Hashimoto’s, Hypermobility, and Importance of Muscle To Heal

The information provided in this podcast is educational and not intended to diagnose or treat medical conditions.

Dr. Donni Wilson struggled for decades to solve her numerous health issues and heal her body. But with focused determination, she healed herself. And in doing so, she discovered the Dr. Donnie stress recovery Protocol. On this show, you're going to hear from doctors, nutritionists, and Experts along with Dr. Donnie, who will give practical advice and wisdom to help heal your body. This is how humans heal.

Welcome.

I'm very excited to introduce you to my friend, Dr. Emily Kyburn today. And she specializes in helping, especially women with Hashimoto's disease. And she has a different perspective on movement and exercise. That is important when you have Hashimoto's disease, but not only important, but can make a difference in Hashimoto's. So if you have Hashimoto's and also if you ever have, maybe you don't know that you have Hashimoto's disease, which is an autoimmune condition with the thyroid gland, but maybe you just really wanted to understand better about exercise and what you can be doing to strengthen your body for other reasons. I think you're going to be really interested in this conversation today, so thank you, Emily, for joining me.

Donni, thanks for having me. It's so good to see you again.

It's good to see you, too. And I'm just thinking, talk first about.

What your specialty is and your training and why you're so passionate about exercise and strength.

Yeah. So I'm a chiropractor by training. I've been in practice for 14 years. I am the chiropractor that doesn't adjust that much, only when needed and only when indicated, which I think is for a chiropractor to say a little bit kind of off outside the box.

Yeah. You want to be like, wait a minute, chiropractor. Okay, what are you going to do then?

Yeah, exactly. Like, if you don't adjust, what do you do? And I was doing a lot of soft tissue work and adjusting, and a certain number of people get better, and a certain number of people would come back and be like, you know, I'm really sore. And what I was taught in school was that the communication is, oh, you know, getting an adjustment. You're going to be sore. Like, you did a new workout at the gym for a couple days. And, you know, I'm always, how can I do it better? How could I help more people? How can I get people feeling better? And I started to integrate strength training with kettlebells from a background.

From Pavel Tatsui called Strong first. And the idea is like strength comes exactly what the name is, Strong first.

And more people started to get better. And then I started to collaborate with functional medicine doctors, naturopathic physicians, and was seeing a lot of autoimmune patients and they were cleaning up.

The inside through the functional medicine approach and was.

Sending them to me for rehab. And you know, a lot of the complaints are joint pain and muscle aches, which comes with Hashimoto's, comes with lots of other autoimmune conditions. And I think when people think, oh, my joints hurt, my muscles ache, I need to get a massage, I need to like have passive care, maybe I need to do like some theraband pulls. And what I found was when I took people off the passive care of massage, took out stretching, took out yoga and replaced that with strength.

Women started to feel better in their bodies and so just kind of going down that path of the importance of maintaining the muscle tissue, especially with hypothyroidism and teaching these women how to do it with good form so that they are not feeling more joint pain. So that was kind of the evolution over the last 14 years. Also for myself, I have Hashimoto's and had to really change how I was working out because I was like the five days a week double soul cycle, Barry's boot camp, 90 minutes of high intensity training. So I had to really change what I was doing for my own body. Wow. Wow.

And what did you notice when you did. What did you notice different when you started making those changes for yourself?

Yeah, less fatigue. I didn't feel like the next morning I was dragging. Right. So when I was doing 90 minutes of high intensity interval training the next morning, it was like hit snooze 10 times. How many cups of coffee can I chug to feel, you know, like a shell of myself, like somewhat of myself. And I was crashing by like two or three. And so, you know, I had more energy. I had kind of the tire around the tummy, little cortisol belly. And I was like, well, I'm doing all the right things. I'm like eating well. I'm, you know, doing the workouts five days a week. So what's going on? So I started to do strength training through three days a week, 20 to 30 minutes. So I kept it really tight and I gave myself longer rest breaks and I did heavier weights, low reps and things started to shift. So lost the cortisol belly, the little tire around the tummy, and just didn't feel Like I was hit by a bus for two to three days. After the next day, I felt like I could move through the world and not be exhausted.

Well, and I think, you know, it can be so counterintuitive for people at first hearing that. I mean, I know, I hear from patients too, who we've kind of were. At some point, a lot of us were trained that in order to lose weight, we have to exercise more or longer or harder. And certainly if, you know, because it's that whole calorie in, calorie out concept, right, of like if you exercise longer and harder, you're going to burn more calories and therefore lose weight. But what you're saying is the equation doesn't always work that way and that especially when there's autoimmunity or other hormone imbalances, we've got to think about it a different way and kind of almost exercise smart instead of exercise long.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, especially as it relates to the thyroid.

And, you know, our friend Dr. Gabrielle Lyon talks about this, how the muscle tissue is the largest endocrine organ in the body, so that there's thyroid receptors in every cell, but it's in muscle tissue as well. And so you can directly affect the turnover of your thyroid hormones by the stimulation of the muscle tissue.

