Dr Chalmers Path to Pro - Don’t Overlook the Obvious

Back pain is something a lot of people deal with, but it’s often treated the wrong way. It highlights how simple habits like regular chiropractic care and basic movement can make a big difference over time. It’s not about quick fixes it’s about helping your body work the way it’s supposed to by paying attention to how everything connects.

You'll learn why painkillers and rest might not always be the best answer, and how building strength in the right areas can help prevent the pain from returning. There are also useful tips on everyday movements and why some popular exercises might actually be doing more harm than good.

Highlights of the Podcast

00:06 – Impressive Labs, Unsolved Pain

01:30 – Misunderstanding Chiropractic

02:53 – The Science Behind Chiropractic

04:10 – Functional Test for Recovery

05:43 – Why Everything Feels “Heavy”

07:15 – Strength Is the Best Protection

08:35 – A Simple Daily Routine

10:02 – Hip Flexors & Sitting Culture

11:41 – Don’t Jump to Kettlebells

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Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:06] So, this one's kind of interesting because I had the conversation with the guy and I wanted to share this with everybody. I see this a lot and so it was one of those things I wanna make sure that we threw out. So, what happens a lot of times is that someone will connect me with one of their friends and be like, hey man, Ted's having a real big issue or Susan's having this big issue and nobody can figure it out. So I wanted them to talk to you. I'm like, cool. So I get one of those either day guy comes in, doesn't come in, it's telemed. So talk to him for a minute. I'm like, all right, send me all your labs. He was like, I got all my labs done. I was like cool. And normally what happens is that when I hear that people have trash labs from someone who doesn't know what they're doing. Um, this guy did this guy, apparently which somebody who knows what they were doing, fasting insulin was on there, cortisol is on there. It was great. It's free test, all the stuff. So I look at it and it's like, I almost want to tell everybody who this guy is because like, because I was super impressed with everything's everything's great. It's the first time I've ever seen blood work where I was like, your test is where it's supposed to be your your your insulin slow. Like, everything's perfect on this blood drop. He's telling me about this, you know, this back pain he's got. And we go back and forth for like, a little bit. And I finally asked him, I'm like, Have you seen a chiropractor? And he was like, yeah, he's like, I did, it didn't work. And I was like oh, all right.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:30] So we go back through some other stuff and like nothing's making sense. And so finally I go, all, right, hold on, let's start over. And I'm like, let's go back to this chiropractor thing. He's like yeah, and I was, like, tell me about the chiropractor thing that didn't work. He was like well, and he's, like I went in, got adjusted, he was, and it felt better for a little bit and he was like the next morning I woke up and it was still there. Like the pain was back to normal. So he was so it didn't work. It's like, oh. That's my bad. I didn't go into the chiropractic thing. And so I asked him, I was like, well, do you take anything? He's like, yeah, I take Advil for it. And I was, like, cool. And when you take the Advil, I was just like, does the pain go away? And he was like yeah. Now what happens when it, four or five hours later when the pain comes back? He was like I just take another Advil. I'm like, ah. So you do the Advill multiple times. He was, yeah. Okay. I'm, like that's how you get a look at the chiopractic. So this guy works out, his test is like 900 on a trough day, like everything's great about this thing. And what he didn't understand, and we talked about this, it was like the reason you're backwards is because the muscles are weak. He was like, man, I don't know about that. He's like, I work out every day, like seven days a week. He was, like, my training protocol is great. That looks great, whole deal. And I was like how often do you bend over and touch your toes in your workout? He got quiet and he's like. I mean, I do deadlifts, and I was like, not really the same thing. Oh, how can you do deadlift? He was like once a week, I was, like, cool.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:02:53] All right, here's the thing. What ends up happening, I tell everybody this, I'll tell everybody this again. What happens is that when the joints get out of position, the muscles in the area, the ligaments in the air, the tendons in the area, all have little receptors in them. They talk to the brain constantly. When they stop moving, or they don't move right, or the joint gets out of Oftentimes those little communication systems, they don't communicate the brain very well. So the body starts locking the area down. It creates more and more muscle spasms to secure the area. Those muscle spasm pinch on the nerves and that's what causes the pain. So what ends up happening is that as you start getting. As these things start locking up, if you start adjusting the joint, this is how chiropractic works. All those little receptors inside the muscles, inside the ligaments and tendons, they get reset. And so they send different information to the brain, and the brain goes, oh, cool. You're there. Reset like this. And so, they'll start to reset. The problem is that in an area where the joints aren't moving properly, they're not moving enough, the muscles are weak, the forces that are put into the musculature isn't accurate. These things slide right back out of place and the communication gets kind of muffled. So that's why you have to adjust multiple times.