This week's topic is can you heal a damaged disc or a degenerated disc or a herniated disc? This is a question that is somewhat common from people who are considering the program and and occasionally even students in the program. And this particular question that prompted the topic for this week came from a prospective student, someone who's considering the program. And so I thought it would be a good lead in to this week's topic. So it says, my disk is almost gone. Is there anything that can bring it back or do I need surgery? And so was the inspiration for the stream. And that's what I'm going to talk about with you. So I want to start by saying that this is I guess it's a matter of my opinion and it's based on education. Clinical experience. My own personal experience and and research as well. So I think that as far as research goes, it's been studied a little bit. And so we can talk about that, but it's also not abundantly clear, you know, because there are always outliers. And so we'll talk about the outliers and we'll talk about why research isn't necessarily the best, the best source to answer a question like this. There are a lot of factors that go into research and not necessarily biases in this situation, although bias is a big factor in all research. But in this situation, it really matters if you're doing the right thing. And the research that's been done is primarily based on procedures and modalities and different treatments that may not be the right thing. And so the outcomes of the research may not be pertinent to, say, someone who's doing core balance training, who were, which is something that I believe that works really well. So my personal opinion is to to the question, can you heal a damaged disc, whether it be herniated or degenerated is a little bit and probably not completely. I mean, I would imagine that if the situation is the disc is, say, moderately degenerated and it's been going on for years, you're not going to be able to bring the disc back to the condition that it was in when it was perfect. And that's okay, because What I believe is more important is that you can get back to living a normal life, even with an imperfect disc. And so that's what's the most important thing. But as far as the actual physical healing, physiological process where healing takes place, I think that you could potentially have some healing take place and, and get the disc into a condition where it's functional and doing its job. And the problem that was originally causing the disc to degenerate, the root cause is no longer a factor. It's non-existent anymore. And so you've halted the degeneration, and you've gotten to the point where you can continue living your life normally or more or less normally, and do the things that you want to do without further damaging the disc. The most important thing to focus on is not so much the condition of the disc, because that really brings with it lots of, you know, stress and psychological issues like, you know, am I'm broken. And I've talked a lot about this in the past in the imaging stream. And that can have an effect on our relationship with our body and the way that we move. And so instead of focusing on the problem, the damage that's been done, I mean, you can think about it like you can think about it like a scar on the outside of your body, right? So I have a scar on my head right here from cracking my head open. And that happened when I was a young kid, and I knew that was never going to go away. The scar. But the problem that caused the scar did go away, right? I don't continue to fall on my head in that spot. And so it was able to heal and I'm able to function normally. And I believe that's the same thing that can happen with a disc. So the important thing is that you remove the cause of the problem that was contributing to the degeneration or the herniation, whatever the damage is, and you allow what's left, the scar tissue to heal up, and that you've stopped the progression of the degeneration. And that at that point is where I believe that the body will reduce the pain signals, because the pain signals are a result of damage happening or risk of damage. Even the body sends signals to protect potential damage and or the act of damage happening. But I think if that risk factor is removed and the damage is no longer happening, and the body can feel safe, that the pain can actually go away. And you can get back to doing the things that you love. And that's what's important. And so in the same way that I don't go and continue to look in a mirror at the scar on my head and focus on it so much that it has an impact on my life and my psychology. That's what I encourage you to do as well, is you can. Okay, I've had this image done. I'm aware that the damage is done. I don't really have a lot of control over this, but I do have control over this, and I can bring my body back into balance. And if my body starts feeling good, maybe it'll stop sending me pain signals because I've stopped contributing to the damage. And then I can focus on my life and get back to the things that I love doing. And so that's really what it is. I encourage you to look at the big picture. And yes, I believe that a disc can heal to some degree. And maybe some miracles can happen, but I don't believe you're going to be able to get it back to the condition that it was in before the damage happened in most cases. And like I said, maybe a medical miracles do happen. You hear about them. And so that's kind of where I stand. Now the next part of the question was, is there anything that can bring it back or do I need surgery? That's the next part of the question. Do I need surgery? And so if you've been listening to what I said already, you can probably predict that I'm going to say that you don't need surgery to get back to a normal life. If you correct the imbalances that were causing the problem, because I believe your body will stop sending you pain signals if the problem is removed and the danger of the problem is also removed. But if you've gotten to the point where it's this far and it's bone on bone and you are unable to do the things that you need to do to bring your body back into balance, because it's your body is not functional anymore, or the pain is too strong that you cannot get down on the floor to do the exercises to bring your body back into balance. It's at that point where surgery should be considered because you can't do the things to remove the problem. So that's situation number one. Where surgery can be considered is, you know, can you get down on the floor and can you do the things if you if you're in the program or not? And if you're not, then and you're in this situation, I encourage you to just do the free trial. And can you do those things in the first week? They're very gentle and if you can, and if you feel the benefits and you can have the next day feel a tiny bit better than the day before. Then you can build on that. And so maybe you can avoid surgery. So that's situation number one. Can you do the things. The other situation where you might need surgery is if you've lost function, physical motor control of your muscles. And that can happen if, if the disc has gotten