Self Healing with Julie Donnelly

Host Tom Butler opens with a look at what's pushing him to get out on the bike more lately, including a recent lab report that didn't go the way he wanted. It's the kind of moment that can either derail a fitness journey or fuel it, and Tom is honest about how he's choosing to use it.

Then Tom welcomes Julie Donnelly, author of The Pain Free Athlete and a practitioner who has spent her career helping people get free of the pain that quietly derails so many active lives. Julie's approach is built on a powerful idea. She believes people can be taught to treat themselves, and in this conversation she shares what that looks like in practice. It's a great discussion for anyone who wants to keep cycling, and keep moving, for the long haul.

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NOTE: I share information about my journey. From time to time that means sharing what I do to stay healthy.  None of what I share is meant to be medical advice. Always consult with your physician or other health professionals before making changes. 

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Show music is "Come On Out" by Dan Lebowitz.  Find him here : lebomusic.com

Transcript

Tour De Cure And Why It Matters

Self Treatment of Pain

Tom Butler 0:04

This is the Psych on Your 60 Podcast, season 4, episode 13, Self-Healing with Julie Donnelly, and I'm your host, Tom Butler. The beginning of this year was rough. I've talked about that. The good news is I've had people pushing me to get back on the bike, and it's working. Knowing that people are watching my Strava, or more like watching the absence of Strava rides, you know that's motivating to me. There's something about that kind of accountability that gets me out the door. But there's another motivator right now. And this isn't that good. My inactivity from the start of the year showed up in my latest lab work. My goal for the last three years has been to maintain an A1C of 6.0. I haven't hit that mark yet. And my last A1C that recently came back was 6.7. That's fully in the range of type 2 diabetes. The previous A1C to that was 6.2, which of course is much closer to my goal. So the 6.7 is a real step backward, and it's a serious consequence of not riding much at the start of this year. I'll also admit I haven't been wearing a continuous glucose monitor, probably because I didn't want to see what was happening day to day. It's not good reason, but it is an honest one. There is some good news in the labs. My blood lipids, most importantly my triglycerides, were good. Not great, but good. My HDL was 41. 40 is considered the low enough protective HDL, so I was just above it. My triglycerides were 92, well below the 150 that's considered high. I think that's mostly because I've been really disciplined about avoiding sugar and refined carbohydrates. There's a ratio I think is worth watching, the triglyceride to HDL ratio. Mine came in at 2.24. My target is 2.0 or less. Above 2.0, some authors will tell you, shows more risk of insulin resistance. It's sometimes called atherogenic dyslipidemia, and it's a way to look at cardiovascular risk. My previous ratio was 1.59 when my triglycerides were 70. So that ratio went the wrong direction, and most likely because I wasn't writing. The worst numbers were a fasting glucose of 137 with a fasting insulin of 9.7. That insulin number on its own would be fine if my glucose were lower, but having that level of insulin in response to a glucose of 137 is a sign that my pancreas isn't functioning the way it should. There's one more ratio I think is important to watch, and that's the Doritas ratio, which is AST to ALT to liver enzymes. With high insulin resistance in visceral fat, liver function can take a hit and it can show up in this ratio. So I want to keep an eye on that, which in these results mine was fine. The bottom line is this if I had stayed off the bike longer than I did, I could have seen some genuinely problematic results. The flip side is the encouraging part. If I get back on the bike for the next six months, it's highly likely I will see real improvement. My biochemistry does suffer almost immediately when I stop riding, and I just don't have the option to get too busy for the bike. The first part of the year was a real reminder of that. So the labs are a kick in the butt, friends slugging me in the shoulder telling me to ride more, that's a second motivator. The third motivator is group rides. We did the tour to cure last weekend and it was a blast. I didn't ride as well as I would have liked, though. Now I was part of a ceremony at the event that I needed to be back for, so I rode a shorter option of two official routes. I did 23.7 miles and 1,411 feet of elevation. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get my heart rate monitor connected to my new Wahoo Element 3, which I won at a Foothills Trails meeting, so I couldn't monitor the ride the way I wanted to. I wasn't very strong out there. I would have definitely struggled on the 55.6 mile route that had 3,077 feet of elevation gain. And I want to note this Bob Meirak, the over 80-year-old president of the Tacoma Washington Bicycle Club, did that longer route without pedal assist. So I have a great role model. Actually, we had three people over 80 on our team that day, and I think it sent a real message to everyone there. We can all ride later in life. These kinds of challenges are essential motivators for me. In 64 days, I do Seattle to Portland again. I need to be in much better shape than I am right now. And the thought of struggling the two days of Seattle to Portland, that does help drive me to put more hours on the bike. The tour to cure was a big success for our team. As a reminder, this is the major fundraising event for the American Diabetes Association. The Cycling 260 team was the largest team at the Pacific Northwest event, and we raised the most money. We were acknowledged for both. Donations are still coming in slowly, and we're now above $14,000 raised. I'm really proud of this team. We had such a good time riding together and getting to know each other afterwards. I want to say something about why I think supporting the American Diabetes Association is vital right now. There's been a real shift in funding for health research. A shift I think is terrible. And I believe organizations like the American Diabetes Association are going to become more important for funding health research in the coming years. In my opinion, we need to support them as much as we can. I'm going to keep working with ADA Pacific Northwest on growing the Tura de Cure here, but I'd also like to put together an East Coast Cycling Over 60 team. I'm thinking Orlando. They apparently have one of the biggest tour de cures in the nation. This is only aspirational at this point, but if you would like to be part of Cycling Over 60 support for the American Diabetes Association, and you would ride in Orlando, please reach out to me. My email is in the show notes. I have a lot of soreness when I ride. I don't think I'm alone in this. And honestly, I also create soreness by how I manage my flexibility or how I don't always manage it as well as I should. So when I learned about the work that Julie Donnelly does, I got excited. She's a licensed massage therapist, a speaker, and the author of The Pain Free Athlete. She spent decades figuring out where pain actually comes from, and a lot of the time the answer isn't where you feel it. What drew me in was her notion of self-treatment. Julie doesn't want clients dependent on her. Every person who comes into her office leaves knowing how to work on themselves because she knows the pain is going to come back and she wants people equipped to handle it when it does. Julie agreed to share some of what she's learned on the podcast. Here is our conversation. Today I'm excited to welcome Julie Donnelly. Thanks for being here, Julie.

