The 5 Most Important Things to Help You Recover From an Injury FASTER - With Dr. Steve Sudell

30:33As long as you have the confidence in those things, then that's where you get to trust your body and your mind takes over. It's beautiful.

30:40Shawn Stevenson:Yeah. Now what about struggles in that process when somebody has, you know, maybe things are going really well for like a couple of days and then, you know, maybe they have a pain that pops up or returns and you know they see it as like a setback you know I think we tend to see healing as like a straight line like I made it and that's the end of the story this is something I use in the clinic all the time is that success is not linear it's more like this and so I tell people straight up especially the most common one is back injuries people can be feeling a lot better and then they don't feel any pain anymore so they go out and they try to lift heavy and immediately like some sort of pain comes back.

31:19And I tell them expect that setbacks are going to happen, but it's just part of the process. It's just part of the process that your body is going to feel not great 100 % of the time. And so that goes into the mindset of like, if you know that the process is not gonna be linear, you're not going to freak out at the first time that it's like, oh, yeah, Steve was right. You know, I woke up and my back feels like really sore, like what's wrong? it's like well no we knew this was gonna happen but it's one thing to tell someone that it's another thing for them to actually live it and usually like the first setback is like their learning experience of like yeah i told you this was gonna happen it's like oh yeah okay and then they get better and then so it you also have to make sure that they're staying cautious because just because pain goes away doesn't mean that the problem necessarily went away so you want to still continue to build them stronger than what they were before they came in amazing amazing one of

32:18Shawn Stevenson:the things that i felt like i'm in the right place because it was jay ferruja who recommended me to you seven years ago and when i got to your office it was upstairs from a gym and so the gym was downstairs i was like oh this is i think this is like my people you know what i mean and you know So I came up to your office, you did some analysis and some treatment, but very quickly you had me in the gym and doing work in the gym and challenging the perceived issue. And what was so interesting, and even as I say it now out loud, I was able to do things that I didn't think I could do. I was able to do them.

33:02Shawn Stevenson:They didn't feel comfortable, but I was able to do them, but I had relented to not even try to do anything close to that stuff. And so, you know, you were helping to establish a healthy range of motion when it came, you know, with my shoulder and also strengthening as well. And so with that being said, how important is it? Because it's not just doing this stuff when an injury shows up, Like your brand, your company is prehab to perform. So how important is it to have like a base of strength and, you know, actually training? Because I think that that's also one of the things that really helped.

33:47Shawn Stevenson:Once I started to do the things, I got better really quickly. So can you, number one, how important is it to have like a base of kind of fitness and strength? And what does prehab mean? so it's incredibly important to have that base because the reality is when a person comes into my clinic if they're you know not an active person if exercise is not currently a part of their lives they're gonna it's gonna be a lot harder uh they're because a few things number one they're probably gonna be a lot less compliant with the exercise number two if they just see this as a temporary thing that they have to do to get through the injury then yeah we might get them feeling better but what's going to happen is they're going to recoil and come back you know they're going to keep having this thing because most people when they're in a deconditioned state they're just in a weakened state and they're just much more susceptible to all sorts of injuries and so those are the most challenging people for me to work with and i explain to them i'm like look look, you have to make exercise a part of your life.

34:55If you don't make, like, it can't be just something you do for a few weeks or a few months. This has to be a thing that is just what you do. And if it's not, then you're going to have a lot of challenges. You know, you can pay for it now or you can pay for it later. And you're going to pay for it a lot later by not taking care of your body now. And you don't have to do anything crazy, you know, even three days a week of some sort of like strength program. and then if you can incorporate some sort of the conditioning, but that helps people get better so much faster. It's funny, CrossFit has this negative connotation of how it causes people to get injured.

35:32And it does cause a lot of injuries because the reality is it's putting you through a full range of motion that we might have you come in and do snatches one day, but if you've been sitting behind a computer for eight hours before that, your posture is bad, your shoulders are tight and you go to try to lift a heavy weight over your head, you're probably gonna tweak something. So you have to put in the work before that, the mobility before class, you have to get those muscles like really primed on a daily basis so that you can do those things safely. But what's funny about when I see CrossFit athletes though, they get better so fast.