so degenerated that the nerves are being compressed, and if the nerves that are being compressed are pain, nerves, sensory nerves, because your nerves are separated into sensory nerves that feel pain and send pain and motor nerves that control muscles. If they're pain nerves, then it's not as severe. It's not as urgent of a situation as if it were motor nerves that control muscles. So if it were motor nerves and you can no longer lift your leg out to the side or lift your foot up. That might be a situation where you need to go get the part of the disc that is pressing on that nerve removed. And that's not where the journey stops because it didn't remove the problem. The surgery only removed the compression on the nerve, but it didn't remove the problem that caused the disc to compress the nerve. And so the work begins at that point of the surgery where, okay, now I can do the things and and I'm going to, I'm going to start my rehab process, my journey now from here because I can now do the things. So those are the two situations where surgery would be considered. But otherwise, if this is your question. I'm worried about my disk. Is there anything I can do to bring it back? Or do I need surgery? Ask yourself a different question. If you can be okay with having an imperfection on your body, such as a scar on your skin. Then you can be okay with having an imperfection on the inside of your body that you only know you can only see because of technology. High powered images. And if you can be okay with that imperfection and be able to get your full function of your body back and the pain be reduced or gone and be able to live a normal life, then you don't need to be asking this question, do I need surgery or can I bring my disk back because you don't need your disk back to live a normal life. You just need to remove the problem that caused the disk to degenerate. And I strongly believe you can live a normal life if you remove the problem. The cause of the problem. So that's where I stand on. Can you heal a damaged disc? Literally a little bit probably. But I think the question is that you need to be asking is different. So that's the extent of the topic for today. And we have a pretty question heavy stream. So we'll get into the student questions. But before we do that we have a bit of a tradition now where we feature a student once a week. So we'll go ahead and get into the featured student for this week. And that is Pete. So Pete is a current student. And so just want to share, share what Pete said as inspiration to anyone else. We've got title of his review is Life Changing and Pete says, I've struggled with tension and pain throughout my core for years. Lower back, Hips, neck, shoulders and I've tried more solutions than I can remember. Ryan's program is easily the best because it's the only one that's worked less than four weeks in, and it's already life changing. I'm releasing tension and fixing imbalances that I've had for decades. The exercises are simple, but profoundly effective. When you have tension in your deep core muscles, no amount of stretching or bodywork will fix it. This is highlighted because this statement is profound, Pete, and I'm just kind of proud of you for grasping what's important. No amount of stretching or bodywork will fix it. So the stretching is fighting a losing battle. Stretching is fighting the problem on the surface, and so the tight muscles are a protective mechanism for a reason. They are protecting something. So instead of stretching the muscles that are tightening up for a reason and fighting the battle on the surface. We want to get underneath the problem and address the reason why the muscles are tightening, to protect what are they protecting and why are they tightening? And so that's what we do in the program. And I just wanted to honor you, Pete, for recognizing that I wasted many, many years of my life. You could probably say a decade stretching tight muscles to try and fix my problem. And it was at the point when I stopped stretching my tight muscles and started addressing the problem by building support and stability in the muscles underneath those tight muscles, and I didn't even have to stretch them anymore. They let go. They felt safe to release and let go, and they did not need to protect anymore. And so it's a powerful thing and it's, you know, something that is almost like a little bit counterintuitive. You want to stretch tight muscles, but I think that we're basically putting the ladder up the wrong building. We want to, before you climb the ladder and put the effort in, you want to make sure you are fighting the right battle and you're putting it up against the building you actually want to climb. And then you climb one step at a time. It doesn't happen overnight. So Pete goes on to say, if you're experiencing any type of core imbalance, get this program. It'll be the best money you've ever spent. Thank you Pete, I appreciate that. And I'm grateful to have students like you in the program. So let's get on to the questions for from the students this week. This one is in module two. I don't have a name for this question. It says it's a good program. I feel much more connected. My walking feels more stabilized as well. It's a great start. Just started module two. Still feeling stuck with regard to back rotation. Okay, I'm not sure exactly what you mean by back rotation, but let's read a little deeper. One issue I've run into is my neck feels very tight and it's difficult to tuck. Okay. It's the front part of my neck that feels stuck, not the back part. Okay. I also have issues with the perfect bridge. My range is small, and I'm not exactly sure how much power is supposed to come from the glute and how much power from the core. So that's making it difficult to find how far my range of motion should be with that one. It's working a lot faster than I expected as well. Okay, so some notes are pelvic pain anterior pelvic tilt. I think that's supposed to be a p t and weight lifts. Okay. So the first thing I have to mention is that we don't really do a whole lot of chin tucking. At least. I mean, it's not a heavy focus of the program. We want to spend more of our focus on pushing away from the front anchor. The upper front anchor. And that will automatically bring the head and neck into alignment. And so if you bring your focus down from the neck, which feels very tight and it feels stuck, the muscles in the front of the neck most likely are the scalenes. And that is an area that can become really tight in some people. It's not extremely common. It's one of the more twenty percent situations when, you know, we we do deal with the eighty percent of the predictable pattern mostly in this program. But when there is a twenty percent situation like the front of the neck and the scalenes getting really tight and stuck, it still seems to have a beneficial effect. And I would say send your focus and your thought energy below the neck, into the center, into the core, and push away from that upper front anchor. And it does seem to just naturally have an effect of bringing the head and neck into alignment. And so less emphasis on those neck muscles, because that sending all that