Julie Donnelly 7:26

Well, thank you very much, Tom. I appreciate being invited.

Tom Butler 7:29

You are a licensed massage therapist, but you're a speaker and the author of the pain-free athlete. And I see that as you contributing everything that you've learned as a therapist to give people a really cool picture of what they can do with pain. It's a self-help guide that has helped thousands of athletes get out of pain and back to doing what they love. People should go to julydonnelly.com and learn more. Tell me how your interest in helping people began.

Touch, Muscles, And A New Career

Julie Donnelly 8:08

And I was sailing with friends. And on Fridays, we used to have it was called the Friday night sailboat races. And you know, in a sailboat, that real pretty colorful sail that's on the front of the boat. Well, that's called a spinnaker. And during a race, that's a seriously stressful position. And the fella that was doing it, his name was Adam. And one day we got off the boat and cleaned the whole boat up, everybody's getting off. And Adam literally collapsed in a ball of pain on the on the ground. And he was excruciating pain. So I knelt down and I said to him, What can I do to help? And he said, Just rub my back. Well, I knew about as much about the body as 95% of the world, which means I meant not I knew nothing. Right. And I started to rub his back and I would feel a little bump. And when I'd feel the bump, he would jump. And I knew I had found something important and I didn't know what to do with it. So I kept my finger on it and it just kind of melted like an ice chip would melt under your fingertip. And he gave a sigh of relief. So I looked for another bump and it just went on and on until he finally fell asleep. It's like, wow, you know, from excruciating pain to sleep, that's pretty good. So I was trying to find a new career at that point. And I didn't know what I wanted to do. But we did this every week. And it got to be it was really fulfilling to be able to know that he could be in that kind of pain and I could do something so simple. And he was out of pain. So that led me into eventually going to a massage school to find out what the heck it was I was doing. Well, I found out I was not doing massage, but that I had to have a massage license in order to be able to do it. And so I got the massage license and and then it went on from there. I my first job was on a cruise ship. And what I started doing was I called it the muscle of the day. I don't know if you had a chance to look at my TED talk. I did a TED talk called The Pain Question No One Is Asking. And what the pain question is is how are muscles involved? Because nobody's looking at muscles for pain, which is really kind of amazing, but anyway, they're not. And so while I was on the ship, I used it as a classroom. And every day I did half-hour sessions. So every day I would be seeing six people, that's or six hours, so 12 people. And maybe today's muscle would be the bicep. And I'd go, you'd have a Swedish massage everywhere else, but on the bicep, I'd go much slower and deeper. And if I found something that didn't feel the same, I'd say to you, Does that hurt? And you'd say yes or no. But sometimes you'd say, Well, it's funny, you're pushing here, but I'm feeling it here. And I'd run over to my desk and I'd write, pushed here, felt there. And at the end of the day, I wouldn't leave the massage room until I figured out why, if I pushed here, did you feel it there? And then the next day it was a different muscle. So I got to really, really know the muscles well. And then when I got off the ship, I got off in St. Thomas, and I had the good fortune when I got there of having a client who was a retired osteopath. And he very quickly found out that not only did I know more about muscles than most massage therapists, but more important that I wanted to learn more than most people. And so what we would do, which was such a blessing, he I would come up and they had a massage table in their condo, and I would give him his massage, and then his wife would get on the table and I would give her her massage, but then he would come back in and teach me osteopathic techniques that were valid with my license. And then after we were finished, we'd the three of us would have lunch, and then his wife would leave and go do her thing. And we would sit the whole rest of the afternoon on the Lanai and just talk about muscles, what they do, why they do it, how they do it, how they're all interconnected with each other. I mean, it was an education time that I couldn't have paid for.

Tom Butler 12:44

Well, it's a fantastic story of start. I'll talk about a couple things that I like about it. One is that this feeling how much of an impact touch could make that you had from the very beginning. I think that's a wonderful way of like pursuing, and then finding a partner that there's this collaboration where you know he's teaching you, but I'm sure he's discovering things along with you as well.

Julie Donnelly 13:15

Well, I think that what happened is you know, he was retired, but I I think he felt the way I feel now at this stage of my career. It's like I've been doing this since 1988. 1988 I've started. And I want to pass it on. I don't want to take it with me when I leave the earth. Which is why I have so many books, actually. And I have training videos, I have training videos for massage therapists and for fitness trainers, and I have a lot of things going on. And I just don't want to take it with me. Well, he didn't want to take it with him either. But he didn't know basically, I mean how he could share it. And so by finding me, it was like he was thrilled he was able to like impart so much knowledge and and I was like a dry sponge. I was just like absorbing it all and taking copious notes and and so that was fulfilling to him. You know, that he knew his knowledge was gonna continue on. And I feel the same way. If I could find somebody, I'm looking for somebody in case anybody in your audience is interested. I'm looking for somebody who could by my therapy practice that I could uh train everything that I know so that they they would pick up where I'm leaving off.

Tom Butler 14:40

I love it.

Julie Donnelly 14:42

Yeah.

Tom Butler 14:42

Now I want to skip forward a bit. You opened your own practice, your own business, and then at one point you had to shut it down, and I think that became a very pivotal point. Can you take us to that moment and and talk about what was happening?

