Haque's Health Hacks
Haque's Health Hacks with Dr. Anita Haque
Haque's Health Hacks
From the Ring to Real Life: Health Hacks for Performance and Recovery with Guest Andre Ward
What does an undefeated boxing legend know about maintaining peak health that the rest of us don't? As it turns out, plenty. Anita Haque sits down with guest Andre Ward, Olympic gold medalist and Hall of Fame boxer, as he takes us behind the scenes of his remarkable career to reveal how chiropractic care became a cornerstone of his success both in and out of the ring.
Ready to take control of your health? Visit haquechiro.com or call 925-960-1960 to learn more about how chiropractic care can become part of your wellness strategy.
I was a fighter who I had a lot of movement, sometimes unorthodox movements, and I've also had some knee injuries. So to keep my neck and my spine aligned but then also, you know, the other joints in line, it just enabled me to train at the level that I wanted to train at. You know, people focus a lot on the actual competition day or the actual fight night on the actual competition day or the actual fight night, but it's really the eight weeks that I had in training camp and trying to stay healthy, to get through it and then recover from one session to the next. So chiropractic played a major role in that.
Intro/Close:Welcome to the Haque's Health Hacks podcast, your trusted source for wellness, fitness and healthy lifestyle insights. We believe in empowering you with knowledge to take control of your health. Join us as we explore the latest in self-care, share expert advice and guide you on your journey to optimal well-being. Let's embark on this path to a healthier you together.
Anita Haque:Hello, hello, hello and welcome to this month's podcast, Haque's Health Podcast, and I'm so ecstatic because this month I get to feature a very extraordinary individual that I've had the honor of being able to take care of through chiropractic Since 2010,. I'd like to introduce Andre Ward. Since 2010,. I'd like to introduce Andre Ward and, for those of you listeners who may know nothing about boxing, andre Ward is a I'll let him speak all his accolades, but he is definitely a pioneer. He's been not only an Olympic champion I believe he's a middleweight champion and even though he's retired from boxing, he's not retired in the boxing realm.
Anita Haque:So, andre, thank you so much for coming on and being my guest and maybe we can share with our listeners a little bit about some of your journey with chiropractic and through your own health. You have been a patient of mine. I looked through my records since 2010, which is kind of crazy. I know 15 years of us knowing each other. I'm curious if you would share with our listeners, if you could walk us through, like how you first kind of discovered chiropractic, what kind of brought you in, you know, especially as a professional boxer at the peak of your career.
Andre Ward:First of all, thank you for having me Finally happy to be on your show. We've been talking about it for some time now and I did not know that you've been treating me and my family since 2010. I thought it was maybe 2015, 2014. So that's amazing. It just speaks to the quality of care that we get at your facility and just overall. So it's good to have some go-to person that you can go to and then also refer people to as well.
Andre Ward:You know my journey started, you know, through sort of some ignorance, right Like I just heard, that chiropractic was good for you. You know, my trainer and my coach said we need to do this and aligned your back and aligned your neck, and I'm like okay, so we just went. But the more I studied it, it started to make more and more sense of just. You know, especially being a fighter, sometimes you get hit and your neck snaps back, or it's certain training techniques that you do and you know your neck is just out of alignment, your back is out of alignment. I just started to understand the importance of that and it was just. It's a piece of the puzzle. You know there's a lot of other things you can do for your health, but that the chiropractic piece was really, really important and I'm happy and I know I'm healthier because I embarked on this very, very early.
Anita Haque:Well, awesome, yeah, thank you for saying all that and also for you know always I know you send me so many referrals of amazing people that I get to help, so I always appreciate that as like the biggest compliment for me. Now question I know you know you're an undefeated champion. You have titles with super middleweight and light heavyweight. How did you find during that time when we started working together, you know, doing the adjustments like, did it prepare you in any way for your fights or was there any like particular things you noticed after getting adjustments, you know, in terms of mobility or possibly like pain management? Because I remember when I was seeing you at the training camp, you were like doing so much with your body. You know your routines were super hard with the training, beyond belief. So yeah, I was just curious on how that kind of played a role for you.
