Slipped Disc Treatment

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Welcome to the Back Pain Solutions Podcast – Slipped Disc Treatment

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Introducing The Intervertebral Disc

The intervertebral discs can be considered ‘spacers’ that are present between each vertebral body of the spinal column. Each disc is comprised of tough rings of fibrous tissue called collagen. In the centre of each disc is contained a nucleus which is a gel like material, which is under pressure, and gives the disc the ability to bend. The intervertebral disc is an important structure, and vulnerable to injury, so it’s important to understand what activities can injury this structure, and just how you go about fixing it.

In this episode we discuss the common mechanisms behind injury to the intervertebral disc, and highlight the activities that are contributing to the problem. We discuss how a single event rarely causes injury but that repetitive actions are often the culprit, and what we need to be aware of to fix the underlying issue. We discuss how a ‘passive’ based approach to disc injury management WILL NOT solve the damage, without a consideration for daily spine hygiene and active rehabilitation.

Herniated Disc Treatment

A lot of people suffering from back pain will hope the pain disappears. Whilst in many cases it does, there are a lot of people who will be suffering from a lumbar disc herniation. Our very own Jacob Steyn was one such patient and unbeknownst to him at the time was about to suffer significant discomfort from radiating leg pain due to the nerve irritation the herniated disc would cause.

Disc herniation is a classic back injury that is commonly diagnosed in the clinic. However, such a common diagnosis is not always treated in the same way and there are different approaches to managing this problem. Jacob was placed on a treatment plan by his chiropractic colleague, which involved spinal manipulation and soft tissue work. For 2-3 months the same treatment protocols were administered with little improvement but as is often the case, trust is placed in the practitioner and you believe you will improve.

After a number of months, and realising improvement was not being made, Jacob sought an alternative approach. Jacob attended a seminar from Stuart Mcgill, which involved a movement-based approach to rehabilitation. The very first strategies that were employed involved removing the pain triggers. On reflection this advice was obvious, and straight forward, but is very rarely offered. Simply being aware of the movements, activities, that contributed to the discomfort, and recreate the mechanism of injury, must be avoided. Think about it for a moment? How can you possibly expect to recover from back pain, and in this case a disc injury, if you aggravate the problem everyday?! You could see a therapist everyday but you’d have very little improvement.

Create the environment for healing and healing can start to occur. Remove the pain triggers and you can start the journey to recovery. So for example, if you notice an increase in discomfort when driving in your car for long periods be sure to change your journey and make additional stops in order to take the pressure of your back. Steps such as this must be taken to allow recovery to occur. There have to be some sacrifices if you’re to experience the improvement you desire. Start to make a pain diary so you can keep a track of the pain patterns and help you identify those activities that are contributing to the problem.

In addition to removing the pain triggers you must start to learn to move your back safely. Any activity that results in flexion of the spine is having a deleterious affect on your back, especially if you have a disc herniation. You must learn key ‘spine saving’ movements to protect the back throughout the course of each day and help you to keep it in the neutral position. In neutral it is very difficult to damage an intervertebral disc.

Next up you need to create stability around the spine. Good spine health relies on stability within the spine, and stability requires muscular endurance. This helps to prevent, and control, micro movements between the joints, which can contribute to pain and injury. There are well-researched exercises that help to build muscular endurance whilst ensuring the back remains in a safe position.

Show Highlights The Intervertebral Disc

The biggest mistake that we see from other practitioners is that they often take a system-based approach in their management of back health, which fails to take into consideration the requirements for optimal recovery. Be sure to find someone that will discuss a functional, movement, based approach to your rehabilitation, alongside other passive treatment options. Be confident enough to challenge the therapist on this subject to ensure you get the treatment you need to recover. Your back deserves the best treatment available so be sure to find it.

Interview Transcription for The Intervertebral Disc

Ben James 0:00
When we’re young, we move in freedom and confidence with a great resilience to injury. Somewhere along the line, we’ve developed poor habits and become more vulnerable to back pain. Smart, strong features, evidence based and practical advice to help you take back control of your health and get back to the activities you love. This is your guide to better health. So join us as we demystify some of the commonly held beliefs about back pain and build your confidence, to a stronger back, the smart.

