How to overcome chronic pain & tips for long term health with Carly Brown || WBWL Ep. 59

Here's another episode that I have done in the past that a lot of people got a lot of value from. I wanted to just put this one back on just in case you have missed this.

In this episode, Carly Brown, a current member of the Pain Free Academy community, shares her emotional journey through chronic pain. Carly is a busy mom and digital marketer from the UK; her journey is similar to many of our other clients. 

For years, she struggled with chronic knee pain and felt disabled at the age of 21. She was diagnosed with early knee arthritis, and for close to 10 years, she consistently was let down by her country's healthcare system. As a mom of 2, she was unable to kneel, play, or squat down to play with her kids, and she was fearful of doing any exercises that would worsen her pain. 

After finding Dr. Jay, through a hashtag, she joined the Pain Free Academy, and was able to lower her pain levels from an 8 to a 2 in her first day as a member. She continued to progress and is now lifting weights, running, and being the version of 'mum', she always wanted to be. 

Listen in on her emotional journey as she reveals step-by-step how she accomplished so much in so little time + gives some very important long-term success tips for any busy mom or dad who's looking to transform their body and health this 2024.

Transcript

0:03

Welcome to the Won Body Won Life Podcast. Hi, I'm your host, Dr. Jason Won lifestyle physical therapist. I talk about everything health and wellness related. So you too can have a more resilient body and a more fulfilling life. If you haven't yet, please support the channel by hitting that subscribe or follow button. So you never miss out on another podcast episode. Also, if you could please leave a review or ranking before leaving this episode, that way more people will be able to benefit from the content of my podcast today here in the very new year, we have one of my favorite people of all time. And one of my favorite clients, her name is Carly. Carly has been Not just a friend, but also one of my longer term clients that have made leaps and bounds with her health, her fitness, her mindset around keeping her body healthy so that she can do a better job at being mom and doing everything that she loves. She's also in the UK, by the way. So the time zones are a little bit different but we were still able to make it work out. Funny enough, we have not actually met in person. Ironically, we are born on the same exact Year. And we're pretty much only 10 days apart, I believe. So welcome Carly. Glad to have you on the one body one night podcast. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. So why don't we just start off by telling the audience a little bit about yourself. Please feel free to let everything go. Tell us about your interests, tell us about your kids and what you do and what your interests are currently. Yeah, I'll try and make it interesting. I'm Carly. Hi. I am 34 and yeah, so I live in the UK. I live in Birmingham, which is in the center of England. I've got two girls, my eldest, Amelie, she is nearly nine. She'll be nine in March which is crazy. And then I've got a little one, Rosalie, who is six and I've been married since 2009. And yeah, I do freelance digital marketing. I've been doing that for about eight years and yeah, that's about it really, and interests. I like a lot of fitness nowadays, surprisingly enough. I also paint quite a bit and I like learning languages as well. I'm learning Korean at the moment. So interesting. You're very baldy for learning Korean and Even till this day, I've been trying to learn Mandarin for the past, ever since high school, because my wife speaks it. Currently Trey is learning a mixture of Mandarin and English. And yeah, I know that I've actually asked you once in a while about parental advice. So Carly, she's a seasoned parent. So anybody that wants advice from her she's very good at it. Yeah, why don't you tell people a little bit about how we met, which is a very Kind of ironic, funny story. Why don't you just share with people how our journey started? Yeah, that, that was that was a crazy day that day. Basically, I guess I better go back to the beginning of how I even came to look for what I looked for when I found you. So I have arthritic knees. When I was about 21, I started getting a lot of knee pain. I was working in a restaurant at the time. So I was standing up for like hours a day, like five or six hours a day. I started getting knee pain went to my GP. So obviously we have a NHS here, National Health Service, which is free for everybody at point of service. Went there. They gave me x rays and said that I have early minor degeneration in my knees to stop standing for long periods. They gave me inserts for my shoes. I had to wear certain shoes. I couldn't walk for long distances. Don't run. Don't do this. Lots of don'ts. So I was really upset at the time because obviously I was just 21. But then I switched jobs and they also said as well, they also said it was because I have flat feet is why I have knee problems. I switched jobs into, I went back into corporate. I was in corporate previously, a crazy kind of life mishap and went into restaurants and then went back to corporate. Yeah. And so I was sitting down all day. So the initial shift to standing up all day to sitting down all day did alleviate some of the knee pain because I was just unloading it in general. Exactly. But then. Because the other problem I have is I'm five foot one. So my desk setup, wherever I was never optimal for me because most desk setups are obviously for average size people and I'm well below average. Then I had a hip pain and the knee pain returned. And it was just on and off. So yeah, I was given I kept going back and forth to doctors. They gave me courses of physiotherapy. We call it physiotherapy here for eight weeks. So I would go to the physio and they would give me like a printout, which I know from Jay is common that happens in the U. S. as well. They gave me a printout of. Three exercises to do like wanting me to do four sets of three really basic exercises, like 10 times throughout the day or something, which is pretty impossible when you have a busy life. And so I would do it for a little bit and it would help a little bit, but then I'd fall off the wagon because one is super boring too. You can't fit it into your day. And three, like what next? There was never any kind of, okay, when I. feel comfortable with doing all of that and it becomes easy. What do I do next to continue helping myself? So I just fell off the wagon loads of times. I'm not somebody who likes to take pain relief that often. So that wasn't really something that I explored for myself. It was offered to me and I didn't really take it switch between various jobs, different office jobs. And then I fell pregnant with Emily, my eldest in 2013. I left for maternity leave. And I did go back to work for a little bit, but then I left altogether and started freelancing. It wasn't too like for the next few years, off the back of having all those amazing stem cells and stuff and being pregnant twice. It didn't affect me too much in the early days, but then when my youngest Rosalie was about two turning three, the knee pain like came back with a vengeance. It was like the worst it had ever been. And I could barely. Walk down the stairs, which at this point it's dangerous because I've got two very young children. I need to be mobile to pick them up and stuff. And so I didn't really, I did go back to the GP and they were like, Oh yeah, you can refer yourself for physio again. And I thought, I know that I don't have time to do 10 billion random exercises all day, every day. Because I've got two kids. So I started looking for what alternatives there were, like, how could I help myself? So first of all, I felt like everybody always says stretch, do yoga, do Pilates. And so I tried that. I tried I tried losing a bit of weight because then there's less stress on the joints. I did get referred for physio again, and they were saying more of the same, don't walk for long distances, don't pick up heavy loads, don't this and this and this, which was obviously super not compatible with my life at that point. And I was really fed up the one day because