This week's topic is a recipe for prolonging your back pain, or a recipe for chronic back pain. And the purpose of this topic, which is a little bit sarcastic, is that sometimes it's valuable to be told what not to do, and it will help you to have perspective on why it is so important to do the opposite of that. And so I've learned in various ways, various topics from people telling me, do this if you want to get worse. And and I've found it a little bit enlightening, like, wow, I, I do that, why am I doing that? And so that's my goal today with you to just give you a perspective on something that happened recently through just our Interactions with students and potential students. And so I'll get to the story in a minute. It's I found it surprising and important to share. So let's get into the topic. I just want to share a quote that is a real quote from a medical professional that was giving advice to an unnamed person, an anonymous person. And this happened in real life recently. And I want to talk about why this is not good advice, and I think it happens a lot. I think it happens all the time. And, uh, I personally feel it's really important to address this problem in our medical system. So without dragging on the topic any further, let's get right to it. So how to prolong your back pain? Here's the quote. So it says pause any type of physical activity for the next three months while I get your back realigned. So think about that for a minute. This patient is being instructed to pause any type of physical activity for three months. Do you think this is good advice? That's my question. Do you think this is good advice? You can probably assume how I feel about it. Personally, I believe that physical activity, physical therapy. You know, physical movement. If we're going to call it an umbrella classification is critical to getting out of back pain. And so giving a patient advice to stop doing that is I couldn't imagine a worse advice that you can give. Okay. And I'm specifically not specifying the type of medical professional or healthcare provider, but I hope that you can imagine who the medical professional is with the type of treatment that is being specified here. Getting your back realigned. I'm not trying to hate on any specific profession, so I'm just not going to specify. But a certain profession would more likely be the one to give this advice. And I'm going to talk about why the alignment of the spine is not something that can be restored in a long term sense by someone else, by an outside person using their hands to treat a patient. That's not possible. So first of all, if you've ever seen my master class, you know that a skeleton does not hold itself up. If you take a skeleton and you stand it up without any muscles, it is not going to hold itself up. It will collapse. So muscles matter. Muscles are what hold the skeleton up. And so if someone is having their back realigned by a professional using their hands to adjust, then physical activity needs to happen to maintain those adjustments. And I would even argue that just doing the adjustments with physical activity usually is not enough to maintain the adjustments. The physical activity itself is more valuable. Which muscles are you training? Which muscles are you tightening, and are you restoring? Balance in the body through specific exercises is more important for realigning the bones. You can look at it like a tent, and the guy wires of the tent are the muscles. That's really what's holding the tent in alignment. And if you have the muscles, the guy wires out of balance. It doesn't matter what adjustments you make to those tent poles, they will go back out of alignment because the true things holding them in alignment are what really matter. Okay. And this is it applied to the body. So this is the picture of what I imagine is going to happen to this person who is halting any physical activity for three months. And it doesn't matter how many adjustments you give to this spine to get it back in realignment. The guy wires, the muscles that are holding it in place are going to get really out of balance from being immobile or being not non-active sedentary, sitting on a couch, sitting in a chair. And that's just my thoughts. And I can go on. And so this is just simply why I believe that this advice is, you know, I'm trying to avoid using the term it's borderline criminal to to tell your patient to stop doing physical activity and especially physical therapy, which could be good. You know, it's actually better. It's under the guidance of a trained professional, which could be good to help your patient if you truly care about your patient. So that's my that's my truth. I see a question coming through. So I will get to that question you have Jenny. Actually this question is related to the topic. Okay. What is the difference between therapy and activities? What if inflammation is there? That is what I've heard to not for three months, but at least for a while. So if there was inflammation, Yevgeny, I could see one day, two days at the most, three days of break. But after seventy two hours of of inactivity, the muscles begin to physically atrophy. So it's not just not. They start getting weaker immediately, but after seventy two hours, they begin to eat themselves. They begin to physically become smaller. We want to avoid that. You know what holds the spine up is the muscles. And if the muscles are becoming weaker and atrophying, then the spine is losing support. So even if there is inflammation, inflammation is often caused by lack of support in the spine. So we want to provide more support for the spine. And so that's my personal belief. Um what is the difference between therapy and activities. You know, therapy is a higher level of of activity. It's guided. It's guided activity specifically targeted towards, uh, Rehabilitation of a specific body part. So, you know, under the guidance of a professional, you would more likely be doing something that is more effective and healthier for the body than somebody without the guidance of a professional that does not have their own personal background of knowledge. So there is no case in which therapy would be, you know, assuming there's no iatrogenic damage, which would be damage caused by a medical professional, which I believe is happening here, that this medical professional is causing iatrogenic damage to a patient, whether that be psychological or physical. Assuming that's not there with physical therapy, then physical therapy is a superior form of physical activity simply because it's under the guidance of a trained, educated professional. That's my opinion of the difference this student of core balance training is likely interpreting this as don't do physical activity. But either way, it's wrong. So the muscles support the spine. If you stop physical therapy and activity, they're going to become weaker. They're going to atrophy and the spine will have less support. This is not speculation. If there's less support for the spine there will be more damage to the soft tissues. The discs will become more degenerated