36:07Like I see them, like when they come in for an injury, like the average like length that I might see a CrossFit athlete is like one to five sessions. whereas anyone else even if they are athletic um it's usually like double that because the thing about like you know crossfitters is they have built into them this this mindset of oh yeah before class i do these mobility exercises i do the foam roll i do like this and that and so when that's already programmed into your brain when an injury comes up like you heal from it quickly you know because you already know the process you just have to like learn you know a different technique on how to fix those things.

36:45So being physically active will definitely help you in the long run, as far as injury prevention. And then as far as prehab goes, I came up with the name because when I was first starting as a PT, I would see a lot of people for, you know, they would come in before they got like a hip replacement, knee replacement, and we would do prehab before they got surgery. and what I found was is and I don't know the exact stat but we'll say maybe three out of four of those people canceled their surgery because they weren't doing any of the things that we were working on and then all of a sudden when you start doing those exercises you start working on the mobility and strength all of a sudden their knee pain goes away all of a sudden their hip pain goes away so prehab for me is just one of those things that you know if you're constantly keeping your body strong, then you never have to get to the rehab phase.

37:41You know, you're trying to avoid the surgery. You're avoiding like the next level of, you know, seeing a physician. Um, if you can do those things beforehand. Amazing.

37:52Shawn Stevenson:Amazing, man. Um, one of the things that you have identified and you actually are an inventor as well. And it's one of the most common things that people struggle with and they tweak, especially in our modern lives, are neck issues. And you're the inventor of the neck hammock. So talk about that. Like what inspired you to create that? I got injured, you know, a lot. I grew up, you know, played football. So I constantly was having compression on my neck. And the one thing that seemed to give me a lot of relief was cervical traction, but I'd have to go into like a physical therapy office, lie down and use this very expensive device.

38:33There was no products out there that other than like these archaic looking things that were like actually terrible for your neck. And so, you know, one day I was actually doing a workout. I was doing some handstand pushups, shockingly tweak my neck. And I decided to grab a band and wrap around a pole and lie down in it for 10 minutes, wrap around the back of my head to create cervical traction. And 10 minutes later, when I got up, my neck felt way better. I was like, okay, so there's something here. I feel like I need to pursue this because if I'm feeling this way, how many millions of people out there could also benefit from this?

39:12So I spent the next year to two years developing 13 different prototypes. The great thing about being a physical therapist is that it's my own laboratory. So anyone who came in like, hey, Sean, go ahead, lie down on this. Let me know how you feel. And they tell me, it's a little uncomfortable around the ears. it's a little too tight this that so i had my laboratory to test all these different prototypes eventually i ran a kickstarter we raised almost like a million dollars in 30 days it was like one of the biggest kickstarter projects like that uh year i was not anticipating it to be that successful so i had you know to figure out how to make that much product like that fast which created some issues but ultimately the biggest reason why i did it and why i'm so happy about it is, you know, by the time I sold the company back in 2021, we had personally sold over 500 ,000 units and the reviews that people would send me were just so inspiring and they were just so amazing.

40:12And even, you know, I went through like a lot of hardships developing the product. And I remember there was this one night, I think I was going through, you know, funding issues, like how am I going to pay for this? And one of my friends who I let borrow a neck hammock because she had constant cervical headaches. She shot me a text like, Hey, you know, normally, you know, when I have these like really bad migraines, you know, I take Advil and I take this and I take that and like nothing was working. And then I tried the neck hammock that night and I felt so much better. Like my neck pain went away.

40:45My headache went away. And so it was like things that like that, that kind of brought me back down. It's like, okay, this thing that I'm working on is beyond me. It's really important to pursue. And the mission was always like, how can I, I can't see 500 ,000 people, but how can I give them something that they can, you know, fix themselves with? And so super, super proud of the product and just very happy that I was able to make an impact on a lot of people.

41:12Shawn Stevenson:Yeah. That's incredible, man. Like that's like, you made history, you know what I mean? Like that's so powerful. You've already heard the news that red light therapy is incredible for our skin health, A double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial found that in just four weeks of treatment with red light therapy, participants had up to a 36 % reduction in wrinkles and up to a 20 % increase in skin elasticity. Now, this headline is out there. People know that red light therapy is great for the skin, but what people still don't realize is that red light therapy has been utilized for decades in the treatment of pain.

