107 | The Empowerment Method: The Role of Athletic Therapy in Musician Wellness with Megan Pomarensky

Speaker 1: 0:02

Alright, if you're struggling with physical pain, today's show is for you. I got to speak with the best athletic therapist in the world, Megan Pomarensky. We went everywhere. We went into preventative treatments, we went into what to do and how to navigate old recurring injuries. It was an amazing conversation. So, especially knowing many, many artists out there think that they have to cope with pain. That's completely false, and we dive into why and what you can do to remedy any type of pain. Megan's got a lot of different answers and a really, really great scope of practice. So, without further ado, let's get into it. You know what time it is. Let's do this thing. Ladies and gentlemen, we're back for a beautiful episode, all about injuries prevention, all the things that musicians typically neglect, to say the least. I'll sit with my dear friend, megan Pomarenski, athletic therapist, spiritual gangster, yoga master. What else you got under that belt? Oh, backstreet Boys connoisseur for sure. That's number one, obviously. Welcome to the show, meg. How are you today? What has been the highlight?

Speaker 2: 1:30

The highlight of my day so far has been swinging a mace around this morning and getting a 25 minute warm up with you here.

Speaker 1: 1:39

Oh, yeah, right, Patience is the name of the game here today. Breathing we're good Breathing exercises. You got your mace in. I mean, I had a couple moments to just do my meditative walk up and down the hall. Try not to throw the thing off the balcony. We get it. Yeah, this is all very interesting actually, because these are some of the things that we experience in the studio all the time with tech. It's a frustration when those things bubble up. As a musician, speaking very, very candidly, that can trickle into other parts of my life. If I go and I'm frustrated and I go to the gym and I just try to get it out, sometimes I hurt myself in the gym. Then I come back and I get even more frustrated because that didn't work. Then I come back in here and then my poor dog does something. He looks at me the wrong way and I'm like ah, like, how does stress compound when you're working with athletes, musicians, creatives, any of the people that you work with? Do you start to see that? Is it more of a holistic thing than people even realize?

Speaker 2: 2:52

Absolutely One of the driving factors in pain that persists for a really long time, and especially those repetitive use type injuries where you've been doing the thing for so long already. Drumming's not new, swinging a mace isn't new. You're good, you're in your routine, you think you're doing all the right things from the physical side of it, and then injury happens or pain happens and we have these flare ups. It's like, well, nothing else changed. Your technique is still the same, your practice habits are the same, your schedule is in theory still the same, but then all of a sudden something just hits you out of nowhere. It is from somewhere and it's from stress, because your body doesn't know the difference. People, emotional, mental, any sort of stress, stress is stress, and then once those stress hormones start flying through your body, you're more sensitive to pain. Things come seemingly out of nowhere and then it takes you a lot longer to recover, all because your poor, cute little dog just wanted a hug or something.

Speaker 1: 3:55

Likely all it was. I just woke up, I know that that is a very common thing with musicians is that we're oftentimes under the gun for deadlines. We're working sometimes two or three jobs. How do we navigate that then? What is the first step? What's the first step to remedying that? If you start to notice injuries flare up? And then we'll get into what exactly is athletic therapy anyway. What does that mean for a musician?

Speaker 2: 4:27

Yeah, how can I even help you If you're first noticing these things start to pop up? The best thing to do, as simple as it is, is to pause and zoom out and see what's going on in the rest of your life, and that's if we're talking about those nagging injuries or the seemingly out of nowhere ones. There's a difference with the acute injury. If you're in the middle of something and something happens. That's where biomechanics likely matter, or your preparation. The rest of it is looking at stress management, looking at your recovery strategies and how you're taking care of yourself, as opposed to just the symptoms that are popping up, because injuries are going to happen when the load of something exceeds the capacity of what that part of your body can tolerate, whether it's the muscle, the bone, the tendon, whatever it exceeds the capacity. That's when injury happens, and load can be direct from repetitive strain. You're overloading that tissue, or it could be cognitive, mental load and the stress hormones and the emotional side of it kicking things up, and then you exceed your capacity and some sort of injury happens.

Speaker 1: 5:41

Yeah, and I think a lot of it comes down to a little bit of A, a little bit of B, because when a musician does come in, it's similar to people that play slow pitch or people that play recreational sports. They do it once a week at best and their warm up consists of a leg swing. Yeah, or a quick little one of these. You got the arms.

Speaker 2: 6:01

Yeah, I'm good.

Speaker 1: 6:03

And now I'm going to go sprint my ass to first base after not doing that for 25 years. Injuries happen like that, but musicians the same way, and especially when we think about a performance. I remember when I was working alongside a bunch of high profile bands, we were doing regular physical warm ups and even then it wasn't enough, because they were actually taking on so much other stress from like emotional, physiological areas of their life that they had just suppressed. And then performance anxiety brings it out and they start like all of this, all of this emotion comes up 10 minutes before they go on stage. Is there a relationship between like the suppression Does that store? I know there's lots of books out there. What are your thoughts on like how suppressing emotions could be stored in muscle tissue or in tendons or show up as injuries or show up as those weird things that you're talking about Like oh man, I've been doing the same thing. Could that be emotional stuff too?

