Unknown Speaker 0:00
Alright guys, today I am with Chris Davis. Chris is a manual manipulative physical therapist. He's in Acadiana, Louisiana, Chris and I first met at a dry needling course and integrate dry needling course where Dr. Mom was there and in a big crew it like 70 people or something. And yeah, I got to watch my needle your back. And we'll talk a little bit about some of your back rehab that you've done over the years. And then recently, I was just down there we were doing, we did another integrative training course there. And Chris hosted and so Chris is just one of those guys that has spent a lot of time in the manual therapy world, the rehab world, and we were chatting about some different things. So I asked me to do pot. So Chris, thanks for hopping on.
Unknown Speaker 0:41
I'm glad you and I enjoy doing these things. You don't realize you kind of I guess it's one how your mind works. You still think you're 25 years old, and I'm actually 44 years old. And I've been practicing 20 years. It's like, wow, you know, and then you start seeing all these people you've helped over the years write letters of recommendation. Now. The other day I was counting, I was like, man, I've written about 50 letters, and I think I have 44 therapists that are you know what I mean? And so it's like, you're no longer that beginner, you know what I mean? So you have a lot of knowledge that you can pass on to people, I think that that can be very beneficial, and sometime be a light bulb for some people to help them get further on in their career and help more people.
Unknown Speaker 1:20
For sure. And I said this when when I was down there. Of course, Mike Conlon was at the clinic that day, of course, and, and I feel like you guys had this group where you guys were just going and taking all these courses. I almost feel like it doesn't exist in in the younger. The younger rehab people I'm not seeing that sounds like you guys went everywhere.
Unknown Speaker 1:39
No, we did. So it was, you know, originally, that's kind of how, you know, our connection with you and how I met Frank logano, there was we started, you know, back then you got to understand this was 2006 2007 2008 Internet was not big. It was I don't even know if there was something as a Zoom meeting, um, a little bit behind the technological curve, you know, just kind of the way it went. But, uh, you know, when I first started, you know, as a PT, I wanted to crack bones, you know, and, you know, wanting to learn how to manipulate or finding a course for a PT to manipulate in 2001. That was hard to do. So you'd learn books, I had to find somebody here who did it. And he was kind of ostracized, because, you know, back then we couldn't use the terms the term spinal manipulation. And so when I found these guys like Mike calm and Daniel bishop, and and then it became Derrick Derrick was actually a student at the time. You know, we just started traveling, and it was me, Mike Cullen, and one of Mike's buddies, and then one of Daniels buddies. And we went to, I think we all met at a spot at one, James Dennings courses when his first course we actually got to close down in one city had to do in another city, because the chiropractic board there. And so it was kind of cool, because you kind of felt like a little outlaw. But it was a good course. And I think the thing that came out the most is meeting relationships, like Mike Carlin, and Daniel bishop in those guys. And then we started jumping from courses to courses and went to a course would when I met Frank, you know, it was kind of weird, you know, we kind of connected and we became partners, and we were manipulating each other. And he's like, man, you got good hands. He said, where do you train us? What kind of self train you know. And then I had a guy who mentored me who he was do training out of the guys from Michigan State. And so it got my skills to a level and that's kind of why I was taking those other courses. And, and so me and Frank got to talk. And he's like, Chris, so what are you studying? I mean, honestly, I'm studying active release, because at the time when Mike Collins to do this, you know, certifications and everything. So he sent me all this stuff on active release, and just killed my hand. I mean, it's intense stuff, and it works extremely well. Um, and I said, so I started studying acupuncture at the time of the product, I couldn't pronounce those words. I had no idea what dry needling was, to be honest with you had no clue. And so I'm telling Frank that. And he's like, Man, I said, it's like, you know, you manipulate an upper neck, you get a good C, one, two. And you think the headaches gonna be gone? Like I got, they come back, and then you can feel the knots in the suboccipital. And it's like, Man, if I could just get to him, you know? And so I was studying acupuncture with this Cajun boy had trouble pronouncing these words. So how do you want me to learn 3000 words that I can't even pronounce? It's very hard for me. And so literally, I think was about a month later, I got a call from Frank. And like I said, we touch base through email, which at that time was it's amazing how 2009 to now is just different on how we communicate. That just it's amazing and just how we can pick up knowledge from YouTube to everything and like from what we're doing now. And so I called he's a man I have something for you. Cajun boy unit goes the Cajun book, and as a woody and he said something called dry needling was dry needling. And he said well look, I'm I'm hosting a course and, you know, my clinic. So looked into any board repercussions. I wouldn't maybe have here because No, you didn't know. Like, then you didn't know. I mean, you know, you had a young Donahoe doing them. And I think I just went on his own. And I was like, you didn't have the research capabilities at that time that are so fast like it is today. So I said, Yeah, I'll go. Um, so I went up to meet nano Frankin salon and got to meet a lot of the guys with the mulligan concept that Frank knows, and it was a pretty eye opening course. I mean, it changed. It changed my path as a therapist, you know, taking that first dry needling course, because I think it just, it adds so much to what we do. And so it got us doing that. And then wouldn't you know, I had to call him a friend, which is Mike. And, you know, Derek, and I mean, I've got Derek with Dr. Mike, because he was still in PT. School. And so he just went to study with them lucky Do you know? And so, um, you know, everybody, we all started drawing you. And so we went from course, to course, the course. And then, you know, in Louisiana went from, oh, you didn't need anything. And now you're going to need 100 hours. Do that already started dry needling. So I couldn't not dry needle anymore. And so we started taking a bunch of I mean, the first course, that's basically all they were offering at the time. And so we took it like four or five times. Such a gift for hours. Yeah, so we could get our hours. And we were going to, you know, really get some knowledge from Dr. Mom. And
Unknown Speaker 6:31
it was just it was an eye opening experience. Just I mean, a whole lot of knowledge. And just at that time, man, I was a sponge. I was soaking up everything and anything, you know, just the amount of knowledge I was gaining. And it was amazing. And having these guys I mean, like the cupping. You know, Dr. Meyer was teaching cupping and kneeling in the first class. And I hate to say it, we bring our, you know, portable tables and crack and everything, women, this is how I do this is how I do that. And you know, I have Daniel standing up, and he's got one on his, on his chest. And he's standing there because Dr. Mom, then we're looking at making special cuts, and they're going to be 100 bucks a pair. And well, you know, this is 2008 or nine, we'll let Google because what was Google at the time, let's Google breast cups. And good enough, there's breast. And so we found the big cups that were Braska. Because it was pretty cool, because for me, I have I've had two back surgeries. And back then it was only one and my first one in 2000 604551 Fusion. Um,
Unknown Speaker 7:35
can I back you up before we dive into that, sir? Yeah, definitely. So this is something that is kind of interested. Interesting to me right now. You know, you said I knew I wanted to crack bones, right. And in today's, like, in today's world, today's environment, there's this huge debate right now of whether therapists should even be doing manual therapy, forget mode versus minute, but just should they be doing manual therapy? What do you think? What do you think has evolved since you're talking, you know, 2009, or whatever? What's changed? Like, why you have this passion? Like, hey, I want to be able to do this. Today, we're hearing like, should we even be doing it? What do you think's changed? And also, what got you into that mindset? Like, why did you want to do that? So back then
Unknown Speaker 8:19
in Louisiana, we're somewhat behind but we didn't have direct access here to 2016 So you know, we're doing all these things and I mean, you unfortunately how doctors we react to it even though and so 2007 It was right before I started with Downings courses I went to our mall was people were still going to the mall. And I asked them all got permission and as I wanted to ask 100 people because it was an easy subset. Okay. If you had back or neck pain, who would you go to add a physical added a medical doctor, physical therapist, chiropractor, massage therapists, acupuncturist you know, or PTS fell on that list.
Unknown Speaker 8:59
Or we last?