41:50Shawn Stevenson:Yes, the headlines for red light therapy improving our skin health is true. It's powerful. What most people still don't realize is how powerful red light therapy is for healing our bodies and reducing pain. A powerful meta-analysis published in the BMJ sought to see if red light therapy can reduce pain in people with osteoarthritis versus a placebo. The study included over 1 ,000 people and it found that red light therapy can significantly reduce knee pain in study participants. And not only that, the results appeared to have semi-lasting effects with benefits seen up to three months after treatment.

42:32Shawn Stevenson:The researcher stated, quote, the positive effect from red light therapy seems to last longer than those of widely recommended painkiller drugs, unquote. Incredibly powerful. It's not only reducing pain, but it's actually making the tissues healthier. It's improving the body's capacity to heal. Now, we need to be clear. There's a lot of sham red light therapy devices out there. The red light therapy device that I utilize, it's FDA registered and it provides both red and near infrared wavelengths, the same irradiance that's noted in those studies. And you can utilize this from the comfort of your own home.

43:19Shawn Stevenson:The quality of their red light therapy devices have been verified in third-party labs, and it meets key IEC safety standards for electrical and EMF safety. And I'm talking about the red light therapy devices from Bondcharge. Go to bondcharge.com forward slash model right now and use the code model at checkout for 15 % off all of their red light therapy devices. They have their classic best-selling red light therapy panels. They have the number one award-winning red light therapy mask. They have the red light therapy sauna blankets as well. So many different red light therapy devices to choose from.

44:04Shawn Stevenson:So head over there, check them out, take advantage of that incredible discount again that's bondcharge.com forward slash model that's b-o-n-c-h-a-r-g-e.com forward slash model for 15 off take advantage and now back to the show a question about again when we experience pain or an injury we tend to be very focused on where the pain is like the local aspect of it and not realizing that a lot of the time there's something up or downstream that is contributing if not the causative agent of that pain showing up you know like you might have somebody coming in that's dealing with a hip flexor issue and you end up working on things with their lower legs you know or their calves or something like that or their to bile his anterior or something so can you talk about that like why is it important to not just hyper focus on the spot of where the pain is yeah i mean i would say most of the time the pain is never coming from the area you know it's always an issue somewhere upstream downstream you know i've seen crazy uh patients to where by fixing their neck pain we worked on ankle mobility because every time that they were doing like snatches, you know, they had terrible ankle mobility.

45:31So therefore, like when they'd get to the bottom, like their neck would have to crank back. And so you just always have to follow it up and downstream because it's incredibly common for that to be the case, but also explaining to the person like, hey, I know that your shoulder hurts here, but I'm working on here to fix this because if you have bad posture, then you're going to put your shoulder in a more likelihood or position to be impinged, you know, whenever you're lifting your, your arm over your head. And so getting them to understand that that's why is really important. With that being said, I always work on that area specifically too, because it is important to de-congest the area, you know, get some blood flow to it, desensitize, but ultimately like the next few steps is working on everything else.

46:22And And, you know, that's one of the things that we do at our clinic is we always treat the whole body. Whenever you come in for a neck issue, a shoulder issue, you know, we're going to have, we're going to test your squat. We're going to see like what your hip hinge looks like because all those things, they work their way up the chain and any breakdown in the chain, you know, can lead to dysfunction somewhere.

46:45Shawn Stevenson:Yeah. So you mentioned decongesting, you know, the area. and I would love to know, what are your favorite tools for helping to do that specifically, right? So somebody's coming in, are you a fan of things like cupping? What are some of your favorite tools for helping people with that local pain? So when people come in and see me, my favorite modalities are, I love doing combination of Graston, which is like the metal tools that you scrape. uh combine that with the cups i feel like is like one of the best two uh one two punches out there as far as getting blood flow desensitizing decongesting that area now you don't have to have those tools at your disposal to to benefit from that you can also do something like you know foam rolling the area or in different parts of your body you may need different tools like if you have plantar fasciitis maybe use like a golf ball or baseball or softball to get into the area where you need like more of a firm um you know feedback but the other thing that people can really think about is just mobilizing their fascia and doing it through means of you know soft tissue work whether it's the foam roll a lacrosse ball golf ball whatever the case may be that's a good way to get the tissues moving get some blood flow without actually doing any activity yet I typically will start our session doing some sort of decongestion, some sort of desensitization before we even get into any sort of mobility or strength work.

