When Perfect Posture Causes Back Pain When Sitting

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You're listening to the restoring human movement podcast where movement experts discuss the latest evidence-based practices to help you and your clients move with mastery. And now your host, Dr. Sebastian Gonzales. Hi, everyone. This is Sebastian, your host with the restoring human movement podcast. Thanks for joining the movement movement. This is your first time the show. Welcome. You've missed a lot. And I'm going to apologize in advance for the microphone issue today. I was a little backlogged with some of the podcast. And so I did not check the microphone, but I had to get this one out today. So I'm using what everybody else probably uses, which is their earbuds, those Apple earbuds. So let's see how well this one goes on the audio side. But anyways, I hope the information is actually good for you too.

So what we're going to do. So what we're going to cover today is this is the tail end of our low back series where we are covering a lot of different topics about low back pain and associated things that you might have heard or questions you may have. So this one is about perfect posture. Could it be your, could be creating your pain? Here's how the prior episodes, uh, we had seven prior episodes. One was understanding low back pain, low back pain diagnosis. And then, then was understanding groin hip pain diagnosis. Since it oftentimes, uh, couples together, a lot of times people with lower back, SI joint, hip flexor, groin, uh, upper glute. And they kind of, everybody has a lot of these things. So I thought I would include that there.

Should I stretch or strengthen my low back? Why does my lower back get crooked? Why does back pain only come in the morning, at least for some people? My low back spine MRI is normal, but I have pain. Now what failed low back surgeries and how to recover, which I did with Dawne Costantino. And the last one we did was anterior pelvic tilt. Is it good or bad? And I did that with Dawne Costantino as well. This one today is going to be very similar in regards to the pelvic tilt anterior or posterior. Is it bad or good? Because really it just depends on the scenario. Uh, if you listen back into the last podcast, uh, I gave Dawne Costantino some scenarios of, well, this person came in, they're 16 years old. They had their first incident of lower back pain.

It hurts first thing in the morning. It hurts when they bend over. Could perfect posture help this person basically? And the answer is probably yes. Uh, if they're sitting on the exam table and they're slouched and they say their back hurts and you tell them to sit up and their back pain goes away, then yes, posture is a part of it. Um, how that couples together with last week's topic or two weeks ago's topic with the pelvic tilt, typically an anterior pelvic tilt or a kind of butt out type of presentation creates the low back arch to form, which usually is found with your quote unquote perfect posture.

And then a posterior tilt, kind of a saggy butt type of thing is found with your sloppy posture. So in this scenario, I just mentioned someone that young, having lower back pain when sitting, but is better when he walks than yes, probably a posterior pelvic tilt and a low back round or bad posture is probably creating part of his pain. Now, men or women, it probably doesn't matter at that age, uh, typically younger people, uh, will have that type of presentation, but it actually is common for young people to have, uh, uh, spinal fractures that are non-traumatic. So those need to be examined as well.

I'll give you guys another scenario just to show you how perfect posture can, uh, be good and bad. Let's just say we have a 70 year old person now who's had lower back pain for the past 50 years on and off. It started when they were 16, uh, and it hurt first when they were slouching, but got better when they had perfect posture. And now they sit with perfect posture because, because grandmother told them so, but they have pain all the time. In this situation, perfect posture might actually be making their problem worse. How is that? Well, it all depends on the symptom generating structure and the tolerances that your back has.

I wrote a whole book on this, uh, uh, actually four books, um, which are going to be in the link description, uh, in your podcast player. You know, one of the last books, which is about lower back pain and hip pain when integrating back in things like weight training, it's nice to know your tolerances. And so the perfect or the person that I mentioned earlier, the younger person might have a flexion or rounding or bad posture intolerant back or a posterior tilt intolerant back. While the older person may have an extension or post or post or anterior tilt or perfect posture intolerant back. What is your spine tolerant of?

