Village Chiropractic & Wellness Podcast
Welcome to the Village Chiropractic & Wellness Podcast with your host, Dr. Matt Green! Join us as we explore health, wellness, and the power of chiropractic care to help you live your best life
Village Chiropractic & Wellness Podcast
EP #12:The Role of Chiropractic and Medical Care in Sports Injury Rehabilitation with Guest, Dr. Harris Masket, M.D.
What happens when pain starts limiting your activities? Do you just accept it as your new normal, or is there a path back to the movement and performance you once enjoyed? This question lies at the heart of an illuminating conversation between Dr. Matt Green and sports medicine physician Dr. Harris Maskett.
Ready to experience how chiropractic care can enhance your performance and recovery? Visit VillageChiropracticOakland.com or call 510-281-1708 to schedule your appointment today.
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There's acute injuries where something stretched farther than it seemed like it should, and people come and see that People are. I have a UFC fighter who punches things, so sometimes the hand hurts. But I also have people come in and say this has been hurting for a while and I don't know why, and that's more of the all right. Let's look at the pattern, let's look at the inflammation, let's look at what you do with your body during the day, and so many of us sit down. There's so many things that are related to sitting in cars, sitting at chair, sitting in a desk, typing and repetitive strain from the sitting position
Intro/Close:welcome
Intro/Close:to the village chiropractic and Wellness Podcast with your host, dr Matt Green.
Intro/Close:Join us as we explore health, wellness and the power of chiropractic care to help you live your best life. Let's dive into today's episode.
Dr. Matt Green:Welcome back to another episode of Village Chiropractic and Wellness Podcast. I'm Dr Matt Green. I'm your host as well as your chiropractic and Wellness Podcast. I'm Dr Matt Green. I'm your host as well as your chiropractor. I'm also the owner of Village Chiropractic and Wellness Center in the quaint little community of Montclair Village in the Oakland Hills. Today, we have a great guest. We have a great guest. We have Dr Harris Maskett, and what we're going to do today is we're going to talk about the role of chiropractic care, as well as medical care, in sports rehabilitation. And so, mr Harris Dr Harris, you deserve a great introduction, so I want to let the people know who you are, and you graduated from George Washington University Medical School in 1999 with honors and with an emphasis in nutrition. You also take care of elite and recreational athletes. You were the team physician and chief urgent care physician at UC Berkeley. You are on the medical advisory board for USA.
Dr. Matt Green:Ultimate meaning Ultimate Frisbee. You are the team physician currently for the Oakland Spiders, which is the Ultimate Frisbee professional team here in Oakland. You've been working the last 20 years as a sports medicine physician committed to athletic performance. You're a lifelong athlete. You're well, you've been a very competitive Ultimate Frisbee player. You've been in the World Championship four times and, just as a person, you're just one of the funniest persons I've met. You gave stand-up comedy a good, honest college try. Your family sends out the funniest holiday cards that anybody that I've ever seen. You're married to a beautiful wife and you have two beautiful kids, one of which graduated from high school yesterday. So you are, uh, my advisor, you're our friend group advisor and, uh, a wonderful friend, and I'm I'm super happy to have you here on the podcast. Dr harris maskett, how are you?
Dr. Harris Masket:I'm great and thank you for having me and thanks for that really sweet introduction, matt doctor.
Dr. Matt Green:Yeah, you're, you're, you're welcome, you're welcome. I'm ready to, uh, have a good conversation here, um, about this topic, something that you know a whole bunch about, and so I'm I'm happy to have you here for us to have this discussion, and so so I'm just wondering why don't you let people know what are some of the types of injuries that you most often see?
Dr. Harris Masket:That's a great, great starting point, and I just want to say one thank you to you for having me on and you actually came on my podcast, my fledgling podcast that I did about 10 years ago. And you came on and it was terrific. We had a great long discussion about our two fields, how they mesh, where they are separate. So let's keep that conversation going today.
Dr. Matt Green:Let's keep it going and, yeah, just again, just to state really the purpose. That is the purpose of this, and I think the two of us are passionate about what we do and I just hope that we just inspire somewhere the conversation between our two professions, because that's what we need. We just need more and more distinctions and people to have more and more to know what the tools in their tool belt are and that they can use with both of us. So so, yay, yay, us, yeah, terrific are and that they can use with both of us.
Dr. Harris Masket:So so, yay, yay, us, yeah, terrific. You mind restating your question so I can make sure I answer it right.
Dr. Matt Green:Yeah, no problem. Just why don't you just let people know, like, what do you most often see? What are the injuries that you most often see with people?