Self-Treating Frozen Shoulder And Carpal Tunnel

Julie Donnelly 15:02

Well, it was really interesting. So, what had happened was through the years I started I I had a lot of mostly athletes. I mean, my first book was actually called The Pain Free Triathlete, because most of my clients were Iron Man triathletes or heavy duty endurance athletes. And so, you know, I was doing all that and then I was learning more and more, and then I got frozen. No, the first thing I got was stiff frozen shoulder and I couldn't find anybody who could who could fix my shoulder. Now I know what I'd do for you if you came in, but couldn't find anybody to do it to me. And so finally I I just kind of threw up my hands and went, Well, I guess I'm gonna have to figure out how to do it to myself. I mean, they didn't have any other options. So it took me months. I mean, my ship my frozen shoulder was worse than any I've seen on any client ever. And it was almost like God said, Okay, we're gonna give you the worst case possible so that you know that it really can be fixed, because it was the worst case possible. I couldn't move my arm at all. My elbow was like frozen at my side. And anyway, so it took me like four months altogether to figure it out and get it worked out. And then all of a sudden, everybody who came to my office had shoulder issues. Well, I knew darn well if I didn't teach them how to do it themselves, they was gotta come back and they were never gonna get rid of it. So I started teaching people how to do that. Then I ended up with stiff neck. So the stiff neck I didn't even bother trying to find anybody else, I just figured out how to do it. Next thing I know, everybody's got a neck problem. And it just kept going on and on and on and on, right? And as I kept doing these things, uh I would have my daughter take a picture of me doing the self-treatment, and then I would hand write the description of how to do it, I'd photocopy it and I'd put it into a loose leaf binder into a plastic sleeve so that when you came in, I could show you what to do and I could give you the piece of paper. Well, so this went on for a couple of years, and one day I was I was thinking, wow, I really know the whole body, like I really, really know the whole body. The only thing I want to practice a little more is the this whole hand wrist carpal tunnel, what's going on here. So it's funny, I stood there and I went, I don't need it, I don't need it to figure it out on somebody else. Thank you very much. Yeah. So I end up with carpal tunnel. And and it kept getting worse and worse and worse and worse. And it, you know, I'm doctors look here, massage therapists look here. Right? And and that's what we all did at that time. And so it wasn't working. So finally the pain got so severe, I couldn't even I I couldn't pick up a pencil with with my left hand. And the pain was beyond excruciating. And so I finally had to close down my therapy practice and I was gonna have to go on public assistance until I figured out how am I gonna support myself. Which so I mean that wasn't a happy time, although I finally realized that public assistance is for it's meant for people like you and I, because we're not making a career decision to go on welfare. We just need a hand while we figure out what to do next. And so once I came to that understanding, I was like, okay, so I was gonna have to go on welfare. The night before I was going on welfare, I'm walking around the apartment and I'm going, Are you paying attention at all? Do you see what's happening to me? Cecilia and I have these really wonderful boxes. So I I went to bed and I was crying, and I woke up in the morning and my mouth, not my brain, but my mouth, was saying, the problem is the muscles that cross over the median nerve. So just like a dream, you know, you lose it like that when you wake up. I didn't want to lose it because I knew I said something important, so I repeated it, and then I sat up and oh my god, the problem is the muscles that cross over the median nerve. So the median nerve, it doesn't start in your elbow. And in all honesty, I have been dealing with this situation for almost two years at that point, you know, from beginning to end. And I saw I did some research. Well, the median nerve starts here in the middle of your shoulder, underneath a little bone called the coracoid process, and as I looked in my books, trigger point books, I'm pushing on each point that it's showing, and it kept shooting down to my wrist. But within an hour, it was gone. I had no pain. Now I was still numb, but I had no pain. So then I got a little woo-woo and had a conversation with the ceiling again and opened up the book, the this big research book, and found that it actually starts here in your neck as a bundle of nerves. And this, by the way, gets cyclists, especially endurance cyclists. Anyway, the bundle of nerves starts here and then it comes across when it gets to this point. That's where it divides up into the medial ulnar and radial nerves. But but the nerves don't begin here in the middle of your shoulder. Well, when I pressed here, I thought somebody had put my arm into a barbecue pit.

Tom Butler 20:57

Wow.

Julie Donnelly 20:57

It I I mean it was breathtaking how painful it was. But I didn't want to lose the spot, so I kept my finger there. Finally, at one point I couldn't handle the pain anymore. So I kept my finger so I wouldn't lose the spot, but I took the pressure off. Breathe a little while, you know, get my equilibrium back. But when I pressed in, it hurt 50% less. And I was like, Whoa, that's pretty cool. So I held it and then I let go and I kept doing it, and it only took maybe 10 minutes, and the burning was gone. And so the whole carpal tunnel situation was was gone. And so I've been trying to teach it ever since.

Tom Butler 21:40

I love it.

Julie Donnelly 21:41

Yeah.

Tom Butler 21:42

Now you have you know produced videos and you know, and talked to people and and provided information for people. Talk about pain free, the your book. What are you hoping? That brings to the world. I know, I mean, you you've talked well here about that you want people to understand this information. And and but and talk uh talk about that. Like where do you see pain-free fitting in as far as people learning?

Julie Donnelly 22:17

Well, it's actually pain-free living.

Tom Butler 22:19

I'm sorry. Yeah, okay.

Referred Pain And Cycling Posture

Julie Donnelly 22:21

The official name is actually how to treat yourself to pain-free living. So it's okay. Right. But and also the pain-free athlete, I have that one as well. Which basically the two books are covering a lot of the same thing. The athlete one obviously has more athlete references. It talks about when you're on the bike or if you're running and this is happening. And I don't talk about that in Treat Yourself to Pay for a Living. But the treatments are pretty much the same. And for me, I know that I can I do it all the time. I work with so many people. And every one of my clients that comes in here to the office, they always learn how to self-treat. Because I know very well I can treat them, and I know that it's going to work and they're going to get relief, but I also know it's going to come back. And so I could keep having them come back, and that probably would help my bottom line, but it wouldn't help my fulfillment level. But by teaching you what to do, I know that I know that I could leave this earth and you'll still be able to take care of your back.

Tom Butler 23:44

That's awesome.

Julie Donnelly 23:47

So that's that's what that's all about. Same thing, all the videos, the videos are created for the same reason. I just got approved by the National Academy of Sports Medicine and MASM, and they're they certify fitness trainers. And so they approved me for 16 hours of continuing education. Well, the fitness trainer only needs 20 hours every two years. So mine is a big chunk.

Tom Butler 24:14

Nice.

