, it seems like it'd be the same thing. The hips, the back, knees, shoulders, those are like all the biggies.
Speaker 1:Those are the biggies, I would say, on top of that, tendinous tendon sort of pathologies ladder, um tennis elbow, for example. Um, we call that lateral epicondylitis, and physical therapy, um, rotator cuff pathologies as we get older, things that are specific to the tendon I typically see with the older population, because our bodies get a little less stiff and the ability for our body to retain water decreases as we age. So if you think about it like, a healthy tissue has a lot of water and it has a decent amount of water content inside of it. It allows it to elongate and shorten. Without that water content, our bodies get brittle and get stiffer as we get older and your body has a harder time reacting to the stresses and some of those forces being pulled on them and it leads to fraying of the tendons and a lot of people get Achilles pain, pain around the kneecaps, shoulder pain due to rotator cuff injuries. Around 40, that's when those changes start to happen and that's what I see mostly around that age group.
Speaker 2:So for someone that is let's talk about somebody that's basically is doesn't move a lot, is not into physical fitness, doesn't really watch what they're eating, and it's kind of just, you know your everyday lack of better word everyday, joe, and they're like hey, I want to take that first step so I don't spend six months with Mo, even though you'd love to see them. And what are the first things that you can do? We did this podcast before and the volume got a little bit screwed up, but I remember the first thing we talked about is hey, listen, you get out of bed, your eyes open, open up. These are the three or four things that you should do before you even roll out of bed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would say exercises that you could do right away for an average person who's sitting on periods I'm just going to kind of generalize, because I feel like most of our population kind of works from home or as a job, where they are mostly sedentary yeah, loosening up the muscles of the low back and just getting your hips in general loosened up, I think is important to start your day. So lying down in bed and I call them windshield wipers, where you put your knees and your feet together and you just go side to side I think that's a great exercise to start help loosen up your back. Another one that you could do very easily is bringing a knee to your chest, kind of hugging a knee to your chest and alternating that side to side.
Speaker 2:And basically let's say like 10 each, 10 each leg couple second hold come back down, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1:You can hold for a longer period of time for some of those stretches. Some people just find it a little bit more uncomfortable. I like to move in and out of stretches a little bit more because I want them to be a little bit more dynamic in general, because we live our lives a little bit more dynamically, I hope, and it allows people to, I guess, be a little bit less stiff throughout the rest of their day when you get like a long hold, what is it when the body because I do that, when we do long holds and all of a sudden the body releases and you get a little bit more, then it releases and you get a little bit more.
Speaker 2:What is that happening? Is that the stiff muscle, like the fascia, that's just opening up?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it could be a lot of different things. It could be the fascia opening up, it could be the muscles opening up, if you think about it. I mean, you have skin that connects to fascia, that connects to muscles, that connects to tendons, into your bone. All those things have to stretch. Sometimes it takes a long time, especially for muscles, to get a good stretch. Just based on the molecular level of the actinomycin bonds, I at the molecular level of, like the act in my in myosin bonds and I'm getting real deep here but, um, just the ability for the muscle spindles themselves to relax.
Speaker 2:The stimulus needs to be a longer period of time for most of the time when you have muscle pain, they're just all twisted up and contracted and you're like in a complete state of like panic.
Speaker 1:I will say. I will say it depends, but a lot of times when people are having muscular specific pain, they have trigger points which are tight bands of muscles, which is exactly what you were saying. The muscle fibers get all tangled up on each other and stretching, strengthening, getting the muscles to contract and relax and getting into stretches after that helps release that muscle spindle as well as some hands-on therapy, which is the plug for pt yeah, well, yeah, we can definitely get into that.
Speaker 2:When you, when you're, when you do have a bad back, are you to telling people that come in, hey, listen, I want you to sleep on your side. I want you to sleep on your back. I know like sleeping on the chest is not good, right?
Speaker 1:Well, it depends. I have seen some people who sleep on their stomach and have back pain because it accentuates the curve of the low back for long periods of time. If you think about it, everybody has a little bit of a curvature. Most people have a little bit of a curvature in the low back. Most people have a little bit of a curvature in the low back and if you're sleeping on your stomach for a long period of time, gravity kind of pulls down on your bones in general and can cause some stiffness in your low back for being in that extended position for long periods of time, Sleeping on your side, for example. I recommend people using a pillow between their knees a lot of the times or a pillow under their arm to help keep their spine aligned a little bit better.
Speaker 2:That body pillow is the best.
Speaker 1:I got one of those like six feet it's all one family Exactly, Exactly. It keeps your spine in better alignment so you're not twisted for a long period of time which can cause stiffness into that twisted motion as well.
Speaker 2:So, like it's, you're saying, you have your three exercises, you get up, get your back warm when you get out of bed, so I do the three that you said. I got a bed. The next thing I do is put my hands on my bed and I just lower, I start pulling, start stretching my hamstrings because the hamstring is going to lead to the glute and the glute is going to be pulling on the back.
Speaker 1:It's all kind of interwoven in terms of like pain, and I would say most typically back pain. It can be mechanical, specific to back segments, but a lot of times your body is going to compensate in a specific way and you're going to have tightness somewhere else as well. The body is a kinetic chain. That's how I like to think about it, just with my background in kinesiology. It's an energy transfer, pretty much portal for your daily life, right? If one thing is painful, you're probably going to have some tightness along that chain in different areas that can lead to the pathology that you have, whether it be back pain, hip pain, things of that nature.