focus in there can be contributing to the tension and the tightness. So that's the first thing I wanted to talk about. And the next thing is the bridge. So range is small. Not exactly sure how much is supposed to come from the glute and how much power from the core. This is a good question. I believe that there's probably other students that are asking this question, like, how much should I be using my glutes and how much from the core? So I wanted to address this on the stream in case that's the case. And it's not like a clear like fifty percent, fifty percent, or sixty over forty. I don't have an answer like that, so hopefully that's okay. What I think I want to say is the glutes are the muscle. That is the only muscle that is able to functionally bring you up into the bridge. The core is not able to do that. The abdominal muscles are, you know, if we're only talking about the abdominal core, the abdominal muscles connect to the rib cage to the pelvis. But in order to come up in the bridge, it's actually hip motion. And so if we are talking about how far to come up in the bridge and how much muscle to use to bring you up, one hundred percent of that needs to come from the hip extensors, which are the glutes and the hamstrings for the most part. And so that's the answer in the sense of like, how much of the work is being done to lift you up by. By the glutes. It's one hundred percent. And the hamstrings are going to be play a major role in that as well. But the reason we want to have the core engaged is not to lift you up. It's to support and protect your spine throughout the movement, not just of the bridge, but of all the movement that you do. And so that's kind of the lesson that I wanted to get across here, is that the core muscles are not movers. The deep core muscles are not going to be moving your body parts. They are stabilizing your body parts. And so if you're going to ask the question, how much of the core, the deep core, the abdominal core is engaged to in the bridge, what percentage or how much power comes from them? It is a scale. And so if you're doing something light, like sitting like what I'm doing right now, it might be ten percent or less. It might be two percent. If I'm doing a really high intensity activity, like a squat with heavy weight, then my engagement of my core ramps up in relation to the intensity of the activity. And so if I'm doing a max out on a squat, then I'm doing one hundred percent engagement. I'm doing a light activity like walking. It might be five, ten percent, but with the bridge, you're somewhere in the middle. Maybe you're going, you know, maybe you're going all out effort with the bridge and it's like, you know, sixty percent engagement of your glutes and the rest of your body. Then that's where you ramp up the core. You know, the abdominals, the deep core to match that. And the goal, the true goal is for the core and the hips and the lumbo pelvic hip complex, all those muscles, if you join them together because they work synergistically, that's the goal is for them to work together. You can call it a force couple. To perform a movement for the body to work synergistically. So I know I said in the beginning that I don't have a straightforward answer, but I hope that the explanation helps to deepen your understanding of what the goal is. You have mover muscles and you have a stabilizer muscles, and you want the stabilizer muscles to be engaged and turned on throughout the process of the mover muscles, like the glutes to do their job. And what the common problem is, people will go into the bridge with their glutes and the core is completely shut off. And so that's what we want to retrain our body to prevent and to just naturally have core engagement. When you're throwing the power muscles into the mix. Rather than replacing the core with the power muscles. They need to work together. And it may not be, you know, one hundred percent or two percent. And you could just do a really light bridge and focus on your breathing. And it might be, you know, twenty percent. So it's all a scale. So hopefully that answers your question and we'll move on to the next one. I think I got all the part of the question. And also just to encourage you to be patient, you said it's working a lot faster than you expected and you are making progress and things these things do take time. So be patient, stick with the process and just believe that you're going to continue making progress. It just takes time and you'll make more progress as you build strength. And that will show in your functional movements with the bridge and everything. All right. We've got a question in the Get Fat concept lesson from Ilana. I find it hard to keep my core engaged. Oh, let me show you the slide. I find it hard to keep my core engaged while in bridge. Also, I think I'm doing the getting fat until I have to exhale. And then I lose the tenseness and pushing out intention. This is a really good question, so thank you for asking, Ilana. And it is true that it is hard to keep your core engaged while in the bridge, and that is part of the entire goal of the program. And so my encouragement there is just to stick with it. Keep practicing. You're having to take something that you're having to take something that is not naturally ingrained in you right now. It used to be a long time ago or maybe even recently, but right now it's not naturally your default movement pattern, and you're having to take conscious thought and focus and perform this, and it's going to take a lot of focus and thought to integrate that, to become your default pattern where it doesn't require as much focus, and it could even drop down into your subconscious where it becomes very natural. But in these beginning stages, it's hard. You're right. And it's challenging and you're going to. And the encouragement is just to stay focused and stay persistent and stick with it and believe that this stuff really works. The next part of your question, Ilana, is I have a specific tip for you, so you might enjoy that better than my previous answer. But yeah, the persistence is the hardest part. So with the get fat, you're doing it, you think you're doing it, and then you exhale and you lose it. And so what do we do about that? And I would encourage you to accept that the, you know, breathing is a fluid activity. Its expansion and contraction. And so you're not going to be able to maintain the same level of get fat throughout an inhale and on an exhale. It's okay to think of breathing as a wave, the ebb and the flow of the tide. And so when it's time to exhale, you can still maintain the intention. So you can maintain the intention and allow yourself to exhale. And if you're losing the tenseness, then I have a trick for you to maintain the tenseness because a forceful exhale requires tension. And so for a while, until you can get a better grasp on this, instead of exhaling passively, that is more reliant on a passive exhale is reliant on the elasticity of your tissues. So you know, your lung tissues and even your muscular tissues, they have elasticity. And if you just passively exhale, that's what's forcing the air out. But if you add a little pressure to that exhale