Unknown Speaker 9:01
This is the fourth out of five. gonna understand acupuncture. Okay. Yeah. So it was fine. It was number five. That's what I wanted to be. I wanted you to come to me first for pain and get it there. So what is evolved? And you know who number one was Star? rank was number one. I mean, it wasn't far off. I mean, I don't I don't I should have kept those numbers but it's just interesting to see. You know, and so back then it was something chiropractor was number one medical doctor was number two. You know, massage therapist was number three, Pts were number four. And you know what our education
Unknown Speaker 9:40
regarding that number would be much different today. Like we did that?
Unknown Speaker 9:44
I honestly do. In some ways. I'm I'm a little skewed because I've always practice kind of outside the box, at least what I see. And so I mean, I was cracking bones. I mean, you need to I had the group and I was early training with said, You need to go to fabrics. No, I'm a PT. I didn't want to. And so when I found a chiropractor that I respected, he said, Why would you go to chiropractic school? Go find some pts and learn how to do it. Y'all can do. And he said, Don't tell anybody that. I mean, he's asking me now, but that's what he told me to do. So I think today would be totally different. Because I think you know, the 2020 vision that PTS had, I think it's kind of coming to fruition. You know what I mean? It's all coming. We're in 2021. Now, people come to us now for musculoskeletal pain. So I think if you're really not honed in with your manual therapy skills, I'm sorry, man, if everybody wanted to work out for an hour, or business bit, a whole lot less. But my pet my patients come to me like I have a four week break right now. Which is a good thing, but it's cool weekly, because people want to come and get in and they want to be done in 2030 minutes. I can't do that with just exercise. I can't you know what I mean? And so, Pete, and unfortunately, you can change people's hands, but you still got to give them what they want. And I think manual therapy, manual manipulative therapy, and I don't think manipulation is everything. I think you have to know a little bit of Mulligan, I think you have to have a big toolset. And that's where the dry needling kind of fell. It's just another probably my best tool, but I use it along with everything else. So I think it would be different. You know,
Unknown Speaker 11:16
I think if you said nothing else about manual therapy, just said it, because you can make such a quick change you get by right? So now you can change habits and try to get that exercise and whatever you gain their trust, right? But if you spend the first three visits, telling them to do quad sets and nothing changes, like sure, maybe six months from now that knee would feel better, but they're never going to get there because, you know,
Unknown Speaker 11:38
well, I mean, you know, you've been practicing long enough now in in anybody who's been I mean, because look, I've had debates with people on some of these forums, and all manipulation doesn't work. And let's not getting to the evidence based practice, you know, discussion, because I think that leaves a lot of anecdotal stuff up for chance, especially when you're talking about very gifted practitioner, I think I can get results that other people can't, just because I have good hand speed I have good, you know, and I know some other therapists who are top of the line who we're gonna get different results and other people. And so I think if you can learn how to do manual therapy to get away. I mean, you it's hard to evidence based practice that you don't mean it's hard to prove that, you know, when you're manipulating somebody and then you know, the first year PTS manipulate someone, it's just a different story.
Unknown Speaker 12:24
Yeah, I know, I know, the like the guru side of the manual therapy is something that people attack when they're when they're saying, you know, talking about me therapy, you have to be this guru. I'm actually curious how much of it is technical skills, which I think a lot of it is because you and I both know that if you change something in a minute, some people get them to pop and some people can't Mulligan techniques. If you've changed your pressure just a little bit, it works and it doesn't work. So I do think there's a touch and feel and enhanced skill to it, obviously, but some of that I think's just confidence, right? If you walk up to me and say, I'm gonna crack your neck, and I'm gonna fix you, like, I'm in, you know what I mean? Cuz you're gonna say it with conviction. It's an easy thing versus the person that's kind of hemming and hawing. And I've been working
Unknown Speaker 13:05
with some, like, it's the confidence thing, I was told that in 2006, I remember the day it was a Wednesday. And the guy's name was mountain chicks night, and he was he, his eyesight was real bad. The dude had hands, it just, you know what I mean? Just one of those guys. And he told me, he said, Chris, you have one good thing going for you. He said, you walk with confidence. He said, always go in there with confidence. And so from that day on, and I'm going to go in there, and I'm going to learn skills, and I'm going to teach myself skills that can give me that confidence, because I had it deep within but I didn't have the knowledge base I thought I did was expand that. So once I expanded that I have, you know, I read something the other day, you know what the biggest thing we do is we give people hope. And if I can turn your pain off in two visits, and you've been to seven different people, whether it's with dry needling, manual therapy, honestly, maybe it's just a prayer in my breath, or something that I'm doing with them, that makes them think that we know how our brain is and what it controls, I've got the wrong thing. I'm going to use the techniques and I think they're thinking going away did all my manual therapy, my dry needling, my, it's, it's all going to play into the game. And then I can do nutrition consulting, I can I can get their body back to the way we know it should heal. So I do think that that's a big role in it. I don't think you can just say exercise. There's evidence out there that shows I mean, exercise something where you know, the joints are so far off, then you get nothing but spasm. It's fast, you know, feed forward activation. I mean, I'll manipulate the back and you know, you are needle the Sylvans they can't even do a hip abduction or hip flexion I kneel so as I don't mean manipulate anything, strings 40 to 50%. Right. It's a weakness problem. You know,
Unknown Speaker 14:47
you said a couple of really interesting things there. You know, I think so often people think when you speak with a high level manual therapist, they think it's gonna be all about technical things. But just hearing you talk about the power of the mind and that kind of stuff like We know it's an emotional, like there's an emotional experience in the pain piece. And having that conversation is half the battle. And that by and manual therapy just gives you another way to do that, right? It's a huge input to the system. So your words, your confidence, the environment around you, all that stuff plays. And I think we're trying to do a good job of that in that new course we put together about yet I think, the NRT course, we've been trying to really harp on that.
Unknown Speaker 15:26
Because you know what I think the problem with most of these young back when I was doing that study, chiropractors and PTs, because back then I was getting chiropractic board caught on a lot, because they said I was doing something I wasn't supposed to, because we'd given up the term spinal manipulation, but we could call it a grade five or, you know, just technical stuff. And so I started looking at how they were treating people and then how we were PTS do things how they are told to do them, give me the book, give me an I'm going to do it, just like that. And I'm saying from abroad, because look it everybody has. But what I've noticed, just I'm just being general. And it's like, tell me what to do. And I've noticed this with the different, you know, teachings on dry needling, you know, in every body, like the way that y'all teach it in, you give me a way to do something, not how to do something, I can do it any which way I want to, you can tell me and I can come up with my own method and me and you take the same course. And we're going to treat an ankle different, we get a good result. Because you You taught me a method, not how you know what I mean, you get what I'm saying?
Unknown Speaker 16:36
I do. And for people that haven't been what Chris is trying to say is like, if you take an idea and dry needling course, we're teaching theories and principles behind how it works within the neurologic model, but there's no blueprints like 100%. You know, we get, we get people that often like, well, if I have knee pain, where I put the needles correct, it's not about that. It's, it's not about this, you got to do these five needles, and I gotta be in this angle. And here's what's happening in the body, take your patient their presentation and apply a concept to match. And so the reason I like in the reason that Chris, I think he's trying to say lies is that you can take your own knowledge and background and adapt it right, you can make it your own a little bit, which I love. And I think a lot of people love about it. What what do you think? You know, you mentioned PTs in particular, I think that after, of course for walking, because a lot of people that want that blueprint? Great. What makes it different when you have that ability to kind of learn a theory? Or why is that important to you?
