This week's topic is I'm calling it Mind over Matter, and it's going to be related to a mindset that I encourage you to adopt when you're using your body, when you're moving. And this was inspired in me by kind of a mentor that I had when I was growing up. And I have a story that I'm going to share today that will it kind of coincides with a major turning point in my personal journey of struggling with chronic lower back pain. I believe that one of the reasons why I've been able to help and connect and have insight with so many people with in this population is because I personally experienced chronic lower back pain for a long time. It was a long journey for me and because it happened at such a young age, I was able to I was in the unique position to be able to commit my life to figuring out the problem and healing it. And so I'm going to share a story today that was pivotal in my journey of getting out of back pain. So this was probably around the, I don't know, late two thousand, like I'm guessing around two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine. So I was in my very early twenties, maybe like twenty two, and I was experiencing chronic back problems at that point already. My back problems started when I was sixteen years old, so I was already six years into my back problems at this point. So twenty two years old and my symptoms were constant pain every day, most significant with sitting, and I would often hurt myself and experience setbacks when trying to exercise and help myself. So I was in a unique situation where I couldn't really rest comfortably and I couldn't really be active comfortably. And so in this story, I'm sitting and I'm watching a sports game. I was I grew up in Southern California, so I was a Lakers fan, naturally. And there was a particular athlete on the Lakers who was well known for playing through pain, playing through injury. He was kind of my idol at the time, you know, and he and in this game he was playing through multiple injuries and it was just like, I remember the announcer talking about how he's superhuman and this isn't normal for athletes to do this. And they interviewed him after the game. And he said he talked about mindset and he didn't talk about his high tolerance for pain. He didn't talk about his physical therapist or his training program or the amazing, you know, medical department for the Lakers. It was all about mindset. And he basically I don't remember exactly what he said, but it was basically mind over matter. And so I'm sitting there, I had just watched this, you know, incredible performance by this player. And he's talking about mindset. So what I decided while I was sitting there was that I'm going to reach forward and grab this glass that's on this coffee table in front of me. I'm sitting in like a sofa, couch type chair and I'm going to reach for it and I'm going to do it confidently. I'm going to use mind over matter to grab this glass that's going to require me to lean forward, which would normally hurt my back. And I would do it in a kind of a fearful way. I wasn't going to do it that way. I was going to just confidently know that I could do this and have no fear. And so I did it, and my back didn't hurt. And it was an amazing, tiny, but amazing experience to be able to just change my mindset and change nothing else and be able to do an activity and have it be a different experience in my body where I didn't have the pain. And so that confidence did something, and I can't claim that I even still know what it did or understand it. But what I believe is that it changed the firing patterns in my body, the ability for me to move confidently, maybe fired a different muscle group where I normally would have, you know, fearfully and hesitantly reach, you know, tried to lean forward without hurting my back. So my goal was to not hurt my back, and that was what would be normally in my mind and try and avoid the pain. And in that process, it's called in in our industry it's called fear avoidance behavior. It's a feedback loop. It promotes what we call aberrant movement patterns, abnormal movement patterns. And that promotes the problem of the muscle imbalances and the and the pain and the damage that is caused by all those imbalances. And so what I believe happened was something clicked into gear, and I was able to use confident muscles that maybe originated from my center rather than my protective muscles. And for me, it was just a bit of a turning point where, you know, I had recently read John Sarno's book Healing Back Pain, and that talked a lot about mindset, and it introduced me to the idea that back pain isn't just a physical problem. And then I had this real life experience, and so I was able to build off that. And no, it didn't heal me. No, it didn't cure me. But it was one step, one giant step forward for me in my journey towards getting out of the cycle. And it had nothing to do with exercises or, you know, diet or physical anything at all. And so I'm going to share a quote by this player. I don't believe this quote was at the time of my story, but there were many injuries along his career. And so here it is. He says reality gives nothing back. And this is in context. He's giving advice to another player who had a severe injury and was having a hard time coping with it. So he says reality gives nothing back, and that didn't really mean anything to me. At first I didn't. I don't think I understood what it meant, but now what it what I believe he means by that is kind of, you know, lamenting over what happened in the past. You're not going to get anything back from that. So look forward. And he says, focus on the recovery process day by day by day. It's a long journey, but if you focus on the many milestones along the way, you will find beauty in the struggle of doing simple things that prior to this injury were taken for granted. This will also mean that when you return, you will have a new perspective. You will be so appreciative of being able to stand, walk, run that you will train harder than you ever have. You see the belief within you grow. Each mini milestone and you will come back a better player for it. And so while this is in the context of athletics, I think it can be extremely applicable to anyone in a long term journey of battling chronic pain. And so I encourage you to apply this to your own life. If you are in this position and look forward and reality gives nothing back, also means that to me, that to be grateful for what you have now. Be present and be grateful for it, because we will lose that. We will. All of us will lose what we have eventually. And so appreciate it while you have it. Because once it's gone, it will not come back. And looking back into the past to try and to have the regrets or wish you still had something, it's not a fruitful act. So look forward. And one of the things I notice about this quote is how many times he says focus. You know how many things he says that have to do with the mind and believing and perspective. And so this is advice to another player that, again, has nothing to do with physical strategies. So I just wanted to share that. And if you were wondering, the player is Kobe Bryant. And he was. Yeah, he was an inspiration to me as a someone with an incredibly strong mindset in many ways. And I know that, you know, many people have different opinions about Kobe Bryant, but no one can argue with his brilliance and his determination. So that inspired me. He inspired me many times along my journey, and I do credit Kobe's determination to some of something that I channeled in my journey as well. So thank you for listening to that. I'm going to get into student questions. So one thing that happened this week is we had a ton of just lesson comments from Core balance training students who weren't really asking questions, but they were just sharing and a lot of them came through like one after another and they were kind of little mini wins. And so I just want to run through some of those. One student, I think it was yesterday morning. It says I've struggled with back pain for the last five years. I'm sitting here today with the realization that my back is noticeably less painful, tight and stiff. This is after only one week. Thank you. I can hardly wait to get started. Thank you. And I believe that was yesterday. So yeah, I'm excited for you to experience more. It's still very early on and just sharing some positive comments. This one is from Robert. Came in yesterday morning as well. He's just finishing the program or he just finished says good day Doctor Ryan. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I truly appreciate the daily emails, the progression of movements and your responsiveness to questions. You're the first online program that I have used that actually responded to every question I had. Although I know I'm on a lifelong journey keeping my core strong and flexible. At least I now have the tools. Um, Mary says I'm getting back on track slowly and I appreciate all the questions and answers, as is definitely helping me grasp what I need to do. I've been doing lots of work on the back anchor and bridge, and now that's helping me in phase two. My biggest challenge is posture. I get the message from my husband often enough. Stand up straight now with the anchor triad embedded in my brain, I believe I'm on track to better posture. Thank you for all you'll do. Just one comment about that. Thank you, Mary, for sharing. And yeah, standing up straight is, you know, something we can do. Like, oh, I'm just going to correct my posture. But to be able to do it in a unconscious or a relaxed state where your body rests in that better posture, that takes time. We are reshaping. We're resculpting our muscular balance, and we have to change the resting state of the muscles, the length at which they choose to rest at. And that's something that is related to tone muscle tone. And so yeah, we're changing the tone of the muscles. If you don't want to have to consciously correct your posture, which I don't recommend, you know, as a main strategy, we want to get underneath that and have it sink in to our kind of our default patterns. So this is a follow up from Paul after a topic, a Q&A that I talked about last week where a student, I believe it was Cassandra, posted that she had this constant feeling of that she was on the verge of a flare up. And the question was basically, how do I get past this feeling? And so I did answer that. And we had some more like practical strategies, physical strategies to deal with it, like taking giving your postural muscles mini rest breaks throughout the day. But today I'm going to apply this, the topic of today's stream to this situation. And so Paul had responded after Cassandra and then another post here. So I'm going to kind of just read this post and then we will apply today's topic to it. So it says like Cassandra, I tend to get warning shots when I bend and twist to one side or the other. I have see issues, but I also have a disc tear and bulge in the l5-s1 region, so my pain level is always at least a two. Most of the time. Dull ache from Sci, although with many of the stretches and exercises in the program, I do get relief from that. But if I do the wrong type of move and a nerve gets involved near my problematic discs. The pain level can quickly escalate to a nine or ten, which of course can take me out for a couple of days with tightness and muscle spasms. I haven't had any big flare ups while progressing through the program, but I have had a couple small ones, usually in the evening or in the morning right after getting out of bed if I'm not careful how I move. I have other exercises and stretches that help, and recently started seeing a chiropractor who takes a more whole body approach. A lot of what I discussed with him parallels your program, especially muscle imbalances and pelvic tilt. So that's awesome, Paul, that you have found someone that you can go to in person that sees the body in this way. It's really a lens or a perspective that you can, you know, lens to look through and view the body from this way that, yeah, the muscles are this dynamic system and they can get out of balance with each other. And when that happens, it pulls other things, you know, specifically the skeletal system with it. And it can become, um, you know, damaging to the joints of the body. And so that's really the thing we have the most control over is our muscles. They're dynamic. We can control how strong they are. We can control how long they are. We can control how much tone they have by practicing and doing repetition over time. And we don't have that kind of control over our bones or our ligaments. This has a huge influence. And so we'll get into the details of, uh, Chris, of of what you wrote. But first for everyone that is kind of tuning into this, I want to apply the topic of having that feeling on that verge of a flare up with movement. And so the topic is mind over matter. And I talked about how I told my story of how I decided to move more confidently, and for some reason that I didn't understand. I did not experience the normal pain that I would have experienced if I moved cautiously. And today I can try and explain why that happens, but I believe just making that switch of deciding to move confidently and knowing that you can, and that your body is strong and that you can tolerate it, is enough in itself that you don't actually need to understand why, but it has a powerful impact on the way that your body, the subconscious or unconscious way that your body moves, the muscles that it decides to engage. It's choosing to engage confident muscles rather than protective or fearful muscles, which can help break you out of the cycle of the feedback loop, where fear avoidance behavior promotes the problem that is causing the pain. So that's my general advice. And it doesn't mean be completely fearless. It doesn't mean to behave recklessly. You can still use your judgment to decide what is a good activity to do. And once you decide that activity is something you're going to do if you're going to do it confidently, because there is no benefit in doing that movement or activity fearfully with fear in your mind, guiding the way that you do the movement. So if it's like me just reaching to grab a glass off of a table in front of you, then if you're going to do it. Just know that your body is strong and that you're capable, and let that guide your movement. And that's as simple as it gets. And if you decide, you know, use your judgment and decide, maybe I shouldn't do that activity, then that is that's where it ends there. Because part of another element in this journey is choosing what to do. And as I think I'm going to just start repeating in every stream, The. One of the best guiding principles you can use is do more of what's helping, of what's working, of of what is helping you make progress and do less of what's hurting and what's setting you back. And so using that as a guiding principle, it can help you decide what to do and what not to do. And the things that you do do confidently, with judgment, not recklessly but confidently. And it can make have a huge impact on the way that you relate to your body, and that over time in itself, can be a turning point without knowing any of the exercises or the physical things, or the knowledge is just a quick switch of the mind. That's what today's stream is really all about. So I'm going to finish up on Paul's by getting into some of the details here. And then we're going to zoom through a bunch of student questions. So we've got some posts coming in. It says from Paul with chronic pain, I think we tend to hyper focus on every little feeling from the affected area and worry it's going to be a flare up. I'm trying to get past that. Absolutely. I have something to expand on about that as well. Paul, just let me get to your next one. It says, and I have noticed that the simple breathing and connecting to the anchors techniques can quiet those fears when they pop up. Great observation. Yeah, particularly the breathing has an incredible ability to quiet lots of things. Amazing what a deep breath can do to