back and knee pain relief today I'm doing a comment on a video by Evan Carmichael and
he solved his back and knee pain by doing five things that I'm gonna list and talk about so I
want to explain the mechanisms of what is it that happening in the body that created those
changes for him so make sure that you stay tuned to the end because if you understand
the big picture then you can see if this is something that you could benefit from and
if you understand the big picture you can get a complete solution instead of just a partial fix
so Evan said that he had years and years ago he had a lot of back pain and knee pain and he would
go to a chiropractor and it wouldn't really help but then he took things into his own hands which
was very proactive and he found some solutions that worked for him but why did they work so
here's what he did he said the main thing was to use a stand-up desk so instead of sitting down he
created a stand-up environment where he could work standing and then his back pain went away
so what happens here is it's all about posture and if you stand or sit there's two completely
different movement mechanisms involved and humans are designed to do all sorts of different activity
to be functioning in all kinds of different postures and positions but not for eight or
twelve or fourteen or sixteen hours a day so we can sit for a little bit we can stand
for a little bit but when we sit for very very long times we change the signals in the body so
everything in the body is controlled by the brain the brain regulates the body it regulates muscle
tension it regulates pH it regulates blood flow it regulates muscle tone that controls the joint
and the stability that prevents injuries but in order for the brain to do that the brain needs
information from the body this this information these signals are called proprioception so
proprioception paints a picture for the brain so that the brain knows what the world looks
like and if it gets enough of these signals then it has a true picture a sufficient and correct
picture of the world and it can make correct decisions and it can balance and regulate your
body but if we sit for 8 12 14 hours a day then we are we're skewing we're changing those signals
we're generating less signals and we're creating very one-sided signals because we're setting up
tension in the body in specific places and we're maintaining that tension for hours and hours and
hours so not only are we reducing the total amount of signals we're also depriving the brain of the
correct signals and we're creating too many of signals that are one-sided we skew that pattern
by using a stand-up desk and improving the posture you improve the signals you're you're allowing a
different motion so that when you stand up and you had your head straight over your shoulders
now there is a a subtle motion in the spine that's generating signals that's benefiting
the brain and creating this picture we're talking about as soon as you sit down you're losing that
lumbar curve so you're you're rounding out your back and as soon as you've round up your back
your your head juts forward and now you're creating tension and you're reducing motion
in the back and the entire spine back number two is go barefoot this is the thing that saved my
knees the second thing that he did was he said to go barefoot and he said that this is a more
natural way and I totally agree so shoes need to be stable so I'm not opposed to shoes even
though as soon as I come home I take my shoes off I always walk barefoot wherever I'm going except
when I'm at work I wear shoes but I wear very firm shoes I wear shoes that are properly built
up so that my my foot can act as if it's if it's on solid ground I don't believe in these mushy
soft shoes that feel good for five minutes and then they don't give you any kind of support
that's not what we're looking for so again by walking barefoot you're increasing the motion of
the foot you're increasing the natural stressors on the foot and you're increasing the signals to
the brain so now the brain has a better picture of what that foot is doing and you're maintaining
these signal pathways better number three have your arms just over 90 degrees at your desk he
said to keep your arms just over 90 degrees so what that means is when he's standing at his
desk the surface of the top surface it should be just below the elbow so that the hand is
pointing down just a little bit and again this is a relaxed position because if it's any higher
you're gonna shrug your shoulders you can create tension you're gonna create more of this one-sided
pattern information that skews and distorts and creates tension so it's another thing that has
to do with improved posture and improved signals number four make your monitor higher then he said
the next thing he did was to position the monitor higher and this is critical because there's so
many things that we do in our lives where we look down so we have kids walking around with
their cell phones we have people on their tablets we have people on on laptops and we live a whole
life with this enormous tension in the neck and when we have our computer it's a little bit better
because it's kind of up in front but it's not good enough because you want to be where you can relax
in a normal position like you're looking out over the horizon and that's where your monitor should
be so you want to raise the monitor up you want to keep the the keyboard down where your arms are
comfortable you want to raise the monitor up so that it is where you would be looking out so the
next thing that he had was a rebounder this is like a mini trampoline and this is a fantastic
tool as long as you're fit enough to use it and what it does is when you're jumping on it first
of all you're performing a little bit of exercise physical activity but more than that it compresses
and releases and compresses and releases so when it's in the down position you're increasing the
gravitational pull on your body and when you're up then you're releasing the gravitational pull
on your body so it's like you're going you're changing the g-forces back and forth back and
forth which is a tremendous stimulation for your brain because 90% of what your brain does is to
monitor your physical movement and your position in a field of gravity so when you start bouncing
that's like fireworks for the brain he would sometimes stand on it when he was working and
just kind of move around and I don't really have an opinion on that but the way I would
use it would be to keep it next keep it close to where you're working if you can and then just get
on it for 30 seconds every 30 minutes or every hour and get that boost get that juice get that
fireworks going and then you get on with your day and you've had like a boost of energy from that
so everything that he was talking about has to do with with posture stimulation and with increasing
signals to the brain that's why these things work because they increase signals to the brain but
let's take it one more step and talk about this because if you want to sum this up it's really
about natural versus unnatural all humans have evolved where our DNA or physiology our brain
has evolved and developed and it's dependent on certain factors it's dependent on these signals
it can't do without them it can do all right for a short time but it can't thrive without
these things so the natural way for the body is to move the natural way for the body is to have
a varied lifestyle of varied position so that you sit for a little bit you stand for a little bit
you change things up I don't think sitting is evil but we got to think back what did our ancestors do