Dr. Harris Masket:Great. So, as you heard that, I take care of the Oakland Spiders. That's a professional Frisbee team. I see so many. You know that. Imagine if you don't know Ultimate Frisbee. You know soccer.
Dr. Harris Masket:People are running on a big field, people fall, people are trying to sprint as fast as they can. So a lot of lower extremity injuries for that team ankles, knees, but also muscle strains, pain around the hips, pain somewhere in their back, slash hip, slash belly, and they don't know why. And also when they fall down, their shoulders hurt, their necks hurt their elbows, wrists, hands, fractures of bones, all of those things. And then in my practice, my private practice that I'm doing these days, I'm calling it integrative sports medicine and the reason I'm calling it that is that I feel like what I'm trying to do I'm calling it integrative sports medicine and the reason I'm calling it that is that I feel like what I'm trying to do is integrate all of the care that I've learned the standard internal medicine that I learned, the sports medicine that was kind of standard that I did at UC Berkeley for so many years. And then the functional medicine, integrative medicine. I've been learning on my own for the last 10 years, pulling it all together. What I like to do is try to treat everyone like they were an Olympic athlete, whatever their sport is, and that could be things that aren't in the Olympics, but treating us all like we're that kind of person, how well could we be, how good could we feel. And so my integrative practice.
Dr. Harris Masket:I see people for all kinds of injuries and pain. There's acute injuries where something stretched farther than it seemed like it should, and people come and see that People are. I have a UFC fighter who punches things, so sometimes the hand hurts. But I also have people come in and say this has been hurting for a while and I don't know why. And that's more of the all. Right, let's look at the pattern, let's look at the inflammation. Let's look at what you do with your body during the day, and so many of us sit down. There's so many things that are related to sitting in cars, sitting at chairs, sitting at a desk typing and, uh, repetitive, repetitive strain, uh, from the sitting position. So I see a lot of that too.
Dr. Matt Green:Yeah, I think that that's probably where we cross over. A majority of 85% of people come in to say for me is like I didn't have a necessarily a specific fall, uh or such, but hey, this has been something that's been building over time and I'm not quite sure what has caused this. Um, a lot of people say like I didn't do anything and um, and so we have to figure out you know where where is that wear and tear, uh, injury and so on, so that they can continue to do the things that they want to do.
Dr. Harris Masket:Yeah, it's funny, the um, you know, I started doing sports medicine with a young population, college population, which is pretty common for a sports medicine doctor that you seeing young people and they they say to me, you know? They would say you know, they're 20 years old and they say I didn't do anything differently. I go to the gym all the time I do things, and then my knee started hurting Right and that that really started me wondering what are we missing here? Like there's, there's, you know, there's somebody who just is, uh, sitting there. They think they're doing the same thing every day and it made me wonder why did their tendon get inflamed? Why did their muscle get inflamed now as opposed to three months early when they did the same thing? And it really started making me think of all of the integrative things that I like looking at now, like inflammation, sleep, recovery, nutrition, and then, you know, the mental health side of this purpose meaning all of that.
Dr. Matt Green:Of course, of course, yeah, yeah, and for me it's a lot of pickleball, tennis, golf, uh, people who are running, people who just want to fit their workouts into their lives and wanting to, wanting to keep it going there. What, um, what do you think are some of the long-term effects here, of these injuries that you're seeing?
Dr. Harris Masket:Well, if we're talking about people who have pain that they don't quite understand, we'll talk about more of the ones we were just talking about the people who say, suddenly it started hurting. The problem that causes is that most folks don't come to see you and I. They just deal with this pain. They say, hmm, it hurts, well, I'll just, maybe I won't go to the gym today and maybe I won't take the stairs today and maybe I won't go for that walk.
Dr. Harris Masket:And the biggest problem I see is that people get pains and we all just kind of maybe bury them under the rug and we stop being as active. And that's when I think the real issue develops is that the pains we get, the difficulty, the lack of movement, the suddenly the alteration in our movement and our function causes us to do a little bit less. And that's the biggest problem that I see is that, you know, if we move and we move well, we keep moving well and that impacts the rest of our life. But when we stop moving, when we suddenly don't do that workout, or when we say, you know what, I'm just gonna take a nap in my car instead, because it hurts when I'm doing that walk Suddenly a lot of other things start sort of tumbling in a in a negative direction for our body. So I think that's the biggest long-term thing that I see, when, when we have injury is not being able to deal with it or not being able to recover.
