Ep.13_Why 'pushing it' harder is the wrong strategy for back pain exercises_ 7_13_22_v2
00:00:00 Speaker: This week's topic is why pushing it harder? Why pushing exercises to the maximum is bad for trying to get out of chronic lower back pain. It's something that is innate in all of us, that we want to do more and try harder with the expectation that we'll get more benefits. And so this is one of the number one issues that I see students facing in the Core Balance training program. It's one of the messages that I have to kind of I find myself going back to and preaching about frequently. And so I thought it appropriate to do a stream on this. And so we're going to get deep into what I mean by Pushing it harder and why that's the wrong strategy, or why it's one of the worst things to do. If your goal is to get out of the long term, persistent nature of chronic lower back pain. So let's start from the beginning. The reason that this topic came up, the reason it became this week's topic, is actually I have a little story. My I have I got a phone call the other night, maybe two or three nights ago from a friend and got a fly. An old friend, a friend from high school. I'm well out of high school, so it's been been a while since we chatted and so we caught up a little bit. And then he said that he's got back pain and it's been going on for a long time. He's a firefighter and he's not doing firefighter type work anymore. I think it's potentially because of this back problem. And so it's been a big issue and a big problem. It's really bad and getting worse. And he's been doing everything he can right. He's been doing physical therapy. He says physical therapy doesn't work. He's been going to the doctor, the medical doctor, potentially a surgeon who's telling him, you know, the future doesn't look very good. We're looking at a spinal fusion in the future and pretty much dooming him to a life of reduced function, reduced ability to play baseball with his son. And this is a big deal. This was this has been a big concern, uh, for him on his mind. And, um, naturally, I said that I can help him. And, uh, I started telling him about the program. And so we talk a little bit about the core Balance training program, what it's all about. You know, it's a movement retraining program to help you to connect with your core, um, just develop a stronger connection in all your movement so that no matter what you're doing in life, your spine has a little bit more support. And so this is a process. This takes time. And we start introducing a foundation. And then we build off that foundation. And so my friend who uh, actually a little more background, we played basketball together on the high school basketball team. He's very athletic. He's always been very fit and just a great athlete. Firefighter. Right. So, um, but his body started breaking down. So so his response to me was, and after I told him that the program is three months long, his response was, well, do you think I could just do the entire program in one day? Like, because that's the way I just want to do things. I want to, I want to, I just want to, like, do every single lesson and go so hard and just like, just like, like, get it, like, push it as hard as I can. And I, you know, I was a little bit speechless. I wasn't surprised because this is a common thing that people want to do more and go faster with the expectation that it will it will lead to faster benefits, faster progress. But I had never I had never heard someone as ambitious to want to do the entire program in one day. Maybe he was joking. Maybe there was a little bit of a joke in that message. But it was. It just brought the topic of the week to me, which is why we're talking about it here. And and so we're going to basically break down why it would be impossible to speed up the process of healing, the process of neuromuscular retraining, and the process of building, building this connection that we are forming into our core simply by just doing all the exercises all at once and going really hard and and just like, you know, he was explaining to me how he, he's doing his physical therapy exercises and he's just adding weight. Uh, he's doing, you know, dead bug, which is a really common exercise that we do a version of it in the program where we implement the core anchors to the dead bug. But he's doing the basic physical therapy one at holding weights in his hands and going, uh, just really intensely with the impression that that will, uh, you know, speed up his progress. And so I think it's a really common I think it's a really common viewpoint. Maybe not everyone as ambitious as my friend, but this tendency to want to do more and get to the goal faster. So let's talk about why that's not possible. There is a lesson in the program on this. We're going to be talking about the difference between the global muscles and the local muscles. And so like we're going to start off with the bio mechanical, you know, neurophysiological reason, the science of why this doesn't work. And then we'll get into some other reasons as well. Like more theoretical. So when you look at the The human muscular system. You're looking at surface muscles. You know, when you're looking at it from the outside, these are all surface muscles. And pretty much all of these muscles are designed for one primary purpose. And that purpose is to move the