Podcast Episode 17: The Recreational Athlete

Welcome to our 17th episode of True Health Solutions Podcast with Dr. Lonnie Bagwell and Brigitte Spurgeon.

If you’re a recreational athlete, join our conversation about mindset, fuel, recovery, and frame. We feel it’s important to support your active lifestyle and big goals. We believe in you and want you to WIN in life!

 Dr. Lonnie Bagwell, DC (00:00):
All I can say is spinal biomechanics. Like, that's all I got, right? That's, that's, that's all I got left. And sure enough, he said, um, when he, he ended it early and he said, nobody got it right. The answer is spinal mobility. Welcome to the True Health Solutions Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Lonnie Bagwell, stress, inflammation and functional health clinician,

Briggite Spurgeon (00:18):
And I'm your co-host Brigitte Spurgeon Metabolism and nutrition expert.

Dr. Lonnie Bagwell, DC (00:23):
This podcast is where we bring hope, truth, and inspiration for your holistic health journey,

Briggite Spurgeon (00:27):
Because the world needs the best version of you.

Dr. Lonnie Bagwell, DC (00:32):
Hello and welcome to True Health Solutions podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Lonnie Bagwell, along with my co-host

Briggite Spurgeon (00:38):
Brigitte Spurgeon.

Dr. Lonnie Bagwell, DC (00:39):
The Brigitte Spurgeon. And so we're here today to talk about something that's near and dear to both of our hearts, uh, and, uh, and that we deal with and work with patients on, on a, um, on a day in, day out basis. Invariably, uh, today we're gonna talk about, uh, athlete support, but not just elite athlete, which we both have experience actually either, either playing or competing at a higher level and working with people at a higher level. But this is really for all athletes. And it's funny, I just started playing pickle ball, um, which I thought, you know, <laugh> know it's funny. Uh, litter admission for years, I had patients come in, they were always older patients, and they'd say, You gotta try pickle ball. And I was like, Yeah, okay, that sounds good. I'm gonna go CrossFit now, or whatever, right? You know?

(01:20):
And, uh, and now that I'm actually doing it, um, I don't feel old doing it because it is awesome. And it's actually, you, actually, it requires a degree of athleticism. Anybody could do it. So it could be anybody. Um, but of course, me and my 17 year old are going at it pretty heavy. And, and, uh, and anyway, so I'll be sharing probably some of those stories. But at the end of the day, it's for everybody. It's for the pickle baller, it's for the, uh, elite endurance athlete. Uh, some of this is gonna be basic. Some of this is gonna be advanced, but that's what we're talking about today. How do you, now that we've got you active, how do we help you recover well and stay healthy and be active for the years and decades to come? Right?

Briggite Spurgeon (01:56):
Yes. That's what we're gonna talk about. And I think this is so important, Uh, especially talking to the recreational athlete, which this population has grown to tremendously over the last couple of decades. You look at the size of marathons and triathlons and even Ironman around the world. And so we are seeing the surgeons of these middle aged or even retirement age athletes, and I love it. It's exciting. I'm one of those people. And it just, you know, the excitement and the motivation and the, uh, what it takes for performance, like spills over into the rest of my life. So I'm a big, big fan, but the problem that I've noticed working with these athletes, uh, clinically is, and, and just coaching, is that there is a discrepancy in the data that's out there because the data is e for example, nutrition research is done on college aged male athletes. Um, and so then that doesn't apply to a 40 or 50 year old woman training for a marathon, or it's done with elite athletes, which that nutrition doesn't apply to an overweight athlete for, for example. So, um, I'm excited about this topic today.

Dr. Lonnie Bagwell, DC (03:08):
Yeah, right on. Me too. Me too. And it's, and, and it, it's always nice when it's something that you're, you're living and fighting for in your own life consistently too. And that's kind of a little bit more my story. And I have some recent things that I've done and, and had to put these things, uh, that we're gonna talk about today, these solutions, uh, right into, uh, into practice. And so, as always, we break things down into multiple categories, and we always start with, we're gonna talk today about mindset as we're always gonna talk about mindset. Uh, we're gonna lead with that. We're gonna talk about, uh, your biochemistry, how you fuel your body and your physiology, uh, for both, uh, for for baseline health, for recovery, and for function. And then we're gonna talk about, uh, your body. We're gonna talk about your body and structure and how that dictates function.

