The Science of Brain Function in Movement and Rehabilitation with Dave Degenhardt

The Science of Brain Function in Movement and Rehabilitation with Dave degenhardt.

Hi, I'm Beverly Simpson, former fitness manager turned online personal training business owner. And this podcast is where smart fitness professionals, including trainers and clinicians, discover how to increase client performance and movement, package and position their products and services and get out of their own way so that they can increase their revenue to live a life that they love without sleazy sales. Welcome to the PT Profit Podcast.

Welcome back to the PT Profit Podcast. My name is Chris and I'm giving you this intro for a special episode with golf neuro performance coach Dave degenhardt, who actually helped Beverly overcome some issues that she was having with back pain. And honestly, I think that's the the coolest part of this episode. You can find him at Phenomenal Fitness, spelled with an F, F, E, N O M E, N A L Fitness. And he delves into the neuroscience behind pain, explaining how chronic and acute pain signals originate from the brain, not tissue. And Dave also outlines his thorough assessment process, which includes a brain stem evaluation and understanding a client's movement history. This episode is extremely powerful. You're bound to get some takeaways and I highly encourage following Dave on social media. Let's dive in.

What's up, Dave? How are you doing?

Good, how are you?

I'm doing so good. Welcome to the show today. I'm excited to dive in.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Oh, I'm super excited. There's a couple of things I want to dive into to in to today. First of all, I am just for those of you tuning in some context, when I got her, Dave was the one that really helped me move out of pain pretty quickly. Within, like, I want to say, three minutes of doing the exercises that he had suggested over Instagram, I was able to get into positions that I had not been previously been able to get into after I ex, like, tweaked my back in this, like, horrible experience. So anyway, with that said, Dave, I'd love for you to share a little bit about your unique approach and your background and how you got there. How did you discover this, this brain based training system that you implement?

Yeah, I mean, a little bit of it was through frustration and I wanted to help everyone that came to me as a movement professional. I was working with a lot of people that were in post rehab. So the gym that I was working at and the clients I had on the side for my own business, a lot of them had injuries. And then one of the things I realized was even healthy clients had pain complaints during Certain movements. So it could be a healthy 17 year old or 25 year old. And they still expected me to be able to help them with pain. And I had certain things in my toolbox from, you know, mobilization work and some sensor work with like a lacrosse ball or foam roller and other things. But once those things didn't work and the movement still hurt, it kind of was just like, well, let's avoid that movement. And I wasn't really happy with that, that approach. Another thing was I would have someone out of maybe a knee replacement and had post rehab exercises to do with them. And maybe it was, here's five exercises you're supposed to do with this individual. And they would say, three of them hurts and now I'm left with two. And for me that was, that was very frustrating and I wanted to know, you know, what was going on. And then there was another trainer at the gym that I was at that was suggesting I should go check out these neuro courses that I would really like them. And within the first hour of being there, I was blown away with the approach because I started talking about how everything you've experienced in your life is due to your brain function. I started talking about the visual system's role in movement and pain and telling the spine what to do and all these other things. And for me, it was fascinating. I had three knee surgeries when I was younger, from 12 to 16 years old. I think that's why I got into this world of helping people with pain and movement stuff. And I was seeing results instantly from doing vision exercises, which I never even thought about doing up that, that point. And then I was bringing back these exercises and doing with my clients with these issues and I was helping them more than the things I was doing.

Okay, amazing. So let's talk about how we identify pain because we talk about pain in a specific spectrum of pain. So are you talking about, you know, just got her injury? Are we talking about post injury? Are we talking about aches and pains that are like chronic niggle, like the wiggle niggle feelings that people are experiencing? How are you determining and defining pain?

Yeah, I mean, so like, I think there's an expectation in what you would define as like the acute phase when there's an injury, like whether it's sprained ankle or torn ligament or anything of that variety, where there's going to be pain with that experience through the inflammation process and that type of stuff. Normally I'm not dealing with someone right after a severe injury like that, but usually I'm actually Helping them with it could be they did that to their ankle and they still don't move their ANKLE well now, 15 years later, and that's. And they have back pain now, so. And they have no idea that their foot is the thing that's a big. Playing a big role in that because their foot doesn't move well. But overall, I would say most of my clients are presenting with. They have, you know, kind of aches and pain type stuff, like my back hurts or my knee hurts when I play golf or things like that. And that's the type of stuff I help people with regularly. And sometimes it's chronic, though. Some people, some people come to me and they've had pain for 20 years and no one's been able to help them. And through understanding the nervous system in the brain, I'm able to help them because all of those pains, whether it's acute or chronic or just a come and go type thing, at the end of the day, all of them are a signal from the brain. It's not in the tissue itself. And that's a big takeaway for helping people with pain.