Dr. Matt Green:I just, I just got like goosebumps, tingles, just that like that, that, that feeling of of of being on the other side of people and the fear that they have. There's a there's there's an underlying fear of like should I, should I keep going? Should I keep exercising? I want to, but I'm not sure how much, and it's usually, I think, maybe you get. The same thing too is like a lot of people come in with like a black or white should I exercise or not? Should I do it? Should I not? And I think there's so much gradations within like should I or shouldn't I there? And I think that that's probably where the both of us, where we shine is in the guidance, in the answering specific questions and continuing to guide people so that they can start to feel a sense of hope. Because that's, you know, that's that's usually what I see is that, like they're exercising, they get that injury and then and then, just like you said, then they just stop and that's it. Yeah, totally.
Dr. Harris Masket:It's really interesting that fierce when you said that. It really connected for me because you know, as an athlete you said I play ultimate frisbee still with anything you're doing past the age of 40 or certainly 50, you're going to go through pain, you're going to go through injuries and you have those moments where you say maybe I can't do this anymore and then you get panicky. Maybe I can't lift weights like that, maybe I shouldn't ever run again and you get really anxious and a lot of meaning comes up around what that's about and I think one of the biggest things that a sports medicine doctor should be able to do for patients, and the biggest things that any of us go through, is helping us learn to trust our body, to move again through a little discomfort and I'm sure you see this all the time is what discomfort is good, okay, and what discomfort is oh. Actually listen to that. Let's not have it. Alter our mechanics and the way we hold things, move, transition.
Dr. Matt Green:That kind of thing. That's right, that's in that area of gradation, right, that's. It's now where we've gone away from like yes or no, Like okay, well, how about yes, what's 10%, yes, what's 20%? And then testing that like, hey, what's the what's the good pain? Do you want to say a little bit more about that? Cause I think you've said I've heard you talk about that before what is the good pain? What is, what is the not good pain?
Dr. Harris Masket:That's a terrific one. I love guiding people through that. The most terrific example I ever had of it, I think, has to be when my daughter recovered from her ACL surgery, because I lived with that patient and I got to see what it was like to you know. All right, this is how you activate the muscles in your body that are the ones that you want to activate. These are the long-term stabilizing muscles. How do you activate those while you're breathing, while you're standing, while you're walking? I find that to be sort of a really nice grounding place. And then what muscles get activated when you get anxious, when you go into fight or flight? Okay, those are the ones we're trying to calm down and not use while we're breathing, walking, standing.
Dr. Harris Masket:And learning how to move yourself through and feel the good ones and let the let the non good ones relax is really tricky, because during all of it, whenever you have an injury, there's pain, and pain is emotional and pain is physical. You know pain, you feel it and you're like, oh, should I push through that? And then the fear shows up. So I really think it's a fascinating piece of all of this is learning what to trust and sort of establishing a real good baseline in our body and when we do that, I find that that's some wisdom that you can gets better and better and better. So I love guiding people to that. I think it helps people get a good, solid sense of how they move through all of these things going forward. Yeah, and it's.
Dr. Matt Green:I'm just getting a sense of how they move through all of these things going forward. Yeah, and I'm just getting a sense of the courage that it takes because it's so easy, like you were talking about like. Well, I guess that's it. I guess this is the way it is now, and what a delicate balance that is for both of us to challenge people and also to accept with where they're at and to have compassion for that point of limitation that they've now arrived at. And then also the okay, let's see if there's more, let's see if there's more, let's see if you can continue to move through that gradations towards, from a no towards possibly going back to doing what they want to do.
Dr. Harris Masket:Yeah, I like to give people, as they leave, one thing they can do with their body. That's like all right, you can do this, this will feel stable, this is good, this is solid, you can lean on this. And if I give people that, they usually walk out feeling okay, I can stand a little more tall, I can stand a little more tall, I can breathe a little better in that position. Okay, I've landed on something. My body likes me, I'm okay.
Dr. Matt Green:I have a good relationship with my body. That's potent right there. To have that conversation Okay, wait, my body likes me, because there really is that conversation of like that adversarial conversation between me and my body. And to have that conversation wait, wait, my body likes me. I'm going to borrow that.
Dr. Matt Green:I like that, but it's a big deal, you know, for people to not do that, because it also affects their social life too. You know, if all their friends are out there playing pickleball or all their friends golf, and they're not able to do it, it's a strong effect on them. And, as well as you know, for me personally, you know, exercise for myself. I'm not on a team, but it's my special alone time. It's the time where I get to really process things in a good deep way, and so this is important, it's important We've been talking about some of the treatment approaches there. Anything else that you want to say? Just in terms of, maybe, some specific things that you do like when people come in and in terms of like what specific things you use to help folks?