And I think that's so cool because I think when we have an autoimmune condition, a, we feel overwhelmed and B, we feel like very like we want to be empowered and take control of our health, but we don't know how. And you know, muscle is so important. It's anti inflammatory and with hypothyroidism we have less muscle mass. It's just harder to keep the meat on the bones. And so we have to be very strategic how we work out not only to not feel burnt out, but to not kind of waste the muscle tissue away. So I see a lot of women that are doing, trying to train for half marathons or marathons or just doing lots of running. And I'm telling them, dial back the running, integrate strength training so that you can support your muscle tissue. Muscle is also the only.

Factor in whether we break a hip down the road. Right. So I know a lot of us aren't thinking like, oh, when I'm 80, when I'm 90. But.

There was a study where it was like the muscle mass, the density of lean muscle mass was the predictive factor of whether we broke our hip and fell, which as we know, once that happens, usually it's a very quick decline.

It just shows us how important? Like if it's that important when you're say 80, that you don't have the muscle strength help you with balance. And I think that's, that's what happens is if we don't have muscle strength or that core strength then we're more likely to fall when we have a little trip or something and then have a fracture. But that's also true at other ages. Like if it's that important then. Right, like how important is muscle now? Like don't you can't just wait and get muscular when you're 80.

Right, exactly. I think it's like when we, when we're 30, we start to lose muscle mass year over year. So we have to really focus not only on what we're eating to support the muscle, but also how we're training to support the muscle. Another thing with hypothyroidism is our muscle fibers that are fast twitch muscle fibers, our type 2 fibers turn into type 1 and so we have a higher density of type 1 fibers. And type 1 muscle fibers are slow twitch. They just, they're like postural, they just kind of hold us up against gravity. And to be a dynamic human being in this world and pick up our kids and throw our grandkids up in the air and to you like be dynamic and have strength and do ballistic movements, you need type 2 fibers. So you have to train them. Right. Because with Hashimoto's it's not going to be an automatic. Right.

You have to kind of be signaling in there, hey, we need you type twos. And the way you do that is with the exercises that you train people to do, I suppose.

Yeah. So strength training. So there's two ways to train type two. One is doing ballistic movements. So like jumping, sprinting, typically that doesn't feel good on the joints for women with Hashimoto's. So the other way to train those muscle, that those muscle fibers is through lifting heavy.

And pushing our capacity, our resiliency, challenging the muscle. Usually by the last rep you should feel like it's hard. So if you're doing like 30 reps and you're like pink hand weight and you're like, woo, this is easy, it's not heavy enough.

Right. It's not going to hit the type 2 muscle. It's going to just do type 1. Probably.

Yeah. Type 1s are in higher density in people who run, people who only walk. And I think it's interesting because the typical exercise recommendation for the autoimmune population is to walk 20 minutes and to do some chair yoga and if you have more energy to stretch, do low impact exercise, which is kind of like swimming. Right. And so the recommendation out there.

Doesn'T feed the type 2 muscles. So I'm like, let's get strength training. Let's get a higher density of those type 2 muscle fibers.

Wow. I mean, it really is making me think that this can be valuable for so many people too. That may be, you know, like, I mean, part of what makes me think when you describe, like how a person feels exhausted after they exercise, really makes me think of the adrenal glands, you know, and how cortisol's responding and how easy it is to, you know, think that we should be doing these super long or strenuous workouts and then we just end up exhausted afterwards. And it's really that, you know, we were probably asking too much of our body or maybe throwing our cortisol even too high and then it's dropping too low later. And so. And of course, adrenals has such a crossover with Hashimoto's and low thyroid function. So it's like to me, I'm always looking for interconnections and, and understanding how stress overall and how over exercising or exercising in the wrong way can be a stress on the body, disrupt the cortisol, increase inflammation and promote autoimmunity. So what you're saying is here's a way where we can get the movement and exercise we need not only to decrease stress, but also to help help our thyroid and help our muscles. But at the same time, you're reversing that pattern. You're reversing the adrenal stress, you're reversing the cortisol and the inflammation. So it's like, I love when it can be something we can do that's hitting on many good things at once. That's just, that's so exciting. So tell us more like how you, how is it that you help people with this? How is it that they can learn more and what, what you should teach them?

Yeah. So I have a program called Thyroid Strong. And just going back to your point of adrenal health and stressor. Right. So exercise is a stressor. Like a lot of people think, oh, exercise is supposed to make me feel so good, which it will afterwards. And you know, the power in exercise is the recovery after and in between those moments of exercise.

And so when people strength train, like people who don't have an autoimmune condition.

The people who do it right, or the people that I look towards that are kind of inspire me. They lift heavy, they do low reps. Right. So they might do like five reps. I think, you know, for us, we're kind of programmed sometimes to think like, oh, I got to do like 30 reps or 15 reps or 3 sets of 10. And so if you did 5 reps and then took a break, right? So you're like, you're creating a stressor for five reps and then you might take like a two minute break. And if you think about the way kind of boutique fitness is structured.