Welcome back to the smart strong podcast. I’m Ben James, and I’m back with my co host Jacob stain morning Jacob the morning man. So jumping right in last time, we introduced the smart strong podcast what we’re about what we’re trying to achieve and we also talked about disc pain disc herniation slip disc, as it’s commonly called, with no doubt various other names as well and really focused on that based on Jacobs experience of discrimination when he started out in practice and how he wasn’t getting better and what approach he took. And jumping right back in there. Jacob, you discussed the treatment you had initially from a chiropractic colleague, and it didn’t improve. So talk a little bit more. Tell us a little bit more about how you took those first steps. And really, can we assume that there’s a lot of people out there suffering the same problem that are getting the wrong treatment?

Jacob Steyn 1:36
Yeah, so sorry, Ben. Ben, what was your first question?

Ben James 1:40
So you saw a chiropractic colleague initially, so you obviously with your experience, had a good idea of what the problem was? Yes, and then you sought help for that problem and the approach they took took us through the content, diagnosis, and more They suggest as a treatment plan, and then you know how that progressed initially before you said, right. I’ve got to take some action myself.

Jacob Steyn 2:09
Sure. So my story actually started when I had a back pain, low back pain that didn’t go away. Yeah. And like I mentioned in the last podcast, this actually started at the beginning of my career. I finished my studies, I went back to South Africa for a couple of months, and I started working in the Netherlands as a chiropractor. All this time, I had a low back pain that didn’t disappear. And I, I was never used to having pain that stayed for that long and usually they’ve gone away. Like, like we usually experience you know, it’s there for maybe a couple of days and that goes away. And I didn’t know that it was a disc problem at that time. You know, I? I didn’t think about it too much to be often. But to be honest, I just thought, you know, just I was just waiting for it to go away and I was just doing my thing. Kind of ignoring it really.

Ben James 3:14
Which is what just jumping in a lot of people are going to be doing.

Jacob Steyn 3:17
Exactly. I mean it quite often we just hope it will go away and quite often it does. Yeah, but in this case, I was working for maybe three weeks in my new job. And my first three weeks as a chiropractor. You know, I don’t have to lie about it. It was a little bit stressful course.

Yeah. And I remember waking one morning with excruciating pain down my leg. And I knew what that was what that meant. So I went to work and my colleague diagnosed my problem and obviously very clear to me also that I had a hernia on my left leg. We’re going down my left leg. It was, it was low. It was in my low back, there was a severely injured disc. And I had about two to three months of chiropractic, typical chiropractic treatment of just having it manipulated. And, you know, being with a colleague, actually, he was my boss, very experienced you, you give yourself over to the idea that it’s going to get better and you’re in good hands.

And so you put your Yeah, you put your, you put your self in the kind of control of the practitioner, the experienced, individual that you assume, as we always do, is, is going to do the right thing and clearly, that’s what the aim of most people would be to do with it. It’s not necessarily the case that it’s always the correct approach that’s just yeah, I mean, you, you automatically do that. And if you have somebody guiding you, you know, I think guiding is a good word, then it makes a lot of sense. If they are sincere and they use the right information and the diagnosis is fitting and the treatment method is also the right one, then I think there’s nothing wrong with it. But in this case, you know, I was having excruciating pain everyday constantly, could barely bend over because of the nerve tension going down my leg and two to three months of just manipulation of my low back, loosening it, I had 5% improvement. And that was a real shame. So I realized I had to go and look a little bit further and I like I said before I went to McGill Stuart McGill, Professor McGill’s courses, and after going through the first course, two weeks, one to two weeks after the course applying these techniques. I had 50 to 60% improvement.

Ben James 6:13
And just jumping in there, what what do you think? What was that? Classic treatment? Are we talking? You were on your kind of side posture. So the chiropractor put you on your side and adjusted that low back. So the kind of classic manipulation?