Okay, so let's talk about that. So it's in the brain itself. It's not in the tissue. How do you know that? How do you determine that?

Well, we know that from the neuroscience research mainly, and then through lots of actually utilizing that research with people functionally to determine that. Right. So then, so it's a deep question because there's many levels to it.

Yeah. So let me rephrase it. Let me rephrase it like this. Right. In terms of, like, you know, there, there are cases where the injury is in the tissue, correct? Oh, yes. Well, how do we know when the injury in the tissue itself has recovered, essentially? And now we're dealing with the neural pathways and pain responders in the brain that we.

So there's like a, there's a standard for different injuries as far as, like, what that acute phase should be, whether it's, you know, severity levels of the injury as well as, you know, the type of injury and that type of stuff. So whether that's four weeks or three months or whatever that is, that's that acute. That's still in that cute inflammation phase.

Right.

But once it's after that, then it is significantly going to be. You want to be looking at the brain if it's lingering around for sure, 100%. The way, the way that I kind of frame this, though, with my clients is on education. A couple of examples that are very eye opening at Least from my perspective, it should start making you think about your pain. If you have it possibly maybe it isn't a tissue thing like I've been told.

Right.

Like the way western medicine works is we're going to scan it, we're going to diagnose it, and then it's on to things like either shots, surgery, physical therapy or medicine.

Right.

What I like to do is give my clients options that help them get out of pain, that they're addressing more of the root cause from the brain.

Right.

So one of the, one of the examples that we use all the time is when people get shot. So they'll report like they have lots of this research with military, they will get shot and they'll have a bullet that is either in their tissue or has gone through their tissue.

Right.

So there's definitively tissue damage.

Right.

But then they will ask them was it painful when you got shot? And they will report oftentimes that it didn't hurt when they got shot. Now if pain is 100% of the time an output of the brain, we have to start thinking about why would your brain not seeing a pain signal when you've gotten shot, but maybe you're still getting shot and your brain's wired for survival and safety. So if it sends a major pain signal that debilitates for from moving, you might get shot again. The one things that they do report though is that they have a ton of pain when they get back to safety.

Right.

So the, the brain is controlling the amount of pain signal to send based on your safety, which is its number one focus.

Right.

So now the other one that is should be majorly eye opening is a thing called phantom limb pain. Have you heard of this one?

I heard of this, yes.

So if for people that haven't heard of it, that are listening phantom limb pain, these people will. It often happens in military too. But have the car accidents, other accidents and things like that where people lose part of their limbs. So maybe it's from their elbow down, it could be with their leg and they report that the missing limb still hurts. Or another funky thing that also happens is like it could be they were holding their arm like this when it, when the accident happened, their arm is stuck like this, right. And it feels like it's stuck like that. If your arm felt like it goes stuck like that, it's almost as frustrating as pain. You can't move it, you don't have the arm. So there's different, you know, rehab that they can do for that that helps Unstick the position and get out of pain. But for people that have pain in their fingers and their elbow, any of those types of things below leg, it should make sense that that limb is no longer there yet there is still a pain signal going to where that limb was. For your brain, it's still trying to figure out, well, where is it? That's often part of the picture with that, and that's part of the rehab process, is helping the brain figure out, like where that is in space. And then for clients that don't have a phantom limb, it's just the takeaway that pain does not need it. It doesn't need tissue even in the spot where it is to send it.

So what's, what's part of the process that you carry your clients through when you are assessing pain and, and rewiring the brain to, to, you know, release different signals? Essentially?

Yeah. I mean, part of the process is the, the initial process is doing a really full history taking. That's the most important thing up front. Because pain is a very individualized experience. So it's very different for everyone. So, number one, people have different experiences with injuries from sports, car accidents, other disease states, all these types of things that are playing a role within their pain and then understanding, like what type of pain is it that you're coming in with? Is it, is it nervy type shooting pain? Is it dull, achy pain? Is there. So there's different types of pain that people come in with as well. And that's important because that can majorly change the approach.

Right.

So that gives you kind of a starting place with the history and it gives some ideas of some areas of the brain and nervous system that might not be performing as well as we'd like them to. So now it's giving me some targets.