if they're not already herniated or bulging, they will do that. More stenosis will occur. Lots of bad things. This giant monster of back conditions that all result from lack of support. Any number of those things can happen. And to do that, to instruct a patient to do that for three months potentially can change someone's entire life for the negative. It adds a psychological component of fear of activity, fear of movement. And just that time, the amount of time spent not doing things that could be helping them and potentially replacing those things with resting, sitting, relaxing, you know, healing could be just leading to a very long road to recovery or maybe no recovery. And I find it I feel very strongly about this. I find it essential that people maintain physical activity. And if that's physical therapy, then even better and even more than just physical therapy, because physical therapy sometimes is only two or three times a week, doing physical activity five or six days a week is even better for someone that has back pain, whether or not they are getting their spine realigned by a separate medical professional, and I've seen no case in which it's beneficial to pause physical therapy or physical activity. So, uh, that is my soapbox for today. Please, if you take one thing away from this, it is that you should continue to do activity and it should be calculated activity. It doesn't mean go crazy and do the most intense activity, and it doesn't mean do nothing. It means think about what your body is capable of. Listen to your body. Reflect on your past experiences with your activities and the way that your back or your spine reacted. And use that those experiences to help you determine what amount, what type, and what intensity of activity to do. But yes, absolutely. Stay active. And if you have the luxury of having a medical professional, a trained professional, to guide you through exercises, then that's even better. And I, I support all core balance training students to do other therapies at the same time. Why not? If I have more support for a student or a patient to get better, then I'm happy about that. The only thing I can imagine, the only motivation I can imagine for giving this type of advice is either there's two options. One is a serious lack of knowledge and wisdom in modern healthcare, and the second would be ulterior motive of keeping a patient for long term profits, essentially. okay, so I think that's enough. Soapboxing I just feel super passionate about this stuff. We're going to transition into student comments and questions from the program. Also, I have a couple or maybe a few questions from non-students, maybe trial students or even people who are just curious about core balance training, what it's about, and will it help them. So if I have time, we will get to those as well. So the first is not a question. This is a kind of a comment. A student who just finished the program posted a comment in that lesson, and I wanted to share it because she was such a wonderful student, and I think it's a great model for how to approach core balance training. So let's get right into it here. So it says I model core balance training student an example of how to commit or how to approach core balance training. And my hope is for this to inspire other students to follow in Heidi's footsteps and to have the same success and experience as she had. So this is an example of just like a model student. So it says, thank you, Doctor Ryan for creating such a wonderful program. How does twelve weeks go by so fast? I started this program on May thirteenth and looking back at how miserable I was then with my low back to now July twenty second. What a difference. I'm certainly not out of the woods yet, but I'm feeling so much better. Your attention to detail and explaining the hows and whys of low back pain has opened up my world to how I approach and move my body have been life changing. I certainly will miss my daily emails from you. I now and I highlighted this. I now have the knowledge tools to continue and move forward in my maintenance program. That is very important. This is the greatest takeaway that I could hope for any student to have from the program. And I'll explain more. I'll explain why later as I continue to recover from shoulder surgery, which she had, I believe either right before starting the program or even potentially during, I think it was in in the early modules of the program. I look forward to hopefully returning to work as a flight attendant mid September. I will take with me all that I have learned from this program and apply them to how I move and work on the airplane. Another essential thing to maintain this progress long term. And that's one of my three tips for success that everybody watches when they enroll in the program, is to apply this and integrate this into your daily life. Many, many thanks to you, Doctor Ryan, for getting me back on track with my low back. Be well, Heidi Cain. So I want to point out a couple things. There's obviously a great message, and it feels good for me to read this. Um, but there are certain things that about this approach and this student, which I know will give her lasting success. Number one, May thirteen to July twenty second. This is a three month program. May, June, July. It's actually an eleven week program of modules. She stuck with this every single day. And that is the number one factor for success. It's the first thing I tell every single student. The number one factor for success is to commit every day because this program works. And that's been proven, but it's only half the solution. And the other half is that you actually do it. So number one factor that has led her to success. I also want to point out that she says, I'm certainly not out of the woods yet, but I am feeling so much better. That is a true indicator of how much of a long term game that this getting out of this cycle is. I can see that she is being patient about that and there's more to go, but sometimes you can't possibly get there in eleven weeks. So the truth is that she's got more to go, and I believe she's going to get there, because the principles that we teach in this program continue to compound on themselves. It's a compounding of benefit because movement retraining is something that you can continue to get better at and the better you get, the more benefits that you have. And I believe it's more of a five month process for most people to fully integrate the movement retraining of core balance training into their natural movement until the point where it can be start to become unconscious or subconscious, and you don't really have to think about it. And the benefits continue to compound on themselves as your body gets in better alignment and more muscular balance, and your movement becomes healthier and your core becomes more a part of your life and your and your movement. So another point I want to point out is that she's highlighting and I'm highlighting how I approach and move my body. That's what's been life changing. It's the relationship with your body. It's not the