The Physiology of Performance

What does it truly mean to move well?

In this episode of Dual Coast Podcast, we sit down with Dr. Will Shiau, chiropractor, movement specialist, and human performance expert, for a deep dive into the science behind movement, function, and optimizing the human body.

Dr. Will shares his unique approach to chiropractic care and wellness, discussing how movement quality, breathing mechanics, strength training, neurological function, and biomechanics all play critical roles in overall health and performance. We explore how dysfunction in one area of the body can create compensations elsewhere, leading to pain, limitations, and decreased performance.

The conversation also dives into cranial work, neurokinetics, movement physiology, and how understanding the body's interconnected systems can help individuals improve their health, athletic performance, and longevity.

In this episode, we discuss:

✅ Chiropractic care beyond pain relief
✅ The importance of breathing mechanics for health and performance
✅ Movement physiology and how the body adapts to stress
✅ Strength training and functional movement principles
✅ Neurokinetics and the brain-body connection
✅ Cranial work and its role in overall function
✅ Why movement quality matters more than most people realize
✅ Practical strategies to improve mobility, performance, and longevity

Whether you're an athlete, healthcare professional, fitness enthusiast, or someone looking to move and feel better, this episode is packed with valuable insights that can help you better understand your body and unlock your potential.

🎧 Tune in for an engaging conversation on movement, performance, and the future of functional healthcare.

#DualCoastPodcast #DrWillShiau #ChiropracticCare #MovementMatters #FunctionalMovement #StrengthTraining #BreathingMechanics #HumanPerformance #Wellness #Mobility #Neurokinetics #Biomechanics #Longevity #HealthPodcast #PhysicalWellness

@Dualcoastpodcast @Russellrogersofficial @Danscoca

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Good morning, Dual Coast family. Welcome back to another powerful and exciting episode of Dual Podcast. Yes. I'm your host, Dan Skoka, joined by my West Coast co-host Russ Rogers, and joined by very special guest this morning, Dr. Will. See you. Dr. Will, thank you so much for being here. Good morning. Thank you for having me. Of course, man. Of course. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 0:22

You know, you're saying you're not the last name, though, just really takes away from the powerful Dr. Will. You know? Dr. Will.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Gotta have that willpower in there, you know.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

Gotta have the willpower. That's it. Oh man. I cannot believe you're here. This is fantastic. I'm here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Uh, really excited. Um, it kind of hit me 48 hours ago that I was like, I'm gonna be on a podcast with Russ. Like longer form this time.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

Yeah. Well, we had we had a great uh talk at at Phil's coffee. Um we were we were talking off air about you know having some elongated uh conversations of like five hours, and I felt like that day, minus the heat, because it was a hot day that day, minus the heat, we could have gone much longer.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

It was incredible. Yeah, I was definitely sweating off my winter hibernation. Um, but yeah, that was such an easy conversation when to have with you. And I mean, just being in the sun, just having all that energy and excitement, being able to talk about health, wellness, everything was yeah, awesome.

SPEAKER_02 1:27

Yeah, it was great. So just a little background. So I was I was following this gal named Christina. Christina, I hit her up because I saw that she had, you know, Portland, Oregon behind her name, but we were doing an event up there. So I just randomly hit her up and I said, Hey, Christina, we're gonna be up in Portland. We'd love for you to come to this event. So we started having some interaction. We ended up having coffee at Phil's. I almost said Dr. Phil's at Phil's. And uh we she goes, Oh, I want to, I want to put you in touch with Dr. Will. He's uh he's up there in Vancouver. I'm like, fantastic. Let's make this happen. So he's like, Well, I'm hey, I'm gonna be coming down for a wedding in two weeks. So let's have coffee. And I was like, fantastic. So then two weeks later, Dr. Will and I had coffee, and uh his fiancee was there. She stayed indoors working on the laptop. We were outside for almost two hours in some serious heat that day up against that stone wall. Uh, we were both definitely sweating, but that's kind of how uh Dr. Will and I connected, and then of course, you were a part of Impact Portland, which was unbelievable, and you did a great job, and you got some good connections and made some new friends up there. We had a great time, didn't we? Oh, as I asked you a question.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Congrats, had an amazing time. Yeah, I've been reconnecting with some of the people, um, trickling in week by week uh with the people there, and they were taken away with what I do. And I was actually really interested in what they do, especially with Ryan and Juliana with their their breath work, um, Life Spark. It was really amazing. And I've had people that I work with seen them, and they're just like the work that they do has been absolutely amazing as well. So it not only impacted my life, but I am now seeing the impact that's um impacting on the rest of my my circle and the people that I brought there as well.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

Yeah. No, it's it was really cool because Dr. Will said, Hey, why don't you, you know, come if you got some time before the event, why don't you come up to Vancouver and we'll we'll do a little assessment on you and then we'll go have some dinner. And so we did all the above. And again, the conversation just kept continuing, and it it's been an unbelievable short uh friendship that we've had, and I look forward to what is to come because uh it's gonna be great. And I I do notice, I did notice when I was in your office that you have, I don't know, probably eight or nine golf clubs in the corner.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

Uh there's I think four or five. Two putters. I don't know why. There's two putters and two windows.

SPEAKER_02 3:59

Okay. And uh what exactly do you do with those uh in your office? Is that part of your assessment?