Right.

So in a standard client comes to a personal trainer, they're saying, this day we're going to do biceps and back. And I'm thinking about we're going to do left parietal lobe today and right brainstem or something like that. Right. So it's completely different targeting.

Right.

But the brain controls everything.

Right.

So then the second piece of it is an assessment. The assessment. I could assess one thing and start making a very wild guess from that point.

Right.

But when someone comes to me, I do a gait assessment, which is basically a window into the neurological function. Because gait is a reflexive response of the nervous system. You don't think about how you walk. To start thinking about how you walk, then you're going to have anxiety about it, which is common with people in chronic pain states.

Right.

But it should be more reflexive and it actually shows a lot about the function. Then, number two, like my first evaluation with everyone is basically doing a brainstem evaluation, which then opens me up into a window of other areas of the brain and what the function is, because the 12 cranial nerves control things like postural tone, global muscle tone, pain, lots of autonomic stuff like breathing and all these types of things that are driving people's pain and lack of movement stuff. So if they come to me without pain and they just want to move better and understand what's going on with their brainstem and the rest of their brain and their cerebellum and these other areas, it gives me a window into, all right, this is what their program needs to look like. And based on the individual, that could vary greatly because of the results of that.

So what does a brainstem. What does a brainstem assessment look like?

So first I would state that looking back at this from a movement perspective, I'm here to help people move better with less pain, be stronger, be more mobile, all that type of stuff. And one of the things that was real eye opening for me was that's what people focus on when they want something, right? So you want to be stronger, you lift weights, you want to be more mobile, you do stretching, you want to get out of pain, you go to a pain specialist for that thing. My knee hurts, we're working on my knee, my back hurts or working on my back, that type of stuff, Right? Even anxiety. I'm going to go talk to a therapist. And all those things can be helpful if it's the right thing for that person. But if it's not, they're going to be left thinking that that approach doesn't work. And our approach basically is understanding that the quality of your inputs determine the quality of the outputs. So that brings us to the brainstem evaluation, because the inputs are things like smell, taste, touch, hearing, and vision. Then we address some other areas like the inner ear, which is the vestibular system, which is your sense of gravity, which I think should be taught to kids with those other. With those other five senses. That's how important it is. This telling your brain and body every day, all day, which way is up and which way I'm going. And your brain relies on that for everything from digestion to blood pressure to movement to recovery, sleeping, getting up, moving.

Right?

So everything relies on knowing where you are in space. And that's your Relationship to gravity. So the brainstem evaluation looks like testing things like, how is your visual system functioning? Can you follow a target to your nose? Can you follow a target to the left? If I have you smell this thing like an essential oil. So I have, like a bunch of them right here on the left side. Can you smell as good on the left side as the right side? Because now we're getting into brain function, because left side is going to do one side of the brain, right.

Other.

And this is where it gets to less of a guessing game, because it. A lot of times there's patterns, like people need more activation of the right side of their brain, the right brain stem, things like that. Mel's pointing towards the right side, pointing towards the right side, and movement is pointing towards the right side, and touch is pointing towards the right side. Now, I know, like, you really need more stimulus to the right side of your brain. And if you approach that from a general fitness perspective or even rehab perspective, that can lead you down the wrong path. Because most approaches are very bilateral, right? I'm going to be pulled this way and I'd be pushed this way. We're going to squat with both legs. We're going to hip hinge with both legs. And one of the most glaring things that I see with almost everyone that I work with, I'm probably like 95% of these people need more stuff on one side that's different than the stuff on the other side to help them feel better. And this then bears that out, essentially.

And it shows them basically, in one session, their areas of opportunity.

That's the biggest, most clear thing for both myself and the person I'm working with is that I used to take group classes, like whether it was yoga or strength training class or spin or whatever. And I'd walk out and I'd be like, my knee hurts now. The next day my shoulder hurts. And I'd seen all the other people in the group class and be like, they seem so much happier about that group classic. They feel good. And I'd be like, I don't feel good after this right now. I realized a lot of other people felt that way afterwards. At that point, I only thought it was me, right? But now working professionally in this industry, I've realized a lot of people feel that way, right? So the big thing that we do is we assess ad nauseam, meaning if I have you do a vision drill, not only am I assessing, can you follow it in or to the right or whatever? I want to make sure. Is that making you Better on the spot.

Right.