exercises. She doesn't say, thank you for teaching me these exercises. These exercises have changed my life. It's not the exercises that are the solution, it's how you relate to your body that is the solution. It's education. If there was one solution to chronic lower back pain, it's education. And it's not just mind education. It's a largely mind education, but it's neuromuscular education. It's retraining the relationship between your mind and your body. And of course, this one I already highlighted. I now have the knowledge tools to continue and move forward in my maintenance program. She has it. It's hers now. She can take it away. And you can't just give it to someone in a package that they can open up instantly. This stuff takes time to download and to integrate, and I've packed it into what I believe is the fastest possible way to open this package, which is about twelve weeks for most people, or longer if their fitness level requires them to go slower through the program. Gram, but once you have it, it's yours and it doesn't go away. You carry this on with you for life. And like I said, it continues to compound on itself. So I just want to thank you, Heidi, if you ever see this and just just really acknowledge how much of a model student you were, not only did you stick with it every day, you captured, the true value of the program is how you learned to move and approach your body. And also, just another thing is that you were really active and you commented in so many lessons and you shared your experiences and allowed me to respond, and it was great for you to have extra guidance and also to inspire other students. And I'm grateful. I'm grateful for all the times that you shared and commented. So thank you, Heidi. I wish you the best. Keep going. There's more work to do, but this is a lifetime process and it's so very worth it. So we're going to move on to the next. I believe this is a question. And this one is from SM initials. And it's about the front anchors awareness and progression lessons. This is module two. It says I am just beginning to feel the connection to the floor and able to lift legs a bit and separately lift head and shoulders chest just a bit. So the first thing I want to point out about this is that I don't like using the term lift. So when you are doing the front anchors for anybody, you're doing the front anchors awareness or progression and your limbs, you're doing the push away from the floor and that results in the elevation of your limbs. If you're having any intention at all of lifting your limbs, then I want you to switch that intention and have the intention of pushing away. And if your limbs elevate, great. And if they don't, that's just fine too, because you get the same amount of benefit whether they elevate or not, with having the push away intention. And so anybody that's kind of confused about this, you can go back and review the lesson from day two of the program module one, day two, the push away concept. And just to refresh your understanding of the intention and how valuable it is to push away from the earth from the floor. And that has a different effect. It activates different muscles in the body. And there, I believe, to be healthier firing patterns that we learned as infants and babies naturally. Then the the lifting intention. And I don't know if this particular student has this lift in tension. It's just what was typed, and I wanted to take this opportunity to turn it into a quick lesson to people. It's a push away intention. Okay, so next, she says, just starting to click into a comfort mode with this. Very excited to make this progress. But yesterday I had a back spasm unrelated to exercising or practicing the movements of the program. This has happened in the past and usually it is quite a setback as it can take me weeks to months to get back to where I was prior to the spasm. Just wondering if you have any general or specific tips or advice on what to do early on after a spasm, or how to ease back into the program and when. So thank you for reaching out about this. This is actually highly related to the topic of today. You need to be active. So at the most one to two days, I would expect, as if there's an inflammation level that's too high and three days at the most of it, but I would prefer it to be two and after. If if you get to that point of two days and you're like, I think I could start doing something, then you need to start doing something. If it takes you three days, fine. But I don't want you to go further because the atrophy will begin and it's takes longer and is harder to get out of that spiral of when muscles physically shrink and eat themselves and start to atrophy. So we want to avoid that. And so we don't want to go beyond seventy two hours. That's what the research shows. So that's my timeline is to start doing something within seventy two hours. The sooner the better if you're capable. Now what to do. And that's going to be different for everybody and different for every situation. And that's going to require you to listen to your body and reflect back into your past and learn from that reflection, what activities you can tolerate, how much of them and what intensity you can do them at. So if that means almost nothing, it's better than nothing. But if that means you're capable of going for a five minute walk, then that's what you should be doing. The optimum thing you can do is just walk. Light. Low grade activity in general is the category or the classification of activity that I recommend. So low grade or light activity. The best possible example is walking. If not walking, it can be a gentle version of many other activities that could be riding a stationary bike gently, or doing any of your normal activities that typically feel good for your body, just in a lower intensity form. I often recommend students to just go back to the basics. So, uh, I know that you are in the basics in the program. So module one, module two. Those are great. I don't even want to call them exercises. They're meditations really to go back to and just connect to the floor. So if you're able to get down on the floor and lay on your back and the hook lying position and connect to your back anchor, if you're able to lay prone on your belly and just breathe into your anchors, just breathe into them and feel the expansion in your muscles that can be incredibly powerful. Just the breathing. Breathe into your front anchors and the floor will block the expansion of your belly. It causes your entire body to elevate a little bit. You can probably see in the lesson in the front anchors awareness lesson in the very beginning of the lesson where I'm just breathing and my entire body elevates a little bit, and it sends some of the expansion into my lower back. That in itself can get you over a hump that will, in the next days, will allow you to do a little bit more. And so it's all about progression and progressing at the pace that you are comfortable with. And so you need to be doing not nothing. Somewhere between you know on the scale of zero being nothing, ten being high