(03:50):
Um, and ultimately, uh, i, I guarantee that if someone listens to this and they implement it and just work towards it over time, uh, over the next years to decades, they will experience less injuries, no doubt about it. And if they do tweak something, they're gonna recover faster. So, um, and some people might be listening, be like, I don't even do athletics, but I feel like my life, uh, you know, is, is athletic, like my, is demanding on me like I was an athlete. Uh, and so this would work for you too. So starting off with mindset, uh, Bridget, go ahead. And we were talking, uh, pre-show, um, about this. I love some of your perspective on mindset when it go, when it comes to this, uh, recreational athlete thing. So go ahead and, and hit everybody with a couple of your top, uh, shifts in mindset as it pertains to this.

Briggite Spurgeon (04:31):
Yeah, absolutely. And I'll start off by saying, and this is just, you know, the Ironman slogan is anything as possible. And just to start off, knowing that you can do hard things and you can accomplish big goals, but as you, um, you know, start the journey of being an athlete, becoming an athlete, participating on a recreational sports team or signing up for a race is understand that you are worth prioritizing yourself and your body. That focus is so important. And it's not just about the hours that you put into your workouts or training or the racing, It's about the work that you put around it. So prioritizing your nutrition, what goes in your body, prioritizing the therapies that your body needs and prioritizing the recovery. So basically prioritize and focus and make that consistent. Because once again, I used the words earlier, becoming an athlete or being an athlete, it becomes a part of who you are. And so you act out of that on a daily basis. <affirmative>, it's part of who you are.

Dr. Lonnie Bagwell, DC (05:40):
That's so good. And, uh, I love that as the foundation, uh, just shifted that mindset of who you are, perfect. That that'll preach and, uh, and applies a lot of different areas. And then we talked about, uh, we both have this shared, like our, our mindset, like kind of priority for this mindset where, uh, talk, talk a little bit more about, um, a recovery focus or, you know, a recovery, uh, approach, I guess to being an athlete.

Briggite Spurgeon (06:08):
Sure, absolutely. That is so important, especially, you know, coming from probably when you and I were younger, I, I know you, you competed, um, in high level sports, right? You were, um, mm-hmm. Division one football player, uh, you know, college level athlete. And there was this mindset of like, train hard every day, like give a all every day. And we are really in this era now of realizing how important our sleep and I'll rest and our recovery and medicating our, our stress levels, and then even just at a biochemical level of, um, bringing our body back into homeostasis. And so as we focus on ourselves, I know I just noticed in myself like training for, um, ultra-marathons or training for Ironman. Literally my daily and my weekly focus was, um, am I getting the right amount of sleep every night? How are my stress levels day to day? How am I feeling after my work at is continual self assessment to make sure mm-hmm. That I am coming from a place of rest versus just burning myself out every day.

Dr. Lonnie Bagwell, DC (07:20):
High awareness, focus, you know, a lot of things that, that are common themes when we talk about mindset with any of these topics. But definitely, um, it, it that critical and having a recovery focus, like working from a place of rest, you know, for getting biblical about it, um, is so important across the board. And I remember, um, looking into this when I was teaching stress workshops in corporate America, and I would, I would compare their general life to an NFL athlete. So I did a bunch of research on what they're doing. And it turns out that, that the, a big difference between a rookie coming into the league and someone who's been around for a while is that the, the, there might be like a performance focus where it's like, you know, I was saying before, like, you know, you gotta, you know, go all in and, and beast out.

(08:05):
And, you know, that's kind of the initial focus. I gotta earn my way and make a splash and all that stuff. And of course, we need to complete the task at hand, but those that, that make it, and they make it with, with less injuries and they have longer careers, it's because somewhere they realized I better start giving more time, energy, effort and focus to recovery. And so, um, and so even for the, the, the, like what I call it the corporate athlete, right? Just the high stress corporate job out there. They're, they're, they're going through, people in li in life in general are going through so much stress on a daily basis. Um, I equate it to that NFL player. They might go through two hours of working out in the gym and three hours of practice, that's five hours a day. But they'll also go through at least five hours of recovery.