I was thinking this can't be it. Like I'm 30 years old. This can't be my mobility done for the rest of my life. I felt like an old lady, like I had to sit down to put on my pants and my socks and stuff. So I was on Instagram the one day and I searched hashtag knee pain. And there were a few posts, which I don't remember, but I remember coming across this guy who turned out to be Jason and the post was about exercises for knee pain rehabilitation. And he's jumping around on a Bosu and doing some crazy stuff, which I thought, that's ridiculous. Obviously, you're not meant to do those kinds of things if you've got knee pain. So I look, I went to, I think I first went to look at the comments to see obviously other people must think this is also ridiculous. I can't be the only one who thinks this is ridiculous. And I don't remember what happened after that, but I remember going on to like your feed and seeing some of your other stuff and because it was so different. It wasn't something that I'd come across before. And then I saw obviously your qualified physical therapist and I thought maybe this guy has something else to offer that I'm not able to get here that I don't have access to here. And in your content, like other people who will have seen your content and listened to the podcast and things will know that. You are very generous with how much education you give. And that's what I got from those posts as well. Like you weren't just telling people do this crazy single leg jump on a boat. You were explaining like why to do it as well. That's how we met basically. And we got in touch and started chatting about, my needs and and that's that the rest is history. Yeah, that was great. I think even Sylvus Day, funny enough, I don't think I've ever created a more crazy lower body post. Yeah, 2019 or so when we met when I was actually jumping on a boat and doing these crazy intense balance exercises, I think that one it showed you what's possible to that's what rehab should look like is with. Is with telling people that your knees are not fragile, that you are, your knees can be very resilient to load. I don't care if you have flat feet and maybe think of it this way to plenty of flat people with flat feet, have no knee pain, and there are plenty of people that have really good arches and have no flat feet at all that have tremendous knee pain. So the research doesn't really back the fact that everybody with flat feet have knee pain. So I, I. I think when it comes to when it comes to people, especially it's not just GPs and healthcare system in the UK the same narrative goes for people that are also in the United States and any part of the world is that oftentimes the first things that are prescribed for any physical pain or any neurovascular pain or anything neurological is either an MRI or an x ray. And the unfortunate thing is that when you know what you look like on the inside, I think, when did you get the x ray? Was it 21, 31? 21. Yeah. The first one. Yeah. And funny enough, ironically, that is actually when I got my very first x rays on my neck, and I was told that I have early stage degeneration in my neck multi level spondylosis, I had a reverse lordotic curvature. So just being told all these things and Those words being thrown at me, it really does put you in a place where you feel a lot more fragile and broken. You start to fear in the next five to ten years, what will my neck look like then? When, what will my knees look like then? And I find that's still the fight that I'm trying to fight, which is can people look at physical therapy from a more preventative Measure. Can they seek out physical therapy first before maybe seeing a general practitioner or a primary care because ultimately, I think that would solve a lot of issues. People won't have to get x rays. They don't have to see what they look like on the inside. They don't have to start rehab from a state of fear. Instead, start rehab from a state of empowerment, which which Carly, you had your own journey. You started from a place of fear of don't and avoid this. And we had to change that narrative over time. And yeah. I guess that kind of leads us to our next question, which is in terms of you being a busy mom and a consultant and you doing your freelancing work, what were specific things That you could not do and because of the knee pain and how was it impacting your life, not just from a freelancing perspective, but also your many other goals. Yeah. I couldn't like the main thing was I couldn't. bend down properly. So I couldn't kneel on the floor for long periods. And the kids at the age that they were at the time, like you don't realize you are being a fairly new dad yourself. You don't really realize how much physical labor is involved in being a parent. And so much nobody can tell. It's not just picking up the baby, which your kids are bigger. It's Packing the crib for vacation and lift your, you're packing 300 percent more stuff and a little baby takes up so much room. Yeah, just to leave the house. It's crazy. Yeah. And like being able to kneel on the floor or even just squat down to get something. It's a fundamental movement anyway. It's if you have a chest infection or a cough and you've been coughing a load and then you have DOMS in your ribs the next day because you don't realize how much you actually use those muscles day to day. And I felt like it was like that with knees as well. Bending down to get something out of the cupboard, bending down, kneeling on the floor to pick up the kids and kneeling on the floor to change a nappy, change a diaper, kneeling on the floor to pick up toys or bath my youngest, or it was just, it encompassed so much of my day that just basic. Standard of living became pretty much impossible. And yeah, as I say, I wasn't able to even stand and put on my socks or my shoes or my pants. I had to sit down and it was getting to the point where I felt like I was going to have to ask my husband for help to get dressed. Which that is not a place I thought that I would ever be at age 30 with nothing. No kind of major diagnoses that were, attributing to that. And I think, I think a lot of people identify with this as well, who have sort of chronic pain and are trying to get through each day without kind of addressing it is that on the surface, it seems like not a big deal like knee pain. It seems like not that big a deal because I was able to get down onto the floor, but it was very painful to do. And it got harder, but inside it really chips away at your. Just self-confidence and, self-worth even. E just thinking to myself that this is the end of my mobile days, right at 30 was like really demoralizing and quite scary as well. I'd get quite anxious and fearful if my husband Danny was out of the house because I was worried something was gonna happen with one of the girls. And I wouldn't be able to respond to it quickly enough. So yeah, it was mainly that just even just little day to day things like picking up the laundry basket and it adds up to a lot of things that you suddenly can't do. It's if you break your finger or something and then you suddenly realize, okay, I actually need that. One finger for a lot of things that's how it was with my knees. And I guess in terms of my work, I was lucky in that being a freelancer, I could work when I wanted to, but everything just takes longer, like everything in the day had to take longer. And it was cutting out. It's hard enough to carve out work hours with young children anyway, but it would cut into the time that I had mentally planned that, okay, this is going to be my work hours because everything else just crept into that time because of how long it took for me to safely do in my. In my mind at the time, yeah, you hit on a really good point. And I think that because I, obviously we met and you are a busy mom of two. I specifically help a lot of moms and dads worldwide with getting rid of their pain issues and becoming healthier and building better habits. I think people don't realize, I think you might actually agree with this, that. when people decide that they want to, whether it's they want to start a workout program, they want to start running again they want to, let's say, hire a coach or get onto a program, is that one of the big excuses before they even start is just like I don't have time to do that. So