Desk worker back and neck pain: ergonomics, micro breaks and posture

This is session number 56 of the Performance Place Sports Care Podcast. In the words of Albert Einstein, if you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough. Welcome to the Performance Place Sports Care Podcast, where you can learn about sports injury theory, rehab, diagnosis, and how to understand the doctor lingo you didn't understand at your appointment. And now, your host, Dr. Sebastian Gonzales. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Performance Place Sports Care Podcast. I'm Sebastian Gonzales, Dr. Sebastian Gonzales, and I want to thank you already for listening. And if this is your first time or your second or third or multiple times listening to this, I want to thank you for listening to the podcast. So I started this day with a quote again, and Einstein's got a lot of good stuff.

I'm starting to realize, geez. One thing that we do struggle with a lot in medicine is to be able to our ideas and how the body works, how to rehab it, and so on, and how we're going to treat it. And that is kind of what this quote is all about. You need to be able to explain it very simply. And I had Dr. Koh on a long time ago now, it seems like, and he said, if you can't explain it to your grandmother, then you don't know it well enough. And basically, we're going to have a doc on today who has a podcast similar to mine, except for a different population set. His name is Dr. Kevin Christie. And he is basically, his goal with this thing is to make it so the desk jockey, the modern desk jockey, can understand how to improve their life, even though that's what they do for a job. Because there's a lot of desk jockeys around. So following this Einstein quote, he's trying to break this down simply. And I binge listened to his podcast over this last week before we spoke. I've known him for quite a few years anyways, but I haven't spent a ton of time on his podcast. But there's a great one they had on ergonomics. And it was funny, there was actually two of them. And we're going to go into ergonomics today, by the way, as well as some things you can do at your desk to improve your life at work. And it was kind of funny that the second one was ergonomics based upon sitting at your desk, or sorry, sitting at home. And I was sitting there actually on the couch at home. And this whole podcast was based upon how ergonomics at home is nearly impossible unless you have a separate workspace.

So I was sitting there just thinking like, yeah, I don't know how to improve this. And he was talking about the keyboard. And I was looking down on my keyboard. And he's talking about all the problems with it and so on. And it was funny. He was like going through exactly the parts of my head. And I was thinking this entire situation here is a problem. So it's a great podcast. That podcast, by the way, is called The Modern Desk Jockey. So today, we're going to have Dr. Kevin Christian to talk about the tips on how to stay healthy and pain-free as a desk jockey. Just a little bit about him. He practices in Florida. He has an exercised physiology degree. And he's certified in a couple different certifications for tissue work, such as active release, grasped in some taping techniques as well.

He has an ergonomic certification, which actually I don't see a lot of sports medicine or therapist having. Interesting. So and he's actually on the Florida Board of Athletic Trainers as the chiropractic advisor. He's treated over about 300 NFL players, MLB, NFL. So he has quite extensive experience in working with professional athletes. But narrowing it down to the desk jockey. I mean, those athletes aren't really desk jockeys technically. I mean, they don't have that type of day job. Granted, they will sit down a bit. But I think that this podcast is going to be more beneficial to the everyday person. So if you are someone who sits at your desk a lot, and you drive home, and you sit in your car, and you drive home, and you get there, and you're eating dinner or watching TV, and you're sitting, sitting, sitting, this is going to be the perfect podcast for you. So let's welcome on Kevin Christie. And I'll have all of his information on the show notes. Kevin, come on.

Let's talk. Okay, Dr. Kevin, tell us about yourself. Absolutely. I'm a chiropractor down here in South Florida. My main practice is in Boca Raton. My real focus in private practice is sports injuries. I do a lot with that, but then also have HealthFit Corporate Wellness, which is on-site chiropractic and ergonomics at corporations. And so we're inside of six corporate locations down here. Plus, we're working on the ergonomics side of things with a few other corporations that are global. So it's been fun and exciting. And so we focus a lot on athletes and desk jockeys. And it's been about an 11-year career now for me.

Has it been 11 years, really? God. Yeah. How old are you? 37. Oh, I thought you were along much older than I was. I may look at it with the stress, but no, no. It's 37. It's all that Florida sun, man. Yeah, we got a little bit of humidity. It keeps the skin moist. Yeah. Do you wear white linen down there? I thought that's what they do down in Miami. You got to look tropical. So yeah, you divide the fashion in South Florida to the Miami crowd. That's got Miami fashion. Then you got the Fort Lauderdale more sailboat, you know, boating crowd. And they're wearing the Dockers pants and shorts. And then you got the Palm Beach crowd. I'm more up in the Palm Beach with the polos and playing some golf.