body. That's what they do. And so some people describe these as power muscles. They can generate a lot of force because they pull on levers really well. And the alternative so these would be the global muscles. And these are the ones that are responsible for pulling us out of alignment. And, and you know, they they develop imbalances between each other and we get poor posture. The contrast is the local muscles, which I call the deep core. And these muscles are not necessarily designed to move the body Their primary design is to create stability and support, in this case for the spine, and so that the limbs, the arms and legs have a foundation, a strong foundation to pull their levers off of. So one end of the lever moves and the other end is stable. And so what happens in the chronic lower back pain population is these local deep stability muscles tend to shut down. We don't use them as much when we are living this modern lifestyle. You know, spending a lot of time sitting. And they also shut down for other reasons as well. And so you can get into a lot more into that through, you know, I've written about that in my e-books and a little bit in the master class as well. But when these muscles shut off, the global muscles try to take over. They go into protective mechanism and it creates problems. So what happens now? We've got pain. This guy's got probably some neck pain and maybe some lower back pain. And what happens when he or she works out really hard? He or she is training these very power muscles because they're designed for power. And so training power is working these muscles, they're not designed to go all day long and maintain a low level amount of engagement. They go on hard and they go off hard. And when they get overworked, they get a little bit inflamed. They become a little bit hypertonic. They get really tight. And so if these people were to have back pain, muscle imbalances, they are potentially worsening the imbalance and potentially strengthening the imbalance. And more or less when you do a high intensity hard workouts, these deeper muscles can more or less be completely off. And you wouldn't know it because it's being overshadowed by the power muscles. And so the only way to get into these deep muscles is to train for specificity, specifically for what they're designed to do. And these muscles are designed to have a low level amount of engagement for a long duration throughout your waking hours of the day to support your spine. And so this is a low intensity muscle group, and that's how we have to train them if we want to target them, if we want to access them. And so that is the biomechanical neurophysiological reason why training hard and doing more weight and pushing it is the wrong strategy. It's one of the worst things you can do because like I said, it potentially can be worsening or strengthening the muscle imbalance. And so it's against our natural inclination to want to do this. But one of the best things you can do for getting out of this prolonged lower back pain, or really any kind of back pain, is to turn down your level of intensity and to not push it hard, but to tune in and to focus your attention deep into these muscles that we have lost connection with. We don't have any familiarity with them anymore, and try and become familiar with them and wake them back up. And really, the only way to do that is to mimic what they do and move lightly. And so that's why I call a lot of the awareness exercises in the beginning of the program, more like meditations, because the challenge is mental, not so much physical. And we do get into strengthening exercises later in the program, you know, even as soon as week three and week four and beyond, we start strengthening. But we don't do this kind of stuff until we know that the deeper muscles are on so that the spine is supported, and so that these levers pulling on our foundational trunk, our core, are not creating more problems, you know, moving the vertebrae around that are already degenerated, the discs between them or herniated that we need to stabilize them. And so when we do move our limbs, these are held in, you know, in a supported environment. And the limbs can pull on them because that's really what's happening. Our trunk is our foundation. Okay. So that's point number one. The next reason you could call it theory, but I think that other people would agree with me the body. And this would more point towards like trying to do all the exercises in one day. The body, the human body, and probably a lot of creatures doesn't like rapid change. It doesn't work well for the body. It likes to adapt gradually. And what we're doing is we're making some serious changes to the way that the brain controls the body and holds the body and moves the body. And so not only will it take time. Like time is the number one factor and repetition over time to strengthen those nerves that were at one time connected and maybe not used for a long time and or used at a very low level. So if you don't use it, you lose it. They kind of dwindle away, and we need to reconnect and strengthen those highways, basically of electricity, so that they can handle more energy and more electricity running through them. So that takes time. Just like from a I don't know what you want to call it, biological perspective to grow and make those changes. And also another way that the body