I'm going to start. When I have time. Yeah. And funny enough, the ironic thing that you just said is that having the pain and some of the disabilities that you had, it took way longer to accomplish anything in your life, not just from a parenting perspective from a, but from a work perspective. I've come across a lot of clients with low back pain and headaches. At work, and that would it would just take them 200 percent longer to get one task done, because they're not comfortable they can't focus, they have a lot of brain fog, and it goes to the same way so I think for anybody that is considering just working out and getting consistent and start prioritizing your own health, you know that working on an exercise is for you. I wouldn't make necessarily that excuse of I don't have time because when you start to work out, when you start to get consistent with that, you move more efficiently. You get through the day three to five times faster. Even now in the new year I get my workout in at nearly six in the morning and even before the workday even starts. And because I move so efficiently, it's I think more clearly when I got in a sweat and. I feel much better through the day and I'm sure you can agree with that as well. Carly. Yeah, I do. I do the same. I like to get mine in like crack of dawn before everybody else has got up in the whole world. So yeah, I normally gym for six 30. Yeah. Yeah. And how do you, generally cause you're currently living that right now. I know that wasn't you back in 2019, but when you get in that, you mind just telling people, like when you get in that workout. And then you're ready to get the day started. Like, how do you feel? Do you feel more fulfilled? Do you feel like your energy levels are better? Or what do you feel like after a workout and you're ready to crush the rest of the day? I feel like super accomplished. Like it's almost like I've had an extra day within a day. I feel like I've doubled my time, even though realistically I obviously haven't, I feel like I've got so much accomplished and that kind of attitude then carries through the rest of the day. And it, it doesn't feel rushed and forced, like when you're trying to time box everything, which like most of us do nowadays just because. We have so much to cram into our calendars that feels, it doesn't feel like you're struggling to get through a to do list every day, it feels like you have the energy and you want to tackle the stuff that you want to tackle. I can't stress that enough for anybody that is, I don't really care if you're a busy mom or busy dad or let's say you're just a busy person in general. You honestly can't make the excuse of I don't have time because you're just going to go in this cycle where you don't start anything until you get that little brink of time for a week or two, you get consistent. And then another project or to do or task gets put onto your list. And then you feel like, Oh I don't have time anymore. So therefore. What's usually the middleman that gets cut out of that? It's usually your health, your workouts cause you start prioritizing other things. So I promise you when you prioritize your health not just from a mental and physical standpoint, you will notice how much more effective you are as a human being, how you show up to your family and your friends. There is a plethora of benefits, obviously at exercise, which is why people are subscribing to this podcast. Obviously. Carly, if you can share with people your thoughts about, I know when you first joined, you're one of the founding members of the Pain Free Academy, and I know you've had a lot of success. Can you share with people just that first day, like date us back to when we did that evaluation and remember it well, yeah, you remember it well, because I know that there is some. Some big differences that you notice, but yeah just detail that out a little bit. Yeah, that was a really special day. So we had our evaluation my evaluation rather, and I was really looking forward to it because having, we'd spoken a few times before, before that, and I knew that it was going to be totally focused on me. And I hadn't had that before. I knew the evaluation was going to be focused on me and my, how my mobility was going to fit into my life and my goals. And I hadn't had those kind of questions before. So I was already excited before we started it. So we did the evaluation which I was nervous about that because. I was worried about being judged. I was worried about your poor balance of your poor strength. Yeah. And at the age of 30 and, my, but like you say, my balance and strength and everything. So we did it. And it was fine. And you gave me, so you were like, yeah, I know exactly what kind of plan you need. I need a couple of days to build it. In the meantime, here is two or three exercises you can do today and do it for the next few days until you've got your plan and you should start to feel some relief. So you gave me these exercises and I was expecting to maybe. I don't know. I was expecting to maybe feel a bit looser in my body. If you've done a down dog or something or like a frog stretch or something that's what I was expecting. I was not expecting to have my pain level go from like an 8 to a 2 on within that time frame of me having done those exercises on that very same day. Within. You, one of the exercises that I had, you had told me like a previous client had done more than you had prescribed her. And within the day or two days, she, experience significant pain relief. So I was maybe thinking, okay, maybe that will happen to me in the next few days. I'll start to feel a little bit easier, a bit looser. But on the first set that I did, the very first set, as soon as I stood up, I felt like I had different legs. It was crazy. And that's when I knew I already trusted you, but that's when I knew that. Okay this guy knows what he's talking about. This works. And every, everything you've ever told me since then, I've always done because there's no reason not to, because it obviously works. You gotta instill confidence in the people. One, you want from your PT that You want PT, you want your PT to have reassurance, right? Cause if you don't have assurance and you don't trust the practitioner it doesn't matter. If I gave you that side plank, I told you like, it was like side plank, start working on strengthening basically the lateral planes. If you start strengthening the muscles on the sides of your hips, it's going to give your knee better stability. It's actually going to help with your flat feet. It might actually get your feet stronger. And that's what you felt like immediately going from an eight out of 10 pain to a two. You want reassurance. That's one. I think number two, you want to be able to compare immediately after. I think that if you have a good physical therapist, you shouldn't notice results within Two weeks. There are certain things like you need to build muscle and that takes two to four weeks of time, but they should be able to give you exercises that should give you some relief or some sort of confidence on the spot. So that's exactly what we did. It's like you had a hard time squatting. We did that one exercise. You stood back up. You're like, holy shit. Like it actually feels a lot better. I kid you not. I think that you should have. APT that can provide you that reassurance that confidence and that quick of relief on the spot. Is that going to fix your issues forever? No, because you needed to build better habits. I needed to teach you more about the human body and how to progress yourself. That's another thing that we'll get into is like, how did you progress from there, right? We'll talk about that later. But I wanted to give you that confidence immediately and say, I don't care if I'm thousands of miles away. If I just know how your body works, my eyes are my best weapon. If I can see mechanically what's going wrong and give you that assurance, I knew that you're going to make some progress. So in any case, yeah, over the next week or so, I believe like you as a busy mom was able to accomplish a lot more things within the week as well. Yeah, just being able to like the revelation. I think I'm like, we talked about what my goals were. And it was really hard to come up with some because I couldn't see past simply being able to walk down the stairs, you're