Unknown Speaker 17:39
What I've learned and then, you know, Derek and I were talking, it's good to have somebody who's high level and I'll be I've mentored him, but the he's he's really a good there, he thinks outside the box. So we have two people that work together on a daily basis, that can think outside the box. It's like, you show me a technique, you show me a dry me with everything I've done in my career. I've always added something to it. So you've given me something. I mean, that's pretty cool. I've added two things to it to fit money. Right? Does it make it better, it just makes it more efficient for me. And honestly, I find the results are better. Well, if I tweak it this way, and I do this, whether it's a manipulation, you know, see one, two, and we're doing all this rotary, and we'll just do a sidebar, you know sidebar and you open it up depending on the position. And it's all things basically Mulligan and you add an hvla to it. So it's more of being able to add your own little nuances to it, to make it work for you. And that that's what I think that you're seeing with some of these gurus that they're, they're wanting to teach because I see some young guys and a lot of people come to me in our area. I was one of the first scenario and I think I was the first doing the dry needling. And so now they come while I'm doing this, don't get caught up in look, there are a lot of good methods of teaching out there from Maitland to mulligan to, I mean, from dry needling. Now we have we know there's like four or five different types of dry needling, I think you should know a little bit of it all. And what fits the patient better. You know what I mean? That that's, um, when a patient comes in, what are you going? What do you want, because I want to get them there and meet their goals. If they've got three months, we can do it in three months. If you've got a week or two, we can also do it. They're the method in which I get there with these tools. And so I think it's learning and knowing a little bit of each one in putting into your bag and when to use it. And that's where that, like you said the guru type evaluation skills coming. Like it doesn't take me long to evaluate a patient. Check for red flags. any red flags, okay. They tell me where it is. I look listen, I feel okay, here's your Metro. I do a functional movement pattern. Okay, you're ready to fix it.
Unknown Speaker 19:46
That's my work. Are you ready to fix it? They're looking for users. Oh yeah. Well, fiction and some already working on you know, I'm
Unknown Speaker 19:53
already working on me in that mindset. And you know what got me to that is 2008 I went to college. Friends on, I met a PT from England. He was a physio and I said so man. What's the difference between a physio and a PT? Well, you guys in America, he said, y'all think that you treat the body? So what do you mean it kind of perplexing, like, What do you mean? You think everything resolves in the body. And you said, you'll have a mind, you have a body and a spirit. And there was something that just stuck with me, I didn't pay much mind to it, then when you start seeing that, over the years, after you practice, you start seeing dry needling, you know, come about, because at that time, it wasn't a one, dry needling, it was 2007. And then it's like, you start seeing all these things kind of progressing. It's like, men, you can treat the physical body. But if you don't treat that mind and put a little spiritual in there, you have these hard cases, the likely that you get in a better, it's, I mean, they'll there'll be back, there'll be part of that thing. I want to heal people I want to, and I want to have techniques and things that do that. And I think when you combine the mind, the body and the spirit, which may now makes 100% sense to me, but in 2007 or eight, okay, do whatever, you know, but it was one of those things that just stuck in my subconscious. And I kept thinking about it.
Unknown Speaker 21:07
Yeah, that's, that's interesting, you know, and I think the way I see things anymore is you have therapists that literally just want to do the mind side, right? We're like, so far, we just want to go, we want to go that way. But we're like, oh, man, no, therapy is bad. If you're bringing, bring it together,
Unknown Speaker 21:25
it's a soup, you know, it's gonna add some beef, you want to add some vegetables, it's a vegetable soup, you can add a little bit of it all. I mean, because my goal, my goal is to help as many people as I can. That's my goal that's reopened Acadiana Penguin, when I when I went with it, it's our goal was to help as many people as we can, because you have a lot of people hurting out there in the way. And I don't want to get into western Eastern medicine because I don't. But yeah, we've trained people that medicine gets you better, because when I needle people, this is the funny thing. You put a needle on somebody, you get some stuff to let go and they move they're on their way. So it was in those needles. Right? Nothing? What do you know what kind of medicine we have trained our brains are through media and just the way we've been taught that medicines, healer, and that's the total, that's, that's the furthest thing from the truth that there is, medicines get us over a point, we still have to heal that money. And like look, Tom, mind, body and spirit, you got to heal all those things to get the money. So all manual therapy is if you have a guy just doing manual therapy, he's gonna be good. You won't be getting excellent results. You got you got to have a combination, like we're talking of all, you know, so what's your skill set?
Unknown Speaker 22:41
Yeah. So what is the, you know, you get a client and you just may have therapy? What I mean? Do you guys have something that is intentional, from the mind body spirit standpoint? Or is it more just kind of like, what you're saying is cash flows within a session? It kind
Unknown Speaker 22:55
of flows within a session. I mean, you gotta be careful when you're talking, you know what I mean? You don't want to get religious or anything. It's just, you know, do you realize where you are, why you why you are where you are, and start short. And you got to feel it out. And sometimes it's not on the first is, you know, the biggest thing I've noticed is making people understand that I believe in a God, I believe in God. But make sure they know that the first is in a lot of times, that's what sets them like, oh, because they've been praying to get out of pain for months or years. And so now they know, I believe, and they've been praying for God to send somebody to heal it. I hear it literally once a week. And so I said it with him. You know, God's given me certain talents, he's given me the ability to see things that other people feel can't. And so don't worry about your pain, your pain is going to be at least yours in a few months. It's all wording. It's no different than honestly sales. But I have confidence in my abilities. I know what I can do. I know what the tools I have can do when I apply with my knowledge. I just got to get you knowing that I can get you banned. Because that's what they locked because they've been told that by 10 people, I think people who literally haven't taken their shirt on handlers to move haven't touched him, and are the so called specialist, you know,
Unknown Speaker 24:06
it's interesting. So, you know, I can think back to college days at this point. And some of what you described would be leading the patient and setting them up to give you a positive response and all that kind of stuff. So it was presented as a negative thing, because you're not going to get a true response and blah, blah, blah. We were so worried about placebo effect of your techniques. Now, when you're treating patients in real life, it's kind of like who cares, right like Right, like Yeah, so what we might we put them in the right mind frame and that they're thinking positively and things are going to go better. Is there a negative to that?
Unknown Speaker 24:48
It's funny because you see people had a lady who comes in front of my wife's mom's upper neck, cervical, you know, trigeminal cervical nucleus symptoms, you know, crazy every time As she's had, which has been everything, you know, out off the lawn, and I tell her in five minutes that I can, I can fix her. You know what I mean? And she's like, Are you sure? I said, Oh, no, we can't. And so she said, Chris, listen to me. If you told me, this was on her second visit, then I'd eat a bag of dog shit. bag bag of dog poop. I wouldn't tell anybody I did it. But I would do it to get out of the pain. You know what I mean? So what does it matter if we get them out of the pain, I've seen some women, I had this one lady and elderly, black lady who came in, and the woman was so spiritual. Her hips maybe had 10 degrees emotion, her back had no motion. And she just wanted to be able to get up and stand now. Now you know what her pain level was? Zero. And she told me that because she believed in God. So I was just treating mobility and function 90% of other people are treat they would have been in so much pain. And that was another thing that clicked with me. Like, you see how much power your mind has over you. You see how that Mind and Body and Spirit work together? My goal is to get people to reach their goal. It's not my goal. Like I tell them what document doing better? I don't know you tell me because it really doesn't matter what I think are you being able to do the things you came in here wanting to do? Is what I'm doing when you come in here making you reach the goals you got you came in to see me for? Yes, that's that's the only response I'm looking for. You know, I'm not treating high level athletes and like I tell people are getting a lot of pitching kids. I'm not the mechanics guy. I will get you out of pain and get everything functioning the way it's supposed to. Now you got to go see this guy to work on your mechanics. You know what I mean? I will say things I call it neuromuscular rehab after I get everything straight. But I'm not that guy who's going to get your mechanics and in rehab you like a Kevin Wilk or anything? I'm the pain guy, I'll get you better. I can rehab certain things. But but if you're looking for long term like then that's not me, my goal is to get people out of pain.
Unknown Speaker 26:59
Yeah, no, that's, I mean, I think at the end of the day, that's that's what we're all trying to do it, especially in its early stages, right? Because you can't get out of pain. How do you do the other stuff?
Unknown Speaker 27:08
Just kidding. Is one before the other, which one comes first? Right?