Speaker 2:So, when people come in and they say they have some back pain, what are the first couple things that you all right? Well, if this is the back pain, where is it coming from? These are the things that I'm going to do at PT to start figuring out. Okay, is it like for me weak hips, or one leg that's much weaker than the other? How do you know like? Or one leg that's much weaker than the other? How do you know like? Are there certain things like? I'm gonna do this, this, this, this?
Speaker 1:this and start getting to where that back pain's coming from Exactly. So, um, with back pain, I typically look at, um, hip strength, I look at core strength. I try to locate where exactly somebody is having back pain, cause some people talk about back pain and I consider that more in the glutes and the hip area or in the pelvis. So I like to look at one, locating exactly where the back pain is. That's first things first. Then I'm digging in because with our hands-on skills we could kind of try to localize is that a muscle? Is that a tendon, a ligament? Is that a bony segment that isn't moving? Well, and, depending on those certain things, that leads me down the direction of let me look at hip strength, let me look at muscular tightness around the hips, let me look at the specific muscle that's bothering them in the back and seeing if I can hands-on release it through my hands-on techniques. It through my hands-on techniques, through joint mobilization, through dry needling, things of that nature, to help give them relief and then strengthen around the area to provide support.
Speaker 2:What is I mean? Because it worked great for me when you did it with me. What is? Can you explain to people what dry needling is?
Speaker 1:people what dry needling is. Yeah, so dry needling is very similar to acupuncture. You use small needles that are the same needles that you use in acupuncture. They're very tiny, you insert them into the skin. Different from acupuncture, because acupuncture follows acupoints and energy meridians. Acupoints and energy meridians dry needling, from a physical therapy perspective, follows muscles, tendons, bones, nerves, and tries to cause a reaction to help release a muscle, brain and bring new blood flow into the area, take out some of the chronic blood flow and even influence the brain, to be like, let me relax this area.
Speaker 2:So you're trying to trick the brain into calming down and bring blood to that area, correct? Do you feel like a lot of the issues to fix them? You do all this, but it's also you've got to bring blood with nutrients to those areas is a huge problem.
Speaker 1:I see it as a huge problem in some of the more chronic conditions I would say. I mean, if you think about it like, um, I mean, one thing that I use dry noodling for a lot is tennis elbow, especially more chronic conditions of tennis elbow. Um, a lot of times people are overusing their elbow with lifts and things of that nature because of weaknesses elsewhere. Allowing or using dry needling to get some of that chronic blood flow out kind of resets the body and allows you to kind of start from square one and be like okay, let's get into some strengthening and some stretching to help realign the muscle tissues in that area and the tendinous junction in that area to improve its tolerance to load.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, when I had my issue here and you were doing the dry dealing and all we were doing, all the stuff you mostly most like this, the problem is here. But we concentrated here, right, because the lack of shoulder strength was making me overcompensate here and then bring in the pain here and I think that, like you're talking about the hips and the back and the shoulders, you know, do you see those I mean, I know they are To go back a little bit Are the hips mostly a main problem, like an older man problem? Like that's why I always hear, like, is it older man? I'm 50. They're like dude, you got to make sure your hips are fucking good On point.
Speaker 1:Well, I would say, and I'm generalizing here, oh yeah, I would say yeah. I would say typically men who are chronologically older, are stiffer right, are chronologically older, are stiffer right. Improving mobility is one of the biggest things that I think, especially men with hips, based on our structure we have a smaller pelvis actually than women do leads to tightness generally of the hips right. So keeping your hips mobile, avoiding compensations through your low back, helps keep your back healthier.
Speaker 2:Mobile, avoiding compensations through your low back helps keep your back healthier, helps your mobility later in life and just allows you to do more of your functional activities without pain and stiffness and I think one thing that I never thought of and you brought up to me, which now seems like duh is not doing double leg stuff, but you really want to concentrate on single leg stuff.
Speaker 1:So weaker hips, you don't compensate and you actually attack that spot Right, I would say, like a traditional double leg squat is very easy to compensate in different areas because our bodies are very good at performing activities by any means necessary.
Speaker 1:Right, which is cool yeah, which is really dope actually, one of the things that I really like about the human body is our ability to compensate, but for specific activities it also can exacerbate people's symptoms, because I mean, if you think about it, if I'm doing a squat and my hips aren't moving well, you're going to move well in some different area. That's probably going to be your back, and it's very easy to compensate then through your low back, and those back muscles aren't meant to be in a higher intensity.
Speaker 2:It's not meant to take that load.
Speaker 1:It's not meant to take that load, exactly.
Speaker 2:So, then, the same reason that when we built up my shoulder because my elbow is not really meant to do that load, Exactly. So then, the same reason that when we built up my shoulder because my elbow is not really meant to do that load, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1:So I think one of the big things, one of my big, I guess, philosophies in PT is proximal stability and distal mobility, meaning everything around the trunk I call proximal to the body. The more stable we could get those muscles and some of the um, more endurance based musculature in that area, the stronger in general you're going to be with the rest of your lifts because you have a stronger base and a stronger foundation in general.