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:04:10] Now here's the thing, the way that I do this, I'm not trying to tell you, you know, how your chiropractor should do it or whatever, the way I do it is that you adjust the joint until, like this is for low back, you adjust a joint until the person can bend over and touch their toes and stand back up without any pain. Now I'm talking about like, oh, I can walk my hands down my thighs and down my legs and then kind of bend my knees and kind of act like I'm doing it. No, no, no. Legs mostly straight, like not locked, but like 98% straight, bend over, touch your toes, stand back up. Can you do that? As soon as you can do that once, even if it's uncomfortable, but not painful, you don't, you know, you don't tweak, you don't like, you know, compensate, you don't. I can't see it. Like if you've been over to your toes, and you went for you, you know, as you're coming back up, you got to bend your knees or something like that, that doesn't count. As soon as you can bend over and touch your toes and stand back up without any pain or with no pain, a little discomfort is fine, but no pain. Now we can start exercising the joint. Now we start resetting the neurologic muscle fiber function. So now you're going to bend over, touch your toe, three sets of ten, two or three times a day. As soon as you get to the point where you're like... I don't even feel this anymore. This is kind of boring. Now you pick up weights and you got to go slow, like low weights, like five pounds in each hand. That's 10 pounds, five plus five is 10. And so you work up, and I like to work people up to where they're holding about 30 pounds in the chat. So 60 total pounds.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:05:43] And the reason I want you to be able to bend over and pick up 60 pounds is because everything is heavy. It's heavier than you think it is. Like people ask me all the time, like they'll come in and they'll bend over and they're back. And they'll be like, I just bent over to pick up a pencil. How much could that pencil have weighed? And I'm like, in my case, that pencil weighs about 140 pounds. And they're like, how is that? Because you didn't lift up the pencil. You lifted up the pen and everything from your belt buckle up. And the thing is that if you bend over like this, the forces here are really, really high. It's like a long lever arm. The physics on that are really impressive if you look at them. One of my one of my patients is Yeah, he's a physicist that whole like computer science guy He did he didn't use like it's this much PSI for his body and his height and whole thing. He was like, that's amazing I'm like, it's why it hurts Here's the thing you've all been conditioned by the medical system, which by the way not medical doctors medical system Never ever for any reason listen to medical system anything that comes from the NIH the CDC the FDA Don't listen to any of that stuff. This whole like, never lift your back is literally the dumbest thing I've ever heard. It is gonna create a ton of problems for everybody. You wanna train your back so that you can lift with it because guess what? You can't lift without using your back. This whole, like, engage the core. Your back musculature is your core. So you can't not lift with your back, so train your backs that you an lift with them.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:07:15] And so what we'll do is we'll bring people in who have low back pain. You know, disk, disk herniations, whatever it is. And again, we adjust the joints, the joint starts moving properly, then we strengthen the musculature around the joint complex. As the musclature around the joint-complex gets stronger, now it can function properly. Now you don't overload it. Think of it, this is another way you can think of it. If too much electricity travels through a circuit, it'll pop the fuse. The fuse breaks so that it saves the system. The back starts hurting and you don't use it, you're like, Oh, I'm not going to lift with anymore to protect the disks, to protect the nerves, to protect the function, because it's not strong enough to do what you're asking it to do. If you think of it your daily life, how often do you bend over and touch your toes? How often you've been over and pick things up? My guess is probably never because when I asked this question, people who come in who have low back pain, they're like I can't remember the last time I've been ever touched my let alone two or three times in a row. Once you get adjusted and your low back stops hurting, then you start doing these things, it'll build the musculature up, it'll get the joint used to moving in its full range of motion, and it will strengthen it in its whole range of emotion. Now you won't have back pain in the future. Now I'm not saying you don't need to get adjusted to kind of maintain, you know, pelvic functions like that, you know two or three times a month.