doesn't really like rapid changes just in its environment. One of the kind of areas of physical therapy where I really learned about this was in footwear and, you know, foot injuries, foot problems, chronic foot pain. When people make a drastic change to their footwear, it can have really serious effects on the rest of the body. And, you know, one could think that it's not that significant to change footwear, but it is your main contact with the Earth, you know, primarily when you're awake and in your day. And so in order to successfully adapt footwear, it has to be done slowly and gradually. You can't go from a highly supportive shoe to a barefoot shoe and one switch. I would never recommend that. And if you needed to go from, you know, less supportive or barefoot to more support because you had an injury or something even that can have a serious effect. So anytime you're changing footwear styles in a long term sense, you want to level your way down towards the goal. And that's because, like I said, the body does not do well with rapid changes. And so we are creatures of adaptation. And that tends to happen slowly over time. And I just want to point out that, you know, the program's about twelve weeks long. And I think, you know, there's been probably I don't even know how many years of like, pretty much brain racking thought I've put into the design and the layout, the order of the lessons and the space between them and the time that it takes to go through them. But it's been a lot, and I believe that this three month process is about as fast as you would want to go through it. You know, a lot of people take longer. A lot of people take more like four or five months to get through the program, and that's what's most appropriate for them. And a lot of people do go through it and, you know, twelve weeks. But that's about as fast as your body will make these changes, unless you're starting off already ahead. And you have, you know, a good connection already. But that's not typically the type of person that finds this program, because it's just not very common for chronic lower back pain for people to have a good deep core connection. So we have to start at the beginning. And yeah, it's just really tough. It's tough on the human psyche to want to go, to do things slowly, to do things lightly and to be patient about these changes. But in my opinion and in my experience, I think it's the best way to do it. And I always say to the students, slow progress is the most sustainable kind of progress. It's the best kind of progress. It has the most lasting effect. So I see a question coming through from Chris. It says, would you recommend any weight training during the CBT program, for example, biceps, triceps, shoulders, etc.? Yeah. So I'll talk a little bit about that Chris. I think I'm pretty much done with my topic. But you know, the real main reason is neurophysiological, and that is that exercising hard is training the wrong set of muscle groups. And so I'll do a little conclusion at the end. But let's switch over, switch gears into the Q&A and I'll start with your question. Chris and I do have another at least one other similar question to that, so I will do that one next. So basically biceps, triceps and shoulders I like the idea of doing shoulders depends how you define shoulders. But you know, the shoulder girdle includes part of the core. You know the shoulder blades. So we are training, you know, with postural training like the front anchors push away and stuff. We're training the shoulder girdle. We're training the upper thoracic, mid thoracic. And just like the posture of the upper back to be able to stay more open. So I like that as far as biceps and triceps, the farther you get away from the center of the body, the more likelihood that if you haven't developed a strong foundation before doing that type of training, that you could be just contributing to the problem. And so my encouragement to you, Chris, and to anybody would be. If you're going to be doing like dumbbell curls or any kind of, you know, tricep like donkey kicks or something like that, that you stay focused on your core during that exercise. And it's a pretty cool switch that happens in your mind when you realize that every single exercise and movement can become a core exercise as well. To maintain that stability in your trunk, and to have the challenge be the resistance that occurs when the levers pull on the trunk. And so to be able to maintain that stability, that connection, that anchor triad with the different amounts of force pulling on it. So yeah, it'd be really similar to doing like the Bird Dog or the Front Anchors challenge. You know, we're lifting our arms and legs, but that's not the exercise. The exercise is keeping the trunk and the core stable or connected, and you can do whatever you want with your arms and legs. So I hope that answers your question. Chris. If I were going to like, do a weight training like regimen or recommendation to anybody during the program, it would be more like I'd probably start with and start in phase two. Once people get like the just at least introduced to the anchor triad and the hip hinge and maybe even, uh, deadlift and and squat and then, um, once, if you can do those while feeling the connection, then, uh, you can pretty much start doing a whole lot of other things. You can start adding weights