48:23Yeah.

48:23Shawn Stevenson:What's your opinion on, again, this was in school, the rice paradigm, where are we at with that? What's your opinion on using ice versus heat? Or is there a certain place where, because the tendency is ice yeah right so talk about the education around rice like this is like foundational stuff and where we are today yeah the idea with rice is just you want to protect the area you don't want to create any further injury to it you know you want to vasoconstrict to prevent any more excessive blood flow to the area which conceptually makes sense but the reality is we need blood flow to go to the area to heal it you know we want to limit you know sometimes how much blood flow uh we get to that area especially when it comes to things like discs injuries like we don't want excessive uh blood flow to those discs like while it's inflamed because then that'll cause you know sciatica type issues and a whole slew of other issues but but I actually have a slightly contrarian view on this although I don't use rice specifically anymore what is rice by the way rest ice compression elevation.

49:32And, you know, I think that for a while it was okay. And I think that I actually still am a fan of using ice for immediately post-injury because of the desensitization component, you know, because me, anecdotally speaking, you know, if I tweak my shoulder like immediately and I put some ice on it for 15, 20 minutes, it feels better 15 to 20 minutes later. And what that does also is it, you know, reduces the overall cortisol response, you know, because when you're feeling pain, your whole body responds. And so if you can just temporarily remove that pain without using drugs, then I'm certainly okay with it.

50:12Now there's a window that I like to just use ice, you know, I might use it for the first like three to seven days, like max, but really the sooner that we can incorporate heat and not even necessarily topical heat but heat as in just moving you know getting on a bike and just getting blood flow to area is certainly better than you know the the rice method as far as healing is concerned because in the initial stages is not the worst thing to prevent you know excessive blood flow but pretty soon after that we want to encourage blood flow because that, you know, that's how the whole healing process works.

50:49Shawn Stevenson:Yeah. Now, obviously this is a tough question because especially if people are active and they've got their sports specific things to do, but what would you say for the average person? Like what would be if you, if everybody in the world, you could program, everybody's going to do these five specific exercises. This is like, man, you could do other stuff. Absolutely. But these are the five core things that you would have every human being work on like what would those five things be I mean my favorite you know uh the back squat the deadlift um bench press pull up and then like an overhead press and the caveat is obviously I want you to be able to move well with all those things you don't have to lift super heavy you know I want you to lift as heavy as your body will allow you to lift, you know, become harder to kill, you know, become more resilient to injury because the stronger, the stronger, more mobile you are, the less likely you already get injured.

51:50Like the people, one of the very first tests that I have people do when they come in is I have them show me their squat, you know, have them do three air squats from the side, from the front. I don't care if it's a shoulder injury, neck injury, like I see how well can this person move. And what I find is that people who have really good looking squats typically get injured far less. But I would say the majority of people who come in, especially with overuse injuries or their desk job, they have atrocious squats. And so I would say that you don't necessarily have to do a heavy squat, but master the air squat.

52:27If you can get a really good air squat, that shows me that you have good ankle mobility, you have good hip mobility, you have good control. pull, you have good posture. All those things are beyond just like it being like a leg exercise, but like just a total body movement exercise. And so the ability to do those five movements for everyone, male, female, doesn't matter, I think is really important. Got it. Got it. Now, what if somebody says, I can't squat? Well, let's work on that. I think that everyone, I shouldn't say everyone, Most people have the ability to have a pretty good squat, at least a below parallel squat, because that's like what we're designed to do.