with a forceful exhale, that's muscle contraction aka tenseness. And so you can just for a while add a little bit more force to your exhale, and you'll be able to maintain that tenseness in your abdominals. And over time, with the maintaining the intention of pushing out, it'll become easier. It'll become more natural. I believe this is only the first week for you, Ilana. So you got a long way to go. You know, this is a three month process at the minimum, and it takes a lot of persistence. It takes work. There's no other way to say it. So I'm glad you're asking these questions. I'm glad you're sticking with it on day five. That's amazing. And I encourage you to keep sticking with it. Use that little trick I talked about and then maintain the intention of the get fat. And it will naturally kind of just start integrating over time. If we maintain a specific intention for long enough, it can become part of us. And that's what the goal of this program is for the core connection and the anchors and the automatic posture correction of the anchor triad, which comes later in the program to become automatic. And so keep it up. And yeah, thanks again for asking. Moving on to the next one. This is from Frank and he posted in the front anchor's awareness. So module two, Frank says, I'm beyond this now, but I don't think I've ever gotten my legs to go up on their own just by pushing the pubic bone into the floor. And the other things advised, they just won't float up unless I try to force them up, I guess with back muscles. So that's where he's forcing them up and that hurts my low back. Okay, Frank. So definitely listen to that. What your body's telling you. You feel like you're pushing, you're forcing your legs up with your back muscles, and that hurts your low back. So that's your body communicating to you that it doesn't like that. So no more of that. My question to you, Frank, is what happens when you connect your front anchors to the floor? So pubic bone to the floor. Ideally you want to start that process out with your abdominals pulling from the front to the floor that connects that pubic bone and the rib cage, bring it to the floor with the abdominals. And then what happens when you squeeze your glutes, even maximally as hard as you can, and force that front anchor to the floor and turn it into a fulcrum because there's so much force pushing that pubic bone to the floor that something's got to give. And if you try that with the glutes, not the lower back muscles. I'd like to hear what happens, because at a certain point of pressure, of force with a fulcrum, one side of the fulcrum has to lift up and the front anchor, the pubic bone is the center of the teeter totter. And if you've got a lot more weight on one side of the teeter totter and the legs being less heavy on the other side, then that's the side that's going to lift up. And so, and the other thing I want to say, Frank, is just that it's okay if you're having the right intention, your legs don't actually even need to lift up for it to be effective. What's effective is the intention that you learning how to develop this movement and extension through your upper back, your hips, and even if your legs just unweight because they, you know, there's enough force for them to feel lighter than the, the benefits can be gained just from that. And then keep practicing. And if you haven't already gotten to the front anchor's Awareness part two lesson, there's some really helpful visuals down below in the description of the video that can help you to determine like, okay, which muscles should I be using? Where should the movement be coming from? And yeah, you'll, you will need your glutes. You cannot lift your legs off the floor from just your abdominals in that direction. So you will need to bring your glutes in and you can do it real heavily. You can squeeze as hard as you can, and at a certain point when your glutes get strong enough, something's got to give and that will be your legs floating up off the floor. Unless your legs are heavier than your upper body, which isn't typical, but who knows? Then your upper body would start to unweight. So that's hopefully that helps for you. Frank. That's kind of what I have to offer for that situation. And it is not uncommon. It's a pretty common kind of. Question category of question that we receive. So you're not alone. Stick with it and you will get better over time. I think with the front anchors in particular, there comes a day it may come a week later or two weeks later or three weeks later when everything just clicks and it's like, aha, okay, I got it. Life changing breakthrough right now. Okay, let's apply this to everything else. And I really do believe that's kind of how a lot of this program goes is through many milestones, many aha moments. All right, we've got six more questions it looks like. So we're going to keep moving through. This is from Chris module one assessment. And Chris says I can feel a little more tension in my core. But my back pain hasn't changed. Okay. This is module one. So day seven basically I can see how this would definitely help lower back pain, but for me it's more mid upper back pain. Do you think these practices can help me? Chris, this is a great question. I've had this question several times and it's my thought is this. The program is heavily focused on lower back pain. That's who this is designed for. That's who I am. That's a big part of my life was lower back pain and the program was created around that. So that's the focus. However, the way that we treat the lower back pain, the way that we address the cause of the back pain is through improving your posture and your core connection and your relationship with your body. And I strongly feel that not only helps lower back pain, but it helps hip pain, knee pain, upper back pain, neck pain. I just don't say that a whole lot because it makes me sound crazy. But improving your posture and your relationship with your core does tend to help the entire body. And so yes, my answer is, I believe wholeheartedly that this stuff can help you. And actually module two will be module two and three. Chris will be highly relevant for you. I look forward you know, module one is really targeted towards lower back. Module two and three are more for address the upper back posture the thoracic spine. And I think that'll be extremely relevant for you. So I look forward to hear back from you after you've done module two and module three. And stick with it. And I yeah, I believe it will help. Holly. Let's see what we've got. Holly, you say it is so difficult to self-assess. I can't see my whole body. Does it matter what kind of issue I'm having? Does your program help all types of posture issues. I'm on week three. I've had to go slowly. And then you say, I thought I had some degree of anterior pelvic tilt, but now I think it's more lordosis combined with posterior tilt. Then I wondered if I'm overanalyzing and just need to do the exercises. That's a great that's a great post and a great question. And it's funny, your first question, does it matter what type of issue I'm having? Does your program help all types of body posture issues? I kind of was just talking