The Berman Method
The Berman Method
Episode #183: Jenni Takes a HUGE Fall Running
Your body's ability to absorb trauma isn't just luck – it's something you build deliberately through consistent training and proper nutrition. When Jenni took a dramatic fall during her morning run, she was airborne before hitting the ground. Yet instead of ending up injured and sidelined, she protected her face and knees, got back up, finished her run, and completed a full workout afterward.
This remarkable physical response wasn't magic – it was the direct result of consistent strength training and nutritional diligence. Just days before her fall, she had completed 70 box jumps on a 30-inch box in four minutes, demonstrating the physical conditioning that allowed her body to instinctively protect itself when disaster struck.
The harsh reality we discuss in this episode is that everyone will fall again at some point – it's absolutely guaranteed. But the extent of damage that fall causes? That's largely within your control. As we age into our late 30s, 40s, and beyond, physical resilience becomes increasingly crucial. We don't "bounce back" like we once did, making consistent training not just beneficial but essential for healthy aging.
We also explore a surprising medical myth that most people don't realize: Neosporin, the trusted over-the-counter antibacterial ointment, has become largely ineffective due to bacterial resistance. Studies show that water can be more effective for cleaning wounds! We discuss why Bacitracin is now the recommended alternative and how this parallels the wider issue of antibiotic resistance.
Whether running is your thing or not (Dr. Jake Berman has some strong opinions here!), building physical resilience isn't about vanity – it's about being "harder to kill" and minimizing the impact of inevitable physical challenges. Listen now to discover how you can prepare your body to protect itself when life inevitably knocks you down.
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This is the Berman Method podcast, featuring Dr Jake Berman and physician assistant Jenny Berman. We are here to treat problems and not symptoms. Disclaimer this podcast is for entertainment purposes only and not to treat anyone or to give medical advice. If you are interested in any information that we are giving and would like to use this for yourself, we recommend that you contact your primary care physician or reach out to us and ask us questions about yourself specifically. Enjoy.
Speaker 2:Here we go, baby, the Berman Method podcast, where we're focused on treating problems and not symptoms. We are David going against Goliath Goliath being the corporate medical system symptoms. We are David going against Goliath Goliath being the corporate medical system Big pharma health insurance companies. We do not believe they have your best interests in minds. They'll choose profits over patient outcomes time and time again and you can't blame them. It's a business and once you understand that you need to be profitable to run a business, it makes sense. The big take-home message is you've got to do your own research. You've got to be your own advocate. You've got to ask questions until something makes sense and if it doesn't make sense, ask somebody else. Just keep asking questions until it makes sense. Don't just the days that you just took your doctor's word for it because they were the end-all, be-all, the almighty. Those days are over, Long gone. Absolutely, Dr Jake Berman, here with my co-hostesses.
Speaker 1:Jenny Berman, physician assistant.
Speaker 2:Walker, Ryan Bermanator.
Speaker 1:How long do you think he's going to have a high-pitched voice for?
Speaker 2:Until he's about 14 or 15.
Speaker 1:Okay, got it. So, yes, walker Ryan, here with us.
Speaker 2:Then he'll have a squeaky voice for a little bit and then a deep voice coming out of nowhere.
Speaker 1:You still have a squeaky voice sometimes.
Speaker 2:I do, especially when I'm singing.
Speaker 1:Let her cry. Booty in the blowfish.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that high pitch gets me every single time.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, happy Monday everybody. If you're listening on a Monday, hopefully.
Speaker 2:You are listening on a Monday because you're patiently anticipating the release of this episode every single week.
Speaker 1:Every Monday morning 8 am.
Speaker 2:Yes, why wouldn't you want this to start your day or week?
Speaker 1:I don't have an argument for that.
Speaker 2:Today we are going to talk about resilience, physical resilience, specifically, your body being able to tolerate a trauma. We talked about this a few episodes ago, where we're talking about how it is 100% guaranteed that you are going to fall again. Everybody, every single person listening to this right now, is going to fall at some point in the future. It's guaranteed it's going to happen. The extent of how traumatic it actually is is completely up to you, though. Give or take more or less. Yeah right, it's really up to you.
Speaker 1:Right, and you know we talked about this episode and then I fell down the stairs like the next week after we talked about that several months ago and now Go ahead. My pride is injured a little bit more, as I took a really good fall.
Speaker 2:Or bad Just this morning. Good or bad, however, you want to look at it.
Speaker 1:Just this morning.
Speaker 2:The worst fall you've ever taken.