Speaker 2:We talked about that today my strength has gone to the roof and it's got it. I mean we've been just we've just been here, so that's just nuts and like. So, like we have that stretches that you're talking about. And then this trunk strength we're talking about, obviously, abs. We're talking about um planks, side planks, like what other things that people can kind of understand, that are easy, that they can do at home?
Speaker 1:yeah, I would see, I would say some of the easiest ones, planks, like you were saying, side planks um actually leg based core movements. I really like um because it's like, just like squats with no weights is coming down, or yeah, I would say squats with no weights, but even if you're lying on your back and just working like a bridge, motion oh, bridges, yes. Is one of my favorite, like more functional core exercises. Men could do bridges. Men could do bridges.
Speaker 2:It's not. It's a guy just do a bridge.
Speaker 1:Men could do bridges. That's one of my big things.
Speaker 2:Men need booties too, because it keeps it all together.
Speaker 1:I like that I like that, I'm just saying like Make booty school again for men. Yeah, dude, I look at these people.
Speaker 2:My wife's like looking at this thing. She goes what are you looking at? I'm like, look at this girl's butt and I'm like it's nothing sexual. I'm like dude she's.
Speaker 1:I go this, take it back. That gets back to kind of that proximal stability piece. Right, I mean, that's a close muscle to your trunk. It needs to be able to take the load so that when you're doing things like you're running, you're biking, you're not overusing the smaller muscles of the leg like your calf and causing injury to your Achilles and things of that nature. So I think it's important, I think it's very important to work on your core, work on your hips and stability focus, work on your hip mobility as well, to help decrease overcompensations elsewhere.
Speaker 2:I know and I think about, like I think about Lee now, who's 16, is constantly the gym and I'm, you know, I'm like dude, don, I was 16 and constantly the gym and I'm, you know, I'm like dude, don't do what I did. I'm like you, don't want to be my age and like a board. Like I think, if, if this education which we'll get into, if this education is given to people when they start lifting and when they forget lifting just in in general sports or whatever, if they can be given this, I mean you're gonna stop injuries, you're gonna be able to have a longer career and when you get to my age, you're gonna feel a lot better. Like I feel like I'm doing this backwards. I mean this one-legged stuff that we've been doing over the last six or seven months. I never did this, yeah, and I was an athlete. We didn't do this. I mean just, no one did this. They were just like hey, squat, deadlift, bench, all the show muscles, yeah like and you know, in military practice and that's all you
Speaker 2:should be like that. It's like it's just interesting how this has evolved, the fact that and the you know you went and got your master's a doctorate doctorate, okay, okay. So like, let's talk about how pt has gone to that. And when do we feel like like I think that the PT people should be the people that are training everybody, right? Like I don't understand, like if you're going to be training people and you're at a gym or you're, you're a trainer, I don't. I just feel like you need to have the understanding you have, because you have these people's physical well-being and you could take them in a direction they should be going.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, let me put it this way I think they're good personal trainers, they're good, they're bad personal trainers. They're good PTs, they're bad PTs, right? So I've worked with personal trainers in the past Shout out, nate who are very well-knowledged about just training principles.
Speaker 2:Are you training them? You should be training them in terms of what there should be training people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I think, I think like a.
Speaker 2:Yoda.
Speaker 1:I think generally they they have their own kind of training that they have to go through as well. Tests that they have to pass to be a certified personal trainer, I think cover a lot of those things. I do think PT to get back to kind of the preventative point you're getting at before I think it's a good blame for PT to start getting into working with athletes no-transcript taught him right.
Speaker 2:So then it's like oh, his legs too short, it's this, it's this to put the heel and this, and that after a month with you, no more heel, he doesn't have any problems. He runs incredibly. And you guys are just working on all that stability stuff. I just think there's got to be a way to cross this over where it's not just pt, it's literally like athletic training. I mean, I know that's. It just seems like that's from what I've personally experienced and what I've seen my son experience.
Speaker 2:It's like man, you, within two months, you're a different person Because no matter what you do when you go to basketball practice or baseball practice, wherever it is, doing bear crawls and doing butt kicks is not going to, is not going to get you to where you need to go. It's these small movements and I'm telling you if you could see the smallest movements that that that will does and I do too and and how you do these things. It's and you, your, your muscles aren't sore, your just body is fatigued because it's firing these little things that you just can't feel. But you're like oh, oh, I'm tired.
Speaker 1:Yeah, stability exercises.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's crazy, I mean they are, they're burners. Yeah, it's a different type of tired. It's a different type of tired and it's a mental tired. Like to focus in on. I need to hold myself like this, Like the amount of focus that you have to train your body to do and for a young athlete to really come in tune with how their body moves.
