This Is Why Pain Doesn’t Go Away: The Science-Backed Ways To Live More & Hurt Less - With Dr. Sean Pastuch

25:21Shawn Stevenson:And so let's talk about the physical aspect of this in, in being able to live more and hurt less because some of the stuff that we do, for example, you go into play pickup, some stuff we're not qualifying ourself to do. Right. And we just on a whim, like I want to get in shape. And then you go and do that versus like having a base of things. You start training and giving yourself some inputs. And then of course, like adding in inputs like that as well. And what happens today in our culture is like, we're very acclimated to chair sitting, for example, right? We haven't trained ourselves to be able to do the things we want to do.

26:00Shawn Stevenson:Maybe we want to go on a trip with our family and it's got all these hikes, but you know, we haven't even hiked up a flight of stairs. You know what I mean? So let's talk about number one, creating a base of strength and fitness, but let's go start through the lens of getting out of pain. Do you think that it's a good idea for us to stop moving when we're hurting? No, it's the opposite of a good idea. Our brain is a permission giver and a permission taker. When we hurt ourselves, within three to four months, most of the time, the physical tissue damage is gone. But the pain can last a long time after that.

26:46Why? It's in the brain, like a memory. I'll give you a simple example and then we'll come back to the physical part. I'm sure you've never done this, but I've done this once or twice in my youth. I drank way too much, right? Get hammered on SoCo and Lyme. Southern Comfort and Lyme was the drink of choice in college and like the two years after now i'm one drink every quarter if that but i remember getting really drunk on soco and lime and then the next day smelling a lime and saying nope nope 10 years later smelling a lime and saying i feel like i just drank yesterday i can't have that how does the lime 10 years later make me still feel like i drank yesterday it's the memory of it so now when that happens physically, the way that that goes is this.

27:38Our brain registers a problem. It sends pain so that we can allow the body to heal from that problem instead of overusing that area. But then the body does heal and we haven't told the brain yet, hey, we can go and use it again because we live in a world where we don't actually have to. If we were hunters and gatherers, we wouldn't have that choice. So the lifestyle that we live today affords us the ability to not have to go expose that thing again. The non-exposure of it leads that area of the body to deconditioning. Then when we finally get to the point that we're like, oh, you know what? Maybe I'll just try it again.

28:15It hurts because the memory is still there and we're deconditioned. So now we start saying, I'm going to go through the pain. I'm going to go through the, this is what happens with my patients and clients all the time in the very beginning. Okay, Sean, you're telling me to do this. I have confidence in you. I'm going to do it. They start doing it. The pain goes away. I feel so much better. Then they do it a little bit more and the pain comes back. And they're like, I don't know what happened. I thought I was doing so well. Now I feel like a huge setback. My back at ground zero. I said, no, you're not conditioned to be able to handle all the work that you're doing.

28:47We got to raise your capacity. This is the same thing that would have been soreness to you five years ago. But today it's pain because you forgot how to interpret it. So the body becomes deconditioned from lack of use. And then we think that more disuse is what's going to lead to the body getting better. No, we, at that point, we have to use it. Every time we use our body, we send a signal to our brain that it's safe to do that thing. Every time we send a signal to our brain, it's safe to do that thing. The brain decides a little bit less pain next time then, because maybe we'll need to do this again.

29:23You do it again, less pain next time. You do it again, less pain next time. And so the brain decides, Sean's not going to stop. I have to remove that pain stimulus from the thing he's doing because he's going to do this thing and he needs to be able to do it well. That's how we go from brain to body to brain to body in a way that's actually helpful.

29:46Shawn Stevenson:Makes sense. It's a desensitization process. And to have somebody that can coach you through it is exceedingly helpful, of course, especially again, if you've been in pain. And so I love that because also we feel like, especially when we're feeling better or we don't feel the thing, and then we might do something or venture into maybe what similar or maybe the same thing that we got injured before. And we can go into complete panic mode. Like I got to go back to ground zero, as you just mentioned. And I think it's a really important sentiment for everybody that, you know, healing is not a straight line.

30:24Right.