Julie Donnelly 24:16

But the thing is, I need to get people to know about it. Like they need to learn that it even exists. But the the the program teaches you how to self-treat from the top of your head all the way to plantar fasciitis, foot pain.

Tom Butler 24:34

So let's talk about cycling a little bit. Mm. And can you break that down for someone who's never heard of it?

Julie Donnelly 24:49

Oh, it's real easy. If you pull your hair at the end, it hurts at your scalp. That's referred pain. So this pain is being referred by this here, by my hand pulling on. And it's the same thing. The muscle cross muscles cross over a joint and insert on the other side of the joint. When the muscle contracts, it pulls on the insertion point and the joint moves. It's how every joint in your body moves, all the way from breathing to gross muscles, bodybuilders. It's always the same thing. The muscle goes into the tendon, crosses over the joint, inserts. When the muscle pulls, the joint moves, and that's it. However, if the muscle is, it can be repetitive strain injury, and usually it's repetitive strain injury more than anything. And it causes the muscle to shorten. So let's use the biceps. So the bicep comes down, originates here in your shoulder, comes down and inserts on the inside of your elbow. When it contracts, you you bend your arm, you touch your elbow. If this muscle is contracted like it's in a spasm, when you try to come back out, you're not you're only going to go as far as as far as this is going to lengthen. And and that's it. You can only go as far as this lengthens. So you want this to be able to lengthen 100%, so you can do that. Right?

Tom Butler 26:28

Yeah.

Julie Donnelly 26:28

And it's the same thing all over your body. If the muscle that pulls you into the sitting position is in a spasm, and you try to stand up, you're not going to stand straight up. And that happens with cyclists. Like I see them all the time. And I'm sure some of them, you know, think to themselves, you know, this lady is crazy. Because, like, I'll see a bunch of cyclists and they're getting off their bikes and they're all walking over like the Croatian man, you know, the bent over. And then eventually they stand up, but they don't really stand up really straight. They're still partially bent over because the muscle that pulled them into that aerodynamic position has been tightened. And as they're pedaling, they're making it even shorter. So that on a cyclist, your the muscles called, there's two of them actually, the iliacus and the psoas, and they merge together and they become the iliopsoas. But what you're doing when you're cycling, the psoas muscle pulls you over and the iliacus muscle lifts up your leg. So you're shortening the two of them as short as they possibly can get. And as a result, when you try to stand up, they're too, they're just too short. So you need to release them. And that's what I teach people. I teach you how to release them. But I'll go over to, like if there's a bunch of cyclists and they just, you know, inch their way off their bike, and I'll go over and say, I can show you how to do something that's going to help your back. And most of the time they're they're open to that. Every now and then somebody will say, You're nuts, get lost. So I do. Not my back that's hurting, it's your back.

Tom Butler 28:16

So I I wanna I want to come go back to something you said and then come back to this this thing specifically. First off, it seems like there's a couple implications that I think of in the way that you're describing referred pain. The first is that so you can't just look at where you feel the pain. Right. And the second is that just deadening the pain, just taking something that you don't feel the pain is not helpful. Are those correct assumptions?

Julie Donnelly 28:54

Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, it it's it's a repetitive strain injury. And so let's let's just say you drive a lot. All right, so you're holding onto your steering wheel and you drive a whole lot, and so your bicep, because your arm is bent like this for what could be hours, people that drive long distance, that muscle has shortened. Well, that means you're not doing that because that muscle has shortened.

Tom Butler 29:23

You're not lengthening your arm.

Julie Donnelly 29:25

Right, exactly. And so you're not straightening your arm. And so you can work out, you know, somebody works out that muscle for you and it feels much better, and now you're okay. But then you go back to driving. And so it's only going to come back again. Whereas if you know how to work out the muscle, it's going to come back again, but you know what to do, so you do it again. I tell people say, Do I have to do this the rest of my life? I say, Well, it's kind of like brushing your teeth. Learned how to brush your teeth when you were a child, and you didn't say, Wow, I learned how to do that. Now I'm finished, I don't have to ever do that again. No, you do it a couple of times a day, and it's the same thing, especially if you're doing something repetitive. And if you're riding a bike, you know, I mentioned to you about Shermer's neck.

Tom Butler 30:10

Yes.

Julie Donnelly 30:12

So Shermer's neck is really only ultracyclists who get that because you're in this aerodynamic position, but you're looking to see where you're going. And so you these muscles here in the back of your neck are pulling up your head so you can see where you're going. And by it's the same thing, repetitive strain injury, where that muscle is being held contracted the entire time you're cycling, and eventually it just gives out. And when it gives out, your head falls down. So there was there's a uh cyclist named Alan Larson, who you know the race, race across America, Rand.

Tom Butler 30:57

Yes.

Julie Donnelly 30:59

So he was he wasn't the first winner, but he was one of the first solo winners. And what had happened to Alan, the muscles gave out and he couldn't pick his head up. So how can you ride if you can't pick your head up? So what they did, and there's pictures of it, you can find it if you go on the internet, you can put in Alan Larson neck pain or something. And and there's pictures where they took a broom handle, they put panning on his back here so it wouldn't hurt his back, they had held a setup, they duct taped the broom handle to his helmet, and that's how he ended up coming in. But he still he was the chief when I was on a team twice for Ram, and he was our team leader, and he was explaining. I mean, he can ride now, but he can't do what he used to do.

Tom Butler 32:02

Now you had talked, so now you've talked about a couple things with cycling. I want to go back to the position. Um what I have heard people say is that that position of being over the bike, that that is also a position that we spend too much time in when we're at a computer desk. And so we're not creating elongation of those muscles. I'm wondering if you could talk a bit about that.