Andre Ward:Yeah, again, it was. It was a, it was a piece of the puzzle, but it's a major piece. There's times that my C2, my C3, and my neck gets locked up and it's very uncomfortable To be able to get that alignment. Obviously there's immediate relief, but also just with my spine and my hips and just my full body. I was a fighter who had a lot of movement, sometimes unorthodox movements, and I've also had some knee injuries. So to keep my neck and my spine aligned, but then also, you know, the other joints in line, it just enabled me to train at the level that I wanted to train at. You know people focus a lot on the actual competition day or the actual fight night, but it's really the eight weeks that I had in training camp and trying to stay healthy, to get through it and then recover from one session to the next. So chiropractic played a major role in that.
Anita Haque:Yeah, you actually kind of brought up something I was going to ask you about, because I know you mentioned your knee, but you also, I think, in 2015,. Right, your knee was an issue where it kind of affected part of your training and part of your fight. And then I think you also had, like in 2013, some shoulder like surgery. So you guys have rehab going on um as well. So you know how, like how did? Do you? Do you feel like there's any specific hacks with what you had to do during those times with those injuries? I'm sure other fighters probably have had to deal with this too, but any hacks that helped you bounce back faster, stronger, you know, to be able to still go forward and fight at the level that you did and win, of course, so, yeah, I think I think it's detail, because you know, I'll just use boxing as an example, Like you can focus on what you know.
Andre Ward:Know trainers call like the bully muscles, like the biceps, triceps, and I want to work my conditioning, but we don't think about ligaments and tendons. And it just took a few injuries for me and a couple of surgeries where I realized that, oh okay, so this prehab, taking care of my body, to to be in a position to prevent injury, is so important, but more so it's gonna. It's gonna give me longevity in the sport, because I don't want to get cut on, I don't want to have any more surgeries. That that was that was really, really important for me. And then understanding that my body was the moneymaker, my body was obviously integral and important to me. You know continuing a career and building a legacy, so I have to take care of it.
Andre Ward:So as I got older, I spent more time and money or maybe equal amount of for rehab, prehab, soft tissue work and then chiropractic work than I did even for my training. So when you're younger you can get away with it. In most cases you can kind of cheat the system. You don't have to warm up as much. You just kind of go. You don't have recoveries not really a big deal. But when you start getting into those early to mid thirties, you've had a few injuries. You start to respect the body and you start to listen to what the body's telling you, and my body was screaming. We need to take care of us if we're going to last, and that's what I tried to do with all the different things that I implemented.
Anita Haque:Yeah, and you do such a great job. And even after you know post fighting, you're still doing so many things. I see and you know I got the honor to take care of you throughout, like the months that each week we get to kind of see each other, and I know you're working out, you're still doing, you're still focused on your nutrition. You're still focused on, you know you're still focused on your nutrition. You're still focused on, you know, feeding your body right, thinking right, moving right, getting your adjustments, even though you're not training for a fight anymore, you know, like you used to, but I can see that your, your commitment of understanding how important taking care of your body is. That's really your wealth. Right, your health is your wealth. I know that that term is used. It's so true. As you get older, you start to notice that so much more. Um, I did have one question, though, for you when you mentioned something about prehab, just so we're clear what is prehab? Because I thought a lot of people never even heard that term before.
Andre Ward:Yeah. So I'll give you an example. Like when I had my shoulder surgery, part of the rehab was manual resistance. Like I would lay on a table and the physical therapist would like put my shoulder in a compromised position and I would sort of resist her hand. Then she'd take me to the position and I resisted. Then she's reversing and I go backwards and it's working all the ligaments, tendons, muscles, the front, the side, the back, and then also, you know, having thorough, thorough bands or some type of band where you can, you know, sort of have something under your arm and position the shoulder and then work the external and internal rotator for your shoulder. I can do that without having an injury. So that's the prehab part. So instead of rehab is post-surgery, prehab is trying to prevent from even having surgery.
Anita Haque:That makes so much sense.
Anita Haque:I think that you said something that I would love to just sort of, for our listeners' sake, maybe shine a light on is.
Anita Haque:What you mentioned was so, so poignant that most people, even when they're working out, they're not even necessarily like an athlete at the level you know in terms of boxing and professional sport.
