Pain-Free Athlete's Podcast
Are you tired of feeling pain? Are you recovering from a surgery? Do you want to learn how to stay active and pain-free? I'll share tips and strategies that can help you stay safe and pain-free while you're working out. I'll also interview experts in the field of fitness, rehabilitation and pain management.
Pain-Free Athlete's Podcast
Building a Pain-Free Body: Exercises for Strength and Mobility
Can you imagine a fitness routine that not only enhances your mobility but also alleviates pain? On this episode of the Pain-Free Athlete Podcast, we explore groundbreaking strategies from Peter Egoscue's postural therapy and Ben Patrick's full-range strength training. Egoscue's approach helps correct bodily misalignments to prevent compensatory pain, while Patrick's method builds strength across the entire range of motion, improving joint stability and reducing discomfort. We guarantee you'll come away with actionable insights to elevate your fitness journey and manage pain more effectively.
As we approach our special triathlon race on September 29th, marking our 10th anniversary, we're inviting everyone to join this supportive, non-competitive event. Whether you're a budding triathlete or eager to volunteer, this community-focused race promises a memorable experience. Tune in to learn how you can participate and make a positive impact in celebrating a decade of fitness and pain-free living.
Pete Egoscue's - Pain Free
Ben Patrick - YouTube Channel
Volunteer!
2024 DJFE Triathlon Race Series
Podcast Disclaimer:
The Pain-Free Podcast is presented solely for general information, education, and entertainment purposes. Any information presented in this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional diagnosis. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from this podcast or website is at the user’s own risk. As always, users should not disregard or delay obtaining medical advice for any medical or mental health condition that they may have and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions.
@djsfitnessevolution
Welcome to the Pain-Free Athlete Podcast. I'm your host, dana Jones. I am a certified personal trainer and I'm here to help you achieve your fitness goals without pain. In each episode, I'll share tips and strategies that will help you stay safe and pain-free while you're working out. I'll also interview experts in the field of fitness and pain management. So if you're ready to learn how to stay active and pain-free, then subscribe to the Pain-Free Athlete Podcast today.
Speaker 1:Hi everyone, and welcome to the Pain-Free Athlete Podcast. I'm your host, dana Jones, and this week's topic is mobility and pain relief. And yes, I know it's different, right? We're not talking about TMS, we're just talking about little, you know, little pains here, little pains there, right? We're not talking about chronic conditions that I had experienced, and so the reason why I bring up this topic is because I've had a couple of clients approach me this week talking about how they've had a certain type of pain whether it was foot pain or hip pain or something like that and what I realized is that these people are suffering because of the fact that they're kind of out of balance, and my training type philosophy, a lot of times when I deal with people who are recovering from injuries, is kind of a combination of Peter Goskew and Ben Patrick, and Peter Goskew is the founder of the Goskew Method and his major you know theory is about postural therapy and what that means is that any point of pain is a result of poor posture and some kind of misalignment in your body. And what he talks about is, um, your ankles, your knees, your hips and your shoulders, and if any of those things out they can cause a misalignment and by your body compensating for that misalignment it can create pain somewhere. Misalignment, and by your body compensating for that misalignment it can create pain somewhere. And so he's given the example of a football player who's had a shoulder issue but didn't really recognize the shoulder issue and what it turned into was a wrist issue. That poor athlete had multiple surgeries on the wrist, including even shaving down the bone, and once his shoulder was kind of put back in alignment in terms of mobility and range of motion, then his wrist didn't hurt anymore, even after the surgeries, because they were hurting after he had surgery.
Speaker 1:And so I love his stuff because it's very gentle, it ranges all ages, so there's nobody who can't do pedagogy stuff, which I love, and there's a little part of me as a, you know athlete, where I'm like these exercises are kind of stupid but they work. And, you know, you're like I'm just turning my foot in and out and it's like, no, you're actually moving your hip within the socket and you're creating that mobility that your body needs. And, uh, you know, so there is, like I said, there's some resistance for me, you know, wanting to like go all out. It's got to be a stretch or it's got to be something like that and it doesn't have to be that, as proven by how many people I've had do, uh, agascu's stuff now. Now, I am not a Nagasku practitioner. I've read his books, I've listened to his stuff, I've used it, um, anecdotally, as my um, you know, for my clients and it's worked. So that's why I continue to use it. I probably would love to go and have that training, cause it would be kind of neat, but I believe it's really expensive. The other thing that I've kind of put in there is the Ben Patrick stuff, which is Ben Patrick is the knees over toes guy and so his approach is that strengthening through the range of motion, which I've always talked about, because the Goscue kind of touches on it, but Ben Patrick takes it to like a different level, kind of touches on it. But Ben Patrick takes it to like a different level and it's um.