Julie Donnelly 32:34

It's actually the num I've found it to be the number one reason for low back pain. Because if you think about these two muscles, so the iliacus is on the inside curve of your pelvis and it searches on the inside of your thigh bone. When it contracts, it lifts your leg up so you can either take a step or you can sit down. The reason you can sit down is because the iliacus pulls the thigh bone up towards your trunk and you sit down. Right? The psoas muscle originates on the front side of the lumbar vertebra. It merges with the iliacus muscle and it also inserts on the inside of your thigh bone, obviously, if they've merged together. The psoas muscle bends you over so you can pick something up all of the floor, off the floor. But as you're sitting at your desk, so the muscles, specifically the iliacus muscle, contracted to enable you to sit down at your desk, and the whole time you're sitting there, it's held contracted. So you're back into that same repetitive strain where it's being held contracted for a long period of time, and it shortens, then you try to stand up and it hurts. Well, what it's also doing, I mean, it's multifaceted, because as it does that, there's a muscle that your quadriceps have four muscles, and one of them is called the rectus femoris. Three of the muscles originate on your thigh bone, but the rectus femoris muscle originates on the tip of your pelvis. It's the only one of the four quads that originates on your pelvis. Then they merge together, they go over your kneecap and they insert on the front of your shin bone. But because of this, you know, you're sitting, and so now the psoas and the iliacus have shortened, they've caused your lumbar to come forward, but they've also caused the pelvis to come forward. And as that comes forward, it makes this thigh muscle, the rectus femoris, it makes it too long to do the job of straightening your leg. So the body ties a knot in the muscles so that you can straighten the leg. And on everybody across the board, it's if you stood up and you just dropped your arms to your side, don't straighten your fingers out, just drop your arms to your side. Basically, where your middle finger touches your thigh, that's where the body ties the knot. And you'll feel it really tight. And in fact, try this right now. If you use just the heel of your hand and put your other hand on top and come down your thigh, and and right where your fingers would touch, you'll feel you'll be going down, and all of a sudden you'll go.

Tom Butler 35:26

Yeah. Yeah.

Julie Donnelly 35:27

Right. That knot, that bump is the knot that's holding your pelvis down because you see. It's also pulling up on your knee joint. So you can have knee pain caused by the same reason.

Tom Butler 35:41

So I want to keep cycling well into my 80s. As you do. I might at some point get an e-bike to help with some of the hills, but yeah, I want to keep cycling. So uh it's important for me, it seems like it seems logical that's important for me to have, like you talked about, an ongoing program to address things. And so, first, I'd like you to talk about if you can, like some of the things to think about as we age. This is a little bit different when you're 22, you know, than when you're 70, 80, and beyond. Can you talk a little bit about your experience, what that difference is?

Julie Donnelly 36:28

Well, first of all, when you're 22, you think you're invincible.

Tom Butler 36:31

Right.

Aging Well With Daily Body Care

Julie Donnelly 36:33

We all did. It's a part of it's just part of nature. And and also when you're that age, you look at older people and you go, Well, I'm never gonna get like that. You know, they they just didn't take care of themselves, but I'm never gonna get like that. Well, I hate to tell you, honey, but there's a real good chance, yeah, you're gonna get like that. You know, but they can't, and and that's a good thing. I mean, if people were 22 and they were worried about being 80, they wouldn't accomplish what they need to accomplish at 22. But if you can can say to yourself, okay, that that vision that I'm seeing is a possibility. Let me take care of my body to the best of my ability now, so then I can stretch that out. And the idea is to stretch it out beyond where your body wants to be here on earth in the first place, because then you have no problem. If you look, I went to China back in the 1990s, and I was learning Xigang, and we used to go to this park in the morning, six o'clock in the morning, and you would see hundreds of old people, and they were doing Tai Chi, they were doing all Xigong. There was this tree that had a big, thick branch, and it was probably maybe six feet. The branch was like six feet off the ground, and you would see people jump up and grab hold of the branch like this, and they're dangling, and they'd be twisting themselves, and they'd be kicking their legs and twisting their arms. And if you look at the Chinese, and you see they're like they're old people and they're pulling these carts that are like piled high with stuff, and they're running down the street with them. The whole time we were there, like you didn't see people with canes. Not saying that you never saw anybody, but a small handful in comparison to here in the States, because they do acupuncture, they do Chinese herbs, they don't eat a lot of meat, they don't eat a lot of sweets. Now, I I understand that as the Western diet is getting more pronounced in China, they're starting to have the same problems we have. But I'm talking about when I was there, there was nothing. I mean, there were no no fast food places. I mean, if you wanted fast food, it's because you went in and you got you the little bowl of dim song, and that that was fast food. And so if people now like like in my mind, you're still young. And so you you watch your diet, you you take your supplements, because unfortunately, our our earth has been depleted of so many nutrients, you can't get what like our grandmothers used to get out of the soil. You know, the same nutrients are not in the vegetables that used to be in the vegetables because the soil has gotten so depleted. So many people, like it's really suggested by the experts I listen to that you supplement. And it doesn't mean that you have to live on pills. You know, you're supplementing, you're adding to. And it's only because of what we've done to the soil. But the more you take care, if you take care of your muscles, if your muscle is tight, don't just take a muscle relaxer. Muscle relaxer, it's kind of like I know it's a brand name, so you probably shouldn't use it, but if you put ambisol on a toothache, the pain goes away. The cavity is still there, the abscess is still there, you just don't feel it. Right?

Tom Butler 40:32

Right, right.

Julie Donnelly 40:33

But that's that's what a lot of people are doing. They're taking medications and they just don't feel it, but it's still there, they just don't feel it. And so now they're doing things that are only making it worse because they think it's gone. Well, it's not gone. You know, you're just not registering.

Tom Butler 40:52

There's an interesting element to cycling. Like I have done the Seattle to Portland ride, it's 206 miles. I'll do that again. And so it's two days of doing you know, 90 revolutions per minute in the same position, right? And you've got this incredible amount of repetition of the same motion, right? And I'm wondering if you could talk about that a bit, about kind of the consequences of that.