about that and this question with Chris. Right. So the program is focused on the lower back, but we address it by helping your overall posture. So yes. And you are in module three. You're on week three and you've had to go slowly, which I appreciate. I think that you can get more benefit by just moving at your own pace than trying to stick with the modules. And so yeah, if you have gotten to the lesson on thoracic mobility and the front anchors challenge, these are definitely addressing major postural problems with rounded shoulders. You know, the hunchback, the forward head posture, neck pain, upper back tension and tightness. You'll see if you read the comments in some of these lessons, you'll see lots of comments from students who are experiencing the benefits in these areas. And it just so happens that these problems contribute to lower back pain. So that's why we address them, because they are a major factor. Now let's go to the next part of your question. Anterior pelvic tilt. Posterior pelvic tilt. You know, lordosis and overanalyzing. So the predictable pattern is that most likely, you know, it's anterior pelvic tilt. There is a twenty percent population group of lower back pain that will have that will fall into the posterior pelvic tilt. And if you feel like you have lordosis or everybody has lordosis, it's part of our natural spine curvature, but hyperlordosis too much curvature in your lower back, then that is makes it highly, highly, highly ninety nine point nine percent chance likely that it's more of an anterior pelvic tilt because those go together and a posterior pelvic tilt will be more of a flat back with a, you know, the posterior pelvic tilt goes with that. So that's not a hyperlordosis. So that would be just my thoughts on that. And then am I over analyzing? There could be something to be said about that. It's good to be aware of your own body and at the same time, The way that this program is designed is through the experience of an infant and a baby developing their core and their posture. And so the best way that you can go through the program is with a baby's mindset, with a blank slate. And so if you get down on the floor and you do it regularly and you follow the protocol, the lessons and you push away and you operate with that pure intention, you should experience benefits just by doing that. And you would not need to have, you know, the knowledge and the education in all these medical terms and things like lordosis and, and stuff like that, because we didn't need that when we first developed. Right? We didn't even know what a muscle was or how to contract it. All we had was intention. A baby wanted to get up off the floor and be like everyone else. And that intention of pushing away from the floor with certain areas of the body. Developed this perfect posture and healthy movement. By the age of four years old. And so that's all you really need to do. And so if you feel like you're overanalyzing, it's totally a safe bet to just operate from that perspective of just pure intention and not try to have to learn all the different names of the muscles and the postures, because these are this is a medical language. And learning them has proved in our medical industry that it doesn't actually heal back pain. If it did, then our industry, the back pain industry would be a lot more successful. It's more of just that intuitive feeling of a relationship with your body, a healthy relationship. It doesn't happen in words or posture. Knowledge that I believe is the solution. So get on the floor and develop those feelings of connection and then apply those feelings that you've developed, that familiarity to the things that you do in your daily life. And that's a huge key is to apply it because we are operating in this area of the pie chart, right? That's what we're addressing in this program. Not so much this. We use this as the tool to improve this. And so when you're in this area of the pie chart, you can't be constantly doing tricks and tactics. It's more of being right. It's more of having a embracing a way of being in a relationship with your body. So. And that happens through, and I think the floor is the best tool to push away and develop those relationships and just feel those connections. I feel like I went on a tangent there, but that's what my answer led me to. So yeah, thanks for asking. I see someone coming through. Kayla Weiss maybe a first timer on the live stream. Glad to see you here. So I'm not currently a student. Do students have access to the material after the twelve weeks? Good question. Kayla. The program is membership. So you have access to the material as long as you have a membership. It's basically it's ninety seven days. And of membership, if you just do this basic membership and there's seventy five days of lessons. And so that kind of gives you a three week buffer, three weeks of, you know, go a little slow here, take your time here. And also that said, the majority of students, I believe they do get their benefit from the first month or two on. I don't even know what percentage of people actually finished the program, but a lot of people get through enough to feel good and solve their problem, and then they move on with their life. And so we don't usually have an issue with people running out of time. But if you do, we have we have an alumni membership. It's like a major discount where for if you've completed the twelve weeks and you want to keep going just to keep access or just spend more time, it's a sixty percent discount to do another, you know, three months or we, I don't even know, we might do month to month after that as well. So yep. And I hope you give it a try. Yeah. Give the free trial, you know, it's free and it will really give you a opportunity to feel and get an exam, get an idea of what this is all about and, and give that a try. I think that's the best way to really to test it out. Holly coming through sand. My boyfriend says I run with my legs out in front of me. This screams posterior tilt to me. Yeah, let's see, I don't know. Posterior tilt doesn't scream. Tight hip flexors and tight hip flexors would be the thing that make your legs go out in front of you. But there's so many factors. You know, the body is not just a hinge with two parts. There's, there are, you know, like so many different factors that could be why your legs are out in front of you. But typically if someone is a little bit flexed forward, you know, at their hips, then they're kind of protecting the lower back with the and the tight hip flexors might contribute to that as the foam roller. Okay to use six months post op from l5-s1, discectomy and Laminectomy. I don't think there's ever a reason to foam roll your L5, S1 area at all. It typically tends to be hypermobile and we don't want to mobilize. That's what a foam roller does. It mobilizes. We don't want to mobilize an area that is moves too much. We want to mobilize the stiff areas. And so upper back, thoracic spine, mid back, don't go below that. There's no real reason to do that. I would not recommend foam rolling l5, S1 for most people, especially with the history of back issues. So yeah, just stick with the program where we