intensity activity something between one and three level of intensity activities for a few days, as long as you need to get into some level four activities. And then the progression continues. So that's my advice. I'm going to just review your question, general or specific tips on what to do. So yeah, my number one tip is to do the least amount of nothing that you need. If that amount of nothing is is one day, then that's better than two days. There's not so much downside to two days. The downside begins after seventy two hours. And so we just want to get through that period and then start doing something. And my next best piece of advice is is the reflection. Reflect back onto what last time this happened. What was the first thing that you could comfortably begin doing. And what did you learn from that? And to start doing it. And if you don't have a solution of what to do, then I guess it means that you have to perform a test. Okay, maybe I'll try a short walk. You know, flat on the flat ground, not incline or decline and see how that goes. And if walking is not possible, then hopefully that there is some other thing that you can think of. Maybe it's just the back anchor or a stationary bike. So hopefully that helps. And um, let me know. Can respond in the comments and let me know if you need more guidance and I'll be happy to help. Okay. Next question is this is from Sue. It's about I guess I titled it Making Long Term Changes. She says we are finding our lives multiplying with responsibilities and demands, so making time to exercise is necessary. I agree. Sue, I am so glad that you are prioritizing that and I hope that you can take action on it. Um, knowing something and taking action on it. There can be a large gap between those two things, and so I'm glad you recognize it, and I hope that you take action on making that time, either scheduling it in or whatever, but it is the number one factor to having success. She says, I think I am making progress, but it is slow and some of my posturing has been ingrained in my body. So working to change it. All right. So one thing I always like to say, I started saying this the last couple years. Slow progress Sue, and everyone is the best kind of progress because it's the most sustainable kind of progress. It has the most lasting effects. Really fast progress means it can go away really fast. Really slow progress typically means that it is being ingrained into your body. Just like you said that your former posturing has been ingrained into your body. These changes, if we're doing it the right way, we are ingraining them so they will take a long time to go away. Just like what you're dealing with right now. The old posturing. It's been a long time. It's going to take a long time to go away. And this work you're putting in now is going to be worth it. It's for long term change, so keep it up. I love your attitude. We're going to change it. And it seems like you understand that these are motor patterns. These are this is muscle memory. These neuromuscular firing patterns are they become default patterns over time. And we have to change the default. And so yet it takes time. But once you can have a healthy pattern become your default. Wow. It feels good. So, uh, keep it up. So, next question from Sue. Or the question is, do you think years of back problems can still be helped? Slash healed. My brother has had severe back issues for many years and I wondered if he has tried lots of stuff gravity, sling exercises, etc. so, um, I hope you know my answer. Sue, from just what I was saying before, but absolutely one hundred percent. I am a personal example of someone who struggled with chronic lower back problems for over a decade, and, uh, I was doomed by a chiropractor telling me that I would be in a wheelchair in my future. Um, a physical therapist told me that I would be getting, uh, disc replacement surgery, but I need. My goal was just to hold off for about five more years and do physical therapy for five more years because the technology isn't good enough to get that surgery yet. So we're just we're just, uh, kind of playing the waiting game and just trying to hold off. See if I can last five more years for the technology to catch up. Well, that surgery never happened, and far from in a wheelchair. And I did have youth on my side. You know, I spent most of my twenties with back problems, but the damage was not on my side. My discs are still totally gone. You know, my my degenerative disc disease is still there. If you take a picture of my spine, whatever kind of picture you want to take, you'll see black discs. There are no there's no fluid inside. And a healthy disc is white and and plump and full of, um, nucleus pulposus on. Um, that's what herniates out. And so I don't have any of that in my bottom three discs, and I haven't had pictures of my spine in years, but I already know. And if you've seen my previous streams, I have an entire stream on imaging and the psychological impact of imaging anyway. Age is not going to be stopping anybody from improving their life. You could be ninety years old and you can still improve and reduce your pain and improve your function and your quality of life. So absolutely, one hundred percent, no doubt in my mind it could have been going on. We have students and um, we have testimonials from students who multiple. If you go to the testimonials page who have had chronic back problems for twenty, twenty five, twenty five plus years of debilitating chronic back problems. And by improving their relationship with their body and with their core, their pain can be reduced and has been reduced down to zero. And they feel good. And it's not to say that the discs were herniated, but the body is happy because the damage has stopped, the downward progression of damage has been curbed and the body feels much better. I've done another stream on the psychology of pain, and there is a very poor correlation between damage to the spine and back pain. Very poor, almost terrible inverse correlation. And so you can be pain free and have a damaged spine because your body is in a healthy state. And so yeah, that's why this is all possible. That's the reason why this is all possible. We can stop hammering our thumb that's causing the damage. And if you can take whatever medicine and injections you want. But if you don't stop, stop hammering your thumb and causing the damage, it's not going to get better. So that's what we do in the program and the other treatments that I tried over those twelve years, and there were countless I tried everything I possibly could. And potentially what your brother tried may have been helpful if the problem causing the damage was removed. So I encourage you to encourage him to not give up and just have hope and believe that it's possible because I know for a fact that it is. All right. So hopefully that helps Sue keep it up and help your brother out. I'm lucky to have a sister that helped me out over the years just with encouragement. And that's extremely powerful. So help your brother out. Okay. This next one, this is a general