(08:48):
They'll be in the training room, they'll be in ice baths, Uh, they'll be, you know, getting extra sleep. They buy all kinds of gadgets and, and gizmos, right? And they're doing all this. And so there's a proportionality to it that we, that is completely lost on us as a society. We have no focus on recovery. We don't eat clean, we don't exercise, we don't sleep well, We don't right yet. We're having high, we're having ano the, at least the amount of stress that a professional athlete has on their body, on our body on a daily basis, right? Because all the stressors we're encountering, yet they have a recovery lifestyle and are doing crazy amazing performance things. And like, we complain, we can't get outta bed in the morning. Right? Or we get short with our kids or we, you know, whatever. So that's the general idea of it.

(09:28):
And so this, uh, but this idea of a recovery focus is so critical, uh, and it's actually become part of, uh, of true health center. It's actually part of the theme of what we're teaching and what we're getting everybody to think about. Um, and really I think that, and what helps that is my other favorite thing to talk about with mindset when it comes to recreational athletes, which is managing expectations and knowing your limits. Uh, and, and this is important to me, and I talk to people about it every day in the office. And one way or another, because it's a failure of mine, is something that I failed at, uh, pretty bad for, for a long time. And it kept me injured. And so, um, you know, I'm, I'm not 21 anymore. I know, I know it looks like I am when you're watching the video, but anyway, I'm not 21 anymore.

(10:08):
And so, and, and I would go into these gyms and I, you know, I'd have friends that are younger than me and they're all excited and, you know, they're doing burpees until they pass out and all this stuff. And you know what? Like, I've been in major car accidents, I have old injuries, you know, um, I have things that honestly, that are surgical, that I've been avoiding surgery for more than almost coming up on two decades now, which is amazing. I've been able to do that. But I have to remind myself that because of that, I can't do the things that I used to do or that they're doing. And so the hardest person to, to, for me to say no to is me. And so I've had to learn and just say like, and, and that starts before the activity always. You can never try to make that decision in the middle of the moment, right?

(10:50):
You have to have that plan ahead of time. Um, and even just recently, uh, you know, something as simple as playing golf, but it was 97 degrees outside. So I was excited to get back out and play golf for the first time in a while. And it was 97 degrees. And, uh, and I, and I, it was hot. I knew I'm a big dude going out play golf for the first time. I know I'm probably gonna end up hitting three rounds worth of balls instead of one round, cuz I'm terrible. Um, and so it was gonna be more tiring. So I, I really hydrated ahead of time. And then by the time we got to the 16th hole, uh, my hat that was soaked was actually dry. I mean, I soaked through my hat for most of the round and I showed my buddy that was golfing with, and I said, I ca I like, I'm so dehydrated right now that I quit sweating and my hat has even dried from the heat off my body and the sun, right?

(11:34):
And so I actually stopped the activity, I stopped, that was it. And I, and I just said, You know what? I paid for 18 holes, but I'm done. I'm, I'm gonna have to sacrifice the last three holes because my body is not in a good place right now. It's not worth it. Right? This is a recreational thing for me. I'm not getting paid to golf, You know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna bow. And so I had to underside to have an awareness. I had to respect my body, you know, it is where it is. I had to know my limits. Uh, and no matter how much water I drank throughout the day, I became dehydrated. And I had to be able to say no to the last three holes. Now I rode around with them and all that stuff had a great day, but I knew my limits. I had to tone it back. And so if we're going to be able to do that, if I'm gonna live to play another day, if I'm gonna, uh, live to enjoy it, frankly, like, and I don't wanna do these recreational things, if they're not fun right, then, um, then I better, uh, better know my limits and I better manage my expectations. So that's my, uh, take on mindset. Anything to add to that before we go onto biochemistry?

Briggite Spurgeon (12:29):
Yeah. It's also knowing your circumstance. So like, just like you said, um, you know, living to play another day. And I just think in the realm of racing, so if I have a big ra, you know, let's say it's an Ironman or, or marathon or ultra-marathon, but I might have training races as like, leading up to the big event. So for those training races, if I'm having an issue or if I'm injured, I, I will get a dnf like I'll sacrifice that race so that I can get to the start line of my, a race, healthy and ready, my whole focus. So I might have one a race in a year and, you know, let's, let's say that's a Ironman in September leading up to that, I might forfeit some races or some workouts, but, but then my mindset is different for that a race. I am doing whatever it takes to get to that finish line and to give it my very best and to leave everything on the track. Right