kind of focus on foam rolling the stiff thoracic spine. And we're going on to this one from Ashley. This is in the front anchors progression. So this is module two, day four I believe something like that. I'm still having trouble connecting to my front anchors. I probably just need more intentional practice. But it occurred to me today that having four C sections may be part of why I can't quite grasp the pubic bone to ribcage connection. Would that cause some issues? Any tips? Absolutely. Ashley. I think that is a major realization and I agree. Well, I believe yes that it would cause some issues whether or not they're going through your abdominal muscles or pushing them to the side. It's still traumatic. And trauma tends to for whatever reason, trauma tends to have the effect on the body of shutting down some of these deep core muscles. And I absolutely believe that I've seen it in myself and many other people where you have a setback, you have an injury, and then parts of the core just shut off. You can't even access them. And it takes a couple days to wake them back up. And that's why I recommend people when they have setbacks, to go back to module one, module two, and just reactivate these deep core muscles because you don't want to be doing heavy movements when you. When these muscles aren't part of the movement and the spine's not protected. And so that is. Yeah. Major, I don't know how long ago your C-sections happened, but. Spend extra time making sure you wake up these muscles and can connect to your back. Anchor and your front anchors. And because of these surgeries, you may have to spend the extra time on that. And then once you feel like, okay, I'm getting my relationship with this part of my body back, then you can start progressing, but I don't recommend progressing if you don't feel like you've got the connection. That's major advice that I would like to offer you. Ashley, you want to be able to connect your pubic bone and your rib cage to the floor simultaneously and maintain that connection and be able to breathe continuously with that connection. And then, you know, the progression is another layer on top of that. And Ashley, you say the bankers have my lower back. Feeling better already? That's awesome to hear. Typically people will have typically people will have a preference back anchor or front anchors. One comes more naturally and easily and feels good and the other is challenging and difficult. And it's not always the way that you said it, whereas back anchors feels good and it seems to happen pretty naturally, and the front anchors are challenging for other people is the reverse. But what I suggest is you spend more time working on the one that is more challenging for you, because that most likely fills a gap or a compensation in your posture that is lacking to improve the areas that are more challenging and spend more time on them and bring your body back to balance. But yeah, I'm glad that back anchors have you feeling better and that's part of this whole process. So yeah, keep it up and do more of what's working at the same time. We got the next question from Antoine Net and we've got it's posted in the module one assessment. She says when completing the completing, I believe the perfect bridge for five minutes. Is that a sustained hold or should I be completing reps? I've been holding the position pretty much for the entire five minutes with an occasional quick release. Okay, so this one is featured as a question because it's so common and I'm going to give the best answer I possibly can so that we can post this as a frequently asked question for people when they ask it. So should you be holding the bridge for as long as you can, or should you come up and down and do repetitions? My recommendation is to maintain the bridge. As long as you can stay connected, continuously Breathe and have good form without your form starting to falter. Because when your muscles start to get fatigued, especially the deep core, they'll start to, you know, turn off. And that's when what I mean when I say form faltering. If you start losing connection, then you come back down, take a little break, we'll call that a set or a rep and then come back up and go as long as you can. That's my recommendation, because I believe that you get more benefits from maintaining the bridge than doing just repetitions up, down, up, down. And that's because the purpose of this program is to train posture and posture is all day long. That takes endurance, that takes stamina. And so because of a training concept called specificity, we want to train for what we're going to be doing. If you're going to be running a marathon, you want to train by running. If you're going to be riding a bike race, you want to be training, you want to train by cycling. That's how you're going to get the most specific benefits to what you're going to be doing. And we are training for posture all day long and going through life. And so that is not something that happens in bursts like repetitions of exercise. It's something that happens in learning a relationship with your body and being in that relationship, being able to continue and breathe while you're doing it. And so that is my answer. Hold the bridge as long as you can. It doesn't have to be five minutes. It can be 30s if that's as long as you can go while staying connected to your back anchor and your anchors, your, you know, your deep core connection, your pubic bone to rib cage connection, the get fat concept, wherever you're at in the program and whatever you're working on, staying connected with those things. And once you get fatigued, you can come down, take a little break, come back up. And that whole time span of doing that process, spend at least five minutes doing that. So it might be one bridge for five minutes, or it might be five bridges for a minute each. It depends on your level of fitness. And yeah, primarily it's unique to the individual. So hopefully that helps. Antoinette. And we'll move on to three more questions. We got one from Brittany coming in the Tug of war article where we talk about, you know, the hip flexors and other forces that are influencing the tilt of your pelvis. Brittany says, I don't feel the stretch in the front of my thighs yet, but my gluten, which I believe she means glutes are on fire. AM I doing this right? I love the fact that your glutes are on fire. So yeah, most likely you are doing it right. If you said that your quads were on fire, I would have concerns and try to give you tips to do it better. But since your glutes are on fire, it seems like you're doing it right. It may be just that you don't have super tight hip flexors. Brittany. That could be one factor. And so you may not feel a stretch because they, you're not getting to the point where they're stretching or they may not need to be stretched. Another factor is, you know, whether you're coming up high enough. I don't feel really safe recommending people to just come up higher in the bridge, because you want to make sure that the movement of excursion, of coming up is going into your hips and not your lower back. And so you want to be aware of that. If you're going to come up higher and try