Speaker 2: 7:09

Yeah, absolutely, because the emotional stuff that builds and builds and builds, that we're not letting out again, like your body is perceiving that as stress likely, whether it's something that's unsaid that you want to get out to somebody that you're holding on to, or the fear and the anxieties partly with injuries, perhaps taking away your livelihood of what you're going to do. And you got to push through because you need to pay the bills and everybody else's counting on you to get on stage and do the show or get on the field. You don't want to let yourself down, you don't want to let someone else down, and then that those hormones just build and build and build in your body and eventually your body's going to, something's going to give and if it's not the emotional release, it's likely going to be the physical release. Except it's funny that you say that because in this research study where they looked at I believe it was classical musicians, it was still musicians. So, compared to other classical musician students, compared to another group of students that were non-musicians and they were looking at who had more complaints in their physical body, like related to muscle, tendon injury, those kind of things, and within I believe it was 12 years, 90% of the musician students had something going on in their body, whereas it was 80% in the other group, so a 10% difference is fairly significant. The interest more interesting part about that, though, was when they looked at the mindset of it, and in the musician student group, there was a more negative perception about their condition, in the sense of like it is way more serious than what it truly was on that physical basis, or that it made them more scared, fearful, anxious compared to the other students who were injured. And yeah, I, this was not part of the study, but the conclusions point to that idea of okay, if this is your livelihood and your passion and something that you want to keep doing over and, over and over again, that canesia, phobia starts to come out, because now this is a threat to your identity if you're injured. And then how much more stress are we adding on just from the thought of that alone, because that's your everything, and now it's potentially gone because of an injury, and then that just perpetuates that cycle, though of now we're building more stress, we're getting more flirt up, we're getting more and more injured and spiraling ourselves downwards to the same thing happened in every gym I ever worked in.

Speaker 1: 9:53

It was I'm injured or I've got a insert here, injury, and I said it all the time. You know, that was my thing. I even called myself a band-aid Like. I actually identified as somebody who was habitually going to get injured. Guess what I lived that through the minute I stopped saying that, I stopped getting injuries. How crazy was that, I know right. So, yeah, there's a I'm sure there's a big fear out there and that I mean it's cool that we talk about it in your line of work with athletic therapy, because we're talking about injuries and the same thing. You know I'm such a stressed musician I've got no time All these things. As soon as we insert, I am blank. There you go. That's your identity and that's what you're going to. Your mind is going to look for ways to prove that right. Right, let's talk about athletic therapy. What is exactly athletic therapy? How does it compare to the other modalities out there? I know people listening to this they're like, okay, she does something with athletes. That doesn't even make sense to me. I'm not an athlete. Yes, musicians are, and we can talk about whoop and the stage performance category of activities and how radical that is. I'm sure we're going to get circled back to that. However, athletic therapy there's personal training, there's strength and conditioning. There's physiotherapy, there's in the states, physical therapy, there's osteotherapy, like there's so many different things. What is an athletic therapist and how do you differ from other athletic therapists and those other modalities?

Speaker 2: 11:32

Athletic therapy in Canada is a. It's a four year degree where you specialize in injuries to muscle, bone, nerve, disc concussion, head injuries, all of those things, and you're dialed in learning how to assess, manage. And the other cool part of that line of work is the prevention side of it, whereas a lot of these other types of modalities out there are very reactive and it's once you get hurt then you go see somebody, whereas we're trained to be on that frontline preventing, helping people manage, helping people recover and get ready for the things that they want to do in a very active way where you look at more of the whole person as opposed to just that symptom where they're coming in. And obviously there's going to be differences within each of those professions where the pendulum can swing either way of being reactive, proactive, being very hands on passive therapy care versus active. And that's partly where I've done a lot of research and focus and taken extra courses and things to really learn how to empower other people to take care of themselves instead of relying on me fixing them, because we're so fucking good at that as therapists is telling everybody what's wrong with them and how they need us and how you have to come see me two, three times a week and you better do this huge, long list of things to like realign everything, otherwise like something in your body is going to explode as soon as you get on stage or get on the field. And it just perpetuates that fear and stress. So, taking that more holistic approach where you're actually considering the human being in front of you and what is their entire lifestyle look like and that mindset and their nervous system and their fears and beliefs that go along with it, which and I fell through the cracks myself and the system on this part of things, where people focus so much on that injury and that surgery and they truly forget that there's a human being underneath or behind that injury. However you want to say it, and something that really, really change the game for me and what I mean by this is that concept of your thoughts and beliefs are what create your action and also your inaction. So if you believe you're broken, if you believe you're injured, if you believe that you need somebody else to fix you, you're going to be perpetuating and you're going to do less and less and less on your own. So my goal when somebody comes to see me in clinic, online, wherever we meet, is the action side of it, where they have tools to manage their symptoms on their own, to build up their capacity, to build up their resilience so that they can handle the physical demands of what they're doing, and also the cognitive, emotional side of it too.

Speaker 1: 14:33

I'm glad you say all that because that's something that I've been. It's good to hear other voices from other modalities in there, because it's one thing to hear it from myself, and everybody listens to this show. Typically, every single time is like yeah, your thoughts, like I love that question what's more powerful, your words or actions? And everybody is like so, like, oh, actions. I'm like well, what if I told you, yeah, those actions are. You know, they're typically dictated by your thoughts and your words. So like, the word is actually the root of your action. That said, if you keep on telling yourself, yeah, you're injured, yeah, you're a starving artist, yeah, you're broke, yeah, you don't have enough time, all of those things are true Guarantee. So then, when it comes to our therapy, it sounds like it's a much more practical application that you endorse. I sense a frustration with the rest of your, your industry. Do you mind jumping in there like what? Let's just cut to the chase. What's the stupidest shit that you're seeing out there right now? Mag?

Speaker 2: 15:41

There's Mike. That is, there's so much, and I think the crux of it is that majority of people are choosing to ignore best practice guidelines that are out there and that exists for managing injuries and pain, and my background is more in the chronic pain, repetitive use injury those side of it as opposed to the acute injury side of things right now.

