The Real Reason You Keep Getting Injured

Welcome back to Sassy & Strong with Dr. Micol where we talk about real ways to move better, feel stronger, and live healthier.

Today’s episode is all about something that impacts almost everyone at some point.

Movement, muscle, and why your pain might not be what you think it is.

I’m joined by Dr. Jarryd Leung, whose journey into this work is anything but typical. Growing up playing competitive sports and dealing with serious injuries year after year, including broken legs, torn muscles, and surgeries, he experienced firsthand what it feels like to be on the other side of care.

And that experience shaped everything.

Instead of just following a traditional path, Jarryd built a philosophy around something deeper. Not just temporary relief, but long-term change.

In this conversation, we break down what that really looks like.

Why quick fixes do not work
Why adjustments alone are not enough
And why true healing requires a shift in habits, not just treatments

One of the biggest takeaways from this episode is simple but powerful.

If your only goal is to get out of pain, there are plenty of short-term solutions.

But if your goal is to stay active, move well, and actually live your life, the approach has to be different.

We talk about how Jarryd works with clients, starting with something most people do not expect.

A conversation.

Before anything else, he focuses on understanding what someone actually wants to get back to. Running, playing sports, working out, or simply keeping up with their kids or grandkids.

From there, everything becomes personalized.

Because no two bodies and no two goals are the same.

We also dive into one of the most common issues people deal with.

Back pain.

And here is the truth most people are not told.

There is no single cause.

Back pain is complex. It can come from lack of movement, poor strength, stress, sleep, or even lifestyle habits. It is rarely just one thing.

And that is exactly why those quick social media fixes often fall short.

In this episode, we unpack:

Why being sedentary is one of the biggest contributors to pain
The importance of strength training especially as you age
Why runners need more than just running to stay injury free
How muscle mass protects your body long term
What it actually means to meet physical activity guidelines
And why building capacity is the key to avoiding injuries

One of the most eye-opening moments is the conversation around capacity.

Your body has to be prepared for what you are asking it to do.

If you are trying to run long distances without the strength to support it, your body will eventually break down.

Not because something is wrong, but because it is not prepared.

This episode also highlights something many people overlook.

Pain does not always come from where you feel it.

Knee pain, back pain, or shoulder pain can often be the result of weakness or imbalance somewhere else in the body.

Which is why individualized care matters so much.

There is no one-size-fits-all plan.

If you are tired of quick fixes, frustrated with recurring pain, or ready to actually understand your body and move better, this episode will shift the way you think about health and fitness.

Because at the end of the day, muscle is not just about how you look.

It is about how you live.

And the stronger you are, the better your life becomes.

Follow, subscribe, and stay connected for more powerful conversations on strength, healing, and becoming the strongest version of yourself.