question I don't believe. Oh, this was a trial student, Sam. He says I would like to cancel my subscription. Unfortunately, my back isn't able to handle the program, so I just wanted to share my views on this because this program was designed for severe, chronic lower back problems. And so anyone that's participated in the beginning, first two modules of the program knows that this is extremely gentle and at the same time extremely healthy. And so this is designed for a severely damaged spine to be able to handle. And I encourage anyone who feels that they're not ready or capable of doing an exercise program to not think of this as an exercise program, but, uh, a rehabilitation program for a severely damaged spine. And it's, in my personal opinion, the best possible thing you can do. I just encourage you to think of this. Think of the alternatives. What if you're not doing this? What? What are you replacing it with? Because if it's inactivity, then that's worse. And that's the topic of this stream, right? How important activity is? I don't know of any other exercise program that is as gentle as this. And if, Sam, you ever see this, I encourage you to think of this program as potentially one of the best things you can do to rehabilitate a spine that may not be able to handle anything else, because that is exactly who this is for. I was personally unable to do. I was debilitated, I was unable to sit, which may have been a blessing because, uh, it wasn't. If I could have sit comfortably, I probably would have sat a lot. But I had to be doing something that involved standing and moving around, and even that was extremely painful. So I had to lay down a lot. I had to lay down, uh, majority of the time, and I spent days and weeks and months laying down. Wow, that was a terrible time of my life, and I was unable to do all the physical activities that I enjoyed. So I was just forced to do ones that I didn't necessarily enjoy and were the least damaging to my body. I was choosing the least of the devil of the evil that I had. You know? What's the saying? I don't know the saying, but, um, now the difference is that I get to do the activities I enjoy and those activities, the things I love to do in life are what keep my spine healthy. And it's and it takes it's a long process. It's a long term game. It doesn't happen quickly. And if you don't have success in the first week, I encourage you to stick with it, whether it's on your own or with the core balance training. And do keep doing the things that seem to make you feel a little bit better. And it's that daily commitment that is the number one factor. So that's all just encouragement to do something and watch the beginning of the stream to if I where I expand on how important that is to do something, and that this program is designed for the spine that is not able to do anything else. That's how the program starts, is like the most gentle thing that you can possibly do, which is lay on your back and breathe. All right. This is from Kurt says, hi, Doctor Peebles, I just wrapped up day one. I don't really know what to think. And I'm like reading that and I'm going, uh oh, that's scary. I've been in a lot of pain and I'm feeling and I'm I feel truly incredible relief right now simply from your breathing into lower back advice. Whew. That gives me relief, Kurt. Uh, happy to hear that, he says. Is this going to be permanent relief simply due to the new breathing strategy I've inherited from you? I'm quite shocked at this point that I'm feeling so much relief early on in your program, and almost don't want to believe it. Okay, Kurt, so good news and bad news, but mostly good doing it one time is not going to be permanent, but if you stick with it and and continue to practice and integrate this breathing pattern into your daily life, then that's how it becomes permanent. That is the permanent solution to back pain. And it's not just the breathing kind of what I've learned over the years, the way that the body works, I don't claim to know all how the body works, but one way in which the body communicates to us is when we do something right. It sends a really positive floods of signals through the body, and it makes us feel good simply to communicate to us that we did something good, to do more of it, exactly in the same way that when we do something wrong that the body doesn't like, it sets off pain signals to say something's wrong. Alarm. Don't do this further. And so if you stop doing that negative bad thing, the pain potentially will stop. And if you keep doing that bad thing, the thing potentially will get worse. So let's flip that into the opposite. If you keep if you stop doing that good thing this breathing technique Potentially, uh, your good feelings that you were feeling will go away. And so that's why it's not permanent. Just to do it once. But if you keep doing that thing, potentially those good feelings can even get better. And, uh, they can compound on themselves. And especially if you can get to the point where it kind of becomes a subconscious way, it becomes your default pattern. And so that's the ultimate goal of this program. I think it takes a minimum of five to six months for some people longer to fully integrate these new neuromuscular patterns into their unconscious way of relating to their body. So that's my answer on that, Curt, about if this is permanent relief, maybe you've already discovered that by now, but keep the breathing is the most valuable, and the one lesson and thing that you can continue to improve upon for the rest of your life. So I'm continuing to work on my breathing and improve on it, and continue to get more and more benefits and be blown away by it just as much today as I was a long time ago. And it's just the same way that meditation meditation practitioners will say the same thing as is that they can continue to get better at it and continue to feel benefits from it. It's a lifelong practice, so breathing is very much a part of a meditation. So what you're doing is a form of meditation. And so I encourage you to keep, uh, just integrating it and improving on it. And don't ever feel like you've gotten to that point where you're like, okay, I'm done now. You got to keep breathing, so you might as well use that as an opportunity to grow. And there's much more to come. Like, uh, wow, there's this is just the tip of the iceberg and the movement retraining that we learn in this program. Uh, you know, and we introduce it in the first two weeks, and then after that first two weeks, then you've reached the tip of the iceberg, not just the tip. Tip. And then when we get into, we do a couple weeks of strengthening those anchors. And then we get into the movement retraining, which is, um, you know, this phase two, which is four more weeks or something like that, and then phase three complex movements. And that's the deeper parts of the iceberg where it's, um, can change your entire life. And I hope you, I hope you can, uh, see some of the testimonials that come through. Uh, we do a poor job of posting them, but they're coming through all the time. And I