and get some stretch or get more stretch into your hip flexors or your your thighs, the top of your thighs. You want to make sure any motion of going coming up is hip extension or hip backward bending motion, not lower back arching. So yeah, either come up higher or maybe your hip flexors are not tight. That'll be another thing that's unique to the individual. But I love the fact that your glutes are on fire. And if your gluten's on fire too, then I'm happy to hear that as well, because apparently people think gluten is bad. I don't really know. So we got one coming through from Rob in introduction to the Perfect Bridge. Is it a good idea to pre-stretch the quads and hip flexors prior to the bridge to allow for better posterior tilt? That's a really good question, Rob. I don't think I've ever gotten that one before, but definitely I can understand why you think that I wouldn't. It depends on how you're stretching them. If you get further into the program, you'll find that I don't recommend static stretching at all, like ever. So if you're just, you know, grabbing your quad and like pulling your or grabbing your ankle and stretching your quad by pulling your ankle back, that would be more of a static stretch. I don't there are no long term benefits to that. And I believe there are not. And so if you're going to be warming up through like dynamic movements, maybe like something like yoga. Yeah. Cool. But I actually would recommend it in reverse where you use the bridge to activate your deep core, because we are using this more primarily to learn movement retraining to move with your deep core active by connecting to your back anchor, pushing away, you know, initiating the bridge with the push away, then bringing the leg muscles. So we're keeping that core active. And then, you know, if you get a stretch to, to the hip flexors, That's cherry on top. But then. But if you want to get into some dynamic movements, I would do it after. Activating the core muscles with the bridge. So yeah, that's probably my recommendation is you. You don't I don't recommend static stretching and you don't really need to pre stretch. The bridge is the stretch, but that's really an extra benefit on top of what we're really using the bridge for, which is a movement retraining tool to learn how to move with your core. Before we apply it to all kinds of other movements, it just so happens to be one of the best ones. Yep. But a really good question. You certainly seem to have an understanding of the body. The hip flexors and the quads are the culprits, so hopefully that helps rob. And looks like we've got our last question from Holly. Okay, so posted in the original front anchors lesson. All right. Yeah. Getting into some of these extra extra Sure. Materials. Holly, you say I have a chronic feeling that my back muscles that are attached to my spine are tight. Or maybe there is scar tissue after surgery. First thing I want to say is when you have a chronic feeling like that or an intuitive feeling, definitely listen to it. You're most likely right. The feeling that you have is most likely indicative of something somewhat accurate to the feeling. I always trust patients when they tell me something like that. So let's say your back muscles that are attached to your spine are tight. Let's say they are because you can feel that. And maybe there's scar tissue after surgery. Like it's a you feel stuck. Let's assume that you're right. It is an unsettling feeling, like a specific vertebrae is being pulled down. It is not where my surgery was. L5, S1 it feels like it is higher, like a like last thoracic area. Oh, Okay, like l like like T12, maybe L1. Okay. I think we asked you, Holly, what type of surgery was it? I think we had my admin asked to ask you that. I'd be curious to know what type of surgery. And the vertebrae being pulled down, like down towards your feet is an interesting feeling. It does seem like scar tissue could be a factor, especially if you had surgery. Okay. Holly, what type of surgery did you have? A discectomy laminectomy. Okay. Pulled down. There's something you can try. Holly called skin rolling. You can't do it to yourself, but you can find a manual therapist. Even some massage therapists will know this technique. And that is extremely effective for releasing scar tissue around this area of the spine. There are a lot of layers of fascia and tissue that that can get stuck. Adhesions, they call them. And so the skin rolling is a technique. And it can be a little bit painful but abrupt. And they can release those adhesions. And so maybe that you are feeling something that's there, you know, physically. And I would listen to your intuition and see if you can get a find someone. It could be a physical therapist, it could be a massage therapist that knows the technique. Or you can just search skin rolling, you know, lower back on Google and see what comes up. Maybe somebody around your area will be able to do it. And it could be one treatment, one session, and it can release the adhesions. And of course, you'd want to do things afterward to prevent whatever caused that adhesion to take place. Maybe it was the surgery, maybe it was something else to prevent that from happening again. So glad you shared. And that might take care of the problem. And it may also just be, you know, getting some movement into that area. So the foam roller that you question you asked earlier. I would recommend to foam roll in that area. And if you don't have a firm foam roller, then I recommend getting one. And I have a mobility ball. Those are two separate things. The ball is really effective. It's kind of intense, but a really effective for mobilizing areas of the body. And I think that is a trigger point. Massage ball and a tool like that would allow you to do self-myofascial release or self, you know, manipulation to get real specific. The ball is more specific where the foam roller, the broad surface area can get blocked by, you know, your scapula and other certain tissues. So I use the ball for more specificity. And yeah, the Discectomy Laminectomy. I'm glad that it wasn't a fusion because then my answer would be a little bit different. So not a huge significant issue about that. So let's keep going with this, Holly. You say also, I know my breasts affect my posture. I can't lie flat on my abdomen and be in any kind of alignment. Can speak specifically to this topic. Can you probably speak specifically to this topic sometime? I know it has shifted my balance, posture, gait, etc.. Thanks. So I think that the ability to lie flat on your abdomen are prone is important. To be able to feel the connection with the bottom of your rib cage to the floor. And so whatever you need to do, if you need to push them out of the way, then that is something you got to do. But I for you to say, you can't be in any kind of alignment that is going to be an obstacle, and it may be what you need, especially if you're thinking that your posture is affected by pulling you forward and you have that rounded posture. Then the front anchor's position, the awareness position, is the medicine that you need. And so we can either modify it by putting like a folded towel under your abdomen