Whether it's a cycling class, I have a lot of women that do Zumba. You do not get a break for 45 minutes. Right. It's on.

I'm like, oh my gosh, I have to like leave after 15 minutes or something. I'm like, this is.

Yeah. So if you started to shift the mindset of it doesn't have to look like 45 minutes of non stop. It could be five reps, take a break, five reps, you know what I mean? Then it creates the stressor, but then it creates the recovery, recovery time.

So you get this balancing act of stress and then enough recovery, but you're not overstressing so that you can't recover. It's in a balance. It sounds like.

Yeah. The other thing with Hashimoto's is.

That we have slower tendon turnover. So like our tendons and our tissues are always replenishing, regenerating, but with Hashimoto's it's slower, so we're more prone to tendon injuries.

We also feel joint pain more in like our shoulders, our knees. So if women who haven't been diagnosed, if they're like, I don't know, I haven't gotten my antibodies checked. If someone comes to me and they have knee pain in both knees and there's no clear mechanism of injury, I start to think, oh, like maybe we should check their thyroid if they have a frozen shoulder symptoms, like they can't lift their arm and wash their hair. There was a study out there showing that people with frozen shoulder have an elevated tsh. So there's this interconnection, there's contracture of the tissue, there's slower turnover.

So you start to think, even if they don't already have a diagnosis, if they have these symptoms, you're already thinking, this looks like a pattern of Hashimoto's already.

Yeah. And for frozen shoulders it is like it can be a year to two years of rehab. It's long, but I feel like potentially it's longer. Because people are not getting the inner workings in check, Right?

Yes.

They're just focusing on the biomechanical. And some of the treatment for frozen shoulder can be very aggressive. They can do manipulation under anesthesia.

Wow.

Which is like, basically they, you know, put you under anesthesia and just like, basically tear the adhesions in the capsule, and then you wake up and have to rehab. It's like, so, like, why not?

Yeah. If you're gonna go to that extreme, could there be another way?

Yeah, exactly. And then the other thing that I think of for maybe someone who hasn't been diagnosed is pain that moves around the body. So, like, one day you're like, oh, my shoulder. And then the next day you're like, my knee, my ankle, you know, my big toe. Like, I start to think, like, potential autoimmune condition. And so, you know, my background is in rehab and strength and chiropractic. And.

As I was working with women, I was noticing this hypermobility component. And there's no research out there yet. I mean, there's research about autoimmune and tissue laxity, joint laxity. And there's not anything specific to Hashimoto's. But what I would see are the knees traveling. You know, if you looked at someone from a profile standing, the knees travel back behind the ankles. They might be that person in yoga class where the instructor always comes around is like, put a little bend in your elbows, and you're like, oh, I thought they were straight. I didn't think they were hyperextended.

Yeah, that's me. I'm that person.

Yeah. And so there could be Erler Danlos. Right. Which is, you know, like a tissue laxity. But I also find it in my Hashimoto's, ladies. So when we're cueing strength, you can't just tell them, you know, send your hips back, pick up the kettlebell, stand up.

Right.

Because they might just kind of stand and hyperextend their joints, and they're not going to feel good. So there has to be very specific cueing to create tension in the body. Without that, hyperextension. So that's all in thyroid strong. And it's kind of like having a trainer who knows how to work with someone with Hashimoto's, but.

Isn'T standing next to you because it's online.

You can do it from home.

You can do it from home. Yeah.

But there's. I mean, what you're describing, I think, is hard to find. It's hard to find. I know from My experience, it's very hard to find anyone to help you with your movement or say a physical trainer or even a personal trainer. It's hard to find someone who understands ligament laxity. And like you're saying, they might just be telling you to do this exercise and it may be a strength strengthening exercise. So that part you want. But if they don't know how to kind of look at your body and cue you in a way where you're not going to overextend, because if you overextend, then you're probably going to create some injury, some other injury or pain. Right. So then it's kind of counteracting what you're really trying to do.

Yeah, exactly. And it works up the body. So if you think of like your knees hyperextending, typically people's hamstrings will be super open. They'll palm the floor when they fold forward and then that works its way up to the back. Like you kind of have like an overarched sway back. You'll get tight in your mid back and then you'll kind of get like the chin jut, you know, and then neck pain and headaches. And so if you start to teach people how to build tension, how to create integrity in the joint.

It kind of works, you know, all the way up the body. Like people who are experiencing, let's say neck pain, headaches, tightness in their upper traps, you teach them to foot dial.

Deadlift and learn how to get out of that sway back and get long through the spine and their headaches go away. So it's such a powerful, it's like using the environment to correct versus laying on the table and trying to get a massage.