Tommy Bahamas and polo shirts. Yeah, there you go. Exactly. You know, I real quick, funny story. I had an intern from Iowa come down from Davenport and he bought a bunch of Hawaiian shirts thinking that's what we all wore down here. And I was like, man, this isn't Hawaii. We're not wearing Hawaii shirts and drinking like pina coladas. They're on Tuesdays. So did, uh, so he interned only for a little bit and he wore that he wore those shirts every day. Oh yeah. You know, he had about four or five of them. So that was his rotation, man. I bet you couldn't wait to come in to see exactly what he was going to wear the next day. So, okay. So you have the, tell us about your, your podcast because, uh, we're going to go over the topic of tips of how to stay healthy and injury-free as a desk jockey. So you're the expert on this. All right. Yeah. I've been working in the corporate space for about six years. And then a year ago, I decided to launch the modern desk jockey, which is a podcast that is focused on health and wellness for the desk worker. And it's everything from musculoskeletal to nutrition. And, and you'll have a lot of different guests on there. I alternate between topic-based and also interviews and just try to provide as much valuable information to help these desk workers. Cause they're dealing with a lot of issues that are causing a lot of pain, a lot of illness and a lot of stress that's not, uh, that's not needed. So is, is the answer a lot of times, um, I know we'll go deeper into the answers of how to improve your lifestyle with it, but is it, I mean, is it just the overall duration that people are sitting at desk or is it the way they're sitting at desk or just kind of give us a light on that?

Yes. Yes to both. It's, it's, um, you know, the, really the problem is, is definitely the amount of sitting and it's not just the desk. You got to look at this desk worker, you know, let's just say they work 50 hours a week, which a lot of them are doing, you know, we can say 40, but, um, Monday through Friday, they working, but they're also, they're sitting and having breakfast. They're sitting in their car to commute to work. They're sitting at work. They're sitting to have lunch. They sit on the commute home. They sit and have dinner. Then they sit on the TV and watch, uh, or say they sit on the couch and watch TV or they're on their laptop and the amount of sitting is becoming insane. And then it's even an active person. You know, I try to have this conversation with my active folks, even if they're a triathlete and they're training for an Ironman, the amount of activity that they're getting is a lot compared to the rest of society, but it's still not combating the effects of sitting exactly what, what ends up happening is they, they carry their sedentary lifestyle at work to their training or to their sport and it's causing problems. So we always have to take that into consideration. And then to answer to go to number two, it is definitely micro breaks. It's tactics to get out of the chair and then to reduce that workload, which is sitting. We want to make sure we have proper ergonomics. And so we try to focus on that as well. And so, yeah, it's, it's amount of the amount of sitting and it's also the ergonomics.

So in regards to employers, are they like, is sitting, like sitting here and like typing and so on, is it, does that mean I'm being productive or is there these micro breaks and things they can do? Is that improved productivity or is there any concern for employers at all? Yeah, they actually, employers are very concerned about it. And when they look at the cost of things, there's the direct costs, like say amount of days away from work or the health insurance premiums and health insurance costs, those are all like direct costs. But then they also look at indirect costs, which is kind of the silent killer financially and productivity wise. And that is what we call absenteeism and presenteeism. Absenteeism is what I just mentioned, but an indirect thing with absenteeism is the replacement costs of that employee. And so that's an indirect cost they look at. And then when we go to presenteeism, that is, okay, you're physically there, but you're not really there. You're not producing it at a normal level because maybe it's stress, maybe it's pain.

You know, if you have a terrible headache or you're having low back pain, do you think your productivity is going to be ideal? Most likely not. So these companies are looking at studies and I have a lot of them that are measuring those indirect costs of performance based issues. And so that's definitely something they're trying to solve. So what are some, what are some of the most common conditions that you would see with desk workers? Yep. Yeah. From a musculoskeletal, I'm going to focus on musculoskeletal. Okay. Cause that's, that's kind of my bread and butter. You don't want to go psychological?

I don't want to go psychological. I don't want to go, you know, heart conditions and things like that. But, um, musculoskeletal wise, low back, neck, number two headaches, if you want to combine that with neck, and then we're dealing a lot with carpal tunnel is a big one as well. But, um, there's a study per 1000 full-time equivalents, which is just 1000 employees. Um, they're spending about $250,000 a year on musculoskeletal neck and back conditions. Uh, so that's per 1000 employees. So it's, it's a huge cost. And if, you know, ultimately it's affecting their bottom line for these companies. And as we know, the companies do care about the bottom line, but you know, they do care about their employees as well. Like they, they are trying to find solutions for the musculoskeletal issues that their desk workers are dealing with, because you got to think about it this way. Like for years, we, they've known companies have known the issues with physical, physical labor jobs, you know, the, the really tough, uh, manufacturing jobs, truck driving jobs.

I did a truck driving right along in Kansas city back in February, where I did a full day of assessing the work environment. And I mean, these fuel truckers are working hard and these companies have known the cost associated with work comp and those things, but the desk sitting issues were really just under the radar for so long. I would say now it's not under the radar and they, and they, they understand the, the issues with the back, neck headaches, uh, you know, carpal tunnel. So I, I find that as I've spoken with people about, like, uh, say they have an injury of, let's just say with a knee injury, ACL, some type of more sport related injury. They, they seem to think that sitting is a little bit safer. Um, is there, is there a threshold of where sitting has become dangerous or is sitting always the enemy?

Sitting, sitting is always the enemy. It's actually one of the most overuse activities one can do. Um, people don't think of sitting as an activity, but it actually is. And it is definitely the root of a lot of these problems. You know, it's sitting for prolonged periods of times without a break in that monotony is definitely leading to the overuse injury cycle or the cumulative injury cycle that we've, we've seen in many different, um, uh, research articles, presentations, things of that nature. And, and overwork causes muscular imbalances causes, you know, friction, pressure, and tension on structures and causes adhesions.