Because what it's tolerant of today could be different than what it's tolerant of next week. And that happens normally over the healing process. The 16 year old person that we mentioned earlier, uh, it would actually be pretty natural that I've seen, uh, some people develop, uh, pain with having perfect posture. And then they start to get better over the course of a couple of weeks and all of a sudden perfect posture then starts to hurt them crazy, right? Not too crazy. It's actually pretty common. I think what we have to understand first is, is, uh, what your tolerances are to figure out if perfect posture is good for you or not.

So if you're all sitting, uh, hopefully actually you're walking when you're doing this podcast. I always like people moving, uh, you know, laying on the ground, playing with your dog, um, tinkering in the garage. Walking, washing dishes, do something when you listen to this podcast, ideally. But if you want to try this a little bit with me, now would be a perfect time to do so. If you're sitting, if not find a chair and sit down when you sit down and you have sloppy posture, like, uh, I always coach people in our examination. Can you sit like the teenagers do now? And then everybody slouches, which is the quote unquote bad posture.

And some people say this feels better. Some people say it feels worse. Some people say it's okay until I get up. Um, either way, just assess. How does it feel for you? Does it hurt you? Does it feel like you're stabbing? Your lower back is getting, is stabbing? Does it feel like it travels down your leg into your calf? Does your foot get numb? If so, try the opposite. Arch your back into that perfect posture as well, as I like to actually coach it. I like to have people put their hands on their hips and dial their pelvis forward. So they're creating a little bit of a low back arch or sitting up straight.

How does that feel for you? So if it gets better, then you might have a flexion intolerant back. And I'll explain a little bit more about what that means in a couple moments here. If it doesn't get better and actually gets worse, then you might have an extension intolerant back. Uh, this can happen at any age. It's based upon quite a few variables. Uh, not everybody's lower back pain is the same. I hope I've, um, brought that to everybody's attention over the past eight episodes, because what your, what your resolution is going to be and what you can and can't do or what activities that you could integrate first, uh, or what can you safely do today without creating a re-aggravation is really based upon, uh, what your back is tolerant of.

And that's unique to you. Everybody has their own little flare on stuff, although there's a common diagnosis. So people who have pain with sloppy posture normally are going to be some type of disc irritation, which that could be a low back disc herniation. Uh, I like to say sensitivity because there's lots of different types of disc injuries. Uh, and I think as you probably found on a couple episodes back that even though, you don't have a MRI proving that there's a disc, it doesn't mean you can't have a flexion tolerant back. Uh, it's don't put all your, uh, don't put all your money in the MRI machine.

It's, it's really not super, super helpful. Um, also it can be things like, uh, like a fracture of the front of the front aspect of the spine or normally what we call a, um, uh, I call it an anterior problem or a front side problem. Um, the spine has a front and a backside. And if you take the actual hole in the middle, like where the spinal cord goes through, that's kind of like a division point of the front and backside. Normally people have, who have pain with bad posture, they have a problem with the front side somewhere. The disc is in there. The vertebral body is in there. The end plates are there.

Um, but this is always, uh, there's always exceptions to this rule. Uh, if you're wondering, if you're wondering specifically about diagnosis that is in book two that I wrote, people who arch backwards usually have problems with the stuff on the backside, which is going to be more like their facets, their nerve roots. Um, maybe a little bit of, uh, muscular tightness back there or muscle spasms. I know people say that rounding and sitting poor posture puts a lot of load on their, um, strained muscles, but typically that's a guarding effect. Uh, and so there's a lot of things that, that are on the backside, which are again in book two as well.

However, to keep things simple for everybody, I think the first thing to do is figure out what posture is good for you at the moment. So if you're still sitting there, uh, continue, if you're not sitting there, find a chair and you're going to use that same, uh, posture or that same, uh, dial type of approach that I, I just had. How'd you do? So hands on the hips as if you're angry and you're going to push your pelvis forward or dial it forward until it feels like your sit bones start to attach to the chair. By the way, you're probably going to have to be on the honest, like a stiff chair or like a dinner chair to do this.