SPEAKER_00 4:05

Uh sometimes actually, because I don't have a wooden dowel, so I need something straight. Uh so yeah, the clubs kind of make a cameo sometimes if I need to see range of motion, um, kind of prove to a client something. Um, or I'll get the occasional golfer in, and I'm limited in space, so the wedge is the shortest club. So I'll kind of have them set up with the golf club, and sometimes we'll go outside and have them swing it. And I've had that done before, and they're like, I can swing a golf club, and I'm like, see you later, we'll schedule you, and then I can barely go, and they're straight to the course, and they're happy about it. So yeah, they'll make a cameo from time to time. So you play you play golf. What is the best part of your game? Oh, best part of my game. I would have to say, if it's on, it's driving, but I love putting. Um, the iconic tiger moments are all about putting when he drains a exactly six-foot putt for to win it at the masters or the players. It's simply just like just iconic, you know. Um, so you high step it off the green if you drain a 60-footer. No, no, I'm very, I'm very um, I just had a trip and some guy was like, Will's really in his head, and it's uh yeah, it's kind of uh just let Will do his thing and just stay out of his way. But I will sometimes, if someone's tripping, I'll stare at him after I make the putt while I'm walking to the hole just to let him know, hey, I heard you and I'm looking at you. So yeah. Did you have the best score uh at the bachelor weekend? I did actually, I did, so yeah, I'm very excited about it.

SPEAKER_02 5:44

Oh, that's so cool. Yeah, well, the um Dr. Will's a chiropractor, and he's not just your ordinary chiropractor. Um, so when he asked me to come in, he asked me to you know sit down and we're gonna do this analysis and everything. So he's doing touch points, you know, back here behind the ear, um, feeling this. Does this hurt? You know, how's this feel? Then, you know, going down the side of the spine and doing some assessment. And and I'll tell you, it was amazing because then we got into what we call the what he calls the analysis and everything, and did some cranial work. And you know, it was an amazing, I don't know, we're probably there about an hour, 45 minutes, an hour, it's felt like it was about an hour.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

Yeah, okay. It kind of gave you the whole experience of what someone knew would do is a little over an hour.

SPEAKER_02 6:29

Uh it was amazing. I I, you know, and I I gotta share with you because one time years ago, I knew I I don't go to chiropractors and and don't want to really, but uh, so I was a little nervous going in, you know, because a long time ago when I was a kid, you know how you do that, you know, you massage your neck and everything, and then you lift and then you know, do that crack. I was like, oh man, I hope he doesn't crack my neck because that I remember way back a friend of mine did that. Oh, just relax, you know. You know, a friend, not not a chiropractor, a friend. It was the worst experience ever. It was like, it was like uh, you know how some people hold their, you know, when they sneeze and they hold it in, right? Like that. Oh, I did that one time when I was a kid and about blew my head off. Like, I don't know if you I don't know if you hold it in because I like to sneeze. It's like let it go, man. Just sneeze everywhere. Where you know what I mean? What's that?

SPEAKER_00 7:20

I tried it once. I was in a lecture and I needed to see sneeze, and I held it in and it was like I could, I was like, what am I doing? Like, I couldn't pay attention to the lecture the rest of the time. I was like, my head hurts so much from that instant pressure. Yeah, I get it, Russ. I get it. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 7:38

So that was my that's my introduction for you, you know, that you did not do my you know, the neck crack, which I'm so thankful for, but it was it was an amazing experience. Um, and I know you had some great dialogue at the Impact Portland with people with that because you were able to explain a little bit about what you do. So why don't you talk the audience through what these touching points are and the analysis of going down the back uh setting up our conversation for today?

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Yeah. Um, so as I mentioned at Impact Portland, I like to think myself as a human performance provider, right? I don't really think myself as a true chiropractor because that just makes people think like you, you're like, oh, this guy's gonna snap my neck left and right. And that builds us this anxiety and fear in people. But when I say I'm a human performance provider, they're just like, what does that mean? Right. And so they lean in a little bit more. And I'm like, it simply simply means that I assess what your body is telling me based on these cranial points. Um, and then we assess the spine, which is what every chiropractor does, anyways. We assess the spine to see where all the tight spots are. Um, and then we go to the areas that need to be released, right? So a typical chiropractor will do an adjustment in that area based on counter strain. We assess the cranial scan after that to see what level and what system is restricted based on inflammatory markers that are causing pain. We release it and you feel better. Um, I think of the spine as an extension cord in your brain as the fuse box. If all the nerves in our body went back to our spine, we would be, it would be a very big tube. Everything, however, merges right together wiring-wise from our nerves. So we may have an issue in our shoulders, but it also may be part of our heart as well as the blood supply to our lungs. So all these different organs and systems all converge back into the spine at a specific level, then that's gonna cause pain. Um, and so based on my scan on your back and spine first, they'll tell me what level, what area, then I go to your cranial scan, which is going to tell me what system, then we test it, you feel better, and you start moving, you start playing, and that's the whole goal of Willpower. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 10:00

What do you what do you think about physicians assistant who just want to cut you open?

SPEAKER_00 10:04

Uh, sometimes you need to, you know, sometimes you need to. Sometimes it's so many. Sometimes you gotta do it. Yeah, I mean, case in point, I had a guy, you know, who completely tore his ACL, couple tears in his meniscus, and I was like, let's do some de-swelling in the knee first, see if we can get blood supply, blood supply to the the knee. And he started feeling a little bit better, but there was still some restriction, he was still feeling this cot sensation and a lot of instability. In that case, it's like, yeah, time to go see Dan. Let's redo that. You know, it's all broken up and torn up in there. I can't do anything about it. But on the back end, as we repair it, can we now infuse good uh blood supply to it? Make sure the tendons and ligaments are moving the way they are supposed to, and with all that scar tissue from the surgery, let's manage that as it gets laid down and rebuilt from your body standpoint. So, yeah, sometimes you need surgery.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

Yeah, for sure. That's true. It yeah, I guess it depends on how much of disruption is there. If something's truly torn and you can't restore the blood supply to it, or you know, you have retraction in like a uh certain muscle that's torn or it's been there for a prolonged period of time and it needs fixation. Different story. Obviously, fractures sometimes need to be fixated. Um, Dr. Will, for everybody listening right now, can you just tell us a little bit about what fascia is and what it biomechanically does for the body and how it does it produce mobility? Does it produce force? Does it produce pain patterns? What is fascia in general?

