#23 Russ comes on to share his road out of Chronic Back Pain

Russ takes us into his road out of pain. He has suffered from bulging and herniated discs. There is always a way forward. If you or anyone you know needs help with back pain don't hesitate to reach out :) 

Transcript

Richard Aceves: 0:58

What's up guys? Today we are here with Russ. Russ, you did an assessment with Ed, if I'm not mistaken, and you've worked with him for a little bit. Yeah, absolutely. Yes. So

Russ: 1:11

I got introduced to Ed, I think it was about March last year 2020 to March.

Unknown: 1:20

It was just before the movement Ayahuasca actually, yeah, that's right. Yeah, okay. Yeah, by a mutual friend of ours, because I am a long term sufferer of back pain. By that, I mean, I'm not like chronic pain, all day, every day. But I've had some what I would call quite severe back injuries, herniated discs, bulging discs, at times sciatica. From the age of 19. I've had, I've had periods of extreme sort of back pain with love lasted months. And I guess like, coming to my late 30s, I'd sort of my my biggest injury was when I was about 30, I was playing squash, and just lunged for the shot at the front of the court. And it felt like somebody had sliced my back open, it literally felt like So behind me. And I didn't even realize what happened. At first, I just thought somebody was behind me and slashed my, my lower back bill to the floor. And weirdly, just felt like I needed to jump up again and stand up again. And I stood at the front of the court and just had to use the wall to kind of stabilize myself as much as I could. And I could instantly feel that the pain was going all the way down from my lower back to my big toe on my right hand side. Okay. And I would say that caused me many years of pain and trying to get back on track, there'll be periods where I was fine, but I was very weak. And whenever I would try to up the ante, and with my fitness and getting, you know, regaining some strength, again, I would just get to a point where I would injure myself again, and it wouldn't be as severe, but it would be enough to make me back off. So when, you know, like, I was probably yo yoing with my strength and fitness for many years, and tried to get a bit of a hold of it in my late 30s. So when I was about 38, I sort of right, I'm going to crack this now and just started doing what I could start going back to the gym a little bit. And but then, you know, here we were like another four years of that going back and forth, still not really happy. He's still not making any progress. Until I got introduced to Ed last year by a mutual friend. And I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say it's changed my life. That's awesome, man. So the I want to get into we'll get into how to approach the assessment and everything of that sort. But I want to start with what was your mentality, your mindset, your emotions, and a and willingness to go see Ed from hearing as a referral from a friend saying, Hey, you have to go see this doctor and wears glasses and enjoys the sunshine a bit too much? Um, do you mean my sort of mindset of most before I met or what caused me to kind of Yeah, so I mean, it's it's a long struggle, right? And that's something that I feel like the psychology of, you know, maybe it's, you don't consider a chronic but if somebody from the outside was looking it'd be a chronic nonstop issue, right? Like it's, it's something that's taking you away from performing on a daily basis. So kind of what was your mindset of searching for help and your willingness to for searching for help? And also what was the the mindset once you went to go see I was it like, it was willingness, but not really being extremely hopeful, or were you very, very hopeful or you know what I mean, does that does that make sense? Yeah, sure. I suppose my main driving emotion at that point was just pure frustration with my body and feeling like even In the simplest of tasks, lifting, I'm I'm a musician, I play music. I'm a bass player, I have to lug a bass amp into gigs and upstairs at times and into the car into the night. And I actually gave up playing music for a long time, a good few years because it was just ruining my back, you know, I would go to a gig, I would be in pain. If I lifted my amp into the car in the wrong way. I'd been pain during the gig. I'd be in pain after the gig. And I have to go through a sort of recovery period. Yeah, it was just not fun. It got to the point where I just I just gave up playing. And I've played since I was 15. And that was, yeah, so. So I guess frustration really is what drove me to, you know, start trying to strengthen myself again. And then when I chatted to my friend, Pete, who's hockey player, he'd said, you know, Pete, someone, as an aside, Pete, someone that I hadn't seen for many years, we'd worked together quite a few years ago, we ended up randomly, just sort of getting