In the room with me here is Joey Boland – Dublin hurler (00:00:06) and sometimes physio and sometimes trainer.
Joey: A bit of both
Speaker: (laughs) announcing myself Dave Hare the owner Functional Training Ireland, a very much part time (00:00:19) coach nowadays. Seem to be doing more business work. So basically we just wanted to settle for the podcast because we got a few requests and basically it’s a good thing to do basically to give you a bit of value so you can listen, hopefully learn some stuff and maybe mostly about injuries. We’re gonna keep these podcasts mostly about injuries because that’s our bread and butter.
But certainly a little bit about training; certainly a little bit about nutrition and mindset and stuff because the mind basically controls everything so. Basically we’re just going to talk to Joey. So how you feeling Joey? A bit of disappointment (00:00:52) but back at work here.
Joey: Yeah I feel good
Dave: (chuckles)
Joey: Great to be back. Great to be back; a couple of days off there.
Dave: [00:01:00] What were you doing the couple of days? You were (00:01:01)
Joey: I just went for long walks and stuff like that.
Dave: Yeah?
Joey: Not too much drinking mind.
Dave: (laughs) So basically Joey I suppose we have you on the air today. I wanted to ask you, what would you say the most important, or not the most important but what would you say the most common injury that you get in here at the clinic? Obviously you’ve built up your name now at this stage that you’re quite busy on working with well we say sports injuries probably more related to activity injuries.
What would you say the most common injury, the most common mistake your normal Joe Soap makes at the moment? (00:01:38) the answer
Joey: What’s most, what’s seen was with the economical downturn there, a lot of people are turning to kind of basic fitness and exercise you know. Doing a lot of running, a lot of cycling stuff like that. And one of the things that we’re starting to really notice is just overuse type injuries, you know. It’s people doing [00:02:00] exercise that’s just kind of not cut out to. So they go on a forum and decide, hey I’m gonna go and do a sub 3 marathon.
Dave: Yeah.
Joey: Having no history of running in the past you know. Typical office worker works 9 to 5, not particularly athletic, no history of training, just decided to go out and do a little bit of running.
Dave: Yeah.
Joey: And then they get the goal in their head and you often see them come (00:02:26) overuse injuries like calves; and you know hip issues; and stuff like that. And that’s one of the main things that we’re witnessing at the moment and with them people I suppose it’s a bad education.
Dave: mm-hmm. Well education is key, but I suppose it’s important that to realize we’re not (00:02:43) in running or jogging but what we are, is the old saying is, “You must get fit before you run as opposed to run to get fit”. Because running, what is it Joey, I’d say about 8 times your body weight in each stride.
Joey: Yeah and it is [00:03:00] essentially what you’re doing is you’re jumping up and down on one foot. So if you just test yourself and just jump up and down on say your left foot 20 times it’s actually fairly tough.
And what I’m actually seeing a lot of the time is, especially with people that missed out on that type of you know, brain development through, like say if you were a kid between 10 and 20 like you’re grown up in your teen years and you weren’t particularly sporty, and you kind of missed that brain development of shock absorption and you know proper bone mechanics for running and stuff like that.
And then suddenly you’re in your 30’s and you decide hey I’m just gonna start doing a little bit of running. And then what I find is it’s such a skill in itself, running like that. A lot of people just kind of think hey you know, everybody can run, you know. Or
Dave: Yeah
Joey: From my experience and from looking at a lot of people you know I’d be fairly interested in this, in this [00:04:00] area.
Dave: Well yeah basically we got to all realize that the Americans call physiotherapy, physical therapy. Physical therapy in Ireland is a completely different thing and; but there was no such thing as private physios in say 1960 something; because no one jogged. If you were jogging around say where I am from (00:04:20) back then, people would be looking at you thinking you’re a weirdo.
Maybe not Raheny because it’s always been a good running area but
Joey: But you were just running away from stealing something.
