EPISODE SUMMARY
Guest: Jeffrey Blake
Jeffrey Blake is a personal trainer in Lubbock. He works locally and remotely.
He has helped people live full and active lives for 27 years.
He is the owner of Crabby Jack Fitness named after his dog at the time.
A certified post, a PT therapist, he works with people after they've gone through injuries, or trauma or orthopedic surgery. Once they finish their PT program, Jefrey is nationally certified to take over in order to return to normal activities.
In this episode the discussion covers these topics and more:
Living an active life, including hiking with MS
Age doesn’t define your activity and quality of life. There are simple tests of the markers to increased longevity. These criteria can be trained.
Grandparents training to be strong enough to be lfting grandchildren.
Most people are fearful and Intimidated by the thought of starting to train, especially when they suffer from pain.
Considerations of using the weigt room floor at a gym.
Training with asthma.
Jeffrey has a system to develop a customized approach based on health history and goals..
Ankle stability can be trained and is more important than lifting weights or working with machines.
What is balance versus equilibrium, and what can be done to improve both?
Ruth and Jeff discuss the Lubbock Provider Network. When different health and wellness specialists work together and cross-refer across professions, more people can be helped more of the time with more issues.
Breaking the patterns of pain from muscle spasms in a protective state after a fall or accident.
To find out more about Crabby Jack's Fitness:
https://www.crabbyjacksfitness.com/
Or on Facebook
To contact Ruth, go to https://www.blairclinic.com
ruth@blairclinic.com
https://www.facebook.com/rutelin
TRANSCRIPT
Welcome, welcome, welcome to What Pain in the Neck. I'm Ruth Elder, your host, and in this podcast episode, I am so excited to introduce a very talented and caring and funny and smart and skilled, actually friend at this point, I think.
Yes.
Jeff, welcome.
Hey, Ruth.
Why don't you say your full name and introduce your business and just a little bit about yourself?
My name is Jeff Blake, and I own a company that's called Crabby Jack’s Fitness. We have been in business since 1996.
A couple of days.
Yeah, a couple of days. About 27 years, if my math is correct.
Yes. So you know what you're talking about.
Hopefully so, I think I've learned a few things over the years.
Yeah. So you said Crabby Jack. What is Crabby Jack’s?
Crabby Jack’s is one of our dogs, 27 years ago. We started a fitness center. We had a 24 hour fitness center that we owned, my wife and I, Leslie. We owned it for 20 years. We sold it on its 20th anniversary, and we had actually three locations that we were running and sold those and moved to Lubbock, Texas from New Mexico. We had a couple of places that we either owned or were running in Southern New Mexico, and then one in the Albuquerque area.
Okay. And I'll get back to, in a minute, hearing more about your business and how you work. But I bet someone listening is thinking: Fitness, what? Isn't this a program about solutions to pain and what pain in the neck? Yes, it is. And that actually is the reason that I chose you, Jeff, as my guest, because a part of movement is medicine. But we've talked a lot on this show about chronic, complicated conditions. And when things are difficult and chronic and people deal with a lot of pain and a lot of scary things, movement can also really hurt.
Yes.
We have a lot of people that are scared to move. And I used to be in that category before I got my injury, my neck injury fixed, movement hurt me. And then after I got my injury fixed, I discovered that I loved exercise. I have trained as a personal trainer myself. So I understand from an injured person who's been trained in upper cervical chiropractic that there are trainers who help you and there are trainers that just go hardcore, do this, do that, do that, go harder, go harder, go harder.
Right.
But you are more about helping people. And when we have people here, they start to heal. But maybe they're weak or they have imbalance or they struggle, and are worried about maybe going on a trip and all that walking, and maybe there are stairs or maybe they're worried about falling on the cobblestone or something like that. I know that movement, the proper type of movement, is a good medicine for that person. But I don't trust just any Joe Schmo that says they're a personal trainer. But I do trust you.
Well, thank you. That means a tremendous amount to me.
And by the way, Jeff didn't ask me to say this or pay me to say this. I just knew when I met you and listened to what you have to say that yes, this guy is the real deal. And so I just think I just want to say that. So if you're listening to this and “I probably should move more, but it's just such a chore and I don't know where to get started and oh no. Do I really want to listen?” I think you, Jeff, have some really useful things to say for all levels.
I love my job, Ruth. I love what I do.
So what do you love about it?
I love helping people. I love people being so surprised that they can now do things that they've never been able to do before or they can get back to doing things.
Yeah. That's what we have in common, I think. Being healthy is all about doing what you love.
Yes. And it's not about you can lift X number of pounds, because I don't care about that. My clients don't care about that. Now, if they have a grandchild that's 32 pounds, they care about lifting 32 pounds, and then the next year, 42 pounds. But they're not looking for to be in the 300 pound bench press club. That's not who I work with. And that's great for the people that wanted to do that. Nothing away from that. But with the clientele I work with, it's mainly the people, not exclusively, but mainly it's people that are close to giving up. They don't think that there is any future for them and they're not necessarily depressed about it, but resigned is probably a better word for where they are in their lives. “This hip hurts. I'm resigned that it will hurt the rest of my life and nobody can do anything or my shoulder or whatever.”