settle the nerves. Whether you're nervous or in pain, or feeling tension or feeling fear or protective. Uh, taking a deep breath kind of tells your body it's almost like a a hack, almost. It overrides, uh, a fear system. Because if you are truly in danger, breathing gets really shallow and really fast. And that's to send oxygen to, uh, to get rapid effects of breathing and oxygen. And if you can take a deep, full breath, it kind of overrides that system and helps let the body know that it's safe. Uh, so, yeah. Use breathing. Another thing. So chronic pain, we tend to hyper focus on the little things. That's very true. And I just wanted to refer anyone who is interested in the science of pain to a very early stream I did. You can go back to the psychology of pain, and we can use science and evidence based research to know that there is a very poor correlation with chronic pain and damage, and knowing that pain actually may not be correlated with damage happening, that it may actually just be there, lingering as more of a mental burden, letting you know that if that you know, if you it wants you to pay attention to it. And it's a really interesting live stream, and I get real deep into the science of pain, and it can really help you to follow this practice of sometimes trying to almost ignore the pain and use confidence to allow you to do things that might change, make changes to your body positive changes like acting with confidence, Moving with confidence. So yeah, just highlighting that live stream. I think it's called The Psychology of Pain. All right. So let's get into Paul's details here. It says disk tear and bulge l5 s1 Si issues. And so you get this dull ache. And so that two out of ten Paul you know that may be a pain. That is if you watch the Psychology of Pain episode, it may be a result of hypersensitive pain cells, nerve cells. And it may not be related to damage. But when you get that nine or ten and those sharp pains, those are definitely pains to listen to, um, those are the ones you want to allow to guide your movements. Okay. I'm getting a nine or a ten. I'm not doing that right. But the two it may be. I hate saying this, but it may be irrelevant. It may not be a guide. It may not be a red flag that you should listen to. And if you can override that quiet alarm that's going on, it may actually change the alarm system because it's not useful anymore. So just something to think about and use your judgment about. And and let's get more into this. So you did mention that you have a nerve that can get involved. And that's definitely something you want to listen to. I think moving confidently can help that nerve stay in its place. So I think that that's part of the cycle, right. So that nerve gets involved every say every once in a while, every three months or every time you do this certain activity. And we're trying to break out of that cycle. And so next time you do that activity or you feel like, oh, it's been about three months and it's like about time for that nerve to pop again. To do it differently and maybe adding that confidence switch to what you're doing can be the thing. And that's me recognizing that it may not be. There's so many different factors and elements, but I do know that this change, this mindset change can have a positive impact on anyone and everyone because moving with fear is a negative feedback loop. So Paul, you say my pain began in oh nine. It's I think it's burned in my brain. Your program is changing. The way I'm thinking is helping. Oh, your program and changing the way I'm thinking is helping. It's definitely two different types of pain from two different locations. So yeah, another one of I think the most powerful live streams I did was on imaging. And this is where we proved that there is also an extremely poor correlation between well, this is actually very related to the Psychology of Pain episode, where we showed a bunch of research proving that there's a very poor correlation between pain and findings, diagnoses that are found on imaging. Um, so if there was one stream that I would want everyone to watch, it would be the stream on imaging. And the way they kind of show that is that there are so many people that don't have any back pain at all, and they have herniated discs and they have they have stenosis and it can be severe. And then there are also so many people that have severe back pain and have very mild diagnoses on the imaging. So it's a poor correlation. And so to focus on the damage that you see in the imaging is not it's not going to be a strong indicator. And sometimes the damage doesn't get better but the pain does. And that's in my case in my experience if I were to take imaging of my spine it would be it would look terrible. But I believe since I'm not contributing to the problem, the original problem, the pain has greatly reduced and in many cases gone away. And so we can't. The point is, we can't use diagnoses and imaging as a strong kind of factor to to decide why we have pain. and a lot of it has to do with the way that we relate to our body and the way that we move our body. And if we can improve that, and I can go back to this quote and focus on the many milestones that we're accomplishing along the way. That is a very powerful strategy and appreciating and being grateful for the many milestones. So I think I'm going to wrap this one up, Paul. I hope that helps. So we're going to get through a couple more questions. And then I have a featured student to share. So this is a question on the push away concept that's in the first week of the program. Flo says I find that when I push away, I tend to arch my back and feel fatigue in the mid thoracic spine as I sit there. Any suggestions to stop this? I think it's probably a common Experience that students have. So that's fatigue in the mid thoracic spine. So like the mid back trying to like sit up tall and have good posture. So that and then there was another related question from Evan. And I guess I can read the whole thing. But the question is towards the bottom. There's two questions. I'll read the whole thing. So this is in the same lesson, the push away concept, he says new to the program and many things I really appreciate. For example, learning how to sit, which sounds so simple, but exactly the questions I've had that Pts never gave me an intuitive answer. My question with sitting is, as I do the push away, I feel a lot of effort going into my quads. Like these are very weak even though I have strong quads. I think as a result it tires out the front of my legs in the push away posture. Do you ever feel this? Do you think it is an indication that I am not pushing away properly of an existing imbalance? Or is this natural progression and a sign of something that will even out over time? Okay, and this one is a little bit of a different question. We're going to address both of these push away questions simultaneously because I think it will help. And in that way I'm not repeating myself for two different questions. And then I will get to this one later. So back to Flo's question. She's feeling the fatigue in her mid thoracic spine. Evan is feeling the fatigue in his quads. And my general answer, and this is an answer for a lot of questions I receive, is actually turn down the intensity, especially for the push away concept. And in sitting. This is not a physical strategy that we use to sit as much as it is an intention. So instead of doing it intensely and trying to push away as a strategy that doing anything intensely is going to lead to muscle fatigue. What we want to do is just have a gentle switch of our intention to, instead of trying to come up tall, we actually do the opposite. We go down. We push down into our support points, into our connections with the earth or our chair or whatever is connecting us from with gravity to the surface. So in this case, it's my sit bones, and I'm just going to gently go down into them with my energy, with my intention, and as a result, I will naturally, because of something called ground reaction force. I will react by coming up, but my intention