SPEAKER_00 11:37

Yeah, that's a great question. Fascia is a connective tissue that surrounds everything within ourselves, it holds everything in place. Um, but I believe a study came out, it's like 50% of fascia is nerve endings, or 50% of a nerve is fascia, one way or the other. So, irregardless, if there is tension within a fascia or a nerve, you're gonna feel pain. Um, and so that's the living breathing aspect of how we can sense things within our body. Um, so we can sometimes get nerve entrapments, which is caused by inflammation that's trapped. Uh, Brian Tucky, who's uh he's a physical therapist who does a lot of the RD for fascial counter strain, has come out and just found that there are a lot of inflammatory markers just sitting around. Uh that's what creates knots within the fascial uh entrapments there. So you have your interleukin uh six, your TNF betas. So there's a lot of things that your body can't do, and it sits in that area and it just starts festering and it becomes this like pulsating knot, and that can start radiating to other parts of our body due to all that convergence on those nerves there. Um, so that's kind of the basis of what fascia is. It's a living, breathing organism within ourselves, and it's another system that we just thought was like that silver skin on that chicken breast that just holds and allows things to slide very easily. There's a lot to it where it remembers past injuries, it holds trauma, a lot of our mental, emotional stuff gets held in there. Um, and then yeah, it it restricts what we do. Uh things get a little sticky um and it causes pain. And we now, with counter strain, are able to identify it and then release it so that we feel better. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

Well, Dan, I threw uh Dr. Will a loop, you know, I threw him for a loop when I went in there because he's like, All right, do you have any uh you have any pain or anything like that? Of course, you were part of Impact Portland, but uh yeah, I said, Yeah, my ankle, you know, and you know, kind of the tendon down there. And I I did my own assessment. I'm thinking, I told my son, I said, I think that jump roping is causing me some pain down my ankle. Just don't know when it's going to hurt. Sometimes it will hurt and sometimes it doesn't, or whatever. So anyway, we went through some some well, I'll I'm gonna call it stretching. Uh, we went through some stretching things. He's got a he's got a much uh more uh you know deeper word that's gonna come out. I know it. But we we went, he took me through the stretching kind of stuff and like made did some adjustments in my rib cage, right? Rotated me, uh, you know, put pressure, you know, right here, and you know, just just held it for a while and then started doing some movements and different things, and then took my leg up over his thigh and then did some stretching that way. And then he's like, All right, we're gonna we're gonna rotate over and we're gonna hold this for like two minutes, right? My knees like this. It was unbelievable in the way that I felt. And he goes, How's your ankle feeling? Actually, it felt really good, you know, and my my back even felt better because as we rotated this way, it was stretching back here, right? It was unbelievable. So, you know, kind of walk us through so everybody understands kind of what you were working with me on, so we can get a little, we can kind of visualize it.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

Visualize it, yeah. So to start off with, uh, I didn't even know Russ's uh history. I was like, hey Russ, just sit on the table here, and I just did a simple scan all the way down his back. His tightest spot, Russ's tightest spot, was right on that right rib cage area, just the right side, single, just one side of unilateral. And I was like, that's very interesting. So I did a little bit of assessment, did a little cranial scan to try to figure out exactly what was going on. Russ was very tight through the rib cage area, a little bit of through his lung, um, his liver, uh, and then let's see here. Oh, and then his epidural. So the drainage of his spinal cord was a little bit restricted, right? So being armed with like four different systems or areas, I was like, all right, Russ, what's bothering you the most? If I granted you one wish to fix today, what would it be? And Russ said his Achilles on the left side, his ankle down there. I was like, oh boy, all right, that's not what it's expecting to hear. But I was like, you know what, Russ, let's figure this out because there's something in your right side of your rib cage that's causing your left Achilles to be super tight. And I simply what we call as a touch inhibition, I touched the area that was really tight on my scan, and then I had Russ retest his ankle, and he's like, Yeah, it actually is much softer, it's moving a little bit better, it feels less painful, a little bit less tightness. I was like, perfect. So now I went in, um, manipulated, and kind of just allowed his lung, his liver, and his rib cage to just soften up and relax. That cleared about 50 of his ankle discomfort. Then what Russ is talking about, I did a epidural, lumbar, epidural uh drainage, which is simply just the drainage of our lumbar spine. We all hear about epidurals for pregnant ladies. It's the same line, except it's the drainage portion, the venous lymphatics uh portion of our uh spinal cord. Um, and that's what causes a lot of tightness typically. A lot of people think pain is a muscle issue, it's usually a nerve issue. So getting your spinal cord to relax allows your muscle to relax. Also, did a little simple twisting relaxation move with some traction, and Russ was like melting away from the table. Um we need to stop. Yeah, he he kept asking for that same stretch again. I was like, you know what? I'm gonna give you the stretch that you can do at home, and uh you got it to the 70% after that, and it was you were just bouncing around. I was running downtown.

SPEAKER_02 17:46

I was. I I ran. What was my mile time over the weekend on the marathon? I was like uh 249 or something, two hours 49 minutes. No, two two minutes. Athlete, yeah. If it wasn't for the backpack, it would have been less. Right. One pound backpack really weighed. You ought to heard damn breathing.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

Yeah. Dr. Will, so so far, as we've talked a little bit, you brought up this the rib cage a lot in uh you know with Russ and dysfunction, everything like that. Would you say that improper breathing mechanics like poor diaphragmatic function, your diaphragm muscle, would you say that causes issues with the rib cage, or would you say that actually causes issues with muscle recruitment patterns?