Dave: (laughs) No, only the weekends. But you know it’s this thing whereby we have become obsessed with running. And I think if you listening to this your best bet will be do some simple core stuff. Maybe, you know don’t just go from zero to hero. Maybe go for long walks for 3 weeks. And (00:04:50) even; I remember hearing him say that the great (00:04:54) the runner. Maybe you run for as slow as you can, for as long as you can for maybe [00:05:00] look you know 2, 3 weeks. And that might be a good way of starting to easing yourself into it; even get in a program like in the building here where we’re lucky enough to have Peter Matthews, obviously legendary runner.
And what people don’t know, Pete started running properly at 21. And I know (00:05:16) make his career. He had the talent, he had the engine, he had the genetics, but he went for his first run in a pair of deck shoes.
Joey: Yeah you told me.
Dave: (laughs)
Joey: We get Pete on the next episode with that.
Dave: We will get Pete on to tell you his story about that. I think the famous running coach you saw him running to the shops.
Joey: Yeah that was it; yeah I think it was running to the shops.
Dave: He was running to the shop burning energy so. And that was just one off freak. But we see most people just you know doing too much. One of my colleagues in the ISCI Robby Bourke always and Mark Kennedy always says this that people never program their recovery.
Joey: Hmm
Dave: As well as the programming their running or their training or their weights. Whatever you want to call it.
Joey: Awright I’m the exact same [00:06:00] though in that. Like you know when I’m training like, I don’t like recovery d’you know because like I feel its time; you’re losing time to know like you’re trying to cram. It’s a classic example of going away on a training camp for a full week.
Dave: Yeah.
Joey: And you just end up doing like 3 sessions day one, 4 sessions you know, you’re just constantly trying to work. Whereas you nearly have to be told rest is as important as training otherwise.
Dave: We have to change the culture of and we have to start programming recovery.
Joey: mmm.
Dave: In with the piece of paper you hand someone over with the training.
Joey: mmm.
Dave: And just like if I told you Joey you’re playing high level sport and I said we’re gonna do the same training system from when do you start pre-season October when officially;
Joey: Officially;
Dave: December.
Joey: January.
Dave: Oh is it January?
Joey: January 1st.
Dave: Okay yeah. So January 1st and we’re going to do the same one right up to the championship [00:07:00] you’d think I’m crazy. But that’s what people do in recovery. They doing an ice bath or;
Joey: mmm.
Dave: Your body adapts to everything so recovery is key, especially in our client base here in FTI. Our client base in FTI are generally very stressed, very driven, very you know successful people and they’re the very ones that kind of maybe sometimes forget that. Training and life and stress is one energy. You can’t you know have one separate energy for training.
So recovery is the most important thing. Simple things like hydration; sleep. We just don’t sleep enough as a, in this sort of part of (00:07:38) center. We don’t drink enough water and we don’t eat well enough because we’re always running around. So that will be
Joey: A lot of people don’t look at sleep as recovery. A lot of people don’t look at water as recovery; we just don’t, it just doesn’t register. They look at recovery as you know, going to the swimming pool; you know getting a massage [00:08:00]. There are really, really important parts, it’s more basic parts of recovery I would think, like rest and turning your brain off from 8 pm in the evening.
Dave: Go for a walk.
Joey: Go for
Dave: Go for a walk, I mean whatever works for you, I know; if it’s playing computer games. If it’s, I don’t know but smart phones I think have made people far worse because it’s this electrical activity that has bombarded. Especially before we go to bed. Now we’re checking Twitter, we’re checking Facebook. We’re checking (00:08:33). I’m as guilty of it as everyone, so. You know maybe something to look at that, maybe just turning off your phone. One of the things (00:08:39) nutritionist always tells people this. Sleep (00:08:42) more because hormonally you’re gonna be better.
Everything about you is gonna be better. That’s one of things we try to do to educate is actually sleep a bit more.
Joey: One of our clients as well, Dave and myself train him. He’ll know who he is if he’s listening, if you’re listening to this [00:09:00]. He’s one of these lads that he’s self-employed and he’s constantly you know, your brain is never turned off. And what we find is if he’s bringing work to bed with him as in like working 8, 9, 10 o’clock, 11 o’clock at night.