53:08If you have kids, and I know you do, but when you watch them when they're really young, all kids have this beautiful squat, like toddlers, they'll just hang out in that position forever. They'll play in that position. It's effortless for them. They enjoy being in that position. But through Western society, us sitting all the time, we've lost the ability to squat. Everyone has that in them to be able to do, but when you get older and you don't do it, if you don't do it, you lose it. That's why people can't squat anymore because they just stopped doing it. And so encouraging kids to continue to do those full body movements is so important.

53:54Yeah.

53:54Shawn Stevenson:And we tend to compensate, you know, to find a way to get down on whatever kind of squat we could do. So is there anything else that we can do to work on improving our squats? squats. So one of my favorite things that I always give people is I call it the seven minute squat challenge where every single day you spend seven minutes in a squat and you do this for 30 days. Now you I don't expect you to do seven minutes in a row immediately. You can start out with you know seven sets of one minute and doesn't have to be all at the same time. It could just be like throughout the day. But if you accumulate seven minutes of spending time in a full squat, by the time you get to day 30, you'll notice a significant improvement.

54:38And as you're doing it, you're gonna go through some growing pains. The first like 30 seconds, you're gonna feel like your shin's burning, your back is sore, like all these like little aches and pains and niggles. And if you have to hold onto something at first, if your heels pop off the ground, I don't expect it to be perfect. I just expect you to do the best that you can. And the more often that you'll do it, your squat will get a little bit deeper. You'll be able to stay out there a little bit longer. You'll get a little bit more comfortable. So it's a really fun challenge. It's super easy that anyone can do.

55:11I love it. It's just having that target, you know, this seven minute squat

55:15Shawn Stevenson:challenge and just spending some time in that position. Again, you can do other things, especially once you start to get more comfortable. And so when you mentioned the squat challenge, it's being in the bottom position of squat. It's okay if your heels come up as well. So I'm just going to demonstrate for people that can see the video version of this and also what it looks like to like hold on to something as well. All right. So we just get down into a resting squat like this. Just kind of hang out here. It's a pretty good looking squat.

55:45Shawn Stevenson:This is super helpful in building up to it. It's finding something to hold on to. Maybe not necessarily like a stripper pole, you know, but like just finding something that you can kind of lean on and start moving around. and working in some inputs. Exactly, just organically flow through it. Like whatever feels stiff and tight, just kind of work that out a little bit. Yeah, no, it looks really good.

56:16Shawn Stevenson:All right, seven minute squat challenge, do it. And I think a lot of it, like you mentioned earlier, the ankle mobility is like, I think a lot of people, just the average person uh struggles with that like what's going on there why did the ankles start to like get so stiff we just we don't take it through the four-inch motion is ultimately like what it comes down to you know we have a funny joke like there's like the asian squat um typically people who have asian descent they have this like beautiful squat and obviously has to do with like their tibia and femur length. But, you know, they had to go to the bathroom in a hole for like a really long time.

56:57And so when you spend time every single day in that position, it just sticks. And so people, I mean, when you ask the average person to get into a deep squat, they're usually pretty bad. And it's like, well, when was the last time you've done that outside of like a chair, You know, everyone like just goes like 90 degrees like parallel. But if you don't go down there, then the ankles never get stressed like that. Runners have terrible ankle mobility. And because they actually develop really stiff ankles because it's to their advantage with running, instead of relying on the muscles, they use the tendons to kind of spring them along, which helps them be efficient running, but eventually can lead to some significant issues.

57:43and they runners typically have the worst squats because they just never go through that full range of motion they just have developed so much stiffness in those tendons for their sport that it actually is really hard for them to do an anatomically sound squat

58:00Shawn Stevenson:i'm a big fan of the resting squat just kind of hanging out in that position i do it all the time you know like i i primarily sit on the floor at my house now you know thanks to some influence you know, Kelly Star Red and just their work and, you know, and if I'm not just kind of crisscross applesauce, like, and also your body, you start to become more fidgety, you know, that's the inputs from your environment, from the ground, these, we have these sensors all over our bodies and just over time, you know, that's stolen if you're in a lazy boy, like the lazy boy is, the name is there. It's poison.

58:39I think like one of the worst things ever invented was the couch. It's created so many issues.