Post-Ride Reset For Thighs And Hamstrings

Julie Donnelly 41:30

Definitely. Well, what I told the athletes that that I worked with when I was on RAM, and I would tell them when you stop and you put your feet on the ground, stay bent over, but take the heel of your hand and really, really press out your whole entire thigh, not just rectus remorance, but the whole entire thigh. Because those muscles have been repetitively strained, they've created lots of hydrogen ions, lots of acid. So just push it through, get the circulation back into that muscle. Then you can try to stand up. And then there's other things I told them about their back, but that's it's too hard to explain on a podcast how to do that. But but you, I mean, anybody, you yourself, if you went riding this afternoon, before you get off the bike, take the heels of your hand and really, really press as hard as you can. Press from your hip, you know, the front of your pelvis, the top of your leg, all the way down to your knee, outside, inside, back. People think that they have to stretch their hamstrings. Most of the time, what's happening, your hamstrings originate on the base of the pelvis, but they insert behind the knee on the lower leg. And when your hamstrings contract, you bend your knee. Well, think about what you're doing on the bike. Your knee is bent the whole entire time you're on the bike. Your knee is never straight. Your leg is never straight. It's there's some bend in it, even when you're at the bottom of the rotation. And so they're contracted the whole time. So they've shortened. And but because of this pelvis rotation, their originating point has moved up. So you have a muscle that's shortened into knots, with the originating point moving up. You feel your hamstrings, they feel terribly tight. You think you need to stretch them, but what you're actually feeling is they're overstretched. You don't need to stretch them. What you need to do is you take a ball, and the way I teach people is sit on like a wooden, let's say a wooden bar stool, like that that height, put the ball there, and then just rest your hamstring on top of it. And you'll feel it. You'll know when you're on a knot. But before you do the hamstrings, always do your. Thighs because you need to have the knots that are in your your quadriceps, you need to have those released so your pelvis can start going back and take the pressure off the hamstring. So don't go straight to the hamstring. First do your thighs and then do the hamstring.

Tom Butler 44:21

This is wonderful. And what it's bringing to my mind is that we need you at the finish line of basically everything that we do.

A Safer Way To Stop Cramps

Julie Donnelly 44:31

You know, the thing, you know, the thing is, Tom, I want to teach. It's like that's what I want to do. I want to teach. Like I loved it when I was at Ram. I used to, I would teach like any of the athletes that I could. You know, certainly the athletes that I was working with. But when we, you know, those those couple of days that you're we were in San Diego before we took off. I was teaching a lot of people. I used to go to, which I'd like to get back to again. I haven't yet, but I will, to Iron Man competitions. And I would have a tent, and every half hour I would teach, I always taught how to do cramping. Because everybody treats cramps the wrong way. They immediately start to try and straight, you know, stretch it. Well, the muscle has what's called an all-or-nothing response. It's either going to contract 100% or it's not going to contract at all. Well, if it's starting to contract in a Charlie horse, it's contracting and it's contracting violently and fast, right? You start trying to pull this way, that muscle is pulling this way and you're pulling it this way. You're going to tear it. But if you take the two ends, you go behind your ankle and behind your knee, and then as hard as you can, you push the two of them together. Hurts like the Dickens, but so does the Charlie horse, right? So you push the two of them together and you hold them until you can get your breath back. Because you will lose your breath. Right? Anyway, you hold them until you can get your breath back. When you can get your breath back and you can breathe a little bit, just let go, breathe, put your hands there again and push again. The second time it's not going to hurt. What you're doing is you're helping any errant fibers that didn't finish the contraction, you're helping them to finish. Then what you do is so you're on the ground, obviously. You take and you, it's like you're kneading bread dough. And you start behind your knee and you knead the bread dough all the way down to your ankle. And what you're doing, and it's going to feel so good. What happens is it feels so good you don't want to stop. So I tell people, don't stop. Don't stop. And you're pushing out all that acid that you just created. And then you can stretch. Then you can stretch safely. I had uh an Iron Man contact me one time, and I had taught it, I don't remember where I was, but I had I used would teach it in the grass in front of my my tent. Anyway, he had learned how to do it, and I got an email from him afterward, and he said that during the race, I mean, pretty much most people get a trolley horse at some point, most endurance athletes. Anyway, he was saying how he had gotten one. He remembered what I taught him, he did it. It does take a little bit of time, it's not, you know, an immediate fix. But as soon as you finish, you're back, you're 100%. It doesn't hurt anymore, and you're off. Well, a mile later, he got another one in the other leg. But he didn't want to take the time that it took to do what I had shown him how to do. So he did what he would normally do, which was run and like trying to stretch it while he was running. He said he limped into the finish line just on that leg, but not on the leg that he did what I showed him how to do. And this was three days later, and that leg was still hurting. And from the minute that he treated the other leg, it had stopped hurting.

Tom Butler 48:18

It's awesome what you're saying there, because you're talking specifically about going with the body, what the body is designed to be. Right. Now, another issue is foot pain.

Julie Donnelly 48:37

And fasciitis, right.

Tom Butler 48:40

You know, and and so there's, you know, that impacts a lot of people. And I'm sure that you see that a lot.

Foot Pain Starts In The Lower Leg

Julie Donnelly 48:47

Well, and the thing that's interesting is if you uh if you can reach down and grab, you know, grab like your calf and the calf, and then bring your fingers around the front so that your fingers are by your shin bone, and and kind of just grab it. And now bring your foot up and down, left and right, just move your foot around. What you'll see is all foot movement is actually your lower leg. So you your foot starts to hurt. People roll it on a golf ball, they roll it on a tennis ball, frozen bottle of ice, they do all kinds of things, they take their fingers and they rub the bottom. That's pulling your hair, and then your scalp hurts. And then you're spending the rest of your life massaging your scalp but never letting go of your hair. Right? And it's the same thing. It's the muscles of the lower leg that move the foot. When you have foot pain, you don't need to do anything with your foot, you need to take care of your lower leg. And it's super easy to do. Pretty much everything I teach is super easy to do.

Tom Butler 49:51

And people are going to be able to find that in the book and in videos and things like that. Will will people get directed to those things by going to your website?