Jacob Steyn 6:29
Yes. So you’d have manipulation of the low back, where you lie on your side, upper leg pulled up, and then you you get a little bit of rotation, but then a force usually going diagonal through the back. Of course, there are many different ways of doing this, but that’s the standard way of doing it. And that’s what I had. So you know, fairly gentle, good manipulation, nothing wrong with that. But the idea behind it is to stimulate nerve endings in the joint and create a little bit of movement, which also relaxes the muscles around it. Yeah, and then and then a little bit of soft tissue work on mainly My soul is the muscle, deep in the low back running through the pelvis towards your leg on the side of the hernia, you know, as this muscle tenses up a lot. So that’s basically what I had. What treatment?

Ben James 7:25
Yeah, we talked a little bit more in depth about the anatomy of the disc and structures around it in a in a future episode, but I think, yeah, that’s important that to recognize that muscle in in terms of this injury in terms of the impact that we can have. So just for those guys listening, we talk about that a little bit more in detail as we move forward. So you got a little bit of soft tissue work and and manipulation and that was that was the main approach.

Jacob Steyn 7:52
That was the main approach. Yes.

Ben James 7:54
And how would a how often you where you get in that that treatment,

Jacob Steyn 7:57
At this point, at least weekly

Ben James 8:00
Okay, so it wasn’t kind of two, three times a week because that’s something we also often see, isn’t it? In the acute phase, people are told you need to come in three times a week for four weeks, or something crazy.

Jacob Steyn 8:15
I think for me, it was mainly once a week.

Ben James 8:17
Okay. Okay. And based on based on the improvements or the lack of improvement, and based on what you did after that, which we’ll talk about in a moment, why why do you think that didn’t help?

Jacob Steyn 8:33
Initially? Yeah, so that’s as I think the answer lies and what we’ll cover just in a moment, when we look at what actually helped, yeah, but the, you know, I mean, when you you have an injured body part, in this case, the disc between two vertebrae. First of all, the body needs time. To recover, I think going with the time to recover, it needs an ideal situation in which it recovers. So creating this ideal situation, that would be the first thing to look at doing, you know, and so removing the things that are actually applying pressure and unwanted unwanted pressure and posture through the part of the body, which is not recovering, that that would be the first step. And I think so the reason why I didn’t recover was I didn’t address the issue of creating this environment in which my body can heal. Yeah, as I kept working, and you know, I didn’t take any time off. And the manipulation itself, I can see that it could potentially create a better environment for healing. But in my view, and my experience didn’t actually create what was necessary for the disc to heal. I think it’s, you know, it’s that the manipulation itself aims towards creating more mobility. Yeah. Whereas what I needed was, what I had was a lack of stability. So I needed more stability, which was, which would create the environment in which I could heal.

Ben James 10:30
Yeah, got it. And and so what we’re saying is that the manipulation itself can have a positive impact if applied at the correct time in the correct place, which isn’t necessarily around that limitation that might be up in the thoracic square, an individual might be stiff, and there might be a lot of restrictions which is caused more focus a movement on the low back, which could have contributed to this problem. But what we’re actually saying Mainly is if manipulation is being applied, applied in isolation, then really get in a disservice for this kind of injury.

Jacob Steyn 11:10
Yes, I think that’s it, the lack of understanding of what will actually get this better. And that’s also an understanding of actually what caused the problem at the disc and removing those factors and creating the stability. That that’s that’s what you got to aim at. When you look at a an injured disc, you know, I mean, the injured disc is only a it’s a hinge between two bones. And you can imagine the only thing that gives it stability is the muscles around it, obviously the neurology that drives the muscle musculature, but then you got to look at your environment and see okay, how often as a chiropractor, I was bending over a lot, and I was I was giving people exercise What’s going through the floor and and that hinging and rotation through the lower back was me a big problem.

Ben James 12:09
Yes, it’s the repetitive motions for you that were that were adding strain to, to that disc and exacerbating that problem. And I guess the question then also for me is, and no doubt for people listening would be, you know, why? why aren’t people given the advice in how they should create that environment for healing in terms of the you know, the the small actions and the small things they can be doing themselves at home, and throughout the day, to support healing? It often seems that the focus is on what that practitioner or individual is doing in the clinical setting. And do you think that’s the practitioners fault? Is it to some degree the patient’s fault? Where do you think the the The problem lies there.