short changing yourself. Yeah, exactly. I was, yeah, I definitely was doing that. So over that next week, that's when I really started to believe like my goal had suddenly gone from simply not being in pain for a bit of the day to. Okay. What else can I do if I can, if this is something I can do without any medication or anybody even touching me, what else can I do? Yeah, I think we talked about within that week, we talked about what my goals were and I started to really think about them. And I said, it would be really nice to get back to running. Because I had run at, when I was at school at high school, I was academic. And so I was overlooked for athleticism, which tends to be the standard thing, but it turns out that they discovered I discovered that I was a really good distance runner at school, but as I say, because it wasn't encouraged me and encouraged in me, I never took it up. But I remembered that when I talked to you and I said, it'd be nice to explore that again. So that's what we started working on next. And yeah, so we, we started working on that, which, and that was a very long process and very incremental. And we got to, we got me to running five K's with no knee pain which was. Yeah, it's just, it's crazy to look back and think that. I hadn't settled for that life, but I was very under the influence of all of the things that I'd been told up to that point. And it's very frustrating to know that's the status quo for so many people. Life can be. Very different. Yeah, there are definitely aspects of the health care system that I still appreciate and there's parts of the health care system that I'm looking to change. And one of those things is for sure, not giving people cookie cutter plans. If you are given three exercises. And let's say you're given knee flexion and extension, which is a common exercise. It's good for you. You should flex and extend your knee. That's what it's supposed to do. But if you're given the same exercise as the 70 year old lady that's sitting right next to you at the physiotherapy clinic, I think you should question that. If you are given clamshells, for example, I'm not the biggest fan of clamshells. I've given you harder clamshells, by the way, to do, which helps you. If you're given clamshells, But at the same time, you're looking at the 90 year old lady who's sitting next to you and she's doing the same exact exercise. I questioned that to be honest. You're 30 years of age, your body should be more resilient to stress. And I think people need that confidence that it, if you're 30, 40, 50, even 60 years of age, your body is still quite resilient and adaptable. I think you're even adaptable at age 80, age 90 if possible. But it has to be done in a way that's calculated and structured. I was actually a math major before going to physical therapy, a little side bit, but I always thought, okay if Carly has X amount of stress that her hips can tolerate or knees can tolerate, let's give her a plan that meets her exactly where she is, right? It has to be, there's something called a submaximal threshold, which is. If you push beyond Carly's threshold, she potentially can end up with more pain or hurt something or flare something up. But if you give her the right amount of stress, yes, she's going to sweat. She's going to feel the burn. She's going to feel the muscles working. She might not like it at the time, but then she'll notice the adaptations, right? She'll notice the immediate short term adaptations, being able to stand or walk down the stairs or even kneel. I think you were able to kneel for a couple hours that day. Yes, I know that was a huge one because you had really small kids, but the long term adaptations is how can I teach Carly how to progress herself? Last little bit in terms of physical therapy for education purposes is sports specificity. If you're. A physical therapist should be able to understand what your specific goals are. Remember, it shouldn't be cookie cutter. So when Carly says, okay now that I know that my pain is not an eight anymore, my pain levels of two, she starts to come up with different goals and different visions in her life. You have to support that vision, not just from a friendship standpoint. You have to actually lead that client to, to believe that is possible. So you started hitting, okay, I want to lose another. 20 pounds or I think it's called I forget what they call it in in the UK. Is it stones? We do stones, but I'm currently weighing in kilograms. There you go. So I know that weight loss was a part of the goal. And I think you achieved that. I think you're what, like how much lighter now? I lost around 18 kilograms, which is about 40 pounds. I think in the browns. Let's say about 18 months overall, because you started to get obviously more active your strength training and you're combining a hybrid of cardio. And we also evaluated you're running as well. So you have to think about when it comes to. Your training and if you're coming back from an injury or you have any chronic pain, you should think about how do these exercises directly reflect upon the goal. And that's what's known as specificity is. Your goal was to run. So we started to incorporate exercises that directly replicate or meet those demands of running. It started to look more like reverse lunges. And you started to thrust your knee in the air. That's exactly how you look when you run. We started to incorporate some hopping. We started to put, over time, a barbell on your back, which was a huge feat. Because I know that, even then, you were hesitant to even start that type of thing. I was really excited Yeah, and so you got to think about specificity, and you got to think about how the program can be customized to you, your goals, your values, because if you're not getting that, then I would consider finding somebody that can do that for you, or the other flip side to it is if you don't want to find somebody Go to my Instagram, go to other places, learn the process of how to actually meet your goals with certainty and to get rid of your pain. If you can't figure it out, then I'd suggest maybe you hire somebody that can help you and keep you accountable as well. So Carly, now that we're in 2023, can't believe it's 2023. What are you doing nowadays? What what is your workout plan look like? What sort of things are you accomplishing nowadays? Yeah, my workouts nowadays they're not crazy, but they. They shock people because as I say, because I'm quite a small woman and especially if people have met me like in my today body, it doesn't look like I can do the things that I do. So yeah, nowadays, I. Focus on strength training more so than running. I do still run. But it's not, it doesn't make up the bulk of my training nowadays. So my favorite things are my two big lifts, which is deadlift, conventional deadlift and barbell back squat. And so I tailor. My training around improving those, and that's what I've been doing for quite a few months is tweaking the bits that need tweaking. So my deadlift, my current personal record, we call them personal bests here. We always have a joke about that. My current personal record is 110 kilograms, which I'm not sure what that is in pounds. Maybe you do that by 2. 