Dr. Harris Masket:I like to think in terms of in terms of chronic injury, or in terms of something that's been going on for a little while and you can't figure it out. I like to start with the core.
Intro/Close:And.
Dr. Harris Masket:I think the core is basically from our throat down to our pelvis, but I extend it to our feet because that core, that sort of center of us, we hit the ground. We're in a gravity-based planet and we hit the ground at our feet. So I like to start at our core and our feet and I give people some real good exercises to do with their toes and their feet, to get stable, to feel like they're adding to their balance, their stability, and then to feel like they can do that in a painless way that makes them feel strong yet balanced. For some people it feels like they're lithe, like a ballerina, while they're breathing.
Dr. Harris Masket:If people can sort of, you know, come back to the center, if I can give them a way to come back to the center of this is stability in my core, this is stability on my feet. That's a great way to go. And then I give them toe exercises, foot exercises, ankle exercises they get them really solid on their feet and then breathing core exercises. And usually you know the body wants to heal. Almost always in many situations you can come up with examples that's not the case, but the body does want to heal, it wants to come back to a good way of operating and I find that the core and the feet are a great way to say okay, let's get that system working positively again. Totally.
Dr. Matt Green:Totally. I have a little sign in my room that has the five major mechanisms of the ankle, and so, as I'm evaluating the ankle and feeling which direction, which one of them is the most limited, then I can just point to them and have them practice that too. So that's also something that I feel I got real early that you know the feet. I love it that you said the core is from the throat to the feet. Some people think like well, the core is just your six pack. Nope, it's a little bit more than that. But yeah, to start at the feet, it's so, it's so fundamental. What else, what else? What else to do?
Dr. Harris Masket:Well, great. So I like to talk to people about their pillars of their health. So you know the pillars of health from the integrative model of looking at healthcare. It's not that you take in deal with toxic relationships, deal with the challenges of your life, your work, your family. So there's a recovery component, there's a nutritional component, there's a movement component, which is exercise, working out the things that I love to talk about, but that's also how you move, sit.
Dr. Harris Masket:I like to look at the mental health side, the meaning you make out of this, the toxins you're exposed to, and all of these buckets. Those all combine for your overall health. So I like to address those, even if we're only addressing them with a few questions each, and figuring out where's the place where we need to start. You know what place is not getting our attention. There might be a leak in our bucket, and if the leak in our bucket is pretty big, no matter how many things I give you to do, we're not really gonna get very far. So I like to look at the leak, but a simple way of saying it is where's their inflammation? Where? How are? How is our hormone balance? How is our energetic balance? Are we creating energy or are we just dripping energy out the hole in our bucket every day? And if I can do that, then you know end our core is working, then we start to add. You know like the body wants to start to add and improve yeah, yeah oh, that was nice, uh's great.
Dr. Matt Green:Anything else you want to add, just in terms of like, how you approach and what your tools and what you use.
Dr. Harris Masket:I like to get some data like let's take a look, since you know, there's some things we can feel intuitively. There's some things you can feel in your body, like pain, tightness, things like that, and there's some things you can't feel. What's going on, what you don't you know it's hard to feel if I have inflammatory fat in my core. It's hard to feel what my skeletal muscle mass is. So I like measuring these things to figure out how's my body working in terms of my metabolism. Things to figure out how's my body working in terms of my metabolism. So I like to measure that.
Dr. Harris Masket:I love to do some advanced exercise testing to figure out how am I using my fuel when I exercise, and that involves using our exercise lab that I have here at Gizen where I'm working.
Dr. Harris Masket:And then I love to get other data, like continuous um data, like continuous glucose monitors, um, because that's some more data Like I have no idea what happens in my body when I eat an apple, but now I do, because I wear this monitor and I can see.
Dr. Harris Masket:You know, how am I dealing with blood sugar when I'm exercising, when I'm sleeping, when I'm recovering? So I like using these metrics to figure out some of the what's going on behind the scenes that I may not be aware of, and I like putting that all in to help people come up with a nutrition plan, to come up with a movement plan that really works specifically for that person, and then to measure those things over time to see is this working as we expected. And then I like doing a functional movement analysis, which is, I'm sure, something similar to what you do, but maybe in my own little different way of watching somebody move, stand, breathe, watching the way they articulate their body, the way the joints move as they squat, as they stand, as they take one foot, another foot, tippy toes, all the different, uh, postures that I've learned to figure out where people are holding their body, where they're holding their stress what moves well, what doesn't?