Believe me, I tried that for many years and it would be temporary, temporarily, the muscles would relax. But as soon as I went back to my sitting at a desk or working on the computer or cleaning up the house and doing laundry, you know, normal daily activities. Sure enough, then I'm back to muscle tightness and headaches again. So, you know, the massage is really temporary because if you don't have, if you're what I learned, and I love hearing you talk about this because I feel like I learned the hard long way and I'd rather people, you know, you had to learn the long way too. But like, I would love for people to be able to shortcut and hear this information and be like, instead of trying all of that and spending a decade or more figuring it out, just follow what you're suggesting because I found the same thing for myself, like when I can really create the strength in the core and in the muscles and really acknowledge posture, that it makes such a huge difference in how I feel and the extent and the severity of the joint pain. Now I'm feeling like I need to do your thyroid strong program because I want to hear what else you're going to teach me. And I'm really. I'm speaking from. I mean, my mom has Hashimoto's. I've never tested positive for the Hashimoto's antibodies.

Yeah.

Really makes me. I have the Ehlers Danlo or the hypermobility. I know because of my symptoms and my genetics, but it really makes me. It makes me want to do a study where we look at how many people with Hashimoto's have hypermobility. Like you're saying you see that crossover a lot, but it's not. Well, it's not.

Well, it's not documented. Yeah, yeah.

You learn in a textbook. But I'm with you. Like, if with. As practitioners, when we're looking for patterns and we see something over and over, we go, wait a minute. There's something to this. And so maybe people who just have even some other diagnosis, maybe they're just diagnosed with, like you said, frozen shoulder, or maybe they're diagnosed with fibromyalgia or unknown connective tissue. You know, sometimes people just don't even really have much of a diagnosis. Maybe they get to a diagnosis of hypermobility, but not many practitioners are. So a lot of people may not have a diagnosis, but they could probably relate to this where they're thinking, I try to work out and I only feel worse. So I gave up on working out. And. Right. Like I'm sure is that when people can't find you, that's what they're saying.

Yeah. You know, I've heard a lot of women be like, I tried all the things I did. Pilates, barre, yoga. I did nothing. I sat on the couch. I gained weight. I was trying to do five days a week of hiit training. I gained weight, you know, because like, weight gain and fatigue are like the two biggest struggles.

Yes.

And as you know, like, Hashimoto's usually gets diagnosed kind of later in life. It's like 40 to 60. And so I have women who are 60 years old who have never touched a weight. And I think a lot of us look at a weight and think, if we're not educated, think that's going to injure me. Right. And it's never the tool. It's always kind of the user error in the form. So I have women who are 60 who are learning to strength train for the first time and feel like they have more energy, their pants fit better. I mean, in an ideal world, I'd have everyone step on an inbody, but I know there's, you know, there's women all over the country, like in Alaska, Nebraska, all over, who are starting to get results and feel empowered and don't feel like, okay, I just tried another thing and it didn't work. There's a lot of women who maybe haven't gotten.

The thyroid managed and they feel like every time they exercise, they kind of get into a hashi flare up. And so I think it's very empowering to give them a strength move that recreates something in life, something else in life, like a squat or a deadlift, and have them then take a break and feel like they can get their exercise without worrying, am I going to be, like, totally destroyed and in a total flare up with brain fog and, like, just have to sleep for three days?

So do you mind showing me a squat? Like now I'm like, want to see this? What do you. Tell me? Show me what you're doing. Like what?

So I always have weight on the front, right? So sometimes when we do a back squat to get the bar into position, have to arch our back. Okay. So.

I'm in my baby's room right now. So I always have weight on the front. So I'll hold a kettlebell here. And so.

Think at the top vertical plank.

We can see you. It's okay.

Yeah. So I'll describe it since it's gonna be on a podcast, because if I move, you won't hear my audio. But so at the top, vertical plank, you're holding a weight kettlebell at your chest. Okay.

And.

As you lower down, you want to think the knees and hips are bending at the same rate. So you're going to step your feet hip width.

Yeah.

Pose are going to turn out to like 1 and 11. So as women, we have hips, so it might have to be wider.

Okay.

You stand with your feet parallel. You'll notice your knees will want to internally rotate and hyperextend.

Okay.

Okay. So step your feet wider. Yep. Now turn your toes out to like 1 and 11. Okay. So as if you're holding a weight in front of you.

Think about bending your knees and your hips at the same rate. So a lot of us will bend our knees first and we'll feel kind of like knee pain. And then some of us Will stick our butt out and arch our back. Yeah, yeah. So you want to think like slow, lower. So you might have to move forward a little bit so you don't hit the behind me. Yep. So as we're squatting here, you want to think like vertical plank. You want to slow, lower.

And then. Yep. And then stand back up and you're going to squeeze your butt. Squeeze your butt by squeezing your heels together. You're going to squeeze your heels without moving your feet. So this is called foot dialing.

Oh, I love that term.