Anita Haque:But you know, a lot of times we think about our biceps, our hamstrings, our quads, the big muscles, but we forget that what those big muscles lead to are these tiny strings, which are known as tendons and ligaments that attach to joints, so that big muscle can't work right If the glue, the part of the muscle that's attaching to the joint, isn't working right or the joint isn't moving right, that can affect the whole biomechanics of that muscle contracting properly, of that joint functioning properly, which, of course, as you mentioned earlier, andre, will possibly lead to more damage or injuries, which is going to put you out further. So yeah, working on honing and strengthening the tendons, the ligaments, which are the small parts of the big group of muscles that form a joint, is so crucial at any stage for anyone whether, like I said, they're an athlete or not to have proper biomechanics and, obviously, motion and function. So such a good point. I'm glad you brought that up. Like I said, a lot of our listeners may never have even heard of these things.
Andre Ward:So you know, go ahead. Before I went into rehab I hadn't heard of prehab, I knew nothing about that. But you know I didn't want to waste that surgery or that off time that I had to kind of rehab. I was trying to learn everything I could and put myself in a better position to not end up there again.
Anita Haque:Yeah, that's one of the things that I think puts you ahead is you actually take the time to, you're interested in really finding out what is it that's going on in your body, kind of understanding it to a level, because I think when you understand it then you can really hone it and take charge of it much, much better than just being so clueless and thankfully we have at our fingertips the information right, like nowadays.
Anita Haque:It's like, yeah, how can you not find out and then you find a good professional or an expert in that that field. So you know, I know, you know, over the years, boxing obviously probably demanded I don't know, you know better had probably demanded so much resilience, incredible resilience from you. How did you feel, like your regular adjustments that we did, you know for, like that alignment? How did it maybe contribute at all, if it did, to focus, mental focus and overall performance for you? Was there anything that you mentioned like that you noticed, especially like high stakes fight that you had like with rematches against like Sergey Kovalev is one of the ones that I remember you and I working together right before his fights as well.
Andre Ward:Yeah, I think, like the chiropractic work was kind of like you know for lack of a better phrase kind of like my binky right. Like you get used to getting in rhythm and you're used to sort of getting your adjustments and it's like that's a box I have to check before I continue on in training and then ultimately have my fight, um, and it just feels good psychologically. But then you also understand too, um, like how everything is connected. Like you may be having brain fog or you may be having, you know, numbness on one side of your face or on your head. You realize that, man, there's a reason for that. There's a joint or a bone out of place and we can fix that. So I just think, when I learn things like that about my body, like I get really excited, because in some and a lot of times, people often bark about how expensive health care is and how expensive it is to take care of yourself and it's expensive to be sick.
Anita Haque:It's more expensive, I think, to be sick.
Andre Ward:actually it's more expensive to be sick. And here's the thing, God forbid. If anybody gets a diagnosis or something happens, normally the first thing that a physician is going to tell you is don't eat this, Stay away from that. You need to exercise to bring your blood pressure down so you don't have another heart attack, and those are things that we can actually do in the forefront to avoid even having those issues in most cases. So when I learned these new things about myself, it's a. It's a emotional and mental stimulation, but it's also very, very physical too.
Anita Haque:No, definitely Such good points Now, post-retirement from you know, actually boxing, like how do you feel your approach to health has evolved Like? Are there any you know health hacks of any kind that you've carried into your everyday life, even from like what we've worked on with your body for family time, work time commitment, you know, as a commentator and an analyst, like how has this like changed and evolved now for you?
Andre Ward:Yeah, it's the sort of the goal is different. I'm no longer competing, but I'm competing just in a different field. Now, like, I still have dreams, I still have things that I'm working toward. So, very, very competitive, I'm still building things and in order to do that I have to have longevity, mentally and physically. So you know, I'm not doing chiropractic, soft tissue icing, working out to fight another person anymore. I'm really just sort of competing with myself, trying to be the best that I can be, but also I want longevity and I want quality of life.
Andre Ward:So, you know, I just I look at it that way, I approach it that way, and that that I'm still very, very motivated to take care of my body, challenge my wife about her health, you know you, and I tease her like she hasn't been in and about like where's Tiffany Come?
Intro/Close:on.
Andre Ward:Yes, it is that important. Like we're're, we're at that threshold now where I believe we're still young. We're 41 years old, but when you get 40, things start to change. And you heard about it, but to experience it is very sobering and I just want to continue to age gracefully. I want those around me to continue to age gracefully, and if we're going to do that, we have to take care of our bodies, because we only have one.