Dr. Harris Masket:and then I check that over time too, to see are we getting where we wanted?
Dr. Matt Green:yeah, it's great. It's great, it's so good to hear the things that, uh, that I, that, um, well, it's just so great to hear what you do, you know, I mean, I know, but it's so good to hear the things that, uh, that I, that, um, well, it's just so great to hear what you do, you know, I mean, I know, but it was just great to hear that, um, and the things that I can really relate to is that I also am. Really it's important for me to remind people that this is how your body moves naturally and that your body does have the ability to heal itself, and that the bringing back that sense of hope, that where people have felt lost and where people have felt that they've resigned, that there's a possibility for them to move forward. I approach it like the biomechanical, like the body's a biomechanical puzzle, and I want to make sure that all those different pieces all fit together and that each joint is designed to dissipate stress. And so, as we land on that foot and push off on that big toe, if all 26 of those joints are all gliding and moving the way that they're meant to, then the stress will dissipate and the stress will move straight up through the knee and then, if the knee is sitting right on top of itself, then that will dissipate and the stress will move straight up through the knee. And then, if the knee is sitting right on top of itself, then that will dissipate the stress correctly and then go right to the hip and all the way up. And so that's what I'm looking for.
Dr. Matt Green:I'm looking for those places. Is that knee externally rotated? Is the ankle not gliding and moving freely? Because when that happens, then that stress gets stuck in that joint there and at that point the body has to work harder to stabilize and to work harder to keep that joint moving. And if it's not moving, then someone else has to do the job.
Dr. Matt Green:And so I'm looking to put together that biomechanical puzzle together so that that stress dissipates and flows evenly, the way that it's naturally designed to.
Dr. Matt Green:And also, when there's that injury, the brain goes into a protection mode around that area, and a chiropractic adjustment is designed to free that brain from that mode and allow it to have a bit of moment of breath, of pause, to reevaluate and to reset itself, so that it can then reset the nervous system, so that it can properly tell all those muscles and tendons and ligaments exactly how to move. And the other tool that I use is ART active release technique. It really is the gold standard in soft tissue treatment and it just helps those muscles and tendons and ligaments, remind them how they're naturally meant to move. I'm kind of like sometimes I'm like the iron and there's wrinkles in the tissue and it's my job to get in there with the iron to iron out those wrinkles so that those joints can move much more freely in the way that they're designed're designed to cool stuff we're doing, you and me, yeah yeah, I love art as well I tend to use that more on the sideline with the frisbee team.
Dr. Harris Masket:I use pnf with them. I love regenerative medicine. In my clinic I get to use shockwave medicine or shockwave treatment, which is a an an interesting tool, uh, for regenerative um treatments. I like using platelet rich plasma and other um, uh, other regenerative medicine techniques and treatments too.
Dr. Harris Masket:Sometimes the body gets a little bit stuck, like you're saying, like we're saying, and, uh, you know you need to. Just how, how else can I help the body just, uh, move again in the right direction, and sometimes the pain we're going through, the dysfunction we're going through, kind of makes us hold, not even in our minds that we're trying to. It just kind of starts to hold in a dysfunctional movement pattern, and there's a lot of different tools that you need to try Everyone's a little different for helping break that pattern and move back in a direction that works for the body. The amazing thing is, though, the body wants to, like we keep saying the body wants to move like that again, and I have this terrific physical therapist I work with who, just you know, the other day she said, and I really liked this she said, yeah, you're just telling the atoms which way to move again, and they'll do it because these things are moving, these things are evolving, these things are changing.
Dr. Matt Green:I remember I had that moment of like where I felt like I had to do the work to push the body back into that direction, and when I had that realization of like wait, the body already wants to do it, of like wait, the body already wants to do it. I just have to find the places where it's having trouble doing it and get it out of the way and allow the body just to do what it already knows how to do. It's so good. What should people do to work to prevent injuries?
Dr. Harris Masket:what do you have on that one?
Dr. Harris Masket:there, yeah, terrific, uh, I so I think it helps to have had so many injuries that I've had. Um, you know, one of the things that I think having so many injuries, I realized a pattern and that's what got me to some of the things we've talked about. I realized a pattern in my recovery always came back to stabilizing proximally with my core, breathing through that, articulating all the way from my, you know, from my feet up to my throat. And when I did that and I did that every day and I just spent even five minutes sort of reminding my body oh, this is how we move, this is what we do every day. If I did that every day, suddenly things wouldn't happen. So it took a while. It took me a lot of years of pain and recovery and different treatments and different providers.