It won't work on a lazy boy. Your feet have to be on the ground and ideally have them spread apart a little bit. Like I don't want you crossing your legs and so on. It won't work with that either. Uh, now, so you dialed all the way to the front that you can, you maxed out the dial to the front side. Now I want you to dial to the backside and then find a spot in the middle that generally feels good. Most of you will find a good point. It might not be perfect, but it's probably going to feel better. There are a lot of people who can't tolerate this type of approach at the moment though. It might just be too soon.

Some people who have disc extrusions or more acute injuries, um, might not tolerate this quite as much. It doesn't mean it won't work for them very soon. It just means it won't work for them today. A lot of times you have to settle things a little bit differently before we actually get to this point. But since sitting is a normal activity that everybody will do every day, it's really nice to find a posture that's good for you. Um, I think it's Stuart McGill. I think that said that the perfect posture is the one that you're changing to in about 15 minutes. So static positions, standing, sitting, um, sitting in quote unquote, perfect posture can create a lot of problems.

And so just get up and start moving, go for a walk. That's why I like people walking during these podcasts. However, if we're going to find a position that works for you, a posture that works for you while sitting, we can probably do that right now. Just with a little bit of check-in with your body because everybody will need to sit. Um, I know how it is nowadays. People have these homework stations and, uh, I, I don't know how people sit for eight to 10 hours a day. I really don't, um, you know, more power to you. Uh, I get to move around a lot throughout the day and I think that's what keeps me really healthy or musculoskeletal healthy.

So hands on the hip sides. If you're angry, dial forward, dial backwards, find the ranges and find the range that the sweet spots that's good for you. Just like Goldilocks, you're finding the porridge that works, the Goldilocks zone. Now that you're here, make sure your feet are actually still attached to the floor and just breathe into your hands. You might wonder which section of your hands. If your hands are in your hips, like you're angry, there's going to be like the whole webbing between the thumb and the index finger, finger all around, kind of like the soft spot, um, or the love handles, if you will.

Breathe with your guts into your love handles. Now this shouldn't be like, it should be just general directional breathing. Like you're just trying to breathe low. Now this is, uh, not your belly breathing. This is not your yoga breathing. This is just, uh, what it is today. So just breathe into those areas. And you might actually find that if you keep some breathing intention of that area, it actually helps. Now, some people I've noticed that once we've spent about a minute breathing into the, into the hands, sometimes their pain starts to creep in. Uh, and so if I'm watching them and this is the value of having one-on-one feedback is that you're, you're supposed to be paying attention to breathing into the hands while we're supposed to pay attention to what we call, uh, biomarkers.

We're looking at things that you might be doing or habits that you might have that are starting to creep in and we might cue you out of it. So some people, as their pain starts to creep in, most of the time this happens with people who don't have a tolerance to extension at the moment. Uh, usually they're starting to upright themselves or starting to get into quote unquote perfect posture again. It's almost like they're uncomfortable to be there for that long without being in perfect posture. And so with these people, I usually just say, look, just keep breathing into your fingers, but can you just relax?

Just relax. Well, should I have perfect posture? No, because perfect posture is what brought you in here. You showed by dialing your pelvis forward and backwards that dialing it. So the perfect posture became more prevalent. You had more pain and discomfort. Like your muscles were so tight. Your SI joint started to bother you. You started to feel a little bit of hip pain in the front or a little bit of IT band or TFL tightness. Then get out of that perfect posture. Get out of the position that's bothering you and just, just dial it back a little bit, breathe into the flanks and just relax. Now, what this relaxing does is it helps out to build a little bit of internal support called intra-abdominal pressure.

Now, um, this is something that, uh, I think it's easily, um, easily, uh, resonating with if you just consider what's inside you and just correlate it to something else. Now, inside you that a lot of people will consider the core is just the muscles around the, uh, front, back and flank. Um, but really there's more to it than that. And so there is the external part of the core, which is the hoop, but there's also bottom and top, which is your diaphragm or your thoracic diaphragm and your pelvic diaphragm, which is going to be your, you know, pelvic floor muscles. And also the diaphragm that separates your lungs from your, uh, uh, digestion organs.