back in touch when he moved back to the town that we live in now. And we went out for a drink, and we got chatting. And I guess I was at a point where I was like, offloading a little bit about my frustrations about, you know, my fitness and strength, back pain. And he literally said, Well, I think I know someone that might be able to help you. He's really helped me recently with my elbow injury that I sort of got through hockey. Would you let me introduce you and I was like, Me, I will try anything because I've tried. You know, I've done everything about physio, but by the NHS, I've had private physio, I've done chiropractors and osteopaths all at various different points. I've, you know, tried massage, whatever it is, I've tried a lot to, you know, to get back on track, really, and nothing worked long term. For me, so I was like, Yep, I try it. If you if he's helped you, and seems to be helping you quite quickly. I'll give it a go. And I was very open. I think when I came to it, I was very open to trying something. So yeah, having the experiences was yeah, having open minus and just the the Wishful Golden Ticket right. To be well, something that can work. Nice. Do you want to walk a little bit through the process of of meeting Russ and what was going through your head? Yeah, I I was like when people say that they've been to everybody else. They've been to the physios and they've been to osteopath and Kairos. And they go to the best surgeon in the country and the surgeon was probably not Ross, we try. And we try to be humble. But sometimes our ego does need our head does need to get a little bigger, you know. bring you down again, at some point. Yeah, we just need it. We just need to make sure that we're not crazy. Yeah, I mean, I think the firt the first part of the assessment. I mean, we always do a history, which obviously I learned from you, Richard. And I think even going through the history, Ross kind of recounted each of the injuries and maybe remembered things that he hadn't even been thinking about from the past. There's always, that was always interesting, even for me, when I can reflect back on my own journey with back pain. There's there's little things that you kind of have stored away. And then when somebody asks you asks you the questions, you kind of pick things up as you go through. And I can't actually remember how much we discussed in the assessment of you having quit certain things, I know you were kind of going in and out of trying to get back to training, but I don't think we've discussed the fact that you'd kind of quit playing music, which was obviously a big thing for you. And I asked you at the start of the assessment, kind of what your goal was for the assessment and what would you want to go away being able to do and you'd said that you you're a videographer and you play music, so for me it was can I teach you something in the assessment that you can go away and use whenever you pick something up off the floor or carry something and hopefully then in learning a different movement pattern, then you can kind of go away and improve without My help, which is essentially what happened. But I think you said you'd be happy to pick it was it 15 or 20 kilos off the floor. I can't remember the number. Yeah, it was 20 because my, the amp that I had to buy, which is a particular brand is known for making lightweight bass amps. And I knew that was around about 20 kilos, my bass amps. So I wanted to be able to feel like I could lift that in and out the car from ground and move around safely and not risk doing my back in when I'm doing a gig or rehearsal was something Yeah, so that was in the back of my mind. And I don't remember that was the last thing we did. We finished with that as our win. And I think we got up to 30 kilos, if not more. It was definitely more than the 20 I can't remember exact. I can't really say that way. But yeah, I was really surprised that how what I could lift during that two hour session at the end of it Yeah, so it was it was so long ago I'm trying to even remember the exercise that you probably remember better than I did. But obviously we started with the oblique opener which you've you've used and really taken under your belt and apply it whenever kind of the bat gets sore again and that with the the so ass raises as well. Kind of are your as Rich said the golden ticket to when the backs really bad. You just add those in, and it takes the sting out of it. And you'll have to remind me if we did anything else on top of those two. Yeah, we did. We did more than that. But yeah, particularly those are definitely my go twos now, particularly the TSO s raises. I really liked Glute Bridge. That was one that that's my go to now when we did that new assessment, I can't quite remember but we definitely did the oblique openers. Definitely. So esterase is we did sandbag. drags. Don't know what the floor Yeah. flipping them over. Yeah, yeah, we