Julie Donnelly 50:00

Yeah, yes. Well, yes and no. We taught I do talk about it. If you go to flexibleatholete.com, that's the best website to go to for all of this. We're in the we're in the process right this minute. I did an app. I've created an app. But it's so it's now March 19th, 26th, and the app is probably 90% finished. So it's we're hoping to have it up by April, mid-April, the latest. But it's also being put on Flexible Athlete. So what'll happen is there's gonna be a link that says conditions or a page that says conditions, and there'll be tiles, you know, say upper body, lower body, low back, arms and legs, whatever. And so people can go there. Now, the free part is gonna be actually the pain-free athlete book. So they're gonna be able to read. If they're looking at, say, plantar fasciitis, they're gonna be able to read the whole section about plantar fasciitis, and that's free. To get the treatments, there'll be a minimal charge. It really is gonna be minimal. But fair's fair. Anyway, but they'll be able to find the answer. So I would say by hopefully mid-April of this year, there'll be people will be able to just go on to flexibleathhlete.com and find the condition that they're looking for and be able to resolve it.

Tom Butler 51:48

I want you to talk to tell a couple stories or talk about a couple stories. One is someone, Alan Woodward. Can you share his story?

The Runner Who Got His Life Back

Julie Donnelly 51:58

Alan, I love the story of Alan Woodward. He's in Houston, Texas. He is still around, he's uh a trainer, a running trainer, and he'll be happy to talk to anybody. I mean what happened with Alan is he was an incredible runner when he was in college and was at a point of going to the Olympics because he was that fast. In fact, on the TED Talk, it shows the clip that's on the TED Talk. He gave me that clip. That was the race that qual that ended up, I think, qualifying him for the Olympics, or anyway. What happened was it was a 400-meter race. He was the last man of the race getting the baton. They were 35 meters behind the last runner when he got the baton, and he won the race. So in his 100 meters, he went from 30 meters behind to winning. He was incredibly fast. But then he got hip pain, went everywhere, and nobody could help him with the hip pain. So he lost out on the Olympics, which was so sad, and ultimately got to a point where he couldn't run at all. By the time he and I met, it was 20 years later. So he hadn't run in 20 years. It was so he was so depressed he couldn't even watch running on TV because it was just too depressing to think. He came so close and then missed hip pain. So he had gone up to North Carolina to see a trainer, internationally renowned trainer. And I had the good fortune of my therapy practice was in this trainer's gym. And so I had been away for the whole two weeks that that uh Alan had been there working with Mike. And then I came, and think of the synchronicity of this. He's walking out to go back to Houston, and I'm walking in. If I had been stopped by a red light, we would have missed each other. Anyway, I see him and he's limping, and I said to him, You know, people don't limp in my gym. Why are you limping? And so he tells me this sad story. And I said, Well, lay down on the floor, I want to see something. So he laid on the floor and I pressed on the iliacus. Well, when I pressed on the iliacus muscle, he started to cry. And he said, That's the that's the pain that kept me out of the Olympics. And I thought to myself, the man had hip pain. What the heck were you rubbing his knee? You know, right, why why weren't you rubbing this muscle? 20 years, 20 years, and nobody rubbed this muscle. It actually ended up, that's why my TED talk is called the pain question no one is asking is answering. And it's because nobody looked at his hip muscle. Anyway, so he came into my office, I worked on it, I taught him how to do it, and then he left to go to Houston. I figured I'd never see him again. He's in Houston, I'm in North Carolina. So about six months later, he calls me up and he goes, Julie, go to this website. And he's all excited. He had just won a race, Tom, that made him number one in the USA for his age group and number two in the world, right? And he was thrilled, I was thrilled. Because when he had gotten back to Houston, he felt so good. He thought, well, I wonder if I can get back to training. And then he couldn't. And he says, I wonder if I could train competitively, and then he did. And then he started racing competitively, and then this happened. So we were all excited. Well, a couple of months passes after that, and he calls me up again. He's again excited. Go on, he had just won a race that made him number one in the United States, but also number one in the world for his age group. So then you fast forward, and he ended up breaking the world record in his age group. And when he did that, he said to me, Julian, he said, I lost out on the Olympics, but because of what you taught me, I'm in the record books and nobody can ever take me out. He then went back and broke his own world record twice. I mean, think about that. And all that, I get so upset. All that had to happen is somebody work on the iliacus muscle, then work on the muscle in the thigh that I was just telling you about, and then a muscle in the low back called quadratus lymborum. Work on those three muscles, and that man would have been in the Olympics. And nobody did it.

Tom Butler 56:52

You know, I I find there to be a really great aspect to what you're saying there is that there is the pain, and there is, you know, the consequences of feeling that pain, which is uncomfortable. But then there's also what that pain keeps you from doing. And in Alan's case, you know, being without that pain allowed him to do the thing that he really loved to do.

Julie Donnelly 57:22

Right. Right. And he now he coaches, he coaches high school kids, I believe. I mean, he has other work that he does too, but you know, his passion is he's coaching high school kids.

Tom Butler 57:32

Fantastic. I watched want you to also tell a story about avoiding hip surgery.

Julie Donnelly 57:42

Oh, I've got so many of them. I don't know which one I told you. There's so many.

Tom Butler 57:48

Well, just maybe just illustrate that. What is possible there? What have you seen?

Hip Pain, Muscle Torque, And Surgery

Julie Donnelly 57:54

Well, so you have these same muscles. You have the iliacus muscle that's on the inside curve of the pelvis. You have the psoas muscle that originates on the front of the lumbar vertebrae. As they're tight, like I said, they lift up your leg and they pull you forward. As they get tight, though, they're they're shifting the pelvis. So let's say this is the front. So they're shifting the pelvis this way, so it's down in the front, up in the back. Well, think about what's happening on the outside on your hips. Those muscles are now torquing. They're supposed to be straight, but because of the rotation, they've done this. Well, they're still inserting in the same place that they were inserting in before when they were here, except now they've gone here. So they're causing pain here, like on the hip bone. Right? Can you follow that?

Tom Butler 58:45

Yes.

Julie Donnelly 58:45

Okay. So that it's torquing all these muscles, and and eventually the muscles can become so tight you can't move. And and it's like pulling here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here. Your head hurts like crazy. Right? But it's just because you're pulling it here all over. Well, it's the same thing. The muscles are pulling all over the hip. And it and it can be jamming. If you have this muscle inserted, let's say this is the hip, this muscle inserts here, and this muscle inserts here, and they're both tight. They can be jamming the bones so that the bones keep start moving together like this. And eventually they tell you you're bone on bone, which you are. You know, you are bone on bone. And if you've been there for a while, you've destroyed what was in the middle, cartilage that was in the middle. But what would have happened if, as the muscles were tight and you were coming in like this, you treated the muscle and it relaxed, and then it went back here. Then you're doing something and it starts getting tight again, and you release it and it comes back here. That's it.