And that cycle just continues to go and go and go. And it'll lay dormant for a lot of people, you know, somewhat like typing is the easiest thing you could do in the world. But when you add the repetitiveness of it, um, it leads to that overuse cycle from going around and around. And then finally, the body sends off the alarm system, which is pain. And now you have the injury and the sitting is really the root cause of a lot of these issues or, you know, typing, uh, with poor biomechanics. So, so if you're an employee that's having conditions like this pop up right now, you're listening to this podcast, like what are the steps that they should take? Do they talk to HR? Do they just modify their desk? What can they do? Uh, they, you know, depending on the company, like sometimes companies have wellness coordinators, wellness directors. I work with one company, World Fuel Services, which is a global company. And they have a really, uh, well-respected wellness director who handles all of that stuff and, um, have all kinds of resources for them. Sometimes it's a smaller company and it is the HR or it's even the CEO of a small company. And so you got to know who your point of contact is, but you know, you can also use outside resources to, to help. And we have kind of, uh, a step-by-step approach that someone can take to reduce the risk. Now, just like anything else, it's not perfect. Like you can't a hundred percent absolutely reduce the risk of desk working, but we can implement certain steps to, to decrease the chances. If, if you want me to go through some of those, I can. Yeah, definitely. You're, you're the expert on ergonomics, man. Well, so number one is ergonomics, you know, like we want to make sure that we are fitting ourselves to the chair. You know, one of them is one of the preconceived notions that desk workers have is they have to have all the fancy, you know, equipment that's super expensive. As long as your chair is not from the 1970s, you know, as long as the, the chair and desk that you have is, is somewhat, you know, new and, and, and pretty good and has lumbar support.

And if it doesn't have lumbar support, you can add it, but essentially you want to fit yourself to the chair, make sure you're sitting up, you're using the backrest. I can provide you a bunch of information that you can put in the show notes that people can use as an actual reference. Um, yeah. And then once you fit yourself to your chair, then fit yourself to your workstation to make sure that the level of the desk and the chair is such that when you're resting your arms, your, your sternum is up and then your shoulders are relaxed and you're not shrugging up or you're not reaching too far. Then you want to make sure your keyboard is a distance where you don't have to reach. The monitor really needs to be at a set to where you're not looking down and top of your eyes are kind of level with the top of the, of the monitor so that you can see that. Make sure that the monitor is not too far to where you're going to be kind of reaching your head forward to see small type. Uh, you know, you're doing this as you, as you can see me on video. Like I'm, I'm pretty, I'm a pretty like, uh, hands and, and, and you're, you know, like animated, uh, speaker when I talk.

So, uh, I'm trying to go through this, but we have another one where the mouse kills so many people with injuries. It's like, they reach out to the right side a lot. And I, we came up with this thing called, uh, avoid the mouse trap. And so essentially the trapezius muscle on the right side, which for, for the audience out there is the muscle that really kind of goes from the base of the skull down to the shoulder and the, and the shoulder blade. And, and, uh, we call it the trap, right? No trapezius. And then the mouse, when you're reaching for that mouse all the time, just think about it. You're subtly shrugging that shoulder up and down and you're rotating it constantly. So we saw this kind of increase in right-sided neck issues in our desk workers. And, uh, what we realized it was probably the mouse usage. So we, you know, did some diving in and we were, you know, sure enough, that that's been a big problem. So we've a bunch of tools and tactics to, to avoid the mouse trap. And again, I'll put that, I'll give you that information, uh, in the show notes. So, uh, number one is ergonomics really make sure that that's key. Uh, number, number two is micro brakes. We developed this little micro brake card to give, uh, give our employees, our corporate employees to put at their workstation to remind them to take a micro break every 60 minutes to do a set of four or five little stretches and exercises. Again, mainly to break that monotony of sitting. And you can even implement other strategies like, you know, walking meetings or, uh, you know, getting up and going to tell an employee, a colleague something versus emailing them or messaging them, um, taking the stairs, uh, you know, parking farther away, things like that, that are going to get more activity, uh, through your day.

And, you know, a cigarette break does not count as a micro break, just in case anybody is, is, is wondering there. So definitely take your micro break. That's step number two. Um, step number three is body positioning and awareness. And we try to teach sternum up as a cue to where they, if they keep that sternum up, it's going to automatically set them in neutral spine. And it's also going to allow them to hip hinge during bending motions. And so we try to take this and apply it to their daily living. You know, it's not just only what they do it at work. It's also what they're doing when they're brushing their teeth or doing the dishes or picking up their child or just whatever. So if you apply sternum up instead of, you know, I get people all the time, especially, you know, patients are like, well, how do I do this activity? How do I do this exercise? How do I do this? And instead of trying to nitpick every certain movement someone can do, or every exercise, if they apply sternum up to it, that's going to set them in a neutral spine and it's going to give them a hip hinge. If they keep everything in the power zone, even if it's a light object and that's, you know, below the shoulders and above the hips and not reaching out too far, like 18 to 24 inches and not reaching to the side too much, that's going to prevent injury. And then the third one is, is abdominal bracing. And so if you're going to, you know, if you can imagine if someone was giving you a little bit of a stomach jab, you would brace your abdominals. And like right now I'm bracing my abdominals and it provides that muscular corset around your spine and protects it. And at the same time, right now I'm talking to you and I'm breathing. And so it's not sucking in, it's bracing the abdominals. And so we try to teach those three body awareness drills.