Unknown Speaker 27:13
I think the patient that I've noticed that the challenge is if they've experienced a trauma you got in a car accident or some other form of trauma? Do you add any layers to your conversation? And when that person walks in? Whether they're a victim of some sort?
Unknown Speaker 27:30
Yes, I do. Usually, that's when you bring on a little bit more of a spiritual talk. It all depends with that, because I mean, you you've probably done you treat car accident patient halfway, they just take a little bit longer to get better. President you know, some of them have that, you know, tertiary gain and, and so what does that change it but you know, the one thing is, I mean, they really think they're going to be crippled for life. And because they're talking to an attorney, they're talking to all these things, and then they have the emotional trauma of an accident. So now they have the emotional trauma of the accident, am I going to get better because I've talked to 15 people who've had this neck surgery, and none of them are doing good. And so now I'm not going to be able to do what I want to do. Because of all these limits, so they're they're thinking about the thing that's so far off, that's not even going to happen, it's fear. And so you have to you have to change that early on, and say everything is possible. Is it going to change your life? Yes, it's going to change your life. But we can work around and get your life, you know, might not be 100% But you know, will be 90 95% which you were but but number one is getting you thinking that way. And we're going to do the things possible to get you there. Because again, if they think they're going to I mean you know it and I hate to say because I'm not going to be the mind guy, but if you don't start changing the way they're thinking their response to therapy is going to be a whole lot less work on that first with those patients.
Unknown Speaker 28:56
Especially I think like what you were saying if they've seen an attorney or they've gotten some imaging done and gotten a bad you know, some kind of bad news with it from from somebody, it's just everything gets complicated. It's like Man, if we just got our hands on this thing early, right, or you had all these conversations we wouldn't we wouldn't be here at all. So
Unknown Speaker 29:16
you know the come I have a bulging disc. Okay. Yeah, me people people just it's, you throw a term and so if you can look at these might have a niece who has Friedrichs ataxia. It's a horrible diagnosis. You know, you throw that term Adam. And so what do I do I go look on Google all the problems with it and what I'm doing. And so you start putting in your mind and I'm gonna have it instead of just letting it happen. You know what I mean? Like, sometimes when you meet with people if you're doing a certain type of Nealon it's going to be uncomfortable like I tell people don't don't expect the pain wait for What do you mean because you might not get it? You know what I mean? You're so has it because it's a new just just breed like that. And if you feel understand that and don't let the diagnosis define you. Because that's all it is. It's just a word. It's not the function. It's not the mobility of the I treat function. I treat mobility, I treat nerve muscles, bones, you know what I mean? I can get all this moving better. So it really doesn't matter about a bulging disc. We can get all this and most of the time in two weeks, they're pain free. Man, I'm glad I didn't sign up for that surgery.
Unknown Speaker 30:26
You know, I, I try to express the people like that was there before you got that image taken? Right? Nothing's changed. We just you know, you got a picture of it now but it's been there. So let's not you know, we were getting better before that happened that just kind of continued on. But it's hard to unsee some of those things Yeah. Or words.
Unknown Speaker 30:46
We were doing musculoskeletal ultrasound. We got one in the clinic now. I'll be honest with you haven't used it much. Um, and she starts doing my shoulder. I'm always handled my right shoulder issues and you know, very rough have hurt everything and the right shoulder and a bad man. She starts doing my left. Oh, man, you left. I don't have any problem. In my left elbow. Both motor nerves are popping over. I'm like, Okay, let's not do my knees. Well, you know, about a week later, my shoulder starts hurting like, oh, yeah, I mean, you get told it, it gets in your mind. And then you start in on the train, you know, professional. And I'm like, I think something's wrong. My show. And I have to have my wife telling Chris, you thinking that stuff in existence? Because you know, there is something wrong with it. And you're having trouble with my shoulder. And that was two years ago. Yeah. You know what I mean? But it started a
Unknown Speaker 31:38
week later. Very similar that I fell out of a tree stand probably five years ago now. I couldn't get my arm passed 60 degrees of elevation. I mean, it was jacked. Had an x ray what nothing was broken. And, you know, gridwall and somebody like that, like, you need an MRI. So I was torn in there some sort of like, if I go get that MRI, I'm gonna have surgery because I'm going to see it and then I'm screwed. But it was like, it was like, Okay, now I can do 80 degrees. Now I can do 90. You know, now I have no shoulder pain and God's that surgery. But I was like, I knew if I saw
Unknown Speaker 32:08
the power of the mind. Yeah, we think it happens. You know, and I've been reading a lot of stuff. Dr. Caroline leaf, Dr. Joe Dispenza, on what we think and how it becomes existence. So I had a little kid come in with this abdominal pain syndrome. And so I said, You know what I did with him, I found he had a big trigger point is lower. And because he can eat whatever he wants, I'm like, likely that it's his stomach, and he can eat anything and everything and no, so I just didn't musculoskeletal assessment. Did some visceral release, and not much, but I talked to him for 10 minutes about, does he want to be like this forever? And does he think he can get better? No, I think I can get better. You know what I mean? And now he's like, wanting to come to therapy. You know why? Because I told him he knows he can get he can get better. And I don't want to give them false hope. But I would rather do that. And not succeed. But what if I do succeed? Yeah, know that I do succeed other than saying, Oh, you've been to 25 doctors, and then 2021 We don't know what to do. And nobody's really after 21 doctors, it's all been mess. He's doing some therapy, but normal core strengthening stuff. And, and he's feeling better. So I'm like, there's another thing that it tells me it's a much. Yeah, what I said because there's strength in it. So the pains not as bad not as intense. That's another thing. It tells me it's muscular system, you know, neuromuscular, right? Oh, so he, he just kind of kind of decipher through what's going on. But number one, you give them hope and what because there are so many issues us as good manual therapists, if you're truly reading manual therapy research, and medical doctors don't even know exists. Number one, they don't have time to read their research much as ours. And so when Oh, you know, you would trigeminal cervical nucleus with that. Oh, one of your terms and Okay. Well, I mean, we just fixed your daughter who's had headaches for 12 years and use this in $120,000 on some sort of chemo type treatment. And in six visits, she's remarkably better. I'm okay with that. You know what I mean? And so it's, it's understanding what we have at our fingertips. And I think that vision like we talked about a PT becomes becoming those practitioners for musculoskeletal pain. Because we've had people come in and all the time gallbladder issues, stomach issues, and it's they're hurting in their back and their doctor never looked at it. So you send the doctor hey, did you check this this middle? We maybe check that. No, we saw we saw a problem because we're able to think outside the box. I mean, when a knee comes in, I don't look at the knee. I look at the hip. Is it maybe the low back? You know, is it L one through L three? Is there something jam there? Is it the ankle? I look at the whole structure. I mean, I do check the knee. But I'm making sure the whole movement pattern and the whole body structure is there. You know what I mean? I
Unknown Speaker 34:50
think I think that evolutions happening, I really do. We kind of go off on a crazy tangent, but I wanted to say
Unknown Speaker 34:59
that was I mean I think it was. I think that's probably more important than anything else we're going to talk about. We talked about dry needling, you said people come to you. When a therapist asks, Why do you do dry needling? What do you think it is about needling itself? That adds value.
Unknown Speaker 35:17
I think it gives me a tool that I can change a muscle, and I can change the nervous system. And I can change the way the body heals. Right now.