30:24Shawn Stevenson:And there's going to be things that come up along the way, but having those things that are non-negotiable and overwhelming the problem, just keep moving forward. You know, it's a part of the process. The expert thing that you talked about is really important because in 2017, I left clinical practice to do this for people from around the world because they were already flying out. And one of the questions that I got from a lot of people was why can't trainers do this? because I was still practicing under my license. And then I let the license lapse and work to people from around the world. I said, trainers could, but there's a really thin line between effective and dangerous.

31:04How much to do, how much pain to tolerate. It's different from every single person you work with. And you got to understand how to do that. And so the, the confidence that the person who is administering the service, the trainer, the doctor, whomever has, is a huge influence on how much the client is going to adhere to it, the compliance they're going to have. If you're standing at the edge of Dunning-Kruger looking out and thinking it's a beautiful view, you're dangerous. Once you understand the signs of this makes somebody better, this makes somebody worse, this is a sign that I need to ask more questions, back off here, push here.

31:47I believe the trainer, the coach is the best person in the world to fill the gap between where the fitness industry ends and the healthcare system begins. There's just a ton of education that's necessary for them to be able to do that.

32:02Shawn Stevenson:Come on, man. Come on. Mr. T, it might as well stand for testosterone, the muscles, the mohawk, the audacity to wear feather earrings. We know the iconic Mr. T, of course, but we all want to be Mr. T in our own lives. And a big component of that is being mindful of supporting our testosterone. Now, the lifestyle factors matter so much. For example, we've got an incredible study published in the Asian Journal of Andrology finding that there is a heavy sleep dependent factor in producing testosterone. And another study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association finding that when young men are sleep deprived, just for a week, getting five or less hours of sleep per night, plummets testosterone by upwards of 15%.

32:54Shawn Stevenson:So sleep deprivation is one of those things that is counter to optimal testosterone levels. So we wanna be mindful of that and other lifestyle factors. Now, many people are looking for a supplemental thing that they can do that they could take to support testosterone, but I'm telling you right now, the efficacy is far and in between there are very very few things that are proven clinically to support healthy testosterone levels and dare i say give it a boost but one of those things was noted in a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial titled clinical evaluation of purified shilajit on testosterone levels and healthy volunteers and it had men between the ages of 45 and 55 take 250 milligrams of purified.

33:40Shawn Stevenson:Purified is key. Sheila G. twice daily for 90 days. At the end of the study, the researchers found that versus a placebo, the men taking Sheila G. had significantly increased levels of total testosterone, free testosterone, and DHEA. Total testosterone increased by upwards of 28%, while free testosterone increased by upwards of 20%. Now, all of this happened without negative side effects. Now, if you're wondering, what the heck is Shilaji? What is that? This comes from the Sanskrit word that's translated to mean the conqueror of mountains and the destroyer of weakness. And Shilaji itself is a dark, resinous substance from the Himalayan mountains.

34:31Shawn Stevenson:It's been utilized in Ayurveda for thousands of years. And right now you don't need to hunt the mountains of the Himalayas to find it. Organifi now has an ultra purified authentic extract that's clinically tested for potency and efficacy, all in easy to use gummies. Just go to Organifi.com forward slash model and you're going to get 20 % off their phenomenal Sheila G dummies and store wide. All right. Incredible opportunity. Head over there, check them out. Organifi.com forward slash model for 20 % off, take advantage. And now back to the show. The confidence also with the person that you're working with so often, and you know this, and I want to get into this as well.

35:23they don't have confidence in you as well in kind of the conventional setting.

35:27Shawn Stevenson:Sure. Right. You go into, you know, maybe, you know, your primary, whatever the case might be. Well-intentioned, of course, maybe you walked in there and you've got some inflammation in your Achilles, but you walked in there and they're like, oh, I got to put you in a boot for four to six weeks. This happens all the time. All the time. Okay. And so they don't have confidence in you healing, but you want to, you just mentioned all the things that it takes away from your life. We've got to have the audacity, which you said that word earlier, to not just question ourselves, but also the people that we have around us and that team.

36:02Shawn Stevenson:You mentioned that was a part of your healing too. The people and the voices that you're allowing around you. And so if the person you're working with is telling you that you can't do the thing that you want to do, you have to have the audacity to seek out help from somebody that is on the same page with you. Yes. There's a chapter in the book about how to make your medical provider your best partner. Because if you walk into the clinic and you think everyone who walks into this clinic is just like me, they want to be physically active. They want to be in charge of their own health. Your listeners, I mean, we're on the model health show, man.