did those. I can't quite remember if we did anything more than that. You shouldn't you should stop there because otherwise opted lay into making the complex. I don't think there was so much I mean for me once. Once we got past the flips, and they, they didn't cause any pain. And I think you've got a hamstring, either pumps or cramps by that point. And then we did the hinge work to finish as a win. I knew once we'd done the hinging without any pain, then we were on for a long term when I just I could feel it. And the beauty of you living locally is that you've been coming to my kind of small group training every week or most weeks. And we've been able to kind of build all the way up from there and do things so I think when you came to see me you are planning to landscape your garden but hadn't kind of got round to thinking about how that was actually going to happen logistically. And kind of I think it was in the summer so it would have been July or August we lifted. I think it was 8550 kilo railway sleepers into Ross's garden together. And you know back pain after it was it was 100 sleepers were lifted. Yeah. So that was that was a good workout for me at least. And then yeah. And then your your partner, your wife has always been a keen skier and you were never keen to go yourself and only in the last couple of months. Did you join her on a ski trip for the first time? And we we came we had a plan going into it and the back managed to hold up? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the wind the winds for me last year were what you've mentioned, but prior to having to lift 150 kilo sleepers with the help of Ed. It's from the front of my garden to the back of my garden, which I don't have side access. So we had to go through my neighbor's garden and stuff like that. That was in itself on the hottest day of the year. Last year was a pretty great achievement. But prior to that for about a No. Two months, I'd been digging a hole. I've been basically digging a third as a hard labor. Yeah, yeah, like most nights I would go out and do minimum of two hours. Sometimes on the weekends I'd be doing longer. And you know Soil in my gardens clay. So when it's dry, it's really hard to break. And when it's wet, it's really heavy. So there's no winning. That feels like a very English way. There's just no fucking winning it's hard and brutal no matter what. But that itself was just something that I wouldn't have attempted before. Before going to Ed's classes. I just couldn't visualize bending over lifting, chucking weight carrying stuff was a broken pot, like a filled in pond, like a raised pond that we inherited and moved in, which was, you know, concrete, it's full of pea shingle, it's full of hardcore. And I smashed that the bits of a sledgehammer. And I carried the hardcore out of my garden to my car and took it to the tip, and been a must have done 20 tips 20 Tip brands, and saw rid of all that frustration in the body? Yeah. I mean, all these things that I'm talking about, like I would never would have expected to done before. That's amazing. And so just remind everybody again, what? So currently you have bulging discs, you have herniations, what's going on structurally in the spine? Currently, I don't have any, any issues. No, there's no issues. But so but you were diagnostic. So you, you want to go see doctors, and they said they had bulging discs, right. Herniated Disc, herniated discs. So yeah, same thing. Right. So it's always an interesting conversation to have, right? That because people think of this sort of, you've been labeled with with this symptom with this issue. And the only way to get rid of it is either through cortisone shots through shaving of the of the bone, you know, any sort of very aggressive surgery. So the fact that it was just being through movement, and proper activation of muscles, being able to get rid of the pain, and not only get rid of the pain, but also allow you to be active to physical labor is is is the biggest when you're I mean, like there's, there's no other way. I don't know, it's just it's a fucking mind blowing thing. Like if I were to, like, when I had my, my hip broken, and the doctor told me, Listen, dude, you can't walk into this, you can't do that. And now, you start to change that mindset. So, for me, it's you went from somebody that was that was labeled as sort of broken or injured, and the only way out was through surgery, or through a very aggressive or non physical, you know, implement. And now you're at a point where you're able to be very, very active. Yeah, and the, like, walk us through that mindset shift. I think it would be a good I mean, Russ, Russ always says to people who come new to the group, he says, wherever you've ever been told, don't believe it. And just trust what Ed has to say. And do it even if you think it's the worst thing for your back or whatever. Yeah, absolutely. Like, I always say, Yeah, whatever