Jacob Steyn 13:01
I prefer not to give the fault to the patient. You know, we got to stay optimistic and try to motivate, encourage and empower the patient. So I think but of course, there are always patients who are going to be a little bit more difficult than others. We should be honest about this. But I think the, for me, my observation and my experience with working with a lot of chiropractors, I think we a beautiful thing about chiropractic is the fact that there are so many different styles everybody can apply their own personality, their own thing. This makes it good in one way, which means it’s not standardized. As you would get a pill from a doctor which means everybody’s getting the same treatment. As we need different. We need different approaches. I like that. That that this this fact but I think that it’s also then easy for the situation to go in the opposite direction where a therapist or a chiropractor would end up in a comfort zone, they would do what suits them. And what we call it is, you know, you you create as a chiropractic great the system and you put people through your system. And in a way it is you looking through your glasses, you know, like a, maybe a surgeon would be more inclined to operate. physio would be more inclined to do something that suits them in their way of working and the same way a chiropractor would be more inclined to manipulate somebody, you know. So I think that’s the danger we end up in a comfort zone and we end up putting people through a very similar The way of treating them instead of I think also working on ourselves as a therapist. So broadening our own horizon, in terms of approach to towards patients. And, and, you know, not getting stuck in a speciality, a speciality and, and and diagnosing everybody through that lens. Yeah, I think that’s the danger.

Ben James 15:31
And I suppose the message there for for the people listening or that have suffered a back problem suffered a back problem that may have been diagnosed as a disk or is a suspected disc injury, then you’ve really got to be confident enough to challenge that practitioner to ask them about what they can be doing at home, what active approach they can be taken, because quite clearly, if they’re not getting that then they’re not Getting the optimum treatment?

Jacob Steyn 16:05
I think I think so, you know, the ideal situations where you don’t have to challenge the practitioner with a practitioner has already got their hands on a very active recovery protocol. And make sure that you know, they they’re adjusting your everyday habits to create this environment where your body or your back will heal. That would be the ideal situation, but I think the message for for patients is that they have to, they have to try and find somebody that’s going to not only do manual treatment, but also give you advice on training or especially exercises you know, functional approach, because you have to restore in this case if you look at a disc injury, you have to restore the unnecessary stability and the low back to give that disc the rest it needs to recover. So this will, this will start with very basic hip hinge, you know, bending through the hip, being able to, to know what you’re doing with your back in terms of not bending through the back, but bending through the hips, you know, the sort of exercises, and that when, when those things are established, and the patient’s able to do them, then you build that up to more functional movements, and eventually, especially on the floor floor exercises.

Ben James 17:36
Absolutely. So the patient needs to be confident enough to challenge their practitioner, if they’re not getting that advice on on movement, and how they can actively help themselves essentially. And I guess the big question then is, well, how do you find that person and onion? You’ve got to ask the question, I suppose when you Do your research into a chiropractor, osteopath physio who’s going to potentially help treat you so if you’re in pain and you’re seeking advice, then don’t be afraid to ask those questions up front before you go directly into a clinic for an appointment, I guess and, and be confident enough to challenge them and to challenge their thinking to ensure that you are getting the best advice. And what we know is there aren’t that many practitioners doing that some are doing it very well. But we have to also acknowledge that it takes more time. So a practitioner will have to take more time to give that advice. And sadly, that’s not always the approach being taken. Hence the reason behind what we’re doing with with smart strong and some of the information and videos and content that we’re putting out there too. support more people with this functional active approach? And with that in mind, what, what are some of the things that people can do initially? So someone’s listening now with pain, they’re gonna, they’ve got a disc injury or, you know, they think assume it could be, what can they do actively at this point to try and manage that pain? Because that’s the first thing people want to say, Well, how can I? How can I get out of pain? How can I manage the discomfort I’m in right now?

Jacob Steyn 19:30
So the first thing that you have to do is you have to find out what what exacerbates it, what makes it worse, and what triggers it and you have to try and avoid those things. So if sitting in a car for an hour driving to work every morning is making your low back hurt more. If you already have been there, then you should you know, some It’s possible to take the train. In other cases, you can maybe drive with a colleague, you can sit in the chair next to them, put your chair back. You don’t have to push on the pedals. You know, you’ve got to explore the possibility of trying to remove the factors that are actually making it worse. That’s the first thing you got to do, I would say,

Ben James 20:23
Which is one of the focuses of course, we’ve got around those kind of pain triggers and getting out of those, that discomfort initially, but I think I agree you’ve got to, you’ve got to try and identify the causative factors to that pain initially.