36:32Your listeners are not passive participants in their lives. They want to be the person who dictates their own future. Most people who walk into the doctor's office are not like the listeners of this podcast. and the doctors are going to do what the patient wants, provided that it's not dangerous for the patient to do it. Because if they don't, the patient's just going to go to another doctor who will, and every doctor thinks that they're the most responsible one to help that person within the confines of what's ethical. And we confuse that with bad medical care. It's the medical care that the American society has asked for.

37:11We are the outliers. So when we go into the doctor's office, we need to communicate in a way that makes very clear, this is what I need help with. Instead of walking in and saying, my back hurts when I lift heavy weights, walk in and say, my back hurts when I lift heavy weights, and lift heavy weights is really important to me. Can you help me get back to it? Instead of going to the doctor's office and saying, when I go on long runs, my Achilles really flares up. And then the doctor saying, well, here's a cortisone shot that you don't want to take. It's, can you make recommendations for me that would allow me to avoid any kind of injection or medication?

37:51And then let the doctor answer a much more specific question. Good doctors love those questions. We refer almost all of our clients at our local brick and mortars to Dr. Amy West, who's on Long Island, great doctor, great physiatrist. She regularly helps our clients do everything they can to avoid all the medications at a disposal. Find doctors like that to surround yourself with and do a good job communicating with them.

38:19Shawn Stevenson:Great, great advice. Thank you. Let's talk about building that base of strength. Sure. Again, if we are in pain right now and deconditioned, as you just mentioned, what are some of those on-ramp activities for people to do? And again, I'm saying this, I know that it's situationally dependent, it's individual, of course, but what are some of those foundational things that even if we'll just say somebody right now, they are experiencing back pain, you know, lower back and mid back pain, like the pain is moving around and they've stopped lifting weights because they feel like not because they got injured more or lifting the weights, they just stopped because they don't want to hurt themselves more.

39:05Shawn Stevenson:Yep. What would be some things for them to start to do? There's a, there's a space between nothing and everything where almost everybody has some confidence. So let's say, for example, you used to squat 200, 300 pounds every time you went into the gym and squatted. And now you're like, I just, I don't know if squatting is a good idea for me because my back. well there's there's two ways to look at that is squatting important to you or squatting something that you don't ever care to do again because it's not dangerous so the question is do you want it or do you not care if you ever do it again now we're only talking about the person for whom i want to do it again if for no other reason to know that there's nothing i'm limited from doing are you comfortable air squatting yeah i'm not afraid to air squat i sat in this chair i sit in the toilet i get in my bed okay what's the amount of weight between air squat and the weight you use to squat where you don't have alarm bells going off telling you that this is dangerous empty bar okay let's go empty bar then do empty bar for a few weeks and when you start to feel better with the empty bar what's the next weight that you feel confident you can add without setting yourself back with aches and pains maybe another 10 pounds on each side great i'm cool with that.

40:21I had 10 pounds to each side. And you get to make the incremental decision about how to get back into things at a pace that you are modulating yourself while you're continuously convincing yourself this is safe. That's how I recommend people do it. There's a story in the book about a woman who came out with her friend when we were doing a seminar and she had been told by her doctor never lift more than 55 pounds again, which is common. And I want to just give a nod to the doctors. I think oftentimes doctors say things and patients hear something different. So the doctor might say, I don't want you lifting anything over 55 pounds.

41:01And the patient doesn't ask until when? And then the belief is forever. I think that there's some of that that happens and we pass each other. So she's with me on the seminar day. And I said, we're going to do some strength testing would you like to do it she's like no i want to sit this one out because the doctor said i'm wearing 55 pounds she's in her 20s healthy athletic woman so i said are you comfortable living that way for the rest of your life and she said no i said well this is the best room in the world for you to ever try this if you want i'm not going to push you but if you want we do it i want to do it okay load a bar up for 55 pounds she picks it up no problem i load the bar up to 55 and one half pound quarter pound plate on each side so whenever you're ready go ahead and pick that up how long you think it took her to pick that bar up i don't know it depends on her mindset it does and she was really nervous she was scared and so a lot of people think it's of course she just picked up 55 pounds like it's nothing she picked up 55 one half pounds right away it took her almost 10 minutes it took her pacing up and down the driveway of the business it took her getting her breathing under control it like she had to push some tears back she was so nervous to lift 55 and one half pounds after she lifted 55 pounds she left 65 one half pounds no problem at all she's like okay she's like you could see the wave of relief let's go to 65 okay 65 pounds no problem i said you're the driver of this shit however much you want to do i'm confident you can do it i'm right here to support you before she left that day she deadlifted 205 pounds for eight reps.