Speaker 1:In a long time, in a long time, in a long time, yeah, I think before I had my hip surgery. I had a labral tear of my left hip when I was in college and before I had my hip surgery I fell running a lot because my legs weren't, my hip wasn't functioning efficiently, I didn't have a normal stride running and so I fell a lot running before I had my hip surgery and did all the rehab and had you fix my glute problem and my core problem. So this is the first bad fall running that I've had in quite a while.
Speaker 2:See, I didn't know that part. Before you had the labral surgery, you had a bunch of bad falls running. Yeah, so this is a recurring thing. Before you had the labral surgery, you had a bunch of bad falls running. So this is a recurring thing.
Speaker 1:Well, I guess, if you want to call it that, what I'm trying to get at here is running is not good for you.
Speaker 1:So okay, let's tell the story real quick. Yes, I was out running this morning. Before, as you all know, I've been going to burn boot camp Shout out, burn boot camp Naples. But I've been going to burn bootcamp shout out, burn bootcamp Naples. But I've been going to burn bootcamp a couple of days a week. So Jake and I alternate gym days. He goes to the gym every other day, I go to the gym every other day, and then whoever's not at the gym is working out at home and taking care of Walker. So it was my day to go to burn bootcamp and, uh, usually on the strength days I'll go run a couple miles before burn in the dark out on the road and then I'll go do the bootcamp for 45 minutes. So today was a running day and I went running and I took again a great or bad fall. However you want to see it, I like to see it as the cup half full.
Speaker 1:So it was a great fall.
Speaker 2:Great fall. Yeah, it was great. 10 out of 10.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we'll tell more details about the fall. But I fell and as soon as it happened I could hear Jake's voice in my head saying see, running is bad for you. You shouldn't be running. Running is dangerous. I'm hearing all these voices as I'm cringing, looking down at my hands.
Speaker 2:Laying on the ground trying to do a self-assessment. Am I okay? Do I need to go to the hospital?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I just kept saying just get up, keep running. You still got 10 minutes until burn starts. You can get up and keep running.
Speaker 2:So I don't know if you guys picked it up, but about two minutes ago, when she first started telling this, she said three major things. That just makes me wonder why anybody in the right mind would ever want to run. So I decided to run In the dark a few miles on the road.
Speaker 1:On the road.
Speaker 2:And I'm going what I mean.
Speaker 1:I was actually on the sidewalk, but I was not in a parking lot. I was out on Livingston and Pine Ridge Road. If you're familiar with Naples, I was running circles on Livingston and Pine Ridge around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh my goodness. So she comes home, jenny comes home, and I don't see her. The first thing I see is her phone laying on the counter and the screen is bright white, like it's a flashlight shining through the screen, but you can't see anything. And I'm going hmm, that's an interesting screensaver and for some reason I knew that something had happened. So then she walks out and I see her hands and I'm going oh my gosh, did you get in a fight? Her knuckles are blood red like bloody, no skin left on the fourth and fifth knuckles, and I'm going that is horrible. And then there's a puncture wound through one of her nail beds, like right in the middle of the nail. Blood is seeping out and I'm going what in the world did you do?
Speaker 1:And not to mention, one of my knuckles is black and blue already and a little swollen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it looks like you got in a really bad bare knuckle boxing match. It does, but there's nothing on your face, so it's like you won. You should see the other person.
Speaker 1:I'm going to tell that story from now on. Look at my face. It's beautiful, Not even a scratch on my face. But you should see the other person.
Speaker 2:So I'm sitting here looking at this and I'm going holy cow, let me see your knees, not a scratch on her knees. And I'm looking at her face. I'm going it just doesn't make sense. How is there nothing on your knees or your face with this blunt trauma? On her knuckles. I mean, I wish we should. I don't know a picture wouldn't do it justice take pictures of my hands yeah, I don't know if that would be a good thing or a bad thing to this is why we need our video recording on the podcast but anyways, I mean, we're looking at this thing and you're going.
Speaker 2:this was an all-out run, airborne, and the only thing that stopped her from running into the ground was the backs of both of her hands, somehow. Face never touched the ground, knee never touched the ground, and then she does a self-assessment and says, I guess I'm okay, and gets up and finishes running two more miles and then goes and does a 45-minute workout.
Speaker 1:I did, yes. Well, after I finished running, I went inside and cleaned up my hands a bit, used some soap and water, cleaned my hands out, put a few Band-Aids on just to prevent getting blood on all the equipment at Burn Boot Camp. But yeah, got up and finished the workout, came home and then decided that I needed to make plans about what I'm going to do with my hands and my phone for the day, because I have no phone. But he's right the fall. Thinking back on it now, I definitely was airborne in the air as I tripped. I tripped over my right foot and maybe it was something on the sidewalk or a ledge on the sidewalk, I'm not really sure. I didn't go back and assess the sidewalk.