So that's the third way to preventing the injuries. The fourth one is, is corrective exercises and really trying to work on any mobility restrictions you may have and any stabilization or strengthening issues you may have. And if you really do that, um, consistently, uh, then you will set your body up to be able to endure some longer bouts. Oh, I think there you are. Oh, you cut out a little bit there. Yeah. Now I'm back. Okay, good. Yeah. I heard longer bouts of, yeah. Longer bouts of sitting, uh, you know, if you're, if your body is in good shape, uh, physically, you're going to be able to endure more for sure.

Okay. So a couple of those things you hit on, you went through a bunch there. So explain a hip hinge. Yeah. Like, you know, obviously when people bend over, unfortunately they bend at the low back or the lumbar spine too much. Um, I can just picture yourself brushing your teeth. Sometimes you're just kind of slouched over the sink versus where you're hinging at the hip, you're bending at the hip joint. So I challenge you right now, if you're listening to this and you're not driving, but you're at your home or something, um, just sternum up is that chest bone area there. If you could just set yourself up in a nice posture with that sternum up and then bend over, but make sure you keep that sternum up. Um, you will actually bend at the hip instead of that lumbar spine. And you'll be amazed at how much that will protect your low back. Yeah. It reminds me of like Michael Jackson, smooth criminal, but you're from the hips. Exactly. Um, okay. Back onto the mousetrap then. Yeah. So there's different types of ergonomic mouses, mice that have been coming out. Does that address that portion or does that not matter? It doesn't address that per se. What that's going to usually address is what you're probably familiar with as well is something like say the pronator teres syndrome. You know, a lot of times people think they have carpal tunnel just because they have wrist pain, but they could come in from that pronator teres muscle, which just, um, is overused in typing and using that mouse. So a lot of those mice will be set neutral more. So not going to affect the mousetrap. The things we found to help with the mousetrap is besides the micro breaks and besides the corrective exercises, but from an ergonomic standpoint, it is to make sure that your mouse is not too far out in front of you or to the right to where you have to reach for it. So you're sitting up nice and tall and then you make sure the mouse is close to you. So that's one. Number two is, is if your desk is set too high, you're going to automatically kind of lift up a little bit to clear that desk. And so you got to really make sure your desk height is adjusted perfectly to where you can just nice and relax and reach for that. And then the other third thing that people always think I'm crazy when I say this, but, uh, you believe it or not, you can put your mouse on the left side and you can, you can do that.

It's not against the law to put it on the left side and you'll get used to it. Like just anything else forming a habit after a few weeks, it'll get used to it. And you can alternate between putting on the right, putting on the left and, um, that it can be very helpful for you. So those are a few. What was, what was that term you had? There was absent, absenteeism, presentism, and then just ineffectiveness of left-sided mousing. Yes. Yes. That's the third one. That's the third one. So, so it sounds like going through ergonomics that I, I know, I know that, um, you, you mentioned the table height, the chair, all these other things, but also to body awareness and position. So it sounds like these ergonomic changes are not only just equipment. They're also how you use your body at work, right? Yeah, that's a big one. You know, and we, that company, World Fuel Services now is utilizing our ergonomics program as, uh, if anybody comes to them wanting, um, you know, new equipment or new this or new that, or, or if a doctor is recommending a new chair, they have all of their equipment they have right now is totally fine. And so what they do is they direct them to our, our, our ergonomics learning center that we developed. And that's the essence of our program is that, look, it's not like your, your equipment most likely is fine. If it's a problem, great. We need, we need to address that. But a lot of these companies are providing efficient, you know, I should say sufficient equipment. It's utilizing it, right. Setting it up, right. One. And then two, setting your body up, right. Like applying your body to the workstation optimally that helps prevent it. So if I, if I come out and do your ergonomics workstation, I get everything set up perfectly for you. And you're sitting there like slouched over, you know, like a gorilla, like there's nothing I can do about that. You could bring in the most qualified ergonomist and get the fanciest equipment and the whole nine yards. But if your body is not addressing the workstation properly, and you're not sitting in proper posture and you're not taking micro breaks, there's nothing you can do. And that's really the essence of what my whole education process is, whether it's my podcast or our, our, our dealings with corporations, you know, it's, it's really all about awareness of your body. How, how often are people looking for the equipment and when they show up for the equipment, all of a sudden you're teaching them how to use their body. Do they, do, are they really receptive of that or do they think, no, I just want a new chair. I want that chair.

Sometimes they are, you know, I, I do, I do monthly webinars for corporations and, and, uh, we had one guy where you can write and ask me questions and then you can communicate with the chair person on there, which is just the wellness coordinator who facilitates the question. And man, this guy, he was not happy because he wanted them to start providing, um, standup option desks. Those are expensive, right? They're super expensive. And we're talking about a company that has 6,000 employees. So, you know, like, and, and I was trying to explain, I was like, look, they're nice to have, you know, or a Veridesk. Like I interviewed the CEO of Veridesk on my podcast and there's, there's, you know, it's, it's good, but it's not necessary. It's just a nice thing to have.