And that was kind of the thing I told you with what you were going through. Just check like your movement after you do the drill that I gave you.

Right.

And that is very clear that it can help change the person's path. Because we want to know, is it making you worse, better? The same as all those could happen. So if I do a group class and there's a vision exercise and there's 10 people, it might four them better, four the same and two or worse. And that changes the way that you practice that, that exercise.

So now I'm just curious from, you know, when you're. When you put this in. Into actual practice. What I have found a lot with a lot of people is that there is a lot of people don't really have a good sense of living in their body. Right. So like, as a movement professional, yeah, you know, the difference, or I can really sense and feel differences. But I've watched people in general population who are not movement specialists. They have no connection to the mind and body experience. If you ask them, like, where do you feel that in your body? They will look at you with blank stares. So I'm curious how your approach, which requires a lot of level of awareness from the actual patient, essentially, how do you help them really connect into, you know, what it feels like existing, essentially?

Well, I mean, like, for instance, let's talk. We could talk about like a brain area that could be helpful for this. The cerebellum controls accuracy, balance, and coordination of movement. So I'm a movement professional, and that area of the brain has like. I think it's like upwards of like 90 of the neurons or something like that in the brain, but it controls accuracy and balance, coordination. You don't move well when I ask you to do something, is that a cerebellum issue? Not a. Like, this person doesn't understand what I'm saying. They're not. They don't see what I told them to do.

Right.

Something can happen with different, like, learning styles, like, you're better off having me say it versus demo it. And that that stuff's important to understand as well. But usually it's. It comes back to that statement that everything people are experiencing is about brain function.

Right.

So when it comes down to coordination, are we challenging this? This kind of puts a lot of what, personal training on blast a little bit is that you have to challenge people differently than just adding weight.

Right.

Because if I see that maybe I need to challenge you with speed, maybe I need to challenge you with direction. Maybe I need to challenge you with where your eyes are, where maybe I need to challenge your vestibular system in different ways before you do the exercise so that you're in more balance to carry out the movement that I requested you to do.

Right.

So the assessment helps, kind of helps that out too. And then people's background with movement is a big piece of that too. Because I know that if someone comes to me and they played ball sports for 25 years, they might have an easier time with certain movements than someone that was an artist and didn't do much movement.

Right.

Or someone that's a dancer might have different issues than the person that played football.

Right.

That's how I kind of deal with it, is just narrowing down which area there areas of their brain need activation. And that helps a lot for sure.

When you're using this tool in their, in their program. How I'm assuming, I'm just going to go ahead and assume that you also do get to strength adaptations and traditional movement. So in your programming, what is the percentage of like priming the brain, essentially rewiring the brain and then getting into your, you know, strength and conditioning and, and do you feel like there has to be any sort of buy in from the client that you have to work towards?

Yeah, I mean there's, there's a lot of levels to that one too.

Right.

Because it depends on where are you coming in, are you coming into chronic pain? And we need to get you moving better first. Do we need to get like your balance system functioning a lot better? Do you need a lot of sensory work? Because like your brain doesn't know what's going on with your body type of thing.

Right.

And also the goals person comes to me and they want to be stronger and their expectation is to do strength training. Then I also have to do some of that. But I also want to them to understand that lifting weights is not the only way to get stronger.

Right.

So oftentimes people come in here and I'm making them stronger just because their nervous system feels safer for them to carry out the movement that I'm asking them to do. So what that looks like is I could test like a glute muscle, hamstring muscle, their lat, their bicep, and it's not strong like you, Ted. Do a muscle test for that specific muscle and they can't voluntarily contract that well. So I can beat them in a muscle test and I shouldn't be able to in the position I'm in. So then I'll do for Example with the glue, a foot exercise with them. And now their glute is functioning stronger, they're stronger. So now it's about their awareness that, like, we just made you stronger. And if you do this consistently, it's going to keep you stronger consistently. And then if we now load that glute with a standard exercise, say it's a lunge or a squat or something like that, this is going to be a more successful exercise for you because your brain feels safer about you using that muscle. So someone that doesn't do that foot mobility drill is not going to get as good of a result as them because this has now made them a better mover on the spot. And it's very quick stuff that you can teach up front.

Interesting now. And I'm also curious as somebody you know, I have experience doing like, EDMR and like some, like, I, I work and I know just from my own personal experience that I have like felt wrecked after that work. Like straight up wrecked. Like, like we were doing inner ear stuff and I thought I was gonna vomit. And like, I was like, yo, I gotta pick up my kids. Like, how do I get, like, feel better in 30 minutes because I can't drive. So.