42:36Then less than a year later, she found herself at the United States Olympic qualifying trials for skeleton, which is an event where you hurl yourself on a 45 pound sled down a bobsled track, headfirst, wearing a helmet and a skin suit. That woman was a set of beliefs away from a life that she never could have lived. Had she not had the courage to go to 55 and one and a half pounds.

43:03Shawn Stevenson:That's such a great story, man. It's, it's, it reminds me of something very close to me. Like I I've lived that and it was Jay Faruja, our mutual friend and Luca, Luca Josevar. Shout out to my guys, but through them, I met Dan Swinscoe, who is a person, a physical therapist for me. He was remote, you know, my remote guy that I go to when I need to hit the bat signal and I had recovered from this particular injury and he was asking me to do something that I had not done. And at this point it had been months. All right. And I was good. Like everything, I have full functionality and doing all this stuff, except this thing that I had a block of a mental block on.

43:46Shawn Stevenson:And I remember pacing back and forth. I was like, literally like, I don't know, man. I don't know. Like I feel so, it's so great. And I got face to face with it, the voice in my head. I was like, this is so crazy. I don't, I don't want to do this. I don't feel like I could do this. And it was something so simple, so simple. And once having him there is that accountability and also the affirming, affirming that, you know, Sean, like you got, like, look at you, like you just did all these other things. And then I finally did it. But I, the first time I eased into it very cautiously. And then after I did it once, I was like, oh shit, Like I could do this again.

44:23Shawn Stevenson:And I did it again. And then, you know, just became a part of who I was again. It like unlocked that part of my identity. For sure. It's the big slot at the water park. You know, they're like, I don't know about this. I'm not supposed to slide down this thing. That's not how humans are supposed to move. And then you do it and it's like, that was fun. I'll do it again. Let's do it again. Or like, or if you're me, I'm like, I don't know if I want to do that again, but I'm glad I did it. Yeah. And then I know if I ever have to do it again, I can climb up and do that again. Yeah. but it's it takes that belief breaking down and then here's here's where i think people get it wrong there's a lot of psychology like the field of psychology that we'll talk about how pain lives in your brain and that's the exclusive antidote is resolving what's going on in your brain i don't think that's true at all all pain does originate inside of your brain everything does but if we don't integrate the physical it's it's just telling yourself a story until you're required to do the physical thing that you're still not exposed to.

45:23And the likelihood of you regressing when time calls for it in an uncontrolled environment is way too high for my comfort zone. So I like to say, okay, the brain is going to give you permission, but the body has to take the step. And we got to do both.

45:40Shawn Stevenson:In many ways, your body is your brain. 100 % All right. This is an extension. It's all connected. It's so crazy that we still have this conversation. Like these things are in isolation and they're separate from one another. Right. And so we can influence our brain through movement. Like we know this stuff. And so it's this, what this is, it's not an either or it's a both end approach. That's right. And that's, what's very apparent in your work and in the book. and what I got from the advice is the incremental steps, regardless of what that is for you. So in the case with the, the, the barbell, barbell back squats, right.

46:19Shawn Stevenson:The incremental, the deadlift, the incremental, uh, this could be with, uh, you know, maybe you injured your shoulder. Maybe it's a incremental overhead press. Maybe it's a lower limb injury. It's incremental steps. Right. And so So this is something that we can all do. We can all access. And I know that there are people who literally going, they're like, I'm gonna walk. I know that movement is medicine and they struggle because of the pain that they're in to make it to the end of their block. But just getting outside, getting outside your door a few steps, that's incremental. Then tomorrow, maybe take a few more steps.