to those, which would be weight training. Um, and you can also, uh, just start like applying these general concepts because that's really what they are to to more things. But if it were in like phase one, and I'm not sure if people are really grasping this whole connection thing that it seems so abstract, then I'm not going to recommend it. But at the same time, if you're doing core balance training, nothing really conflicts with it. Like you're not going to be if you're doing balance training the right way, you can go ahead and do anything else you want. Just don't hurt yourself. Don't try not to set yourself back and listen to your body while you're doing it. So maybe, like if you do a weight training session and the next day you're really sore, hopefully paid attention to that and make a change. So Sherry, yours is super relevant to the actual topic of the day. What is the minimum speed to pace through the program? I've been in the program for two months, but I'm still struggling in module two, making very slow progress. So there really is no minimum because, you know, I would say, for example, that when I was experimenting with this, the program didn't exist. This is not copied from anywhere. So it came about organically through experimentation and learning different basically principles of all these different schools of thought and putting things together. So I was doing this for my own body, and when I was experimenting and figuring out these connections, I would say I probably spent about five months sherry in the equivalent of module one two. What? Just maybe phase one, module one through four. I probably spent about five months doing that stuff only and not adding in the other, more complex things. And that's what worked for me. You know, I didn't have it laid out for me, but it really worked well. And I continued doing that stuff actually for years. And I found myself getting back to that lately because of all the surfing that I'm doing down here in Costa Rica is really very repetitive activity, and it can lead to, you know, issues in the body. And so I'm going back to the basics. I'm going back to core balance training and phase one stuff. And it's been awesome. So there is no minimum you can do this stuff for years. And it's beneficial. And the reason that I encourage people to go slower is Because the better that you can get these early foundations, it just makes it a lot easier to add the complex stuff on top, like exponentially easier. And you have this stuff for the rest of your life. You're not going to forget this stuff. I really, genuinely believe that this is a this is lifetime stuff, and it has a lifetime impact because it changes your relationship with your body. So that's a really great question. I've actually probably I've wanted to receive that question for a long time to be able to say this stuff that that there's no minimum. And you learn this no matter how long it takes you to learn it, you get to keep it and you go, yeah, so you're doing the right thing. Shari, go at your own pace and send me an update on what you're struggling with in module two, and we'll see if I can give you any guidance. The front anchors can be quite tricky. Most people, I would say. I mean, we did kind of a lot of last week's stream on the front anchors. Most people, I would say, have difficulty with the front anchors in the beginning and the ones that stick with it. There's there comes a day that where it just clicks and they're like, oh my gosh, I get it now. And when that day comes, it leads to a lot of possibilities, a lot of future progress. But it can feel like a lot of stagnant, like, you know, plateau type time before that breakthrough happens. So I encourage you to stick with it and just let me know what's you know, what I can guide you with. All right. We're going to go into some student questions from the course. And then we'll be wrapping this thing up. I have them right here in front of me. So I'll read them just like last week. Start with a couple just comments, not necessarily questions. Helen says in the push away concept, she says, I played with the idea of pushing away from or pushing down towards. There's a subtle difference. I liked pushing away from better, so I gave the two methods of how to interpret what the push away concept is. And so she tried both. She noticed that sitting upright, her core muscles are weak, but it doesn't somehow need strength with the push away concept. That's exactly right, Helen. So that actually is super relevant to today's lesson because remember these muscles don't do power. They're and so strength and power are very related. And so they are not going to be your weightlifting muscles. These are going to be your Low level, slow movement or no movement. Squeeze and hold and stabilize muscles to create. You know, these are the ones in the front that help you create intra abdominal pressure. And when you increase the pressure in your cylindrical chamber of your abdomen, it increases the stability within that chamber. And so these really just squeeze and they tighten. And it's not really a strength thing. It's an engagement. It's a connection thing. So that's great. Share Helen. And it's very true. It's not about strength. The push away concept activates. The goal is to activate these deeper muscles. And so we are working with intention, not power or intensity or