And inside the actual canister is your digestion organs, your appendix, your, um, gallbladder, your stomach, your intestines, so on. But also there's, um, pressure in there. There's fluid because there's stuff in there and it's a closed container. There is pressure in there. Now you can increase the pressure by, by closing down the diaphragm from the top, uh, and the bottom. And just imagine like those two points coming together. Basically what happens is when you bring these two together, you pucker out the can. And so imagine like your, your belly area, your, uh, your belly region, your core is actually like a can of Coke.

Now the internal pressure is developed by the carbonation of that fact, but, but in this case, imagine if you can squish the top and bottom of the Coke as you actually squish it. And it does actually say it actually moves the sidewalls start to bow out. And so there's pressure developing from the inside because you're decreasing the volume size as volume decreases, pressure will increase. Um, and so that's basically what we're doing by breathing in the hands. We're creating a little bit of, uh, compression in there, but also support. And so if you compress something like a water balloon, it, it butts up against the thing next to it.

Uh, and so this is kind of like a water bolus in there, almost like your Coke cam. I like to consider that people, um, can deload their spine by just creating some basic baseline support. Okay. This is totally in your control. Um, it's not even something you should be paying to paying attention to all at all times of the day either. It's just building of a skillset. It's like tying your shoes. You know, at some point you don't think about it anymore and you just learn a little bit diligently. You build the skillset and then you tie your shoes and you can talk to people about whatever you want to.

And so this is something that you might consider doing, uh, over the course of the next week, spend about five minutes a day is all break it up, find your quote unquote, perfect posture for you. And then breathe into your hands. Now, should you be thinking about the diaphragm and the organs and all that? No, no, not at all. There, um, when you, if you, if you start thinking about the internal parts of you doing these little movements, we call it internalization of movement. And so it makes it harder, um, as Cody D-Mac says with rehabilitative exercise, if you think you stink. And so, uh, it's easier just to think about what you're doing to your hands with your guts versus thinking about all these other parts.

Or again, if it, if it works for you, relax. Okay. I think a lot of you will actually find a lot of benefit just by spending about five minutes a day doing some type of, uh, posture work, posture that's right for you at the moment, and then building a little bit of the breathing pressure. Now, um, I know there's going to be a lot of people out there who might be naysayers about posture being perfect. Uh, let me give you a couple examples of scenarios where posture, um, perfect posture no longer works anymore. Um, if you consider people who have quote unquote bad posture, a lot of times their back feels better if they get up and start moving around.

Now I've always noticed that Walmart greeters or Costco greeters, if you walk in there, next time you do, they're standing up all the time. You ever notice that they're actually standing on those little black squishy mats? Well, it's, it's to stop them from having pain or injury at work where they can file like a workers comp lawsuit. Uh, I'm sure that's Costco or Walmart's way of mitigating risk because standing too much, too long and not moving around can create problems too. I'm sure a lot of you have probably already experienced that sitting was especially painful probably around 2020 when everyone started to work from home and nobody really had any good seats or workstations.

And we had a lot of people actually who reported neck pain, shoulder blade, lower back, sciatica, all these things associated with working, uh, at home. And, um, they sometimes, uh, they got standing desk and then that solved the problem for a lot of people until they realized it didn't. Okay. So it's funny, the things that work for you once, like you kind of like a lot of people get married to, um, I know that when I had back pain, I actually made a standing desk. I put it attached to the railing of my, um, uh, by balcony and I did some work out there in the morning and, you know, stand around, shift weight side to side for about an hour.

It was great, uh, until it wasn't, uh, and now sitting feels perfectly fine to me when at one point it didn't. So what's, what should you guys do? Do what feels good now. Um, your pain is actually an asset, especially if you have pain only with certain movements, certain postures, certain activities, um, certain speeds of things like squatting quickly, running quickly, running slowly. Um, just change something about it and make it comfortable. Like pain is literally one of your best allies in fighting back pain. I know some of you are pain, uh, 24 seven, uh, or more, more consistently than, than some people who are circumstantial, but either way, um, you can use information from that scenario as well.