2. Maybe 225 to 240 pounds. I don't want to do the math right now, but that's pretty good. That's about double body weight, just about. Yep. And my squat is, I have done a hundred kilograms before, but then I actually had a little time off from strength training and I was focused on My cardio fitness for one cycle for about eight weeks. So then I had to build my strength back up because I was just strength maintenance. So I'm still building back up to my heavier lifts on back squat, but I can comfortably do maybe about 85 on. Back squat today. And as I say, I'm just really grateful that I have the knowledge from you and the training from you that if I hit a bit of a plateau with something that I'm enjoying, I can take a step back and look at why and see, Oh, okay. It's because I need to strengthen this area or this area. It's not just like one thing, like a back squat isn't just a back squat. There's so many different movements involved in that. And the same with deadlifts. That's how I build my training programs nowadays. And I also, so I tend to do, I tend to go to the gym five times a week and I'll do a little circuit on a Tuesday. I do what I call heavy leg on a Thursday. I do. Pull on a Friday, upper body pull Saturday. I do a more conditioning leg and Sunday upper body push. And I, one of my other goals was to do full push ups because I couldn't do any at all. And now I can do 20 in a row or something which I'm still, my, my upper body strength is not as great as my lower body. So I'm still working on that, but I'm just really proud of. If you'd have asked me like five years ago, if you'd have told me five years ago, you're going to have 100 kilograms on your back and squat it down to like mid level, and you're going to lift 100 kilograms off the floor, I would have just laughed. So yeah that's what today looks like for me. And I really love it as well. It's I feel like it's my sport. I just joined a new gym, a new one just open, which has a lot more lifting platforms and the trainers came over to me the other day and asked what I was training for, because he thought I was like competitive. And I just said, I'm training for life. Yeah. Just train for anything. Doesn't have to be a goal. And that's another podcast episode, which is being more process oriented versus goal oriented. And I think that you are definitely somebody that enjoys the process of just being a better version of yourself. Cool thing about this though, is yeah, going from a place where you had no idea what to do and That's pretty exciting. I know that we actually started to do that towards later on when I felt like you, when I can hand you the keys, if you will, which is to start building and progressing your own program. Yeah. Why don't you share a little bit about. That process, is it fun? Is it tedious? Is this something that you enjoy doing? I know that your main list, which you probably got that for me. Cause my main list are indeed squat and deadlift as well. But yeah share a little bit about that process of, how you learned it. What was it feel like doing it now? How does it feel to be building your own one to three months? Yeah. I don't find it tedious at all. So how I learned it was in the PFA with the catalog of training that's in there it the training, the main training that I got the education from was a past one. It actually wasn't one that you did live whilst I was in the PFA. So I got super into my list actually. I think it's important to point out along the way. In the early days, I fell off the wagon and getting back to what you were saying with when you felt I was ready to be handed the keys to my own progression. I think that's a big part of it. And that's something that you see quite often is people will start with bigger in kind of a new year, new you type. Attitude because like you were saying, it becomes about the goal instead of the process. And something, one kind of crisis happens and then everything falls apart because it was like built on a, that attitude is built on a house of cards. So then starting again. It doesn't become about starting from scratch. It becomes about reassessing why are you doing this? And what is the, what, where are you going from here? So when I got that right attitude in place and that puzzle piece in place, I was ready to have that level of knowledge. I wanted to be able to control my own destiny when I was ready to fly, have my wings from PFA. So I explored all the trainings in there. I spent so many hours. Because I got, I get so into things that I will just binge them. So I've been like so many of the training of your trainings that were in there. And one in particular, which is my favorite, which I still return to today, even just to, because I feel like you get something new from it every time. And I took so many notes because it's not just about. And I think this is the problem when people come to set up their own workouts. And you you can see it when you see people in the gym as well, you can see that they've just picked random things. And setting up your own workout is not random exercises at all. There is a science to it. And that's what I wanted to know. What, how do I, which puzzle pieces do I put together? And how I set up my workouts now is, as I say, I look at what, where am I not coming wrong, but what, which areas of the things that I want to be good at need improvement. And then I look at, say, for example my deadlift path was not in a straight line for a while. And I had to figure out at which point in my lift was that happening and why was that happening? Sort of filming yourself too. Yeah, I started filming myself and I have one of one of my lifts I have upon my Instagram highlights, and I'm yanking the bar off the floor and it's like really embarrassing to look at because it's obvious now what I was doing wrong. But yeah, being able to that training gave me the knowledge to be able to assess. Which parts, where did I have an insufficiency and a weakness that needed improving? It's not, it's never just a case of, Oh, I can't do deadlifts or I can't do squats. I'm not good at it. That's not how it works. There'll be something that you can improve and everybody will have a natural limitation. But. But like, why let that stop you trying to reach that? So that's what I do to it. So every time when I finished a cycle and when I'm ready to start my next split, I will get out my. Book of notes that I wrote from all those trainings and combined that with what, which insufficiency I want to improve that next split and build around that. So sometimes it will look like. My both my lower and upper body days will build around that, but they will also have a foundation in keeping my mobility up as well. That's the kind of thread that binds everything together. I think I'm so that's the thing that I'm most grateful for is. Being able to have that knowledge and combine those things, because that's not something you can get from going to YouTube and putting in seven minute workout. It's, you're never going to get that sort of information from there. Yeah. And so many great points on that one is. You can't go into the gym with New Year's resolution goals and just expect to wing it because it's very random and that doesn't produce the results you want, not documenting your workout so like you had a plan of attack when you go into the gym, and when you have a plan that's like I'm going to build. this in order to improve my main lift, which is my deadlift. That's how you actually make meaningful progress. The analogy that I think I like to use is like going into a war field. And then like you're blindfolded and you're just expecting that you're just going to navigate to, you're going to go through that entire war field without getting blown up by a landmine. That's exactly what, I think a lot of people do when they go to the gym, it's you'll see them hit bicep curls and they'll hit like squats, then they'll hit like a lot of, they'll hit whatever's like convenient versus I think if your gym was full, like you'd be like, no, I'm going to wait for the squat rack. I'm going to wait for the bar. Yeah. Yeah. And that's one point is just you can't go into you can't go into your workouts unprepared or just by random. You do have to prepare it in advance. Another thing is just the education piece. That's the most I think that's the second piece I want to hit on is if you're not. Educated from a fitness standpoint or how to build out your workouts, then how you're going to make long term change that way. I guess you can continue to see somebody, you can continue to have a coach for the rest of your life. I often tell people that as a coach, I want to give them everything that I know so that they can do it on their own instead of I'm the mother, I'm the mother bird. And I guess you just stay in the nest the entire time. While I could do that. And I think that's not a bad business model. I think that my, my goal is to see people less because that shows that I'm doing my job of empowering them to do everything on their own. And I think that you're a testament to that because yes, you are one of my first clients. That's why, we're on this interview, but you are a testament to say that you actually know the whole shebang. You literally know when my knee hurts, I'm going to do X, Y, Z. I'm going to go back to 2019 and do these exercises. Now that you're in a point where. Exercise is specific to running. If you want it to run in 10 K, I think you should