so that you can connect the bottom of your rib cage to the floor to kind of bring the floor up to you. And then you can better feel that connection and maybe a folded or rolled towel for your forehead to help support your head so that it's not, you know, in a weird position. We can modify and you're just going to have to go by experimentation. You're going to just have to try it and see what works. But try either rolled towels or folded towels in certain areas to help you to connect those anchors to a more firm surface. Okay. So yeah, you get some back spasms when prone. So there is a lesson in the program, Holly, where I put a pillow under the abdomen. It'll be in the extra lessons, extra resources module. It's between module zero and module one pillow. It's like pillow relief or something. Try that. And if it's not and that's not specifically for the front anchors exercise, it's more just for relief. But you can get your body used to being in that position through that lesson. And then you can also, when it's time to transition to the front anchors exercise, you can use a more of a towel, like a more firm surface to support you and just modify it to fit your body so you can bring the ground to you, the floor to you, which is what the important thing is to get that biofeedback. So hopefully that helps. And yeah, I mean, certainly breasts can affect posture. And and it's not something that I can speak to from experience, but it definitely had patience that where it's just something you got to work with and work around and modify things for. So that takes a little bit of creativity and experimentation. And so those are my recommendations for that. And the pillow lesson that I mentioned can just help get your body familiar with being prone and for your body to feel safe in that position so that the muscles don't spasm up. So yeah, yeah, you're welcome Holly, and I appreciate you being here. It definitely shows a lot when people show up live of their commitment. And so definitely want to reward people, you know, for, for, you know, you lean in and I lean back and that's kind of how the coaching in this program works. And there are a lot of students that I never hear from. Once they go through the whole program, they have great success and I never hear from them. But you get what you need and you seek what you need. So I'm glad to be of help. And I do remember Chris had a question. So let's see if we can answer that. So follow up on the previous question. What do you recommend when you feel more activation in the quads compared to the glutes? A stroke of maintaining my connection and avoiding anterior pelvic tilt. Yeah. Okay. So in this situation, which is not uncommon, there's a situation I would fall into because I was very quad dominant. My glutes were very secondary is to see if you can pretend that you're going to pull the floor to towards you with your feet when you're coming up in the bridge. And you're going to have to do this very gently, because if you go hard with this, your hand, your hamstrings are just going to cramp up like crazy. So just a gentle intention of pulling the floor to you. You're using this phenomenon called reciprocal inhibition. When the hamstrings activate, the quads have to deactivate to some degree to allow that to happen because they're opposite muscles acting at opposite ends of the knee joint. And so that's one is just a subtle you may be using. A lot of people will use their quads as a crutch. And so you're using the friction of the floor and that's your quads. That's the extension of your knee. It's isometric but it helps to, you know, your knee extends when you come up in the bridge. And so it's using that muscle group. So you want to use your quads less to come up in the bridge. And so that would require something else to come in and help support, which would be more glutes or hamstrings. And so you can use that trick. Another thing that you can do is focus on the progression of the bridge where you are on the foam roll, because if you're overusing your quads on the foam roll, where you're bridging on the foam roll, the foam roll will roll away. And so that is kind of a check. It's a check and balance for you. So it works for some people. It doesn't work for everyone. But that does add another element to the bridge. And so you can either put the foam roll under your feet or under your upper back. And hopefully that will help just to kind of have the right amount. But um. Yeah, the goal is to gradually shift the firing pattern, gradually shift your movement pattern and things like that don't happen overnight or in one session, but day after day, if you have the intention of using less quads and more hammies glutes and you don't have to know the muscles. You can just, you know, use the foam roller, or you can just use the trick of thinking about pulling the ground floor towards you rather than pushing it away from you, which is the compensation people use. Those things can be helpful. So hope that helps. We are through the questions for today. We're through the topic. Can you heal a damaged disc? The answer ultimately was a little bit probably. But is that the question you should be asking? I don't think so. I think the question you should be asking is, can I get back to a normal life with a damaged disc? And the answer to that is, I believe one hundred percent. Absolutely yes. Can you get back to a normal life with a scar on your skin? Does it affect the function of your life? Not unless you let it psychologically. If you feel like you can't get through life normally because you have a scar, then that's more of something that you're focusing on. And I believe that you can switch your focus to can I function normally with a scar? Yes you can. And so a damaged disc is the same situation. If you can get down on the floor and do the things that will help your body. And reduce the contributing factor that caused the disc to be damaged, I believe your body will send less pain signals, and if you can bring your body back to balance, I think your body can get to the point where it sends no more pain signals because you're not damaging your body anymore. You've halted the damage and the risk of damage is not there. So you your body is not sending the warning alarms and, and you can get back to doing the things that you love. And that's the question that I want you to be asking is, can I get back to a normal life with a damaged disc? And the answer is yes. And if it's if the answer is no, if you can't do the things that you need to do, then that's when you can ask a question about surgery. But for most people, you can get through at least module one of the program, and it's extremely gentle. So if that one week helps you make a tiny bit of progress, then you can build on that progress by having another week with a tiny bit of progress, and then you're going in the right direction all of a sudden. So thank you all for being here. And we're going to wrap this one up and keep up the good work. Keep committing to your bodies. And as we walk away from another stream, go do something healthy for your body. And until next time, get down on the floor and connect to your core. Take care everyone.