Speaker 2:Because it was dark. It was dark and your phone flashlight was dead.
Speaker 1:And I had no phone. So here's the best part about my phone is, I kept trying to do a factory reset on it and I was holding the buttons down and it kept putting off a siren. So then I felt like it was calling the emergency line because, you know, the iPhone can detect when you fall and so can your Apple Watch can, and I had my Apple Watch on. So the siren keeps going off on my phone and I'm like any minute now the ambulance is going to show up and be like are you okay? But they didn't. So anyway, I was definitely airborne and came down and I caught myself with my hands and obviously with my phone, but was able to keep my head off the ground. I was able to save my knees. Not really sure how that happened. I definitely hit my quads. I had dirt all over my quad, my right quad of my pants and I have a little bruise on my quad, but I didn't hit my knees.
Speaker 2:And if you think about it, it's pretty remarkable, because here we are.
Speaker 2:you're airborne how much you weigh now 123, maybe so 123 pounds in the air, with momentum going towards the ground and you are strong enough and quick enough to react, to use the right muscles, to sacrifice your hands to protect the moneymaker, your face and your knees. Like it really is remarkable, because think about how many people listening to this right now are not strong enough to fall at that speed, that force and be able to protect their face or their knees. I mean, it's just, that's pretty remarkable. So this goes back to what we were talking about a couple of months ago. Where you're going to fall again, the extent of how damaging or traumatic the fall is is completely up to you. More or less Right? I mean it really is. So just before this fall Saturday, you're telling me about how exciting your workout was at Burn Boot Camp and you did 100 box jumps on the 30 inch box in four minutes. I think right.
Speaker 2:I did 70 in four minutes 70 in four minutes on a 30 inch box Right. Think about the amount of plyometrics, that is, the amount of resistance, the amount of physical ability to achieve that. And now it makes sense.
Speaker 2:You are able to protect yourself. So this is the thing that I want to get across, because nobody is getting younger, we're all getting older. All of our friend group, all of our friends, are in late 30s and 40s and we're getting older. We're not kids anymore. We don't bounce the way that we used to bounce, but we're still going to fall. This could easily have taken you out for a month two months, but you got up, you finished running two more miles. That was just dumb.
Speaker 2:Went to the gym did your workout Versus the majority of people listening to this. Take that fall. They're going home. They're licking their wounds or going home. I'm out of commission. I can't work out for X amount of days, weeks.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Right. So this is kind of a brag, but it's the reality, right? You work your ass off to be resilient. You work your ass off to be harder to kill.
Speaker 1:Right, and not just physically. I mean, yes, we work out six and seven days a week and physically we work hard, but the nutrition has a big aspect of it in terms of being able to reduce inflammation and for the immune system to be able to fight back. So we have the ability to continue to gain physical strength. If your gut's not healthy, you're not going to gain the physical strength. If your cortisol level is high which mine is high, but I'm also doing a lot of things to try to balance the stress access but regardless, if it's elevated and we're not fueling the body appropriately, we're not going to have the ability to heal or to gain the strength and the resilience that we need for this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, use that as an example. Your diet is, let's call it, a 10 out of 10. If there's anybody that does what they're supposed to do with dieting, eating nutritionally, it's Jenny. To do with dieting, eating nutritionally, it's Jenny, so she can afford to have an elevated cortisol level and it's not going to be as impactful as me, for example, because I don't do a 10 out of 10. Any of you that go out with me on the weekends, you know that I'm not 10 out of 10.
Speaker 2:So if I were to have a high cortisol level, it would negatively affect me way more than Jenny cortisol level it would negatively affect me way more than Jenny. Luckily I don't really deal with or do stress, so I got a really nice cortisol level right.
Speaker 1:The last time we checked it. We're both due for lab work. We should have some accountability to that, to get our lab work done and recheck where we're at right now. But something else we wanted to talk about with this fall is when I was getting cleaned up.
Speaker 1:One of the antibacterials that was available to me at the gym was Neosporin, and I came home and told you that I was like I'm absolutely not using that and I need to donate some Bacitracin over to burn. And you questioned me like why, what's wrong with Neosporin? And it's something that, again, isn't talked about unless you're in the medical field. And, of course, if you're watching March Madness and you're watching TV, you're seeing all these commercials for Neosporin still out and majority of the people don't know that our bodies are actually resistant to Neosporin. It's been around for so long that we are more and more resistant to it, to where it actually is not even effective to use it. In fact, there's some studies showing that using just water to clean your wounds over Neosporin is actually more effective. The more effective antibacterial at this point is bacitracin.