hope we find a great way to start posting them. Keep it up. Curt. Um, really excited for you. And, yeah, I just hope that you stick with it daily. The number one factor for success is your commitment. This solution does work, but it's only half. The solution is. The other half is that you actually do it. You have a follow up question. It says we have a three month old newborn. Congratulations. Uh, and unfortunately, when I feel my back most is when I pick her up, hold her while walking to get her to sleep. And I also feel my back when I have to sit in our rocking chair to put her to sleep. So I'm curious if I think he should avoid those two things while in the program. Kurt. So do not avoid those two things. This is a really beautiful time in your life and your baby's life and as I say about everything is not about what you do. It's about how you do it. So there is no I'm going to give another example very similar to earlier, the solution to back pain. There is no exercise. That is the one solution to back pain, or even group of exercises that are the solution to back pain, because it's not about what exercises you're doing, it's about how you do them. And so we could do the bridge in a way that's very unhealthy and could damage the spine. Or we could do the bridge in a very healthy way, where the core is the center of power and the origination of all your movement, and it becomes very healthy. And so that's the same activity, same exercise. One's a solution and one is a, uh, makes you worse. So in the same way, lifting up your newborn baby and carrying your baby on, holding her in the rocking chair are activities that can be done in a healthy way or a potentially unhealthy way. And that's what we learn in this program, is how to do those things in a healthy way. So not that I want you to speed up because the program is most you get the most benefit from doing this program at your own pace, where you grasp the module and then once you're ready, you move on to the next one. And that's different for everybody, but I do. I am excited for you to get to the point where we, uh, learn how to pick things up. Uh, you know, we start with light weights, and it will be comparable to the weight of your baby when when you get to that point in the program and be able to do it in a healthy way, that's actually not only not bad for your spine, but good for your spine, because your core, just like the bridge, is the center of your power and your movements. And so for now, for this mean time that you're in, until you get to that point, I encourage you to keep doing those things and not only do them, but do them confidently and do them with love and enjoy them, and have the confidence to know that you are going to get better because you found this program by some miracle. I always think it's a miracle that somebody found this because we're so small and so unknown, but this is the real deal. And just bask in that confidence that you found something that's going to help you and to be able to enjoy your baby. And yeah, to to be fully in the moment. And even if you have pain because you haven't gotten to the point in the program yet where you learn the movement retraining. Just knowing that you're going to get there and you're going to get better, and you're not damaging your spine by picking her up and you can move with confidence and love. Um, that in itself will make a difference in how you move. Simply moving with fear can perpetuate the cycle of dysfunctional movement patterns. It changes the way we move. It's called aberrant movement in the medical and the industry, and moving with confidence engages a healthy pattern of movement just in itself. So that's my answer to that. Curt, and thanks for reaching out. Yeah, this is important stuff. So keep it up and let me know how things are going. And I'd love to hear about your progress. So this is in the posted in the lesson airplane by Marcy. She says I find my hips fatigue fairly quickly, quickly with any single leg stance. What would you recommend to strengthen them? I do walk daily. So, Marcy, this will allow me to get into a school of thought and the profession of physical therapy widely agreed upon. So it's not theory. I don't believe there are any naysayers, but if you want to improve at anything, you want to get stronger at anything. The way to do it is through what's called specificity. You have to just simply train that thing. And so if you have a challenge standing on one leg, then the way to get better at it is to stand on one leg. And if simply just standing on one leg isn't enough challenge, then you have to increase the challenge. Uh, the the way that the body gets stronger is by challenging it at the appropriate amount. And that is the ideal level of challenge is about four percent beyond your current capability. You'd be a little bit wobbly or a little bit shaky or whatever. Um, but you're just barely able to do it and you get fatigued and then you're unable to do it. And that's where sets and repetitions come in. That's why they are there. They're not there to just do three sets of ten and stop, even if it was really easy. The goal is if you're doing three sets of ten to find the level of challenge to where when you get to number ten, you're unable to do one more, you're unable to do eleven. And so it's a largely misinterpreted thing. Uh, I'm on a tangent here right now, but but Apps and sets is largely misunderstood. Uh, so you got to challenge yourself specifically with doing single leg stance. And I would say that doing airplane during Running Man doing single leg bridge, those are fantastic challenges, Marcy. So just stick with them and be patient because you will get stronger just by doing those. And if you want to accelerate your challenge and therefore your benefits, then you can add weights. Um, and there are other ways to challenge as well, like standing on an unstable surface like a foam pad or a BOSU ball or something like that. But that's that's probably way down the line. It depends how far you want to progress in your, uh, you know, physical abilities and fitness level. So hopefully that helps. Um, another great one is a single leg squat. You can start with a chair behind you. So it's a sit to stand squat on one leg. You're just sitting in the chair. Maybe it's a tall chair or a stool, and you just go into the standing position from the the chair or stool on one leg, and then you sit back down on one leg controlled sit down, not a plop. And then you stand back up and you can do ten repetitions or whatever. Two. Fatigue is where you should go. So if that takes you twelve repetitions, then there you go. Uh, but if it gets to be where it's too easy to do twelve or two, easy to do fifteen. Lower the seat so that it's it's more challenging and maybe you can only do four. And that's a lot of benefit when you can only do four and you get fatigued after four. Uh, you'll get more strength from that. You get a ton of strength just from doing a one rep max where you can't do two. So we're talking about building strength. So these are the strategies as a sets and reps