It'S not uncommon.

I'm assuming your clients also have the same work when you're doing eye training and inner ear stuff. So how do you, how do you know the limits of what you can do to like, pushing boundaries for your client and then, and then, you know, helping them feel better faster. Does that make sense?

Yeah, I mean, the history informs a lot on that because if they come in with metabolic issues, I know there's a fueling problem. If there's a fueling problem, then those areas of the brain, when we activate the visual system, the vestibular system, and those areas have been underactive. Now you're asking an area of the brain to carry out a task that it might not have as much endurance. It's almost like when you do endurance training for certain muscles, those muscles and those areas of the brain for you just aren't as don't have the endurance and stamina.

Right.

So it can wreck you quickly.

Oh, so quick. And it's like literally like you're looking to the side and then going in a circle and then you like, need to sleep for 10 hours.

Yeah, and that's like, that's what we cover that stuff, like in the coursework. Like, I'm a, you know, I should imagine I'm a master practitioner of Z Health. That's where I Got the education from. And it was like six years of education. I still do continuing education education with them, right? So these types of questions come up in the community because it happens, right? Especially if someone has had like cushion would be another time that this would be. They need their visual system to be fixed, but it might be running through, so through so much fuel for them or they're not fueled enough to handle it yet that it triggers their concussion symptoms again, just like you got tired, right? So it's just understanding that this person might need better fuel to handle the exercise or it might not be the best starting place, right? So when I say fuel, this might rub few people the wrong way in the fitness world, but your brain, hate to break it to you, runs on, on sugar, so it runs on glucose. So your little 2 to 3 pound brain, if you're a 200 pound male, let's say it's 2 pounds, your brain will use somewhere between like 25 and 50% of the sugar that you fuel yourself with in a day. So now if you're doing vision exercise and we're trying to create meta, create physical neuroclastic change in your brain to areas that are underutilized, they run through fuel like really quickly and you need to fuel up for this type of stuff. So it's not uncommon to have someone with a glass of orange juice in your state that does vision exercises just so their brain knows there's more fuel coming and it feels safer. Not even that. It's like directly going to that area of the brain. It's just like when you were a child and you played soccer, they had Gatorade and orange slices, you had fuel for the game. It's the same type of thing. And then there's breathing work that can be done to help that also. And then from the approach standpoint, we call it a top down approach or bottom up. So you would, you would fall in the category of bottom up. Because I would want to focus on foot mobility with you first and joint mobility work and sensory work on your body before those type of things. Because you're not going to last through an hour training session. If I do vision at the beginning, and then that response I talked about at the beginning, does this make you better? Does it make you the same? Does it make you worse? Technically, even if those drills made you stronger, like division or vestibular drills that you did, if it wrecks you, it's still considered making you worse, which is what we consider true rehab. It needs to be fixed. It should not wreck you, even though it is, it's fine that it is, but it shouldn't.

Right.

So it's about building up your capacity to do that. And rehab exercises, we don't do them before performance. So if you're going to jump on a podcast with me, that's considered a performance because you have to be connected with me there, however long this is going to last, than do vision drills beforehand. If you're going to play a sport or run a marathon, you probably wouldn't do vision drills beforehand right now at least.

Right.

But if you're going to netflix and chill or go to bed, that's time for you to do your rehab exercise because it's making you tired. Time to do it anyway.

Not traditionally how rehab's taught. It's usually rehab first, then performance.

Yeah. I think that the, the, the guy created all the coursework that I took. That was one of the main things that he realized was people that were in chronic pain or at Z state or you're an Olympic athlete. It could be the same vision drill or same joint mobility drill that helps this person. That helps this person.

Right.

So in that spectrum, that's rehab to performance right there.

Right.

And knowing the timing of the exercises would be key for rehab. And there's like, it's almost like there's always a little bit of rehab and performance that could be going on at the same time. If it's done right, you don't have to always be like in one bucket at the same time, which is kind of how we've separated it in the performance world. It's like you're hurt, you're doing rehab, you're healthy, you just do performance stuff. You should be doing both and like avoid another injury potentially.

Yeah. Or like, especially if you're in performance like professional athletes or you're dealing with the, with your performance is not a holistic approach of performance is usually a lot of compensation because you're patterning one pattern or a couple of patterns. At a high level, you have to really look at the other side of that. So, you know, and I feel like people, people miss that.