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Absolutely. Yeah. So the first class after that foundation class and counter strain, they really encourage you to take the venous lymphatic courses. So there's two courses in the counter strain curriculum that's simply based off of how do we get your body to drain everything. Now, what is the venous lymphatic system? The easiest way explain it to my clients is it's the waste management, it's the trash shoot of our body. Our biggest areas to help us uh filter a lot of that stuff is our liver as well as the two kidneys, those are our filtration. Right behind the diaphragm and all the other good organs is what we call the cistern christi, right? It's that giant venous lymphatic nodule that drains a lot of our body's fluids, and that sits right next to that diaphragm. And that's why when we work on breathing exercises, we relax ourselves because the breathing helps just squeeze that uh sac and it just drains it. Um, venous lymphatic is all based off of mechanical pressure to help us drain, and a lot of people are immobile, we sit at our desk a lot, so there's not a lot of pumping or negative pressure happening within our body. So we start swelling up, we get swollen. Um, and with breath work, especially in that rib cage area, we help expand um our rib cage so there's mobility there, and then we help uh a lot of our lymphatic drainage. If we look at a map of our that system, a lot of it comes right through that center portion of our thoracic spine. Um, so that's where breath work really helps. And sometimes breath work doesn't because we are just so rigid, and a lot of like posture will have a big factor on that, also. So our lungs are now collapsed on top of it, so we don't get that breath work. Our balloons as lungs can't expand, so we can't actually open ourselves up, and that causes a lot of restrictions there, so then we it's like that snowball effect, right? One thing happens, then another, and just gets worse and worse and worse. And sometimes with counter strain, we just go in there in a very gentle manner and allow things to relax. Um, a lot of mainstream treatments is making things hurt, right? We all hear pain is gain. Um, stretching, making sure you really feel that deep stretch and pain. You're like, oh yeah, that's what's gonna actually help. In reality, it actually makes it worse because our body doesn't like pain. What do we do when we're scared or we're in pain? We clam up even more. Um, and so uh with with fascial counter strain, we actually go in the opposite direction. We actually relax a lot of the tissues to allow it to open itself up. Wow, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:20

So when we were at Impact Portland, did you when you had conversation with Ryan and Julie Patrick or went through the breath work? What what what what did you learn in there that maybe not that you're trying to do breath work, but what did you learn in there that maybe you can take and assess with people and just say, hey, you know what? By doing this, this is also going to help you, you know, with regards to your you know, your healing or you know, whatever you're experiencing in your pain.

SPEAKER_00 21:48

Yeah, that's a great question. Um, the biggest thing I took away from Ryan Juliana's uh talk was actually the exercise on the back end of it. So I think. I think from an assessment standpoint, I'm gonna let them handle that breath work. But when I'm in office, something that was really uh stood out to me was Ryan was talking about a triangle breathing. A lot of the time I do what we call the box breathing. So there's four sides to it. Um, and sometimes I mean when I do a box breathing, I feel sometimes where I don't have enough air in my lungs and I start choking up a little bit. Um, and talking to Ryan, I was like, hey, walk me through this triangle breath worth that you're talking about. And he simply takes out one side of the shape where you hold the exhale. So he simply goes, inhale, hold, exhale, and goes straight back into an inhale. You take out of that hold, people feel better, they're able to like they don't have that suffocating feeling. So a lot of people have uh PTSD anxiety, they don't feel like they're getting caught on that second half. So that was really interesting. Um, I think there's a couple photos of it where I'm showing Ryan the cranial scan and what it all means and how it ties into breath work, and we're both uh just in shock and awe. And Ryan's a complete nerd. I think he'd be okay with me saying that where I'm talking big words to him and he's understanding it. And he then he starts spitting back big words at me, and we're having this like nerd out session. Uh, there's a photo of us both having goosebumps uh based on the breath work that he does and what it affects um in terms of relaxation, uh filtration. Ryan mentioned filtration with breath work as well as just removing a lot of inflammatory markers. Um, we both had goose clubs talking about how I affect it and how he affects it versus breath work. And it was like, wow, this is awesome. So that might be a five-hour conversation that you have no idea that's about to happen.

SPEAKER_02 23:54

Yeah, well, uh, you throw Dan in there and you'll probably jump into seven. You know, just leave me out of the equation. Let's go. I'll just be doing doing a lot of this.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

We'll replace you and Brian. I like it. That's that's so interesting, though, because breath work definitely ties in big time to diaphragmatic function. Now, one thing I also want to ask you, Dr. Will, is that you know, we had this conversation with Dr. Amina last week, and I kind of brought this up is that stress and outside emotional factors can sometimes contribute to chronic pain. Now, would you say that somebody who's in a constant state of stress or emotional outside influence causes them to be in a sympathetic overdrive at all times? What would that do to the fascia? And what would that do to muscular dysfunction?

SPEAKER_00 24:41

Great question. My mentor specializes in chronic pain, actually, right? So a lot of chronic pain, I think Dr. Amina Ramina talked about it, where chronic stress creates this emotional mental cycle. We always think we're we always think we're in pain. Um, I had a really big chronic pain client last week, um, and they were effectively fishing for sympathy. Um, and so their their thoughts are creating this pain that even though, as we're working through and releasing a lot of fascial tension and allowing their body to drain everything, allowing their nerves to relax, they still were like holding on really tight to this five out of ten pain. Even though their movement was better, they were able to run, they were able to do a lot of different activities of daily living, they were just like, I'm still at five out of ten pain. And they've kind of trained themselves to to almost say, if I have a five out of ten pain, I get attention, I get somebody to work on me. They need that physical touch or whatever it may be, attention to fix something if I keep giving myself that thought of pain. And so, within my our work at the clinic, um, we getting people are like constantly at that five out of ten pain. Five, and every time you ask them, they're just at a very high level, even though it doesn't match up to any other factors of objective testing, you're just like, what is going on right now? And you start listening to their stories, it's that chronic stress, it's that chronic pain. They're just putting themselves through this cycle where if I say this, I get this, and they just keep flowing within that. And so working with a lot of mental health therapists, referring them out, moving them along the the um the health and recovery spectrum, being a friend with them though, holding them accountable and working with them through instead of saying, all right, you're good physically, you're on your own there, they're gonna feel like they've been left out again. So working with them, even though we're working on them on the structural physical aspect of it, having those dialogues and conversations that help them through, allow them to um feel heard, and then you break that cycle, whether it's with breath work, whether whether it's with a mental health therapist, whoever it may be, to get them out of just their own thoughts helps with that chronic pain syndrome type cases.