be able to build out your own program running a 10 K or if the goal was just to squat heavier shit off the floor, right? I think that you could build that on your own. So kudos to you for actually diving into that. That's what we provide in the pain free academy is the knowledge, the tools, the coaching the program but also just, hours of trainings, right? It's, it is, in some ways, you might be asking like, If there's somebody that's not like you, that is self motivated to learn all those things how would you say that other people, I know you've seen other pain free academy clients, not everyone's like you, some come into this kind of expecting to be handheld the entire time some people, they, we have to push them towards these other trainings of learning how to progress yourself. Can you speak on the perspective of maybe other clients that you've seen too? That may not be just type A, just gun for your own goals the entire time and learn everything and spend hours looking on the trainings. What would you say from other people's perspectives? I think you can understand that because everybody has a different life. Everybody's in a different chapter of their life. I think for me, if you, it's hard for me to comment on that because it's hard for me to take myself out of that mindset. At the same time, I can understand why people maybe don't want to dive into it. And it goes back to, why people are reluctant to try something new in the first place. With evidence that it works, because once you know something, you can't unknow it. So if you know something works, then what are you going to do about it? You've either got to act on it. Or know that you are not doing what you could optimally be doing. And that's too uncomfortable for a lot of people. And I don't, not even just in fitness, just in life in general. I think that's how a lot of people go about their lives, and that's not like necessarily a criticism of them. That's just the way that the west kind of is nowadays because everything's so busy and crazy. at the same time, I have seen, there's been peers that I've had in PFA who maybe haven't been as, I wouldn't call it excessive. Maybe they haven't been as studious as I was with the content that's available, but they have still managed to. Have a major life change at the end of their cycle compared with what they were when they came in. So even if they only are going to come in and follow the plan that you initially set out for them, even if they're not going to look into, okay, how do I replicate this for myself? Even if they're not going to be somebody who's in the gym every day, they still. It's impossible to do the work without some of it rubbing off on you. I think even if they go away, they've done that eight or 12 weeks, they go away and they don't go to the gym anymore. They, and they suddenly get back into pain. They still know how to get out of pain, even if it's not optimal for them. It's like the whole pebble rocks thing, isn't it? It's so I'm in the pebbles category now because I'm tweaking the small things. I'm not having to deal with the main big rocks of like good sleep, good nutrition, movement. Those are like the three main things. Even if you're not in the pebble stage of okay, what times is my optimum nutrition? What kind of nutrition is optimal for me? What kinds of accessory Exercises are going to improve my big lifts, even if it's just the main pillars of what you teach, that's still a significant quality of life improvement compared to not doing those things. So even those basics, if you can consistently do those, that's still better than anything else that you could possibly try and muddle through life with. Otherwise, yeah, the main pillars of what we teach are quite simple at times when you actually just think about it. So when we talk about optimizing your sleep as a busy parents, we optimize your nutrition. We gave you an exercise plan. We've taught you how to control your stresses and change your beliefs around. The fact that you thought you were in a state of fragility for the rest of your life, and now you've empowered yourself. When you think about just those pillars and the things that we teach, it's quite simple. But it's also complex. At the same time, you can work on those things. You can work on those, by yourself. But I guess when you have accountability from not just our team, but from other people in the community that I think also led to your success, you started to see other people that were getting very similar results to you that are also busy people as well. Yeah, I think that was a huge thing. It's like when people talk about you. when they're in chronic pain and they're talking with me or they talk about their journey. You realize that the overarching theme a lot of times is they're doing it themselves. Yeah, they're on their journey themselves. They might have friends that they speak to sometimes to keep that privately. I don't want my friends to know I'm in pain. A lot of times it's the spouse that does know about it. But the we heard that overarching theme, which is the spouse knows, but either they're. Giving you the wrong advice, or they don't know how to actually give you the right tools they can empathize, but they can't give you practical tools on how to help you. Did you feel that way as well, I guess even before starting PFA like, what was your husband's perspective or even your kids perspective, when you were starting this. It was hard because as I say, the kids were like a lot younger than they are now. So we were still in the weeds a little bit in there. We were in toddler days still. So it's still that constant like hamster wheel time. So I, I don't I didn't even really talk about it that much, to be honest, thinking back just because it was one of those things that, oh, you just put it to the back of your mind. We don't have time to deal with it. So yeah. And even talking about it, they only took real times where you talked about it was. Oh, my knees have got bad again. I might book a doctor's appointment. Yeah. Yeah. That sounds like a good idea. That's all the energy that I could dedicate to it because it was the double edged sword of being in the toddler days and I guess not wanting to admit how, just how badly it was affecting my life as well. So yeah, I didn't really, I found it quite embarrassing, if I'm honest, I didn't really talk to anybody about it because I tried to seek out other people who had flat feet because that's what I had been told had caused my knee problems. So I was trying to sneakily find other people who had flat feet who. Who could empathize with me and I never found any of them either. It's, yeah it's not something that I think if anybody is in that situation, if they're listening to this and they are in that situation, nodding along, just talk about it more because you'll be surprised how many people are probably in the same position. And it's not something to be embarrassed about and it's something that you can. Do something about so just talking to people about it and being really honest about how it's affecting you. It can be the start of your journey. Yeah. It's like really good point when you're looking for certainty. I think when you were looking for the flatfoot Facebook group, I guess if you will, I just made that up, but when you're looking for that, you're looking for other people to maybe empathize or to see. What their journey has been and you can get some emotional support from that. Do you feel that considering from where you were in 2019 to where you are in 2023, do you find that, did you find that having the Pain Free Academy community was a part? Of your journey like did it help spurred along or did you feel like you could have just done it alone with the program itself. I know that you shared a lot because I clearly have seen your name pop up many times and you've expressed yourself in community. Was that helpful to create those posts are helpful to see other people's journeys, specifically for people that. They're all everybody in our group is pretty much busy people with chronic issues as well. Yeah. The plan is something that I could have done alone, or as like a one to one thing with you. I think the difference that being in community made was. I had evidence that I wasn't alone and that it wasn't silly to feel sad or depressed or embarrassed