But this guy was dead set on wanting a standup desk and wanting his company to, you know, pay for it, for him. And he just was not going to have it. And so, yeah, sometimes there are folks that are dead set on wanting some particular equipment. And even if you show them how to use what they currently have ideally, and that it would be the same thing, they still, uh, maybe a little closed off to you. But for the most part, the vast majority, once you educate them and you show them, they're very receptive, very appreciative of, okay, I didn't realize that that makes sense though. You know, like that reduces a lot of the strain on it. And I always try to explain it was like, look, it might feel weird early on, you know, like sometimes good posture or sometimes the right chair height, it feels weird because it's different than what you were doing, but it doesn't mean you can't get used to it. And once you do, the stress in your body is going to decrease and you'll be much better for it. And so it's just, you know, trying to educate them on that.

So, so how many times do they catch you? Like when you're speaking or like you'll have bad posture when you're sitting there, do they, they call you out on that? Oh yeah, they do. Like right now I've got, right now I've got terrible posture because I'm using my laptop, which kind of would be a good segue into at home ergonomics, right? That's what I was going to ask next, but actually when you're doing that, when you're doing the screen example, I saw your eyes go up. I'm like, he's not looking at the screen anymore, but yeah. So at home stuff, tell, um, in the intro, I just kind of mentioned a little bit about my issue with working at home as well, but tell us about home ergonomics.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I have at my office, obviously as a practicing, uh, chiropractor and stuff like that, I'm, I'm working with patients a lot, so I'm not a desk worker all the time, but I do a lot of business work. I own my own business like you. And you know, it's a lot of desk time outside of treating patients and at home at the office, I got a nice, everything's perfect and all that. But at home, yeah, I've got a laptop and I got a small little desk and all that. And I find it being a problem. And so it kind of cued me off as like, you know, there's a lot of people working from home. So we did an episode on that. And the biggest problem is the laptop. And so the reason why the laptop is a problem is because the keyboard and the screen, like mine right now, you're looking at me are so close together that I ha like, I have to reach for the keyboard or to like read something on there. I have to kind of go down. I can't separate the keyboard from the screen or the monitor. And that really poses a problem. It just causes a lot of slouching and reaching, uh, when you're typing. So one of the things that you can do if you're working from home a lot is sit at your kitchen table, or if you have a desk at work, great or at home, great, but make sure that you get a separate keyboard that is basically like a USB plugin. And so then you can set your laptop up on a little stand. So where now your laptop screen is at eye level when you sit up nice and tall. It's like right now I'm sitting, I'm nice and tall, but I would have to look down like I am right now and my neck's going to be bothering. So you set that laptop up and you use the keyboard that is now a USB plugin. And obviously the mouse as well, because a lot of these laptops, like, you know, obviously it's got the mouse right on the keyboard, which can be enough, which can be a problem. So you can get the mouse with the USB as well. So essentially you turn your laptop into more of a traditional desktop computer when you're working for prolonged periods of time. So that's step one.

Step two, like what you mentioned was a problem is sitting at the couch. Like that's, there's just almost, it seems so comfortable at the time. And then it's not, you know, it's one of those things and there's no good advice I can give you. Like I can't set you up ergonomically on your couch with a laptop. Um, so I just, if you're going to do it, do it. And you know, it's like, you know, drinking wine, it's fine, but do it in moderation. Um, it's, it's just one of those things. So that's a big one. Another one we see is people laying in bed with their laptops. You want to really try to avoid that. That's definitely a problem. Um, and then you just, you want to make sure you're taking your micro breaks as well, just like you would at work, take your micro breaks and, and implement those. And so those are a few, um, kind of tools and tactics that, uh, that a at home desk worker can, can take. So, but just, you know, treat, if you work from home, treat it as like it's your work.

And so you want to set up your ergonomics like you would at your office as well. I know that my thought process with it is it, cause I don't, I, I do work some from home, but it's more of just like, you know, emails and like writing stuff. And all of a sudden you look up and you're like, that was five hours of that. So you always never really think it's for, it's going to be that long, but it is. So yeah, I think, I think really taking a mental check of, of seeing that how long I really do sit there, you know? Yeah. And what I've found is that the problem usually is not the folks like you and I, where, you know, we are mostly at the office, you know, with a, we have kind of a physical job, obviously.

Um, it's the ones like the people that work nine to five Monday through Friday at home. Um, what I do find is the ones that work from home full time usually do have a delineated desk and desktop and things like that. Like they set it up because it's, they're there all the time. The problem, the problem is the ones that, um, I've got some patients that work from home on Fridays, you know? And so they work nine hours or whatever, eight hours straight on a Friday with a laptop on the couch. That's where it becomes a problem for sure. Drinking wine, but in moderation. Yeah. Yeah. Five o'clock. Um, so I had heard you do a podcast too. If there was someone who, I forget her name, but she was a trainer and she encouraged exercise at work.