Speaker 1:It's huge. Yeah, that's the exact point I was going to make. We call that body proprioception in physical therapy. It's your body's ability to know where it's at and your brain's ability to move your body in a specific way. It's for real, it's important. I mean it's what people work on in training a lot of different ways with slow, controlled movements, right? I mean it's what people work on in training a lot of different ways with slow, controlled movements, right? I mean that's one of the things that a lot of the times in our sessions I'm doing stability focused stuff slow movements before we get into our faster, higher intensity movements to help enhance your body's ability to realize like, okay, this is a muscle I should be using, let me get it activated before we get into these exercises. So your body already has it activated as we're doing these more complex movements.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it seems like it's not linear, it's almost like X squared. You get better, like exponentially faster and better, because I can see myself and Will. It's like it's not this, it's this, and all of a sudden you can do this, and then, once you could do that, then we go to this and then we do this. It's it just seems like um, it seems great, like it seems like something that I just don't think. Enough people, I guess you think of pt. It's like, oh, I got hurt and that's not what it is. It's like you always want to be preventative, you don't want to be reaction right, you don't want to react right. So, like I'm just wondering, how do you get that to the masses? How do we tell people, hey, you need to preventively work on your core, your hips, your shoulders, especially if you want to be an athlete. And forget athlete. We can even get into the fact, like it doesn't have to be when you're older, right? Muscle density, all that stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, older women older people in general I would say tend to have balance deficits, right, that's why you see older people using assistive devices like a cane, like a walker. Older women generally have a lower bone density than older men. Resistance training is very important to build bone density, things of that nature where we can prevent injury later in life and I guess cut down on overall health care costs is, I think PT is the most prime profession for that. Yeah, and it's where I um, I hope physical therapy continues to move into um as it pertains to athletic populations. It's the same thing. Um preventing injury before it happens, I think is huge and it's where I see, like my friends who work in sports have told me, that is where the higher level sports are heading already. I think we can start that even at a high school level even at a grade school level.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. Well, if you're doing it right at that early, it's just going to continue to progress. Exactly when, when you're talking about older, the older population let's say we get to 60 and up what are the main things that they should be doing? I mean, obviously walking is huge, yeah, um, and then obviously good diet and stuff like that. But what are some of the things you? You know, like you're saying resistance training, just getting a couple hand weights, doing some curls, doing just weight, like just basically body weight squats. What are some of the things that you think that these people should be?
Speaker 1:doing. I think working on working on squats is a very functional movement. Everybody sits, everybody stands Right Not everybody, I shouldn't say everybody. But to continue to build your mobility and keep your mobility you have to use your muscles Right. Sitting and standing is a great way. Adding weights into your hands while you do it is a great way to not only work on your body's like general strength, right Squats are working your core, they're working your like. If you're holding weights, you're working your upper body too right. But it helps build not only improved balance but, like I was saying earlier, that bone density I think is very important and again, I'm generalizing here, but I feel like a lot of women in today's society. Thankfully I see this changing currently, or getting more into resistance training.
Speaker 2:And I think that's-. Yeah, my gym is all women.
Speaker 1:I think it's gonna make a big difference in-.
Speaker 2:They work out better. I mean they're not. They like when I'm at the gym, I'm like they're doing the stuff that you're telling me to do and they're doing it on their own.
Speaker 1:I mean they're doing all that core work, yeah, and, to be fair, sometimes they come and see me and we're working on the stuff that you're typically doing in the gym too. You know what I mean. So it could be very vice versa. Um, for example, um, I I'm going to overgeneralize again, but I feel like women are more flexible than men typically. That's not the norm. Usually. They typically do a little bit more Well, they don't have it and I'm generalizing Not as much muscle mass, a little bit more flexibility, right. So working on the stability exercises, working on some of those bigger muscles to help offload the smaller muscles in their case, is important, right. So there's inning game to it and it depends person to person, right. What are?
Speaker 2:you seeing mostly on the shoulder stuff.
Speaker 1:Ooh when it pertains to shoulders, I think I think A lot of people, because of how we live our daily lives and a lot of people how we traditionally weightlift, overutilize the big muscle, the upper traps, line of pull, while pressing overhead, while doing rowing movements, getting some of the smaller muscles around the shoulder, including the rotator cuff, to help with the stability, decrease how much you're using the upper trap. Getting some of those muscles around your back, like the middle trap and the low trap, help the upper trap do its function, but in a lot of people it's under trained. And the upper trap do its function, but in a lot of people it's under trained and the upper trap is taking most of the load um, which leads to shoulder pathology and when you get shoulder people and now you really saying, okay, let's pull the shoulder back, let's work on the rear delt.
Speaker 1:It seems like people just don't do a lot of rear delt stuff rear delt um, yeah, I would say rear dealt, middle trap, low trap, typically underdeveloped, overdeveloped. Chest deltoid, um, and I mean the front deltoid and the side deltoid, um, as well as the upper trap. Those are. That's a typical pattern I see with people and I want, I guess the biggest thing with shoulders is to keep your shoulders healthy One. You got to keep them mobile, but you also got to keep your shoulder blade mobile too, because your shoulder blade starts getting stiff, you're, you're going to be limited in your mobility because your shoulder blade is actually the thing that really moves a lot to help you get up over with your arm.
Speaker 2:How about these people are now saying that you should be able to hang for one minute? I think, that's hard, that's hard that's hard.
Speaker 1:Uh, one minute is a is a long time. I haven't tried it personally, but that's a long time.
Speaker 2:I get to like 27 seconds and I'm burning can you hang for one minute? Look, of course you can't it's tough it's not easy.
Speaker 1:It's not easy to do, but I think I'm burning everywhere. Yeah, I mean, those hangs are really, really good, not only for uh, it's a good decompressor for your back too, and I I see a lot of people using that now to help decompress their low back. I mean, if we're sitting for long periods during the day, your spinal discs are going to compress naturally. Yeah, right, so allowing time for your body to decompress is a good thing. I think those dead hands not only hits everything that I just talked about all those stabilizer muscles but it's going to decompress your low back as well.
