Episode #104 "just rest" won't fix back pain - here's what works...

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Transcript

0:35

Hello. Hello. Welcome back to the pod. Just a disclaimer, I have my little dog, Murph in my lap because it's a lower chance he's gonna start barking if he's actually sitting in my lap. So if you hear some little noises it might be murf noises. But I'm excited to chat with you guys today all about why quote unquote just rest is not going to fix back pain. And I'm gonna talk about what actually works. So I think that for the majority of coaches, you guys are scared of back pain. You're really scared if you have a client that comes to you with a history of back pain. If this is the case, you're probably just hoping and wishing and praying that the back pain doesn't resurface during their time working with you'cause you wouldn't know how to deal with that. Or if you have somebody that develops back pain or tweaks their back while they're working with you, you are even more scared because. This quote unquote, happened on your watch and you don't know what to do about it. Right. And the initial knee jerk reaction for things that we don't understand or don't have a lot of knowledge around is like, oh my gosh. Like, let's just try and avoid it as much as possible. So we're gonna pull back and don't do anything that hurts. Right? And then the client might end up going to the doctor and then they hear some scary words like. Bulging disc or herniated disc, or the doctor wants me to get an injection or, you know, things like this where they might get unnecessary imaging. And then that even scares you more because you really don't know what to do with all that doctor speak, right? And at the end of the day, you really just don't want to make your client worse. So it totally makes sense why you might tend to err on the side of extreme caution and pull back anything that hurts. No hinging, nothing that hurts, you know, rest until it feels better. And I'm here to tell you that smart movement not rest is the best thing you can give a back pain client. Okay? And. I highly, highly recommend that you educate yourself from a resource, from the coaching lens on like back pain. Okay. Shameless plug. I'm doing a mini program at the end of April that specifically goes over different types of back pain, how to work with clients that are dealing with this. Talking, we're talking about terms your doctor might say, or your client's doctor might say. I go through the differences of what's the difference between a herniation and a bulging disc, right? How do you approach movement, all of that in the three day mini program, the last week of April. So just throwing that in here. Okay. But going back to smart movement. Here's the thing. When you have somebody dealing with back pain, a lot of times movement makes it feel better. Right? And I don't mean like, yes, they should do their full normal workout when they're dealing with the back, with back pain. No, that's not what I mean. I mean, can they walk without pain? Right? Are they able to do some slow cat cows? Can they do some. Slow body weight, Jefferson curls, does it feel better to extend their back or go into flexion and around their back? Does it feel, how does it feel for the client to rotate? You know, I'm talking like gentle movement and finding things that feel good to the client and get some blood flow to the area because blood flow is healing. And if we can get blood flow to the area, that's going to help it heal much quicker. You know what doesn't get blood flow to the area laying down on a bed or sitting on a couch, right? So that's what I mean when I say like Smart movement, gentle movement is going to help clients move through back pain quicker. And here's the first thing that I do when I have a client with back pain. So let's say I'm already working with him and they're going through a flare up. Okay. This actually happened recently with one of my clients. So first things first they ask. Did anything, was anything different about your week? Higher stress levels, less sleep than usual. How's your fueling? Have you. Gotten more or less movement than usual outside of your workout, right? So trying to get an idea, high level overview, okay? Was this an outside factor that doesn't even have to do with exercise that is triggering this client to have lower capacity, therefore putting them under their threshold and into pain. Okay, so that's the first thing. Next thing, depending on what they say, like, okay, what makes it feel good? And what makes it feel worse? Right? So like, for example, with this specific client, I'm thinking of rounding the back feels good, extending the back feels bad. So I give her some exercises to gently do. That round the back paired with breathing, making sure she's going for walks because that doesn't irritate her, right? And so I'm just focused on, okay, what are things she's able to do comfortably and get some blood flow to the area? And I'm having her gimme updates every day, all right, every day. Is it improving? Is it getting worse? Are we staying the same? Right? So you, you really have to keep tabs on this when you do have somebody going through a back flare, but. Taking clients through this smart movement progression helps them heal so much faster. Another example I can give you is one of the coaches that I mentor actually has her own back issue. And she has flare ups every once in a while and she has been going through a flare up over the past four weeks and she's taken herself, you know, through the same protocol, right? What feels good, what feels better week one, right? She knew that. Rounding her back did not feel good, but extending the back did walking, felt okay, right? She made sure to get to the chiropractor because that was helpful for her. Week two, she reassessed, oh, I'm moving a little bit better. I'm gonna progress the mobility circuit I made for myself. You know, week three. I feel even better. I'm going to do a little bit higher intensity of a workout this week. See how that feels. So anyways, I think you guys kind of hear what I'm getting at, but when you know exactly how to, well back up a little bit. When you understand back pain more. As a whole and it, and you understand that as long as you don't do anything incredibly stupid, then you're that you're probably not gonna make the client worse. Okay. So it's like, yes, we need to educate ourselves. Knowledge is power. We learn, wow, okay, this is not as bad as I thought. This is not as scary as it sounds. Right? That's gonna be step one, step two. Asking the right questions to your client if they are dealing with a back flare, okay? And ask them what makes it feel good? What makes it feel worse? This finding of three or four core movements, gentle movements, think mobility, type, stretching with breathing, that feel good to them. All right? Have them do that for a few days until they move through it, right? And then at that point it's like, all right, we're through the flare. Now you have to ease back into their training, right? You can't just go back into full force intensity right there. So it'll be a slow rebuild back to their normal training volume. And. That's how I approach back pain flare-ups with clients. So I hope this was valuable for you and if you are somebody that's like, man, I would really love to learn more about back pain. So I wasn't so scared of that. You should join my back pain mini program coming. April 28th through the 30th, it's a three day mini program running it in Telegram. You can listen to the trainings on your own time. You are going to learn about back pain, gain some knowledge around it. You're going to learn about, in medical term, certain medical terms as it relates to back pain. So that if you have a client that goes to the doctor gets imaging, you can better understand what they are coming to you with and then how to train them, how to regress movements, how to approach this client working with back pain. So if you want to join that DM me the words. Back pain and I will get you the link to join. And I will also put the link to join the mini program in what's it called? The show notes. In the show notes. The link will be there too. And if you're not interested in the mini program, but you are interested in more movement options when it comes to coaching somebody with back pain, what are some options you have for regressions and things that might be helpful for this type of person? You might be a good fit to grab. My movement. Library has over 330 exercises all organized by movement, pattern, and body part. I have a whole low back pain tab for you, so I'll also put the link to that in the show notes and I'll catch you guys next week. Talk to you later.