Tom Butler 1:00:04

And I think that again, you know, talking about just working with the body's natural mechanisms. Right, right. And and enabling it to go to a place that it that it's meant to be.

Julie Donnelly 1:00:19

Right, exactly. It's just body logic. And the whole the whole beginning of my book is basically talking about body logic. Now, what I have learned with my books is that most people don't read the book front to, you know, cover to cover. They have a hip problem, they jump to the hip chapter, they read the hip chapter, they go to the muscle treatment for that muscle, and off they go. Next time they pick up the book, it's because they have a shoulder, then you look at the shoulder. So it's it's rare that somebody has read the whole book. I always find it kind of amazing when somebody has. And usually it's because they're bored. You know, they went to the beach, and this is the only book they brought with them, so all right, I'll read it.

Tom Butler 1:01:07

Or they're fascinated, you know. Yeah, I can see that. So let you know, I'm a cyclist over 60. I might be thinking, man, I wish I had this information, you know, 40 years ago. What do you say? Is it too late? You know, how what should I do?

Julie Donnelly 1:01:28

No, it's definitely not too late. I have a man coming in today who's way into his 80s. I mean, it doesn't matter. Muscles, I always tell people, as long as you have nerve innovation, muscles are 100% healable because you have to have nerve innovation in order for the muscle to work. But if you have nerve innovation, we can do what's necessary to lengthen that muscle, to take get the acid out of that muscle, to get blood flow back into it, take the pressure off of the insertion points at the joints. You know, some people have arthritis, and and they'll so all right, they have the pain of arthritis, but you also have the pain of the tight muscle because the arthritis caused the muscle to like do this. So now you have two pains. You have the arthritis, then you have the tight muscle. Well, get rid of the tight muscle. At least now you only have half the pain.

Tom Butler 1:02:28

Well, I am loving this. I can't wait to get more into it. I can't wait. You know, my wife loves this stuff too, and I can't wait for us to to start utilizing your your book and the other, you know, some of the videos and things like that. And I just really appreciate you taking the time to join me.

Julie Donnelly 1:02:54

So there's there's two things if I could offer this.

Tom Butler 1:02:57

Please.

Resources, Zoom Help, And Training

Julie Donnelly 1:02:58

Please. One of them is I do Zoom consultations worldwide. I helped a friend down in Australia. Her husband couldn't get out of bed. He was in so much pain, he couldn't get out of bed. So she called me and she said, Is there anything you can do? Now I'm at that point, I'm in North Carolina, she's in Australia. So we moved our computers around so we could see each other. And I talked her through treating him. And by the time we got finished, when she first called, he couldn't even move in bed. He couldn't roll over, he couldn't do anything. By the time we got finished, she brought the computer over to the window and she said, Look out, look at what he's doing. He was outside mowing the lawn. And so there's Zoom consultations that work. And the other thing is, I've been approved by the National Academy of Sports Medicine to teach a 16-hour continuing education course for NASA fitness trainers. And I'm trying to get that word out because fitness trainers are seeing people like yourself. And so if they know how to work on work on a shoulder, because that's what the course is, it's all self-treatment, 16 hours of self-treatment. And so where you can go in and you can say, Well, I kind of let's not do anything with my arms because my shoulder's really hurting. And the fitness trainer can say, Here, take this ball, go over on that wall, do this here, and then you'll be fine. And you are. And so I if I can get trainers to look, go on flexibleathlete.com, and there's a place that says courses, or I think it says training, and they can learn about it there. Or somebody, any of your listeners who aren't in Sarasota, Florida, which probably most of your listeners are not in Sarasota, Florida, we can do it on Zoom.

Tom Butler 1:05:04

Well, that's fantastic. And how do they connect it to that consultation?

Julie Donnelly 1:05:08

Well, they can go on flexibleathlete.com and everything's on it. My phone number's there, my email address is there, everything is there. Tell them to go up and look up in the top left corner, it says Google Reviews, and they can read. I've got over a hundred Google reviews, five-star. Oh, look at it, raise the hand. And anyway, I've got over five hundred uh one hundred five-star Google reviews, and none of them are one-liners, except one person wrote if you want a relaxing massage, this is not the place to come. But if you're in pain, this is the only place to come.

Tom Butler 1:05:47

I love it.

Julie Donnelly 1:05:48

Everybody else has paragraphs, paragraphs, but they're interesting. And it just shows that it can work, it's like people can get out of pain.

Tom Butler 1:06:00

Julie, I'm so glad that you joined me on the podcast today. But I'm also really, really happy that you've taken this career that you've had, a lifetime of studying, a lifetime of of treating people, and you're putting that into in out in a way that other people can learn from it, that you have that desire to really keep the information going. And I really appreciate about that about you. And thank you so much for being here.

Julie Donnelly 1:06:28

Thank you so much, Tom. I appreciate your inviting me.

Tom Butler 1:06:32

All right, bye-bye now.

Julie Donnelly 1:06:34

Bye.

Tom Butler 1:06:43

I found it really made sense when Julie talked about that when someone has pain, providers look at the joint, the bone, the nerves, the discs, but rarely at the muscles themselves. And the Alan Woodward story is a dramatic illustration. Twenty years of hip pain, an Olympic career lost, and no one ever rubbed the iliacus muscle. I'm so impressed with Julie's focus on how every client needs to learn to self-treat, because a person needs to be able to handle it themselves. And her statement, I don't want to take it with me when I leave the earth. I see her as having such an admirable commitment to people. And I'm definitely adding this approach to pain management to my strategies to ride longer. Here in the PNW, we are seeing absolutely perfect days to ride. I hope you're experiencing the same thing where you are. And remember, age is just a gear change.