control. Um it's a really cool feeling once you grasp it. Next question or comment. Let's see. Angela says, I love your live stream. Thank you, Doctor Peebles. Oh, that's very nice. I appreciate that. Angela. Uh, Heidi in Running Man, which is a lesson in phase three, says loving this movement. And yes, core connection is key. I've felt more stable on one side than on the other some days, and stronger when I try doing this in the afternoon versus the morning after I've gone through my fifteen minute daily routine. Typewriter squad is feeling good too. This program is doing wonders for me and man, I feel much better in the low back. Awesome. Heidi and I've just really loved watching your progress like since the beginning. I really appreciate you sharing throughout your journey and I know it's been inspiring to other students. So thank you and I do. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense that doing the complex movements after doing the fifteen minute routine is much preferable because you're waking up those muscles, those stability muscles and balancing on one foot requires a lot of stability. When I'm doing like, you know, slackline or anything that requires a lot of balance and I'm able to focus, I'm mostly just thinking about connecting to my core. Not so much balancing like this on the Slackline I'm tuning into the center. And so yeah, activating those muscles is really helpful for balance. This is another balance comment. And actually it's a question so we'll get into this one is from Marci. It says this is an unilateral anchor triad. So single leg stance while connecting to the anchors. I know and I believe this is from somewhere in phase two. I know some might think it's crazy, but isn't it true? Some days your balance is just off. I've noticed that in my yoga practice. Of course, that doesn't mean you can't strengthen each side concentrating on something that isn't moving also helps. Yeah. Marcy. Very true. Some days things are off. I'm not going to begin to understand why, but just recognizing it is important. And some days things are just on. So when we have those off days and in more ways than one, it can be really beneficial just to observe that and accept it. Be like, maybe today is not the day, but tomorrow will be better. Okay. Next question. Okay, Sherry, we've got a follow up from you. Says lots of low back strain and vulnerability as I try to connect either front anchor to the floor. Is this because my core muscles are not ready for this yet? Uh, no. I don't believe that your core muscles are not ready. If you watched the last week's stream. Sherry, I think I tried to emphasize in the front anchors awareness position. The The value of just laying in the position and breathing. And so that doesn't really require much in the way of more muscle activity. Um, but just allowing the muscles to relax into this different position. And, you know, prone position face down and then feeling your breath expand into your pelvis and your lower back. Because when you're laying face down, the floor is blocking your breath from going out the front. And so it's a physical barrier that sends your breath into some other areas of the body. And it feels really cool to feel that expansion. So if that's painful, then there's something else going on. And so I don't think it's about core muscles not being ready, But if it's not painful, then I recommend doing that. And then just like from zero. So we'll call that zero. Then gradually introducing a little bit of muscle engagement to do a really, really, really low intensity push away would be the next step. Or just connecting the pubic bone to the floor. And you go from zero to one or zero to zero point five. Um, and so you find where your edge is and you work right underneath that. Uh, Chris, let's see. Any advice for resolving foot numbness and fatigue in the lower leg? I no longer feel like I have nerve impingement. That's awesome. But the fatigue numbness remains. That's really great. That's like huge news, Chris. So excellent job doing the work to to help yourself and potentially, you know, un un impinge that nerve. It's not easy, but creating space in the spine is possible. And and so. Way to go. So. I you know, it may just be a situation where it's going to take more time. Nerves tend to react achingly slow when it comes to healing. They regrow at an incredibly slow rate and they just tend to have like delayed effects. So it may just be more time to keep doing what you're doing because it seems to be working, and it may just take more time of doing that and continue the progressing through. But it also could be that if the numbness has been going on for ten years, that's just something that you're going to live with. And a lot of people do. And I know in my case I have a little bit of decreased sensation in my shin. Like it's like the most kind of insignificant area of the body to have reduced sensation, but I don't really notice it. I kind of live with it. And if it's a another area of the body that's more significant than, um, it's going to be, it may be a matter of learning how to just live with it, or to get by with it and accept it and kind of maybe even forget about it. Or if it hasn't been going on for like ten years or more, then, you know, it's patience. And one like kind of practical piece of advice I would have is cardio because blood flow heals, blood