58:44Shawn Stevenson:Why is ouch in the name? I know exactly. Come on. And you know, it's funny. It just, it feels so good. And it's like after a really long day, it's nice to just lounge on the couch. And it's funny. I have a three and a half year old and 18 month old. So I spent a lot of time on the ground now. And what I found was the more time that I would spend on the ground, just like crawling around sitting on the ground like your mobility just gets better yeah like things just start like moving differently you're not stuck in this like position so that if i were to ask you to go squat you know if you've been sitting on the ground for a while like you're so much more prepared to do that than if you've been sitting on the couch for you know two plus hours um so that kind of also goes into something that i preach a lot when it comes to exercise we have it wrong in many ways in that most people when they exercise it's like studying for a test they cram it all in in 45 minutes to an hour one time during the day instead of like you know in the morning you get up and you kind of do your stretches or you sit on the ground and then the afternoon you do you sit in a squat for for five minutes and then you go exercise later on like we just like to cram it all into one thing and how effective do you think the last half of your workout is versus the first half.

1:00:04You know, if you went and did like really heavy squats in the first half, the second half of that workout was probably a lot less effective versus if you did like heavy squats in the morning, then you came back and did your conditioning in the afternoon. And it applies to all like the mobility stuff is that people save all the stretching right before they work out. But if you did it, like sprinkled it in throughout the day, you don't even need to do that before you work out because you're already loose. Like you're already ready to go. You've already put in the work, but everyone has like this, they just cram it all into that time.

1:00:36And then the rest of the time they're, they're sitting at a desk or they're sitting on the couch or they're driving the car. And so that's where a lot of people run into issues is that they just cram it all in. And then shockingly they get injured, you know, by doing so.

1:00:49Shawn Stevenson:I absolutely, man, like that's sitting on the ground gives you an opportunity to get all these movement inputs in, like little nutrients. And so, and again, like the ground informs you to move, you know, eventually you get uncomfortable, you find something that's more comfortable, you know? And so a lot of the time, again, if I'm not like sitting crisscross applesauce or just like sprawling my legs or, you know, I'll do like a half kneeling squat, right? So I'm gonna demonstrate and see if we can get on the camera here. But I'll sit like this a lot of the time, watching TV, you know, just kind of hanging out.

1:01:24Shawn Stevenson:You see this foot back here? You know? It's like, hmm. You know? People would be so much better off if they did that. What's so crazy is like, and it's, hey, let me get back on the mic. But I can't believe there was a time, like a couple of years ago, before I sat on the floor so consistently, when I would like kind of need to decompress. I could feel like a compression, like maybe my lower back or something like that. And because again, even though I stand a lot, it can still be static. right and then i'm sitting on the couch hanging out with my boo and that just completely it just disappeared like i wouldn't feel like i gotta go hang on this bar like i gotta go do it you know just to get that like decompression now it's just like my tissues are just so much more adaptable and and supple and kind of just ready like you said like i this need to warm i feel like i'm already ready if that makes sense no it does and it's just like when you're on the ground like you just get fidgety because like things get uncomfortable you have to move so it forces you to move you know when you're in this nice beautiful like you know soft surface like you can just stay there like for hours and never have to have that sensation because it you know and like this this idea or this like feeling the subconscious feeling of like needing to like hang on a bar like we're supposed to move like we're supposed to move all day long it's just inherent in how you know we function.

1:02:50And yeah, there's just, people are just not moving enough. Yeah.

1:02:55Shawn Stevenson:And then even something more recently, I, even if I wanted like, after a while, maybe we're watching a movie and I want to lay down, I lay on the floor, you know, and that again, it's sure you can go to sleep, you can sleep on the floor, but you'll feel these inputs of like, well, let me put my foot up on this thing, or let me turn this way, or like, let me actually sit back up, or let me, let me flip around and and lay on my belly you know whatever the case might be and we're i'm still doing the thing i was going to do anyways which is hang out and watch a movie with my family you're still enjoying it you know it doesn't take away from your experience yeah you know maybe you're not you're not going to take a nap as easy uh what one of the there's a position that i love that people do not do enough and that's just lying on your stomach lying on your stomach getting on your elbows like watching tv that way we spend so much time inflection right sitting you know where every everything is in front of us.