Dr. Lonnie Bagwell, DC (13:29):
On. Yeah. And I just remembered, we have a football athlete, right? We athlete, high school athlete right now plays football. He injured his back and, uh, we've been teaching him this over the last few weeks. I mean, this exact scenario, I wasn't even thinking about it beforehand, but, and he's like, Man, I wanna go play. I'm like, How, you know, how's your pain on the scale one to 10? How's it doing? What movements? So what do you think the good idea? And just this morning he said, I think I need to sit out three more days so I can make a good run at it. Because his first football game is a week from the Saturday, and he at, at, at, at whatever, uh, at being a freshman in high school, he made the amazing wise choice to actually continue recovery through Sunday. And then he's gonna test himself on Monday the week up to the game so he can have a chance of playing. So, uh, and he's getting it and he's gonna do better. I mean, he's already improved about 50%. He made that last decision here, and he should be good to go for the, for the, for the event. So I'll, uh, for the game. So I'll, I might even update everybody on that, uh, in the next episode.

Briggite Spurgeon (14:23):
I, I have to add, like, I love racing because it proves over and over again how amazing the human body mm-hmm. <affirmative> and the human mind is. And in big of it, I just remember to 2019 and going into an Ironman, I had injured my back four weeks before. I literally couldn't walk for three days, you remember? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> because you took care of me. And I literally went into that race. Like I felt like my body was just being held together by, um, KT tape, right? Or rock tape. And I hadn't, I hadn't actually worked out even I was so injured. I hadn't worked out in a month and I can't remember, I feel like I had other stuff going on. I ended up being race day. It was the first day of my period, I had injured back, uh, you know, swam through jellyfish and things like that. But, but I was able to prove the power of the body and was able to get through a whole Ironman. Yes, it took me 15 hours, but I was still able to complete it because the body and the mind are amazing. They're so powerful. Amen.

Dr. Lonnie Bagwell, DC (15:29):
That's awesome. And speaking of that, let's talk about fueling it. Let's talk about, uh, kind of top focus as far as fueling the recreational athlete, right? And then we have to keep saying that because we're kind of talking down the middle road here, right? We, we, this, these principles really work for everybody across the board in a lot of different areas. But talk a little bit about, uh, how you affect biochemistry to avoid injury and to be able to enjoy your sport, uh, longer.

Briggite Spurgeon (15:59):
The most foundational thing that you have to focus on is hydration and electrolytes, which those are gonna go hand in in hand. So just as a general rule, you always have to get at least half your body weight in ounces in. So if you are 200 pounds, that's a hundred ounces of water. Now that's before you even exercise. So then we we're typically adding in, I don't know, let's call it six, 16 hours per, uh, 16 ounces per hour of, of exercise. But just remember those baseline, like that rule is half your body weight in ounces. But then you need to, um, also add in the electrolytes. So just a very simple thing to do is adding in pink salt to your water. Make sure you're being very liberal with it on, on your food. Um, even additional, like with our patients and with athletes, we're making sure that they're getting additional mineral support because of how one you're sweating out, um, those minerals and electrolytes and, um, and you're urinating them out.

(17:05):
And especially when you're body, for example, goes into that fat bo fat burning mode or into ketosis, you're actually flushing out like additional sodium and minerals and things like that. So that, that park becomes really important. I'm just not a fan of the Gatorades and the, the GOs and the, like the sports strengths on the market because they end up being really toxic and inflammatory because they have artificial sweeteners, they have, you know, dyes and those cut those colors and then, or even just poor quality sugars in them and some, you know, some of them, even something like high fructose corn syrup, which we speak about a lot on, on our podcast cast. And so I'm more in favor of the things like the coconut water or the bee juice, um, or you know, even something like, you know, putting that pink salt and lemon juice and apple ci of vi vinegar or something and making your own.

(17:56):
By the way, if you would like any recipes to that, um, you can comment below or contact us. And I have, uh, recipes for, um, electrolyte drinks, for natural electrolyte drinks. And then the next thing really when it comes to, to fuel and nutrition is eating nutrient dense foods. And that is going to include your proteins are really important. And it's funny, I was just talking to someone about this today, but just like red meat and liver, uh, you know, proteins like that and egg yolks are just really nutrient dance. Um, protein and fat sources. And then certainly gonna be like your antioxidants sources through your vegetables and your fruits. And you do want to have an, an anti-inflammatory diet. So the things that are going to be inflammatory are going to be the processed foods and the sugars and the carbohydrates. So just focusing on nutrient dance, but that this has to be a customized approach cuz everyone's different. Um, you know, your body's different. Your, like, are you overweight? Are you underweight? It's, you know, what are your hormones doing? Do you have underlying inflammation issues or disease states? So, so really, I guess what I have to say on the fuel and nutrition piece is you do have to take a customized approach, but especially if you are an athlete, you're, you're training, you're racing, you're doing endurance activities.