46:59Yes. And the job of the professional is to give people ways that they can approach this with strategy. So for example, we take the person who needs to go on a walk, but they're afraid to go on a walk. Why are they afraid to go on a walk? You think that you, you, the coach or the friend might think it's because they're afraid they're going to get hurt. Reality could be that they're afraid they're not going to be able to get back. They're only thinking about going on a big loop. Well, what if the pro across from them was like, here's what I want you to do. I want you to walk a mile today, but I want you to walk it in quarter mile increments back and forth in front of your house.

47:37So you're going to walk an eighth of a mile to the left, and then you're going to walk a full quarter of a mile back, and you're going to walk a quarter mile back. You're never going to be more than an eighth of a mile away from your house, 200 meters. Does that make you feel safer about going for a long walk? yeah it does awesome do it like that and we get so hung up on what is the perfect program what's the right rep scheme what's the right tempo what's the right angle the best program in the world is always the one that the person across from you will do consistently for a long time meet them where they are and progress them as they allow i have a client i'm working with right now who I know I can only give him about 20 % of what I would like to give him.

48:22I know there's 80 % more. If I showed you his program or showed it to anybody who's an exercise science, they would say, you are derelict of your duty. You're negligent. This is not helpful. I would say, if I give him one ounce more than this, he gets discouraged. Then he gets personal shame about not doing the work I asked him to do. Then he withdraws. Then he has judgment about himself and a little bit of anger towards me because I asked him to do something that was too far outside of his comfort zone. And you might say, well, you are the coach. You have to put your foot down. I say, why are we in such a rush?

48:59That guy's happy to make progress at the pace we're making progress at. Why are you imposing your values in a projective way on him? Meet them where they are, progress them as they will. Yeah.

49:16Shawn Stevenson:A big part of this and recovering from injury and let alone not getting injured in the first place is getting educated about your body. You know, we live in these bodies, but especially in our world today, we are not present with our bodies. We don't know shit about our bodies. And you've got a really incredible, like super viral video of you breaking down the muscle and tendon connection. Yeah. Right. And this is one of the, this conversation is getting highlighted more now in understanding our tendons, but what if we're actually training our bodies in such a way that we're paying attention to these, these mechanics?

49:55Shawn Stevenson:Can you talk about that? I know it's a little bit more difficult to describe this wonderful kind of video that you made on it, but talk about that. Well, people can go to my Instagram account and look at the video that's pinned at the top. They'll see a tendon one and they'll see another one about bracing. And they'll see one about the psychology of all this with a woman I had a conversation with.

50:15Tendons are pressure sensors. That's really how they work. Their job is to lengthen very, very little and to connect bone to muscle so that when we contract, the bone moves in the direction that we wanted to move with load getting moved across the joint. We have such a misunderstanding of how tendons work that oftentimes we do exactly the opposite of what the tendon needs in order to feel better. And so we stay feeling bad. An example of this would be when people tell you, I have tendinitis in my whatever. And they've been telling you this for six months, a year, two years, 10 years, forever. The anatomy of a tendon, to keep it really simple, it's a really dense collagen matrix of linear fibers.

51:11They align in the same direction as each other with very poor blood supply. A tendon, if you cut the skin back to look at it, they're white to gray. A large reason for that is the amount of collagen and the lack of blood. tendinitis is inflammation of the tendon anything itis is inflammation of the whatever came before it tendons have a really hard time inflaming because they have such poor blood supply so tendinitis only lasts a matter of weeks most of the time when you have tendinitis it does make sense to rest it does make sense to deload the structure as much as possible once the tendinitis phase is over, we have to load those tendons.

52:00Tendons respond to strain. They respond to a lengthening contraction and load at the same time. The problem is that hurts. It hurts a lot. And people are afraid they're doing more damage than they're doing good. The phase that oftentimes comes after tendonitis is what's called reactive tendinopathy. Reactive tendinopathy is when the tendon thickens. It gets a fluid matrix that runs through it to make it physically thicker and more durable to injury. It's not permanent. It's not meant to be permanent, but for the moment, it makes it less likely that tendon is going to tear further. The inflammation is gone though.

52:40During that phase, contraction under load is extremely important. Isometric is typically best. So holding a position, not moving through full range of motion, holding a position that's moderately uncomfortable under load, really good for that tendon to desensitize. That also only lasts weeks to months. Then there's what we call degenerative tendinosis. That's the final phase. It's the final boss of tendon damage. Imagine the fibers are all supposed to be nice and linearly aligned. They lay right next to each other like a beautiful quilt. Well, this is they've haphazardly rebuilt. Often that happens because we don't load during the tendinopathy phase, the reactive phase, and it's longstanding.