Anita Haque:Agreed. I love that statement that you said, andre, like you're still very competitive and you're still competing with yourself. I resonate with that. I always feel like I'm in competition to be better today than I was yesterday. What could I do to just move the needle a little bit with the way I think, the way that I eat, the way that I act, the way that I perform, to even being more kinder to myself, whatever it means, all the things right.
Anita Haque:And I have seen you evolve a little bit since the time of fighting where, personally if I could share what I've noticed from working with you you haven't let up on taking care of yourself at all.
Anita Haque:Let me start off with that one Cause I noticed, if anything, you're still consistent with adjustments.
Anita Haque:You're still consistent and being interested in feeding yourself right, which I would love to get some tips on anything that you want to mention about nutrition, cause it's such a big part of our health. I also noticed that you're constantly researching, you know things about health or that affect your health and you're advocating for your entire family constantly, and I try to help with the kids, with the posture and all the things, as you know, obviously with Tiffany too, but I see that you try to be a guide and an influencer with those around you, and not just with your family. I've met some of your friends and some of the people that I know you, you know are in touch with, and you're always about, you know, trying to make them better, trying to focus on them getting healthier through natural approaches, which I think is incredible. So what do you think is one of the things you may want to offer some of our listeners of? Maybe? Things that generally you do on your day-to-day to help you kind of be at your peak?
Andre Ward:I'm just kind of wired like this.
Anita Haque:Yes.
Andre Ward:And I've always been this way. It evolves and grows over time. I get very bothered by stagnation. I get bothered by not progressing. I get bothered by feeling like I'm behind in some areas. And that mindset can be very, very good and it can take you very, very high. But it needs to be balanced, because sometimes you're doing better than you think you are and because you're not where you want to be, you tell yourself you haven't gone very far at all, and that can be a problem.
Andre Ward:So I'm always trying to, you know, wrestle with that and, like you said, know when to be kinder to myself and then know when to push myself, and that's a very, very fine line. But you know you mentioned, like my friends and my family, I'm also not like a person who I'm also not content with just doing these things and just benefiting myself, like I want to bring my clan and my crew along with me and I want people I don't like to see people suffer know that, man, I may have some information that can maybe change your health or radicalize how you think about food or give you another perspective, because a lot of times we perish for a lack of knowledge. Some people eat better, but I just don't know how. So if I can give you a little something, just like somebody gave me at one point in time, it's hard for me not to, because I want everybody to be at their best.
Anita Haque:Yeah, I see that about you and that's such, I think, a beautiful thing that you care enough, not just about yourself, about your circle, the people that you know and they all speak highly of you for that, by the way who I've gotten to meet. So now, ok, someone who's transitioned because you've transitioned from, you know, the big gold medalist to Hall of Famer what health lessons from your boxing days emphasizing, of course, wellness would you share with maybe younger athletes or even non-athletes that are dealing with physical stress? Is there?
Andre Ward:anything you could share there. You know, for me, the stress piece of it is part of my faith. You know, my faith plays a big role in that. You know, um, the physical working out is a big part of that. You know, obviously, getting those endorphins and releasing the stress, and you know, no matter what I'm dealing with, you know, after a good workout it doesn't seem to be as big as it was when I walked into the gym or when I started the workout.
Andre Ward:So I think for me it's faith, it's taking care of this temple in this body and just personally, just trying to, just trying to trying to grow and be open to the people I have around me. That's really, really important because you know whether somebody like you, you and I talk during the adjustments and we'll talk about certain things You're like, yeah, you may want to look at it this way Sometimes there's a nugget or just the thing you need to hear in a conversation and that can change everything. So I'm always, always got my feelers out in my ears open for somebody that can see a blind spot in me, give me some words of wisdom to help set me on the right track.
Anita Haque:Yeah, I love that. I think we all need that. Sometimes you don't even realize that you're getting fed by a person you're speaking to. You don't even realize and they're giving you, like you said, that nugget, something you needed to hear that moment that, aha.