Speaker 1:A lot of times whenever we see muscular people, um, you know, they have, uh, I want to say like belly muscle strength, right. So if you look at somebody with their bicep right, when they make a bicep pose to show like how big their bicep is, they have strength from. You know, whatever it may be, depending on the size. I'm trying to use my own arm to kind of figure it out let's say about three inches, so three inches of strength from there. But when you are full extension and trying to come into that bicep curl, I may not have strength. Or when I'm almost bringing myself to complete closure, I don't have that strength.
Speaker 1:And Ben Patrick's approach is get that strength all the way through the motion, not just in the center where it's easiest. And it happens to us because you know when people lift, they push and then they'll rush, and when they're rushing they're rushing through, you know, the parts of the most weak is usually kind of the point, at least what I observe when I go to the gym or when I'm working with clients and for him he really believes, because he was observing, you know, the old Russian lifters and how, that concept of allowing your knees to float over your toes. I don't even know who started it. Somebody said you know, you can't go any farther right, and what he's believed is that's led to the um problem of all the knee blowouts that we're having because of the fact that your knee joint is not strong all the way through the motion, it's only through, you know, to 90 or whatever it is, so that your knees don't float over your toes.
Speaker 1:His exercises focus on again these small muscles that are important. So, for instance, you know, working with your feet, your ankles, your lower leg right, your knees, your hips. This allows you, one, to reduce joint pain, because you know you're just creating strength around that and and that's a wonderful thing. And two, it really helps you strengthen those tiny muscles that help support everything. And, and what I mean by that is like, for instance, you know, say, I'm walking, you know, in my house, and there's a piece of paper on the ground and I step on it, if I don't have that anterior tibialis strength, right, I'm going to slip and I'm going to fall on my face. But if those tiny muscles right that are there in my lower leg are able to stabilize my foot as I'm sliding. I'm probably going to do the splits, but then I'm going to stand up and I'm going to be fine, and that's the important piece. Right Is just having these muscles that we don't typically work on strong so that it allows you to do other exercises or get stronger or actually become more mobile, maybe eliminate some pain that you've had just due to lack of routine or whatever may happen. So I love these things.
Speaker 1:Now, there's not all the things right, so like one and this is a personal thing for me, because I probably can't do it the Nordic hamstring curl that sucker kills me trying to do it and that's a real staple in his thing. It's like get the you know the back of your leg strong and really work on that posterior chain, and that about destroys me. You know I try but I cramp. You know all the things, but eventually I'm going to get it Like I'm. One day I'm going to do like half a curl or something and then you're all going to know about it, but all right. Anyway, sorry I digressed.
Speaker 1:Getting into the point of this right is that I try to combine both of them in, and what I typically do is like you come to me and you have pain, we have a discussion, I go through all the things that you know you're feeling that happen, right, so maybe it's like well, it started off like this, but then I don't have muscle in my legs because my feet were hurting so bad so that I can't walk anymore and that was my only exercise, or you know, this happened. And now I don't do this right, because all in all, we still do the same things. Right, we experience pain, so then we try to avoid pain by stopping doing something. Doctors are getting better now. They're not telling people to just rest for things, because what's the point of resting? Sometimes it's good, but if you have a chronic thing going on, rest doesn't always help, especially if you don't correct the motion in which possibly created the misalignment. And so we'll have this conversation and then I will probably give you some Agoscue exercises for you to do and you'll do those exercises. We'll have some conversations you know conversations right through text and I'll check in and do all the things and then eventually what I start doing is I end in the Ben Patrick stuff and I do a lot of hip flexor stuff, because it's really important again, because we're very weak in our hip flexors because we sit and so they get shorter and they don't do anything.
Speaker 1:And that's what happens a lot of times for a lot of people and we'll do like calf stuff. So we'll do calf raises, we'll do the anterior tibialis raises right, we really work on that lower, the lower leg in terms of stabilization and a lot of times people get some good relief just off of that is that they go, oh, now I could do stuff, and they feel strong. And then they continue to do those and they work on it. The other thing that they're not necessarily thinking is that as you get stronger, your range of motion increases, right, which means that your mobility increases, which means you have the ability to do more now because you know and I'll give you an example I had a client a long time ago who had um.