Jacob Steyn 20:42
Exactly.

Yes, and secondly, I think, you know, if, if we’re talking specifically mean mainly low back, low, low back pain, then another very good thing you can do is simple Tommy lying exercise where you lie on your on your Tommy on the floor, you got to try and let your head relax on your hands. So you put your face looking either to the left or right. Put your head down on your hands. Take a deep breath, breathe out, try to relax your head, your back, relax your whole body. And then you see what you feel in your low back you you feel for either a pulling sensation or a little bit of pain or uncomfortable feeling or you you will feel that it feels actually very good. Right? Because the pressure all the pressures off the back. You’re not hanging on the back hanging forward standing. You’re not lifting something, you’re not sitting which is also causing a lot more pressure through the back then when you would, for example be standing. You’re actually horizontal. There’s no no pressure on the back and operation on the discs. This takes all the pressure off if it feels very good.

Perfect. That’s your most relaxed position, posture for the low back. If you don’t feel anything, if you do feel a little bit of pulling or pressure through the back that uncomfortable feeling, then you, you put a you take a towel, you fold it up into about a square or a rectangle and you put it underneath your tummy. That will cause the low back to be less hollow. In that position. It will be more flattened. And then you try again, relaxing the whole body, relaxing your head, taking deep breath in and out. And maybe now it will feel you will feel no pain compared to before where you may have feel a bit of a pulling sensation or you weren’t able to relax. So that’s a very basic exercise you can do on a carpet or, or floor, not on your bed. And you do that for about 10 minutes, a couple of times a day or if it’s really serious, maybe more You know, and that’s, that’s what I said it’s creating the environment to recover. And this is such a simple exercise where you’re taking all the pressure off the back, and that that’s a moment of recovery.

Ben James 23:17
Yeah, and it’s interesting when, you know, I talked to people and, you know, the, the suffering, back pain, suddenly they they become much more aware of their, their body, you know, naturally they’re in discomfort. So, they should be thinking about those things that are causing pain because if it’s if it suddenly causes an increase in discomforts, it should be a bit of a sign of I shouldn’t do that. Brushing your teeth, the classic bending over from the spine because the height of those sinks in most households isn’t perfect for and for everyone because everyone’s different heights etc, etc. But it’s those little things that people suddenly start to become aware of. And this is something for me that is a conscious thought that people just don’t seem to have that body awareness and, and the awareness of some of these habits and some of these movements that are having a detrimental impact. And it only becomes obvious or certainly more obvious when they’re when they’re in discomfort. So I think there’s, there’s something there as well from a preventative point of view, to be looking at their kind of daily habits and their repetitive movements that we do that. That is a preventative measure for people as well, not just for those people in pain.

Jacob Steyn 24:50
Exactly. And that’s exactly what I’m doing right now as a chiropractor for example. I’m preventing my low back or At least from what happened to happen again to my low back by taking care of my movement, you know, if you think of the postures that they have to undergo at work and so on. And I think the same thing applies to to people when they think about their own jobs. Now, whether you’re sitting a lot or whether you’re doing a physical job, you have to you have to find a way of maintaining the health of your spine throughout your job.

Ben James 25:31
Yeah, and that could be, you know, the office worker takes micro breaks throughout the day, and the office work considers their posture work in their, the layout of their desk, and you know, there’s a lot more now I’m sure you’ve seen them, the kind of sit to stand desk as well. So there’s the opportunity for people to work for a certain period of the day stood up, which is quite, I think, a refreshing development That, at this stage is, you know, not in many, many different organizations. But, you know, I guess there’s an argument to say it should be.