Speaker 1: 16:10

Just just so we have a clear identity chronic pain versus chronic versus acute. Can we give like musician terms for that?

Speaker 2: 16:20

Yeah, if the standard definition is three months or more of pain that's persisting in the same area, same that's chronic, that's chronic. Acute is something fresh, like something, something happened. Now I feel this.

Speaker 1: 16:34

Yeah, it's not like my dog he's. He's a cutie too, but like yeah, the cutest. And that's more like an immediate try, like blunt force trauma type thing, like oh, I just, yeah my bicep, or you know, I just wailed the air guitar for too long and messed up my shoulder, like right then, and there is that, right.

Speaker 2: 16:54

Yeah, exactly, and then the chronic stuff can be that repetitive overuse that's built up, built up, build up and now we hit that capacity. Physical injury happens and oftentimes chronic pain can just come out of nowhere, without even a specific cause. Like non specific pain is a real thing where your back hurts and there is no pathological anatomical reason that caused it. It's there and that's where the mental, emotional, is going to say all of that stuff comes in.

Speaker 1: 17:25

What do you do when that happens? It sounds like you got some experience there.

Speaker 2: 17:28

Yeah, that's one of my favorites to deal with because that's where we get to go into the whole life world management part of things where you rule out all the bad things. So you know, 10 or 15% of back pain is actual coming from a disc or a joint or a muscle. The rest of the time it's what we call non specific. And when it is that non specific pain Like people think it's so complicated with chronic pain and they make so many rules and stupid like flow charts and protocols and checking all these things when really rule out the bad stuff, like make sure there's no fracture, infection, tumor, like literally the red flags, like gross neurological dysfunction. If that's all good, then figure out where the person is at. So run through some range of motion and strength, see what your current abilities are, match that to the goal of what it is. So maybe you want to be ready to go back on stage, go on tour. Maybe it's a football game, maybe it's your physical job or picking your kids up off the floor. Whatever it is, we're here, we want to go here now. It's literally just gradual progression of movement. Doesn't even have to be formal exercise movement. That gradual exposure, exposure will raise the capacity so you can then go do the thing that you want to do. So it's really simple, but yet everyone's scared of it and makes it into this whole big ridiculous thing when it's so fucking simple.

Speaker 1: 19:02

Yeah, well, wait, the shit that I see on Instagram. Sometimes it blows my mind because, like, I often find myself going into this like trap of like. I see these guys like here's five things that you can do to fix your, your tentative, and they're sitting here and they're just like they're doing. I remember doing therapy for that, when I was competing in long track and I'm like this is the stupidest thing. I would sit there and it would electrocute my arm and oh yeah. It would engage my, my, my, my quad or my glute, because my glute was. What did they say?

Speaker 2: 19:43

sleeping or it was off. Or amnesia, glute amnesia, yeah, oh, that's bad.

Speaker 1: 19:49

I know, yeah, my butt stopped thinking.

Speaker 2: 19:53

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 19:54

And I'm sitting here going like, well, wait a minute. Like I love when people use the term muscle memory, because I'm like wait a minute. That would imply the muscle has a brain, which is inaccurate. I mean, there's no such thing. Oh no, you know what I mean. No, I don't know what you mean, because anatomically that doesn't exist, and no, and when we think about it like what? Like think, think about it from a musician standpoint to because, like when I got up on on stage and on drums and stuff, I had these thoughts in my head from like therapy, like physical therapy and stuff like that, that I wasn't to do X, y and Z because it would perpetuate ABC, so I would hold back. And that's some of the stupidest shit that I've seen on on Instagram. And that's just my, my take on it. Like, what do you say to those people that are doing these? I would say conventional or archaic ways of Like Rice, like things like that, like resting with ice and compression and elevation and all these things. Was there ever a time where that was like effective? Is it effective still? I don't know, I'm lost. I'm lost. Help Meg. There's so much shit out there, like there is a musician, I've got to bust it up elbow. I'm not going to do anything because I'm looking at all these things and it's like decision overwhelm. I get so many different people telling me so many different things, I don't even know where to go.

Speaker 2: 21:20

For sure, and the first thing is to look at the source of where this information is coming from, because if it's on Instagram or tick tock, it's somebody who's trying to get clicks and likes as opposed to actually caring about you and helping you and the fact that somebody thinks that, like they literally put themselves on such a high pedestal that they can cure your pain without even having met you yet, is just so fucking bizarre to me, because that's just reducing everything to this checklist of what's supposed to happen. And, like in any situation where there's a real person and not a robot, where is everything going to go according to the textbook? I have never seen that happen like in any sort of injury, because sure, your knee hurts and I need to flex it to measure it, but like you can't lay down flat and the textbook says Measure their range of motion. Laying down, like what if you can't lie down because your back hurts or your pregnant or like whatever? Now, like your whole world like crumbles. So people just make up these generic Guidelines that are based on literally nothing and they're not going to help you because you're Treating the wrong thing more than likely and like you can try those exercises as much as you want, but if that exercise doesn't have the right parameters like sets, reps, load for your injury, it's not going to help you get better. If it hasn't been placed into a program that is actually looking at your whole well being, it's not going to help you because why would you be doing high intensity exercise if the rest of your life is already too chaotic? And we need to actually bring your nervous system down, to bring your pain responses down, so that you can actually get out of the state of inflammation In order to get better. Like these people on the Internet have no idea and they don't care Because it's getting a bunch of likes, so that's, first off, like the hugest disservice that could be done. So, number one go to somebody who's actually going to assess you and Take a look at your life and how this injury is affecting you and what your goals are, and if that conversation doesn't happen, then run to another clinic or call me, because then we can talk.