Dr. Harris Masket:I went to see you, matt, I went to see physical therapists and other folks, but I find that if we can spend a little time every day bringing awareness and intention to our movements, you know you're not going to do it 100% of the time, even if you know. Let's say, right now you had a little meter on your watch that said you are intentional with your movements 3% of your day. Okay, great, that's a number. What if? What if that went up to 5%? Well, that allows every other tissue. You have to be spending a little less time on the healing because now there's 5%, now you're 5% of the time where things are moving, and if that goes up to 10% or 20%?
Dr. Harris Masket:So I tell my athletes all the time listen when I'm telling you how to walk correctly or use your hamstring correctly so that your knee starts hurting less. I'm not telling you to do it all day long. I'm saying if we go from doing it 10% of the time to 30% of the time and when you jog and do your warmups you're doing it more that's probably enough to have your body take over and do the rest. You're just shoving it. You know like helping take over and do the rest, you're just shoving it. You know like helping a little kid ride a bike. You're just pushing it in a direction. It's going to do the rest on its own Right. I like that analogy.
Dr. Matt Green:Yeah, that's good. I have a little sign up on my wall that says yes, no, maybe so, and it always gets a little chuckle. But the joints move in three planes of motion and I just nicknamed them the yes plane, like in the sagittal plane, like no in rotation and I don't know, maybe so, and so it makes it easy, it's easy for people to remember. But the exercise is to hold at the end range for each one of those directions, and so I'm holding for 10. I'm holding for 10. And so it's 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 seconds for 10,. I'm holding for 10. And so it's 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 seconds, and so you've spent 60 seconds allowing the brain to to see and feel where that end range is and holding it there so it could take a picture of where it is.
Dr. Matt Green:And for me that's, you know, one minute for the neck and upper back and one minute for the lower back, and then there's my two minutes and it's something that that's my special thing, and I'm sure anybody who's a patient of mine who's listening to this right now is smiling, because we always talk about yes, no, maybe so. Rhymes is cute, but it's also, it's great. I'm just agreeing with you. It's so good to have those little tiny touch points to keep reminding the body to move forward in the good direction there.
Dr. Harris Masket:Anything else that you do just in terms of preventative I was hoping I was going to get to say one more thing, because there's so much. We could talk about this for hours. But I had this professional football player who I was taking care of and we were talking about what he eats and he works out like four hours a day. I mean, he works out like a madman, but he was eating at the time like a 16 with you know, at a McDonald's and I we got to the point of saying what if your workouts I'm sorry, what if your, your food was a workout too? And he said, whoa, whoa, I'm not doing a good workout then.
Dr. Harris Masket:And so what I started realizing as I learned more about inflammation is that if we can treat our food not all the time I don't want you to have that relationship but, uh, if you can treat your food, your intake, what you're putting in your body, like it's part of the thing that's making you better, that's healing you, um, that's a really nice relationship to have and it makes me really want to, you know, decrease my inflammation and add things that make my body work well. And when I started doing that, I started noticing, wow, my joints didn't hurt. I mean, there's an interesting story my son was gluten sensitive, and it took me 10 years to realize that he was my son. And maybe I'm gluten sensitive too. I don't know why he was gluten sensitive.
Dr. Harris Masket:He was gluten free in his diet for 10 years and one day I said Wait a second, what if I am too? So I stopped eating gluten and instantly so many things got better Inflammation in my joints improved, skin changes improved. I lost like three pounds of just a little bit of uh fat and uh. It made me realize, oh wait, there's more to what I'm doing. It's not just my movement, it's not just my exercise, it's not just my workouts, it's what I'm putting in my body too. Our food is the number one source of our energy, but also the number one source of our inflammation.
Dr. Matt Green:Yeah, yeah, and so great, so great that you're paying such good attention to that. I would. I would say for me, the most important thing for me in terms of being preventative is just to make sure that what we were talking about is that our brain feels safe, and our brain feels safe when it's getting balanced and symmetrical information, and to make sure that that right and that left foot are moving the same, both of those knees are gliding, moving the same, that pelvis is sitting right there in neutral position and when it's moving, it's got its full range of motion. And when the brain is continually getting signals that everything's the same from right to left, it feels much more safe. And then it's much more able to adapt, much more able to adapt to sitting for 10 hours a day, to, or you know, in terms of like being athletic, you know, going out there and pushing the body to its limit so that it can adapt to those stresses. And that ART is so good. I just, I love.