Yeah. Julie, Julie. And she was like one of the more recent ones, I think. And so she had some good suggestions and, but the thing that I was really thinking about too, which you guys did eventually address is that you would look like an idiot. So how do you, how do people get over that? What are some things they can do where they don't look crazy at work yet until they feel comfortable with their progress? Yeah, absolutely. You know, like, and that is a concern. And so instead of, you know, I think she had talked about fitness snacking, which just is a clever way of just saying, you know, like you don't have to do, um, an hour's worth of corrective exercises in one sitting, you can do some here and there throughout the day. And you can definitely do them at the desk. But if, you know, you don't want to do some of them at the desk, you, you know, a lot of places have gyms. Now, if your corporation has a gym, aerobics room, anything like that, you can go. And again, you don't have to change into your gym. Actually, just go in there, spend eight minutes, five minutes, do some of the fitness snacking and then, you know, call it a micro break and then go back to your desk. That's definitely an option. Or maybe it's, um, a conference room, you know, that's not being used where you can shut the door and go in there and do a few things. There's, there's usually, um, some safe spaces where you can close the blinds to where you can do your thing and not be seen. Um, but you know, we have one corporation where they have a fitness center and they actually have implemented in daily, um, they have a walking track around the outside of the headquarters. And so they have a daily walk thing where they just walk around the building, uh, like two or three times. And so it's kind of a group thing. And so you get the group mentality going, or we have stretching and foam rolling classes once a day at some corporation. So sometimes your company will offer these things, but if not, yeah, just find a little place to do that.

Yeah. I think that walking and meeting thing was, is genius actually. So I don't know who came up with that one, but how, well, if it's genius, it had to have been me. So no, I'm just kidding. No, no. Um, actually a corporate wellness director, um, had, had discussed that with me a few years ago. And there's a lot of good things about it. Cause when you think about it, if you're walking and you're meeting with someone, like when you're getting some little nice physical exercise and you're walking, you're actually going to be thinking a little clearer. You get some fresh air, especially if you do it outside. Um, but either way, if you get some of that body moving, you're going to think a little clearer and you can get a lot done in a five to 10 minute walking meeting. What are some other tips, I guess, that I didn't hit so far that you would suggest or that you didn't, that, uh, common questions you get? Yeah. So I think some of the tips to just overall, and, and, uh, I think it's getting some body work done, uh, regularly as a, as a preventative measure, uh, just, you know, whether it is chiropractic or massage, I'm actually leaving this podcast afterwards to go get a massage. Um, or it's stretching, you know, different things like that. I would, I would definitely recommend is to try to get some body work done. Uh, even if you're not an active person, get it done. Now, if you are sitting for a living and you're not active, I mean, that's just my, that's my number one tip is to get a few days a week and at least of, of some exercise of, of some nice, good exertion to really help, uh, with your health. And so, um, those are two of the big things that I wanted to, uh, mention, um, as far as one of the biggest questions I get, it, it, it usually, um, honestly, it stems a lot. Like it's just all about, um, the ergonomics and it's, and it seems to be, I get chair questions all the time and, and they ask about like lumbar support, you know, what, what if I don't have a chair with lumbar support and, and there are some really affordable, um, lumbar support options. You can get that wrap around the chair and put that in there. So I don't want not having lumbar support for your chair to be an excuse. Um, I want, I want that to be, uh, a solvable thing for you. And so you can find those very easy. Uh, and then the second one that we actually, we wrote an article about too, was, uh, we get a lot of the corporate employees that travel for work. And so they ask about, you know, airplane travel when they're dealing with a back condition. And so I'll, I'll, I'll definitely link that up in the show notes too.

Um, but a few of the things off the top of my head with that is try to pick an aisle seat. Uh, that way you can get up frequently and do some nice back extensions and just stand up. Yeah. That, that's a key one. Uh, if you're dealing with some neck pain, you can get those, those travel pillows can definitely help out. Make sure you're sitting up nice and tall. Don't be afraid to ask for someone to put your carry on to the overhead bin and take it off the overhead bin. Even if you're, you know, 30 year old, uh, macho guy, if you're having back problems, I'm going to try that next time. Yeah, uh, definitely do that. And then the other one too, is if you're dealing with low back pain, um, you may have to avoid using your laptop on the tray stand there because again, you're going to do that. You're going to then, uh, go into that rounded poor posture and it's going to strain your back. So there's just a couple of quick tips. And you can also take those little pillows they give you, maybe they don't give them to you anymore, but sometimes they do. And you can even use that as a, um, lumbar support on the, uh, airplane if you're dealing with that. So that's a common question I get from some of our, our corporate travelers.

Those are good points. Actually, um, funny you brought that up this just today. I just barely added a section to, uh, a low back section on my website. And I was asked by someone to, uh, write scare tactics for, for back health. And I'm like, why? And the guy's like, why? Cause I'm not taking it seriously. I'm like, fine, I'll pick seven things. And, uh, the first one was pain-free sex. Um, but the, but one of the ones which you kind of touched on was when you retire, do you want to travel? Cause driving in a car, an airplane, even, even I've had people say cruise ships to the, the movement of the, of the boat. Um, so I actually didn't finish, I didn't put any corrections on there yet. So I'm glad that you mentioned all these things. Yeah, absolutely.

The air travel is a big one for sure. Yeah. Can you like, I've never actually traveled internationally. You can walk around. Oh yeah. Yeah. Usually, um, I've traveled internationally quite a bit and, um, you know, you can get up and walk around for sure. I mean, even if you just, fake it and go to the bathroom and then hang out in there for a couple minutes doing some extensions and come back, they'll just think of a bladder issue, not a back pain, but you know, at least you get enough. Yeah. I guess that it does help. I, I can, I'm like, I've never been on an international flight or one that has multiple rows, but I would imagine like in the past, it's okay just to pace around and just don't stop. Yeah, exactly. So what do you, what do you plan on working on next with the, uh, with the podcast? What topics do you have coming up on that?

