Speaker 1: This is healthy heer with Amelia Phillips, and welcome to
Speaker 1: one of my mini motivation episodes. These are shorter, more
Speaker 1: practical conversations really designed to motivate you with simple, actionable
Speaker 1: expert advice that you can implement straight away. So today
Speaker 1: we're going to be talking about chronic pain and how
Speaker 1: we can best manage and ideally move beyond our chronic pain.
Speaker 1: It actually blows my mind how many of my members
Speaker 1: suffer from this, be it chronic, low grade pain such
Speaker 1: as a sore back or neck, or ongoing conditions like arthritis.
Speaker 1: Pain can be a huge energy drainer. And my message
Speaker 1: to you, if you do suffer from chronic pain is this,
Speaker 1: don't give up. Don't let this pain beat you. Keep
Speaker 1: exploring ways to work around your pain to remain mobile
Speaker 1: and strong and ideally reduce its impact on your overall
Speaker 1: quality of life. We're going to be here for a
Speaker 1: long time, so let's minimize that pain as much as
Speaker 1: we possibly can. Now, I pose this question to mobility
Speaker 1: expert Dan O'Sullivan Dan or hands Dan, as he's known
Speaker 1: to in his half a million followers on insta He
Speaker 1: specializes in mobility for over forty year olds, he deals
Speaker 1: with a lot of chronic pain. He runs online programs
Speaker 1: and has a popular YouTube channel with many awesome mobility
Speaker 1: workouts for us to try to have a listen to
Speaker 1: his take on how we can best manage chronic pain.
Speaker 1: Dan with your half a million followers and your very
Speaker 1: popular YouTube channel. I know you work with so so
Speaker 1: many different clients from all ages, rangers, and abilities, but
Speaker 1: I bet you work with a lot of clients who
Speaker 1: are suffering chronic pain such as neck, back, hip, knees,
Speaker 1: be it from arthritis, from injury, or immobility. Can you
Speaker 1: please talk us through how you help these clients move
Speaker 1: beyond their pain.
Speaker 2: The first thing I do is I set realistic expectations
Speaker 2: and the biggest thing that I have So I had
Speaker 2: chronic back pain for five years and it was very
Speaker 2: debilitating when it was at its worth, so much so
Speaker 2: if I had to sneeze, I'd have to hold onto
Speaker 2: a book or you know, even to get out of
Speaker 2: the bed, I'd have to like roll to the side
Speaker 2: and get down on the floor first. And the best
Speaker 2: way I overcame this was it's understanding the movement that
Speaker 2: causes that aggravation and trying to find a variation of
Speaker 2: that that you can actually achieve. And the reason why
Speaker 2: I say that is because for most people they try
Speaker 2: to avoid movements. So if I know that, you know,
Speaker 2: standing there trying to pick something off the floor hurts
Speaker 2: my back, well, then I try to avoid picking things
Speaker 2: off the ground in that position. But the reality is
Speaker 2: is sometimes life is going to force me into that position.
Speaker 2: So isn't it better that I try to understand why
Speaker 2: is that happening? And what people neglect to see is
Speaker 2: they tend to go to where the pain is. So
Speaker 2: I might have a pain in my lower well, potentially
Speaker 2: my hips are unstable, which keeps trigger in the back.
Speaker 2: So it's this, you know, it's the idea of trying
Speaker 2: to find the root cause and then how can I
Speaker 2: build from that point? Like I have people you know
Speaker 2: had frozen shoulder as an example, and literally the movements
Speaker 2: that we had to do was a lot of it
Speaker 2: was like isometrics, and for anybody who don't know what
Speaker 2: that is, it's like it looks like you're doing nothing,
Speaker 2: you're in a static position, but it's about contracting and
Speaker 2: relaxing the muscles.
Speaker 1: For example, if you were sitting there having an arm
Speaker 1: wrestle with someone. Your arm's not moving, but you're obviously
Speaker 1: working hard. That's an isometric contraction.
Speaker 2: That's the best analogy I've ever heard. I was going
Speaker 2: to say, plank, I'm going to take that. I hope
Speaker 2: there's no copyright on that.
Speaker 1: Take it, my friend.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a brilliant one, because yes, what with a
Speaker 2: lot of mobility training to improve your range of motion,
Speaker 2: we actually work on contract relax, which is that kind
Speaker 2: of idea whereas if you were arm wrestling, you would
Speaker 2: contract as much as you can and then you would
Speaker 2: relax and you would contract, So you're educating the tissue
Speaker 2: on what to do. And then the benefit of that
Speaker 2: then is you go into more of a length and position.