53:26This hurts a lot, especially first thing in the morning, especially when we haven't used it for a long time. Then you start using it and it feels better while you use it. But you think if it hurts, don't do it. So you don't use it very often. degenerative tendinosis requires full range of motion as much as you can tolerate as heavy as you can tolerate for contractions that last up to six seconds when you combine the concentric and the eccentric there's great studies on this from copenhagen university called heavy slow resistance anybody can go online look up that protocol or they can find it in the book but tendons are really misunderstood and people treat them with kid gloves tendons need to work Hmm.

54:11Shawn Stevenson:I love this. I love this. Yeah. So this is, I want to get an example. Like there's a specific tendon that is, the conversation has been highlighted a lot because of like the NBA in particular, but having these Achilles tendon tears, just kind of like this surge has happened that wasn't there in previous decades, the generations of basketball. and now thank goodness trainers are specifically targeting tendon strength right and that and durability so i want to ask you number one like why do you think there was an uptick in those types of injuries and number two you mentioned isometric exercises and also loading this through a range of motion what would be some exercises for people to do to address the achilles tendon Let's start with the exercise, then we'll work back into why it's happening and what to do about it at that level.

55:12Exercises are things like calf raises, controlled calf raises through a full range of motion, like a donkey squat seated and then standing. You can do isometric holds in various positions of that exercise, and then you can go full range of motion at fairly heavy loads.

55:27Shawn Stevenson:Can you describe the isometric hold for that? So let's say you get into like half of the range of motion. So if you're imagining yourself on a seated calf raise, you get to the point that your calves are slightly above parallel. Your heels are slightly above your ankle joint. Hold that. Isometric just means a contraction that's held. Then concentric is the shortening phase. Eccentric is a lengthening phase. That's all that a contraction is. So isometric is we're just holding that position. That's really good for tendon strength. length. What also comes in to help tendons is creating better coordination throughout our body as they get loaded.

56:06So let's take the Achilles, for example. You can build the strongest Achilles in the world, but if you don't load your body in the proper sequence, you can still overload the Achilles and tear it. And so one of the things I really like people to do is learn how to sequence their glute into their foot. And a simple way to do that is put, let's say, for example, your left foot up on a 12 inch riser, 18 inch riser, whatever it takes to get your knee just below parallel. Your right foot is in the ground behind you with an extended leg, like a runner's stance. Imagine yourself in a runner stance, left leg is up, right leg is back.

56:44Drive your foot into the floor through your glute. So squeeze the glute and drive the foot into the floor. From that position, bounce up and down, like you're hammering a nail with the ball of your foot, let your foot come off the ground, hammer that nail. Try it again, a couple minutes later without using the glute at all, just do five or six reps, you will feel profound difference in the way that your calf and your Achilles felt when you load the glute first, and when you don't load the glute at all. And the difference there can be the difference between you being able to stop and start on a field and you blow in your Achilles' hole.

57:22A common question is, well, I'm not going to be able to think about my glute when I'm on a field, so how am I supposed to do that? You do it often enough in your training that your body understands how to do it in your sport. I'll say something that will perhaps come across controversial that's not meant to be controversial. Strength training does not make you a better athlete. Strength training doesn't make you faster. Strength training doesn't help you jump higher. Strength training gives you the resiliency and the durability to handle the training necessary to do the things to get faster, to jump higher.

58:03If you're someone who's sprinting, you're a sprinter. If the strongest sprinter was the fastest sprinter, we would just see the world's strongest man winning the 100-yard dash at the Olympics, but that's not what happens. The sprinter who lacks strength altogether breaks down in their training. The sprinter who has enough strength to handle their training can sprint. So it's really important people understand where all that stuff lives. We strengthen the gym, and then we train on the field. It's never one or the other. Why are Achilles tears going up? first thing I have to acknowledge is I haven't studied the data on Achilles tears to know that they are going up or by what percentage but one of the reasons I think this kind of stuff is starting to happen more prevalently in all sports we see Tommy John going up in baseball we see all kinds of injuries happening more frequently I think we're taking people and we're turning them into metrics and we're forgetting that people aren't metrics and we're letting their tendo score on the barbell decide if they keep going.