Stay Sassy and Strong with Dr. Micol

Transcript

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Hi, this is Dr. McCole Nealy, and thanks for listening to our show. We are here to talk a little bit about mindset, movement, and muscle, and maybe a few other little fun things along the way. Hi, I'm Dr. Neely, and this is Sassy and Strong. Today we're gonna talk a little bit more about one of my favorite things, movement and muscle. I'm here with Jared. Thank you so much for being here with me. Thanks for having me. So give me a little bit of your background. We've done a lot talking about certain like joint pains, back pain, building muscle. I even came to your place and talked how to work on my running and that pesky little hip I've got. But give everybody listening a little bit of idea of who you are. So I'm Canadian. I grew up playing all sorts of types of sports. And then growing up playing junior hockey, I got injured like every single year, like broken legs, broken arms, torn quad. Both legs? Both legs. So you can see I had surgery on both. Um and being in these offices kind of like led me to my passion of helping people and knowing what I know now and the care I got. Um it's like I've I've created this business to give something more, something better, exactly like you, of um just trying to give the best quality of care for people who want that. And you're a chiropractor, but to me, you're more like a gym and physical therapy and uh a little nutrition, movement. How did that develop for you? I think going to school and um just realizing with like clients, like adjustments are great. They're a great tool um for temporary relief. Um, but to get the boast out of most clients like yourself is this is like a lifestyle change and a behavior change. And to really keep like people active is if they want to play pickleball, if they want to run like yourself, an adjustment's not going to do that long term. Um, so my my style and uh growing up is I had some experience in personal training, um, went to chiropractic school, then we did a master's of science in sports medicine. That's kind of how it came to be of movement, basically. This isn't like a quick fix, and we want to give the like teach everybody and give everybody this the tools to be good for life. And that's where the exercise and the muscle came in. So if someone comes into you and says, Oh, this joint's hurting, what's the first thing you do? The first thing we do, which is different and people look at us like we're crazy, is we just talk to them. We ask them, what are their goals? What do they want to get back to, other than getting out of pain? Because if their only goal is pain relief, they can take Tylenol, they can take Advil, they can get injections. So basically we just ask them questions, what do they want to get back to? And based on their response of I want to be able to run, I want to be able to pickle play pickleball, I want to be able to work out, play with my grandkids. We do an assessment and then we build them a plan to get them back to their goals. Oh, nice. How often are you meeting with people? Um, it's different for everybody, but with most of our clients, we only see them uh one time a week for an hour. And then we give them exercises to do at home because, like we said, it's like this is a life thing, not you come in, we adjust you, we do some soft tissue. This is like a behavior change game to get you to your goals and outcomes. I love it. Let's talk back pain a little bit. Um, one of my favorite subjects to talk about with you because honestly, with running, um, sometimes I wake up so stiff and I feel like it's like, okay, my back is like a board. I can't move. Um, do you see much with back pain? We treat everything, but back pain is like one of the biggest causes uh in society and like businesses lose billions of dollars all the time. Um, but the first thing is like you're super fit, you're super active. Um, it depends on like the basic thing with runners that we see is you strength train. Most runners just run. They don't ever strength train. And then what happens is over time their bodies break down because they don't have the muscle mass, the bone density to keep running. And then we start to see issues of like they get strains, they get sprains, disc herniations is um the big thing that we do is like we encourage like runners need to strength train minimum. Did you hear that, runners? But um, yeah, back pain is like very, very debilitating to most people, and it's it's not just like one certain thing, it's very multifactorial. And um it's it could be from stress, diet, sleep. Even stress can cause back pain. Yeah. Is it just that the muscle is getting tight because you're tense, or why is stress causing back pain? It could be a bunch of things, but pain is so complex. It's not just like one, there is one specific issue. Um nowadays, especially in today, it's super stressful, but it's a response from our nervous system to tighten up. Um, but it's it's I know you're looking for one answer, but there's no like this is the one fix for back pain. It's it's very complex, and that's where we have to meet people and educate them. Yeah. And now with social media nowadays, it's do these three stretches, do this one exercise, and your back pain's gone. And that's why it's tough when we come into play of like breaking the narrative of you're not gonna get fixed in one visit. It's gonna take time, it's gonna take uh a big behavior change to really like make this like a lifelong solution. What do you think is the number one cause