1:03:49We don't do enough extension and that, that leads to posture issues. That leads to back issues, tight hip flexors. Just, I mean, it's so easy. Just if you just lie in your stomach, you know, right after like you got home from like a long drive, it can just completely neutralize all those negative effects of sitting throughout the day, just by spending time on your stomach.

1:04:11Shawn Stevenson:Yeah. I would have thought again, I would have thought if I saw myself doing this now 25 years ago or 30 years ago, like super weird. Like you're, you're, you're being hella weird, but now it's just like, I don't care. You know, even if, you know, people are over, I'm the, I sit on the floor most of the time. And it's crazy if we have like more people over, you know, people tend to sit on the floor with me, you know, and just hang out. We play cards on the ground. We could, I play with my son, we set up the chess board, you know like it's just it's normal and it's normal so many other parts of the world it is i know so yeah there's a lot of things that we've normalized that we shouldn't have you know whether it's you know you go to thanksgiving and you're trying like not to drink or you're trying to like to lay off the stuffing or whatever like oh what's wrong with you like you know you trying to be healthy is weird you know you trying to be on the ground you know sitting and doing like what's best for your body.

1:05:09It's weird. What are you doing down there? Like, come join us on the couch. You know, we've normalized this idea of like being healthy is like weird. And I think that's why we have a lot of issues that we have, you know, we're very unhealthy as a society.

1:05:22Shawn Stevenson:Yeah. Well, I get to ask you, you know, like you're on the ground doing this work and it was about 20 years now. so that's a huge opportunity to see trends i'm curious if the things that people are coming in for now are different from what they were 20 years ago or there's some things that are kind of have increased more recently like what are the most common things people are coming in for right now and i'm asking that maybe like what are the top three things and then like what are some things we can do to help to prevent those things what is the one thing that's changed the most technologically speaking in the last 20 years is this people spend all day in this position or on their computer again stuck in flexion you know so there's so many people that have tons of neck issues that never resolve back issues shoulder issues and it all stems from being in this like flex position.

1:06:23It's just so incredibly unhealthy. And that compounds over time. And so you see these issues that they appear as like a traumatic injury from the gym or whatever, but it's really coming from that poor posture. And, you know, that's where even I was just saying that my favorite position when I get home is just to lie in my stomach. I'll still get on my phone, but like you being on your stomach in this arch position, you know, looking up versus down all the time, it's like a really simple hack for you to still accomplish what you want to accomplish. Uh, because so many people, they just spend so much time on that phone that it just creates all these, you know, issues that I just described.

1:07:09Um, so that's been the biggest unwelcome trend when it comes to injury.

1:07:16Shawn Stevenson:So are there any things, obviously changing our positioning, being more conscious, bringing the phone up a little bit, but are there any things that we could do? And I know this is tough because again, remove the cost. That's the best thing. But again, it might manifest in different ways. Again, maybe somebody has this triggering event when they're doing a lift, but again, they spend so much time with their head down on their phone, but now they're having these issues. Is there anything that we can do proactively through the day? I think you already even mentioned just laying on our stomachs and getting that prone cobra position.

1:07:54Shawn Stevenson:Like what are like maybe three exercises that we can do to help to kind of counter being on our phones all the time? I mean, to get you off your phone, that that's beyond my pay grade. You know, the changing the psychology and the habits of people like getting off of that. But there are definitely plenty of stretches that you can do to offset that. Like I said, you know, I love laying on my stomach, but a flow that I really like, you know, from yoga is just up dog, down dogs. That's just a good way to mobilize, you know, the whole spine from your calves, you know, to your shoulders and neck. That's just like a great daily flow that people can do.