Dr. Matt Green:I have a whole podcast that I did. It was, I think it was the second one on. Art is so good. I just, I love I have a whole podcast that I did it was the second one on ART, about how great that ART is just in terms of really being preventative and to find, just like you were talking about, there's some things that we can feel and there's some things that we can't feel, and it's so great to use that ART to find those places that are tight and restrictive, that people might not be feeling yet, and to free them up so that they can move and do the things that they love to do. I think what I wanted to also talk about was just how can we increase performance enhancement. I think we've been talking about that. Is there anything else that you wanted to add, just in terms of, you know, we've been talking about preventative, but also just to flip the coin, like what can we do? What do you do to help people be better?
Dr. Harris Masket:That's a great question. I mean, it's such a gray area in our society because performance enhancement almost sounds like performance enhancing medications, drugs, and are they illegal? And it's funny I was in sports medicine at a university for so long and I watched the discussion from the perspective of drug testing athletes and checking levels of caffeine in their bloodstream and deciding whether or not we could give them an inhaler prior to an event. If we had given them the prescription prior to the event but in enough time before the NCAA tested it. It's such a strange conversation when you look at it from that lens.
Dr. Harris Masket:But really all of that we're talking about is performance enhancing you know if you just wake up in the morning and try to play a sport without any, you know, any preparation. Obviously you won't do as well as if you do any of the things we've talked about. But you know what I love learning about and spend endless hours reading papers on is well, what else? What happens if I have caffeine before I go for a run? Well, it turns out, it makes my run easier. My blood vessels dilate better, my heart rate goes up a little bit higher, I'm more attentive to it. Well, that's interesting.
Dr. Harris Masket:So caffeine is a performance enhancer. And then you know, just once you open up to that perspective, so many things can enhance your performance. And so you know, if somebody's body isn't working very well to absorb for I'll just choose CoQ, enzyme 10, because it's an interesting one If you don't absorb it very well and some people don't your level is low. And if you supplement with that one little pill, all of a sudden you feel so much better, your workouts are better. So I love finding out what people aren't you know what isn't working as easily for their body, right?
Dr. Harris Masket:now and helping to specifically, you know, tailor a performance program for them. But across the board, everyone does better with a certain amount of nutrition. So I love performance enhancing with protein intake timing your carb intake, timing your recovery, and I love performance enhancing with the right supplements. But then also tailoring the right workout, and that's why I do exercise testing and helping people figure out, not only from a cardiovascular standpoint, from a strength standpoint, what their workouts should be. And then there's other ways to enhance performance with peptide medications, making sure their hormones are at the right level so that they can respond to their workouts.
Dr. Harris Masket:Well, this is really an area that is just exploding, and I think the word performance enhancement and the word longevity there's a big gray, blurry area right in the middle there, and I think you'll find a lot of the same subjects are being talked about, like when I go to a sports medicine conference, you'll hear them talk about hormones and you'll hear them talk about supplements. You'll hear them talk about hormones and you'll hear them talk about supplements and you'll hear them talk about the type of workout, same thing at a longevity conference, but it's just flipping the script around.
Dr. Matt Green:What is our goal here? The context of it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's some really exciting stuff happening with chiropractic right now, especially with the Journal of JMPT, journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapies, as well as New Zealand College of Chiropractic. These guys are doing some amazing things.
Dr. Matt Green:I saw a video of a chiropractor working with a professional basketball player and he had the basketball player hold the ball really close to the floor and let go, and then it bounced and he caught it and said his job was to catch it as quickly as possible and did it a few times, brought him over to the table, adjusted him and went right back and he dropped the ball and he caught it before it hit the ground over and over and over. And you can see the kind of surprise in the basketball player like wow, how did that just happen? And so increased reaction time has been an exciting new realization that the chiropractic adjustment can increase. Obviously, we're increasing range of motion. We're finding those places where those joints are not having their full range of motion and increasing those Also, just when the muscles get stronger, when the neuromuscular control is increased and the muscle inhibition is decreased, and so then they're finding that people are getting stronger. Also, just increased recovery time, just like we've been talking about, when the nervous system is just much more at ease and much more in its parasympathetic mode, we recover more quickly.