is not to go up. That's what we in the industry we call military posture. And that leads to problems and also muscle fatigue. So a gentle intention of just my best way to describe this sometimes is it's describing doing it wrong. So in military posture, energy tends to go up and like it goes up into our shoulders and it goes up into our chest. And what the strategy that I believe to be much more effective. And this is not just in sitting but in standing as well. And any kind of exercise you're doing. Athletic stance. Uh, you could apply this to anything is send your energy low. Get a nice, strong base of support and bring your energy down. Think about like a sports car rather than a sprinter van. And so when we are trying to be tall, we're trying to be a sprinter van. And when we are bringing our energy down, the natural reaction is that we get taller, but we are not intending to lift up or to get taller. And I think if we just have that intention and it's very subtle in sitting and all the things that we do, that it has a really powerful impact of creating stability for our body and using, you know, kind of like it recycles gravity through you. It brings we're bringing gravity down through us, and it reacts by bringing us back up. And so that's kind of my advice. And in order to be able to do this in a way that's not going to fatigue, you just got to do it at a lower intensity flow. So that's really, you know, a general rule, if we're getting fatigue in the wrong muscles or fatigue too quickly, and we're practicing posture, which is something that we need to be able to do all day long. Then we got to turn down the intensity. And I think that's something that a lot of students have trouble with is, you know, we can turn it down by fifty percent or even down to ten percent, but sometimes you got to turn it down to two percent or even one percent because it's an intention. And we got to be able to do it for an hour or two hours straight. And so it's still effective to have that intention, even if it's extremely subtle. And and a lot of this stuff works that way. And it works better, uh, when it's extremely subtle. So let's apply this to Evans now. He's getting the fatigue in the quads, and this is so I can tell Evan is he's put a lot of thought into this. He's very intuitive because of the questions he asks. First he says, did you ever feel this? My answer is yes. I felt lots of fatigue in my quads and my hip flexors from sitting Evan. So I can relate. And I'm speaking from experience in my answer to you. The next question is, do you think it is an indication that I am not pushing away properly? No, I don't believe that. I think if you follow what I just said in my the previous part of my answer, that it's as simple as that. It's a simple intention of bringing your energy down into towards the earth and connecting with the whatever your connection is and sitting. It's the sit bones and having a gentle, very subtle intention to push away from those points and let gravity recycle up through you. Okay. And so I'm not going to assume you're doing it wrong, but I will say probably turn down the intensity because that's what most people need to do. And that will help with the fatigue that you're feeling. The next part is, do you think it's an indication of an existing imbalance? And my answer is yes to this. And so you even probably have been in a pattern of movement and a firing pattern, a neuromuscular, um, firing pattern for a long time. And the predictable pattern is that we overuse our quads and our hip flexors. And so if you fall into that predictable pattern the vast majority of us are in, then this would probably be true for you. It was true for me as well. I felt like I was constantly overusing my quads and my hip flexors to sit up. And I've heard this from other students and patients as well. So it's probably that. And then the third part of this question is, do you think it's a natural progression and a sign of something that will even out over time. And so it's not going to spontaneously even out. But if you're following the protocol of the program, then the natural progression of the program is that this will gradually get better over time. Nothing really. You know, it's not the program is not intended to have drastic overnight changes. Uh, I don't believe that that is really sustainable in some cases for people. They do have really drastic changes and very, almost immediate. But the program is designed for long term changes. And so everything is a gradual change over time. And I believe if you're following the protocol of the program, we're correcting that muscle imbalance, strengthening and activating our glutes and our deep core muscles that the quads will eventually be able to quiet down. And the hip flexors are part of that muscle group where they're protecting something, that they feel something is wrong, something is out of balance, and their natural response is to tighten up and protect. And if we can get underneath that and turn on the muscles that are supposed to protect the spine, the deep core and the glutes that support from underneath, then the the quads can actually let go and feel safe to let go and not feel that they need to compensate and overcompensate so much. So that's my belief. Um, and so I would relate what you're feeling to something that's been going on for a long time and do the things that you know are going to help reverse that, aka follow. Do what you're doing, follow the the program, and just be patient that and know that and and celebrate the little wins. Like the quote from the beginning of the program, the mini milestones today is a little bit better. That's something to celebrate, and tomorrow will be even a little more better. And so that those are the things that get us on this journey out of the cycle. Cherie, I see a comment from you. It says trying this push away right now and your instruction is helping tremendously. The intention of pushing down towards the earth instead of lifting up is very helpful. Yes. Thank you for sharing Cherie. That is something I believe I need to re explain and incorporate into the program. It's something that's kind of involved in my understanding of it as evolved over time, and I think I have a better understanding of it now than when I originally filmed that video. It's energy that we need to send downward. And it's not necessarily simply an action of pushing away. It's more of an intention. And so thank you for sharing that. That was helpful. That helps me to be a better teacher. So that is my answer to the first part. And Evan, you have a second question. It says also, as I tend to sit more with my legs splayed, probably because of naturally weak glutes, should I attempt to bring my legs together more while seated? So this is going to be a different issue, Evan. And I think if the legs are splayed, it's not necessarily because of weak glutes. The muscles that bring your legs together are actually your adductors. Your inner thigh muscles. And those muscles are part of this monster of muscle imbalances that we experience. And so being aware of that is the biggest first step. And also just having not no major changes here, but having a subtle intention to maybe gradually correct that over time. I know if it's extreme splay like your legs are like way more spread out than normal, it's probably something to start correcting if it's not that big of a deal. I think that what we're doing in the program will naturally improve that over time. Just stick with it. Stay committed day by day. And I believe that the general trend, the general pattern of muscle imbalances all tends to improve gradually together because everything's connected. You improve your glutes, it's going to affect the adductors. So hopefully that helps. Moving on. And I did see I missed a missed something from Paul. It says you've had two MRIs in fourteen and seventeen. And the damage was considered moderate. And there was little change between the two. Yeah. So that supports what I was saying earlier about the not a strong correlation between imaging findings