Speaker 2:And then for, like, we're talking about people that sit. How long should someone sit before they get up and stretch and take a walk? 30 minutes, I, you know they have the watch.
Speaker 1:We haven't moved in 45 minutes, yeah I'm the type of person I I get up every 30 minutes and at least like, move my body side to side, try to stretch my hips out a little bit, stretch my hamstrings out a little bit. When you're, your hamstrings are in a shortened position.
Speaker 2:So they naturally tighten.
Speaker 1:They naturally will tighten up on you. Keeping them loose, just getting up and doing like a walk across your office or something like that is good to just get your body moving too.
Speaker 2:Because a lot of these people are obviously like sitting in their office or sitting I think the you know. I would be interesting to see the amount of people at PTs since work from home, because at least if you're working somewhere else, you're walking to the bathroom more than five steps, you're going around and when you're like when you're in an office, you're being social. You're going to walk around and talk to a couple of people. Oh hey, we're going to have a meeting in this office. You may not think about it, but it's a 100-step walk or 150-step walk. Now it's just clicking what Zoom you're at Right. It's got to be terrible just being sedate like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think there are positives. To work from home, right? Yeah, that's a huge negative. I think I feel like people are generally becoming a little bit more sedentary, do you?
Speaker 2:get people that have that work from home and the things that are fingals and like this and like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I would say probably 50% of my caseload right now works from home, if not more.
Speaker 2:And you think it's from work from home.
Speaker 1:I don't think a lot of it. Well, I think it's a contributing factor. I'll put it that way Sitting on periods, working at not very ergonomically friendly setups, like working on your couch in a position where you're all curled up and hunched over oh my God, back in half, yeah, exactly, probably isn't the best way to be spending an extended period of time.
Speaker 2:Oh man, when you have people that come into you and they're like you know, I like, let's say they come in, they've got serious issues and they come in once a week, how do you deal with, like, do you ever not reprimand them, but you ever say, hey, listen, you're not. I know how you should be progressing. You're not progressing. You need to be doing this stuff at home or it's not going to work.
Speaker 1:It's a tough conversation to have Um people who are being seen less frequently. It's very important to do your homework Right.
Speaker 2:Um, how do you talk to them, like, how do you? Are you just like, hey, you're not going to get better? I would freak out because I just like don't have patience for that, but you gotta be somewhat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you gotta be tactful in the approach. I mean, the way that I typically bring it up is I. They're 168 hours of the week. If I'm seeing you one time a week, I'm seeing you for about an hour. There are 167 hours that you spend that. I don't see you A lot of the times. People want that quick fix. Physical therapy is something you have to work at right, and it's not only when you see me, it's at home, it's within your daily life, taking the education that we try to provide and using it in your daily life as well.
Speaker 2:You're probably got somebody who's between 25 and, let's say, 50. They got a lot of years. They've been going this way for 20 years and you're trying to send them this way Right, on one day a week, right? I mean, if they don't put the time in it, the boat's not going to turn.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And I will say generally changing habits takes time too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what I'm saying, yeah, Right, so, um, a lot of times, like I said, it's not a quick fix and a lot of times it's me um kind of getting people um to realize that on their own.
Speaker 2:I mean, I know you guys do um overall health, you guys do weight loss. You guys do weight loss, you guys do eating. You know, like, do you ever have somebody that comes in? Let's say they come in like for me, I would come in, like in a 10-year period you would see me about once a year, every other year, and it'd be from lifting or this or that. Hopefully, as I get the core going, we're gonna less. But do you ever just say to somebody hey, listen, you know you can come in here once a year or once every six months, and we do the same thing. We need you, I need you to start moving, I need you to lose a little excess weight, I need you to do this, this and this, or you're just going to continue to have these problems. Like, you have a bad knee, this is what we need to do. Right, like that hard conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're hard conversations. I think the hardest conversations for me to have with people are based on their general behaviors in modifying their lifestyles. Um, how do you? How do you?
Speaker 2:yeah, so I how do you go that?
Speaker 1:route. So cause you'd be more tactful than me. Yeah, yeah, how I approach it right is it becomes a conversation on just generally figuring out getting to the basis of what is truly being like, their hindrance to doing some of those things. A lot of people say time, a lot of people say work, and then it's brainstorming with them. Okay, take me through your day and then from there it's like I know you have some time in the morning. It seems like can you fit in these two to three exercises in the morning? Just give me two to three, give me 10 minutes during your day, right? And it's allowing people to see that small changes make a big change over a long period of time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like almost, these are your tasks. Yeah, once this becomes it's like real estate, making phone calls and this, once these tasks become part of your daily fabric, then adding a task it's not really hard, because you do this as it is anyway.
Speaker 1:So let's just add this now Exactly, and it's sometimes it's me brainstorming with people like this is what you should like. You're working right. This is something you could do at work. Yeah, you know you work from home. Is it possible for you to take 15 minutes during your work from home to get up and just kind of walk around your house or go for a walk outside, if it's nice, take your dog for a walk or something like that? Sometimes it's as simple as that to get people's minds kind of churning at. Okay, it's not such a big change that I need to make. It could be a small change over that extended period of time in a day-to-day scenario, that's how I got Will to start lifting.