Dr. Lonnie Bagwell, DC (19:18):
Yeah, that's good. Uh, always testing, not guessing, awareness, knowing your limits and expectations. You can't, you can't spend enough time looking at those things. If you wanna do this stuff for more than a long weekend, you know, we got the weekend warrior SY syndrome and we're forever fixing people that, you know, have no recovery, no, you know, their nutrition is off, they're not hydrated. They go out there and do whatever, blow something out, you know, an achilles a lot of times something that's completely debilitating. And then you're on the one year recovery plan, you know, to be able to get back at it. So today's episode's just all about laying down the foundations, having the right mindset, fueling your body, prepping it. We haven't even got to the activity yet, really. Right? <laugh>, you know, this is all stuff that you're doing before, during, and after, but really if you're not doing it before, you don't get a chance to do it during and after because it leads to injury or such poor recovery that you can't get any momentum, you know, in doing your sport, right?

(20:12):
The recovery just starts to outlast the competition, right? Or the training. Um, and you mentioned inflammation. Let's talk about that for a second. That really is where my head went when we start talking about biochemistry. We could talk about food, advanced food, fueling performance, all that stuff. I mean, we both, we could do six episodes on that. That's just lots of fun stuff, right? That's in our wheelhouse. But I wanna talk about the thing that really can, needs to be addressed and really can be the biggest hindrance to someone being successful either at their sport or in their recovery. And so we're talking about inflammation now, basic inflammation, something that might come up from, So we expect a degree of inflammation from doing the activity. So if I went outside right now, now, and I ran a 5k, I'm going to create, uh, some, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna put a demand on my body.

(20:52):
There's gonna be a, a healing that has to happen in response to that demand that's healthy. That's amazing. And so as long as we have sufficiency, as long as we're getting that healthy nutrition, we have baseline minerals, electrolytes, et cetera, like you were talking about, then we have organ support, we have healing support, everything's good and everybody's happy. And yes, we went through inflammation, but our body uses that to heal the body. It's a good thing. You can have, um, your first line of defense should be the things that we're talking about, even when you sustain some type of an injury. So let's say you roll an ankle or you get a disc injury flare up or, or whatever, right? You got muscle issues. The first things that we should go to rather than the pill, potion, lotion, injection, you know, all that stuff should be how do I, how do I decrease, uh, inflammation by way of nutrition?

(21:39):
Do I need to have more sleep, Right? What about my emotional stress, right? Because that, that creates inflammation, that'll slow the recovery. All right? So again, these, this is always the first line of defense. The stuff that we're talking about today that's a true health solution are things that are congruent with how God created the body, right? So we always look to those things first. We put our faith and trust in that first. Then if that's not working, we can talk about other things, right? But the other thing I wanna talk about is, is as um, the number one tool in my golf bag, the number one tool when I step into the disc is throwing pad. The number one tool on the football field is my body, right? It's the number one most important, important tool that I'm going to use. And if you come to the game, if I go play pickle ball tonight with my son, uh, who's texting me right now, and I'm pretty sure it's for that, right?

(22:25):
He's all about it right now. And, and if I'm, I'm ready to go do that, but I'm dehydrated, right? Or I have some kind of chronic condition I've been dealing with, you know, my hormones are completely off all that stuff. There is more research on that than people realize to say that it is the number one cause of, of you having an injury and that injury not healing properly. Because chronic inflammation from all the different types of disease states that we can be in and all that slows tissue healing, it reduces the results of your training, right? So you're working twice as hard for half the results. Your tissue's not going to recover the way that it's supposed to. And at the same time, when you train hard, you're actually temporarily decreasing your immunity, right? That's just part of the training cycle. You'll get a boosted immunity over time in your recovery, but during the training you're decreasing your immunity.