about how my life was up to that point. And it wasn't insignificant to make really small gains along the way. Increasing my weights by five kilograms or two and a half kilograms was celebrated in there or being able to walk down the stairs or walk to the shop with no pain. Is celebrated because these people understand what that, that's colossal. They understand what that means. If I was to do that anywhere else, people would be like, okay, congrats. You walked to the shop. What do you want? A medal? Cookie? So it was important for me to be able to have my like strength of feeling. Reflected back to me in those small wins along the way, and it was also really nice. And I still do this today. It's really nice to go in there and search my name and see what kind of things I was celebrating at different points, like something that I was celebrating two years ago. Would be like, if I was celebrating, oh, I lifted a certain weight 2 years ago. That's probably not even my warm up weight today, but that's not insignificant. And that's really nice to be able to look back and see that progression and see that people supported it as well. And I could support other people like I understood, I was probably 1 of the only people in my cohort with knee pain, like most people that, but that didn't diminish the camaraderie and I don't personally suffer with neck pain, but I could understand when I'm reading somebody's post about they were able to sit at a computer with no brain fog because they had no neck pain and. I understood that even though I don't experience that myself. So yes, it can be done without that, but it's just really affirming and it boosts your progress. I think to be able to share with people who really do understand what these tiny steps. And tiny wins mean. Yeah. When you're looking at communities in general like I've said it before, research actually backs it that people with any chronic ailments, any disease or diagnoses actually thrive better in a group setting versus if they were doing it alone. That's been shown because again, with regards to empathy and emotional support or being able to go to the other mom thousand miles away and be able to. Reflect on how they got rid of their knee and hip issues. That's value in itself. And that's why our community is so strong is because our community is obviously supported by doctors of physical therapy, but you get to see other people's journeys in a very positive light. I'm going to go back to like, when we were kids. And there's something called positive and negative reinforcement. Every parent knows what that is. Okay. You get it, you get a, you get an A in class, you're going to get cookies and dessert, when you get home, right? If you mess up and go to the principal's office you're going to get a slap on the hand or get reprimanded by your parents. So the difference between our community, which is the pain free academy that we started and the fact that you're still here shows how strong a communities is you could have left, but you're still here. The community is positive. When you go to, I've seen this time and time again, and different. Reddit chats and communities and Facebook groups. There's a lot of chronic pain groups out there, but I think that when you look into those groups, a lot of times it's it's just a place, honestly, to maybe complain, or it's a place where people are like, I don't know, what is the best, what's the best medication that you've tried? Yeah. And that's the unfortunate part because those groups outnumber the pain free academy, like a hundred to one. But yeah, I think these groups, unfortunately they do exist because people are still trying to get empathy and emotional support, but you got to think of it from, if you were a kid, do you want continuous positive reinforcement or continuous negative reinforcement? It's a very rhetorical question, but when you were sharing about, I was able to hit my PB of a hundred kilos, right? We don't even use those metrics in us, but people know that's a significant amount of weight. Yeah. You get that reflected back to you and therefore you continue to want to be a better version of you. When you're hearing that you're squatting in a knee pain support group and people are like you're going to get a number of clients and say, Oh, Carly, you shouldn't do that. Carly, be careful, right? Tread softly because you told us you had knee arthritis. There's a pretty different, there's a pretty different vibe when it comes to one community versus another. So I want to just stress that to people that when you're looking at these other groups. I'm not saying that my group is the best group of all time, although it could be, but I think there is a sense of. Positive reinforcement find a group of people that are going to support you and be with you every step of the way. I guess to start wrapping things up, Carly, and I appreciate your time is there's a concept that I've gone through with you. And I want to share this with the group. And one of those concepts is just knowing your why. A significant part of why and how you're able to be where you are today and achieve seemingly impossible was because you had a really strong sense of why. And I guess if you can let people know about your emotional whys do you mind sharing with people how you were so successful by having a really strong sense of why and what was that? My kind of ultimate why is. I wanted to be around for my kids. I thought, so if my knees is the first thing to if something as insignificant as my knees has this big of an impact on my life at the age of 30. What next? And people who are older than you, like your parents, people in the, in generations older than you, as you're getting older yourself, will say, oh, wait till you get to 80, wait till you get to 25, wait till you get to 30, everything starts, oh, wait till you get to 40, everything starts going wrong. And so you've already got that narrative in your mind of. stuff is going to go wrong. And for that to happen so soon, it was like an alarm to me. I'm like my kids are young this can't happen. So even though I had the weight of all of that kind of bad, or maybe misplaced advice of years of doctors and just general consensus in society on my back, there was still like a small spark in me that knew that there was another way somewhere along the line. I didn't believe it. I don't believe that humans were designed so badly as to just start breaking at 30. And so my kids have always been the North Star of that, like I didn't want to have them go through life with me missing from things because I couldn't be there because I physically couldn't be there. I didn't want to, for them to get 10, 15, 20 years down the line and have to think about taking care of me. In fact, one of my personal goals is I never want my kids to take care of me ever, even when I'm like old. So they've always been the kind of, yeah, the North star of that. And then secondarily, I always had big dreams for myself. I don't really have a clear picture of what those dreams are, but I. Decided when I was little that I wasn't going to settle for what people in my immediate kind of area, everybody. seems to have a natural pessimism about it. And that's what I grew up with. That's the atmosphere that tried to imbue itself in me. And I always believed that I was made for better things than pessimism. Not necessarily huge lofty, fame and fortune, but I knew that I was going to have a happy life one way or another, and being immobile at 30 was not compatible with that ambition. So that's like the next circle of my why is that I'd already decided I was going to have a happy life and this is not compatible with that, so we have to do something about it. I love it. Yeah, and I obviously have similar why's just being with from obviously have Trey who just turned 20 months yesterday, and I'll give it I'll give people a quote that maybe you can use their making you can write it down it's like your why gives you purpose, your why allows you to overcome adversity at all costs, and at the same time, your why. Allows you to continue to progress and be a better version of yourself, even when things are going right. And I think that's a cool thing for people to understand is that, yeah, you might have Somewhat of a hedonistic approach of life is all about either avoiding pain or gaining