Then suddenly he’s in training at 10 o’clock the next morning. Like (00:09:21) monitoring heart rate system picks that up. He comes in to us for training at say 9 or 10 o’clock the next morning. We just suddenly see his basil heart rate baseline usually would be between say 90 and 100. Sometimes he’s just standing in the gym and its 115 and I just say tough night last night and he says “yeah”. You know and there’s nothing, no more said about it because again we know our clients that well
Dave: Yeah you got to know your clients you gotta know what to do and I always tell new people getting in the industry you got to be like Colombo. For anyone on this will be old enough to remember who Colombo is
Joey: I missed that boat [00:10:00]
Dave: Is that a recent (00:10:02) . I said you got to be like Colombo, he says, who’s Colombo. And I was then like ok, but
Joey: These things are important to take into consideration. Say if like again from an injury point of view. A lot of my clients these days, again there’s a lot of coached 5k, coached 10k type of things. And people are just thinking that right, I’ve sat under a coach for the last 12 months essentially and what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna run 4k this week; I’m gonna run 8k next week
Dave: But do you think the advent and the running craze is like (00:10:37) and I think it’s so admirable I think its
Joey: Brilliant
Dave: I prefer your knees hanging off and you’re not obese you know so don’t think of this running. Anyway 20% of our client base are runners maybe 30 so it’s not as if (00:10:51)
Well I think the gym industry itself needs to complete (00:10:59) [00:11:00] I think what’s happening is your average (00:11:03). I think I read somewhere something like only 8 or 9% of the population anywhere go to the gym. I think the reason is you’re going to the gym Joey (00:11:14). And I believe it or not I used to play sports, Joey used to play high level sports but big black heavy dumb bells, big scary looking steel bars. You know and people say I’m not going there. Then I was talking to a girl recently worked in a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, famous company who have a real gym there in their factory.
She’s like; I don’t want to go anywhere where people are sweating!
I was like, that’s what people are thinking so I think we need to make less scary, less daunting because the sum of what you can do just with body weights. Just knowing how to move properly and it’ll have an impact on your life not just now but like in 50 years. The stretch you develop now is gonna help you when you’re like 65 [00:12:00], 75, 85. And it’s amazing.
So I just think that’s probably what’s happened and that’s probably why people go running to lose a bit of weight but they don’t really get toned. They’re not doing any form of resistance training. And that’s the key.
Joey: The key thing there is I suppose from an injury point of view, we do know that running is a very kind of catabolic sport ; like you look at a power-lifter, a weight-lifter; they’re big, lots of muscles mass. And compare them with say a 10,000m champion. You know not much muscles, pretty much skin and bone, your typical you know 10,000m athlete.
So that means that their muscles are kind of getting broken down regularly. And that’s fine for an athlete who’s been trained in running since 11, 12. But for you, again that’s why I am saying like for your typical coach for 5 k, coach to 10k [00:13:00], just has to be very, very careful that if you’re trying to lose weight you still maintain a muscle tensile strength to carry your body through the 5k or through the 10k without breaking down. ’Cause as I say its catabolic will break your tissue down you know?
Dave: Yes I would say if you’re listening to this and you’ve never been to FTI and you just stumbled across this on iTunes or something my first thing to tell you, get a coach. Or even if you can’t afford a coach, go online and get you know at least a sort of good beginner running program. At least you’ve some template. You know so that would be I think save you so much hardship. And you’ll enjoy it more and don’t “forget the gym” Mary Jennings’ doing great work with them. I love what the work they’re doing I have to say. That’s maybe a good place to start and I know they do some core work and some bits and pieces of, I’m not 100% sure but check them out on Facebook and stuff.
But that would be where to start and [00:14:00] you know we laugh don’t we, we see the; your average office, our niche buy the way is office workers and stress people I would say. We obviously train 1 or 2 athletes but that’s not our bread and butter. And they have all these sort of, like my brother (00:14:14). My brother’s a prime example just working all day on the computer. Then just doesn’t move when he gets home enough as he should do.