Yeah. So almost like you're screwing your feet into the floor, but you're not going to move them. It's going to be ISO.

I can feel it all through, like the inside of my legs.

Yeah. And you should feel as your foot dialing, like your tailbone is tucking and your glutes are like squeezing naturally. So that's one way to build tension in the legs from the feet all the way up.

You're not just doing like some quick, random squat. You're doing a super intentional hit. Every muscle on the way down and back up again.

Yeah. I like to think.

You know, there's ways to create progressive overload to like challenge the body. And a lot of my women only have access because a lot of them are in rural areas or only have. Well, especially during these times they're not going to the gym. And so there's ways to make it harder and to challenge the muscle without necessarily picking up a heavier weight. You could do like a 4 countdown into a squat and stand up.

Oh, go slower.

Basically go slower, which makes it more challenging. You could lower down, take a pause and an extra breath at the bottom and stand up. There's ways to.

Create intensity without, like.

Doing the high intensity interval training. It's like slow, controlled. I tell my women think like every single rep is a perfect rep of one. Because I think sometimes we're like, let's just like get through the workout.

Yeah, you're trying to get to number 10 or.

Yeah, but if you're only doing half an hour. Yeah, but if you're only doing five reps and then taking a break and then, then you can just create more intentionality and just more kind of mind, body connection around it.

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Wow.

Is it? I love that it's then something people can do at home, you know, because then it can become part of your daily life, you know, like so much. I know for me, like if I have to be like, okay, now I'm gonna have to get in the car, get all my stuff, go to the gym, you know, it's just, even when the gyms are available, again, it's just a pain, you know, but if you can just be like, hey, let me do this thing that's very accessible that I could do at home. And you were training them how to not only have the posture, but I could tell you, teaching me what I should be feeling in my muscles. And I don't think we learn that very much. We're not learning what are the muscles and what should they feel when they're getting the right signals. Yeah, I love that.

Yeah. You know, one of the major principles is the breath and the brace. And a lot of us, especially as women, we, I think culturally are always, we're kind of like sucking in and skimming up the waistline and pulling the belly button to the spine. And when you pick up a weight, you don't want to do that. You want to like breathe into your belly and create that intra abdominal pressure, that bracelet, at least while you're pulling the weight. And then you. And then you take a pause. And.

So going back to working at home, working out at home is part of thyroid strong is creating on the exhale this right. So if all your listeners just put their hands on their waistline.

Took a breath into their hands and breathed out and just went.

Oh, with your hips tight. Yep. Okay, so now take a breath in.

Into your belly. Good. And then go.

You should feel your waistline like tighten into your hands.

Yes, I see what you mean. It's like using the muscles to be able to make that sound is what you're saying. You're like using the muscles.

Yeah. So that's one way to create a brace is like versus I think some of us work out and we're like.

Right. So you have to. Yeah. So you use the breath to create brace. And so sometimes we're in a gym, we can be self conscious.

Oh, yeah.

And not want to, you know, be really loud with our breath.

So it's nice to be at home and to be, you know, doing that. I mean, that's from a strong first background is that.

But it just helps create the brace so much easier, especially when we have a hard time accessing it.

Oh, I love that. And I'm just thinking of again of how many people could be helped by this. I mean, you mentioned the risk of falling. It makes me think of osteoporosis. Do you find it also helps people who may have bone density decrease and they're working on that.

Yeah, 100%. I wish we could tell people like, just take a walk and your bone density will increase. But it doesn't. You have to, you have to strength train.

It actually also signals to the bones.

Right.

This strength. I mean, that's why they call it weight bearing exercise. But that sounds like it's just walking. But you really need more than just weight bearing. You need strength training, right?

Yeah. I mean you need, whether it's strength training, weight training, like you need to basically be moving something heavy that's more than your body weight. So. And it just, it helps increase the bone density. So.