Unknown Speaker 35:27
When you say the body heals, what what do you mean by
Unknown Speaker 35:30
you know, the first thing we learned when we dry needle, you know, if you look at the early research and comparing dry needling and acupuncture, it didn't work, right. But they were comparing the two, they didn't have one with out, they were comparing putting a needle in people just one was a specific points. And one was a trigger point. I really think the needle and that's what we learned the first course Come on, I said, this is the most powerful thing. Because when I stick the needle in, I stimulate the body's healing. And I remember our first course, we had like five acupuncturist, that were Oriental medicine, you know, oriental medicine. And so I became friends with them. And they were like, you know, you get these high level athletes and you Chris, you put a needle in their, you know, their calf and forgot the acupuncture. And man, they don't get their left shoulder better. But it's that stimulating the healing responses, you know, I use it as the splinter, you get a splinter and then you can't get it out, well, man, you keep messing three days later, you got a little plus you when it comes out, the body's pushing it out. Because the body knows what to do it it's the body knows how to heal it, or needles just a way to guide it. You know, early on. I mean, I can remember it was all chiropractors and Dr. Maas first course with us. And he said, If it hurts, put a needle in it. That's what he told me. He said, use the judgment. If it hurts, put a needle and he said you're going to get most of them better. He said this needle is powerful. And so that's what I mean by but when you can start understanding the neuromuscular system and putting a healing response where the nerves run, I mean, look at what your you know, the courses you teach do, it calms that neuromuscular system. Number three, I mean, you can start doing a little bit more advanced techniques. And again, I've seen people do where you know, it's the Twitch needling, I think it's a feel, I think it's a feeling I don't think you go in there and jab a muscle, you know what I mean? I think you get it in, I mean, look, I do a lot of Twitch, I don't Jad, I work it and I make that muscle, the muscle guides where I'm going with it, and it releases, but I'm not beating it up, I'm letting the muscle open up and do it. So I think I have a tool that can improve healing. I have a, I have a tool that can honestly get rid of a spasm now. And I have you know, so once I do that, add some manual therapy skills, guess what? I, you got full motion yet somebody come in here, after they're like, man, what was what's in your needle? Yeah, man,
Unknown Speaker 37:46
you know, that those instant results are so cool. I love the touch of the needle, the feel of that needle tip. You know, if you've been doing it for a while, it really does become as sensitive as your hands, right? Like you can you can feel that tone, and you can micro adjust that kind of stuff. I think that's an evolution of mute. Like, you get somebody in a course for the first time. And there's so many things happening. And I think it's, you'd like to see that progression of feel.
Unknown Speaker 38:15
In some of them. They're just scared because I've been lucky enough not have the confidence and I was never scared to do it. Right? They told me Okay, we're gonna do this and step outside the box, a needle friends, okay, this is this is you know what I mean? And I've just I've practiced a lot to learn new things. And now with YouTube, you can watch some pretty advanced stuff that they're doing and what you watch and you know, you
Unknown Speaker 38:40
we, I mean, you is sweating those dragon kneeling videos. Show me that crap.
Unknown Speaker 38:46
You know, people were saying that you're gonna try this better judgment there, you know, but I think you know, this is what I tell my patients because they ask, well, what is driving? Number one, I tell them I can bring healing to wherever I want it to right now, I can stimulate the body's healing response. And so you have areas that hadn't been touched because they're tender. And so if I can get a healing response, you know, true systemic healing response, then I'm going to improve that area. But then like, I tell people, it's my grease. What do you mean, if I have a tight nut, I had, you know, had a trucking company when when concrete puncture. I mean, you'd have these boats. I mean, look at where Jinora when you go get the little, you know, it loosens its grease, you put grease on the pool, it moves. That's what I tell people. I said it just loosens stuff up to where I can move it. When I go to massage it or release it or manipulate it. Everything just moves the home a whole lot easier after that. Yeah, that's awesome.
Unknown Speaker 39:44
So if we cut circle off of that, I know you've had some back stuff and two surgeries, right? Yeah. How has your manual therapy background or what's the I should we should probably back beam for what's the story behind the back injury and how did that kind of evolved over the years and what have you done for yourself from that healing sample,
Unknown Speaker 40:03
I was 10 years old, jumping on a trampoline. I was a little tiny guy. I mean, just have to let it but tiny. I mean, I've had stitches 23 times in my head, broken most bones in my body and broke my left leg. compound fracture, jumping on a trampoline, double bounce, landed snap Molech it was too much pressure coming up, cut the nerve a little bit. Rip the artery. Luckily my sister was there who was a nurse worked for a local doctor went to get him sewed up. I mean, I almost lost my leg. So I was in a cast for two years. I was in a cast up to my, you know, way up in my growing for six months and then one up, you know, three quarter length. So I was in a cast for two years. Well guess what Chris ran on it. played football and I got my little cast. I was I mean, I could not play football. I mean, I can play in the cast like no, you cannot play in the cast. So what happened when I found when I went to PT school was that my leg grew longer.
Unknown Speaker 40:55
I had a little bit of back issues. A cast.
Unknown Speaker 40:59
Yeah. My left leg long and I didn't find this out to PT school and after. But in high school, I can remember getting hit in football in my left my right leg going numb and chemistry. And I remember went to the doctor gave me a cortisone shot. I had two touchdowns on Friday, you know what I mean? Okay, we're good. But I remember that after is that when was the first time and know what I know? Now it was then. And then high school college, I was pretty good. But when I got to PT school, like I started pulling muscles pretty bad. You know, quads, hamstrings, and I'm very flexible and warm up was okay, what's the deal, and then I can remember driving up to Shreveport, I went to school in Shreveport, which is a three hour drive my back, I would just want to stretch it. So I think it started there. And then after my first year, I wasn't I was out of PT school. I've been down to pick up a hot pack cover liberalism using a ton of hot and I felt click that pain never went away. I mean, went to who they thought were the best guys. I went to a chiropractor, a PT, you know, three times a week, literally for two years, you know what I mean? And a little bit of relief. And at that time, you know, my story was, I was taking pain pills, and you know what that road leads to. And so that was a big learning experience and the whole whole reason for this, I'm going to get into it and then I'll go back. God brought me there. So I could help a whole lot of people to get out of there. Because I went into addiction on pain pills and then you know, having the back surgery thinking you're not going to be able to mathema I didn't know but you don't want back surgery. But I had a two level fusion in 2006 February 2006 I was taking six pain pills a day. I was going to therapy to I mean as I was doing everything I had to do but I couldn't sit and I remember oh it's a mild to moderate this boat with the problem was I mean, I went to you know what the beatings like Chris you have your four cents are gone. He said your transverse process are basically cracked. So he went there and fused it women after a little bit of you know, just starting to work out six months later, I'm good. I mean, I was good for a long time. And then I kind of realized that that leg links I start, you know, lifting the other one doing some corrections and my shoes and what I had to wear and get lasting pretty good and 2012 I slipped pretty hard, took off running and probably flew up about four feet slipped on some concrete and went landed on my tailbone and I cracked one of those screws.