Speaker 2: So again, if we can picture trying to touch our toes,
Speaker 2: we might go down to a certain point and maybe
Speaker 2: we have a bench in front of us and our
Speaker 2: hands are on the bench, so we feel nothing but support.
Speaker 2: Maybe our butt is against the wall, and maybe there's
Speaker 2: a yoga block in between our knees. This is why
Speaker 2: for anybody who goes to like a yin yoga class,
Speaker 2: this is why we have bolsters. This is why we
Speaker 2: have support because the more your body feels supported. Guess what,
Speaker 2: the apprehension is less. And so with somebody who has
Speaker 2: chronic pain, the pain is a signal. It's telling you
Speaker 2: that there's something happening. So constant pain shouldn't always happen,
Speaker 2: unless it's blunt trauma, which is obviously a different thing.
Speaker 2: But if you're just going about your day and you're
Speaker 2: constantly in pain, I would say you're probably out of alignment.
Speaker 2: And I would probably say structurally, something is not where
Speaker 2: it needs to be. So in terms of how could
Speaker 2: I approach that, obviously that's a million dollar question in
Speaker 2: terms of where is it. But if we say back
Speaker 2: pain or hit pain, which is where a lot of
Speaker 2: people do suffer lower back pain, and you know, I
Speaker 2: would say for most people, if you can understand how
Speaker 2: to segment that spine and build goods to ability in
Speaker 2: your hips, you're probably setting yourself up to be having
Speaker 2: like much greater movement capacity. So I would say for
Speaker 2: most people getting into some form of a movement practice,
Speaker 2: if you're like I'm talking dropping painkillers and you're in
Speaker 2: your serious pain, then it's definitely best that you probably
Speaker 2: work with somebody who is very well versed in this
Speaker 2: as opposed to just guessing.
Speaker 1: I think for a lot of people it's that low
Speaker 1: grade chronic pain that's not quite bad enough to be
Speaker 1: in acute injury or to send them to the physio.
Speaker 1: But they're walking around and I'll get that all that
Speaker 1: hurt when I walked up and down those stairs. Oh
Speaker 1: my back's just so tight. And so what I'm hearing
Speaker 1: you say is number one, paying a lot more attention
Speaker 1: to it and really narrowing down what the trigger points
Speaker 1: are for that pain, which a lot of us don't do.
Speaker 1: We just kind of generally go, oh, well, when I,
Speaker 1: you know, bend over, it hurts, So I think that's
Speaker 1: a really good one. Then you spoke about structural so
Speaker 1: I just want to find out. So what you're saying
Speaker 1: there is it trying to understand if there's structurally something
Speaker 1: going on, such as I know for knee injuries, it
Speaker 1: can often be an imbalance if you might have really
Speaker 1: tight itb and a really weak vastest medialist and so
Speaker 1: suddenly your patella, which is your kneecap, might be just
Speaker 1: slightly malaligned. Is that what you mean by kind of
Speaker 1: understanding the structure?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to simplify it for people because again,
Speaker 2: if they're not in the health space, you know what
Speaker 2: you just said there might totally just confuse the life
Speaker 2: out of them. So what I would usually say is this,
Speaker 2: get down into your brand nickers. Have a look in
Speaker 2: the mirror. Do you notice anything out of whack? When
Speaker 2: you like so, Jenny, what I would say is I say,
Speaker 2: jump up it down for two or three seconds and
Speaker 2: get yourself into just kind of like a position if
Speaker 2: I told you got to stand every ten minutes, where
Speaker 2: do you find yourself? And then look look in the mirror.
Speaker 2: What do you see? Are your legs like symmetrical? Like
Speaker 2: is your left leg in the same angle as your
Speaker 2: right leg? Or is your right leg turned out more?
Speaker 2: Is your shoulder hyped up more than the other shoulder?
Speaker 2: Is your hips hiked up more? So this starts to
Speaker 2: tell you a story, and then what you say is okay,
Speaker 2: well why is that happening for most people. I've been
Speaker 2: doing this for twenty two years. I've only had two
Speaker 2: people who I had to admit the feet on and
Speaker 2: that was because one had a bone spur in their hips,
Speaker 2: so they literally could not widen their legs anymore because
Speaker 2: it was bone on bone. The option was either shave
Speaker 2: that or live with it, and then the other person
Speaker 2: had surgery on our foot and whatever way they fused
Speaker 2: it put in a position that we can never change.