And his posture gets affected, now what Paul, Paul has done and you can listen to this, goes straight into a kettlebell class. I think as physio anything more dangerous than someone jumping from zero to kettlebell class
Joey: That’s the thing and there is a fitness craze out there as well you know we’re talking about the runnings, the coach 5k and 10k. And then like you know your TRX, your kettlebell class and all these classes like they’re such good value for money, such good intensity of training you know. But the only thing is [00:15:00] people can’t just jump straight from zero to hero as Dave said earlier.
You have to be kind of monitoring themselves. And again if you’re in an office all day you can’t just think to go and swing a kettlebell around for an hour in the evening unsupervised because 9 times out of 10 it can lead to injuries. But in your saying look would you rather get fit, get cardiovascular workout or get injured you know again I’d rather somebody constantly getting fit but you can do both at the same time, you know.
Dave: I think it’s dangerous as well though. Sean Ross my great friend sometimes he laments to comment at (00:15:37). I mean we take a kettlebell class (00:15:40) we could have 30 people in a room doing stuff that’s safe. It’s a tough job but we could do it. Or I sometimes think I would, if by the way I’m getting technical here. Generally some people have, they have a RKC or they have some really [00:16:00] high level qualification in kettlebells. The real top kettlebell people will just work with your movements. You won’t earn the right to touch a kettlebell until (00:16:10) to do the proper techniques.
The amount of people I have met that go to kettlebell classes (00:16:16) classes on (00:06:17). But we see it every day in our physio here, with their backs blown to shreds because they’re swinging a kettlebell incorrectly. And you can be a muck. Look injuries will happen only God can prevent 100%.
Or if you’re listening to this and you’re thinking about going from zero don’t start there. I would go and say maybe don’t do a TRX class either because you might join in a class where they’ve done maybe 12 weeks of that. And they’ll have you put your feet in a TRX and ask you to do detox.
Joey: But you can understand the people, the trainers of the TRX class, they’re fantastic classes; very, very intensive. Don’t want to miss out (00:16:53) brilliant. But again you need to start like low level TRX class [00:17:00] or one-to-one for a couple of weeks you know. Just so that you can get your body moving and my advice would be kind of go down the, if you’re kind of going from zero to hero go down the yoga, go down the pallatis route where it’s more controlled, more just literally getting your body awake.
Dave: That’s a good expression. I really like that expression. Get your body awake.
Joey: Before you start you know, doing high velocity thrusts and pumping yourself up and I know we can be impatient with it, you know if, a lot of people just can’t. You know you also get the person who goes and fits and start.
Dave: mm-hmm.
Joey: To know they train.
Dave: (laughs)
Joey: This is the man with his hip falling off you know.
Dave: (laughs)
Joey: But they train you know; so yeah I’m going back at it and I’m gonna train for 3 months solid; I’m gonna do 5 sessions a week (00:17:50) and they try and pick up where they left off say 6 months previously where they had built up a level so the body was awake 6 months ago. Then they miss it [00:18:00] go dormant for 6 months then they pick it straight back up.
Dave: Yeah.
Joey: And like 9 times out of 10 I’m there asking somebody, so has there been any change so I; if any of you have ever been to see me for physio, one of the questions you’ll always hear is, “So what are you doing at the moment?”; “what did you do last week?”; “what did you do the week before?” and “has there been a general increase or change in load?”. Nine times out of ten you’ll see there’s a wedding coming up and I decided to you know like and I have to fit into my tux.
Dave: Yeah. It’s like you know it’s crazy like in any walk of life if you had; I use this analogy since 20. If you’re bringing out your kid brother for his first pint you wouldn’t give him shots that you want or if you do you know he’d be puking pretty insane (00:18:48) Shandy or you know you’d step it nice and easy.
Joey: You still drink Shandy’s don’t you?
Dave: Yeah bottles (00:18:56) but (laughs) [00:19:00] you know all joking aside that’s one of the things we see so common in our physio where; is people doing stuff unsupervised, un-coached. The great kettlbell expert (00:19:15) Toutslin is how I think he pronounce his surname, he says if you coach yourself, you have an idiot for a client.
I didn’t say that, listen we’re not infallible here. I see Pete and Joey do some crazy stuff at the gym and I can (00:19:28) them and then when I do get into the training mode myself the lads will be like, Ooo look at his hips. So we’re not immuned but at least we know we’re doing wrong (laughs).