Speaker 2:I'm like, listen, once a day I go, you got you. Get home at four, you got till eight. Just give me 10 push-ups at any time. Just give me 10 push-ups at any time and I'll walk by. You know I'll be going work or this or that. I'll puff with you. Do your 10, because if not I haven't done yet. I go, just do them right now and I'll do those 10 push-ups. I'm done. Easy, right, it's like, yeah, now it's like you do your 20. Yeah, I did them like it. Like it just, you got to make it it just.
Speaker 2:It's interesting that people just can't, like they look at, oh, I'm X amount overweight or I haven't worked out for this long, and they look at where you need to be at the end of the journey. Fuck the end, bro. Let's just get this first step, the literal first step. This will this you, you want to have an anxiety attack? Yeah, think of this point. Right here, like this is when I cry in the shower. Right here, yeah, but like when I'm like here, like when I got a list of stuff and everyone's yelling at me.
Speaker 1:I'm like what's this in front of me? What's?
Speaker 2:the one thing.
Speaker 1:I'm going to do right now. Yeah, I think the point that you're getting at is control the controllables, right? I mean it's, it's one of the big things that, like I feel like our brains are wired to think about the end right To think about what what is your end goal? I think it's good to have goals, but it's good to have short-term goals too and be like here are the steps I need to take to be able to get to that yeah, in in real estate.
Speaker 2:There's a, there's a book. It's actually not real estate. It's called the 12-week year and it's basically every year. You can't think of I need to accomplish this this year. It's too far out, it's too exhausting and it'll cripple you. This is are my goals for the next 12 weeks? Right, small things, three things a day right. And then when I get to the end of 12 weeks, that should be part of your fabric. And now let's hear. And then all of a sudden you're at the fourth quarter. You're like I'm gonna hit this, but I never even thought about it. It was all of this small stuff. That's kind of what I think about.
Speaker 2:Like waking up early to go to the gym, eventually, start to do cold showers, just slightly colder every day. Like adding vitamins, eating well, it's just like little small things. Getting up, doing like I never thought about when I, when my alarm rings at 545. First thing I do Is I do my witness shield wipers, I do my pulls and then I do the full bends off the side of my bed, like we did on the bench. Then I flip my body around Wife is still sleeping, dog is sleeping in the bed and I flip the other ones. I get up, I drop straight to my feet and I do like the crab sit, I just let my calves open up, because that's where I get really tight. And then I just take my arms and I open up and just spin all that, get up and I'm like, okay, I'm ready, yeah. And then big glass of water and that probably takes what Like five minutes. Yeah, not even, yeah, not even. And I don't have to like hold on to seven rails when I'm walking down the stairs.
Speaker 2:It's like I'm going to break a hip, right, right, you don't want to break your hip, which leads to dying, just stretch so you can walk. I just there. Just seems like there's this education that that people are missing, like yeah, I think, like, even like getting involved in youth sports and having a day where a pt guy comes in like yourself and says hey, these are the things you guys should be doing, and if you do these things, you're going to do an x, y and z.
Speaker 1:So much better, right it's, it's the preventative nature of it. Right, pt is the most prime profession profession in the health care field to be preventative. Yeah and I think it's where we need to go and it's where it's where there's the biggest deficit right now that I see in America's health in general a month, or one PT's visit a month to go in just like a checkup would be for like your health or you know going.
Speaker 2:Hey, doc, look at me, how am I triglycerides this? Hey, let me do an overall body scan of how you this, this, this and then say to the insurance company hey, he's gonna have hip problems. It's gonna cost you god god knows how much this, this, this or this. These are the things I want to work on. Okay, let's work on work on this, this, this, this, and then eventually go that way and then all of a sudden, your big surgeries are out of the way. Right, I don't need a, so I don't need knees, I don't need a new shoulder, because I did everything around it.
Speaker 1:Right it's, it's being able to use the time that you have right now to not allow those things to happen. The preventative nature in general, like doing those exercises, stretching daily, doing some sort of cardiovascular fitness, eating healthy, sleeping well, are all things that are difficult for us in our daily lives. Now, insurance doesn't necessarily, I guess, take that into account, um, with some of their just kind of their risk assessment, but I think it's one thing that could save them a lot of money down the line in the future.
Speaker 2:It would have to, it would have to. It just doesn't make sense, like let's not teach somebody how to drive, we'll just pay for the car when they crash it. Right, there's no, there's no difference, I mean.
Speaker 2:I know it's like a really outlandish statement, but it's the same. Let's just not teach this so that we'll just pay for the crashes. Well, why don't we just teach them how to drive really really good, and you're going to have less claims on insurance? I just don't really. I just don't really get it. It just doesn't make sense to me To start turning what we do in the United States to more preventative than saying, hey, listen, let's just let this crash and burn and then everybody make money.
Speaker 1:And it's not like there aren't other professions already doing that. Like you were saying, primary care, getting your health checkup, your dentist you see twice a year, things of that nature.
Speaker 2:Pt can fit right into that, that's what I'm saying, things of that nature, ferric pt can fit right into that. That's what I'm saying, like there's got to be. There's got to be. Like hey, twice a year we want you to go in for a skeletal and muscular blank. Like look down, hey, this is what's here hey, are you hurting when you do this?