they they were out on the hunt they were walking long distances they were working planting growing
digging they were working on things then they sat down for a rock on a rock they sat down on
their heels but they never sat in an office chair for 14 hours so the body is made to do all these
different things but it's not made to do any one thing for a very very long time it it needs
change the unnatural part is the lifestyle that we have created where we have static movements so
if you're sitting and your head is jutting forward that's a static movement if you're
driving in the car for six hours that's a static movement you're contracting your hip flexors in an
unnatural short position you're creating tension for a very long time and some other professions
that we see a lot is for example hairdressers musicians and graphic designers because now we
have other professions where if they work with the with the person's hair then their arm is up
constantly so now even though they're standing they have a muscle contraction for most of the
day a musician might be a guitar player or a violinist or something and they now they
I use one specific posture for hours and hours same thing graphic designers laden work with the
computers but a lot of them also work with with tablets and again you're you're putting your body
in a specific position so when you do that you're creating a one-sided pattern you're creating a
repetitive unchanging signal that becomes a habit that kind of gets locked in and that's where those
tight muscles come from so if we have a situation where we have to sit a lot where we have to hold
our arm in a specific position now we need to do something on a regular basis to undo that pattern
to either do the opposite to stretch it out or to create variety just change it around so that that
pattern doesn't get static and stuck the only issue that I had with his video I think he's a
super class act I don't have anything negative to say about it except the title itself because
there was like a little parentheses at the end and it says relief without exercise and I have
some issues with that because it's part of our of our collective awareness of our collective
belief system that relief without exercise is a good thing that if you can get away with it then
you're lucky and you should try to do that but first of all relief is not what we're looking for
that's where so many people are getting trouble because they have a pain and they just do enough
to get relief and then they think they're done but we have to understand that there's an optimal
function in the body this is what's going to allow us to live into our 80s and 90s without
degenerating without having loss of function to be able to do the things we enjoy up into very high
years so if we have a hundred percent function and it starts declining then we get to a point
we get to a threshold a breaking point where the body can't compensate and now we have symptoms and
if we don't deal with that then the decline continues and we get disease and eventually
death so if we just do enough to get rid of the symptom then we could still be kind of hovering
at about half of our optimal function and when people really start understanding that that it's
the ability of the brain to regulate it's the ability of every cell in the body to clean up
and produce energy and for muscles to contract that there's an optimal level and then there's
a level below which we start having symptoms you don't want to just get rid of the symptom
you want to get to optimal function and I think I don't think there's anyone that disagrees with
that once they truly understand the difference between optimal versus just symptom relief so
again I have a little issue because relief is not what we're looking for and the other thing
is without exercise so what is exercise when you go through and you make these changes then you're
getting exercise you're getting motion you're getting more activity in the body you're getting
these little movements little changes all the time so standing and walking a little bit is movement
it creates signals reaching up on a shelf and put in picking down a jar that's movement it's a form
of exercise so it's not about going to the gym or joining a boot camp and sweating and being in pain
for hours that's not necessary but the body is designed for movement movement generates signals
so if someone can lose weight without exercise we should pity them if someone can create pain relief
or if they can lower their insulin resistance where they can create a positive physiological
change without exercise then we should really pity them if they think that that means they
don't have to exercise because and again exercise isn't blood sweat and tears it's about movement
on a regular basis using the body that was designed to be used so we have to remember
the health is a triangle that everything is about signals and there is signals that are influenced
by structural mechanisms chemical mechanisms and emotional mechanisms so you could be stressed and
your blood pressure goes up your physiology your signals change because you're thinking differently
you could eat something you're allergic to your blood pressure goes up you could sit still or you
could exercise and your blood pressure changes so physiology is influenced by all of these so when
we're talking about natural versus unnatural then movement is natural sitting still static things
are unnatural and feeling good is natural the emotional aspect feeling good is natural feeling
bad is unnatural it interferes with your health with your physiology with your balance and the
most important one may be the nutritional part because that's the thing that has changed more
in the last 50 years than it has in the previous 50 thousand so there's very very little in common
that we have the food that we eat compared to what with people had a few thousand years ago
it's natural to do certain things and that the body thrives on what it's designed for so when
he said that he had gone to a chiropractor and it wasn't helping that's because they weren't
addressing the cause the cause was repetitive postural stress so if you adjust and you relieve
that stress but you go back to imposing the stress with your lifestyle then you haven't
solved the problem so he was absolutely right and being proactive and figuring out how to change
this and it wasn't that the chiropractic wasn't working but he was just doing this to himself
over and over again so we have to understand that there's a natural way of doing things there's a
natural structure chemical and emotional state for the body so he called these things life hacks and
I'm all for creating ways of making life easier and quicker and more efficient we just have to
understand there is no hack for biology so we we are biology it's designed to be a certain way to
respond a certain way and we can't change that because your DNA hasn't changed for a quarter
million years so we can get smarter about it we can learn quick ways to get some exercise we can
we can incorporate these things into our lives but we can't bypass them because it's unnatural
it goes against biology and it's not going to work so kudos to Evan for putting out a good
video with some very very helpful tips and I hope that you enjoyed understanding a little bit about
the explanations of why these things what they have in common and how it works and how you can
use those to further your own quality of life so please share this video with as many people
as you can because health and life is what we're all about everyone wants to be happy and healthy
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