and pain. The pain could change drastically in that time. But the imaging not really. And so that tells us something we can learn from that. And we can not put so much emphasis on the damage of our spine. And if you watch the stream on imaging, you will know that I even go as far to recommend that you don't. In many cases, you don't need to get imaging. And there are red flags where you do need to get imaging for. I wanted to feature a student. So this is our featured student for today, Nicholas B. He just finished the program. So congratulations, Nicholas. And I just want to honor you for sticking with it. That's always impressive to me when someone can complete the program and it's a major accomplishment. So good on you and let's read what you have to say. So this is a response to a program complete email. He says my back pain has definitely decreased and mostly been eliminated for the time being. But I think more importantly, you've provided a program that has given me more confidence, given me confidence to know that I can heal my pain on my own if it flares back up and that confidence reduces fear in my movement. Hey, that's right on topic with today's today's topic. So I love it that confidence reduces fear, which is very important in reducing injury in the first place. There is no way for me to say how accurate I believe that to be, how powerful that sentence is. So, uh, it sounds like you've really made a huge, uh, just pivotal gain in that realization. Uh, Nicholas. He says the daily emails were very helpful to keep me on track and motivated. Question A question that we ask in the email. Do you feel you've improved your body awareness and core connection? Absolutely. I look forward to the day when my awareness transforms more into a natural state, so that I'm not constantly concentrating on the tilt of my pelvis. Uh, Nicholas? Yes, that day does come, and I believe that it's not possible in three months for most people. I think it's more of a five to six month at the earliest. Uh, timeline. If you keep implementing and integrating the concepts of the program and, uh, up to a year for, for in some cases because everybody's different. So that's, that would be the goal is, uh, you know, five to six months. And if, if it takes longer, then, um, it can be up to a year, I think, before it starts to become a natural. You know, the anchor triad is, uh, kind of ingrained into, uh, your movement. Uh, the next question we ask is, do you believe the benefits you've experienced will have a lasting effect? Nick says, yes, I believe I will use these movements and exercises for the rest of my life. Um, what concepts from the program did you find most valuable? The push away concept. Hey, that's relevant to today. Once I understood how to feel, it made a lot of sense and I use it all the time. Propelling myself from my hips while I walk is also valuable in terms of my core awareness when I'm walking. Uh, yes. That's extremely powerful for people that have gotten to the walking lesson. I'm glad you took that away. Um, and then we ask for constructive feedback from all students who have completed the program. So Nick says, I think your responsiveness on comments to the videos was very helpful, and I often read through the comments first before watching the videos in case I had similar questions to the commenters. Lastly, I have a very limited range of motion. Tightness in my hips and shoulders. I'm unable to sit cross-legged on the floor or raise my arms straight over my head, and I'd be very interested in seeing you expand the phase three part of the program that works on these areas, or making a separate program altogether to address these issues, using the CBT program as a prerequisite as entry to the shoulder Hip program. Thank you, Doctor Peebles, for this excellent program. Nicholas B. Uh, that's a great recommendation. It would be a prerequisite to go through core balance training to get to this, uh, secondary program that would be more focused on the joints of the body, the peripheral joints and the arms and legs, hips, shoulders. And you're not the first person to recommend this to me. Uh, the only problem with me doing that is I have committed so much and I still am committing so much on a daily basis to this existing program that I simply don't have the capacity to create another one right now, but hopefully someday I do. And, uh, I think it's a fantastic idea. So thank you for sharing, Nicholas. And I just want to share that I'm always appreciative of constructive feedback so that we can better help people so we can get better at teaching and, um, make more lives better. So thank you again, Nicholas. And, uh, just honoring you one more time for, uh, you know, what you've done for yourself because you've you've done all the work, and, uh, so you deserve all the credit. All right, so we're at the one hour mark, and I believe I just have a bunch more questions. And we've already gone through these push away questions and I believe we are here. This is from Tommy. He is, uh. He actually commented this in the comments section of last week's live stream. Uh, so he says I have muscle imbalances and Si joint issues. I use an Si belt to keep in place. Is that recommended? Are there other back belt braces recommended? Also, is weight training good to strengthen core training? Um, some days weights seem good. Some days it seems to tighten muscles up after. So first about the Si joint. Tommy. Uh, I have personal. I have a personal history with Si joint problems, chronic and both sides, but mostly on my right side. And I have used an Si belt. I've used multiple Si belts in the past. And so first, uh, so I just sharing I'm sharing that to let you know that I'm coming from a place of experience in saying that, uh, when you use an Si belt, there is a way to use it in a strategic way where it becomes a very beneficial tool. And that is not to wear it all the time. And so there are certain times when you want to wear the Si belt and you also want to not wear it. I'll kind of go through the strategy in a nutshell. So when you're sitting on both sit bones, your Si joints on both sides are very stable. Naturally, the sitting position stabilizes them, so you don't need to wear the belt while you're sitting. But if you keep it around your waist and you're going to get up, you can tighten it and strap it tight. So for the movement that occurs after. So that's kind of like a small like real practical thing you can Practice. And when you're sitting, it also gives a chance for your skin to breathe. Because the skin underneath the belt can often get real, you know, get lack of oxygen. I'm going to go through my strategy of using seat belts. What you want to do is if you have an acute injury to your Si or it's just kind of severe and it's been going on for a long time, you could still apply this strategy. You want to throw that belt on and wear it almost full time, except when you're going and you want to when you are sitting, you want to make sure to be sitting on both sit bones, because if you lean over on one, that's going to put torque on your Si joints. And and that's not good for stabilizing and healing them. So practice sitting without your legs crossed on both sit bones. And there's some other positions you'll want to avoid too. I'll get to that at the end. So that's the time when you wouldn't wear it, and otherwise you're going to wear it all the time for, say, one week. In really severe cases, two weeks. And then you're going to gradually wean off the belt. And during that time you are absolutely doing exercises to stabilize your Si joint. So but Buster Bridge, the Si joint stabilizer progression of the bridge is extremely powerful. Make sure you get a very strong resistance band and you can go. Assuming you're doing the bridge properly, you can go one hundred percent and really lock that Si joint in. And so doing the exercises throughout, because just wearing the belt and not doing things to change your body is a recipe to become dependent on the belt. and the number one goal is to get off the belt, just like you