Jacob Steyn 26:11
Yeah, of course, of course I see more and more patients moving to a standing desk or having the option of a standing desk. What is the little problem there? Is, is the the new, the new concept of what we call inholland flex desks. Because that means you’re you’re not stationary at one desk, you’re moving, depending on the day to a different desk, and I think that makes it a little bit more difficult. Sometimes you might have a standing desk possibility and sometimes you don’t. But if you do, go for it. My advice usually is that patients, if it’s possible, give themselves the possibility of three options. Those are a standing desk, a normal desk chair. Obviously the right height for them and then a saddle stool as it settles to also changes in your low back. Having your legs are on the side of the chair compared to a normal desk chair.

Ben James 27:22
And what about the classic gymball.

Jacob Steyn 27:28
Yeah. You see a lot of

Yeah, there’s there’s a lot of controversy about the typical jumble to sit down at a desk. Do you have anything anything to say about it Ben before I do?

Ben James 27:47
Well, it’s something that I’ve seen. A lot of people do in in offices and a lot of people talk about and and discuss around using a jumble and how it makes them sit up straight. Peter and I think the benefit from my point of view is that it certainly makes people more aware of their, their posture. And again, the problem, I think, is that people are moving towards that when they’ve got a problem. And I think, I think that’s where the potential issues are because, you know, we want to be looking at some of these things as a preventative measure for you know, let’s look at a global approach. How can we how can we reduce the back pain issues you know.

Jacob Steyn 28:33
Exactly, so I like to explain to patients the situation and this way that when they usually because quite often they asked me, What do you think of sitting on a gymball and then they have a back issue already. So I would, I would say it like this, I would explain to them when you have a back pain problem. The reflex to stabilize the back, is like actually slow down. down from the brain, which means that the sudden movement that you undergo in your body or in your spine and then having to react with a stabilization effect that reflects the time that it takes from the brain to stabilize the low back is actually slowed down. So I would say to them, you have a back problem, would you walk on ice? And they’ll be like, they’ll be like, No, of course not. It will. It’s more difficult to walking on ice when you have back pain. Yes, we know that. We’ve maybe experienced that before. So would you sit on a jumble? When you have back pain knowing that the gymball is triggering, triggering a reflex we have to stabilize as it’s an unstable surface, just like ice. Is that a good idea if you have a delayed reflex in terms of stabilizing the core or the low back where you have an injury in the spine, The answer’s no. So I think it’s a good idea to sit on a gymball if your spine is healthy, and if you have a normal timed reflex when it comes to stabilizing the core, but when you have a back issue, it’s probably not a good idea to sit on a gymball. You’re right. I mean, the brains already working harder to stabilize the area, there’s some inhibition in terms of muscular function, which means you know, the core is not functioning optimally. And you should, you can better sit on a fixed surface like you would walk on a fixed, non slippery surface. And that would be just a normal desk chair, something stable, where your core works less as it’s already working harder, with a back injury, and you probably be able to maintain it for a longer time. If you if you have an office job and you require to sit all day and, and the other the second point I want to make about sitting on a gymball is we we think that when we sit on a gymball we automatically assume this perfect posture and that’s not always true. For a lot of people having a perfect posture is already difficult because there might be weakness in the upper back or in the core or in the glutes or the deep spinal musculature. And so why would the the body if that’s present now all of a sudden assume a perfect posture when you sit on a gymball it will it will not address those those issues. So if you if you get tired sitting on a gymball there’s a good chance that you might even start slouching sooner or worse on the gymball so I think they’re there was a bit of a hype about sitting on a jumble in front of a desk and In some parts of the world, it’s still continuing.

Ben James 32:02
Yeah, I think it’s, you know, it’s great in some ways that, you know, these things are being considered by different organizations, whether they might have input from an occupational health team or a lot of organizations will get a reduction in costs of insurance for their employees, if they’re looking at workstations and doing assessments and things, which I’m all for in terms of improving the, the back health of the nation as it were. I think the sticking point for me is before that, or at least in conjunction with that. There’s a missing piece for a lot of people and that is still a no body awareness, a movement awareness and and what are those muscles and what are those movements that they should be doing to develop that core and develop that awareness so that they can help themselves prevent injury. And I think that’s, that’s where I think the, again back to why we’re doing what we’re doing. But I think it’s driving that awareness for people and that education for people that know it, you know, we are not designed to sit at a desk all day sit in a car all day. As a carpenter, maybe I’ll use the analogy your back’s not a crane, you know, they’re bent over picking things up off the floor, or they may be arch back a lot, a lot of the day and it’s, it’s that awareness and that guidance, to strengthen the core, be aware of the mobility and the importance of mobility around the hips, etc, etc. that is going to go alongside that because as you say, you know, you could introduce a core wall, fantastic, but if you sit in on that core wall with a poor posture, you’re going to have the same problem as someone that is in a desk, in a in a desk chair all day with a poor posture. Yeah, they might have pain in different areas, but ultimately The problem remains.