(23:15):
And now if you have chronic inflammation, your body's already in a disease state, now you have a double decrease in immunity. So this summary here, real quick, the person that shows up that's in relatively good health, basic stress, you know, all that stuff can really see amazing improvements. But there's a lot of people who are gonna listen to this and that we talk to in the clinic here all the time that they're saying, I don't get the results. I, I'm, I'm having a hard time running my training's not going well, why am I not getting better? Why am I not losing weight? We could go into other areas of life too, right? And they haven't addressed any of the chronic stress or chronic inflammation, um, that's in their body. And so they're not recovering well, tissue's not healing, et cetera. So if you have conditions that you or have not addressed, you're not going to outrun them.

(23:58):
If you have conditions that you've not addressed, you're not going to out lift them, right? And so you, you, there has to be a a, again, this is back to setting appropriate expectations and having good coaches in your life to set plans appropriately. You can't just ignore, you know, the, the, the irritable valve syndrome. You know? And that's not to say that you can't do both, it's just, it has to be back to what you're saying, specific to the person and it has to be addressed or else we are setting ourselves up, uh, for failure. Any comments on that?

Briggite Spurgeon (24:30):
I love what you said. You're not going to outrun them. And the response is you'll run them into the ground. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so those underlying things, if you don't address them, then they just get worse. And also I'll also find that just working with some of our patients, sometimes they go into, like, they start that athletic lifestyle thinking the athletic lifestyle is the solution. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> for the, for the low energy or for the weight or for the diabetes or the heart disease. Now there are benefits to that exercise. And that exercise is an AMA is amazing. It can be supportive, but if there are underlying issues that are not addressed once again, then you just end up running them into the ground. I'll give an example. Uh, thyroid health. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so, um, and that happened with me cuz I had underlying issues, but I wasn't aware that I had them. And then after Ironman, after when I just started feeling awful all of a sudden, and then we did a variety of testing hormones and everything and, and then eventually we realized it was a thyroid issue that was going on. And, and it was the training that, you know, and we went through just a lot of, um, figuring it, figuring it out, figuring out that the story. But what ended up is I was training anemic and didn't know it. Yeah,

Dr. Lonnie Bagwell, DC (25:52):
I remember. And you did a lot of great things after that. And that's not even a hard thing to fix. So it's just, it just, you know, it's paying attention to your body when something like that that's more obvious comes up. You know, you do the, we did the testing, we wrote the protocols, we got the recovery from that, and then sky's the limit, right? So it's just so important cuz these things sabotage people so much and they want so badly to do their sport and compete and you know, and all that. But if you, you just can't ignore the foundational health, right? There's just you, you can't put enough emphasis on that because frankly, if you don't, if you do ignore it, you have a very short lived opportunity anyway. If you do address it, you really have decades and decades of enjoying this ahead of time.

(26:35):
So it's that delayed gratification thing too there, right? Not always easy, especially with you. So that was the <laugh> if we're telling the whole story. All right? That was, uh, but it's awesome. That's the competitive spirit kicking in. Uh, and it worked out great in the long run. So, uh, the last thing we wanna talk about, we talked about mindset, we talked about your biochemistry and, and nutrition and inflammation. Uh, now we wanna talk about the body as a whole. And there is this principle, um, that physical therapists especially love for me to talk about called structure dictating function. And so, uh, but I was at a, uh, I went to a mobility certification with whose, his title is America's Top pt. Um, and, uh, and I, and I was the only, um, clinician there. It was a room filled with trainers, actually in this case, lots of trainers, lots of CrossFit instructors, things like that.

(27:24):
And um, and at the lunch break I was able to talk to him and uh, and I just said, Oh, I know, first of all we, he was showing a video of, of all these athletes that were having problems and he was like, what's the number one thing you would tell this athlete to do if you wanted them to be able to do better at their sport? And I got nervous cuz the whole room was talking about stuff that frankly I'm not an expert on, right? They were like, Oh, it's heel cord this and mobility of that. And, you know, they were saying these and I understood what they were saying, but I was like, I don't know if that could be the number one thing and what's he going for here? You know, he's America's top pt. I'm nervous it, there must have been a hundred of us in the room.

(27:55):
And he stopped right before me, but I had conceded like by the time it went through everybody and not one person was right. I said, All I can say is spinal biomechanics. And like, that's all I got, right? That's, that's, that's all I got left. And sure enough, he said, um, when he, he ended it early and he said nobody got it right. The answer is spinal mobility. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I would've been the only one to get it right in the whole room, right? I was so excited. But I was mostly excited that this physical therapist who's the guru of the gurus actually spoke to what we do on a regular basis here in the office and actually what I am more passionate about. And that was fantastic. And so he understood this idea that structure dictates function and he was showing us all these dysfunctional athletes and what was wrong.