Unknown Speaker 43:19
Nobody cortisone little bit of therapy was good. No problems. 2015 I'm doing my garden in like, in that December, I had a sinus surgery. And I remember my left leg going numb riding a bike, like just going up and I'm like, man, what's going on? What is up? And when I did my garden, my back went. And like, Thank God, we had cell phones and I'm calling the doctor like bring me some morphine. Bring me this and cortisone. He's like, Well, let's go to the ER, I'm like, they're not going to do anything. Like just come to me. Give me this. We're going to get some cortisone, get it calm down. And it calmed it down. I had Derek working on me, but it never got better. When I finally went through the X rays, MRI was not good. My L three l four had, you know, slid forward it was it was bordering grade three spondee. And so it was I had to have you know, so I went in February. And that was the worst pain I've ever been in. The worst pain I had to have my manager from a concrete business can pick up my pistols because you wake up in the morning and you feel like you want to blow it off. Because then nothing will get taken away. Nothing like you just just it crosses your mind to take a picture and just blow it off because it would it would in your mind. When you're in that pain state. You really think that that would help. And so I had to get rid of that. And then the doctor couldn't do surgery because the guy who had to go through the front. He couldn't do it. It was all around the holidays. I mean, dude offered him five grand cash and take my insurance like let's get this thing done because I was miserable. I couldn't my legs felt like they weighed 250 pounds and And so fast forward and had the surgery. They were basically one month, one month if I'd had an in February of 16 that have been 10 years apart on two surgeries. So I'm now fused the three Ds one L four L three, four l four. Five is fused anterior. And then the MA l five s one had fuse. So they didn't fuse that one posterior, but they post your fuse the other one. And look, my leg pain went away, right away with that leg length and having to be a PT. And you know, Chris, I had to go back to work probably a little bit too early. And I mean, I had to go get trigger point injections and that thing, good thing, God, we were doing needling to heal it. But, you know, I thought I was gonna have to stop doing therapy. I mean, I really did. Because I couldn't, I was in a lot of pain. couldn't move with that got me into doing coke lunges, which now we have a cryo chamber, you know, because I was just a wooden going down that pain pill wrote again. And I was having to take a few and it was like, but it was, you know, it was a lot more mild. It wasn't, you know, so addicting, you don't want to be, you don't want to be ruled by a substance. You know what I mean? You just don't, especially if you've been down that road before. You just don't want to go there. And so what it taught me is like, I mean, Derek would treat me and get to three days of complete relief, and then it would come back with a vengeance. So we did muscle testing. And you know, this last back surgery told me what your core truly is. Because you know, the core, you know, everything core core core, what do we think transverse abdominal abdominals and back, right? You totally forget about that whole pelvis thing. Yep. Nude. I was working. I mean, do you know transverse Domino. I mean, I was playing again, doing all that. And man, I couldn't stand up. Well, after I finally said that, we got to do some, like, dude, let's meet you here. Let's muscle test everything. My glute Meade was so weak, I couldn't even hold up my leg. So we actually designed to hit machine to for internal rotation because that leg shorter. And so if you think of the mechanics of it, we started strengthening that woman, my pain started, like, even my back pain. Like it was no longer biting in that spot. And so it taught me okay, how important is that glute Meade for abduction, and internal rotation to control that core, your back. And then also, you know, your pelvic core, you know, you're 44 years old, and man, you start having issues down there. And like what's going on, I had so much pressure on there for no telling how long those muscles just weren't quite firing. And, you know, keep those for growth. You know, that's just as for women, these pelvic floor, so slow, but man, you start adding all those things into a lumbar program. And then the rate at which you get better you truly realize, hey, if I go bridges, if I go, if I go for weeks, when I'm doing a bridge, my back starts giving them that pain just given them. And so it showed me how important that true pelvic core is. So every time I've injured myself, it's been a leapfrog for me on treatment ideas and how to treat people. And not only that, but now I have a common have a common, you know, thing with you. I understand what you're going through. So it helped me to help a whole lot more people because they're like, Oh, I just pick up my shirt and I feel on my store. Wow, yours is bigger than mine. I mean, you don't but it's like, no, I do know what you're going through. And we can get you there. But it's again, it's that confidence
Unknown Speaker 48:01
right now. And I think there's a couple things that when I hear you talk, I mean, a surgery is not bad, right? There's times where you need surgery. It was
Unknown Speaker 48:08
nothing. Like, I mean, who told me I needed surgery? He's a friend. I basically threw the tablet at him and walked down. I don't have time to answer what he said. I don't know what to tell you, Chris. And you can get pissed off. But there ain't no monotherapy Daniel, no mana injections that are going there's no right ethic that is going to get this thing better. It's so unstable. He said, Chris, I'm afraid you end up crippled.
Unknown Speaker 48:31
I walked out of war and I was fun. You know, I don't want to go through this again.
Unknown Speaker 48:39
I mean, it is yeah. So that's, I think that's an interesting point. And then I the thing I really, I mean, thanks for sharing that story. But the thing I really find interesting is the medication side of that. Do you think that that obviously you're trying to avoid pain and pain medications showing go down that road again? Do you think you know I've seen some research now that it actually amplifies the nervous system later in life? Do you think there's anything to that
Unknown Speaker 49:09
100% Do it on my back is I'm gonna be completely honest. A lot of people in 2017 Dude, I thought I was getting out of PT I was honestly I felt like I was going through a mental breakdown. I had my surgery and 16 I was having a bunch of issues at home everything. I was taking two Tramadol a day, which is I mean, it's that smile. You know what I mean? Yeah. But when you say that, I mean, dude, it was fun. Like I like midlife crisis type deal at 40 like oh man, but I was just still in pain and you don't want to be there and you help all these people with pain. All these thoughts go through your head and it's like, whoa. I took some time and went to a treatment facility for 30 days. And I took some time and worked on my suit but not just that I stopped bending I stopped the thing and you get everything out your system. Some, your body knows what to do with pain. There are enough things, but it's that mind thing. Yeah. You know what I mean? And that that's where the whole mind thing really came into existence for me because it was like, Man, this is something. You know what I mean that because I mean, I literally was in so much pain and was it knee resting, was it not? But I was so hypersensitive to pain. Because every time I had a pain, it took something. You know what I mean? Whether it was an ibuprofen, 800, or something, I didn't want to be in that pain. And I think I don't think our nervous system, I think it dulls our brain to truly working the right way and, and finding a pathway to make it hurt less, and how to deal with it. So no, I 100% agree with what you just said with the new research is coming out. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 50:46
I can't remember where I read that now. But I was talking to Dave, Chris, what about it? I think it's when I hear people that even if it doesn't become an addictive level, but people that have pain medications, that I don't know if I want to use the word dependency, but like that, that thought that you want to have that be able to take it away with a medication? Almost, I don't know, I feel like there's some downsides to that, that are a different level than just the physiology or medication.
Unknown Speaker 51:14
Or some of the a lot of the research only shows it works for like three to four weeks, like truly works on pain. You know, some of the stuff I read is like, man, it's an hour, you know, and now they're limiting it, which is great. But you know, you got somebody with cancer pain, or some I mean, we're talking about I'm talking true musculoskeletal pain. Yeah, there are times and their issues. But the problem is we're just not treating it. Right. Right. We're not, we're not treating it, because we're having this discussion on. Do you really think manual therapy work? You're nobody is filling their bag with these tools. So I go to this therapist, he's doing a bunch of exercise and I don't get better. I go to this therapist, he just does a bunch of little manual therapy stuff he wrote, he does this and I'm not getting better. You get what I'm saying? No, it's a combination. Right? You know, I really think if we truly did research on, you know, can clinics who do all this stuff together, I think the you would see a totally different ballgame. But right now we're doing research, just dry needling work. There's there's this an exercise where and like, it's so hard to control all the variables, because when you're a therapist, you see what's going on. I can't control that. I see what needs to be done my nuances. I'm gonna fix that doing this. How do you replicate that and do that on 20 people?
Unknown Speaker 52:22
That's tough. You can't you know what I mean, in I think the, I mean, the big kick up, I always see is the confidence side of it. Like, I don't know, if I walk into a room and somebody asked me to do needling and they look nervous, like, what are the odds that I relaxed during that session, and I have a pie like, it's just not going to happen, right? You're going to be anxious the entire time. So there's Yeah, the variables are just insane. But the other thing I wanted to ask you about that glute Meade piece, and have you met, have you met Mark Hernandez, the therapist that's teaching our pelvic floor therapist,
Unknown Speaker 52:53
haven't you? Um, matter of fact, we talked about him when you came down? Do you really want to meet him? You do
Unknown Speaker 52:59
you need to meet him? You know, he's done a lot of the postural restoration work and, but he like you, right, he kind of takes it and he's able to flip it in his mind and just spends a ton of time looking at pelvis and mechanics and that kind of stuff. I'd love to get you to in a conversation together. That'd be awesome. But, um, what do you think that glute meet pieces, because I see it all the time I get that l four or five issue and then it means got trigger points like crazy. It's really It tests that obviously, will control the pelvis. But what is your opinion on how that? I think most
Unknown Speaker 53:31
of us, you know, you read research, most backgrounds were four or five, right? So if I use the hose analogy, you know, I've got a hose. It's, I have like a little a drip hose water my garden, and I step on it. And guess what my garden starts to not look good, right? Because it's not getting the fire, it's not getting the water. So with the nerve, the nerve kind of gets irritated, right? We get some inflammatory response. Well, it's kinked. Why is it kinked? Well, you know, I've got a little position of how to do four or five, four sets up but then my pelvis is rotated to doing all this. So you look at the link tension relationship, I'm really big into link tension. If it's off, then guess what it has to spasm right to contract to hold. So it's the protective mechanism within I'm no longer getting that water down that nerve, that nerve is being blocked, I think it's getting weak. I think a lot of its, whether it's a pelvic nominee, or just I think that feed that feed forward, you're no longer getting feed forward. So you're having to compensate and protect and so that thing locks and locks and then you start getting the trigger point pain of the glute need and it's running down the leg. So oh my god, it's a disc injury. Right? And so you're getting all that until I had to. I mean, I couldn't internally wrote mele rotate, like land on my control of it. Like, dude, I
Unknown Speaker 54:41
can I'm 200 pounds. What do you mean?