Speaker 1: 23:42

Yeah, thank you so much for going there. Because, like this brings up another thing, because I know a lot of people listening. They're like, yeah, that's really nice for the rich and famous. You know, I can't afford this. I can't afford this trainer, I can't afford this, that. The other thing For those of you who are in Canada go to unison benevolent fund, go get your free membership. They provide service. They've got service providers for insurance. So if you are a full time musician, you have complete group benefits. They've got some great, great coverage. So there are ways around these things. Plus, I just I have a really, really difficult time subscribing to this scarcity mindset that is in the musician industry. I think it's about damn time we change that. So what do you have to say about the people that are like well, yeah, but I do those things because it's free and that's what I can afford, and you know I. Because then we look at this imposter syndrome and the self worth of the, of the artist. It's the only industry where people will go on road and play for absolutely nothing, pay for $100 to get to the next damn town, that's it. It's like it's such a perpetual Defeating prophecy. So you have to say about, about folks like that. I'm sure you've seen it in the athletic because it's very similar. I'm sure people come in and be like whoa, what you cost what. Yeah where does that play?

Speaker 2: 25:02

That's where you have to look at them this moment and the big picture. Because how much time are you wasting on the internet trying things that are not working for you Verse going in to see somebody who can help you and give you that specific plan and Get you better, doing the things you want to do more efficiently and more effectively? Like this is If you are at a point where you're injured to the, where it's affecting your quality of life, it's affecting what you want to do. Like what is the actual cost of that? Because, for any sort of injury, if you are off work, if you are Having to go to the hospital, if you're having to get all sorts of medical procedures, other things done, because when you are off work, for a muscle, bone, joint, nerve injury out of your routine, doing things that can also cause a cascade of other problems to like heart, diabetes, blood pressure, all sorts of other things like. So how much money is going to be spent managing your life after that injury verse, investing that little bit up front? And, further to that, if a provider out there is trying to rope you into some crazy treatment plan where you have to be in the clinic two or three times a week and you have to be on their treatment table and they need, they need to do X, y, z and then watch you grab a friggin Thera band and two pound dumbbell and, like, do some of these like yeah that's, that's.

Speaker 1: 26:32

Like right, are we done. Like I've done enough things.

Speaker 2: 26:37

Like I like my no, I I'm good yeah right, like that is terrible rehab, whereas if you Maybe it's a little bit more expensive, maybe it's not depending on where you are are going to see someone who is going to give you a plan and who is going to give you that autonomy to get better, you're going to save so much money in the long run. Because, like talk about scarcity mindset and the therapy side of things where, like, oh my god, I need you and I need your money and I need you to pay me a buck's a session three times a week so that I can literally watch you do an exercise that you are more than capable of doing on your own. Because, unless we're talking like very traumatic injury or Potentially an early like post op surgical situation, there is no need like need to be in the clinic. That frequently want is a different story and sometimes that support can be really, really helpful from the dealing with some of the fears and beliefs or that social connection, part of it and just that mindset. Or if you don't have the ability at home to do some exercises Because not everybody has access to weights, gym equipment, sure then it's reasonable to come in. That should be a conversation with the therapist, though it shouldn't be me telling you what to do. It's hey, this is what needs to happen over the next couple weeks. What's the best way that's gonna be the most helpful for you to get that done? Is it me sending you some videos and getting you set up with exercise equipment at home so you can load the tissue yourself and do the things? And here's your recovery strategy. Or would you like some extra support and come in to do that? And the key is that it has to be the conversation and both people agreeing verse me being like you need me and I'm gonna fix you.

Speaker 1: 28:27

Yeah, that's a very, that's always a red play for me when you come to me and says, yeah, well, the doctor told me to be doing this, that, the other thing and taking this thing. They need to do this for the rest of my life. And I'm sitting there, going like go find a doctor, and then it's the same. It's just the same thing in the spiritual world, personal development, or in the holistic health care world. It's just a different dose. Now it's just like oh, you need to see me because I'm, I've got the, I'm the gatekeeper to all these things. Now here's the cool thing that I think most musicians will resonate with it. We're a little bit punk rock. We're like now, that's one. I don't have the ability to do that, both financially or time investment wise, because, like, if I need to be in a clinic in, say, calgary three times a week, but I'm a touring musician, that's just not gonna work. So, what, what kind of things do you do to accommodate? Because I know you've worked with a bunch of people in my circle and athletes who tour for, for sporting events and things. So for the musician out there who's like nursing a bit of a bummed wrist or something like that and they're. They want to get back on the road, but they really Are unable to stop performing. What do you suggest with those people coming back to, like the first thing, like what do I do if I got something that's just coming up? Is there a way to manage that and still keep on with the livelihood of being a musician?

Speaker 2: 29:47

Most of the time I would. I would say yes, like there's always that caveat of, once in a while, the one in a million. Sometimes rest is needed. There are often times Ways to manage all of it, though. Perhaps it's using a brace or tape for a little bit if we need to, or doing you know, hot, cold contrast before and after, and looking truly sometimes just at the importance of the event, like this is common in the sports world to like and one athlete at 80% might still be better than somebody else at their hundred percent, or is this a regular season game or is this playoff? And that's where it's risk, worse reward. And again, as long as the musician knows that there's a little bit of risk, cool, you can choose to take that on or not. And then Make sure you have a program of something that is specific to you, of how to stretch, when to stretch, understanding the different types of symptoms, like, is something tight or is it painful? Because those are very different things. And are we deal? Ooh, there's balloons, yeah, balloons there.