want to get off of any kind of crutch. And so that's stage one is like a week to two weeks off. And so you're doing wearing it during your exercises. And then eventually you get to the point where you don't wear it during your exercises and only super high risk activities. So that's another two weeks later that you enter stage three, and you're only wearing it as a preventative protective belt during extreme activities. And then two more weeks and you're off of it. And so I would not recommend going much longer than that using an Si belt. You got to make sure you're wearing it properly. It's got to feel good if it doesn't feel good and like it's like giving you a nice stabilizing hug, then you're wearing it wrong. You probably need to lower it below your asses and just make sure it feels good. And if it doesn't, reapply and try a different position. And then during. Throughout this entire time you want to avoid certain activities, any end range motions of the hip. So deep squats any kind of butterfly stretch. Figure four stretch any kind of crossing the legs over type stretch. Like when I say deep squat, I mean like like butt to heels type squats. That's going to stress the Si joint. And then yeah, any kind of hip opening like hip external rotation type stretches don't sit cross legged for that period of time. You want to avoid any kind of end range type activities on the hips because that'll strain the Si joint. So any kind of single leg activities are going to strain the Si joint. If you're standing on one leg when you're standing, you want to prefer to try and stand on both legs equally and not shifting over on the side. So this is for a period of time. Eventually you want to get back to being able to do that stuff. And it's about graded activity exposure. So over time you're gradually exposing your body to these more stressful activities without with the goal of not over exposing or setting yourself back. And so that's going to be one hundred percent reliant on listening to your body and using your judgment to to feel and know where is your edge. And then you want to kind of live at that edge and keep pushing that edge out further. So hopefully that helps. You did ask, are there other back belt braces recommended by belt is you want to use the least assistive device that you need to be safe. And the belt is what I would recommend. Any kind of bigger back brace will be potentially too much and could lead to further weakening of stabilizing muscles. and then it says is also is weight training good to strengthen core training? That's a complicated answer. So because of time I'm going to give the short answer. And it's going to be you want to go core out. So before you start weight training, lifting weights with your arms and legs, you want to make sure your core is locked in. And if that means going through this program first and making sure all of your movements originate from the core, then then weight training can become good. But it's not inherently good because it can be bad for you. Because if you're limb dependent or limb dominant, and you're overusing your arms and legs to do movements and your core is more or less not engaged, then it's bad. So I can't say, is weight training good or bad? It's not what you do, it's how you do it. And it's core out. The core is your powerhouse, and everything else that happens is attached to that center part of your body, and you want to make sure you're locked in with that first. So yeah, it can be excellent weight training, but you want to make sure you're strengthening the right thing, not strengthening the imbalances. Let's see. I got a chat comment from Paul. It says I also get a lot of sigh relief by using a Tens unit. And you use two electrodes. Okay. That's awesome. Thank you for sharing. I personally have not used a Tens unit for sigh relief, but if the relief allows you make sure you take advantage of that relief. And if it allows you to do something that can help you make progress. So making changes to your body, then take advantage of that window of time. Because that tens relief, the window of relief is somewhere around, you know, a few hours to like six hours. And it's scrambling your nerve communications. So it's not going to have a long term effect, but it can give you opportunity to do things that give you a long term effect. So. Awesome. Thank you for sharing, Paul. And I hope anybody else can find that useful too. Moving on to the next question from Sue. Three part question. We have number one, what is the best way to remember the exercises and how to do them properly if we don't have access to the program? So this question allows me to kind of talk about how the program is not designed to be. For graduates to become reliant or dependent on the exercises. The goal of the program is to integrate a new way of relating to your body and your core into your movement and and changing the way you move your body, and so that by the time you graduate, the, the, the things have been integrated and the exercises as the tools that we used to do that are not a dependency. And I understand that many people may have not accomplished that within three months and still may need to access or finish the program. Maybe someone's only through phase one within three months, which is encouraged to go at your own pace. Um, uh, and so I just want to comment that the reason there is a pace a a, you know, this is a membership model is because we have done this where there was no membership model. And what we found is that having this time limit, we were able to get exceedingly better outcomes from students because they have extra accountability, extra motivation to stick with it. And the number one factor to success is the sticking with it. And so that's the goal with having the membership model is another form of skin in the game to do something for ninety days. That's kind of me just explaining that. But if you're in this situation where you're not done with the program and you need more access than we have a alumni membership, and that gives you extra coaching for people that might need it. And so I think that is a great option for anyone that's either struggling or just needs more time. Now this second question is a totally different topic. So I think we'll just go into this one says, I don't remember your exact words, Ari, your discs. But you said something to the idea that some of them are blown out. I am quite sure some of mine are as well as I have lost height. I also fell hard on ice at one and a half years ago. You feel the stretching and exercise you have taught us will maintain the spine without surgery. So again, the stretching and the exercises in the program are tools to help us achieve a better relationship with our core and our body and develop healthier movement. So it's movement retraining. And I think moving in a healthy way, relating to your body in a healthy way, with your core as your center, is enough to maintain anyone and improve anyone's body and avoid surgery and prevent someone from needing surgery. Do the exercises and the tools and the exercises and the stretches themselves. Do that. I don't think so because it's not what you do, it's how you do them. And if. And someone could do the same stretch in a different way that maybe not beneficial. And so it's about body awareness and how you relate to your body more than the actual exercises themselves. I hope that makes sense. But yes, my bottom three disks are black. They have no in the imaging. They have no fluid left in them. There they are popped like a flat tires and I'm still able to live a full, fully active life. And I believe that's because I am moving in a healthy way. I'm not. I'm no longer hammering my thumb. If you get the metaphor. If the problem if your thumb is injured because you hammered your thumb, it doesn't matter what you do to it. What injections or surgery or exercises? It won't get better unless you stop hammering your thumb. And so I think, I believe that's what I've done with my body and what a lot of the students in the program are doing is they're removing the