SPEAKER_02 27:31

A lot of people, you know, are afraid, right? We we kind of go back to the beginning of the conversation, you know, the whole neck crack and everything like that. But a lot of people just tend to live with pain and instead of seeking help. And like what can you what can you encourage people with today who might be suffering for something in their body that can, you know, that you can encourage them with saying, hey, you know what, you know, seek some help, what be it mental, be it physical or whatever, because you know, you you were did wonders in one hour session with me. And I was just thinking, like, wow, if I was a repeat, like I saw you weekly, you know, twice a month or whatever, like it would do serious wonders for me.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

Yeah, that's a great question or a great statement. It's you know, willpower is like I mentioned this at Impact, it's to do the hard thing today so that tomorrow is easy. That's what our ethos and mission is at the clinic. Um, we try to encourage people to live in a world or a mindset of abundance, being in fear, being in super anxious, it's inevitable. It is just being human, right? It's what our baseline is because we don't know where that tiger is gonna be, we don't know where that bear is gonna be, so we're always on alert. But if we change our mindset and our world and our perspective of living in a world of abundance, we start allowing ourselves our own willpower to start coming out where it's like, you know what, it's gonna be hard. But I know I can take that one step forward to be better so that tomorrow is gonna be even better. And that may just simply be, I know Russ. Russ is gonna be helping me out of this. I know Dan out in New York, right? Hey, Dan, I'm really struggling with this. Is there anybody that you can refer me to or recommend where I can just have a simple conversation? Absolutely, you should have a conversation with Ryan, right? Start with that breath work online, super easy. We all breathe, we have to breathe, right? So if we're doing something wrong 50,000 times a day simply to stay alive, well, let's start there, right? And that's where a lot of people are like, oh, that's so hard, I can't do it. Changing their mindset of like, hey, you can do this. I'm gonna be there right with you. We can do this together, but you gotta do it, right? It's gonna be hard, but we're gonna take that first step together. Um, and not really hand holding them, but really coaching and helping them along will be super beneficial. And that's what we do at the clinic. It's like, hey, I'm a I'm a health team partner, I'm not here to coach you, I'm not really here to fix you. A lot of people just lay on my table and they're like, fix me, I'm not gonna do anything to fix me. Like, you got yourself into the situation, you dug yourself in this hole. I'm the hand that's reaching down and help you come up, but I'm not gonna lift your entire self out of that hole. You're gonna have to dig your heels into that side of the cliff or hole and pull yourself out also as I help you, right? Or I have the rope helping you up. So this is very much of a team outfit. When we talk about health, it's always one direction. Hey, doctor, help me out. Here's a script, here's go PT, do it, do as I say. No, this is very experimental. You're gonna come back and tell me, like, hey, that didn't work, I feel worse. Awesome. Let's call an audible, let's change it up. What is your body telling me that we can help you fix yourself? And a lot of people feel empowered when they're like, oh my gosh, yeah, I'm being heard, they're listening to me, and I'm not just being thrown into this silo or this process where everyone gets the same thing. Um, I was working on an elbow yesterday, and let's see what was going on. His large intestine was restricted, right? And he's like, What kind of weird voodoo magic are you doing? I'm like, I don't know, but your scan said something down here, and I'm just working on it. His elbow completely loosened up, and I had an elbow earlier in that day, and it was his upper lobe of the lung that was causing issues with the brachial plexus, like a traditional elbow, you would think. See what the body is telling me, listen to it, and as long as you're able to listen to it, you'll usually get the answer. Yeah, yeah, that's awesome, though.

SPEAKER_01 32:16

So good, so good. I I want to I want to touch on this scan real quick. This this cranial scan. Yeah, that does that have to do with like certain zones in the back of the head. How does that work, Dr. Will? Can you just explain that real quick?

SPEAKER_00 32:28

Yeah, I don't have my scan up here. Uh I didn't bring it home, but um they'll probably yell at me for this, I'm not really sure, but based on my constant studying of this for over the last two years, the scan is really based off of everything from the center line of our skull down and then back to front, also. So everything is based off of embryology. Um, the easiest way I can explain this you look at a skull that's kind of like a baby's. I don't know if you've ever seen those in superimposed photos, but you'll have a skull and you'll have a fetus superimposed onto that skull there. Along that center line is where the spine of this fetus is is kind of superimposed there, right? So everything starts with our spinal cord. That's what was the first thing developed when we were in vitro when they're inside of our mother's belly. So everything starts there. So when that spinal cord was being developed, it needed to be drainage first. How do we get blood in and blood out? So as that thing is getting developed, we need stuff to remove itself. So that first line on the scan is typically um a lot of venous venous lymphatic drainage. It's technically cranial scans, if you're really looking at it along the center line. But from a scan standpoint, I'm looking at that. How do I help people drain, get rid of a lot of that swelling first? Then there's cartilage, then we work ourselves down into more drainage, then into the bone muscular, skeletal area, down into the viscera, down on the outside of our head here, and then we have blood supply on both sides of our head. So it's kind of you kind of have to take it, they're gonna yell at me if I give out too much more. But how the skull is laid out is simply based off of embryology. And I always thought that class was useless unless I was in uh becoming a pediatrician. And now that it's coming back full circle, I'm just like, I wish I had paid attention some more in embryology. So um it's it's humbling when you got to go back to school and relearn a lot of the stuff that you already learned once. Yeah, for sure. For sure.