Now, let me give you another example of a few cases that we've had where perfect posture was actually not helpful. Uh, there was a lady who came in that she was, I want to say she was about 60 or so, uh, maybe late fifties and she was a runner and she had upper glute pain kind of around the SI joint region. Uh, she'd been told it was, uh, trigger points in her, uh, gluteal muscles. Um, either way, she could not run anymore. It was painful to run even 10 steps. We had her do a little bit of back and forth outside our office. And so she came in first with a limp. Uh, she didn't have any really back pain per se, but it was more of the glute SI joint region.

And, uh, sitting was perfectly fine to her. She had no pain. She only had pain when she sat up and walked and ran, um, especially running for longer periods of time. So what she wanted was to get back into running. A lot of her friends were doing marathons. They just had signed up for a marathon coming up. And so we'd seen her about four times and, uh, things, things were better. Like she was no longer walking with pain. She could do everything day to day without any pain in that region. Uh, but she came in one day and she was, she was pretty upset and we asked what's going on. And she's like, well, all my friends are signing up for these marathons.

I feel really left out. I really want to get back to running again. You know, and that's, that's her goal. Um, running distance running is not anything I like to do, but it doesn't matter to me. It's what she wants, she wants to do. And so we took a page out of the playbook, which is, um, do what feels good. And we found that sitting with bad posture helped her. And she told us that from day one. And so what we did was we increased the volume of it. One of my interns actually really did a really good job, um, of suggesting this. Uh, she said, why don't you just sit with your elbows on your knees and breathe into your SI joint region or like into the sides, like we mentioned earlier.

I think she might've just actually put her hand right there and just did a little bit of directional cueing, uh, but said, breathe into this region and spend two minutes, five to 10 times a day. And so that was really the only thing we changed from session four to session five was giving her more volume of the posture that felt good. She actually came back two weeks later. It was, it was great. She, she put her hands in the air and literally said, hallelujah. She was able to run with no problems whatsoever. She reduced the remainder of her pain over the course of that two weeks, just by doing bad posture.

Crazy, right? Now, a couple other examples we have are people who, um, they, they admit they actually are afraid of rounding their back. Now, uh, I've met quite a few people in the, in this scenario before. Um, normally it's not their first go through with back pain. It's, it's something they've been dealing with for a long time on and off. They might've had multiple instances of back pain, uh, or they overcame their first incident of back pain and the initial, the initial, uh, onset was so traumatic that they said, I don't want to do that again because it was so painful to be on the floor and, and sneeze and cough and so on.

Um, so a lot of times when people are afraid of reintroducing round to their back again, they get into this scenario where perfect posture actually, actually increases their problem. But the problem is that it, uh, they become a little bit more married to the idea because they would rather live in the scenario that they're in now than the scenario they were in before. And I know exactly what they mean. Um, having lower back pain from an acute onset is like bending forward, sneezing, lifting an object. Um, you know, dead lifting. Um, these are really, they can really weigh on people's minds sometimes, and it's completely normal.

But if you guys have looked at the name of this podcast, I do believe in this theory, it's called restoring human movement. Just because movements lost in your back is not tolerant of perfect posture or tolerant of extension or, uh, anterior tilt of the pelvis. It doesn't mean it won't be intolerant forever. It just means it's intolerant for a short period of time before you can reintroduce it slowly and regain the movement back again, restoring the human movement. Um, as I mentioned before, the lady who has, who had upper glute pain, her symptoms were completely reduced and she was able to start running again by her treat only treatment was bad posture.

So when some people have the scenario where she did, but if they were more afraid of actually rounding their back, luckily she was very, um, open to it and, uh, she didn't have any pain with it. So it was okay. And her onset was really not traumatic either. Um, so she was completely okay with it, but other, but other people, sometimes they're afraid of it and it's really like mental gut check. Um, or how comfortable are you of rounding your back scale of one to 10, 10 is horrified of it. Um, one is sure. Let's do right now. Let's put a weight in my hand. I'll just, I'll bend over. No problem. Uh, everybody's different with, in that, in that scale.