cause of the injury, and it allows the body to get better and feel better. That's the goal. Do the discs fill back up with nucleus pulposus? I don't believe so. I believe they remain the way they are, but the body is in a healthier state and the pain is no longer necessary as the the alarm system is no longer going off. Uh, question number three from Sue is I usually experience pain when I first lay on a firm surface to exercise, and I need to lean to the right and purposely relax for a few minutes before my back will go flat to the floor. Is there something that could help this when you get on that firm surface? What's happening is your muscles are being pressured by your body weight on the floor. Basically, gravity is causing them to be lengthened into a position that they probably weren't in. So if muscle imbalances are existing, back muscles typically are tight in the back and they're locked up. And so when you go to lay on the floor, they're being asked to lengthen and do that. And they haven't been in that lengthened position for however many hours. And there's no blood flow and oxygen because they're so tight. And that is an often a pain that people can experience when they go to lay down after a long period of not being laid, not laying down. And so it's a temporary pain of ischemic pain or lack of oxygen. And the the thing that you can do to improve that is to. Improve your muscular balance over time, over a period of weeks and months, as in a short term fix for that, I think potentially just doing some cardiovascular like blood flow activity can help those muscles to be a little more supple and may be enough to reduce that. And also, it says you lean to the right and purposely relax. So that is an indicator. To me, that means that possibly something that can help you to relax, whether it's that or another activity before you get into that position. But the real solution is going to be the long term process of bringing your body back into balance so those back muscles don't have to be so protective and tight during the day. So hopefully that helps. Sue, I appreciate your questions very much. And let me know if there's any follow up questions. And I'll be happy to go back and forth with you about this. We're going to the next question. So this one is about staying on track with the program. This one is from JB. It says I'm having a very hard time keeping up with the program already fifteen minutes a day. Sounded so easy, but I'm finding it difficult to keep up with the pace. This is especially true because of how important it is to grasp the concepts before moving on to the next phase. My life has been very hectic lately, and I feel like I'm really going to have to try hard to integrate this program into my daily routine. I'm fully committed to sticking with it, but I'm wondering if I'm if it might make more sense to place a pause on my membership while I focus on practicing the steps from phase one before moving on to phase two. It frustrates me that I'm falling behind after just one week, but I really want to get this right. Please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions. Thank you so much! JB. So I do have some suggestions. JB. First of all, there is no need to feel like you're behind or that to be frustrated at yourself for not being farther along. So if you can let go of that pressure to move at the pace of the program, like the three month pace of the program, hopefully that can give you a lot of more just feeling of peace and like feeling ease that there is no time line that you need to learn this stuff. What matters is that you learn it. And that's all that matters. And if it takes many months to do, then that's just as good or better than doing it within ten weeks. I think some people complete the program in ten weeks, because it's actually somehow possible to go through it a little faster, I've noticed, but you get about fourteen weeks with the membership. So that gives you, you know, like two to three weeks of leeway. And if you need more time after that, we work with our students to to make sure they have enough time. So don't worry about like keeping pace. This is the best possible thing you can do is go at your own pace. And actually I take that back. The best possible thing you can do is put this into your daily routine. So fifteen minutes a day Does sound easy and it's not easy. So I agree with you because of the way our lives are today. But if you can convince yourself that this fifteen minutes a day will make the rest of your life easier because your body will feel better, you'll be more functional. You'll be you'll have more clarity of mind, because you don't have that nagging pain in the back of your mind constantly. Like I know so well from my history with this, this fifteen minutes a day is more than worth it. And so to find a way to implement this into your daily routine and commit to fifteen minutes a day, at least five days a week, ideally every day of the week. Find a time that works for you and stick to that same time every day, ideally in the morning and and schedule it in or whatever you got to do. And at. And if you can do that and commit to it every day, the pace at which you go through the program won't matter. Because if you everyone's coming into the program at a different level of fitness. And if you if it takes you three weeks to get through module one, but you've still done it every day, then you get three weeks of benefits. You don't only get one week or one module of benefits. You started from where you started, and you get all the benefit from the work that you did. And so that's the number one most important thing is the commitment to every day and do the things. I put little tricks into the program to help that, you know, we have the commitment PDF the my commitment that you sign. We have the strategy of establishing your exercise space in your home. So leave the yoga mat there. And that's a powerful strategy for the routine as well. The thing that I said was the most important thing was going at your own pace, and that is because it is no benefit to you to go on to the next module. If you don't feel that you have really grasped and integrated the module. The current module that you're in, and it sounds like you really understand that in your writing. And so I would consider that the second most important thing. Number one is committing. Number two is going at your own pace to get through and doing the program customized for your unique level of fitness, and eliminate any pressure that you feel to try and get through the program in three months, because there is no benefit to doing that. I believe there's actually benefit in going slower. And so you do have about three to four weeks or two to four weeks of cushion to take time to complete modules and still be able to complete the whole program. So that's my goal with this, you know, message to you, JB, is just to help you eliminate that pressure or the frustration that you feel that you're not keeping up. For some people, they believe the program is painfully slow. And so everyone's different. And serving such a wide audience of personality types and people, there is no optimal speed. It's really the program was designed as a progression and you got to go at your own speed. And I personally believe slower is more effective, and we'll work with you if you need more time at the end. Don't have your mind focused on the three month deadline or anything like that? We'll help you get as much time as you need to get the most benefits, because that's the goal. That's the ultimate goal of the program and the core balance training company. Paul says, I've got a yoga mat and the resistance belts at my office and home. No excuses, I love it. So two yoga mats and multiple resistance belts. Sounds to me, Paul, like you've got yourself set up for a path towards progress. And if you can accept that progress is almost always slower than we want it to be, and be patient with that. You know, in due time you'll be able to look back and see the progress you've made. So I'm proud of you for that. Let's