Speaker 2:okay, well, listen, I want you to start doing this, this and this and do that, and we're going to check back in four months, right, if you have any issues while you're doing it ping me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I can modify. Yeah, it just doesn't make sense to me that you wouldn't go that route. I know we hit on a little bit, but I'm going to end on a couple things. I first want to end on for people that have, like my mom's, older in her 80s. I know we hit on this last time. What should we do as kids of baby boomers? Everyone's getting old, people are having hard times moving this and that. My mom, bless her heart, still walks in the morning a couple miles. She just gets on a tread and she just walks. I think that I mean I know we want to do some like maybe sit down in your chair and stand up, sit down and stand up, but we went over that. The walking is great. Yeah, anything else in terms of they should be doing to really make sure they don't have that stumble? I mean, do you like them just being able to stand on one leg and lift up a foot a little bit when they're standing and just work on like balance, everything for the elderly.
Speaker 1:Working out. Yeah, yeah, you hit on the big three cardiovascular fitness, strength training, balance. Balance can be as simple as you standing with your feet together. Some people have trouble standing with their feet together because your center of gravity is, yeah, your base is tight, your base is very tight, right? Um, so that could be a starting point for people doing marching exercises. Some people have trouble marching but are out walking.
Speaker 2:That's to me seems like a recipe for disaster.
Speaker 1:You mean marching exercises like high knees, like high knees, just slow high knees Slow high knees it's a more dynamic way to work on balance. It's very similar to daily activities like walking, using hand. Support for some people is necessary. Use as much support as you need, right, and then start to slowly take it away. How about those?
Speaker 2:slow walks that me and you did when I was fixing my hip with a weight on one side, so maybe like a little piece of a weight, and then just slowly heel to foot, heel to heal the toe yeah, that's working on.
Speaker 1:That's a great exercise. I mean everyone. I see it in the gym.
Speaker 2:But they're holding. I'm not saying holding the 70. Yeah, you don't gotta hold, yeah exactly you don't.
Speaker 1:You don't gotta press the biggest weight in the hold, a banana or something yeah, you can hold it yeah exactly. You can fill the water bottle and hold that water bottle.
Speaker 1:yeah, work on marching, work on that slow, controlled movement. It's going to help you when you're moving in your day-to-day activities, being able to do some of those things while focusing on something else, while having a conversation. It's a tactic that I use a lot of times. When people are doing balance activities, I try to distract them, try to have them talk to me about their, because in our daily lives, we're not just focusing on our balance.
Speaker 1:We understand right, there's always something else going on. We got to be, to a certain extent, multitasking in our daily lives. Right as we're walking down the street, being able to recognize our red light and stop. It's very important in our daily lives and some people have trouble doing that and that's what leads to falls, especially in the elderly population. So being able to do some of that dual tasking, I think, is very important as well.
Speaker 2:Balancing. I've noticed this one thing, like for my mom that's starting. I think she's I don't want to tell her age, she's somewhere in her eighties but I've noticed the balancing as they start to slow down is something that's really like you know, and I think that's. I mean, I I don't remember the stat, but like like, basically, when you fall and break your hip and you're old, it's like a, it's just a, it's a stopwatch. Okay, you're gonna, you're gonna pass away on this minute?
Speaker 1:yeah, it's a. It's a big mortality risk. Yeah, at that age yeah.
Speaker 2:How about knee and shoulder replacements? Are you seeing a lot of those, and is the PT just crazy for that?
Speaker 1:I would say I see a lot of knee replacements. I haven't seen a shoulder replacement in about a year, but I could talk about knee and hip replacements. Knee replacement it's a journey for a lot of people, right, that therapy can take anywhere. I would say. Typically nowadays you have an overnight hospital stay of about one day. You start physical therapy right that same day. The same day you get the surgery. We want you up and moving, we want you using that leg. That you got the surgery on doing things like the functional tasks, the balance. That you got the surgery on doing things like the functional tasks, the balance, the walking things of that nature to help keep as much of your muscle mass as you can, because that's the biggest thing that the atrophy is the atrophy.
Speaker 2:Oh man, my my leg was like this big after my acl.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was like what the hell just happened.
Speaker 2:yeah, right, right, so being able to, but how does the muscle disappear in like a week?
Speaker 1:A lot of it is the brain to body connection to fire. That muscle gets weaker and if you're not using it you're going to lose it.
Speaker 2:It's crazy how fast it goes.
Speaker 1:It's very fast. When I had my, I've had two hip surgeries. When I had my hip surgery my my first one my leg got extremely small very quickly. Yeah, and it's just it's. It's it's due to its non-use. You have two hip surgeries. I've had two hip surgeries on my right hip. Yeah, oh, my god, I know I know you have.
Speaker 2:You have like a nice schedule of arthritis coming on.
Speaker 1:Well, I hope not with some of this stuff that I've been doing.
Speaker 2:Does the PT stop the arthritis I mean?
Speaker 1:Age-related changes are going to happen. A lot of people, I would say. There are studies that show on radiographs, x-rays for people who, um are 50 and older. Uh, for example, like hip pain, knee pain. I would say that it's around I don't know the stat exactly off the top of my head, but around 50% of those people that like okay. So about 50% of people that get an x-ray of their hip have some sort of age related change similar to our to arthritis. Not all those people have pain out of that 50%.
Speaker 1:It's only like 25% of those people.
Speaker 2:I'm like that's so lucky.