SPEAKER_01 34:47

Hope that answered your question. It does. It does. Now, when you assess that, do you palpate certain areas and see what causes discomfort? Is that what you do?

SPEAKER_00 34:56

Yeah, yeah. So there's a it's all directional, right? It's very directional in which whatever way you kind of push or test. Um, and it's a quick test on the something on the bone itself, the cranium itself. I see. Um, yeah, so there'll be a restriction there. And you know, we all do it instinctually. Um, I kind of use the story when we all have a headache, we all do rub our temples. So we instinctually do it. And if like going back to listening very, very well, if they have pain, they will always tell you where and what system is going on. Um, from a counter strain standpoint, they'll sometimes point poke to their head, but there's another technique out there, um, it's called fascial distortion model. They'll point to the area that's causing a lot of pain, right? So a lot of people will go, they'll do this if it's really broad, or they'll do this, they'll grab it, or if they're grabbing the arm, they're like, Oh yeah, it feels like this, or they'll use an arm, they'll do this. They're literally telling you what is going on with their body, depending on their non-verbal cues and how they kind of show their pain is spreading away from themselves. And if you're able to focus in on how they're telling you that story of pain, um, it's very fun to start picking out little things and they're like, oh my gosh, yes, yes, yes. Um, and then you can ask them what mechanism or what activity they injured themselves on, and it gives you even more information, then you just go and treat it, and wow, they're feeling better. So uh a lot of listening, lots of listening.

SPEAKER_02 36:42

Sure, sure, yeah, yeah, like right this moment, a lot of listening. Yeah, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 36:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:50

So have you seen uh have you seen Big Dan uh up there in Portland yet? Six foot six, Dan?

SPEAKER_00 36:56

No, I have not.

SPEAKER_02 36:57

Okay. All right, he's he's gonna be hitting you up. I know that. Um, you know, and uh you know, give him the works, man. I mean, just yeah, lay it into him. You know, he's kind of a mental, he's a mental case.

SPEAKER_00 37:10

He's a good guy. He's a good guy. We're done. I'm excited to hopefully work with him soon. Um, yeah, and see what what I can do to help him. I know he's a big volleyball guy. Uh he's connected. So helping people move better, being able to tap into their their fun, functional um joys of life is really what I'm here for. Um, and what we can't do what we enjoy doing, whether it's playing with our kids, playing golf, playing tennis, playing volleyball. Um, you know, we get into our own headspace, right? And we start unraveling and snowballing in the wrong direction.

SPEAKER_02 37:46

Yeah. Well, you know, a lot of people, you know, as they age, including myself, like, you know, whether it be uh a previous injury, a broken bone, uh, whatever it may be, you know, then we end up living with this, you know, for years and years and years, and we're having this pain in this area. And then because of that pain, we end up, you know, um uh let's say, let's say we've got like for me, my ankle, right? And then all of a sudden I'm like walking differently. So now my right hip hurts, right? So people live with that stuff, right? And to try to offset that, they do something different. Now, and I had a buddy that had a knee replacement from wear and tear, but then because he walked on that knee for so long, he ended up having hip surgery and replacing his hip because he was walking differently for years, right? So, what can people do to not get in that position, especially later in life, right?

SPEAKER_00 38:51

Yeah, a lot of and we talk about prevention, right? Um, as I mentioned before, everyone thinks pain is a muscle issue, it's actually a nerve or a visceral, something else is driving that muscle to tighten up and cause pain. Yeah, um, and so you know, in your case, or a lot of people who have a knee or an ankle issue, they'll start hobbling or wobbling a little bit or start limping a little bit differently. And we're all thinking, a lot of therapists are thinking, oh, it's your quad, it's your hip, it's your QL, something in your low back that's causing your pain now because you're limping. But we neglect everything else in that area. Also, we have the femoral artery, the femoral vein, the femoral uh nerve, we have the large intestine, we have your bladder, all that tissue, fascial tissue, is all within that muscular line, also. So you go to any other therapist, they'll just start working on stretching you out, getting you stronger. But a really good provider therapist will be able to assess other areas in that same line, also, right? And if Dan's doing the surgery on a on a total knee, right, you're you got to remove a lot of the outside of the the quad, the hamstring, some of those those muscular structures. There's the nerve, there's the artery, there's the vein of the vein that runs in that area that you have to work around, also. There's a lot of other structures that make us human. And where does all that other all that go? It goes back to our heart, it goes back to our liver, our kidneys. That's what makes us an organ, right? We talk about organisms, we're simply just one that has a lot of different systems in us that make us alive. We could go around without a left leg, we cannot live without a heart, part of a lung. Um, our livers regenerate ourselves, which is nice. Um, but you know, people cut portions of their small intestine, you know, to help them with their dietary needs or whatever it may be, but we still need it. We just can't simply remove an organ. We simply will just start vegetating in that in that sense. So when we start limping, a lot of our pressures and forces go through that center line still, and we don't have an assessment to treat those other systems, we start snowballing even even worse.

SPEAKER_02 41:21

Yeah, well, if you're in the Portland and Vancouver area, please seek this dude out because Dr. Will, man, can bring it. And I'm I'm telling you, in just one one-hour session, it was amazing. I mean, thank you. Uh, yeah, no, it was and just learning a lot. As you know, it's not just assessing, he's walking you through, he's talking it through and really helping you understand your body and understanding movement and understanding restrictions. Uh, it's very super helpful.

SPEAKER_00 41:49

It's it's all about that education, right? And I'm sure Dan can kind of attest this if uh client who's going in for surgery, um, if you educate them very, very well, their prognosis is so much better because they understand they need to do this for rehab, they need to do this post-surgical, they know what to expect afterwards. It's the ones where you don't educate them, and Dan, you can probably expand on this. What does that process look like after surgery? You know, swelling-wise, if they don't get rid of that swelling, how does that all out play a part?