for back pain in our country? Like if you had to put your finger on it. Um, the number one cause is like being sedentary, not meeting the physical activity guidelines. Um, it's pretty sad to say, but I think you probably know the stats as well. I think only what, like 18 or 20 percent of people in the US meet the physical activity guidelines. If even that. Yeah, which is two times a week of resistance training, like actual weight lifting and then 150 minutes of moderate to like vigorous physical activity. What does that look like? So if I'm listening to you, like what would you explain moderate physical activity as? It could be like walking, it could be running. Um the thing that we tell our clients is pick something you actually enjoy. For me, I'm not a runner. And if you try to make me run for 150 minutes, I'm probably not gonna do it. I'm gonna have a bad relationship with exercise. Yeah. So for me, I play hockey, I play golf. It's it's walking, running, doing whatever you can that you enjoy. That's that's like the moderate physical activity. Yeah. Um, and then the resistance training that we see the most is people like, oh, like I I do Plotties, which is great, but that's not like actually working out, building muscles and as you know, combating sarcopenia, which is your age's natural decline is muscle mass every year after you turn 30. We've talked about it before. Muscle is medicine. I I preach that to all my clients. I think you would probably agree. And why I'm a runner, but still lift pretty heavy. Um, I just came down from Cocodona. Um, I've got runners up there still doing 250 miles. And I've seen them drop out because of pain. Um what is the number one thing that you do when someone comes in and says, I've got pain, where are you gonna start? Like we talked before, it's just meeting them where they're at. Like what is their goals? Um, but I think what you're seeing is like basically we would check their capacity if they had calf pain. And for example, we take all our runners through a calf um, like basically a um calf strength test. And if they can't do more than like 30 single like calf raises and they're trying to run an ultra marathon, they're probably gonna get hurt because they don't have the capacity to even be doing that. For and you're just focusing on one muscle, but not even like anything, basically. So um the thing is we take three people through an assessment to make sure, like, do they have the capacity? Do they have the endurance? Like running for long distances, you have to be able to do a plimetric, which is bouncing up and down over and over and over again. And if you don't have the capacity to even do that, most likely you're probably gonna set yourself up for an injury. And what I see too, like sometimes you're really strong in one muscle group, but maybe not another. Are you seeing that in your office? And yeah, all the time is um the thing that we do so differently, um, the thing that you do so differently too is you do individualized care. Yeah. So everybody gets a different set of exercises, a different protocol. It's not here's this sheet of exercises, do this on your own. It's like I could be doing this at home. So everybody has a different assessment and everybody has a different program to get better to whatever their goals are. That's great. What if I came in and I did want specific exercises? I wouldn't say specific exercises. I I are you saying like a specific goal? Yeah. Um, so basically, for example, is um, this isn't HIPAA because I'm not saying their name, but um, this is the perfect example is they were super active, they were skier growing up, and then all of a sudden they had knee pain. Okay. So they stopped exercising completely. And then one day at work, um, this person couldn't walk up the stairs because they were so deconditioned, they didn't have muscle mass. So we took her through an assessment. Um, they couldn't do squats at all because it was so much and caused so much knee pain. It wasn't actually a knee issue. It was just because it was deconditioned, her knee was taking on the load. Um, so I think that's important for people to realize because I get that too. They'll come in and be like, oh, my knees hurt. That's a big one, or my shoulder hurts. Or it's bone on bone. Yeah, but it's and yeah, and they think it's just that joint problem, but it's not always that joint that's the problem. It's maybe the muscles around it. And too, for you, what you treat is it's a metabolic issue as well. It's not just exercising, it's the diet, the nutrition. Um, it's a full system. Yeah. Um, and like you and I know, it's not just you do this one thing, it's changing everything, like your your diet, your sleep, your nutrition, your relationships with friends. Um, so it's it's not as simple as like it's this one exercise, you do this. Yeah, I see that a lot and and why we work so well. Um, because I can give them the tools to like have better nutrition, get some sleep, balance those hormones. Um, but I love how you work with them to balance muscle. Um and we get those results with our mcella. Um, in fact, it's been kind of life-changing for me. Um I had a lot of hip pain with my running and terrible sciatica after my son. Um, and I thought, oh, this is just something I have to put up with my whole life. If I'm gonna run, I'm gonna have pain. And we got in the mcella, which you sit on it, it contracts, and it's like 12,000 kegels in 28 minutes. And I did that, my sciatic pain went away. Like, I haven't had a day of sciatic pain in a year, and I'm running longer