013- Function and Movement: An Interview with Dr. Steve Capobianco

Welcome to the Evidence Based Chiropractor, providing you with elegant and efficient research based content to help your practice prosper and succeed. Now get ready for a variety of dynamic communication tools designed for immediate growth courtesy of your host, Dr. Jeff Langmaid.

Hello and welcome to the Evanitespace Chiropractor. I AM your host, Dr. Jeff Langmaid. Today we have a special episode that is 100% dedicated to the research behind functional movement. It's actually in an interview form with Dr. Steve, the medical director from Rocktape. Everybody that's a listener of the show knows that Rocktape and Evidence Based Chiropractor have a great relationship together and this episode really proves why. Dr. Steve delivers head to toe on the research behind functional movement and tap. So enjoy this episode. Also, quick plug before we get started, if you have not picked up Marketing Chiropractic to Medical Doctors on Amazon, please do so. It is still number one in chiropractic on Amazon.com it's going to give you all the tools necessary to start building referral relationships for literally less than the price of your lunch today. So pick it up Amazon.com, simply type in Marketing Chiropractic and you will see my book come up first. So let's get right to the interview with Dr. Steve. You might notice a crinkle or two. I think that is our USB mics during the interview. I apologize for that, but this is an awesome interview. So here we go.

Thanks for taking the time Dr. Steve to come on anytime.

Looking forward to it.

Awesome.

So for the docs who are maybe I hate to say living under a rock, but maybe they have not heard of Rock tape or yourself. Tell me a little bit about you and Rock Tape in a couple sentences here.

Well, Rocktape is a relatively new kinesiology tape company. It's been around since 2009 and I'm a practicing sports chiropractor. Was originally in Northern California where the company started in Los Gatos, California and the founder Greg Van Andries approached me with this product in 2009 and asked me for help and how we could use the product within our profession. I linked up with him and developed a curriculum based around movement and we've been doing good work since then.

Awesome. And that's I think you already started to touch on probably what I think really where my listeners love to hear about. So it sounded like you were involved in really some predominantly a sports based practice and really the Kinesio tape and products such as that really were beneficial for you in practice. So tell me a little bit more about kind of your chiropractic interest and kind of how Rock Tape melded with that in terms of your practice.

It's a great question and the answer is probably long winded, but I'll try to keep it short. Ultimately, I studied under Tom Souza and Feinberg, Edward Feinberg and those that are sports minded and research based. And after leaving Palmer west here in San Jose, California, I wanted to dive in deeper into this movement model approach, meaning how do we use the tools that we have available to us as chiropractors to help someone move better? And I think regardless of what type of chiropractor you are, I think most of us can agree, and I've been teaching long enough to this community to know the answer is that we can all agree that our goal, our main goal is to get people moving more effectively. And I think rocktate just presented itself to me at the right time in my career. And I've been practicing about 12 years. And it came out to looking at the research that definitely Dr. Souza taught me to dive into, looking at the effectiveness of using the skin and this proprioceptive input, this exteroceptive input, I can explain that further if you like. But using the skin to be able to drive movement more effectively and extending the benefits of our care that we have in our practice. So I think it just melded the two together. Using the tape as an adjunct, that really helped to lock in the therapy that I was providing to them, either adjusted care or modalities. So I think it just entered into my practice at the right time of my career.

Yeah, that's awesome. I'd love for you to talk a little bit more so about how it impacts our input or proprioception or kind of how it works and what some of the goals are. I think in terms of when it comes to practicing, chiropractor starts with it. Certainly I think they're going to go through and learn a ton from you. But if you could kind of just touch on a few items, I'd love to hear a little bit more about that.

Yeah, this is where the basis of our education is revolving around is this idea of how do we provide a novel input to our brain and we do that every time we touch someone. So I think one of the things that was lacking in my education that I had to really dive in deeper with is the understanding of pain and how we perceive the world. And it's through touch. And once we understand that, we can really start to make some significant changes on people's pain perception and movement quality. So here's what I'm getting at is when we put our hands on someone, say someone's lower back. Let's take a chronic lower back pain patient. It's been well documented that those individuals have a lack of representation of that area of their body within their brain. So their brain does an amazing thing to rewire itself to protect itself around an area that is continually presenting pain.

Okay.

And what has been also documented in research is that if we can create a stimulus to that area via touch adjust of care tape on the skin in that region, we can upload information to the brain, providing a better representation of that area, again, which has been also associated with a decrease in pain and an improvement in your movement quality. So what I'm getting at is that touch is a lot more significant than we used to think, that the act of touch helps to communicate with the brain, and we provide the brain with information to make the appropriate adjustments in response. So that's what I'm getting at is that tape and touch through our hands is more powerful than we used to think.

Gotcha. Yeah, I think that's really powerful information. And it sounds to me, I mean, without being. Or sounding cheesy, it kind of sounds to me certainly like rock tape or kinesio taping could really be used, Regardless of what kind of chiropractic technique choice you might have.

Absolutely. I think if we follow this idea of what they. You'll see in the research, they talk about tactile threshold that is limited in people that are.

Have.

That are experiencing chronic pain. That could be cervical pain, lower back pain, knee pain, and whatever modality that we use an adjusted technique that we use to instill improve movement quality of those. Those tissues, we can extend the benefit of that by improving the awareness of that body part with some tape on the skin. And that's really what I'm getting at, is that it's an extension of our care. It's not a panacea. It doesn't make the correction on its own. It works much better. And that's where the research is also going, is that it works very well in conjunction to other therapies, including corrective exercise.