Wow, that's, that's, that's important too for that same age group of women, you know, is maintaining bone density. And, and I think that, you know, that's, that's just huge. That's going to be such a benefit for people. And, and I just want to just related to Hashimoto' anyone isn't familiar with it. It's an autoimmune condition where the antibodies are attacking the thyroid gland and so it results can result in a decrease in thyroid function over time. And the only way you would really know that you have Hashimoto's is if you do a blood test that shows the antibodies, which is the thyroid peroxidase and antithyroglobulin antibodies, which you can do. Regular doctor can order that and the regular labs can do that kind of a test, but it's not on a standard panel. So, you know, you'd have to really kind of ask for it. And a lot of times with low thyroid, it's a lot of times I find patients who have borderline low Thyroid that hasn't been addressed from regular medicine because they're really looking for if the thyroid is extremely low functioning. So they may not even find low thyroid, let alone Hashimoto's, until it's very advanced. Like you're saying, a lot of times people go a long time without even knowing they have this. But what you can do is I always recommend every year, have not only the TSH checked, but the free T3 and the free T4, so you know where your thyroid function is. Even if you're treating now, you know you have Hashimoto's and you're doing thyroid strong, but you want to check and see how you. Because sometimes I think people have this perception that once there's low thyroid or Hashimoto's, that it's kind of expected that they're not going to feel good. But I think what you and I are saying is, no, you shouldn't expect not to feel good. There's a lot of things you can do even with knowing you have Hashimoto's. There's a lot you can do to feel good. Don't give up. Basically, like, you know, there's. You're saying, hey, there's ways to exercise to help you feel, feel well and in your life, in your body, even if you have Hashimoto's. And I'm saying, hey, check your TSH, free T3, free T4 regularly to make sure that you're, say, if you're on thyroid hormone, make sure it's dialed in. Because most endocrinologists and doctors don't get it. So dialed in, you want that TSH right about a 1 between 0.5 and 1.5. And if it's above a 1.5 and you're on thyroid hormone replacement, it's not dialed in enough. There's room for improvement. And we got to look at the free T3 and free T4 to make sure the hormones are there. And there's so much we can do to help with that. Everything from diet changes to nutrients and herbs and helping with leaky gut and helping with gut bacteria. And there's so much we can do to get the Hashimoto's antibodies down and get the thyroid hormone dialed in. But along that path of doing all that internal work, what I refer to it as is self care is part, you know, we've got to do that. The clean eating, the sleeping, the stress reduction. But we need that movement, we need that exercise. And I love that you're offering this component of. Here's a Way to exercise when you may have, you know, if you have Hashimoto's or. I think what you're describing would help with a lot of different kinds of autoimmunity, fibromyalgia, again, you know, even bone density loss, and definitely with Ehlers Danlo and hypermobility. Because it's. You're not going to find this kind of training anywhere. It's really hard to find someone who specializes in this.

Yes, this is exactly because I did a lot of research. I was like, okay, who's like, strength training the autoimmune population? And I really couldn't. I found like a couple Pilates.

But again, it doesn't address the muscle and challenging the muscle and thyroid turnover from the thyroid receptors. So, yeah, I haven't found anyone else. So I was like, we got to put this out there. I got to put this out there. And.

Because I not only had to do it for myself, but with the women in my clinic.

And just like kind of playing with what is capacity.

And dialing in the reps and the sets, dialing in progressive overload without necessarily picking up a heavier weight if they don't have access to it.

Yeah. So it's definitely an evolution of it.

I think your point about weights is so important because a lot of times too, I know some people think about weights, they think, oh, that's going to mean I'm going to have to be that person at the gym for hours or I'm going to have to be, you know, doing like. There's a certain sometimes perception of what that means to be doing strength training or using weights. And you're saying, no, we're going to, yes, we are going to use a weight, but we are using it in a way that is different than that, that you can do from home. That doesn't have to mean that it's, you know, your whole life becomes about weight training. This is, you know, just about how to integrate it into your normal life.

Yeah, 100%. So the people who are in the gym doing an hour and a half to three hours of strength are typically like the bodybuilders. Right. So if the goal is an aesthetic physique, you know, we always want to, like, look good in our clothes, but we don't need to be seeing like every single striation and veins popping. So, yeah, it doesn't have to be, you know, I think we have. What you were saying is, like, we get in the car, we get to the gym, it's like this, like, kind of like grandiose Gesture of like an hour to an hour and a half when you could just kind of bang it out at home.

For 20, 30 minutes.

And that definitely sounds so much more doable for me. I think you have certain sort of exercises that are important in thyroid strong. Maybe highlight those. Tell me.

Yeah, so I think a lot of people, when they think of strength training, they think of like bicep curls, tricep dips.

And so I have something called the essential seven and it's full body movements. So for example, like in the bodybuilding world, you're focusing on getting more definition in your bicep, your delt, your tricep. And they're just hitting all like every single muscle in a single muscle isolation. But my goal is to make you better at life, to pick your kid, to carry your groceries, to like put your bag in the overhead whenever we travel again. And so the essential seven is some sort of hinge movement, like a deadlift, a squat, a lunge, a push, a pull, a carry, like we're carrying our groceries and then some sort of like anti rotate move. And so when you focus on those and not singular muscle isolation, when you're focusing on like functional full, full body movements, even a push move, right, or a pull move, like a row, is really a full body movement. It's not just even a push up. People think, oh, my upper body's weak, I can't do a push up. Well, a push up is squeeze your butt, push out through your heels to get your quads engaged. It's a full body movement. So when you make it more functional, it makes it more efficient so that you're not having to.

Do muscle isolation. Because the goal is not aesthetics, the goal is to be better at life.

I love that, I love that. And it's. And to have someone to be just, you know, to remind because we could say, oh, we just go do 10 push ups. But it's not going to have the same results as knowing where you should be putting your attention during that pushup.

And I do not even just treating lots of people. We treat about 100 people in the clinic a week. I know very few people who can do 10 good pushups. Even men that are like, no, no, no, I do 100 and I do them like this, like super fast and I crank them out and I'm like.