Speaker 1: 30:57

That was nice, that was cute. Whoa Balloons with Meg we're celebrating For everybody.

Speaker 2: 31:01

you watch in the home game.

Speaker 1: 31:03

That's a lot. Well, it's hard. You were saying before the party started, Celebrating being able to do.

Speaker 2: 31:10

It's a celebration. Yes, because you can do more than you think you can do.

Speaker 1: 31:19

It's a pattern to scratch. You were saying, though, it's like yeah, because here's the other thing, like how do we know? How do Like, when you hear somebody coming in that's not managing anything, and they like, I'm sure you get this all the time on an intake, how like? The question is like something along the lines of how long you've been experiencing this pain.

Speaker 2: 31:39

Yep.

Speaker 1: 31:40

And what is that type of pain? And they're like, oh, like, they just like they have no idea, like either you're not, or how many times, like you're having a consultation and they fill out like list all your injuries and then in that consultation, but oh yeah, and this, oh yeah, and this, oh yeah, and this. Is that just human negligence? Is that just like we don't remember all of these things Like, is it just like we've suppressed them? How do we manage what we're not tracking?

Speaker 2: 32:08

You don't. And that goes for lifestyle and the specific like injury rehab parameters, with we're talking progressing exercises and stuff, and I do think some of it is suppression and some of it is intentional numbing because that is so calm and the amount of people I see who come into the clinic, who they don't really know how long they've been experiencing this pain, because they deal with it with booze or Advil or just high intensity exercise or distracting themselves, dealing with family work.

Speaker 1: 32:47

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 32:48

Yard like, whatever it is so they can't really either. Yeah, they can't pinpoint what's actually going on and that's a choice to ignore. And then sometimes I think it is not necessarily unintentional, but just that lack of understanding of how things are connected, because majority of people think, oh, elbow injury and that's it, and they don't see the connection to the shoulder, to the back, to the neck, to what you're doing outside of that sport or whatever it is that got you hurt and that's just. They genuinely don't know. Until we have that conversation.

Speaker 1: 33:32

Yeah, I saw the same thing. I feel this is a good time to talk about who. I mean. I saw the same thing when I had musicians coming that would be chronically tired. They would be experiencing over strain, what seemed like over strain injuries, but they didn't know how long it's been going on. I'm like, well, I can't tell you for sure if this was just you know, you riffing too hard or, if you like, actually have been doing this for 15 years the incorrect way. Postural stuff was very common and it affected multiple areas of their life. They wake up unrested and they would then go out and play till three. They would generally have at least two, three drinks each night, so all of these things. But they had no idea. I'm like, well, so if I'm going through an intake and I'm asking these types of questions, they would have probably somewhere. I'm like very inconsistent, inaccurate answers. And that led me to whoop, where I found a wearable that measures the important metrics right. You know it, you're in the group as well. You're the 100%, 100% right. Here. Guys, ladies and gentlemen, I've got to give a big round of applause to my friend, megan Pomeransky, 100% sleep performer On whoop, and you're part of the music fit collective and I approached whoop to say, hey guys, like every time I go and play drums, I check and it auto calculates that I'm in an activity of, like, high intensity cycling. We have a conversation about musicians as athletes and they were very, very and that was back in 2021. Yeah, late 2020, where I saw a big. I saw it. I'm like, wow, if that's what I'm doing, I can only imagine somebody who's playing on the road on tour for three months at a time, because I saw the effects of, like you were talking about those distractions. I was there for sure I would distract myself in work. I would distract myself in. It was part of the job to drink. That was part and also part of my identity being half German, because, of course, that makes a lot of sense, right, and we give ourselves permission. And what I was doing is I blanketing all the actual you know the pain, the injury, like physically, and the trauma hadn't hadn't healed from, from emotional stuff, relationships growing up. You know just the things that I've suppressed. And as soon as I started to see that effect on the on the loop scores, I was shocked. It was wild Talk about your experience, like when, when you go through and you know you've had like a rough night or you've had an emotional dump from taking on a ton of different clients because of emotional stress, to what are the effects of stress showing up in in your loop metrics? Because that's how you measure as well, right, and that's that's how we can actually, if we're tracking it, then we can do things to correct those, those lifestyle things and try to get back on to the right path.

Speaker 2: 36:35

Mm, hmm, I really like the side of it because of how it takes that big picture from like weekly and monthly trends to because something that is so undervalued is that cumulative buildup of the stresses. It's like, oh, I had a, I just drank last night or I had a bad day yesterday, so it makes sense why that I got a red today, like a lot of people can wrap their heads around that. But that cumulative like sleep debt building up or the HRV gradually going down, or resting heart rate going up, and when you look at that big picture then you see like, oh, now this consistency of reds and yellows is making sense to me because I can see that whole pattern, as opposed to just trying to cherry pick certain things, which is likely. Just it's easy to blame something.

Speaker 1: 37:29

I was gonna say well, here's the thing. And we come back to this Instagram. It's immediate gratification. Yeah, the immediate oh, if I do this, then this will happen. Well, I mean, you don't, you don't know the all of the ins and outs that are going in behind the scenes. We see the outcome, like Instagram shows us highlight reels, right, and when we see that we don't know how much work it took for building that business, or to overcoming that injury, or to X, y, z insert here. But our, our focus is I love this is the overall arching messages that we're so focused on short term, immediate gratification or results In society right now. What, what it sounds like you're advocating for, especially with long like getting your body back into shape, both mentally, emotionally and also physically, it's much more of a long game. Would that be accurate?