Awesome.

Yeah. That frames it and clarifies things. Even for myself, knowing about rock tape, I think that really puts it in perspective and probably a lot more eloquently than I could have done. So great job in terms of. I'm going to switch gears a little bit. I'd love to know a couple of maybe You've alluded to them already, but a couple of your chiropractic heroes. So who are chiropractors? Either past, present, or even some up and coming chiropractors who you've kind of looked to and take note of. I'd love to hear a little bit more.

Gosh, I have a long list, but two that really stand out and I'm sure you have the same type of list. But my toms in my life are Tom Souza and Tom Hyde, two giants in the research and sports chiropractic fields. I got to spend a lot of time with both and go learn from them. And they're so gracious in their giving of time and information, still within this phase of their career. I just so blessed to have those two toms in my life. Ed Feinberg has always been a mentor of mine. He was an instructor or professor of mine at Palmer west, and I still get the opportunity to teach and learn from him as well. Those are the big three in my life. And one that I do want to give props to is Dr. Ken Kanakin. He's a chiropractor up in Canada. I originally came from Canada and he started a program called SWIS Society of Weight Training Injury Specialists. He just had a symposium last month in Toronto and it's a name that I want your listeners to know. Ken Kanakin, K I N A KIN Great resource for anyone that's in the fitness and sports performance field.

Yeah, that's awesome. There's some familiar names there and some new ones, so that's awesome. In terms of another question kind of related to that, but I think people would always love to know, certainly with yourself being a big player obviously at Rock Tape and really one of the what I'd say one of the founding people there. So what are some either kind of a book that you read recently, a podcast that you listen to, or an entrepreneur kind of that you look to and like and kind of resonate with and I'd love to love to hear about it.

Well out of the chiropractic field, but still very pertinent to our profession. I think one that's really driven me to learn more about this idea of pain science is Lorimer Mosley. Have you heard of the name?

No, I'm not familiar.

Let me spell the name. L O R I M E R Moseley M O S E L E Y Laura Mosley and David Butler, two of the leading experts in pain science. They are involved with a group called the NOI Group, the Neuro Orthopedic institute out of Australia.

Okay.

And what they provided me in the book that I want to reference here is Explain Pain. It's probably the best book that I've been able to use to be able to communicate chronic pain to my patients. And you and I both know, and as well as your listeners know that chronic pain is a really difficult condition to work with. And what I've learned from these, these two giants are that education trumps a lot of the therapies that we can use manually. So the combination of the two have been shown to be very successful, and they've given me the framework of communication to work with these individuals.

Yeah, I really appreciate that because that certainly is, again, some new people for me to look at. And I think everybody that's listening really appreciate that as well.

Great.

I kind of have one more question for you, and I won't take up too much of your time today, but I was curious. I've seen some kind of advertisements and some new information regarding sort of the expansion of what Rock Tape's offering, specifically with a product called Rock Tape Chill. I mean, I'm not making you kind of in here to do an infomercial on it, but I'd love to hear a little bit more about that because I can imagine that's probably going to be something that many chiropractors that are listening are going to be interested in.

Yeah, I think Rock Tape Chill. Any of our topicals. We have Rock Tape, Rock Sauce. Excuse me. And then we have Rock Tape Chill, two topical counter irritants, not unlike others on the market that you may know of. I think the giant in the. In this space would be biofreeze.

Okay.

But we've developed this product, these two products, one that creates a heating effect and one that creates a cooling effect. Rock Tape Chill, creating that cooling effect. And the main ingredients are menthol that provides that response. The one cool thing that we're learning, and if we kind of go back to research just really quickly, but we're learning some really good things or interesting things about the effectiveness of Catchsaken in the heating response and menthol and the cooling response in respect to pain decrease, and really learning the science behind it of how these two ingredients can have effects on certain receptors within the tissues that actually have been shown to decrease pain. So that is getting exciting for me because I've always seen. Seen it anecdotally and I've felt it myself of how it actually helps with pain. But now that we starting to better understand the science behind it and what quantities and how we can create these concoctions that can accelerate the benefit of the stimulation of these receptors. I think this is where we're going with these two products, the Roc Sauce and Rock Tape Chill. So ultimately they're just topicals that you can use in conjunction with tape and they actually accelerate the pain decrease by stimulating these chemical receptors.

Awesome. Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to come on today and especially I think it gave me a lot of clarity in terms of I didn't know that rocktape had really such a foundational aspect in terms of the research of what's relevant and prevalent with pain and with movement. So I think that gives me not only myself personally a lot of good information, but certainly the listeners as well. And I'll make sure that in the show notes here, we'll certainly link to everything so the docs that are listening can find out more about Rock Tape, find out more about where you guys are headed, and certainly learn a little bit more about pain, chronic pain and certainly movement. So thanks, Dr. Steve. We really appreciate it and we'll be talking to you again soon.

We appreciate you joining us for this episode of the Evidence Based Chiropractor. Learn more tips for explosive practice development at theevidencebasedchiropractor.com you can also join the Premier MD monthly membership, enabling you to use what you just heard to maximize results in your office. We look forward to providing you with more dynamic communication tools for immediate growth right here on the Evidence Based Chiropractor.