see. I've got two more. One is from Adam. This actually came through as a contact us form and he was inquiring, sharing and inquiring if the program will help these things. So I decided to turn it into a bit of a case study or a case example. Adam says I've bilateral anterior knee pain front of my knees, constant dull ache sometimes pins and needles. It's been going on for about a year. Initially it only came on after I rode my bike, which is a hobby I love and is now daily, especially at my desk job. By the way, I shortened his his inquiry to fit the slide so it's not exact. I tried stretching and hip exercises. Leg muscles always seem tight, not able to get rid of the pain. He's seen a rheumatologist who found nothing. He's seen an orthopedic who took x rays and MRI. Can't find anything with the knees except mild chondromalacia, which most of us have. It's just mild friction, basically mild wear and tear. He got steroid shots in both knees and it didn't help. He's seen a chiropractor who took X-rays and says the L5 area is a potential cause. The way I see the body, Adam, is that the L5 disc, if it's, you know, L5 area, if it's showing damage, that is a result, not a cause, and the cause is something greater. The cause is what led to that damage and damage in a spine, if they're seeing that in an x ray, should always be looked at as a result of something else, and we don't treat the damage. We treat the underlying cause of that damage. So one of your questions, Adam, is not sure if this could be causing the knee pain with low back stiffness and or nerve issues. So I as I just said, I don't believe that the L5 is causing the knee pain, especially since the knee pain seems to have come on first. That was your first symptom was knee pain. Then it seems like the back pain came later. And so all of this is to me, is pointing to a global body issue where if you've watched the master class and just listened to my philosophy that the muscles are a synergistic system of the body and they can get out of balance with each other, and when they do, problems happen. It's not just back pain, it can also be knee pain, or hip pain, or neck pain or shoulder pain. It can be so many different types of chronic problems can result from muscle imbalances. It's just that chronic back pain is one of the most common, and knee pain is probably the second most common. And so especially because it's in both knees atom, it points to a global problem. Not that you injured one knee or both knees at the same time, especially because it happens at your desk job because sitting promotes this predictable pattern of muscle imbalances, especially because it happened initially after riding your bike, which is exercising in the sitting position and can contribute, especially if there's muscle imbalances like the quads being overactive, which can result from bike riding or cycling. You know that repetition of the cycling motion and your kneecap rubbing? Everything I'm seeing is pointing towards what's called Patellofemoral pain syndrome. And so your kneecap is just a little bit out of alignment with the groove of your knee, and it's rubbing and it's causing pain. It's really just that simple. But what's not as simple as the muscles that are holding it in place are causing that. And so that same pattern of muscle imbalances is the same one that causes chronic lower back problems. And so it's going to have a lot to do with the way your activity, the activities that you choose to do, the way that you carry your body, and also reversing that pattern of muscle imbalances through, you know, what I recommend is what I laid out in the program. And so I believe you are in the program. And so if you can stick with that protocol and understand that it takes place over time. It's a gradual change that takes place. And to celebrate those mini milestones, the little wins along the way is the best thing you can do. So one of the things you say just to finish your comment is lost and not sure what to do. Pain started in the knees now low back pain to prolonged sitting makes pain worse. Prolonged standing quads feel weak and hamstrings tight. So the prolonged standing thing that is probably a result of the quads getting fatigued and muscles do get weak when they fatigue. And so. everything I'm seeing here Adam does point to especially, you know, the specialists you've seen aren't really finding anything. It's because you can't see muscle imbalances in an x ray or even an MRI. It's not about one specific muscle. It's how the muscles interrelate with each other and the length tension relationship of all the muscles interacting. And so it's not visible in imaging. And that's why people are not finding your pain. They're finding the result of your pain, if anything, which is mild chondromalacia and probably some mild L5 stuff. But we don't want to treat those things. We want to treat the thing, the muscles that are holding your bones in place. And so that's my recommendation. This it sounds like you're a fantastic fit for the program. And I hope that you stick with it and and that you fall, you know, commit daily and follow the protocol because it seems like just doing that will help bring your body back into balance because you fit the predictable pattern. And we're going to get to our last question. We are wrapping it up. So this one is deadlift with core anchors. This is a phase two I believe six or seven lesson. So Diane says I'm not connecting with my glutes. Which module should I go back to? Review how to activate and get more in touch with these muscles. So that's a great body awareness to feel that you're not connecting with your glutes. And I'm glad you want to go back. I highly recommend that you go back and reconnect with glutes and your deep core, your abdominals and the muscles underneath and your center of your body. Reconnect with that and you'll be much better served doing these functional movements like the deadlift and squat with that connection. So I recommend going back to module one. Module two. And those are the two modules I would go. We go through all of them and do commit daily to the bridge particularly back anchor progression, the front anchors awareness and progression. That's definitely going to wake up those glutes, especially in that, you know, it's similar to the standing position where your hips are more open when you're in that front anchor position. So that's a great way to activate the glutes in preparation for standing. And the trusty old bridge. So that's my recommendation Dan. And yeah, just glad that you are choosing to make sure you have your fundamentals, the foundations in place before continuing to move forward and just the body awareness you have. So. Excellent. That's good. Being a great student. And so we're going to wrap it up. Thank you everyone for being here. As a conclusion move with confidence. It changes the way that your brain controls your muscles. It it changes the neuromuscular firing patterns to be more confident and strong, rather than moving from a place of protection and fear to avoid pain. So be wise about the activities you choose to do. Reflect on your experiences and listen to your body and choose the activities with with your own judgment. But if you choose to do something because you've you feel that it's good for you or that you need to do it, then do it with confidence because there is no benefit in doing it from a place of fear and avoidance of pain. So thank you all for being here. And as we get up from the computer, hopefully you take a break and get up after this live stream. Go do something that's good for your body, whether that's going for a walk like I'll probably do and probably walk somewhere in nature, or if that means getting down on the floor, then go do that and connect with your core, because we've got to pay our bodies back because they do so much for us. And when we sit at a computer too long, we owe it. I call it paying back your tissue debt. So thanks again. And until next time, go connect with your core. And thanks, Paul for being here. Glad to see you. Take care everyone.