distances and more than ever in my life. Um, so it was just like even for me, who knows how important muscle strength is, I was like, oh my God, like I just strengthened my core muscles, and now a problem that I've had since I was 15 is gone. It's gone. Um, and who would have thought that like a Kegel machine would make me a better runner? Um Is there like do you find that there's gender differences with joint pains or back pain? Like, um, there can be a bit an easy one, is like a like high school females usually tear their ACLs easier than um like most people. And it's it's highly like correlated to like hip stability strength. Um but I would say females are a lot easier to work with because they're more easier to like ask for help. Where um That makes sense to me. Where we're like when we're working with our like older athletes, like our guys is they'll come work with us and then they don't have anything wrong. And it's like, okay, raise your shoulder over your head. Oh, I can't move my shoulder. But nothing's wrong with that. Nothing's wrong, exactly. So um we work with a mix of people, but I would say um there's not many differences. It's just uh like women seem to like be easier to actually reach out for help when they feel something's off, where um most males will wait till it gets so bad that it takes so much longer to help them recover to get them where they're where they want to be. Yeah, that's hard. They want a quick fix often. Yes. What do you think about surgery? Like a lot of people come and ask me, like, hey, my knee's hurting. Should I go ahead and get surgery? There's there's nothing wrong with surgery. Um, the only problem with surgery, it needs to be like the last, very last option. Yeah. Um, the problem with healthcare that you and I know, it's it's a business. So it's this is the traditional healthcare system that we see. And we mostly see these people who fail traditional PT and traditional Cairo because nobody asks them what their goals are. Um, but the process is is say if you have knee pain, you go to your PCP, they write you a script, you go to in-network PT for you go three times for six weeks, you do these low-level bandit exercises that have no incorporation of your goal. You don't get better, you go back to the PCP, they do an MRI and they see something, and then they go straight into surgery. And the problem with that is that's almost like should be medical malpractice if you're doing unnecessary surgery, but it happens all the time. And um, me being a chiropractor, we don't really adjust people. But the big thing is is like everybody has this narrative narrative that chiropractors are terrible. Yeah. Um, but in the medical world, it's like the sur unnecessary surgeries are happening all the time, and they don't get this narrative. Um it's just chiropractors has this narrative of like they only adjust people, and that's completely untrue. And I'm proof of um that is we don't really adjust many people at all. It's a good tool, but um hopefully that answered your question. Yeah. So do you think that someone can come in with chronic knee pain and just by doing the right exercises, strengthening, that they can fix that pain? Absolutely. I would say a majority of people can too. I would say a very high percentage. It's just does the person want to put in the work? Yeah. There's no quick fix of doing anything, it takes time. And that's the hardest part of my business is we work with clients for a minimum of three months because it's a behavior change. Um so we see it all the time of people have lost hope in traditional healthcare and we see them, and then we completely change their lives by making them a plan, building up muscle, and changing their habits of being sedentary to actually incorporating work out working out. And it's like this is the best tool to feel better. Yeah. And I've seen it from patients that we've sent with you, worked with chronic knee shoulder pain. And maybe we've done, like, you know, I love my PRP, I love stem cell injections. Um, but really, when they put in the work and build up that muscle, then they come back a few months later and they're like, guess what? My pain's gone. And I just want to cheer because I know how hard that is to build muscle and to stay with it. Um, but it's amazing to see someone who thought, man, I'm gonna go into surgery and I'm gonna take years to recover or maybe never have the same joint again, come back and no surgery, just with the right strengthening exercises that they've completely taken care of that pain. And you know it as well, that's the best part of our job is like seeing these people transform. Yeah. Um, going from nobody's been able to help them over like five to ten years, um, from working with us to three to seven months and they've completely changed. Yeah. Um, and then when they actually are done working with us, it's sad because we built a relationship, we changed these persons' life, and they're like, you get you're ready to go. You don't need us anymore. You don't need to come back for unlimited adjustments or unlimited PT visits. Your job is to make them not your patient anymore. Exactly. Kind of like dating app hidden, your goal is to delete it. Exactly, exact same, just in a different way. Tell me your story. Now, I didn't realize you'd broke both legs and you had surgery then. So uh what happened? Playing hockey um growing up, um, the Canadian health care system is it's great because it's free, but it's not always the greatest. Yeah. Um, so uh my first injury is when I was, I think, 16. I broke this