Speaker 2: But I would say for most people, you can improve
Speaker 2: the position you currently find yourself in. So looking at
Speaker 2: yourself in the mirror structurally and then taking into context,
Speaker 2: what do those joints do. So again, if your shoulder rotates,
Speaker 2: focus on rotation. If your hips rotate, focus on rotation.
Speaker 2: And then with your spine, let's look at that as
Speaker 2: a big global move movement. We have so many nerve
Speaker 2: endings heading down through that lower back. Like, let's get
Speaker 2: that spine comfortable moving in all planes of motion. Primarily,
Speaker 2: let's look at segmentation. Let's look aflection and extension, and
Speaker 2: just do it in a way that you find most comfortable.
Speaker 2: Get down on your hands and knees. Do some catkews
Speaker 2: with lots of intent. What I see is bad catkeos.
Speaker 2: I see people are trying to race through it really
Speaker 2: slow and controlled. Get an understanding. Where am I now
Speaker 2: feeling that little bit of a pinch and why is it?
Speaker 2: Did my hip shift to the side when I tried
Speaker 2: to do it? Or do I actually feel like I'm
Speaker 2: staying quite symmetrical And the only person who knows the
Speaker 2: answer is you, because you have to investigate within yourself.
Speaker 2: And that's what I say to most people, like close
Speaker 2: your eyes, actually listen to your body. Can you actually
Speaker 2: understand what each vertebrae moving feels like? And when you
Speaker 2: do understand that, guess what the pain goes away. The
Speaker 2: other side of that, I just wanted to quickly actually say,
Speaker 2: was the caveat we have to appreciate is if you
Speaker 2: have chronic pain for an extended period of time, you're
Speaker 2: potentially somebody who has excess inflammation. So that's where you
Speaker 2: want to look at other elements as well, like you're
Speaker 2: slip and the choice of foods that you are having,
Speaker 2: because having high acidic foods, as an example, is going
Speaker 2: to trigger that inflammation, and so you might be doing
Speaker 2: the best exercises in the world, but you want to
Speaker 2: look at those other variables to help as well.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and just on the topic of nutrition as well,
Speaker 1: the impact of supplementing with collagen or joint health is
Speaker 1: also something that shouldn't be understated. So if you are
Speaker 1: suffering a bit of chronic pain and maybe you're over forty,
Speaker 1: considering that is a really great avenue. I've noticed a
Speaker 1: huge difference in my recovery and my joint health since
Speaker 1: I've been taking collagen for the last twelve months. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's one that I'm a big fan of. Are you
Speaker 1: as well?
Speaker 2: I take collagen And one of the big things I'm
Speaker 2: an advocate for most people is I would say about
Speaker 2: ninety percent of the population are deficient and magnesium. So
Speaker 2: for most people, when you do start getting into a
Speaker 2: consistent practice, when you're consistent of training, your recovery is important.
Speaker 2: So it's kind of like, you know, if you don't
Speaker 2: do anything, you need to do something. If you do
Speaker 2: too much, you need to do nothing as well. So
Speaker 2: it's like magnesium is such a good mineral for people
Speaker 2: to make sure you are recovering even more efficiently. Especially
Speaker 2: if you find yourself getting cramps after exercising, that's a
Speaker 2: good sign that you potentially need more magnesium.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely. There's a couple of really great brands. I
Speaker 1: love Carmex by Metagenics for magnesium. There's another one, Designs
Speaker 1: for Health does try mag RESTful Night, which is a
Speaker 1: great one too, And for collagen, there's a Designs for
Speaker 1: Health that has the three most researched different types of
Speaker 1: collagen Ford to gel for to bone and verasol, and
Speaker 1: Ford to a bone is the one that's shown to
Speaker 1: have the most impact on joint health. So there's some brands.
Speaker 1: I'll actually prop those links in the show notes for
Speaker 1: anyone that's curious to know. But thank you so much, Dan.
Speaker 1: I think that's been a really great reminder for all
Speaker 1: of us that if we have got some low grade
Speaker 1: chronic pain, and as you said, number one, we shouldn't
Speaker 1: ignore it. And number two, really we probably do have
Speaker 1: the answer. It takes focus, but it's so much easier
Speaker 1: to get to the bottom of it with the help
Speaker 1: of an expert such as yourself. So thank you so much.
Speaker 2: You're welcome. What I would say is that movement is medicine.