SPEAKER_01 42:19

100%. I think education as far as pre-surgical, uh, somebody going in for a total knee or a total hip or a spinal fusion, something along those lines, they have to know what they're getting into, first of all, because they have to know the rehab process, what it's gonna take to get better, their ambulation status post-operatively, their pain control post-operatively. If people go in with the notion that they're gonna go in for a total knee and feel great the next day because they had such a severe degree of arthritis and come out the next day and be like, wow, that arthritis is gone. I feel great. That's gonna have a poor outcome automatically, because there is a long process for rehabilitation as far as a total knee, total hip maybe a little bit less, but it's still a rehab process. Spinal fusion, very big rehab process. So you have to go in with the understanding of surgery that you're not just gonna be this magic bullet, you feel great the next day because you had all this pathology in the bony anatomy, and then all of a sudden it's fixed for lack of better words, and now all of a sudden you feel great. And you could kind of read people, first of all, when you see them pre-operatively, their motivational factor with this because they said they're like, you know, I've had pain for five years, I need to get better, I need that, you know, I'll do this, I'll do that, I'll do this. Those people have good drive. You know, they're gonna do great in rehab. There are certain other people that come in and they're like, Yeah, I need this fixed, and you could tell the drive is not always there. And those people don't do as well. And be because of that, because you know, they're like, ah, you know, I'm gonna push off physical therapy today, I'm not gonna get up, I'm not gonna ambulate. You can see it in the hospital stents and everything like that. The drive has to be there for you to get better, and you have to have the mental state that you want to get better because some people will just have this notion in their mind that because I had surgery, I should. Automatically feel better. It's not always the case. It takes the rehab, it takes the process, it takes, you know, it takes progression. And, you know, not to say surgery is the end-all fix for everything for total for you know knee osteoarthritis and everything, you could always do a lot of conservative management. But at the same time, some of those people don't give it all they have in the conservative management pre-operatively. So if they don't do that, then simultaneously, what makes you think that you're going to do great post-operatively? That's kind of how I see things. And you know, a lot of people, and I've talked to multiple people who go for rehab pre-operatively and they try to just do strengthening for quad exercises and things like that. And those people tend to do great. But uh the drive has to be there from a mental state. I think that's like one of the number one factors post-operatively that allows people to feel better.

SPEAKER_00 44:49

How do you how do you get that motivation or that drive, right? Motivation is usually the last thing to get people going, but how do you tap into that? You're like, hey, Sally, we need you to do this. I know it's it's gonna be hard. Yeah, how do you tap into that? That's hard.

SPEAKER_01 45:05

So it it that's interesting. So you have to kind of talk to people from a um how can I say this, just a human perspective, as opposed to physician to patient perspective. You have to kind of say that, okay, I understand you have this amount of pain, but you need to do this, this, and this in order for get to get this pain improved. It's not like you can do this and it's gonna be better. It has to be a sequential process. So I need you to get up today, you're gonna do this amount of steps, you're gonna work with the therapist on these exercises, and I will show you the progression from each stage. And you kind of have to talk to them more of a um just friend-to-friend standpoint, I guess I could say is the best way to say this, as opposed to being like, you're gonna do this, you're gonna do this, you're gonna do this, and you're gonna get better. It's not like that, because that automatically puts them in this state of stress and this mental state that they're not gonna be motivated enough. You have to kind of talk to them more of a, okay, let me show you what we're gonna do first, we're gonna do this second, and we're gonna do this third. We're gonna keep your pain controlled here, we're gonna do this next, and we're gonna do this next. And those people tend to progress much better than you're doing this, this, and this, and it'll get better in time. That's poorly said, in my opinion. So you kind of got to do it from a friend standpoint, if that makes sense. And you kind of coach them through each step of the process. And I feel like people will take post-surgical instructions better in phases, as opposed to saying, you know, you'll be better in six months. People don't look towards that six months, they look to post-op day one, post-op day two. They don't, they're not looking six months out, a year out. Because the first thing they're gonna say is, Yeah, my doctor told me it's gonna take me a year to get better. Well, you know, you're gonna be in a poor mental state if you're thinking a year ahead already. You have to get in a mental state that you're post-op day one, post-op day two from a spinal fusion. My goal today is to just get up and get in the hallway a little bit and walk down the hallway. Maybe next week I'll get outside more, I'll walk down the sidewalk when I'm discharged. Something along those lines. So you got to take each step in the process progressively.

SPEAKER_00 47:06

One day at a time, for sure. Yeah, because that's all you can control, right? And the next couple couple hours is like, hey, I can just go up and do 20 steps, and Dan's gonna be amazing, like super happy for me because I did that. Yeah, they're thinking I need to do 50,000 steps in the next like right month. They're like, that's way too big of a number. I don't even know if I can do that. So breaking it into chunk bite-sized chunks, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 47:32

Yeah, people don't look at just the one step in the process. And I was actually gonna ask you a similar question, kind of, and you know, I was I was gonna tie a little bit of social media here because everybody looks at social media, and everybody gets these misconceptions from social media because they're on TikTok and they're on Instagram, they're like, oh, this guy was training like this, and this guy was training like that, or she was training like this, and you know, they have all you know, they look great, they're all you know, ripped up and everything, they've only been training for three weeks, four weeks. That's not the case because it's a misconception. How do you think? And I'm sure you see a lot of patients with this. How do you think modern training culture? Because we are also a physical and mental wellness podcast, we have a lot of trainers on here. How do you think modern training culture maybe overemphasizes muscle hypertrophy and they underestimate fascial integrity? What's your take on that?

SPEAKER_00 48:25

Man, you always got to come with a stumping question, my man.