Unknown Speaker 54:45
He's like, No, Chris, you I'm telling you to move and you're not moving. Like no I'm in so I really think that if you but it becomes simple on how to treat it. And not I would say 95% coming week but you get a few there's no weakness. Yeah, yeah, there Fine, you know.
Unknown Speaker 55:02
And it's it's different populations to it's, I mean, I've had weightlifters that it tests terracross, or to weightlifter, that kind of population. But then I've had the 100 pound female that has never lifted ever and you still find it, it's not going to
Unknown Speaker 55:17
get those people in, they're always towed out, right? They're always told out that because we walk towed out, so we never internally rotate, right? We're always externally so we shorten, you know, if we get in that discussion, we shorten it, it tightens right piriformis, and you got the piriformis and tightens up, you got the so as which tightens up and you rock it forward, meat has to fire now because I've got to lift my leg and go forward when I can't. And so it's doing it to protect itself. But then it becomes that negative feedback loop like, Oh, now it's spasm now I started getting the pain. So, so that's all, but I think if you need all that you need other so as you do that, you know, paravertebral points, you get that nerf Calm down, get it free to combine it with some manual therapy, whether it's manipulation, or just get those segments moving, I think for the most part, you start freeing up that hose and getting everything firing, and then you can strengthen it. The problem I see with so many therapists, and I get a lot of other people been a good therapist in our town. And they're missing the first part they're sequencing and wrong. They're trying to strengthen and how are you going to strengthen something that's so tight anyway, or it's already short? You know what I mean? It's already short, you can't strengthen it, solve that problem, which is that tightness, get everything level. So you no longer getting that spasm response, and then strengthen it. And my result was phenomenal. When I figured out what the problem was. I mean, I mean, I went and doing you know, 200 a day just to get it strong talk, walk. And in man. Now I do it. I do hip abduction, resisted with 25 to 40 pounds twice a week. I know his internal rotation twice a week on a machine that we designed. And it keeps me keeps me stable.
Unknown Speaker 56:54
Yeah, I love that garden hose analogy. We say it's interrupting the nerve signal something like that garden hose analogy. When you're trying to get that glue made you say it's tight. Needle it obviously I'm not you stretch the What is your opinion? Do you stretch those things? Do you isometric on the eccentric? Um, what?
Unknown Speaker 57:12
Obviously, what I do is I find what I've found the most helpful probably in the last two years with kneeling is putting people in the position of their pain. Because what do we do? We lay him down? We need them, right? So what have somebody with a real flared up, give me I make him squat or something? And then what do I do? I put them on all four. I make them rock back on all fours. I find out where that glute meet is not moving when they're rocking back. Okay? Because it's a way I can still have them having that position I go into where I see that glute meet visually, the tightest it can be in a needle it like that certain needling in there is under tension under tension. And it lets go. That's the quickest and the most effective results I've seen. What
Unknown Speaker 57:51
would you say, Huh? You send them almost anything. And then
Unknown Speaker 57:55
I scratch it, I always stretch and after I've eaten it because I find that. Okay, so we got a big knock, right? I release it, I get it to do this, right. It's not like this. But now it's like this. So I got to LinkedIn that thing to get it to work like a pulley system like a muscle supposed to do. And I find a whole lot better results when I stretch and especially the so as the piriformis. I've grabbed the sacrum, I internally rotate, I've had to use a bolster ever since my back surgery. And I've come up with some pretty cool ways to manipulate SI joints, low backs, using a bolster up under the leg stretching and so as finding where the so as time finding where the glute meet is tied into internal externally, you can find it a whole lot easier. I put my hand on that, you know, on the femoral head and on the sacrum and just stretching, internal external rotation so that they're I want basically balanced mobility. And I try and get them as close to balancing and I send them home with a piriformis stretch if they're able to do it. And then a lot of times I rarely send them in there that spasm with an exercise to activate the muscle. I usually send them home with they're either gonna roll it out or scratch. Yeah, I want to see if they come back is it less spasm because if I had them go activated again and it's pulling the wrong way. It's going to be spasm again. Right?
Unknown Speaker 59:07
Yeah. And then when do you start reintroducing your strength from their like
Unknown Speaker 59:13
I'd say third or fourth visit depending on if the spasms manifested to someone that if you spasm 75% Better that I'm feeling the trigger point then I'll start some shrinking muscles and muscles around it can fire you know what I mean? I'm not using because if you glute meet is totally locked. And you're doing hip abduction internal rotation, you're not using it with me. Right You know, you're using something else and you know you're compensating and I want to isolate and strengthen where you're weak.
Unknown Speaker 59:42
Gotcha. And then are you just doing that like a the machine that you're talking about? Are you doing something no at
Unknown Speaker 59:49
home, I show them how to do it on their side. Just sideline active, internal, you know, laying on their side, just kind of picking up the leg I'm making do sideline hip abduction quad tightened, and we really get negative meat kind of internally rotate the toe. So I'm getting true just glute meat, or they can do it standing there having trouble with that and make them do it standing. I like standing because my problems weren't standing. And I could do all the sideline on what till I actually put weight on it got into a full open pack position and started strength it made all the difference in the world.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:20
Yeah. See, that's where I wonder if how much of the strength piece is actually like a motor relearning, right, because in a shortened state for so long, neuromuscular Ria, you don't even you don't even think to activate it. Because it's been, it's been around for so long. So how do you reload it? Right pattern, right? That's I played with a lot of the PRI stuff in all, it all starts very non weight bearing, it's, you don't really get any carryover until you can learn it, you can feel it right, I can feel the move, I can feel the rotation. But until you get up and move in, it just never holds. Yeah, so that's, that's good stuff.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:56
You know what I found? Same thing with shoulder length tension relationship, you know, your rhomboids all that your pet gets so tight, you know, your lap gets so tight, because they attach to the same thing. So what do I do I check here, but usually their low back lab is tight, you know, where it attaches at the rack or lumbar fan, it gets tight. So I released that mean, you see the arm come up, and then go, it's here. So I put them on their side, I needle down that lap, you know, get that book comes right up, you know, so you can see the change, and you start looking and you see where it's not moving. And so if you think of a needle is grease, when it's not moving, then I'm going to go grease that area, right? But it'll always a 90% of time, do some neurological needling to calm down the system. And then at
Unknown Speaker 1:01:34
some point you, right, I mean, we're just having a conversation here. But it would depend how flared up there, right? If there is a ton of pain, you're not putting them on?