Anita Haque:Yes, thank you for that Aha moment yes, yes, I always am trying to bring that out in the office as well, because I think that our mental and emotional well-being is just as important. It impacts our physical well-being just as much. Right Now, you have so much great advice, like I said, to give, even, like I said, with, like young athletes. But, you know, reflecting on our journey, you know, working together since 2010,. I'll put you on the spot here and I know you've already shared a lot, but is there like one? I know there's so many but one health hack since this is called Health Hacks, hux Health Hacks that you've learned, possibly through our chiropractic partnership, maybe that you wish you'd known earlier in your career and, if so, why and what is it?
Andre Ward:That's a good one, I think maybe a couple. I think one of them is learning about chiropractic early on. You know I started it pretty early but I could have started it a lot earlier. You know, I think that's one thing that I wish I would have known, and I think probably the depth of my knowledge of nutrition supplementation.
Andre Ward:Like you and I talk a lot about that my wife is there just about things, things that are good for us, like that work, and things that we should stay away from and it doesn't seem like a big hack but it really is, because I think half the battle is knowing what to stay away from and the other half is knowing what to consume. So I just think that I'm a lot more in depth now in life about, like it's, things that I used to eat three, four years ago. I'm like I would never, and I think just having that knowledge, knowledge early on. And then the other thing is like, as it pertains to nutrition, is that I think personally, in our western culture we eat far too much. Like I'm saying, just not just I'm saying the quality is an issue, but I'm saying the quantity agreed.
Andre Ward:I think we, you know, we love, love our multiple appetizers.
Anita Haque:Yeah.
Andre Ward:Right. Sometimes you know it's warranted, Get your multiple appetizers. But we do this often like multiple appetizers, huge entree, and then you know we have to have dessert. So we're doing three, four course meals all in one time and oftentimes for us we've been trained here in the Western culture to believe that if we're not stuffed and fooled and sitting back and can barely get ourselves up, we haven't enjoyed ourselves and we haven't had a good time.
Andre Ward:And I've learned that we don't need that much food, Like there are days that I fast and I have more energy than the days that I eat sometimes, and it's because my body gets a chance to rest, my body gets my cells get a chance to regenerate and I'm actually burning fat as fuel. And I'm actually burning fat as fuel and I'm not just storing up a bunch of fat and making myself unhealthy where the toxicity builds up and you just start to feel it. So I think you know just learning about chiropractic a little bit earlier, but learning about overall nutrition and knowing sort of what's fluff that's in the news, like this is healthy and what's actually healthy.
Anita Haque:Yeah, that's a great point. Thank you for that I totally agree about. We are in an unequal ratio of how much we're supposed to consume. It's not just what you're consuming, it's also the quantity. So a lot of people and patients of mine talk to me you may have even heard it in the office, Andre been intermittent fasting daily.
Anita Haque:I don't know five, six years now, and at the first part of my intermittent fasting I started off with like a longer window, maybe like 12 to 8. I would eat, and then you know, and then I kind of now I'm like in a four or five hour window, not on purpose, it just became easier and easier. And what I have found personally for myself through intermittent fasting is a few things. One, just like what you said, Andre, hit the head on the nose. There you do not need to eat as much food as you think you do.
Anita Haque:In fact, digesting, having my digestive system working from morning till night because of breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks because that was my usual before kept me more tired. It kept my body's energy all in my digestive system as opposed to replenishing cells, helping my brain, helping my skin, my hair. So one of the things I noticed once I got used to not eating all day long is not only am I not hungry, but I'm more energized. I feel like my hair is thicker, my skin became brighter.
Anita Haque:It's not skincare products, it's nutrition. It's just knowing how to store your energy and where to put your energy. It's just, it's nutrition. It's just knowing how to store your energy and where to put your energy and our energy should I believe now through my experience should not be wasted all day on your digestive system. We need to eat, we need to fuel with the right foods, but you just don't need to be using the engine all day. It's going to wear out, it's going to break down, it won't be able to digest, you won't be able to function as well. So such a great point about, not just the quality of food, which is a whole nother topic.
Anita Haque:You and I can probably talk for hours. Yeah, I know, we both. I think we're both like on the same page of this because we've talked about this but it's, it's been a game changer. So when I have a lot of patients ask me about you know, what have you done to get in better shape? Or what do you do, it's not just what I'm eating, I think, it's really how much you are eating. And when I do have that one meal, I enjoy it so much more. I look forward to each bite. Is that much more delicious and nutritious? And eat healthy food because I haven't eaten yet, like you know what I mean. I focus even more on the quality because I'm eating less quantity. So, yes, I totally agree, that's such a great, great, great point.