ankle. Um I see the scar. Medical doctor never did an exam, didn't touch me. He's like, oh, it's just sprained. Um, so I was actually walking around on it for like two months. Really? And um I was going to PT and the the physical therapist was like, it's just not getting better. It's like probably time to take an x-ray. I got an x-ray and then literally got the x-ray, walked straight into surgery. Um and then this ankle, the same thing happened is I blocked a shot in hockey, um, got an x-ray, nothing came up. And uh I broke this ankle, so it's like it's gotta be broken. But me being like a young teen, 19 years old, your hockey coach yelling at you, calling you names that you're not tough, you're not strong. And then um playing hockey in the playoffs, I literally snapped my uh leg because there just had no support in my ankle. Wow. Um, and then after that, basically my athletic career was over. I I did play the year after, but um, I could barely skate because um I still still have some issues today, but it's as best as it's ever been. Um, but I have no ankle mobility, so I had to modify for that. Um and then playing hockey both both my wrists, my nose. Um, but that experience allowed me to create the business I have today and help people like actually get the care they deserve and the care that they need. Yeah. What does your day look like for exercise to keep these strong? Because you're still so young. Like um, I wouldn't say what my day looks like, but basically my goal for the rest of my life, and I tell all my clients is we have some pretty badass seven-year-olds who keep working out. I want to be like them. So it's it's not every day. It's just my goal throughout the the year is to be consistent. Because if you're consistent, you're gonna maintain muscle mass um and you're gonna combat starcopenia. So what I do is I meet the physical activity guidelines. Um what is that? So basically, like we talked about, two times a week of resistance training. Okay. Um, actually lifting weights and challenging yourself and then 150 minutes of moderate physical activity for me, it's all the week for the week. Okay. Golf, hockey, um, walking your dogs, um, just getting out, basically. Um, and there's some pretty great gyms in Arizona. Like Proof Three I work with, send a lot of my clients too. Um, after it has some two great uh locations in Tempe and North Phoenix. Um, and then there's some pretty great trainers out of my office. Um, Tyler Weeder's one of them. Um, people who just really care about helping people live for as long as they can and not these like big chains that look at this person as a dollar sign. I love that. And it it seems so simple, like But it's not. Look what you you've been through and yet you're staying fit, you're staying active. And so I think people need to realize that looks different for everybody. But this yes, it it's hard sometimes to keep a routine. But the simple part is hey, twice a week, get some resistance training in. And not just yoga or Pilates. We love that. I need more of it because I get so tight. But we need that weight training. The weight training so that we're maintaining muscle. And then 150 minutes of movement. Like, it could be 150 minutes to 300 minutes, and then it could be also be 75 minutes of vigorous activity, like you're running or like hitting the bigger. I think I got over 150 just in harder last night. But I don't advise that for everyone. So start start with something you love. Golf, dance in your living room, walk around the block, but get some movement. Yeah, exactly. The big thing is pick something you actually enjoy doing so you have a good relationship with exercise. Yeah. Um, that's the hardest thing that we try to meet people at is like, what do you actually like doing? Um, and create that relationship that's positive. Because you and I both know some people have a bad relationship with some exercise and they completely avoid it. And the perfect example that we see people with back pain is they hurt their back deadlifting. And that's either going way too heavy, having a bad program, and then they associate deadlifting as it's hurting their back as the problem or the wrong form. Exactly. And they never do deadlifts again and their back gets deconditioned. Yeah. And basically we meet them as you don't need to lift anything crazy, but for general longevity, to be able to, if you have kids, you need to be able to pick up like 80 pounds, 100 pounds. Um and when I'm 80, I want to still be able to move things around, rearrange my furniture and like I do all the time. Yeah. I want to be independent. Exactly. What is the number one piece of advice that you feel like you tell people over and over? Let's leave them with that. Like, what is it? Like if you could tell every client how to maintain their muscle, be fit, prevent pain, what do you feel like you're preaching over and over that you could tell our audience? Consistency, that's it. Like being super consistent. And then, like I keep emphasizing, is just meet the physical activity guidelines. I guarantee you, if the if it was a law, we would have like a lot uh like a lot healthier society. It reduces all cause of mortality. Yeah. And then in Canada, they don't want you to get sick because it's universal healthcare, where the US is it's a business. Is activity a law in Canada? No. No, I wish it was. I'd be interested. All right. So stay consistent, lift twice a week and get 150. To 300 minutes of movement. Movements medicine. We can do that. Movements medicine, muscles medicine. Uh get out there and let's move.