Speaker 2: 38:23

Absolutely. I think, like Instagram, is terrible for making people think that one exercise or one week of a couple mobility drills is going to completely heal you and you're going to be strong and able to go back and do the things that you want to do, when a lot of the times you can see a quick result and that's just going to be that nervous system response. Quickly, like you, you gave your body some other input through mobility exercise, through meditation, through the electrode pads, brought your pain down for a little bit. So you have this window of opportunity now to go do things and nobody talks about what you're doing after that, like, how are you actually building up your muscle tissue? Because this is just science now. Really you cannot build muscle in three days, in a week. The pain can absolutely change that quickly. But now you just freed up all this movement. You've got access to this range of motion that you never had because your shoulder was so stiff from that rotator cuff tendonitis and then you free it up. You can get up here. If you haven't strengthened your body in that range, you're just going to get hurt again and that takes at least six weeks, like we're talking three to six months if we're actually trying to change the quality of muscle tissue and then if we're talking ligaments, joint capsules, more of the the other connected tissue stuff. That's like six to 12 months minimum.

Speaker 1: 39:55

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 39:56

But you get that quick dopamine hit from like oh yay. One exercise made me feel great. We still got a strength train, and that's where the lifestyle side of it comes in, and treating the person as opposed to treating the symptom, because I could fix so many symptoms so fast.

Speaker 1: 40:15

Oh, you'd have a million likes on all of your posts.

Speaker 2: 40:18

Yeah, and it would be great and people would feel amazing for a day, and then the next day they're going to be back in that same situation because they didn't do anything themselves to use that range of motion, to start to strengthen that range of motion or to teach their nervous system to adapt. So they just keep going in circles and don't realize. Okay, this is going to take time and that it's frustrating for people like I. I get it. It is hard to hear. This is going to take nine to 12 months for your tendonitis to truly get stronger and more resilient. Yeah, and that's also a good reflection of my priorities then too.

Speaker 1: 41:02

Yeah, I've got to give you a shout out, though, because exactly what you're talking about, you walk. Exactly what you're talking, because I came to you after I tweaked my shoulder in Australia while, I was down there in an overhead position. I forget if it was a snatch, it might have been a wider, it might have been a clean jerk. Where I was up in here, yeah, the first time I had Olympic lifted with a serious, more than pattern weight still probably about 70% of my max at that point, but it was funny for a good three weeks. And then I remember being in the gym and I was just like, hey, what kind of things can I be doing? What do you think? Just the assessment. And you gave me the unfortunate news that I'm like, yeah, I'm probably not going to be able to be able to do those things for a little while. And I listened to your advice. I built up the supporting actors in the shoulder capsule, did a bunch more range of motion work and even today in my lift today I was front press and overhead stuff that I was barely barely even getting into a rack position at that point. That's how messed up my strength was. So it goes to show like, absolutely, listen to Meg guys, because I had this like athlete mentality, I was like, oh, but I was an Olympic lifter. Yeah, that was like frigging a year and a half ago, before I had actually touched a bar but we get stuck in that thing and the same thing as a performer, you know when you don't it happened over COVID people. There's a longevity to it and there's a certain training regimen to getting back into tour mode or into studio mode. And I know it sounds ridiculous, but you got to build those reps up slowly and progressively, like you're saying. Otherwise you'll start to tweak things, because if you're playing and singing, if you're singing every single day and you're out talking to people at the club as well, you're straining muscles that haven't been used for so long.

Speaker 2: 43:02

For sure. The progress yeah, the progressive part is the key and the overloading part, like if your rehab and training is less intense than the activities that you want to do, whether it's music, sports performance, building a deck, like whatever it is. I don't know why that one.

Speaker 1: 43:23

Building in the deck guys.

Speaker 2: 43:25

I don't know where that one came from.

Speaker 1: 43:29

Everybody's going to go out. I think I get the message. I got to go build a deck, all right, okay, we're having actually wanted to go under the radar. Contractors.

Speaker 2: 43:47

Okay, weekend warriors, If your rehab and training is less intense than the thing that you want to do, you're being set up to fail. Because that's coming back to where we were at the beginning is injury happens when load exceeds capacity and you have to gradually progress. That means getting away from TheraBands and five pound dumbbells and glute bridges and bird dogs and like little wrist curls for your forearm strength, because that is so far from what everybody does in day to day life. If all you're doing is three sets of 10 because that's our standard right from personal training rehab, we're going to do three sets of 10 of these exercises, that's average.

Speaker 1: 44:39

It's magic, magic training, yeah, it's magic.

Speaker 2: 44:42

If you can do all of that, then you can go play a show for two hours. You can play a full football game. You can build the whole fucking deck, like whatever it is.

Speaker 1: 44:52

You can build the deck now, guys.

Speaker 2: 44:53

Yeah, that's. All it took was three sets of 10 of a little dinky TheraBand.

Speaker 1: 45:02

So it's wild? No, it's just reasonable expectation, is what I'm hearing.

Speaker 2: 45:06

Yeah, it's just like guys. 100%.

Speaker 1: 45:09

You've got to take care of your body. It starts with looking at like I, like working backwards and being like. This is our goal here and now. We need to do all these things in sequence, with a reasonable timeframe, otherwise you're much more susceptible to injury, fatigue, anxiety, all of the things that you're experiencing, which I mean. It could be just a simple get out of this immediate gratification pause. Take a look. It means you know most of the challenge I have, though, is most people don't want it that way.