Speaker 2:And that just completely threw me for a loop. But as soon as she said it 10 seconds later, I'm like oh, that makes perfect sense. I didn't think of Neosporin as a pharmaceutical medication. I didn't think of Neosporin as essentially an antibiotic. It's an antibacterial. Isn't antibiotic antibacterial synonymous?
Speaker 1:They're not, I guess I don't know the exact definition of it, to say it on the podcast, but an antibiotic would be more of a prescription-based I don't know but they do the same thing.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm saying. They do the same thing. That's what I'm trying to get at here is one's over the counter one's prescription.
Speaker 1:I'm thinking about this because antibacterial is to get rid of bacteria. The antibiotic is biotic, is the biome, so the environment of the bacteria. So anyway, it's in the same ballpark of the bacteria.
Speaker 2:So anyway, it's in the same ballpark and because we've used it so much over the years, we become resistant to it. So it's no different from this theory of this not theory, I think, it's reality of this superbug, where there's a reason why you're supposed to finish your entire round of antibiotics when you take antibiotics, or when you're prescribed antibiotics is because most people, myself included, would stop taking antibiotics halfway through the prescription because I was feeling better.
Speaker 2:The problem is, just because I was feeling better doesn't mean that the whole bug is completely wiped out out, which means that there are some left and they, over time, become resistant to that antibiotic, which makes the antibiotic not useful anymore. Right, because we didn't finish taking the antibiotics in the beginning. Same thing for neosporin. Yet they're still marketing the crap out of it. It's still still all over the TV. I'm seeing it Like I still see it everywhere. Right, they've got the best commercials ever. It's usually some kid falls down and got a little boo-boo and then we put some Neosporin on it and a race car band-aid.
Speaker 1:He feels better. It's magic.
Speaker 2:But it doesn't work Right Like there's studies saying blatantly it does not work. But because it's a pharmaceutical company and because they've got endless backing of money to spend on marketing, you still market it and we still buy it. I would still buy it this morning. I would still buy it because I didn't even know.
Speaker 1:Right, so Basta Tracin. It is Now. The next time you go to your drugstore, go find some Bacitracin. And I said this morning eventually we're going to be resistant to Bacitracin too, and it's going to be the next thing. Or then we won't be resistant to Neosporin anymore because we haven't used it in so long. It's just going to be this everlasting hamster wheel.
Speaker 2:Of trying to figure out what is the body resistant to or not resistant to?
Speaker 1:Right or the bacteria.
Speaker 2:Yeah, bacteria Okay.
Speaker 1:Well, that was the story of Jenny's fall on a beautiful Monday morning.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:Thank you to all the girls at Byrne that helped me out and checked on me, and Nikki for loaning me her glove this morning so I could work out and not have my band-aids falling off. So shout out to Nikki.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, you are a mess. My take-home message.
Speaker 1:Don't run.
Speaker 2:Running is not good for you. I mean, I'm not running unless something's chasing me.
Speaker 1:I should send you the article I just saw. I think it was on Friday. I saw an article that running for, I think it was. It wasn't that long 70 minutes a week, I think, which isn't that long, because that's 10 minutes a day actually reduces your mortality by like 150%.
Speaker 2:That's awesome and I bet you, next month there's going to be another article that comes out that says running increases your mortality or chances of trauma.
Speaker 1:Marathon running Marathons are not healthy. I will agree upon that, yeah.
Speaker 2:An extended time period of elevated oxidative stress.
Speaker 1:Oxidative stress yeah. Of elevated oxidative stress. Oxidative stress, yeah, Oxidative stress.
Speaker 2:That's why you see marathon runners occasionally just fall over from a heart attack and it's like how could that person have a heart attack? They've run. They've ran 17 marathons this week, right.
Speaker 1:Well, it's because there's an extended time of oxidative stress, right Stress through the heart and elevated heart rate. Yeah, yeah, all right.
Speaker 2:Like, subscribe, share this episode, send us some comments and.
Speaker 1:Ciao for now. Thank you for subscribing on your social media and podcast platforms to the Berman Method Dr Jake Berman with Berman Physical Therapy and Jenny Berman, physician Assistant, with Berman Health and Wellness. You can find more information on our website wwwbermanptcom for physical therapy. Wwwbermanptcom forward slash wellness for the health and wellness. You can also find us on social media, facebook, instagram and on your podcast platform, so be sure to follow us, like us, subscribe to us and, if you would like any further information, definitely visit our website and reach out to us. You may also find our free reports on the websites as well, where you can download this free information for yourself. Have a great day.