Anita Haque:And having proper motion your body if you just knew that before, like how much further we could be before we hit 40. You know, uh, you mentioned like once you hit your 40s, you start to kind of notice some of the things you did prior to 40 catching up to your body. I know, I noticed that myself. So, yeah, if we can give any of our younger listeners like the heads up like don't do what we did learn from our you, you know, yeah, take care of what you got. You've only got one body, one temple.
Andre Ward:So yeah, I think that is such a good what you do in your your, your thirties, you're going to deal with that in your forties, whether good or bad.
Anita Haque:And fifties and sixties possibly, if you don't take care of it.
Andre Ward:Yeah, exactly. So you're putting something in motion so you can say oh, I'm young, I can get away with it, but there may be a day you have to deal with that. So think smart now.
Anita Haque:Yeah, I love it. Think smart, take care of your body, take the moment to do it. It's worth it. Yeah, yeah, any other piece of advice that you'd like to share with me and our listeners, andre?
Andre Ward:Yeah, I think just you know to kind of encapsulate what we've been talking about. You know take your, take your healthcare very, very serious. You know take like your life dependent on it because it does. You know take your health, take it. Take your body, how you treat your body, what you put in your body. Take those things serious. Like sometimes we'll treat our cars better than we treat our bodies. So true, so true.
Anita Haque:How are you going to?
Intro/Close:replace.
Andre Ward:Yeah, yeah, we're not going to miss an oil change. Yeah, but but I'm just putting all sorts of poison and it is poison in many respects in our body. So I just want to encourage people. I know nutrition can be daunting. I know, you know, weight loss can be daunting. Where do I start, man? I would just encourage you just to start in the small areas that you can do nothing of, but just start walking, maybe two to three times a week, just walk. Don't worry about the pace, just walk, breathe, get your heart rate up, exercise your lungs and just start to cut your quantities down.
Andre Ward:If you like this much food, go, look, go go half of that your brain yeah, your brain will tell you you're hungry but you're fine, you're not going to starve and you'll start to see and love the results that you get and your blood work will improve and your overall health will improve. So just encouragement to be honest about where we are. Take the first step, even though I know it can be daunting, because you can do it.
Anita Haque:I love it, so, so right. Last question for you, andre, and I'll let you go someone and I know I get this all the time, and I'm sure you do too Someone who's saying, oh, I would try chiropractic, but I'm scared I'm going to get hurt. I know you're laughing because I get that all the time, but it's probably coming from you.
Andre Ward:What do you usually say to people who might say that to you I understand? I say, okay, I can understand. You're dealing with neck and you'repractors out there that may not be qualified. So you want to do the research you know to get someone that is licensed and that has a track record and you either get the referral or you read the reviews and go check them out. But once you do that it's nothing to fear. It can be a little uneasy the first couple of times, but the way you feel is going to outweigh any hesitation you may have initially and then it'll become normal to be a way of life and you'll actually feel strange not getting your adjustment. So understandable that there's a little angst and hesitation, but don't let that stop you?
Anita Haque:Oh, love that answer. Okay, so now I have it on camera right here.
Andre Ward:So the Livermore area. Shameless plug. Chiropractic, that's where you want to go.
Anita Haque:Thank you so much for that. I'll take your shameless plug any day and, like I said, it's a true honor and pleasure not only to have played a role and continue to play a role in your life and your family's life, but also learn from you and be able to, you know, play off ideas from our sauna talks to Christian and supplements all the things, because I know you're so like plugged into that too.
Andre Ward:Yeah.
Anita Haque:I always appreciate that. Well, thank you again so much, andre, for being such an awesome guest. And also, I know our listeners, like myself, probably soak this all up and can take at least one of those things to start somewhere. Even if it's just a walk, even it's just movement, start somewhere do it.
Intro/Close:It's it's it's worth it. It's it's worth it. Your body's worth it, yeah. So thanks again, appreciate it. Thank you for tuning in to the Haque's health hacks podcast. We hope today's discussion has provided valuable insights into achieving and maintaining your Remember your well-being is our priority. Visit us at haquchiro. com or call 925-960-1960 to learn more or schedule an appointment.