you've been told about the right way to do things like, you know, bending your knees when you're picking something up, or don't bend your back, or, you know, any of those sort of myths that not myths, but those, I guess, rules that people say you must do when you're lifting or something like that, just forget that. And he'll teach you a different way, which you will expect not to work because it goes against everything you've known before. But it does it's it's a very strange and interesting experience. And was that mind shift immediately in this session, or did that take you time to build trust with ADD? Um, it was pretty immediate. I think because I felt I must, I think I must have had some element of back pain or soreness when I went to the assessment. So to come now have a two hour two hour assessment, feeling some relief from that. And not only slight relief, but progress in what I could do. He immediately had my trust at that point. And as I say, I came in quite open minded. This is I'm happy to, you know, for this guy to try and help me. And I was sold within that first assessment, if I'm honest. So that that's what really spurred me on to attend the classes that said, you know, you can come around to my classes, I think gave me a few sessions free just to kind of tempt me in I guess, and go into the classes on Sundays. I mean, Sunday morning trainings are commitment in itself, isn't it? Like, I have to have to, you know, not drink as much on a Saturday and I have I'm not someone who likes training on empty, so I have to get up two hours early and eat before I go to training every Sunday now. And that in itself, I think, is a commitment. But then to be put through the sorts of exercises that we do on a Sunday is, yeah, something I was surprised at what I could do, and I always I always say this, and I say this to new people as well, like, I'm always amazed at what I can achieve in those sessions. So So yeah, being being very open. And, you know, earning my trust quite quickly, really fueled me to like write, I can capitalize on this, and I'm going to commit to that I'm going to commit to the Sunday mornings, excuse me, and I'm going to do what he tells me to because I think I think it's going to work for me. Okay, so back to playing music. Oh, yeah. Very much more than ever. Yeah, I do get this is, I mean, it's it's a beautiful it's a beautiful and composts meant a mixing my Spanish or my English, I've had wine tonight did, I want to be honest with you guys. I fly early tomorrow to Sweden to go to an assessment and to work with two people for three days. So it's my my Friday with my wife. So we had some delicious wine from Italy. But it's it's a beautiful way to show people and I hope that you know, people listening are actually understanding that you can be diagnosed with severe issues. And there's still a very simple, but not easy way out of it. And there's, there's a way for people to gain back their performance and continue to do what they're loving to do without needing to go through, you know, under the knife and through extreme things, right. Like the that was the beauty of of the assessment. And what that is able to apply with people that he works with is that it's just so simple. And it's just, it's effective immediately. And it's not just immediately, and then you go home when it sucks again, like a lot of things that we've tried, right? It works. And as soon as it starts to work, it just keeps working and working and working. And we can add stress to it to the point where you're shoveling out your backyard and doing things that you never thought you'd be done. Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah. And just yeah, just to go back to one of the things you said they're like, being labeled, as someone, you know, has this condition. I remember a friend saying to me, who's also a musician, we're in a band together and saying to me, after I'd come back, after a period of not playing or something like or missing a gig as a result of back pain stuff. He said, Oh, you know, you'll never be the same again. And that really stuck with me that I was like, oh my god, I'm never going to be able to do these things again, or, or have scan and go. I mean, this thing that Edie brought up the ski trip this year with my wife, my wife skied for, since she studied in 20. So 25 years, she's she's skied for but hasn't skied a lot since we've been together. We've been together 13 years. And I always felt bad that I was kind of holding her back from that thing that she loved so much and used to do a lot when she was younger. And she'd always said I'd love to take you skiing. And I was like there's no way I can ski that I'm never going to be able to do that my back is too fragile. I'll never be strong enough. blah, blah, blah. And this year I skied in Austria for the first time ever, and I'm 42. And that's amazing. I was just like, I was actually, I think it was the