Yeah. I mean some of the, you know, high level athletes, we say they're good despite some of the coaching, that they have talent, talent versus like they're, they're so like able to adapt so much better. And that part of that is that these systems we've talking about, their visual system, their vestibular system is actually functioning better than most people. That's why they're such good athletes.

Right.

So they're very, like, adaptable. Even if they have, like, those, they're gonna have similar patterns sometimes to someone that walks in here with a lot of pain. So that's why I'm confident I could help, you know, work. A lot of golfers, I could help. I. If Tyler woods walked in. In here, I could assess his brain and help.

Yeah.

And if it's a beginner golfer, I could also help them, too, because it's not. It's more about helping that person move better based on what's. What they're presenting with.

Yeah. So I'm curious. You know, you mentioned adapt. Adaptability. What if. How fast. When you're working with the brain, how fast can you actually adapt these. These, you know, this type of training? Like, what are some of the results that people can expect to see? And then compounding, like, is this. Like, how. Like, is this. That they learn the drill and then they like, what. What does that typically look like?

And that. That's, like, the importance of this assessment process. We say that it can the nervous system. It works at the speed of the nervous system. Some of these signals are, like, at 270 miles per hour, which is pretty fast. It's like the nervous system's like an electrical system. So I tell people, will you turn lights on in a huge gym with four basketball courts? You know, generally, wiring is good. The lights go on pretty quickly.

Right.

So when I'm doing a vision drill with someone, when I'm doing a mobility drill with someone, when I'm doing a vestibular drill, I can assess if that's helping them on the spot right away with something like the muscle test, assessing their gait, assessing a range of motion, we can assess did their pain level change. So, like, not. It's crazy, but sometimes have someone have someone in here and their back pain's a 9 out of 10. They do one vision drill, and then it's like a 1 out of 10 or 0. Like, after 1 drill.

Right.

Now, if you've been in chronic pain for 20 years, the likelihood of that is less because it's now wired into so many other activities in your life. But if you said to me, my pack started hurting yesterday, I'm like, all right, we're gonna get rid of this today, right?

Yeah.

But if it was like, 20 years, I'm like, I'm upfront about that. I'm like, this is gonna take longer. Like, so it's going to take more time. But initially, when we're reassessing something, we're just saying, did that person's brain, like it or not, that's the simplest question we can ask.

Right.

And that's what I want my clients to at least understand. They don't need to know the neurology. That's my job. So the takeaway is that drill helped me. If I do it again later today, tomorrow, the next day, and it, and I, I give them ways to reassess it on their own. If it still keeps helping them move better, like range of motion, balance, all that type of stuff, then it guides them that they know it's helping. Right now what we rely on is essentially the research which shows if you do anything like somewhere between 20 to 30 minutes a day, besides maybe like heavy powerlifting was, it's an extreme example.

Right.

So if you want to learn how to ride a bike, if you want to learn a new language, if you, you want to get out of pain, if you want to learn how to play a new instrument, you want to learn how to be a better mover, all these type of things, if you do somewhere between 20, 30 minutes of work a day, then that's going to create the long term change that we're looking for. Was the neuroplastic change. So I could do a vision drill once and it makes you better. There's no neuroplastic ch change going on. It's just your brain got excited and it liked it or not. But if you do that vision drill every day for 10 minutes for six weeks now, you're creating change.

Right.

From what I understand too about rewiring. Right. In essentially building neural pathways is that the old ones, they don't disappear, you just keep choosing. It's like you can go left or you go right and you just keep going right. You just keep going right. You just keep going right. Doesn't disappear, but you just keep going, right.

Yeah. I mean, the neuroplastic changes is good in that, I mean, it's not inherently good or bad.

Yes.

So habits affect the neuroplastic change. So if you, you know, just drink 12 beers a day, you get good at that, you practice joint mobility, you get better at that vision. Same thing.

Right.

So it depends on like it's not inherently good or bad. The brain's changing given the inputs that you're giving it, going back to the inputs.

Right.

And it also is a use it or lose it system.

Right.

So if you don't use certain pathways, they do not fire as, maybe strongly, maybe as quickly, maybe as efficiently.

Right.

And you would see them to start to maybe not be as good as they used to be if it was something you used to do.

Right.

So it's about kind of creating that for people where there's a lot of things that they have not purposely moved ever in their life.

Right.