Let'S just slow it down and thinking about this.

And yeah, yeah, like just building the tension on the down and the push. They could get like five good reps.

So, yeah, well, so I love this. It's not about quantity or sort of quantity or length of time. It's really about the quality.

And sort of and knowing that can make such a difference. So how can people find out about the next? Because you do the thyroid strong or Hashimoto strong live, right? Or is it available all the time?

So it was. It had closed March 1, and I was gonna open it up again in the fall. And then obviously COVID 19 hit and I was getting emails of these women. They're like, I want to work out. I'm scared to work out. I don't want to overdo it. I don't want to overdo it. Just walking outside. I don't want to push myself into a hashi flare up. Is your program available? So I opened it back up again and it's open now.

And you know, I think part of it is like, only during COVID 19 would there be a shortage of kettlebells in the world.

Everybody's ordered all the kettle bells.

Everyone has ordered every single kettlebell. But there's like certain sites that I have friends that are shipping out kettlebells. But we also, until people can get kettlebells, we MacGyver it. Like, we get sacks of gluten free flour and put it into bags as a weight.

Yeah, yeah.

A backpack full of books. So I always give modifications.

Drops in the feet. Because we have a private Facebook group. Like, oh, after I did that press, I felt a little thing on my shoulder. So I always give modifications and ways to regress or progress it.

Just because that's what my background's in. And I feel like it's helpful.

Oh, it's so huge. I mean, that's the thing. Because I think it's rare for a chiropractor to use your background in this way, but in some ways it makes so much sense because your training has so much more specific understanding of the joints and the way joints function and move. And you know, that it just like now it's like, of course a chiropractor would have these insights about how better to exercise and strengthen. So I just, I love it. I love that you followed your, you know, your intuition and what works for you to be able to share that with other people.

Yeah. You know, I had a friend who's also a chiropractor tell me, he's like, yeah, when I was in practice, I would see three people every 10 minutes. And I was like, you mean like three, like, each person, 10 minutes? He's like, no, three people in 10 minutes. Like, so it was like, three. And I was like.

I had to take a breath at first. But you know, I think in our day and age where there is such a disconnect from our mind to our body, like we're so in our head with being on our phones and our computers.

That I think it's a powerful tool and I enjoy practicing that way more to just get people to get quality movement and start to feel their body. Because I think so much, whether it's like past traumas or phones, like we're just so from the neck up and disconnected. So might as well.

It's almost like the rest of this is a foreign area. Right. You're like be a foreign area. Let me introduce you to your body.

Yeah. And so I think, you know, for treating three people in 10 minutes, I was like, it's kind of encouraging, that culture of disconnect. And I want to create connection. So let's spend more time, let's do it right. Let's do things that we should be doing with our body. But no one ever taught us. Like they don't really teach you how to strength train. In high school you do like the President's one mile walk, whatever. You don't do it in college. If you hire a trainer, they probably don't know how to train for hypermobility or in a way that won't tank your adrenals.

They didn't go to anatomy, physiology, chiropractic training. They just went through probably relatively short how to build muscle training.

Yeah, you can get a trainer certification in a three day weekend. So not. I mean, I have amazing trainer friends that are constantly doing education, but I.

Think it's worth knowing if your body has more specific needs, you may need more specific training.

Exactly. Yes. 100%.

Wow. And I bet, I mean again, not against chiropractors either, because chiropractors of course do such amazing things. But probably if you have the right strength and more awareness for your body and your posture, you're probably not going to need chiropractic adjustments that often. You know, like when you do need them. Okay, definitely. It's a great tool. But what if you wouldn't need them as often just by maintaining your body structure and muscles better?

Yes, yes. So for the hypermobility components.

A joint will feel stuck. Right. Like if you go in and palpate, it feels stuck. And if you adjust it, you do that high velocity low amplitude adjustment. You don't often get like a clean cavitation. You feel like you're kind of bouncing off the joint or especially like in the mid back. I know a lot of my hyperwomen, like hypermobile women. I'll, like, go to build tension in the joint. And I feel like the joint just keeps, like, you never find tension because of the hypermobility. And so if you go to thrust on that, it just feels yuck. It just feels yuck.

It's just mushy.

So I like to think of the tight areas as a compensation for the areas that are not doing their job. So let's say there's a joint that feels stuck in the neck. If you can create a little bit of, like, length in the neck and then get someone to breathe into their belly, create a brace and build strength and tension somewhere else. You can literally feel that joint or that muscle let go in the neck.

Wow.

Like within, like five breaths. So instead of trying to massage or adjust the joint, you just create the strength and the stability where you need it to kind of clean up those energy leaks. Then you don't have to focus on the tightness.