Jacob Steyn 34:02
Yeah, that’s it, then I think that’s our goal is to educate people and help them to understand what’s going on in their own bodies, and where they could maybe address some of their specific issues and strengthen the structure throughout. I think big deal of it as it’s happening in many aspects of our lives at the moment, you can compare to to food, for example, nutrition. It’s the same thing I think. 15 years ago, 10-15 years ago, people just ate. You thought, okay, if I just put something in my mouth, doesn’t really matter what it is. Yeah. You know, if I’m full, I’ve had food and that’s fine. And I, you know, people were completely turned off to the, to the idea that it really matters what you put in your mouth and it really matters. Get all the necessary nutrients in my body, preferably on a daily basis. If I want to function optimally, I want to function normal if I want to have good a good thinking process, or be being, you know, have the ability to recover after a hard day’s work. And it’s the same thing for movement. And I think that’s what we’re setting out to do is to create that same kind of awareness of what’s going on in your body, where am I weak, and where can i strengthen that? And how can I maintain that? And how can I enjoy my body?

Ben James 35:38
Yeah, absolutely. And I think the, you know, there’s some again, you know, there’s some great information out there in this and personal trainers out there. But again, it’s, it’s coming from the point of view of, of back health, particularly joint health as a whole, ultimately, but what are those, what are those movement patterns and what are those things that People should be aware of on a daily basis, that are really going to put them in the best position to resist injury in the first place, manage injury that they’re suffering, or prevent a previous injury coming back. And, again, people, you know, the lives that we lead, were not designed to do genetically. We haven’t changed much in however many years, but actually, work wise and the, you know, the nature of what we do, has fundamentally changed. So, previously, we were hunter gatherers, we’d run out and we’d have to catch our food would be up and about and so, you know, often people say, well, what’s the best posture? Well, the best posture is a variable posture, because we’re not designed to just sit in one place all day, even if that posture is fantastic. You’re still not designed to sit in that one position for eight hours in the day. I think that’s the, that’s the key point for me in the, in the interest is to get that message across to people because you really have to help yourselves as well as rely on help when you get a problem. So how can we, how can we prevent it? And I think these, you know, daily habits, something that we, we can really focus on as individuals, you know, how we getting out of bed in the morning, you know, how are you tying your shoelaces in the morning, you know, have an awareness of that neutral spine and that neutral posture, which we talked about a lot on the on the website. So there’s a lot of free content material there and videos to support, but it’s about having that awareness and doing the thinking yourselves on a daily basis, not just when you’ve got a problem when you’ve got pain, but but before you’re suffering an issue because if you’re really starting to think about it, then you’re really going to help yourself. So become more resilient. I think that’s that’s the important message.

Jacob Steyn 38:04
That’s it. Yeah.

Ben James 38:07
Awesome. Well, I think that’s a good time to draw close, Jacob and thanks again. And next time we’ll be delving more into fixing your movement. So hope you’ve enjoyed the content today guys hope you’ve enjoyed what you’ve heard hope it’s given you some ideas of how you can manage back pain, particularly if you suspect it’s a disc problem or you’ve been given a diagnosis of a disc problem. Really think about the movements that you’re making on a daily basis and those repetitive motions you’re doing so that you can you’re going to break up those postures and help to give you back a break and and the exercise that Jacob talked about in terms of relaxation, head on over to the website may have some detail in the show notes so that you can you can get some more guidance on exactly how how to do that to to start to alleviate your pain. De. So thanks again and we’ll speak again soon

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