where you get fatigued at the end of your set and you cannot do another rep. And then you take a break and then you do another set. Lower repetition sets are where you build more strength. Single leg squat is incredibly powerful for building strength in your hips. You start with a sit to stand, squat on a chair or a surface, and then you can graduate to doing it without the chair. You remove the safety net and the chair and you just, you know, people will get down to their heels, pistol squat without, you know, on one leg. So it depends how far you want to go with all that. Hopefully that helps. Marcy. Another model student. Another example student. Marcy has finished the program, and you are an example to so many students of how the program should be done. So thank you. You are wonderful and keep up the progress. I see you're still in here asking questions, so good job. Next one we got four more. This one's from Ekaterina and it's posted in the lesson bridge on foam roll. So there are two lessons in the program. Bridge on foam roll. I believe it's the one where it's under your back. So that's a lesson in module three. So here's the question. I'm able to do all the routines except for the bridge progression. I understand how important the bridge is for healing the lower back. And I followed the program step by step. And I felt getting stronger each day when I started to do the perfect bridge progression with the foam roller, my old injury came back. That nagging pain on the right side of my L3 four, and now I feel tightness also in the front by the groin area and in my hips. I stopped doing the bridge completely, but I wonder if this is the right thing to do. Knowing how important the bridge is, all other routines I can do easily without any issues. Thank you Ekaterina. I'm so glad that you reached out about this, Ekaterina, and I'll give you my best advice. So it sounds to me like the bridge on the foam roll. This very lesson was a bit of a trigger for your previous existing injury. So it just whatever what it was about the challenge, the strain on the muscles of that exercise. And I can see in my head how that would happen with this particular one strain, you know, kind of just was a little bit too much for your muscles that were previously irritated and they were vulnerable and susceptible to getting a little bit of a flare up or a setback. So you made some progress. I have an entire stream on setbacks and how to deal with them, and I talk about a how to deal with setbacks. But in this case, I believe that, you know, a couple days, just like I said in the beginning of this stream, it's a couple days of a break from the triggering factor and then gradually, lightly get back into it. So for you, that's just talking about the regular bridge, not the bridge progression. We're going to stay away from that for a while. You actually learn lots of bridge progressions in this program, and not every one of them is for keeps. Uh, each one has its benefit, and each one has its different way of challenging the body. That could also be a bit of a bit of an issue for somebody. So I think there's five or six bridge progressions, maybe even seven, and you'll find your favorite one, and that's probably the one you'll keep with you. I have two that I love to continue doing in my life, and that is the single leg bridge, which we'll get to later, and the Butt Buster Bridge, which we'll get to later. So don't place too much emphasis on this bridge progression lesson. Ekaterina, you can actually just kind of let it go. And I explain the benefits of it in the lesson. So I won't go over that now. But the downside, you know, there's a pro and con to everything is that it's more challenging and it's going to require you to strain your muscles more to prevent you from rolling away on that foam roller. And you might have compensated with your old firing pattern, because when things get intense, we just turn everything on. And that's why we do this program at a low intensity. And so this one is much more challenging to do at a low intensity, because you'll roll away if you don't prevent yourself from doing that. And so that may have been what triggered those muscles to kind of set off and get irritated. So I'm going to go back and find your specific question. I stopped doing the bridge completely, but I wonder if this is the right thing to do, knowing how important the bridge is. So that's your question really a couple days, two days, three at the most to let your body settle down. And then the the next step forward is to gradually reintroduce the bridge. So start with the back anchor awareness breathing. And do that during those two or three days off from the bridge. Keep doing, you know, the other things. And the breathing in particular can really help to mitigate any flare up and then go into the back anchor progression. And that's almost the bridge. You know, it's the initiation of the bridge. And then lightly, gently, one percent at a time increases. See how you can do with the bridge without flaring it up. And if you get to that point where you feel like it's at that edge of flaring. Stop there. Come back down. Play in that zone for a while, and then maybe the next day you can go a little bit higher. And so it's all about progression and it's calculated progression. And then you want to eventually get back to the full bridge. And then by that time you'll be on to the next bridge progression, which you may absolutely love. It's my favorite one. It's the Butt Buster S-i joint stabilizer. Uh, maybe I already sent that one to you. Maybe not. Uh, but that one. You're not on a foam roll, and you don't have to strain those muscles to prevent yourself from rolling away. Which happens to be a thing that, uh, was a trigger for you. So. So setback happens to everybody. It's okay. Uh, there's a recipe for getting through this, which I just kind of spelled out. And if you want to go into deeper, you can watch that live stream. I hope that helps. Ekatarina. Uh, I've been loving seeing you progress through the program, so keep it up. Uh, you're doing great. And you're going to do wonderful. Uh, reach out again if you need any more guidance. I'd be happy to help. Uh, next one, this is a student in day four, so there's Jonathan. There is some improvement. Something positive happening four days in. I am going to be patient, but am optimistic. Jonathan. Uh, not a question. I just wanted to acknowledge, uh, your attitude as an example for other students, hopefully to inspire other students that this is exactly what I want to happen. Uh, slow progress is the best kind of progress. It's the most sustainable kind. Because if it takes time to happen, it takes time to go away. And and the slower the progress, the more ingrained it becomes into your body, into your default firing patterns. And and it's just amazing for you to say there is something positive happening. Like that's really what it is. It's like, I can't really pinpoint it, but I can feel some connection starting to form. And and that's why we do the trial, because it's so hard to explain this stuff. Like