Dr. Matt Green:And as well as just the basic talk of, also, what we've been talking about is just decreasing injuries. When the body works better, it gets injured less and also just the chiropractic adjustment, also helping to decrease pain and, as you know, as we both know, when we, when we're in less pain, we're we're more effective, um, and just the overall putting together the body and looking at the body as a biomechanical puzzle, and when all the pieces fit together, we're much more able to be balanced and symmetrical and stronger out there, um, and so it's exciting. It's exciting for me to put together, for me to know some of this and also for me, in prep for this podcast, to look through some of these studies here and what's happening. And I actually had a moment where I was like, hey, I would love to be able to do that. Whoa, I do do that.
Dr. Harris Masket:It's great stuff, anything else that you?
Dr. Harris Masket:wanted to add, you and I sound like we're both, uh, we're both noticing that everyone is a unique puzzle and, uh, while there is a pattern to movement and a pattern to nutrition, uh, everyone's sort of a unique and interesting puzzle of reactions to the way they grew up, the way their day went, and, and, and you know it's. I really love, you know, the internet these days, the apps that we use, whether it's you know it's TikTok or Instagram, where you're looking at these reels of people doing all these workouts and all these cool things, and I love looking at those. But I also want to let everyone know, and I'm sure you do too, that we're all still a little. We're all pretty unique and we can't do the things that we see somebody do just because they do them. We all bend in different ways, we all have inflammation in different ways, and I think it's just terrific to get sort of personalized care so somebody can really look at you, talk to you, evaluate you and help you do those things that you want to do.
Dr. Matt Green:Yeah, Amen, hey. Any last advice that you would give athletes someone who is on the couch wanted to get up, someone who's an Olympic athlete, like you said, any last little bits of advice that you would want to partake that maybe you haven't said.
Dr. Harris Masket:Well, you know, I, I, we, when I've talked about this, I say I keep telling people that we are all athletes, which I think some people find that provocative and upsetting, and they say I'm not an athlete and I think we all have different sport and we haven't necessarily invented the name of the sport for everybody. But everybody has a body that wants to do certain things. Everybody has a body that has some superpowers and some things that are more challenging. Everybody, even the NFL players, have things that they don't do well and that they do. And what I like to help people do is figure out what's yours, because if we figure that out, you will have an area where you can get challenged and then get a little bit better.
Dr. Harris Masket:And getting a little better where you didn't think you could do something. That's that's the most inspiring thing that you feel in your body. It makes you want to do more. So, um, I think helping people figure that out is really it's inspiring to me. And, uh, you know I'm, I know that you know I, you, you read in my bio that I've been playing in these world championships and national championships, but, just like everybody, I feel like, oh, I'm not an athlete, I can't do this, I suck compared to them. But then you find these little things that you get good at, and I've just had some success at the little things that I'm good at and it just snowballs, and so I think everyone has that potential.
Intro/Close:Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Matt Green:Yeah, well, I mean, that's probably what drives us to continue to get up and get to and do what we do.
Dr. Matt Green:Is that that moment, when we see that face change on the person that we're working with, of, like, their eyebrows go up a little bit, their eyes open a little bit more, they get, they get a little excited and then they come back and then they've used the things that we've suggested and to see that trajectory of their life moving in much more of a positive direction. It's, yeah, it's, it's, it's the juice, it's the good stuff. I mean, I and I would say that the thing that I would want people to know is that chiropractic is not just for injury maintenance, not just for neck and back pain, is that, it's just a powerful performance enhancement tool and it's something that not only with sports and not only with that, but with people living their life, and that I'm always encouraging people just to give chiropractic a try. And that, and me personally, you know to trust me, and that's what it takes is for people to give it a shot. So, harris, any last words, any last thoughts?
Dr. Harris Masket:Yeah, people can find me at Jison.
Dr. Matt Green:Oh, thank you Sorry. Where can people find you?
Dr. Harris Masket:I'm in Marin County, in Mill Valley, and it's a beautiful practice where we're getting to do a lot of these really interesting integrative medicine things, cool technologies and fun cutting-edge things, so it's a great place to come check out. Say the name of it again. Yeah, it's Jizen. It's spelled J-Y-Z-E-N.
Dr. Matt Green:Great, that's awesome. Thanks, harris, I really appreciate your time. That was a great, great conversation and I really, really, really hope that the people listening here got a lot of tools that make their life even better. Yeah, I love what you're doing, dr Matt, thanks, thanks, harris, I appreciate it.
Intro/Close:Thanks for tuning in to the village Chiropractic and Wellness Podcast with Dr Matt Green. For more information or to schedule an appointment, visit our website at VillageChiropracticOaklandcom or call us at 510-281-1708. Stay well and we'll see you next time.