(28:35):
And the commonality was that, and I guess one of the best examples to understand the power of having proper mobility specifically of the spine in this case, but in general, uh, and maybe I need to talk about the difference between mobility and flexibility. Um, maybe remind me to do that. But the cheetah is, is the most classic example. The everybody knows the cheetah as the fastest animal on the planet, right? Fa fastest land animal. And uh, and the way that it generates, it has two engines. It has the shoulder engine and the hip engine, and that's how the biomechanics are broken down. And the thing that connects those two incredible engines is their spine, of course, right from the shoulder to the hips. And if you actually watch a video, a slow motion video of a cheetah running through the planes, you'll actually see it's like their, their hips go wi whip so far up that like their tailbones gonna touch their spine, right?

(29:26):
And then it curls all the way back around, right? The other way. And that's how they, that's how they get up to 60 to 70 miles an hour, um, running on the land. It's because the mobility of their spine creates so much energy. And so, um, and so not only is it about preventing injury, but it's about, I'm sorry, not only is it about preventing injury by having the mobility, but it's also about generating performance and power and speed, right? So for, so no matter who you are, listen to this podcast right now if you want to be better core mobility, spinal mobility, then from the spinal mobility, we work our way out to the other joints like this. Be shoulders and hips, take care of those engines. Then from there you can work into peripheral mobility. And when you're doing that, now you're also lengthening muscles.

(30:12):
Uh, you're, you're lengthening uh, loosening ligaments, lengthening muscles, which is one of the top things you can do to prevent injuries, uh, as well. And so, um, and, and then the bonus of it is if you're doing it in the right way and in the form of chiropractic, corrective chiropractic, et cetera, you actually start to involve the nervous system. Which if we were gonna talk about, if, if we were gonna do, instead of talking about recreational athlete, if we were gonna go into a performance athlete, uh, episode, I probably would hover the majority of my time in in the nervous system. You know, we could talk about that at a different time. Uh, I mentioned flexibility, mobility, just for anybody listening, cause I brought that up. Flexibility would be like, can I bend over and touch my toes? Are my muscles lengthened enough? Right? Can I stretch?

(30:51):
That kind of thing. Mobility is actually speaking to motion of the joints. And in that same seminar, this was really neat actually, I just remembered in that same seminar, he had everybody test their flexibility, okay? And then he had them do some basic movements to at with no stretching at all. Okay? Zero stretching. He had 'em actually do a couple of modalities that increased motion of their spine and then he had 'em retest their same flexibility test and everybody improved their flexibility because the issue was never that their hamstrings were too tight, it was that their spine wasn't moving. And so you can't emphasize enough when you, if you're, if I'm gonna talk about the body and the body recovering and being able to do these sports for the long haul, that stuff, it absolutely must, We've been told to stretch, no one's ever told you to mobilize. But the answer absolutely unequivocally always starts with mobility first.

Briggite Spurgeon (31:47):
We, we've seen that in patients come in who are, um, like yoga instructors or like, you know, lifetime yogis and they, they're having like neurological issues mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And we find obviously they are extremely flexible. Yeah. However, they have actually in that flexibility, they've worked the curves out of their spine, so now their neurology is impacted.

Dr. Lonnie Bagwell, DC (32:13):
That's right. And, and, and sometimes they'll get a joint that's stuck and all the flexibility in the world doesn't help. And now the, the joints start moving as a, as a whole unit rather than individually like they should and now they're having joint problems. Yep. Exactly. No, that's so good. Um, that wrap it up for our episode today, really. I mean that's, that, that's episode one of talking about recreational athletes, uh, recovery injury prevention. We covered a lot of topics today. Uh, we would love to talk more about this. So if you're, um, on our Facebook page, uh, make sure that you're asking questions, message us, we can address it on future episodes. Um, otherwise we thank you for tuning in. We love you. We look forward to sharing with you next time. Thanks for joining us today on True Health Solutions Podcast. Make sure that you click to subscribe. Also go to our website, www.truehealthcharlotte.com, where you can download any resources related to today's show or any future shows. And lastly, if you search for True Health Center Group on Facebook, you'll be able to join our free health community. We look forward to seeing you there.