third day we were in, man enough to admit I broke down, because I sort of cracked the, the the ability to ski in turn and, and, and kind of enjoy it rather than just fall on my face over time. Right. And I was literally overcome with emotion that day, because I achieved what I needed to achieve. And I was happy. And like a uniform. I was falling over like a lot, and even the falling over. I was like, Oh, God, I'm going back again. Get the medics scared, I was able to fall over and get back up and do it more and improve on the skiing and stuff like that. And it was actually a really emotional trip for that reason. Yeah, man. That's amazing. So something again, I think that's probably the best example of something I thought I would never be able to do. So I didn't, even I was I didn't ski when I was younger, never skied before my life. Look 20 years of back pain on and off. I turned 42 went skiing for the first time and came back in one piece. That's fucking beautiful. And I haven't allowed like, three weeks to try and recover. Right? Don't get me wrong. I was so every night. And I the thumbs are incredible. But yeah, yeah, it was it was the back was good. The back was good. Yeah. Even then, I mean, say, like, having learned the principles of movement from rich and hopefully I've passed on a few of those to you like, when you went skiing you asked me is there anything you would recommend or do or like have as a warm up or a cool down and I mean, I've never skied properly before as well. But I knew that over time, you'd have to be taking more weight in your in your quads and the VMO is would probably get fatigued and it would go to the outside quads and eventually that might be a potential that the back starts to get a bit stiff, stiff and sore. And and you kept a hold of those muscles you did a little warm up I think before your skiing sessions and then when you came back you added in a bit of cycling to get the movement back into the hips and then we kind of kept on top of it like that. So for me it's keeping these principles in mind and it just allows you to to adapt and overcome and whatever the situation is. I will remove the rose tinted spectacles and be transparent and you your your your bicep or your forearm has been a bit sore for a while from getting back to playing guitar which is something new for you so your bass player you're playing with the guitar now which is a bit wider so there's always more things to play with and work out and tinker with but that's also part of the fun and the journey but yeah, you're I mean I Toby Nice to have you on because you're almost perfect straight A student of mine thanks teach when you put in the work it pays off yeah, I think I think the the over I think that's good point that it's brought up actually that I'm no I'm by no means the perfect physical specimen now I still get back aches and soreness. I've got I say I've got a bit of an issue of my my right forearm and bicep for some reason we haven't figured out yet together, how to quite overcome it. So I've overcome it at times, but we're still working with that. But I think importantly, what Ed's taught me is to recognize when those symptoms or those weaknesses are coming on, and he's given me the tools and the exercise, and the mindset, actually, to almost navigate that myself at home without having to WhatsApp it, you know, and say, Oh, my back hurts, what should I do? I can mitigate that myself now. And I've I've got ways of picking that up at various levels, by by using the exercises that Ed's taught me, you know, so I think that's, that's an important thing. Really. I say, if anyone's listening, it's, it's not about Edie, healing me. It's about him giving me the tools that I know to use At the right time, in order to maintain my lifestyle in a physical way. And that's the beauty of having a proper mentor, right? So they're not just, I mean, they're not just feeding you, they're teaching you how to cook. They're, they're showing you that hate, well, you're hungry, you turn on the fire, and you do this and it's gonna get better, you're gonna have some food soon. You know what I mean? And life is never extremely balanced for us to think that, you know, we're never we're gonna go through life without pains and aches is a load of bullshit. And it's just a false. It's a fallacy, right? It's it doesn't, it doesn't happen. Especially when we want to be very good at what we're doing, whether it's playing music, you know, whether it's having the perfect yard, like it takes hard work, like, things get overworked because hard work is always required, and the earth is not soft and gentle and telling you that you're gonna be perfect. So overworking things, and having to go from here and there. And, you know, having little niggles is different to having to deal with constant pain, and more importantly, having to deal with the insecurity, that your back's gonna blow up, you're gonna