Speaker 2: 45:45

Mm-hmm, Because it's harder. It means they have to own it, and I talk like five years ago I was there. I get it Like I was the injured dancer who got to use that to get out of doing a ton of things that I didn't want to do or to get attention in other places, and that's why the statistics are the way they are, though is like 70, 70% of musicians have some sort of. I think there's. Actually there was one stage where they looked at just drummers in particular, and it was still something ridiculous of 65% experienced pain and injury within 12 months, and, like Easy, easy.

Speaker 1: 46:28

I'm shocked.

Speaker 2: 46:28

It's easy. It's easy and it doesn't have to be that way.

Speaker 1: 46:33

No, but that's again that.

Speaker 2: 46:36

It's the normal is common.

Speaker 1: 46:37

Yeah, exactly, it's like that's what's. No, that is not healthy. That's like the same thing as the blood pressure going up like five blips every 10 years or so. It's like, oh, what's normal is now 145, over 87. I'm like, wow, that would have been like you're on your deathbed 10 years ago, 15 years ago, right, so it's the same thing. Yeah, I run into a lot of drummers that are experiencing chronic, chronic like back pain, hips, elbows, wrists, and they just keep going. I'm like, yeah, you ever think about like fixing that?

Speaker 2: 47:14

Oh.

Speaker 1: 47:14

I don't have no time for that.

Speaker 2: 47:16

What. It's a badge of honor.

Speaker 1: 47:19

It is. It's weird, it's a it's a victim mentality, it's just. It's weird that I just have no time for it anyway.

Speaker 2: 47:27

Anyway, either.

Speaker 1: 47:28

You know what, instead of going down that rabbit hole, let's make things fun, because a lot of people don't know that you're actually a musical connoisseur too, in a very, very niche market much more than me and I wanted to play a little game if you were up for it. I call it. Finish the lyric. Okay, now we all know. We all know your favorite band, and if we don't, we will, because Backstreet Boys is God to you, right? Like you, you worship the BSB.

Speaker 2: 48:00

Only second to Clay Aiken. Yes.

Speaker 1: 48:05

Okay, as far as bands go, I would consider them a-.

Speaker 2: 48:08

Oh, yeah, number one, number one yeah.

Speaker 1: 48:12

I love them so much. Next time, when we have you back, we'll do a Clay Aiken thing. Okay, I couldn't bring myself to do that.

Speaker 2: 48:19

I'm not coming back, am I Probably not?

Speaker 1: 48:25

So I'm going to read you a line and you're such a connoisseur, I'm sure you're going to be able to finish the lyric Okay.

Speaker 2: 48:31

Okay.

Speaker 1: 48:32

You ready.

Speaker 2: 48:33

Yes.

Speaker 1: 48:34

I don't care who you are, where you're from, what you did as long as-.

Speaker 2: 48:40

You love me.

Speaker 1: 48:41

Cool. What's the name of that song?

Speaker 2: 48:43

As long as you love me.

Speaker 1: 48:45

By the-.

Speaker 2: 48:46

Backstreet Boys and I believe and I'm so warm yeah. I believe Well we gotta-, we gotta work our way up.

Speaker 1: 48:54

Sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 2: 48:56

No, as I said, that's my favorite song that AJ sings.

Speaker 1: 49:00

Wow, okay, I didn't know that. That was incredible Okay.

Speaker 2: 49:03

I thought you should know We'll crank it up.

Speaker 1: 49:05

Yeah, let's crank it up a little bit here. Okay, am I original? Yeah, am I the only one? Yeah, am I sexual? Yeah, am I.

Speaker 2: 49:17

Am I everything you done-a-done-a-done-a-done-a? Oh gosh.

Speaker 1: 49:22

Oh, I might've got her.

Speaker 2: 49:25

You better rock your body now.

Speaker 1: 49:28

Am I you better rock your body now, Is that no?

Speaker 2: 49:31

no, am I original? Am I sexual? Am I everything you are? Am I everything you want? Am I everything you are?

Speaker 1: 49:40

Yeah, Well, well, well, we'll give her that was a close one, but we'll give it to you. We're gonna have to fact check that later though.

Speaker 2: 49:52

It wasn't a sappy love song, so it caught me.

Speaker 1: 49:56

We'll give you one more here. People have tuned out now that they're like, oh god, all right, you're my sunshine after the rain, you're the cure against my fear.

Speaker 2: 50:06

And oh, that must be a newer Backstreet Boy song.

Speaker 1: 50:12

A newer Backstreet Boy. You guys are 50 years old. There's no newer Backstreet Men, Backstreet Grandpa's. You need to be working with them in the Catholic therapy. They need to work on it.

Speaker 2: 50:28

It was sad At the last concert I went to, they had to take a break to sit on stools because from the choreography To show.

Speaker 1: 50:37

Out of shape Goes to show. Okay. Well, here we'll go a different direction, though, because I stumped you. Finally, this is great.

Speaker 2: 50:44

Was that an instinct song?

Speaker 1: 50:46

No, it was not. Just listen to the rhyme. It's gotta be pain from your fear and from your pain.

Speaker 2: 50:55

I seriously don't even know.

Speaker 1: 50:56

I don't know either because I just found these things and I'm just like I feel terrible now. Okay, anyways, can you tell me when?

Speaker 2: 51:03

This is a threat to my identity.

Speaker 1: 51:05

The Backstreet- Boy, you can redeem yourself when and where were the Backstreet Boys formed.

Speaker 2: 51:12

I believe it was Orlando.

Speaker 1: 51:14

Yep.

Speaker 2: 51:16

And I want to say 1993.