1:08:32even if they just do you know five ten reps of that you know ideally a few times a day but even just once a day will certainly be an improvement from probably what they are doing um I love the couch stretch uh do you remember what the couch stretch is where you put one knee on the ground the other foot opening up those hip flexors you know so us sitting here all day long so many people they think that the root of all their issues is tight hamstrings and most of the times it's i find tight hip flexors are just as bad uh so i really like the couch stretch can you

1:09:07Shawn Stevenson:describe the couch stress for people that are listening well for the on the video version people can see yeah yeah but so for the couch stretch you basically put um it's the name implies where it's best used because the couch is usually a perfect height so i'll put one knee on the ground the knee that at the leg that i want to stretch on the ground and then that foot up on the couch and then so I'm sitting in this upright posture as I'm doing that it'll give me a really good hip flexor stretch and I just hang out in that position for like two minutes and ideally you know if you are watching tv at home you know you're just chilling just get into the couch position spend two minutes on each leg it'll open up everything in the anterior chain and naturally just make you feel like your posture is better you can sit up taller the third stretch that I love that we also don't do a ton of is rotation.

1:09:57You know, so like just lying on your back, rocking your knees side to side, you know, pulling your knee to one side and then alternating. Everything that we do in life is very linear. You know, it's up down, it's forward backwards. We don't do a ton of lateral movement. We don't do a ton of rotation. So by incorporating rotation into your diet, it's actually a really great way to decompress the spine again, all the way from the neck down to the low back so so those three if you were to build in like a daily routine super simple five to ten reps each or another thing i'll even do is i'll just set a timer for two minutes each so you're not thinking about counting the movement you're just chilling you're just going through trying to get a little bit more range of motion every rep if you did that every day you would notice a difference in like a week you know immediately you'd start feeling like oh yeah I feel I can stand up taller, you know, just gives you that, that feedback on where your body's at in that particular moment.

1:10:56So I, my practice, I like to focus on every, keeping everything simple. You know, you don't need to overcomplicate things to see results.

1:11:05Shawn Stevenson:Amazing. Amazing. Funny enough, last night when I laid, I was on the ground, laid on my back, and then I started doing the rotation, you know? And again, it's just another input, get those nutritious inputs. and it's in the no extra time zone. You know, you don't need to like, this is part of the workout. It's just so simple, man. And I appreciate that because you make everything so simple and accessible. And if you could, can you share where people can connect with you, follow you? And I know of course you see people here in LA, you're in is the Venice area, right by the iconic Gold's Gym right there as well.

1:11:45Shawn Stevenson:So give people some insight on how to connect with you. Yeah, the best way to connect is just through the website, prehab2perform.com. You can also go on Instagram. We have our handles prehab2perform. And that's just the easiest way, you know, if you're dealing with any, if you're local and you're dealing with any, you know, issues. The one thing that I like to pride myself on is that I will not have you come in for any longer than you need to. You know, I won't sell you on any packages that are, you know, you need to come in for the next six months. If you just need me for one session, then that's all we'll do is one session.

1:12:21If you need me for more than that, then I'll tell you that. I also do like Zoom calls and online consultations as well, because not everyone lives in this area. So you can always just shoot me an email online. Amazing.

1:12:35Shawn Stevenson:Well, I appreciate you for coming in, man. You know, again, you've been a part of my life for quite some time. And it's so great to have somebody that can go and see whenever I've got questions, you know, especially when it comes to like, okay, I know that this issue is manifesting here, but maybe it's something up or down that I am not sure of. And just to get that certainty, one of the greatest things about you is just this, this essence of certainty and being around you and what you do. And also seeing you instill that even in my son, like in leaving there, just like, it's such a great gift because, you know, you care, you know, your stuff and, you know, you're prepared.

1:13:17Shawn Stevenson:You're like, you walk your talk as well. So, you know, you're, you're one in a billion, man. I appreciate you so much. Appreciate you, brother. The one and only Dr. Steve, everybody. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode today. I hope that you got a lot of value out of this. If you did share the goodness, share the information, share the inspiration with somebody that you care about. You can send this directly from the podcast app that you're listening on. And wherever you're listening, by the way, make sure that you're subscribed. Make sure that you're subscribed and following the show so that you don't miss a thing.

1:13:52Shawn Stevenson:I can see the numbers. There's a percentage of our regular listeners that are not subscribed to the show. There's popping in and out and pop in. Make sure that you're subscribed because that also helps to get the show out to more and more people as well. But again, most importantly, you won't miss a thing. We've got some incredible, incredible guests in store for you and some powerful masterclasses as well. So make sure that you are ready. Take care, have an amazing day, and I'll talk with you soon.

1:14:30Thank you.