Unknown Speaker 1:01:42
No, no, no, I'm, I'm neuromuscular anatomy, if I don't think if I can, if I don't think I can change their pain, if I caused them pain, I can't change their pain for the better, then I'm probably not going to do it, I'm going to calm them down. And I'm gonna say, Look, we're gonna do three to four visits to calm you down. I also have my cryo machine, I have a beam, I have a few things I can do to calm that nervous system down enough where I can start doing those. Because again, the last thing I want to do is clear things. I've done that enough. And you learn by experience, you know, especially with headaches and things like that you just learned shouldn't have done that. You know what I mean? And luckily, you're still able to help these people. But again, there's a ton of mobilizations with movement, you can teach people to start improving their mobility. And all I need is a 10 to 20% reduction in that pain to be able to start doing what I need to do.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:27
Right, you can get in Yeah, but you got to you got to get them off that that acute care. But yeah, been there too. Now that's, that's awesome stuff. How often you look at you always like tension, or that
Unknown Speaker 1:02:40
it's just worked for me with the way things have gone. And it's kind of like changed my thing, because I used to treat up the plumb line, treat everything of the plumber and get everybody back to the plumb line. As before I had advanced skills. Yeah. And you just stretch one, and I was getting a ton of people better, you know what I mean? But then I started getting all these advanced skills. And so now we have these cool apps, you know, these, you know, the complete anatomy app, which has just changed the way I needle tremendously. You know what I mean? I wish we had that back then because it's just amazing. I can turn the neck Oh, that's probably what's tight. You know, because what I do a lot is by field, okay, you're tight here. What do you release it? I don't know. But it's holding you in the left rotations, I'm going to release that. You know, in a lot of times you do our neuromuscular needling and God you calm so much of that stuff down, and then they have one little piece that's still tight. Okay, well, let me get rid of that. And so it's learning. It's learning how to combine these different methods of thought, to provide an overall better experience for the people. And then guess what if we could all do that as therapists and stop saying, Hey, I take that course I do this course. I did this course. And I do that. Well, I know where your method of thinking is. And I know what you miss. Right? You know what I mean? I love my stuff. I mean, what it's no different than Brian mode. When I first met Frank, best manipulator out there. He didn't teach manipulation. We all know why, you know, the liability, but you know what I mean, Dr. Mom, I mean, you've seen them needle some people. It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, let me see that. How do you do that? Like, let me get a microphone, you know, a magnifying glass to see what you did. But it's that comfort of knowing what they're doing. But how do we do that we step outside the box, we start learning new things, all these things work. All these techniques, all these things we hear about they all work but what works Do you know him enough? Do you know enough of these to put it into your bag to use it when you need it? I don't have to be Maitland certified. I don't need to be you know, I know how to do a lot of these things. But I'm not going with a method and think I do with the nuances in the bag of equipment. I had this big tool bag and I've increased and I use it when I feel it's appropriate. Not everybody gets manipulated. A lot of them do but not everybody does. You need some Gilligan's you need that but but I would call myself a manipulator. You know what I mean? But it's you know, I was told that you know you've arrived when you're when you're you know a manual therapist when you know when not to do it.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:00
Yeah, like, I like that. I actually just wrote a line on our on my website about something about you need to have a lot of options so that you can pick which option to use when? Correct. Because if I only have one option, I'm going to use it all the time, because that's, but that's a long journey.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:14
Oh, no wait in you have to be willing to look outside your comfort zone, you have to be willing to look at these things, you know, and again, what I liked so much, and I had about 10 people that I sent to do my stuff early on first, and they wouldn't do some other stuff. Every time I talked to these guys, they thanked me. Thank you. Because they have such a broad way of thinking about things. Because I think that the way that you're teach the drive, it just opens up. When I first learned dry needling might be what everybody said Was it hard. It was already what I knew. I just learned how to use this tool. I knew everything. They told me I knew everything they told me, You just told me I have a new tool to use. And basically how it could be used. You didn't tell me how to use it. You don't know how it could be? Or you don't know, hey, I can use it. So now I can use it for everything. And I think that's how therapists have to think. Like I mean look at the McKinsey guy. Kinsey McKinsey McKinsey. You know what I mean? Is McKinsey good. Dude, when it's effective, it's effective. So you need to know when to apply that just is dry needling for everybody. No, I drive, you know, 95 to 98%. of you know what I mean? I just find it effective. Am I doing a big deep needle Twitch needle on everybody? No? Do I do some just balancing light needling to stimulate that healing so I can get a better response in the gym? Yes. You know, because that's how it works. And I promise you, if we as a profession started, stop competing against each other, and stop competing about my methods better than yours. And learning a little bit of each one of those methods. I promise your results, you would need another profession. You know what I mean? I think I think you'd see you know, I mean, it's but but we fight each other on exercise works. Yes, exercise work. We've been doing that for a century. You know what I mean? But but so has the other stuff. And exercise is not for everybody. But I can strengthen things and get people out of out of pain for a few days. And if it keeps coming back against what I know that's a weakness problem. We definitely need this, I know you only want to come in here for 20 minutes, and we get you going. But if you want the pain relief you're looking for you're going to have to do these exercise. You know, and so exercise has its pony, but I don't think it exists. And I wouldn't treat as many yoga teachers and Pilates teachers and all these teachers, if core strength was the only thing you needed. If it were the only thing you needed? I don't think I would.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:38
Yeah, no, I think yeah, we're definitely on the same page with that. And I, I agree with you, I love the and I feel fortunate that I got introduced IBM first, right, that was like, that was my, that was my foundation. But this idea of being able to need a systemically whole body kind of an approach for an acute pain. And then like you said, as that pain gets local, then we got to we localize our treatment. And then yeah, voted afterwards, right?
Unknown Speaker 1:08:02
Treat everything, then I can specify what I need to treat later. You know what I mean? Right? So
Unknown Speaker 1:08:07
you have to treat local, that's a disadvantage. Correct? Like if you're only mindset is local tissue now you're screwed, because there's times
Unknown Speaker 1:08:15
that no, we I can't tell you the last time I treated a back and just treat the bat. Yeah. Or I can't tell you again, a knee. I mean, I've had it, I've just had four or five news that come in. And literally, it's been three manual therapy treatments. Okay, go do those exercises you were doing you should be good. And like dancers. And because I treated the hip. The hip was the problem we had for mostly across both joints. You know what I mean? I need to look at both of those. We just need to get on that mindset, guys. It's just one thing. It's not. And honestly, if you can, you know what I talked about the mind, the body and the spirit. Your Body Works the same way. It's not just one thing. You know what I mean? It's usually multiple things, the system does just break. You know, if I tear my ACL and I'm twisting, the guy nails me like this. And guess what? My hip is probably pretty knotted too, because it centrically loaded this stop that thing from from, you know, Terron. But it still tours, I still have that problem, which is going to cause the need to hurt too. So I think as a profession we could do that can be amazing.
Unknown Speaker 1:09:15
I think it's I mean, I think it's getting better. I think those conversations are happening. I'm looking at the last
Unknown Speaker 1:09:19
three years, you know, I waited to do my doctorate. I'm doing my doctorate and just overall just kind of where the research is going. And, and some of the things and again, it's hard to prove them. But I think we're, we're thinking on that means you know what I mean? We're thinking of I mean, when I first started dry needling, I had calls telling me I was ruining my profession in this area. I had two phone calls said I can't believe you. What do you mean? No, I'm just the first helping to get it passed so that we have another tool to you.
Unknown Speaker 1:09:45
Yeah. I mean, those arguments are still happening on social media today. It's crazy.
Unknown Speaker 1:09:51
I don't get in and because I get I get real fired up.
Unknown Speaker 1:09:55
Well, hey, man, I know you got a crawfish roll to get
Unknown Speaker 1:09:58
me right, sir. Appreciate it.
Unknown Speaker 1:09:59
I enjoyed this. Yeah, this was fun. Wow. We have to do to get some time. All right, man. Thank you, Chris. Thanks. I appreciate it.
Unknown Speaker 1:10:07
All right, man. Have a good one.
Unknown Speaker 1:10:10
Hey guys, hope you enjoyed that episode of the fit for more podcast with Chris. Hey guys, I hope you enjoyed that episode of fit for tomorrow podcast with Chris. You can find more of his information in the links listed on our homepage or on the YouTube page. He's at Chris Davis underscore the specialist on Instagram and Facebook. He shares all kinds of great content online so I hope you guys give them a listen give him a check out. If you haven't, please like subscribe to the podcast and hope to see on the next episode.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