59:12We're letting the most incremental measurements that we can now use machines together to decide if this person continues to train or not. But when they get to game time, we don't get to do that anymore. They now have to train to the margins of their experience. Well, if in training we've been protecting those margins, it's unsurprising that in sport, we exceed them. I think that we have to get back to the combination of using the science that we've gathered with the intuition that we all have to train the person to be the most capable they can be.

59:49Shawn Stevenson:Great, man. Thank you so much. For us to enact any of this, discipline is required. And I've talked about this recently, but discipline for some people, was like a bad word, you know? But for others, it's like, it's very empowering. But discipline is a part of the practice. And one of the things that you highlight is that discipline is not the cause. Because it's just like, I wanna have the discipline to do it, right? I'm trying to get the discipline. But you share that discipline is not the cause, it's the effect. So talk about this connection, because for all of us to get the results that we want, discipline is required.

1:00:25Yes, if you chase discipline, you will catch burnout. Now, discipline is not the attribute that people make it out to be. It's the result of having a really strong purpose, something that's extremely important to you that you can feel yourself achieving and feel the benefit of achieving, and a process through which you are confident that you will achieve that thing. Let me give you an example. You have a great podcast that's respected, professional, and growing. if I told you the way you're going to grow your podcast is by banging your head against that wall all day and five other people told you that but you were like I don't think that's how I'm going to grow my podcast would you bang your head against the wall no it wouldn't make sense to do that maybe the podcast doesn't grow for a couple of months and you're like you know what maybe that bang my head against the wall thing is what I need to do you start banging your head against the wall and you're like, this is so stupid.

1:01:19This isn't going to work. Is not being disciplined to banging your head against the wall the wrong thing to do? No. It's the rational thing to do. Banging your head against the wall and expecting a different result would be insanity. So discipline happens when there's something really important at stake and something that you trust is going to get you there. If you don't have discipline, you're missing one of those. that's where i recommend people look why is it important to you that you get out of pain i'm just tired of being in pain not good enough you're gonna be stuck okay so because i want to be a better dad yeah okay how would you know if you were being a better dad this this this how would that change the way that your kids are coming up well this this and this.

1:02:10In my world, it was, I need to be a better dad. I need to be a better husband. I can't put my five-year-old daughter on my shoulders. How does this ever get better? This only gets worse. My daughters are going to grow up believing that their father is frail. They're also going to grow up believing this is normal. You are what you are most exposed to. They're going to start to believe these aches and pains. They're normal. My wife, when she complains about stuff that's bothering her. I have no leg to stand on to tell her that she can overcome this because I haven't. My entire family's future existence rests on me overcoming this next thing.

1:02:50Okay, now we got a reason. How do I do it? Well, what are all the things that are holding me back from doing it? Build the process. That process is built. Do you trust it? Audit it. Genuinely have the litigation with whomever is helping you build it, even if that's just yourself. Don't start until you have the confidence your process is going to work. Now, when I say don't start, I don't mean just think yourself into it. Start the part you have confidence in and build the rest. But every step along the way, make sure that you believe what you are doing is going to work. If you have a strong purpose and you have a process that you believe is going to work, discipline is the easy byproduct.

1:03:40And not being disciplined costs a lot more energy than discipline ever did. We've run into this culture of people on the internet who, and for good reason, I think they're trying to motivate other people and they're trying to motivate themselves. I'm up at 5am, I'm working out no matter what. Up late last night, good. I'll wake up in the morning and work out. stress at work good i'll wake up in the morning and work out something i like to ask those people in private are things like how's your business going uh i'm struggling a little bit or how's your marriage could be better how are you feeling about yourself in general could be better what have you been told to do raise my prices have this conversation create some space between me and the things I do.

1:04:27Why haven't you done them? It's just so hard. So you lack discipline? You work out at 5 a.m., but you lack discipline everywhere else. It's not that they lack discipline. It's that they lack a belief in the process or an understanding of the value of it. And they can't see that because the area where people are undisciplined oftentimes is in their training. It's in their health. And it's obvious to people when somebody else is wearing that.