Like, that's a fault, I think, in the. In the training world is you're jumping into bigger, complex movements like lunges, squats, presses, all this stuff, and people don't know how to move their index finger.

Right.

You know what I mean? Like, I've never been taught how to move. Their ankle needs to move well for you to do all those other things that we just talked about. So, yeah, I mean, it's. It's just fascinating that what you can see happen when people do this stuff, as far as feeling better, being stronger. And a lot of this happens before they even touch a weight.

Now, can you assess, like, people just in the wild, like, when. When you're like, like walking in the grocery store and you see someone like, oh, they don't feel good. And I know it based on, like, how they're walking. Like, can you, like, see essentially some of their things just by observing humans in the wild?

Yeah, it's hard to turn off when you understand. So, like, there's a lot of gait assessments that are very biomechanical. It's like, oh, they're. They're not pronating their foot as well. And like, looking at those things are important. And then you're guessing which muscles are not functioning as well. But when you understand that the brain controls the muscle tone, it changes the way that you think about it. So the gait assessment plays a big role in one. Like, how's your SI functioning? We have like, a internal rating system that was like, created by Z Health for how the SI is functioning. And there's like a score of one to four. And if you have a one, you're probably have back pain or some other pain because there's a. The way the force is supposed to transmit up your body when you're walking is not happening. Well, if your pelvis does not move, and that's what a one is, the pelvis is not moving pretty much at all. So that. That you're looking at that heart ignore, like how people's pelvis are moving. Is it like very, like, you know, up and down? Is it. Is it the way that it should be? Type of things you're looking at that you can't turn it off? And then there are other factors with, like, the muscle tone where. Where's someone's hip, pointing their foot, is it in, is it out? Where is their, where are their hands when they're walking? How's their head moving when they're walking? And these things are like really big openers into like we call like a narrow gate evaluation, right. And it already starts to make you think about, all right, like this person probably has more pain on the right side of their body, this person has more pain on the left side of their body. This person probably has some issues with their balance system, right? And then you start to do those assessments and it bears it out. But yes, it is very hard to, to shut off. You could sit in a park or a mall and just watch people all day.

Interesting. Now I want to be respectful of your time, so this will be my last question, but I am curious. I'm going to make this two part. I'm curious about. You know, one of the, one of the things, one of the things that we seem to just understand as we age is that people kind of just assume that because they're getting older they're just going to hurt more. And that's just something that they need to expect as people age, right? Like, oh, it's because I'm getting older and they just kind of have assumed that. So I'm curious, right, what would cause someone to never be in pain before and then all of a sudden do nothing differently but then like just experience pain and blame it on age? Like what is some of the myths around versus like oh no, you just are just from chronic over years.

So we are heavily pushed against that kind of advice that age is the reason that people are feeling worse. It's a factor, but it's usually not the root cause. It's not looking at any of those inputs, not looking at nutrition, it's not looking at breathing, it's not looking at the way that they move. It's not respecting the use it or lose it part of the nervous system. So, you know, like someone has, has never moved this joint in their foot before that I'm talking about they don't move it well and they haven't moved it well for a long time now. Your brain and nervous system are very conservative with their, with abusing energy, right? So if you haven't moved your hip this way in 40 years, that's what arthritic change is. So your brain says, I'm not going to maintain that joint space. You don't use that as a joint. And that's where the basic joint mobility stuff that we do that's very different is so effective to help people because we're looking at all the joints individually and say, can you move your knee? Well, can you move your hip? Well, can you move your ankle? Can you move your jaw? Well, like everything, every joint, every finger, all that stuff. And people, I have tons of clients, I've had arthritic pain in their hands and they've never been taught how to move their fingers. So I say, can you move your pinky finger? And it looks like this when I do it, right? I want you to just the pinky finger, right? And then they clean those up, which are basically maps in your brain. And now they might have physical arthritic change going back to the physical versus the pain.

Right?

And so they still have like fingers that look funky, right? But they're reporting my hands don't hurt anymore.

Right.

So the age is again, highly overrated factor for like the pain experience for people. Because at the end of the day, pain is a behavioral change tool for your brains. Back to your question about pain. Like, why would I not have pain, then all of a sudden have pain? And the reason for that is the user elusive factor. And also like overall threat in the nervous system, right? So what happens is if this screen was a bucket and if you go above this line, that's when you get what we call unwanted outputs. Could be pain, anxiety, dizziness, any of that type of stuff. That person's threat bucket is overfilled at that point to the point where now their brain is saying, I'd like you to change something.