Joey: Them 6 a.m. gym sessions, staff gym sessions be there.
Dave: My attendance is exemplary.
Joey: Yeah, yeah
Dave: (Laughs) so I posted up on Twitter there any questions. Right now we’re live so we’re getting a few questions in on the inter-webs here. So I’m gonna get one.
There’s one from someone- explain [00:20:00] how to prevent hamstring. What’s the question? Well I presume hamstring injuries. Joey I’ll let you start that and maybe keep it simple.
Joey: Well who’s actually tweeting this?
Dave: You actually know him, you met him at Tall Tech on that say I’m not (00:20:15)
Joey: Okay. Very good, very good. Well I suppose the first thing that you have to do to stop hamstrings; probably do your stretches.
Dave: (laughs) is that right?
Joey: No I’m not
Dave: Is it your most common injury?
Joey: And, it wouldn’t be my most common injury no.
Dave: What is the most common injury?
Joey: It depends on what sport. I suppose for field sports
Dave: Well we used to get
Joey: Non-contact it definitely is
Dave: We used to get ton of people from tag rugby. Tag rugby is great for physio businesses (laughs)
Joey: (laughs)
Dave: You know (00:20:52)
Joey: Yeah, yeah.
Dave: But generally they’re going from not even jogging to multi-directional sprint activity
Joey: Yeah. And it’s [00:21:00] it’s such a social game as well
Dave: Yeah
Joey: It’s
Dave: (00:21:03)
Joey: No hamstrings. It’s such a complex injury like. You know it’s very, very hard. I’d say the number one thing
Dave: Let’s start number one clearly
Joey: No number one. No I’d go beyond glibs
Dave: Beyond glibs?
Joey: Number one thing to prevent hamstring injuries is don’t be doing something that you’re not used to doing. Don’t be drinking your ten points before you drink your shandy. Do you get me?
Dave: Yeah. So you’re talking what we would call there an S and C; the 10% rule.
Joey: Yeah.
Dave: So like if you ever get in a running problem off me your shuttles, you’re not gonna get 20 shuttles one day.
Joey: No.
Dave: And 70 Thursday.
Joey: So how many, how many shuttles do you think you do in a random tag rugby match?
Dave: Millions (laughs)
Joey: No like a; and you know what the best thing is? Like a bit of tag rugby and stuff like that it’s, if I analyze somebody [00:22:00] in playing tag rugby and they had, they did a hundred sprints okay? But that’s all uncontrolled because they’re chasing, you know.
Dave: Yes.
Joey: And like what I find, if I told you to go out. “So Dave, hey you go out and do 100 sprints for me. Do you think that you would work harder on your own or do you think you work harder in a game of five-aside at tag rugby?
Dave: (00:22:22)
Joey: Because it’s that natural reaction that oops somebody’s getting by me and then you go outside your comfort zone and then you pop a hamstring.
Dave: Yup.
Joey: That’s one of the key things. I had a classic case there; rugby player, one of the teams that I work with. Again pre-season; so he finished the season last year and literally did nothing for the past 3 months and first sprint training session back what happened? Hamstring. Why’d he do a hamstring? Because he’s doing 5 sets of 5 shuttle run (00:22:55) just his body wasn’t used to it you know
Joey: And [00:23:00] his fitness level wasn’t there and therefore his body just was not; it’s your body’s; pulling a hamstring is your body telling you stop doing this; you’re not used to doing this. And that’s (00:23:12) it’s like stepping above glib, stepping above imbalances
Dave: Yeah but if you’re really look at it though, we’ve went from quadruped meaning we’re on all fours to bipedal. I think we’re one of two or three mammals that we know of that are bipedal. And the tradeoff was you know that we’d be strong all over the place to accommodate that. You even look at the spine; it’s a bridge that’s now a tower. So the ribs are just freefalling and kind of nothing supporting them but muscles and stuff like that.