Yeah, actually I'm interviewing a medical doctor who is on site at a large corporation now in California. I can't tell you what the corporate, I can't remember what the corporation is, but I got connected with them. So we're going to discuss some things he's seeing. Um, so that'll be the, the first medical doctor I have on there. I've had a lot of different, uh, specialists on there. So that's coming up. Um, the one that's being released on Monday is actually, uh, I did, you know, it's cool when you create a lot of content. Uh, I did a 30 minute webinar on understanding and preventing low back pain for one of the corporations. And so my podcast editor is just going to strip the audio from that and turn that into a 30 minute podcast. So, uh, that'll be on Monday. So that's all about, uh, low back pain. So that'll be a good one. Uh, and, and, um, yeah, I think that's what my batch is right now. I'm a few weeks, uh, recorded. So I think that's what I got coming out. I was, I was thinking about your, your podcast and I was looking at all the topics and then I was wondering how deep you could possibly go. Cause like you've hit some really good topics already. And I think your first one was the mousetrap, right? Uh, yeah. Second or something. Yeah. First or second.

Um, yeah. How, how deep can you get on some of these topics? Like, uh, you know, it's interesting cause again, yeah. I mean, I feel like, you know, you can get creative, you know, I, um, I, I had a financial, you know, coach as a guest on one of my podcasts because financial stress is a huge issue. And if you're dealing with financial stress, then you're going to obviously suffer at work as well from a performance standpoint. So again, it's all about health and wellness that the podcast is. So, um, we have non-musculoskeletal type of illness issues, um, that can be addressed as well. Uh, I had someone reach out to me who's one of the top golf biomechanists, uh, in the country and wants to do one on golf. So a lot of people that sit at a desk also play golf. So you can have some carryover, you know, I interviewed a guy that owns a fleet feet shoe store down here that works a lot with runners because most runners tend to be desk workers. And so we talked about footwear for running, but also at work and things that look into if you have a standing desk and you don't want to wear your dress shoes. So like we, you can get really creative when you're talking about health and wellness for the desk worker. Uh, so yeah, I guess you're right. I, uh, yeah, I, I didn't think, I didn't think that far through it yet. Like on my podcast, like I haven't really gone, I feel like I'm through, you're going to be like number 56, I think. So it's going to be about a year here. And there was a couple of times where I thought, okay, I want to go into shoulder anatomy again, but I already did a huge one on that. I don't want to do another one. Um, I imagine you can hit like nutrition, travel tips and all that kind of stuff for the, yeah. One of my good friends that I graduated with Dr. Court Vreeland is, um, he's a diplomate neurology and, and he travels the country speaking for, um, biotics. And so he guest blogs for me. I've interviewed him. He guests, he guest, uh, narrates some of the stuff for my podcast on nutrition. So if I do anything nutrition wise, I typically have him do it. And so like, we just released a podcast a couple of weeks ago where he just went through the different meals he eats that are anti-inflammatory.

I just, I had someone on recently. You might've actually, you might know, do you know Robert Silverman? You might've met him through some of the, no, I don't. He's on your coast, but he's, I had him on for functional, functional nutrition as well. It's interesting. We never really, I never really learned a lot, all that stuff in school and I didn't really go far down that route. Um, but yeah, so it's good stuff, man. Yeah, it is. And, and it's, uh, you know, the nutrition side of things. I got to learn a lot from Dr. David Seaman. Uh, so I know it, but it's just not a huge passion of mine. It's not a huge part of my practice. So I'd rather get like a real expert and interview them or, you know, things, things like that. So, so in regards to your practice, I know that we've been talking about like company-based stuff and everything. So how often are you at, uh, you deal with companies, how often are you at your practice and so on?

Yeah. Me personally, I treat patients Monday through Thursday only at my practice. I have three other doctors. I have an office down in Miami as well. Um, and then I have three doctors. So the doctor in Miami, he works the Royal Caribbean location we have down there. And then I have a director of corporate chiropractic. So he only does some corporate locations. Uh, and that really covers them. And then we have a couple of that are more like affiliates where, where it's like an independent contractor. So in regards to like, so I've heard there's actually some chiro students, PT students that listen to this podcast. So can you tell us a little bit about, give them advice of how you got to where you're at, like how to reach out to companies like this and kind of how you started to practice? Yeah, I think if you, if you're, so how I started practice, I'll, I'll answer that and then I'll kind of segue into the other one. When I got out, I wanted to be known as the guy to go see for sports injuries. So I niched until it hurt early on. And I got a lot of good breaks, um, got to work with a lot of professional athletes. And that really helped kind of leak, leapfrog me ahead of a lot of the other chiropractors in my area in that niche. And then in 2011, um, I just, honestly, I got lucky with a patient of mine that was developing this onsite wellness and they had done a survey of the employees. There were 700 employees and chiropractic was high on the list of their desire to have onsite. So she came to me first and I said, yes, which is my answer to you is that have talks and communicate regularly with your patient base. Cause you'll be surprised how many are HR or the wellness director, safety manager, facilities director, CEO of a small company, have that conversation with them and then really discuss the potential of onsite. And onsite doesn't have to be treatment, right? That's a great thing, but it can be doing ergonomics or it can be doing talks. It can be doing screenings. You know, you could, you can set up a situation where you become like essentially the preferred provider of that company to send new patients to your office.