I I'd say I was personally probably around a five, um, for a little bit. And lo and behold, when I actually finally rounded my back in a, in a non aggressive way for a long period of time, one weekend stuff changed really quickly. And people who sit with perfect posture may have some negative repercussions that come from it later. The ones that I noticed who have, uh, the, the symptoms that I noticed that are, that are really common with having perfect posture. Um, and as you're sitting here, you might notice it, does your back feel attentive? It might not be perfect, but if it's attentive and on, then it might be your quote unquote perfect posture that might be creating a problem.

But if you're sitting in sloppy posture and your pain slowly starts to stab you in the back, then, um, probably perfect posture might work for you. But either way, uh, perfect posture normally can come at a cost if done too long and too often. And the stuff that I've noticed that people have the, uh, is upper glute pain around the SI joint, as I mentioned with that, uh, case earlier. Also adductor pain. They might feel like they have hip impingement or a labral tear or a symptom of a sports hernia. Uh, I'd say of the people who come in with quote unquote sports hernia symptoms, either diagnosed by somebody who they've been to or self-diagnosed.

I'd say easily, easily 80% of them are just flexion intolerant low backs and, or flexion intolerant hips. Like they're not really a sports hernia. There's no tear or anything in perfect posture makes these people, um, not get better. Okay. Believe it or not. Also adductor tightness, inner knee pain, shin splints, and plantar fasciitis all can be part of the perfect posture curse. Um, pain or, uh, tightness of the hamstrings, chronic tightness of the hamstrings and hip flexors can also be chronic tightness of the TFL and the IT band could be, um, pain into the sit bone region, uh, or even just ripping leg pain, like sciatica, numbness, tingling in the foot.

Uh, by the way, it's, uh, I probably, I'd probably sit in a bunch in other podcasts, but numbness, tingling, change of sensation in the skin are not tight muscles. There's some type of nerve, nerve, nervous system aspect to the problem. So, uh, not that it's a bad, bad thing. It's just needed to be treated as such. Normally you can't tissue work those things away. Um, there's a little bit more to it than that normally, but tissue work can be helpful, but it's not my first go-to. So I've given you a few examples of how perfect posture can be the thing that increases your pain. Now it's really up to you to figure out how comfortable you feel with adding in a little bit of sloppiness to your posture.

Um, the suggestion I like to offer a lot of people that I think posture might be creating their problem or perfect posture, then I tell them to create perfect posture and subtract 10%. So make it a hundred percent perfect and subtract 10% after that. And that's, that's going to be your normal resting position. And then the breathe into the hands is the next thing. But, you know, the easiest thing that you guys can do is, is, uh, do some movement or do some rehabilitation, do some corrective exercises, do some glute bridges, do some planks and do something. Um, there is customization of a home program is really important as well as the coaching and the way the person cues you.

They have to be paying attention to you. That's just why a sheet of paper doesn't tend to work that much because it doesn't give you any feedback. But the reason I'm bringing this up is because although we can fixate on what perfect posture is for you, sometimes the easiest thing to do is just settle the problem, settle the symptom generator, and then all of the postures will be perfect for you. Sloppy will be fine. Arching will be fine. Military will be fine. Um, sloshing sideways in a chair will be fine. It doesn't matter how, if you drive in your car seat or somebody else's, it doesn't matter what seats you sit in, it'll all be fine for a lot of people.

If you just solve the problem and most of the time solving a problem is very simple. It's not easy because you got to do some work, but it can be very simple. It's as a one, two, three, four step type of step process. Um, the first thing that you guys probably should be doing if you haven't already is you need to have all the red flags ruled out of your condition. Uh, meaning that if, if there is even a possibility, there's something like cancer, uh, or infection going on with you, then that needs to be found. Uh, and that's why I seen, uh, seen someone to do a good examination and history take across and process on you is really important.

Um, it's going to take more than five minutes. So if someone only spends five minutes with you, they need to be spending more time. Typically an examination with a little bit of back and forth conversation, uh, it takes 20 to 30 minutes. All right. If you have a lot of questions, it'll take longer, but generally, um, if you just have low back pain or hip stuff, then it's going to take probably 20 minutes or so, even if we're very rapid with things, cause we've got to roll things in and roll things out. Once red flags and more sinister problems are rolled out, we really have to establish how to reduce your symptoms and letting your pain be your guide in that.