1:04:56Shawn Stevenson:Well said. Well said. Thank you. Live More, Heard Less. Is there anything else you want people to know about the book and what to look forward to? Sure. I wrote this book because working with me for a lot of people is cost prohibitive. And I want everybody to have access to the information that can set them free that's in this book. I had deep regret at lunch right before this and it was a lesson that I will carry with me going forward I'm sitting at a table and these two women next to me probably in their late 60s or early 70s are talking about what they want to do in in the future and they're talking about wanting to go on a vacation and how I don't know if we can do it because this my shoulder my back my my knee I wish I had a book with me to just hand to them and say, I wasn't listening to your conversation, but I did hear some.

1:05:59And I wrote this book for you. I would love for you to read it and see the kind of life that you can live because it can be great. And you are both the source of the problem and the solution if you allow yourself to be. And the answers are in this book. I would love every trainer in the world, every doctor in the world who deals with people in aches and pains to read this book and to gift a copy to the people who need to read it because you can't be with them 24-7. We've already bought over 200 copies to give to all of our brick-and-mortar clients. We've bought almost 1 ,000 copies to give to all of the coaches that we educate from around the world.

1:06:39And we've encouraged the coaches we educate to buy 50 copies themselves to give to all of their clients, all of their family, all of their friends. A lot of people write books because it's a business card for the rest of their life. They can make a lot of money speaking, you know, giving workshops. I wasn't doing it for that reason. That stuff's already come. I'm blown away by how fast that stuff came. I want a million people to read this book because I believe it can help them and the other people in their lives. I wrote it to get people to read a book, not to build a business off of it.

1:07:16Shawn Stevenson:Yeah. And intention is powerful. And maybe, just maybe those two ladies, or at least one of them is listening to this podcast right now. That'd be great. You know, or a family member is sending it to them. So, but it's just, it's the intention. It's the action behind it. and man one of the things that i noticed about you as soon as we met like you're you're action oriented guy it's not just talk and i appreciate that about you can you let everybody know where to pick up a copy and where they can follow you get more information they can do both in the same place they can come to my instagram account dr sean pastooch and they can find the book at the link in my bio and they can find the book in all of its different forms ebook soft cover hard cover audio book at, uh, on Amazon.

1:08:02Awesome.

1:08:03Shawn Stevenson:Awesome, man. Thank you so much for making this trip and for the work that you're doing, the impact that you're making. It's, it's really interesting to see how some of the most empowered and impactful people in the world and who are also, I'm grateful to say friends of mine hold you in such high esteem, you know so we've already mentioned jay ferruja dr gabrielle lyon you know you were of that guild and i'm so grateful because as you know again a lot of people are in pain and they're looking for solutions and so often unfortunately it's driven towards this kind of mechanistic take this thing do this surgery whatever the case might be we want to have options of course but to really hone in and focus on the the psychology and knowing that these things need to be in alignment and I'm going to teach you how to do it.

1:08:55Shawn Stevenson:You know, you're really showing and proving. And I, and I appreciate that, man. It's my pleasure. I think it's important that people recognize pain-free is not necessarily the goal. Living more is. Yeah. And we wouldn't care about the pain if we were doing that. Yeah. Appreciate you, man. My pleasure. The one and only Dr. Sean Pastooch, everybody. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode today. I hope that you got a lot of value out of this, you already know what to do. Keep the conversation going. Share this with somebody that you care about. You can send this directly from the podcast app that you're listening on.

1:09:29Shawn Stevenson:You can take a screenshot of the episode, share it on social media. All right. Also, of course, well, maybe you don't know this, Spotify. All right. If you're listening on another platform, Spotify enables you to leave a comment, to communicate, share your voice on the episodes. And also we have Spotify video popping as well. And so whether you're listening on Apple or Spotify or Google play, wherever you're listening, please share your voice. You know, with Apple, of course you can leave a review for the show. That really does mean a lot. And of course you can pop over to the YouTube channel, connect with me there.

1:10:05Shawn Stevenson:All right. I'm staying up to date with the comments and the interaction on YouTube. All right. We've got to make health and fitness and empowerment the norm. And we've still got a lot of work to do. And so sharing your voice and being a part of this community means so much to me. And with that being said, we've got some epic masterclasses and world leading experts coming your way very, very soon. So make sure to stay tuned. Take care, have an amazing day, and I'll talk with you soon.