Speaker 1:She worked in a daycare and so she had um a shoulder pain and she's like, yeah, I don't know what's going on or not a shoulder pain, I'm sorry, it was an upper back pain and she goes yeah, I just can't do anything. And so I had her do um what's called the elbow curl in a Goscue exercises, or he calls them E-sizes, anyway. So she's doing the elbow curl and she can't bring her elbows together in front of her. So how you would do it is you put your knuckles on the side of your temples and then you curl your elbows forward and they should touch or in some semblance or get close, and a lot of times you could see like somebody will have one elbow up and one elbow down if something's wrong, and it goes in all kinds of directions like that. So she couldn't do that.
Speaker 1:So I just had her work on that exercise and then one day she heard a pop in her upper back and then all of a sudden something released and then her shoulders were able to move and Then the pain just resolved itself. So it wasn't anything that was major. You know, she didn't have to go for physical therapy or any of those things, which is where she was thinking about heading, and so that was a good thing to see, but it's, I guess what I'm trying to say is, it's pretty simple. So, um, what would I do, right? So say, you're doing this on your own and you can look up these exercises on YouTube to just kind of get an idea of like some of the things that you do, that again they don't look like a whole lot but may work out. So if I was to give you a sample workout, the first thing I would do is have you do a static back and that is where you lay on your back and you have your feet elevated. You could put them at 90 degrees.
Speaker 1:Some of you have done yoga know that you go and you can put them up on the wall and it's just that chance to allow your hips to settle and everything to kind of realign itself without you doing anything. Where you're just chilling on your back and you're doing deep belly breathing and you're doing deep belly breathing. Then the next thing you do is a standing arm circle and you stand tall, your arms are out of shoulder length apart or shoulder height, sorry and then your palms are facing down and you just do circular motion and then when you go in reverse, you put your palms up and then you go that way and it gives you that, I guess, knowledge really right of how your shoulder moves Some people have clunky shoulders and such but it gives you that again, that upper body strength, and it's a good warmup. Then you would do an air bench, also known as a wall sit, and you make sure that your back is flat up against the wall, your feet are hip width apart and you stand a few inches from the wall and you just hold the position he has. You start off like with 30 seconds and you work your way up to a minute.
Speaker 1:Then, after you do those things, you can go down to the ground and do a hip lift. He calls it a hip lift bridge or it's just a bridge, and that's where you lie on your back with your knees bent and your feet flat on the ground and then you push yourself up to the ceiling, right, your hips up to the ceiling, and then you hold it and then, as you come back down, you make sure you push your back, your lower back, into the ground and kind of move that pelvis, and it gives you that opportunity of really kind of creating some mobility in your lower back. Then I usually like, after I kind of get a good look at it, then I'll switch over and I'll do some ATG stuff right, astrograss, or I can't remember what he's calling it now, but it's a knees over toes guy, ben Patrick, so we can do a split squat right when. That's where you're basically in a lunge position, but then you allow yourself to fall completely forward and float that knee over the foot. You could do those elevated to start off with, because it seems like you know that deep of lunge would probably not allow you to get back up, um, but you do a couple of those. Like I start, um, either I'll start on the ground, just because sometimes the hip flexors aren't mobile enough to allow that um, that stretch to go all the way forward, or sometimes I'll start them standing, just so that I can get used to building up the strength standing, just so that I can get used to building up the strength.
Speaker 1:Then other thing that we do is the tibialis raise, which is basically your. Your back is against the wall, your feet are out about I don't know a foot or so, maybe you know six to 12 inches away from the wall and you're going to lift your toes toward your shin and while keeping your hips sorry, not your hips keeping your heels on the ground and this really gets that anterior tibialis. And you know he talks about how it helps support ankle health and knee health. I like it because, again, it creates more balance in that lower leg, because a lot of people do calf raises or never do calf raises because they don't want to do it. That lower leg, because a lot of people do calf raises or never do calf raises because they don't want to do it. And you know, if you want your lower leg to look nice and to be strong, it helps to do exercises for the front and the back of the lower leg. And then he has.