flow nourishes, it helps nerves, it helps Sensation. It helps everything. So being able to do cardio just to improve that process, maybe speed it along and help it out. Hopefully that helps. Chris. I'm going to go to the question that was really similar to your first question, Chris. This one's from Troy. It's about the rowing machine. He says I have suspended use of my rowing machine while doing this program. I'd be interested to hear your perspective on training with rowing machine going forward. I do have a perspective on that. Troy, there's two things about it that is not ideal for this process that we're trying to accomplish of opening the posture. And so I'm guessing that you can you can make a guess at one of them. And so we'll talk about those two things. And then. I will give you like a straight up answer. So one, rowing is extremely repetitive and especially for, you know, the lumbar spine and the hips. It's repetitive. And so if there is a less than optimal congruency of the joints or less than optimal stability in the core, or flexibility in the hips, to be able to get the, you know, the the majority of the motion into the hips and have the spine be stable. And you know you want your hips to be healthy too. So if they're in less, less than a healthy state, then doing an activity that has a lot of repetition can lead to repetitive trauma. And so you just want to, you know, consider what activities you're doing and the the repetitiveness of them and how your body feels while you're doing them. Um, I think you've been going. Let's see. You are. You're pretty much done with the program, Troy. So if you're feeling good, feeling connected, then I say go for it. And so, number two, before I give you my straight up answer, number two is the rowing posture is sitting and curled forward. And so we're trying to kind of reverse the negative effects of sitting and the curled forward posture. And yeah like early in the program I wouldn't recommend an activity like that. But since you're at the end and I think, I'm guessing you're feeling pretty good that my straight up answer is this you can turn any activity into a core exercise and a healthy movement just by doing it in a healthy way. So it is not about the exercise or the activity that you're doing. It's about how you do it, not about what you do. It's about how you do it. And so, you know, I've always said like, if there's a if there's not really any activities I avoid anymore, but if there was one activity I would avoid, it would be horseback riding. Well guess what I went. I was galloping on the beach, on the horse, on a horse the other day, like for hours. And I was doing core balance on the horse and so I was fine. I didn't even have. I was less sore than other people I was with afterwards. So. So it's not about what you do, it's about how you do it. And I would say get back into the rowing, apply the core balance training principles, the core connection, the anchors. Turn it into a core exercise and see how it goes. Yeah, I give you the go ahead I support that. I have a lot of friends who are basically professional kayakers and or into rowing, and so it can have its negative effects on the body, but it doesn't have to. It depends how you do it, not what you do. All right. Greg says front anchors challenge two. He says he's feels improvement. I'm gaining more stability each week. I'm confident that this program will be a good long term solution for my lower back issues. All right. That sounds like a testimonial to me. Thank you for sharing, Greg. Okay, Chris, just a little follow up from you. Let's do a little math. We are at eight months, and you're, uh, you got a lot of hope. Chris. So, yeah, my best advice is just to continue doing what's working for you. Because something you're doing is working. And as you get stronger, as you feel better, continue progressing. And if that means doing core balance training, going through the program, keep pushing it and not in the sense of intensity like what this stream is about, but just pushing that edge of you being able to do functional movements and have while keeping that connection to your core. And I have hope for you, man, that the fatigue and the numbness will get better. Yeah, simply by keeping doing what is working for you. So this is from Bridget? Uh, it's on the typewriter squat, which I believe is in phase three. So she's almost done with the program. Says hi, Doctor Ryan. This feels good and works for me. I had a few days of back discomfort, so backed off a bit with new movements. It seems that my back gets sore or achy after sleeping on a bed. Sleeping on back isn't comfortable, but sleeping on sides seems to put my hips to sleep. Ideas for what could be best for back comfort. Thank you and looking forward to hearing your ideas. Okay, Bridget. So sleeping like questions in general are one of the more common questions I get. So definitely have some advice and I'll try to, I don't know, keep it fresh and have some original things to say because I've definitely had a lot of questions on sleeping, talking about positions, and shared stuff about that in previous streams, and I'll have maybe said some valuable information in those past streams as well. But for today, for this one, I'll try to be specific to you. So sleeping in bed can cause soreness for like, I don't know, three or four different reasons. One