Right?

And that something could be like a myriad of things. And that's what help people figure out.

But.

It'S often things that people would never think about. They're involved in their pain experience. So I must have slept on it wrong. You know, like, it was like I did this, this thing and this closet. And then when you dig into it, they got a vision issue. They have an inner ear thing, they have joints that don't move well. And that stuff is where we start targeting it to kind of take things out of their threat bucket so that it calms down the overall threat in the nervous system. And that's like how this approach works.

So cool. I mean, you said move the pinky. And I just had that moment of like, wait, can I even do that? I like those stuff that you like, never think about. It's not like you don't think about it. And I'll say, for me, it was just so interesting because, and I've shared this before, but like, I was tying I was vent over with my foot up to tie my shoe, something I just do without thinking about it. And all of a sudden it was like I was in the ER for, you know, twice because I just couldn't even like my husband had to carry me to the bathroom. Like it was so crazy. I mean, he even joked the other day. Yesterday he's to the family, we're sitting down and he's like, we made it. We got a whole week without going to the E to R team Sims. And we were like laughing, but it was funny. Anyway, with that said, you know, I'm curious, like who when and who do you recommend this type of, of work for? Like do, do you recommend people wait till they're in pain? Do you think this is prevented preventative care? What do you typically recommend?

It's a lot more fun when you're not having to get out of pain from what I mean like for everyone. When it's just a performance thing. And like, hey, I can I do this vision drill and I can lift 15 more pounds over my head. Like that's pretty cool stuff too, right? So no, I don't. I like working with people on the performance end of it too. It's a tough question because what happens is if you have a brain and an issue or a brain and a goal, I feel like I can help you, right? So I've helped 3 year olds with speech that were saying. I had one three year old that I was saying three words for a year and a half, was in speech therapy again for one session we did some stimulation with a vibrating device on his tongue and taught him some tongue exercise. And a week later everyone in his life was like, what, what just changed? The speech therapist, the teachers, the family later. And then I've helped 90 plus year olds, you know, get out of, of pain. So there's that spectrum, right? And then my big like marketing around this because I'm a big golfer myself, played golf in high school and I started utilizing this stuff for golf performance for myself. And then just in working with all the clients I've worked with over 10 years, I was like, they're golfers need this stuff for performance and pain, right? And injury prevention and all that stuff. So that's like my big marketing end of it. And I really do recommend it for everyone because the, through the process of like the basic neurology stuff, you're teaching people like about their own body and brain and how it works, which no one has ever shown them, right? So I said like the vestibular system should be taught to kids.

Right.

The reason for that is most people have never heard of the vestibular system unless they get, like, dizziness or vertigo. But you could help someone with their vestibular system, and it helps with their performance. Because I have healthy athletes in here that when I actually do balance assessments with them, they have issues with their vestibular system.

Right.

So, long story short, I personally think that everyone should do it. I love helping people get out of pain because it's. It's great for both sides of this because someone might be struggling where they've been to 10, 12 specialists, and no one's been able to help them, and they know that there's an answer out there somewhere. High performers really love this stuff.

Yeah.

Because they're already searching for an edge all the time. They are like, they're. They own their own business or they take their, like, work life very seriously. They also take their fitness seriously. They're already doing nutrition work. They work out with a trainer. They are so into, like, adapting their physical, you know, everything physical and their health. And then you start showing them some vision drills, and it's starting to affect all their performance. They love this stuff.

Right.

So, you know, if you're an athlete, if you're a normal human person in pain, I think everyone should at least kind of look into it, at least and see if it's for them.

I love it. I love it. Okay, so for those of you who are tuning in and want to go deeper on this work and they want to connect with you, where are some of the best places I can send them?

Yeah, so on Instagram, it's at Phenomenal Fitness. And it's. I always say it's two Fs, so there's no pH. It's a hard word to spell, so good luck with it. But it's phenomenal fitness. You can also, you know, call me directly or text me at 908-403-0186. And then email would be davepenomenalfitness.com and that's also my website, phenomenal fitness.com.

Cool. And we'll make sure that we link all that up so you don't have. If you're like me, you don't have to worry about spelling design. All right.

Thank you. Phenomenal out loud. F, E, M Alpha. I'll send it to you.

Well, Dave, thank you so much for hanging out with me today, pouring into me and pouring into the community. I really appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. It was awesome.

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