Speaker 1:Well, they both have a groin stretch, which I do, and so a lot of times what I'll do is I'll have a client either sit or lay on their back, depending on their mobility, in a butterfly pose, and what we'll do is, if you're beginning, we're just sitting here in that groin stretch and we're just allowing your hips to just relax and you'll watch your knees drop as you do it, and typically he does that stretch, relax and you'll watch your knees drop as you do it and typically he does that stretch. Agoski does it for about three minutes. If you're more advanced, then what I will do is I will throw some dumbbells on your knees. You know, start off with five pound dumbbells, but you can go up as high as you need and just allow that to hang and open up that groin, because, again, we sit so much and it creates this shortness of those muscles and that's what creates the tension. And so just getting that stretch is a nice way to go. And then, of course, you can always do your calf stretch, which is face toward the wall, put your toes up on the wall and keep your heel on the ground and lean forward, and that allows you to kind of open up that lower calf and also stretch your.
Speaker 1:Well, you can't really stretch your Achilles, but just give your Achilles some space and again, it gives you that mobility that a lot of people need in their ankles. You know you never really get it. You know sometimes you may like trip or, you know, turn your ankle or do something like that, and your body makes adjustments right, because your body is pretty damn efficient and it does all the things that it needs to do. The issue is is that if you don't deal with it or make the adjustments, then you create a new pattern in your body and that's what causes some discomfort. And so, again, having these tools in your little tool bag give you, you know, choices, and I always like that right.
Speaker 1:I like mixing things up. I like giving people choices and I also like to see people get strong when they're feeling some discomfort, because, you know, discomfort we're not all motivated. I guess, when it comes down to it, right, and when you have a little discomfort or something gets throws you off, then all of the sudden you don't want to do anything anymore and then it's been two weeks since you worked, it, worked out, and that's a bummer because that's enough to throw people off. So the good thing about the agascue exercises that you can do these every day and if you haven't, you can purchase the book pain-free. And he's got pain-free at the PC and there's a couple of different pain-free books, but the pain-free book is really good. It's an easy read, has lots of exercises. I've only mentioned a small amount of them.
Speaker 1:Ben Patrick has his books that are out, uh, cause he has like knees over toes zero, which is um, based off of the couple of exercises that I gave you here. And then there's more advanced stuff for, you know, athletes and lifters and all kinds of things. And then he's got some kind of subscription um app which is like insane. It's like $50 a month or something like that. But you get coaching and if you really are feeling like this is something I need to do, to kind of, you know, bring up my game or challenge myself, whatever it may be, it's it's your money. You get to do whatever you want and I'm just offering, you know that information out there.
Speaker 1:A lot of the stuff, all the all. The uh Goscue is a little tight in terms of cause. He's an older dude, so there's not a tremendous amount of stuff that's out there in terms of YouTube videos, but, um, the Austin um site has a really good person that does some really good videos. And then there's some out of San Diego, but not too much Um. And then the knees over toes guys on all the stuff, because he's a younger guy, so he's on Instagram, he's on TikTok, he's on YouTube, he's everywhere, so you can find a little workout to do. There's great shoulder stuff that I've been doing because, just not knowing how mobile my upper back, or the lack of mobility in my upper back, it's been fantastic because all of a sudden now it's like I can do things and I can pull, you know, pull my shoulders back a lot further just because I increased the mobility in my back. So there's those things.
Speaker 1:So the takeaway is you know, if you have a little thing that's bugging you, you have options. These are just two of the options that if you were my client and you came to see me, this is the stuff I'm going to run you through and I like it because it works and it doesn't. I don't think anybody feels put out by having to do it. Right, it doesn't feel like it's too much, and that's a good thing because, again, it's like, if you make it easy, then everybody's going to do it. If you make it hard, then you're only going to get, you know, the elite that want to do it, and for me, I want everyone to have access to all these things.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, if you have some topics that you'd like me to cover, feel free to contact me through all the socials, and if you are a budding triathlete and you want to come out and race with us, our race is in a couple of weeks, september 29th, on a Sunday. It's a fun race. It's our 10th anniversary. I'm really excited. I need volunteers, because we always need volunteers, and I need athletes too, so feel free to come out and check it out. It's definitely not an ego-smashing type race, which I like, right. It's a comforting race and it makes you feel good about who you are and what you're accomplishing, and that's my goal. Anyway, thank you so much for joining me. Don't forget to rate and review and share, and I will talk to you soon.