So when you add in the sitting and you add in sedentary and (00:23:47) a word that’s where your hamstring injuries really, truly start. And then look
Joey: We’ll be here for hours talking about the ins and outs and the specific biomechanical stuff but in general if [00:24:00] you’re a person that pulls your hamstrings regularly you are number one, doing something that you’re not fit to do AK get fitter and then you can look at more specific stuff after.
Dave: Yeah, (00:24:12) before you worry about (00:24:14).
Joey: Yeah
Dave: But then you get the people who are generally do a hamstring pull in my opinion is down to some form of weakness. Unless you have some sort of back problem, neural problem you get these weird hamstrings that are quite hard to fix. In my opinion it’s down to some form of weakness. That weakness could be (00:24:35) that’s still weakness. Because you’re not running properly you’re not strong enough so you’d like to work on that. Obviously you’re.
A lot of people when they get a hamstring pull I think Joey, and what they do is they have like this notion that their hamstrings are weak but a lot of the times it’s the opposite, the hamstrings are actually really strong, right, and they’re overusing their hamstrings; [00:25:00] they’re using their hamstring as what you call it a hip flankster or sensor or whatever you want to call it?
Joey: Sensor.
Dave: Whatever. I don’t have to get too technical and they’re not just that strong and that’s the essence of it.
Joey: You know. It is, that’s quite interesting. It’s all like kind of an analogy that I like to use when I’m explain something is. Like your hamstring pulls not because it’s weak, it’s because it’s doing somebody else’s job.
So hamstring, so for example, so me and Dave are here, we have to carry this table. Up the flight of stairs, so if anybody in FTI were here in the reception so big table here in the reception at the desk. So we have to (00:25:42) the door we have to go up the stairs and we have to lorry, we have to put it onto a lorry there. So Dave picks it up one end I pick it up the other end.
Dave starts to lift most of it because I’m lazy, I don’t want to do it and we’re walking up the stairs
Dave: Which is always the case.
Joey: Which is always the case. Dave always (00:25:57)
Dave: (laughs)
Joey: So there’s a question for you. Who’s gonna get injured? Whose back’s gonna blow quicker, Dave or mine? It’s gonna be Dave cause he’s doing more work so generally a lot of the time your hamstring tends to be doing more work and compensating for some lazy prick that isn’t doing his work.
Dave: Yeah, we’ll have to delete that. We don’t have swear words in our podcast (laughs)
Joey: (laughs)
Dave: What you get is as well though. I have this problem with my clients; not a problem but just the shock when I tell them pain site versus the pain source. If your knee is sore for example or your hamstring is blown. Okay. Well none of the time if not all the time it’s not that particular structure’s problem, it’s just where you feel the pain. So the best way sort of a grim analogy but if I’m putting rope around Joey’s neck
Joey: Sorry what?
Dave: If I put a rope around your neck?
Joey: That was last Sunday night
Dave: (laughs)
Joey: (laughs)
Dave: If I put a rope around your neck in a couple years (00:26:56) your family (00:26:58)
Joey: (laughs) yeah
Dave: But if I put a rope around your neck [00:27:00] you’re (00:27:02) you don’t feel that. If I start pulling on the rope you neck’s gonna be obviously very sore right. So what happens is you go in there with a sore neck doesn’t matter what cream or shoes or insoles or whatever I do to try and fix that neck. The problem is me pulling on the rope you see so you want to be trying to tackle that, you know.
Joey: (00:27:26)
Dave: (laughs)
Joey: Good. By the way, we’re trying not to bore you by the way (00:27:33) you know you’re saying that like you know pulling the rope. There’s another good one that I came across. I don’t remember who told me or where I read this one but it’s quite a good one. The see the door there
Dave: Yes
Joey: So top left hinge is loose
Dave: Yeah
Joey: So what happens when you try to shut the door?
Dave: Well the door will hit the
Joey: the frame on the opposite side
Dave: Yeah
Joey: So say the hinge up here is loose
Dave: Yeah
Joey: That door is gonna hit there [00:28:00]. And you go in and you fix where the point of pain is, where is the door is banging against the thing. What do you do? Just cut the door, cut an inch of the door.
Dave: Well most surgeons will do (00:28:11)
Joey: What?
Dave: They would get a plane and they would shave it off so the door still closes.