to put this into a nutshell, what we're actually doing, it's just better to let people feel it and decide for themselves. Um, but that's what I want, Jonathan, is exactly what you're saying. And then the last thing you said is, I'm going to be patient but optimistic. It's like the best possible attitude you can have because you believe, which is step zero in the five steps to reversing back pain is belief. It's a prerequisite to success? And you're also willing to be patient about it because this is a long term game. This is a long term battle. The longer it's been going on, the longer it takes to go away. And the slower the the progress, the deeper we can ingrain it. These changes into your neuromuscular firing patterns and make them your default patterns, the harder it is for them to go away, they become part of you. And so keep it up. Jonathan. Just like, uh, big props to you. And that's all. That's the only reason why I'm featuring your comment as an example and an inspiration to other students. And to honor you. So good job. Next one is from Stu. This is just a general question. Hi, Doctor Peebles, I would like to start your program, but I'm having sciatica flare up and would be unable to do most of what is in your program as soon as the pain level subsides and I have more mobility without pain. I will start your program. Right now I am doing chiropractic and acupuncture. So I guess I just wanted to mention how there becomes a cycle in exercise psychology. And this is not just for back pain, but for. Uh, lots of different types of exercise like weight loss and just general health. Feeling good like exercise is good for everyone, right? That. And before I get to this. Okay. Stop here. Remember what I just said? I just want to say this program is designed for people that are having severe chronic back problems. It's extremely gentle. And anybody can do it. Even an eighty ninety year old person's too. So back to what I was just saying is that when I want to use weight loss as an example or just general health, people will say, I'm going to start exercising for weight loss or for my general health, but I don't feel very good right now. I'm going to wait until I feel better and then I will start exercising. I'm going to rest, and when I feel better, I will start exercising. But what is actually necessary to happen is this in order to start feeling better, you need to start exercising, moving your body and going for walks and. And that is the hardest hurdle to get over psychologically, that you are not going to start feeling better. If your problem is that you are not active enough. Then in order to start feeling better, you have to start being active and that then will make you feel better, which will allow you to be more active and do more and enjoy life more. So that's the hurdle. And so I just don't want for this is just my genuine passion and compassion for this And for you, Stu, is I don't want you to wait too long, because in the vast majority of cases, it is the doing the right thing that will help you feel better. And I believe with all my heart that this program is the right thing. And it's extremely gentle. It's the most gentle. I don't know if you've done the trial or not, but you can do the trial for free and see how gentle this really is. And that in itself should make you start feeling better, which will then allow you to do a tiny bit more. And that's how this program is laid out, is just tiny layers of a tiny bit more, starting from zero, starting from an infant level movement, which is how we naturally learn how to use our bodies. It's modeled after that. So thank you for sharing, Stu. I just encourage you to whatever you are doing with your life, Be active and and doing chiropractic and acupuncture generally is not active. It's passive. Somebody else is doing something to you. So make sure you're also doing something, uh, where you are the one doing the thing. That's where the permanent change happens. Um, chiropractic, acupuncture, massage, all those things are wonderful temporary solutions. Um, and I fully support doing them. I do some of those myself. All right. Last question. Does core balance training help with poor posture? Will this strengthen poor posture? If I already have a twisted spine I need to correct the spine as well. Thanks, Bishan. Absolutely. This is a postural program. So the number one emphasis and purpose of this program is to improve posture. I guess we don't say posture enough in our materials before the program is started and and I've been meaning to just use that terminology. But muscle imbalances and muscular balance is posture. And that's the number one focus is bringing the body back into balance. And that I believe, along with the education and the integration of that education into your mind and body, is the permanent solution to back pain. That's what the program is all about. So, uh, one hundred percent. Absolutely. Um, it's not just about strengthening. It's about retraining your movement and the way you hold your body and the way that you relate to your body and your core during positions of sitting, standing and movement. And just a quick thing for people who have a twisted spine, this is quite common. This is similar to lateral curvature of the spine. There's often a twist in the spine when somebody has a lateral curvature. So this is very normal. And so what our approach is and what the industry is widely agreed upon is that first you develop sagittal stability. So front to back stability, you develop an ability to maintain stability. And once you develop that front to back stability, you're able to maintain the curvatures of your spine, the natural curvatures. Then we develop lateral stability which is side to side, left right stability of the spine and the trunk. And so that's frontal plane stability. And that the sagittal stability combined with the frontal plane stability is something that can untwist a twisted spine. And it has to be done in that order front to back then side to side. Because if you start with side to side, the twisting can get worse or it can even cause a twist in, in somebody. So scoliosis is reversible as long as it hasn't been going on for So long that it's become a structural scoliosis, but that's like a majority of a lifetime that that needs to happen for many people. So I believe scoliosis is reversible. I've seen it. And so yeah, just encouraging you to stick with it and yeah, one hundred percent. So that is I believe that's the stream for today everyone. So thank you for being here. And if you're not subscribed then hit the subscribe button. And yeah, just thank you for being here. Thank you for investing in yourself and committing to making changes in your body and your life. And as we part from this computer, uh, time that we spend so much of our lives doing, go do something healthy for your body. That's what I'm going to go do right now. Go connect with your core in some form or fashion, if that means to get down on the floor and give some love to your body, that does so much for you. So thanks again. And until next time.