Speaker 1: 51:21

Whoa holy moly. Ladies and gentlemen, Answer the bonus Name. All the original members.

Speaker 2: 51:33

Kevin Richardson.

Speaker 1: 51:35

Yep.

Speaker 2: 51:35

Brian LaTrell.

Speaker 1: 51:37

Yep.

Speaker 2: 51:38

AJ McClain. Yep, howie, duro, doro, yeah, doro and Nick Carter, doro and Nick Carter.

Speaker 1: 51:46

Ladies and gentlemen, she's back in business, woo. Good job, mike. Thank you Fantastic. Yeah, you nailed it.

Speaker 2: 51:55

That's talent.

Speaker 1: 51:56

Redeemed yourself. Yeah, so I mean, it's something. It's definitely something as we ran this thing hey guys, just ignore that. I want to know what is the one thing you know because, like, we've spent a majority of the time on overuse and injuries what is the one thing? If somebody's out there listening and they've got a physical injury going on, what is the one thing? They got to stop, drop, drop and roll. What is that fire for them? What do they need to do right now?

Speaker 2: 52:33

Pause and listen to their body.

Speaker 1: 52:36

That is great information. What is that going to do? Because, like, we're just, we're programmed to just keep on going. We're machines, what? What's going to happen if they don't?

Speaker 2: 52:47

Machines eventually break, wear out something. Something is going to give, and I say listening to yourself, into what your body is telling you. Like is this something that is okay to push through, work through, or if there was no other influences going on in my life right now, would I ask for some support and guidance on this and then do that.

Speaker 1: 53:12

Yeah, and I'm glad you raised that up because I want to talk about what you can offer as well, because I've had incredible results working with you To get my body back up from a lot of the stuff is a combination of weightlifting, sport related, pushing myself, poor Rest at times. When I'm in tour, motor, I'm in a season of studio work, I notice all of this compounded stress and then I go and practice drums for three hours sometimes. So it is. It is a an accumulation. What kind of things do you offer folks? Do they need to be? Because you're based in Winnipeg and I know not everybody is in Winnipeg. That is the central hub, though, across Canada when you're touring. You've got you got Megan in the Winnipeg, all right, you got Winnipeg out there, mm-hmm. For those of us who aren't touring through the booming metropolis of Winnipeg, manitoba, what kind of things can you? What kind of things can you offer? What kind of things Do you have for for folks that may be experiencing and may have really connected with, with what you've got going on in your philosophy, in training?

Speaker 2: 54:27

Yeah, everything that I do in person can be done online. So, whether that is one-on-one support through the more formal athletic therapy realm of things, or we can Work together again in that one-on-one setting with a customized training program that includes physical, mental, meditation, yoga, breath work, all that fun stuff and I also offer a subscription based online purely online yoga mobility Amazingness that you can do to get your body feeling good, whether you want to calm down, chill out, or whether you want to expand and strengthen your range of motion. For all those weird, crazy backflip kicks on stage.

Speaker 1: 55:14

I Got you back flips, hi kicks, she's got you covered.

Speaker 2: 55:19

I got you this.

Speaker 1: 55:21

This is another interesting thing I'd love for you to talk about. How have you introduced music like? Is music an important part, aside from the bachelor boys and clay you can? Is music an important part of both your own personal life or in your, in your practice, in your protocols, in anything that you do? Do you have anything that that you can share Regarding music and its impact on your life?

Speaker 2: 55:48

Music changed my life in so many ways, from the boy band concerts and to getting my nervous system and body in check and Controlled in my control of things because of the power of the frequencies that music is tuned to and how that can ramp up a lot of stress in the body or it can help calm things down and Get your resting heart rate from a hundred to 70, like mine.

Speaker 1: 56:23

I was gonna say and You're also an ambassador and affiliate with with listening to smile Do you have your, what's your? What's your coupon code? We'll throw it into the show for you. Empowerment, empowering empowerment.

Speaker 2: 56:37

That'll get you 30% off at checkout on. I for sure recommend the pain relief and the trauma album and the movement meditation. One is a great one to pair with the mobility and yoga classes that we do and even Just your own movement like one-on-one practice. Pairing that for recovery and for training to do the things has Got like I have. This is the best I felt in a long time, thanks to, thanks to music.

Speaker 1: 57:09

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's wildly impressive and I want, I want more, more educators out there to really understand the power of the music because it can really help, like if you're, if you're another Wellness practitioner out there, if you're an artist on the road, instead of just listening to Podcasts on the tour dates and things like that, yeah, put some down Regulatory, like no words music. If you're experiencing injury, try these Hokey-pokey little magic fixes called music, because it can help you change your DNA, which is essentially what's going on in those Megan was talking about, like muscular imbalance and Stress hormones going in and changing the shape of that muscle. Well, what if? What if music and vibration could help reverse that or at least navigate?

Speaker 2: 58:00

Yeah, plays a big role.

Speaker 1: 58:01

Perfect, cool. Well, we'll make sure we drop in your link in there, megan. Thank you so so much for your time here today. It's definitely part two. I see that we'll return with more on that music and how it really does Help you in your practice and how do you like to utilize it. I'd love to have a second conversation on that For today. To finish things off, what is the one thing that you would recommend to a musician looking to unleash that in a rockstar?

Speaker 2: 58:33

To unleash the rockstar, besides listening to Backstreet Boys, the Besides that, the the best thing you can do is to take control of your own health and wellness and mindset, and that's gonna take you so much further than anything anybody else can give you or do for you, or do for you.

Speaker 1: 58:59

Thank you so much for your time, space and energy. I look forward to.