have to be in bed for the next three weeks, or afraid to touch your knees, because your backs in the spasm, you're gonna have like that weird. Sound like somebody just shoved the building up your butt, you know what I mean? Like, I don't know, have you ever had those, I've had those you know what I mean? So it's you know, it's, it's that it's the capacity to give you the tools to have the confidence that you, you're allowed to push your own limits, that allows you to have the freedom to perform the tasks that you know, are a little bit emotionally over the top, because you're doing things you haven't done in as many years, you know, 12 years with your wife and going skiing and being able to do that and not have to lay on the bed because of nerve pain, and, you know, numbness to the lay. I mean, yeah, they're sort of in the glutes, the hamstrings, the obliques, and everywhere else in the body, but you can move around, it's just, they're sore because the muscles are used. It's a big difference. That's it's huge. Yeah, I'd say to people, I'm not exaggerating when I say it's been a life changing experience for me in the last year to train with it. And I'm very grateful for that. So thank you I'm grateful for the trust and also grateful for you coming on the podcast with significant amounts of notice. Yeah, happy to help happy to help. I don't think there's much more to talk about because I feel too proud if anything. So yeah, any designer I'm just super excited that we got to you got to help Russ I was somehow involved or not involved. I'm just excited that it's all working out guys. Excited to do a full so this is one point or so after the movement I Alaska I put a few people on the weekend through a few rounds of what the gauntlet was, are beautiful. And this was fairly early on like I said, we only just met before movement iOS get and I forced, I don't know forced is the right word. But I I wrote the foreword now on your program. And I think Ross was doing double kettlebell swings with 12 kilos in each hand and then dropped it to eight, maybe, yeah, after a few reps, but they were super tentative reps initially. And there was a very little extension but you you knew that you could move within a safe range and I there was no cueing or anything from me. And I stopped it deliberately after two or three rounds, I can't remember how many but you'd accumulated 300 reps of kettlebell swings and bicep curls and all of the other things that were in the in the gold in that and that was actually a big moment as well I think is just like the sheer volume and the next day not having any significant issues and Dom's in all of the right places. So Russ is still still game for the full gauntlet at some point. Roll for sure. And they will make it happen. They will they will do something in September. Yeah. So Sounds good. One of the one of the my plans later on the year with one of the guys that trains on Sunday is to do an obstacle course race like they couldn't This is nuts challenge. And it's like a 7k obstacle course race and the plan to do a couple of laps that for the first time again, something I've never done before, but something I feel I can challenge myself to do safely. And enjoy. So that's the next thing to think about for September. Nice. Yeah, I love it. That's gonna have his hands busy. I said I'm not joining because I don't like getting muddy. Okay, won't join. It's a shame. That will be my first of the of the multiple excuses that I have to not want to do that. Come on, guys. We'll see. Is there a beer along the way? Or is there like anything fun along the way? Or it's just like You're stalling. I'm going to be the girlfriend in this situation. You're stalling up your answer. If you want to take a beer on the way around, I mean, I don't think anyone will stop you. That could be kind of fun. Maybe we had the old beers along the way. I love it guys. Well, thank you very much for coming on Russ. Mr. Ed, keep doing the good work that you're doing. And yeah, keep on listening guys. Make sure to follow us on Dr. Ed caddy. Reber CUDA, Russ. Is there anywhere you want people to find you any good gigs coming up that you got going on in the UK? No, not well, I've got bits and pieces of gigs here and there. Yeah, hopefully some an original project starting off later in the year, which I'm working towards so you're able to keep us posted. We'll share them out. And you have a videography business. If people in the UK listen to this and they want videos made. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I make videos, promo videos, charity videos, all sorts of things. Yeah. If people want to get in touch that's cool. Three to five productions UK. Beautiful. You want to come to Amsterdam. I'd love to beautiful. We'll chat after the podcast man. I did get well thank you very much, guys, and we'll talk to you guys. We'll have you guys listen on the next call. Get in touch Absolutely.