Speaker 1:I'm one of the lucky 25, but to be fair, like my pain sucks, it hurts so bad to be able to manage those sort of symptoms on the on the daily basis. Some people don't even really think about that as pain. They think about it as their daily management, which may sway those statistics as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just always know that I have pain, but I will tell you the more that I work out the less pain I have, and that's that's very typical for arthritis.
Speaker 1:The more you move, the better it feels. Yeah, like if.
Speaker 2:I, if let's say oh, I will say like when my back went out and we're like not doing any leg work, after like two weeks my knees kill. But then when we start doing legs, a little bit it feels so much better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, movement, motion is lotion. Yeah, I know.
Speaker 2:I know Like it's been a long time that I've lifted a body part. When the body parts are hurt like arthritic, and I'm like, oh, I haven't done this in a while, I need to get on this, that's why it's hurting, yeah, okay. So, uh, yeah, give us some close remarks on on basically what people you know should expect about like what, what PT is for you, what PT is for people. If people are feeling, hey, this just doesn't feel right, you should just stay at home and not feel right, come in, you get. Basically, you come in and see you You're going to do an evaluation. Do you do the evaluation first? Then they go to the doctor, or should they go to the doctor Then?
Speaker 1:come to you. So physical therapy now in Illinoisinois you can be direct access. Okay, I mean, depending on certain your insurance, you could come see me first and we can then, if you need to be referred to a different specialty, say like I think you have a fracture or something like that, I could refer you to go get an x-ray so it makes sense to go to you first for musculoskeletal injuries I would say yeah, because you're gonna know man, because you're going to know, and say because whenever you go to a, if you go to your general, the general is going to be like I'm a general right and not this type of general.
Speaker 2:I'm a general practitioner doctor. I really don't know. You go see the specialist where you can just go to you someone that's qualified like you, so not qualified like you, so not like tom dick and harry, someone's qualified, and then you can be like hey, this is my best guess, knowing having the education I have, this is the doctor that you should see.
Speaker 1:that makes more sense to me yeah, for musculoskeletal injuries, I would say physical therapists are can be seen as like your primary care. Okay, um, I would say generally to like um, we do an evaluation that that first day, right, it takes around 60 minutes. I would say generally to like um, we do an evaluation that that first day, right, it takes around 60 minutes. I would say for most physical therapy, most physical therapy places, for me it takes around 60 minutes. We see the elements. Like I said, I like to look at the full body Generally. If it's a upper body condition, I'll look at a lot of things in the upper body, because the body is a kinetic chain and I want to make sure that you are feeling right, not only at your site of pain, like that specific site, but there you're probably um, you're probably compensating in a different area, so let me work on that as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, this is not an MD thing, like an MD, web MD or or like, hey, uh, you know, hey know, hey, I'm hurting. Can you tell me over the phone? It's like you said you're all one piece, you got to go in, you got to spend the time so that we can figure out. You can figure out what's wrong with you and then send you to the next step and then come back and be like, okay, let's work on this, right, right, anything else you want?
Speaker 1:to share.
Speaker 2:Uh, come see me, come see me, all right tell us, tell us um how to get ahold of you, uh, where you're working at email, whatever you want to say.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I work at revolution physical therapy. Like Jason said earlier, I work at the Bucktown location. It's right off, damon. Um, you can come see me in person. Uh, you can email me. Uh, uh, can we put like some sort of like my, my contact?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah for sure, so we'll, we'll put our contact or we'll put my contact information in the bio or whatever in the link and uh, come see me. Yeah, it's. I try to keep a very like cool environment, uh, very chill environment when we're doing, but we're also working, so I feel like you can attest to that.
Speaker 2:I've been going to PT since I was 24, unfortunately, and I think you know, no one's really no one's ever looked at my back pain and say you know what we need to do this, this and this and it's, it's working. It's been fantastic. And if you do have a child that's into sports and really wants to get good listen, everyone thinks their kid is great, but everybody can become more athletic, right. And if your kid is extremely athletic, mo is going to get them more athletic. I think that's such a missed opportunity for kids is to really become one and understand your body. Because you can want to do something. You can look at a move online or look at what Jai's doing, or look at this guy and what they're doing. You can tell your body to do it. It just won't do it. Listen, I'm 50. When I'm doing something, I'm like I told my body to do that. It wouldn't do it. Your kid can do it. You've got your kid. Your child has to get into that and I can tell you I feel fantastic.
Speaker 2:But I can't tell you the difference that it's made in my middle child's life in terms of like, forget about. Forget about his agility and speed that's increased and his power, but the fact that he's not going to get hurt, that's the fact that he's going to play a full season and not be like I can't go because my hip is hurting right and we're all like. I'm telling you right now. A doctor told him his leg was too short by like this much and that's the cause of his ailment. It wasn't the cause of his ailment was he was not strong in the hips. That's what it was. Because we got rid of all the other stuff she set for us to do and since mo's worked with with him, I mean I'm telling you it's a game changer. You can call me and ask me and I'll tell you. I appreciate that.
Speaker 2:Yeah it's incredible. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Everyone will be on. This will be let's see, it's April. This will be in two weeks, mid-april. We're going to put it on and if you have any questions for Mo, his contact information will be there. If you have questions about what Mo has done to me or to my child in terms of our athletic career and for me, just getting me able to get out of bed and walk around and have fun, no problem telling you exactly what's happened and what's done. Thanks so much. Don't forget to subscribe. Hit the button and we'll talk to you soon. Thank you.