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:08:35] For some people, sometimes it's once a week, depends on how long you waited and how much damage you've done and all that fun jazz, but... If you have chronic low back pain, even if you've got herniated disks, even if she had surgery, even if he had all that stuff, the easiest way to do it is make sure the joint moves and it's full range, which is getting adjusted. Then do the at-home exercises. Like what I'll have people do once you're like, oh, I'm feeling pretty good. I'm like, sweet. Three times a day, bend over and touch your toes. Three sets of 10, you know, three sets of three sets a 10. And they'll be like, all right, so morning lunch and dinner, three sets of 10. Again, it should not take you more than five minutes. And what will end up happening is that as you get done with that, great, now pick up weights. And now all of a sudden you won't have this back pain. And I've had people who have big herniations and small herniation and car wrecks and all sorts of different problems and they'll start doing this and then they'll come back and they're like, man, I feel awesome. Like my back doesn't hurt. My legs feel good. Like I can get up and move around. I feel fantastic. But here's the other side of this. Most of us are sitting all day long. So what ends up happening is that your iliopsoas, your hip flexor muscles, instead of being this long or this short. And so they pitch your pelvis back, eliminating that lumbar curve, putting extra strain on your back. So if you'll get up and do this, your hip flexors, your iliopsoas won't be too tight and everything else feels better.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:10:02] So, Jin, the way that it's different than a deadlift is like a lot of people will come over and then as they start coming up, they bend their knees and then they lift with the glutes. They're not lifting with the quadratus and lores. They're lifting, so they lift, so not from the low back, they lift from the glute and the hip. Uh, which is fine, but like a, an SLR, like a straight leg raise, like we, we keep your legs straight and you bend over and you come back up. That's, that's a little bit closer to what we're talking about. Here's the problem with this. And I see people do this all the time. If you put a bar on your shoulders, 10 pound bar, 15 pound bar doesn't Then you bend over that is a that is that is an exercise that you've got to worry you don't want to do that one until you've done dumbbells for a while and the reason is because again think of the physics of it so if your flexion point's here and you're bending like this that's a long lever arm and so if you put a weight up here and then you do this that's a gigantic lever arm that you're going to put tons and tons and tens of force and strain into that low back and i would be very very cautious of doing that um the only thing that's worse than that would be a kettlebell swing. Uh, you can build your body up to do kettlebell swings, but a lot of people who just go in there and be like, Oh, I'm going to do this kettlebell swing, the flinging up, not that big of a deal. The catching it as you come back down, all that force goes snap right there. Not a great idea. I've had to send people for surgery for that more often from kettlebell, swings and from car racks. So kind of keep that one in mind. I'm not saying don't do kettle bell swings, what I'm telling you is that strengthen your back, build up to the kettlebells. We're like, well, the rock does something like, Well, I don't know what's going on with what he's done all the way up.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:11:41] But, you know, maybe he's gotten his where it's supposed to be. I don't know, never worked. But that's how we do kettlebell swings here. People are like, I really want to do them. We build the we build the body up so they can handle the forces going into it. The vast majority of people that we talked about, the vast majority people we see are sitting most of the day, and they're never bending over and touching their toes. So if you guys want a really big health tip, and I've said this a lot, set a timer and or do it as soon as you wake up right before you go to bed and at lunch, just bend over and touch your toes three sets of 10. Once you get, you know, kind of done with that, pick up some weights. But you know that's one of those big things that, you know, people are like, I don't understand why my back hurts. Like, when did you use it last? I can't remember the last time I've used, I can remember the lesson I've been over and touched my toes. Well, of course it's falling apart because you never use it. So, but that would be the thing. I would highly recommend that before you guys start doing this, you get adjusted and you stay adjusted, especially if you're a woman. Y'all's pelvis is set up designed to have babies. If it's not where it's supposed to be, we're in a big pile of trouble right there. Oftentimes we get women who had kids and their pelvic floor is all messed up. We're gonna start not only with low back exercises and that type of bend over to your toes, but actual pelvic floor strengthening stuff as well. But that's really where it is. And so, if you're seeing your chiropractor, great. If you're see your chiopractor not doing any exercises, especially if you don't hurt that bad, you're missing out on the biggest piece of it. So, do those exercises, start moving, and that'll help quite a bit. If you guys have any questions, just have questions@chalmerswellness.com or drop them in the comments. I'll talk to you guys later. Have a great day. Thanks for your time.

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Dr. Matt Chalmers

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