And so that is kind of onsite. And then from a more of a global perspective, when you come out is, is really positioning yourself as the expert in health and wellness for the desk worker, you know, like every chiropractor that treats patients, the vast majority of their patient base are desk workers. So it's an inherent, you know, crowd and it's, it's a captive audience, but how can you really sift through all that and actually, you know, be the expert for it and position yourself better? You know, like when I was down here and I opened up in a very busy market to try to become the expert in sports injuries, every chiropractor says they treat sports injuries. It doesn't mean they actually do a great job of it or they actually did. So I really try to really position myself for that.

And so content marketing, developing good content, whether it's videos and blogs or even podcasts, you don't have to do podcasts, but a lot of good things that are good information for the desk worker to consume. And now you're positioning yourself in that. So that would be my, my recommendation if you're coming out of school and you want to pursue this for sure. Okay. Yeah. Interesting. I don't think, uh, I actually, I only know one person over here who does a lot of, uh, corporations, but other than that, there's a lot of just fan, uh, I guess not family practice private practice people. So, and we had a lot of people that came out of my class actually, they, there's some really good ones and they got successful and did what they wanted to do, but they didn't, uh, some of them, they kind of got stuck in that associateship where they just kind of got run through the mill a little bit, you know? Absolutely. Yeah. That happens, happens too often, unfortunately. Yeah. Um, and you know, and you don't, you know, it's a corporate side of things. It doesn't have to be how I'm doing it, where I'm trying to get more and more locations.

Like if you just landed one company and they had you on and they paid you a couple hundred dollars an hour and you did four hours a week there, you know, you're, you're now talking about real money, you know, um, I always joke around as I've, I've built a business, but I could sell my two practices. I could sell my office real estate that I own and just get rid of all that. And then just have me, I get rid of all my team members as well, which I wouldn't do. Um, and just me physically go to the corporations I have, I would make a little bit more money than I actually probably pay myself now and have way more free time, way more free time. But I choose not to do that because I'm building a business and something that's scalable and sellable down the road as an exit strategy. So it's not for me, but I know, I know a guy that does it. Like he literally goes to a couple of corporations.

That's his job has families, a family man. And he just, he works probably 20 hours a week and he makes good money. Wow. A whole different way of business. The traveling chiropractor. It is. Yeah, absolutely. Well, cool. So how, how can everyone get ahold of you if they're looking to either get some advice out of school or they want to, can, can they get you to talk to with their bosses or corporations? Is that a thing? I'm helping out. Yeah, I'm helping out. You know, we're actually in the process of working on a couple of cool projects where we're going to have a corporate chiropractor academy, um, to try to teach this, um, on a, on a level that will really position someone really well, everything from marketing to legal to just anything you'd ever want to know about it, but they can reach me at Kevin at modern desk jockey.com. Or I do have a closed Facebook group that is called modern chiropractic marketing group. And it's, it's all about marketing. So if you're trying to learn marketing, it's all in there. It's a bunch of good people and kind of a think tank thing. I definitely have a little bit of a content tilt towards chiropractic corporate stuff, but also some sports injuries. So, uh, definitely find me in there and, and, uh, learn some good things. Okay. I'm going to jump on there too. I'm sure that there's a lot of good stuff. They, we didn't, we didn't learn marketing business in school really at all. So it's no, yeah, we should have a whole separate podcast just on, on business marketing from you.

I actually, uh, I do. I have the, uh, modern chiropractic marketing show, which I do two podcasts, believe it or not. So that one is, yeah, that one's geared towards chiropractors and I've had some really good guests already. I launched that two months ago, so that's a little more new, but, uh, definitely had some good guests on there so far. No, cool. All right. Um, anything you want to tell us before we close out here? Uh, yeah. One last thing. So I develop micro break cards, an ergonomics card and a body awareness card. Those three things we talked about as far as like sternum up and hip hinging and all that.

Um, if you want those, you can email me at Kevin at moderndeskjockey.com. If you are just a desk worker and you want it, I'll send it to you. If you're a chiropractor, let me know. I actually can send you the PSD files and you can rebrand it with your logo, your clinic address, your color scheme, and make them look like yours and use that too as a valuable resource for your desk workers. Awesome. Cool. I'll put that, uh, I'll put your email and everything on the show notes so everyone could find it. All right, everyone, everyone, that was, uh, Kevin Christie from Florida. And if you have any questions for him, free, feel free to go and check him out. He's, he's a really, really nice guy. And as you can tell, he's well-spoken, especially in the corporate world and ergonomics.

So if you want to check out all the show notes for this show, it is p2sportscare.com slash podcast. And we'll have everything there. Hopefully if I remember to put everything there, um, that we talked about today. And if you do have questions about either someone that you want to hear from another expert, maybe you have a case that you want us to meet or another expert to brainstorm, feel free to put that on. We can't technically give any medical advice, but we can just brainstorm it so everyone can kind of learn from the types of theories and treatments and rehab we might put around, uh, that type of case. So go on there. That's p2sportscare.com. There's a voicemail button on there and I will speak with you guys soon. Thanks for dropping in.