Joey: Door still closes; and then in 3 months’ time what is going to happen the hinge is gonna get looser and you just gonna have to shave the door again.
Dave: Yeah
Joey: So that’s kind of what we’re looking at here is we’re gonna get to the source.
Dave: We want to fix the hinges.
Joey: Get to the source of the problem, we get the hinges.
Dave: Because this is the thing with the advent of, my wife to be is a radiographer so I know all about scan, but not know all about but I hear all about, but all joke aside. Scans, people are obsessed with scans as well and don’t get me wrong sometimes you need a scan.
Well it’s like; let’s say for example, I say this all the time to people at FTI. Okay you get your scan, tells you how the disc budge, the rehab is still the same. Why waste your [00:29:00] 300 Euros on the scan? You know it’ll maybe direct you a little bit you know. And then you look at the research, something like 80% of people have disc budge.
Joey: Asymptomatic
Dave: But they don’t feel it because their bodies’ strong or they’re just moving properly. We don’t really know it’s just amazing. So another thing I advise in terms of you know, you pulling your hamstring or your you know x-rays, scans, generally you’re for very, very tricky cases in my opinion. Ones where maybe you do have some sort of something that’s not really reacting well you know like (00:29:35)
But apart from that don’t be obsessed with that just get in with a good physio get the thing.
Dave: We’ll answer one more question that came in the inter-webs here. How to loosen out hips? How would you loosen out hips and lower back?
Well that’s a bit of a loaded question
Joey: That’s an interesting.
Dave: It’s a good question.
Joey: Good question yeah.
Dave: I’d say most people sitting here [00:30:00] have some sort of back get pain (00:30:01)
Joey: Yeah I know I do. And so what was the question?
Dave: Well how would you loosen out lower back and hips? Well basically the first thing I’d say is, sometimes, especially ex-dancers or maybe people who got (00:30:17) 16 up. So when she went there they were good like you, they played football 21, (00:30:26).hurdle and then minor and you know just crazy volume or even the good kid runner and the coach takes a hundred miles because that’s what Seb Coe did back in the day or whatever any good runner.
Well sometimes hips are just in a bad way (laughs).
Joey: Sometimes hips aren’t supposed to be loosened out, if it’s something (00:30:44)
Dave: If it’s something the body could be tight to protect.
Joey: It’s not a case of I’ve got tight hips. Everything would be sordid if my hips weren’t tight possibly not [00:31:00] because your hips are tight. The body is very, very; it’s very, very intelligent in its own way, like it protects yourself. So if you’ve got some sort of hip issue that.
Or if you’ve got a lax hip your body will naturally try and tighten that hip capsule up to prevent you blowing out a disc in your back. But you can with rotation or whatever you know so. That’s one way, that’s an interesting way to look at it before but and how would you loosen out your hips?
My piece of advice would be, understand how to stabilize the structure above and below so that you can actually stretch and work on and loosen the part that you’re trying to get. Like for example if you’re trying to stretch your hip flexor, you know many times you’ve seen it. You’ve trained teams, loads of teams (00:31:51) and all that, and you see the large stretch and one knee down and you know that kind of arch in the back type (00:31:58). ’cause what exactly are you stretching [00:32:00]? Are you stretching the hip flexor or you’re just trying to arch the lower back.
Dave: I would always go with what (00:32:04) says. (00:32:06), if you’re listening to this and you’re very, very beat up; if you’re in pain that’s a different thing because pain is bad and more or less nearly every case, cause it’s; you’re gonna have a really (00:32:18) movement (00:32:20)if you’re in pain. But anyway if it’s just tight and it’s chronically tight, sometimes you know if you fix that be prepared for the consequences.
Especially if you’re older you know and well generally most people if I really look, let’s go really (00:32:37) down. Their lower back’s killing them because let’s make assumptions in training as it is a dangerous thing, they have no core I would say they don’t. They probably have zero hip mobility even allow for the fact that genetically they probably will have tight hips.