is the mattress, two is the position. Three is what you did that day. Four is just simply the state that your body is in, in general in this period of your life. You know, if sleeping is kind of a time for your body to heal from the day, if you know, if there's a lot of existing muscle imbalances, stuff like that, people can just wake up sore because they made it through the day, and then the body heals a lot through the night. And then there's like stiffness and kind of soreness when they wake up. I don't think that's going to be you because you're in phase three doing the typewriter squat. So we're going to assume that you've made some progress with your body. And so we're going to eliminate that one. And we'll also eliminate what you did during that day, because you're saying it in more of a general sense, like it seems like it happens in a general on a like a general night, just sleeping on the bed. So we're going to say it's either mattress or sleeping position for you. And we'll talk about mattress first. So if you have a soft mattress or a mattress that is too soft, sleeping on your back is going to hurt. It's like sleeping in a hammock. There's just like no support. You're ended up. You're end up sleeping in a flexed posture. Your spine is in a flexed position, which is okay to be in, but not for eight hours or however long you're sleeping. It's too prolonged, so spinal flexion is okay and it's not dangerous or unhealthy. But for sleeping you want to kind of be more in a neutral position. So that's soft mattress. But if you have a soft mattress and you sleep on your side. That's okay, because you know the it's better for the shoulder, better for the hips. Um, to give, have a little bit more give in the mattress. So sleeping on your back isn't comfortable. Sleeping on your side seems like more. I don't know the state of your mattress, but we'll assume that sleeping on your back isn't comfortable just because of your personal preference. You don't really like it, and it's not the fact that the mattress is too soft. So you're a side sleeper or stomach or belly sleeper. I'm going to also assume you've tried putting a pillow between your knees, because that can really help the hips. But if you haven't, definitely try that. And if you have, then try more pillows, like two pillows or like a really thick pillow because getting a lot of space between your knees can really help. And that might be the solution is to keep your hips from going to sleep. So that's one tip. Sleeping on the stomach or your belly is okay. I would suggest only doing that on a more firm mattress. So firm mattress is better for back sleeping and belly sleeping. And then if you don't have any neck problems, because if you have neck problems, then sleeping on your belly can be kind of stressful on the neck. So. So that is an option for you is it's sleep face down. I would use no pillow under your head, just like head right on the mattress so you have better alignment and then bringing one knee up. So whatever way your head is turned you would bring that same knee up to open the body and the hips and the shoulders just a little bit in that direction to make. I guess it makes it a little easier on the neck. So that's what I would try. I'm not going to say get a new mattress, because I don't know what the condition of your mattress, but if it is soft, then you could consider that that could be contributing to the discomfort you feel when you sleep on your back. And if you want to be able to sleep on your back, then you might need a more firm mattress. If you have a mattress topper, I would say try eliminating that and see what's underneath. Thank you for the questions. And as we wrap this up, just a little conclusion on the topic. I can't stress enough how prevalent it is that students want to do more and go harder on and push it. And they have the best of intentions and that is to get more benefit faster and more. But that's counterproductive for the way the body works. So in order to get the maximum benefit for. Training the muscles that are designed specifically to support your spine, you have to turn down the intensity and work at their level. Do exercise and movement specific to what they're designed for, which is low level, long duration, subtle engagement to support the spine. And so that's how the program starts. And then we work our way towards doing higher intensity things. But only once you have that deep core connection in place. Do you want to add in the layers of training the power muscles that live on top and are the ones that are commonly responsible for a lot of the problems the muscle imbalances, the postural dysfunction, the movement dysfunction, and a lot of spinal conditions and pain. So it's not good versus bad. It's not that the global muscles are bad, it's that they need support. They need support from the deep core. And we got to turn down the intensity to get to the deep core. Then we can start training the global muscles. So that's it for today. Thank you for watching. If you're here live or watching the replay appreciate you. And as we end the stream, I encourage you to do something good for your body. Get down on the floor and connect to your core because our bodies do so much for us. So we'll pay back the debt a little bit by by getting down on the floor. And until next time, stay connected. All right. Take care.