SPEAKER_02 48:30

That is a great question. First of all, spell all that, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:34

That is a great question. Um, I think from a social standpoint, social media standpoint, they are emphasizing the hypertrophy because that's what we can see. Sure. Bachelor is so underlying, it's so unsexy, but a lot of athletes feel it, they understand it. Um, if something's off, they're typically always telling you and pointing to it. But because of the culture and how we are seeing the human body, the easiest thing we can do is work on the muscle, right? Go and pump it up, get it stronger. But having a very good health partner next to you, seeing the underlying structure, right? You have that guy who can see the structure of the house. So that's what they say. Always have a good lawyer, but have a plumber and electrician in your back pocket, because if your house starts getting a little wonky, you have people to go in, like, hey, structurally, hey, this is what's going on. So a lot of people who are doing the hypertrophy, high intensity bodybuilders are case in point. Um, a lot of athletes, athletes are just big compensators. But if you have somebody who's able to identify foundational fascial structures that are hindering them from moving forward, they will always come back to you because they start unlocking the last 1%, 2% of their trading. They're gonna start seeing those big gains in terms of strength. Um, the weightlifting weight goes up, their intensity goes up. Um, you know, I have a cyclist. Gosh, this guy, I could never do it. But he does every Saturday, he goes on like 120 some mile round trip bike ride, and he does great. I was like, hey, give me a chance. I would love to work with you and see what I can do with you. And he's like, Absolutely, so you know, people who do performance they always have some set of pre-data and post-data, they're always tracking something. It's amazing. This guy's able to track his output because he's such a good cyclist. Your output doesn't change, but he's able to track how long he's able to go on that output, and it is like almost what did he say? He's able to go almost half an hour longer on the output cadence, whatever it is. He's like, Yeah, I'm able to go so much longer without fatiguing out, and the lactic acid buildup isn't happening as soon. And so these athletes are able to start figuring this out, whereas like I can go faster, I can go stronger for longer. Where do I sign up? Um, and so they're not only getting hypertrophy and looking good and getting stronger, they're like, okay, having somebody on the back end with that knowledge to help me build that strong foundation to build on top is so crucial. Um, so yeah, that fascial integrity, it's what connects us, right? Um, I don't know if there's that uh tensegrity model where like if you pull something, it's I mean the shirt's the easiest. You pull here, everything pulls this way. Um, so having somebody understanding that structure and that system is super critical for anything performance-wise or just ADL grandma who just wants to bend down and pick up uh some groceries, um, understanding how all that fascial tension um works is very critical.

SPEAKER_02 52:16

Amazing. I got one last question for you. Wellness is not about perfection, but it's about progress. Can you explain your understanding of that and what it means to you? Wellness is not perfection, but it's progress.

SPEAKER_00 52:33

It's yeah, it's progress, it's it's prevention, right? I mean, I stole this from my mentor and he gave me full permission for it. So, you know, on the first line, um I'm a healer in a in a hurting world, right? This world is always in turmoil, there's always something going on, but being that beacon where someone can come to you for help, whether it's for emotional, physical, mental help, having that guidance to kind of help them through their journey and progression um is super critical. We're we're imperfect beings, right? Um, and I'm sure Dan sees this all the time. It's like when you look at somebody's movement, they have a left and a right. We understand there's left, right brain, left brain. It's an imperfect brain, it's an imperfect world that we live in. And so understanding that and everyone has their own story, but knowing that we can listen to them, we can help them as we listen to them to progress them forward is super critical because not everyone's perfect and not I don't have all the answers, but I sure know how to at least help them get to the right answers, whether that's working with you or us or you know, someone similar in Dan's position, where it's like, you know, if I can't fix you, I tell my clients all the time if we start working on you and in two months in you have zero progress, zero. I'm moving you on, yeah. Right? I'm here to get you better. I'm not here to take waste your money, take your money, sorry, waste your time, take your money. I'm not that I'm not that person. I don't feel good doing that. I want you to see improvement, I want to see you progress in life, in your activities, uh, for a better, better outcome and just better outlook. And so um, yeah, legit. Yeah, so empowering people is huge, and that's where the willpower aspect kind of came came all around. And you know, if we're able to do the hard thing today, wake up, um, know that it's gonna be a tough day, but you know, we're gonna put in the work so that today is gonna be uh make tomorrow easy that one percent. Why not? Why wouldn't we do it?

SPEAKER_02 54:44

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, love this, man. Dr. Will bringing it on Cinco de Mayo.

SPEAKER_00 54:57

Oh man. Where can people find you? Yeah, I'm uh up up in Vancouver, Washington, uh just outside of Portland. So if you're in that Portland metro area, happy to work with you. Um, if I can't work with you, I'm sure I can find somebody who can work with you. Um, not big Dan, but the other Dan. Um and Dana, you know, they're all over the world, and there's counter strain people all over the world, also. So um you can always go onto the website to find a provider if you're not in the Portland metro area. But you can find me on the socials, Willpower Health, um, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook. Um, you can go to my website at willpowerhealth.com to find more information. Um, or if you simply reach out, I love to have conversations. And I mentioned um if I can't help you, I'm gonna make sure I can help you find somebody who can help you. Wonderful. Yeah, awesome. This was an amazing podcast.

SPEAKER_01 55:52

Thank you so much for being here today. Hopefully, again, thank you, Russ, for having me. Thank you, man. Super fun.

SPEAKER_02 55:57

Dr. Will's a great dude. Great dude. Speak him out, man. He's got a lot of knowledge, a lot of help.

SPEAKER_01 56:02

Does it? Yeah, thank you so much, everybody, for listening. Hope everybody got a lot out of today. Super informational. Dr. Will see you. Thank you so much for being here today. We'll see everybody next week. Thank you, friend.

SPEAKER_00 56:12

See you later.