pleasure that's only going to take you so far because when the pain's gone and when you're happy, it's like what is your next motivating factor? Cause you know your body feels good. Your life's going good. You're lifting heavier weights. You're accomplishing everything that you want to, but if you don't have the why. Then you can easily just settle for status quo. You can easily settle for just the same workouts that you're doing and being consistent with that. And sure, that's better than doing nothing, but also there's no growth and progression. And I always tell people that progression is, happiness is found in progression. Happiness is found in growth. The only constant in life as we know it is change. So if you're not changing, if you're not progressing, then you need to figure that out. So if you're somebody that is. Suffering with a lot of ailments and pain, then obviously your why is going to help you, right? Your why is going to dig you out of the trenches and you're going to do everything in your power to find a solution. That's exactly what you did was you weren't willing to settle with what people told you all the negative things are told you, you're going to find what you're going to find a specific way of finding your solution, no matter what. And ironically enough, you found that through a hashtag, which was knee pain. And. Now that you're continuing on and I don't think I ever really coach you anymore. I feel like you're on your own coach. You even told people that funny, like that other people ask you for advice in the gym now, which is great because now you are like the student, I'm sorry, you were the student. Now you're the teacher, but now your why is still significantly strong because you have that North star of always being there for your kids, always progressing yourself. That you could have just easily just said, I'm good. I'm, I just be consistent, but you're always gunning for the next best thing. And that's because you have a strong sense of why. So for anybody that's listening, if you're in a place of pain, your why is going to help you. Once you get out of pain and you're at a place where you feel like status quo, your why is still going to help you because it's still going to. Help you and spur you along to be better than you were yesterday. I know some of this sounds cliche, but trust me when I say having a strong sense of why is paramount to achieve. Not just your goals but further beyond those goals and set future goals in the future. Carly, I know that I know that even just listening to this podcast and listening to your words it makes me emotional to, to feel the intensity and the passion that you have for taking care of yourself now. And obviously, me just being a small part of that to see those results. Do you have any advice for anybody out there that was in your situation in 2019 it doesn't have to be knee pain, but anybody that felt disabled, that felt like they weren't worthy, that felt like they were being sidelined by their own body that felt like they were struggling to stay afloat, right? They're just hanging by a thread. What would you say to anybody that was in your shoes in 2019 and what would be your call to action to them? First of all, Change is possible. It's not just downhill from here, or just about stopping yourself getting worse. That was another thing that I was told, essentially. Anything that I was doing from now was about stopping myself getting worse, rather than improving my life. That's not true. You can improve your life. The biggest part of that for me, and I think probably for most people who have had that kind of transformation is you have to make self care a cornerstone of every day. And first of all, understand what self care actually truly means. Self care is not for women. This is. what we get marketed to a lot, self care is not lying in a bath with bubbles in and candles and reading a magazine or having a glass of wine. That is not self care. That's just a nice to do thing sometimes. Self care is actually taking care of your whole self. And if you Don't make that a cornerstone of your day. You are then not able to do your other non negotiable. So like Jason will always talk about making stuff non negotiable. So if you're a parent like me. Feeding your kids breakfast is a non negotiable. You're going to do that every day, regardless of what crises are happening, how busy work is, whatever else is happening in the world or on social media. You're going to feed your kids breakfast every day. Taking care of yourself has to be that same level of importance, because if you don't, suddenly one day, feeding your kids breakfast will become negotiable, because you won't be able to do that. You have to take care of yourself and value yourself enough in the same way that you do everybody else. Because if you really do have caring for the people that you love as a value, which I'm sure everybody does. Then the biggest thing that you can do for those people is take care of yourself. And it's not about carving out time in the day. I'm lucky enough to be able to, as I said, near the beginning, go to the gym. First thing in the morning, that's the time that I like to go to the gym. Not everybody that rehabilitates themselves goes to the gym. Some people do it at home. I'm lucky enough to be able to do that because I can tag team the kids with my husband. Not everybody's life is going to look like mine. Some people are going to have to work their days differently to me, but that doesn't mean to say that it can't be done. It just has to be a pillar of your day. And it's not about carving out time around it. It's about making that a non negotiable. So I've had many things that have come up in my life that, crises kids may have. Kids may be sick, they've got a cold work is super busy and everybody's screaming at me for stuff. But still, I will still have my training as a non negotiable. I'm still going to go to the gym. I'm not going to cut that out just because somebody needs something quickly today. Because my health Is not going to put itself on hold for a temporary crisis. And so I think that's the biggest mindset shift is that. You are the only person in the world who's going to make yourself as important as you make everybody else. And so you simply have to do it. Make yourself a non negotiable the same way that you do everybody else. Words. You're teaching me something today. That was powerful. I guess to hit on two more lessons for you guys. So just to end this number one, you can't say that you don't have time. You need to make time for yourself. Number two. Ladies, she, she didn't mean it. You can still have your wine in the bath. You can still enjoy your bubble bath and that's still a part of taking care of you. It's just not, it's just not the whole thing. Men, you can do that as well. Yes. Carly, I I greatly appreciate your time, not just your time, but your friendship, the relationship that we built. That's something that I've always prided myself in is like when I. Take on a client. I'm 100 percent invested in them. And you can see that by just the obviously the friendship that we have. And yet we still haven't even met in person yet, which will happen at some point. We'll see. But that's what I got for everyone today. I really hope that you got a lot of value from not just my words, but also Carly's words. And I hope that it definitely resonates with you in some way to make massive changes in your life this coming year 2023. Or if you're listening to this too. This should still stick out to you. But for anybody that enjoyed this episode, definitely. Hit that subscribe or follow button. I do release new episodes every single Wednesday, potentially to release even more, not just Wednesdays. And I love if anybody can leave a rating in your podcast and my content will reach more people who can benefit from the tips that I put out. If there's any feedback about the content I'm putting out, good or bad, definitely send a quick text 415 965 6580 or email me at jason@flexwithdoctorjay.com. I replied all my messages personally, and I will leave you with how I always leave you with this last word of advice. We only have one body, one life. Make every action you take be one that makes you a better version of you. Take care, and Carly, thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Oops.