They probably have done no proper hip stretching. I would go as far as to say their [00:33:00] upper back is probably like rock. So if the upper back is like rock, the lower back will be doing treble shifts, will be looking for rotation and that’s bad. If this person’s in our niche they’re generally an office worker, we nearly assume before we look at them they have a tight upper back and meaning just below your neck.
So we will tackle that, they’re probably no form of soft tissue like we’re talking about. They probably don’t drink enough water, they probably eat crap. There’s a lot of different factors. And where they train is probably very interested this particular person I kind of know the way he trains, would be very straight-line.
So he hasn’t trained the body to do any sideway stuff or twisty-turny stuff so when he’s; the way he trains is very body-building orientated and then when he goes and plays a match his body is engrained in a straight-line, he’s gonna get tightness because the body is just confused.
And [00:34:00] yeah strength, weak, imbalances and stuff but sometimes you got to look at the big rocks and maybe the big rocks
Joey: I suppose a, that’s not a; I suppose something just came to me head there like. A lot of the times when you’re stealing with kind of rugby players and stuff like that, there is a big culture of squat bench dead lift. You know double legged and like frontal and (00:34:29) plain type movements you know.
And what I find is like nobody likes doing the little one-legged twisty rotationally
Dave: No
Joey: Stuff in the gym because it’s just, it’s an ego thing. Whatever he likes, whether you bench, whether he’s squatting, whether you dead lift
Dave: Well I think that’s also a product of when I was a kid everyone said, how much can you bench? No one asks how much can you one leg dead lift unless they’re like you know [00:35:00] (00:35:00).or something (laughs)
Joey: Nobody asks how much, how much rotation can you get with a cable (00:35:07).
Dave: (laughs)
Joey: You know what I mean. And to be honest nobody cares, you know
Dave: No it’s not fun.
Joey: No it’s not fun. Everybody wants to lift heavyweights fair enough. But the key thing is for hip and lower back tightness I find one dimensional training in one particular part (00:35:24)
Dave: When people listen this will think I’m tight or I’ve a bad back. I’ll do (00:35:31) for my bad back, that will fix it. Incorrect. In many cases it could make you worse or an uptight or a very tight I should say, I need to do yoga. I would say question that strongly as well because actually a lot of that people that do yoga their bodies are fit.
And actually by the way while we’re on the topic, yoga masters doesn’t treat yoga as an exercise. They treat yoga as a meditation aid. So I will [00:36:00] say if you’re a tight – one caveat would be, we know some very good physio-based (00:36:06) people who would probably get you in on the pretence of that is class. (00:36:11) spot and do something that’s not according to (00:36:14).
But you know just question that; don’t yoga and (00:36:21) and swimming is not (00:36:23). Its great PR, people think it will cause injuries (00:36:26). We’re fixing people every day all day with issues from that so you know.
Joey: That’s a huge point there actually; if you got tight hips and if you’ve got lower back problems and if you work and sit at a desk and you go to do a front crawl, 9 times out of 10 you’re just hurting your lower back and you’re making your lower back pain way worse, way worse.
Dave: Well doesn’t those 3 things is great PR.
Joey: Yeah swimming actually is great; I can swim though can’t I?
Dave: Yeah (00:36:56) wrap this up alright consult [00:37:00] with a lot of our young rugby lads and their parents real problem with them lifting weights yet they’re playing rugby. The instance of injuries in weight lifting is probably like 0.05% I played rugby and I was injured every fourth game, you know and then there’s
Joey: Probably that’s because you were clumsy
Dave: No it’s because I was putting my body in the line for the team you know.
Joey: right
Dave: I was (00:37:22) in my dreams. But I think we’ll wrap this up but we’re gonna be posting these probably on average once a week and if you want to make Joey stop slapping his phone there cause that’s gonna get recorded but; if you check out our website www.functionaltraining.ie/news we have a very, very busy blog that you can (00:37:44) access to it; which has great content all the time.
And we’re trying to make these not so boring so let you know. And we get any feedback would be great. If you can go on rate us on iTunes as well that’d be great because we want to spread the word and get people out of injuries and fit and as healthy as possible [00:38:00] so it’s bye from Dave and bye from Joey
Joey: Goodbye.
Dave: Take Care.
Leave A Comment