It's brilliant. It's so. It's really brilliant. And I think you're right. A lot of times we're, you know, people are not aware. We're not aware of what's going on in there. We just know we feel pain and we're like, what am I supposed to do with this pain? And of course, you don't want to have to be taking Tylenol all the time or other pain medications. It's like you start to realize, like, this is not, you know, this is going to be potentially hard on my liver and hard on my body, and it's not really solving it. But if there's a way to understand, hey, how can I shift my body? And even just with a breath, like you're saying, shift the pattern so the pain releases and then train your body so that it's less likely to happen. It sounds. Sounds perfect to me. So thank you.

Oh, my gosh.

Thank you so much for sharing this and for doing what you do.

Thank you. There's rehab videos in the course.

And they're taken from how we learned movement as babies. Right. There's that developmental patterning on a primal level. And so there's movement flows. Because I think if we think we're going to strength train and never injure ourselves or never feel discomfort is kind of unrealistic. But there's ways to move out of that discomfort, like get certain areas engaged, to tell other areas to not work so hard, like the tight areas.

So there's movement flows, there's a rehab section in the course for ways to, like, if you have neck pain, shoulder pain, hip and back, how to move so that you can basically get yourself out of that. Wow.

Yeah. So there's a lot. There's. There's not only the trainings you give, there's the Facebook group, and then there's these additional resources so you could use based on your specific situation.

Yeah. Yeah. There's three workouts a week for six weeks.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay. Three times six.

Yeah.

Awesome. And is. So they. Where can they go to find out more and sign up?

Yeah. So they could go to Dr. Dremilykyberd.com. yes.

And Kyberd is K I B E R D. Yes.

And there's a bunch of blogs on there too, talking about hypermobility and moves and form and strength and all that kind of stuff.

You can already start learning from you right. From there and then also reach out to you if they want to know more, if this is a good fit for them.

Right. Yes. Yes. I get lots of questions in, like, Facebook messages that I go in and answer because I think there's, you know, just going back to being a female and weight training and really never being taught. There can be a lot of. There can be a lot of fear around it. And what I find is that once women start strength training, like, the anxiety kind of dials down.

And my theory is, like, if we're hypermobile and we can't find our center.

The energy will lift and we'll feel like this anxiousness. Also on a hormonal level with Hashimoto's. But so if you can create strength and create integrity in the joints, it creates this groundedness and connection to the earth, and so we won't feel as anxious. So I get a lot of questions, women that are like, I'm a little nervous, and I'm like, it's okay. Like, you're gonna pick up the weight, you're gonna feel more grounded, and you're gonna do with great form, and you're not gonna do a lot of reps. And, you know, don't worry. Like, I'm here with you every step of the way.

Well, and I really love that. It's. You're also teaching acceptance of your own body. You know, it's like, this is. This is the body we live in. You know, like, sort of go. I always joke, you know, you can't go to the body store and get another body. So to some degree, it's like, let me just accept. Okay, yes, I have These aches and pains. And I have this autoimmune situation going on. This is the body I live in. So let me learn what I need to do to help my body. And by doing that, the anxiety goes down because now you're informed and you feel connected to yourself, and not because I agree with you. This anxiety comes from not knowing and feeling disconnected. So I love that. It's like, no, you're like, hey, I'm going to teach you, and you're going to learn more about your body and what it needs. It's beautiful.

Yeah. Yeah. It's been a long kind of tweaking and evolution, but.

Women are getting great. There's probably 100 women in the program right now. Maybe a little over 100.

That's awesome.

Yeah. And just getting great results. And there's always questions that come up.

And I think one of kind of like, my zones of genius is being able to give modifications to regress it to make it harder if they need. So that's always super fun. We do lots of Facebook lives around that.

I love it. Because then you never feel like you're also getting that connection with community, which we need.

Yeah. I think. And I don't know your experience, but I think in a lot of the autoimmune Facebook groups, there's a lot of.

A misinformation. Like, people are like, hey, these are my blood results. What do you guys think? Well, you should ask your doctor. Not a bunch of women in a Facebook group. And I think there's.

Kind of sometimes like a Debbie Downer feeling. And so it's really cool because in Thyroid Strong, the Facebook group is like, everyone has Hashimoto's. Everyone's cheering each other on. There's literally people that are like, I just did week four, workout one today, and it was awesome. And then, like, other women are like, oh, my God, you're a rock star. You know, so it's such. It's so uplifting where I think some of the Facebook groups can be a little like, wah, wah.

Yeah, yeah, it's. I know what you mean. Yeah, you. It's nice to have. Because sometimes people do worry that they're gonna just go into a group and feel. Feel worse about themselves. But to be able to know, hey, this is a group of people who have a common goal, and it's all this empowerment and, you know, and also, hey, if there's a question, let's find an answer, not just spinning in circles.

Exactly. Awesome.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Donnie.

It's so great. To be able to share all of this. And thank you. Yeah. For offering your program again so people can get this information and be able to get strong from home.

Yeah. Yeah. It's super fun.

All right. Thank you.

Thank you, Donnie.

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