As I mentioned before, some people, they're, they're the way to reduce their symptoms. That's way better than any medication or injection they can get. Uh, it's just to simply relax, let perfect posture, not be perfect. While I give the cautionary note that others, perfect posture can be the easiest way to settle their pain or just walking. Then using a step three, like corrective exercises to patch in some movements that are not currently, uh, available, like bending forward. You might have to do a little bit more of a hip dominant strategy with something like a glute bridge, uh, or a bird dog or something like that.

Uh, and then actually doing some type of weight training is usually the next step. And then the last step is just go out and have a good time. Just have fun. I went out and hit some baseballs today. Um, should I do that with someone is as someone who's had two back issues or two back injuries throughout his life and he's 40 years old. Ooh, you know, don't, don't, don't, don't mess up your back. Don't let it be. I'm not fragile. I don't know about everybody else, but my back's not fragile because I'm not letting it be that way. Okay. I know I don't, I don't love weight training. I'll be honest with you.

I don't love it. I do it though, because I want to feel good playing baseball and being physically able. Uh, and I, I do it once to twice a week to the amount that I need to do. I don't need to go crazy with the weights, um, because it's the amount that I need to be able to be physically prepared for the activity that I want to do. Such as playing baseball and, uh, running and picking up my dog and so on. Uh, and so whatever you guys want to do, what the main goal is, uh, your weight training will be structured based around that. You don't need to deadlift 300 pounds to be able to walk around the house without pain or do recreational softball or play golf.

You don't need to do that. Uh, so programming, coaching and cueing are actually very, very important in this, in this whole, um, uh, strategy examination, MRIs, x-rays, and so on. Like they're, they're important. They can be important, but as I mentioned a couple episodes ago, imaging, uh, comes at a cost, not only dollar amount costs, but also it comes at a cost of people fussing about all these little structures, their back that aren't actually symptom generators. They're not part of the problem. So you need to make sure to figure out your tolerances, rule out the red flags and just get with someone that knows exactly what to, uh, uh, to have you do and just do it.

You guys are a team. There's someone directing you and you're doing the work. We can't do it for you. Yes. Tissue work and adjusting and cupping and stretching and all those things are the easy things to do and they can be helpful. Yes, they have some merit, but they won't help rehabilitate your spine and they won't help make you strong again. So you can actually do the things you want to do. Personally, I want to be able to be, uh, there's a, there's a guy I play baseball with. He's on my team. He's 60 years old. He looks great. He goes out there and plays multiple times a week, hitting people ground balls.

He's not, he's not sprinting like crazy, but he plays second base and he does a fantastic job and he just loves being out in the field. It's 60 years old. I want to be doing exactly what he's doing. And my strategy to get there is following the plan of attack that I have right now. What's your strategy for when you're 60 or 70 or 80 or 90? What do you want to be like? So I'll end the podcast here with that. But if you guys are looking for any of the resources that I have, um, for low backs, they're in the podcast player. Um, they are books that I spent a lot of time writing. Uh, there it's a four part series.

You can obviously pick and choose of which ones you want, but, um, I suggest read all four parts parts. And Dawne Costantino had a guest, uh, part in number four. So, um, if you guys are looking to work with us directly, you can, we do see pullvert people virtually and in person. Virtually. We can't do the complete examination. Um, but we can do a lot of things. Uh, we have eyes and we have ears and that's what we need to figure out a lot of times of what to do with you. But if we feel like we can't help you, we will refer you on, uh, in person, we'd love to see as well. So just email us or info at p2sportscare.com.

That's P the letter to the number sports is plural care.com. Or there's a link in the description and please subscribe to the podcast. Um, I hope you guys like it. We're releasing once every two weeks. At some point we're going to get beyond the low back and hip region, but I really have a passion for it. I know Dawne Costantino does too. I'll talk to you guys next time. Thanks for being part of the movement movement.