So that was when I worked as a personal trainer. And when I talk to people about moving, the biggest thing I hear, “oh, I can't do that because I have a bum knee or a hip or a shoulder or something.” So what would you say to that? And it's almost as if a lot of people think, “okay, I'm a special case because my knee hurts.”
Right.
You're laughing.
It’s always funny. I've got tons of stories. This was the other day, and in fact it was a referral from your clinic and it's an octogenarian. And with your prompting, she called me and said, “Dr. Elder wants me and Ruth to talk to you.” I said, “okay,” and she says, “you're not going to want to work with me because I have this and this and this and this and my age and all of that.” And I just kind of chuckled and I said, “you think you're special, but you're not” and never met this woman before. 45 seconds into our phone call and she says, “oh, really?” I said, “no, you're really not.” I said, “My oldest client is 93 and okay, you have hip pain, big deal. Most of my clients do, or did. I do sometimes too. I said, you're honestly not that special.” And she's like, “oh, I'm actually glad to hear that.” And so we've been working together, I guess about three months now. Saw her yesterday, actually talked with her just a little while ago, texting just to check up on her, and she's doing well, but things like that, I love. She's progressing. She's being able to do more than she has been.
I saw her last week, okay. And I didn't even ask how her training was going, but she came. Oh, you know. I'm so glad you referred me. And I'm just so blown away at the things I can do now.
Oh, yeah, it's great. And we're just getting started with her.
And she was also really complimenting you on all the things that you know, which, of course, is why I'm having you on here, so we can pick your brain and find out how this works.
Well, that's great, because she never says anything nice to me directly.
That is life, being a personal trainer, I think.
It's not. I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. She's great to work with. I have other clients that have different orthopedic issues. Lupus and Multiple Sclerosis. And this summer has been so neat. Ruth. I get texts from Colorado. Wyoming, California. “Hey, Jeff, look at me.” And it's a picture of them hiking or at the beach. “I didn't think I could do this now, I've been falling, because the MS. I didn't think that I would ever be able to hike again.” And one of them, she said - I can't remember what she did. She said, “I just did a hike of 11 miles”
With MS.
With MS. And it's not the progressive MS. She's fairly stabilized on that, and it's hemispheric. I love that. That is one of the best things. Just the joy in the picture and someone writing is like, “yeah, my husband said, ‘Stand there’. It's like, ‘what are you doing?’ ‘Well, I'm going to send a picture to Jeff.’” People are taking pictures and sending them to me. And I don't know these people. They're family of the people I'm working with, but they know how important it is to their family member to be able to get back and do these things that they had given up on.
Yeah. And I want to go back into that and ask you some questions about why training works and how it works and why it's important to train and how you should train. But before I do that. I really wanted to find out more about you. So what got you into training? Why were you interested in it? Have you always been strong or was there some injury that you trained yourself back from or - You've been doing this for a long time so what motivated you to get started and then to keep going with it?
Motivated really, was just to see if I could do it. I was a very skinny, unathletic asthmatic kid. I spent several days every year in the hospital on oxygen when I was very, very young, and even through high school had pretty severe asthma. There wasn't much of anything - I could walk a long distance, and that's about it. So anything that really was too exerting on my body would kick up the - I had allergy and exercise induced asthma, and it was very limiting. Started studying physiology, biology, just all sorts of things in college and really got interested in that and just started going in that direction. Never thought that I would be a personal trainer. Never thought I'd own a gym.
So tell the story of how all that happened.
I graduated with a business degree, moved to Phoenix, got a job as a computer programmer.
Sitting on your duff.
No, actually I was pretty active. I was all over the place. I did restaurants and bars. I did their front and back end systems. So I was on my feet. I was very, very active. So I was all over the place. And my roommate was into fitness. He was not a bodybuilder, but in really close to that shape. His friend were too. So one day I asked Eric, I said, “could I go to the gym with you and maybe you go through and show me some things?” And I had studied a lot of this in college. Didn't have a physiology degree from college, but I still study now. I mean, I'm constantly enrolled in classes.
Yeah, it's one thing I like about you.
Yeah. There's always something going on.
All the best people always study.
Oh yeah. I love learning. So I did a lot on my own. In fact, I added another - an extra year to college just to get some of the things that I wanted to learn in some of the classes. And so Eric took me to the gym and I was so intimidated, I went to a fitness class. I stood in the very back so no one would see me.
That's normal for first timers.
It is normal. It's so normal.
I did that in the beginning. In fact, for me it took me six months to actually even walk into the class. I was so intimidated. I was just walking on the treadmill outside and thinking, “oh, it looks like they're having more fun.” And it took me six months to be brave enough to go in.
Yeah. So I know that feeling. And I'll always have that memory of being so intimidated. Then I went onto the weight room floor and I'm like, “okay, everyone's going to look at this little skinny guy.” I always looked a lot younger than I was. In fact, one of the times when I was called out to work on computer system at a high school in Phoenix. So drove up there, I get on the campus, I'm looking around, teacher comes out and she says, “where's your hall pass?” And I'm in my late twenties. She says, “where's your hall pass?” And I said, “I don't have one.” She says, “well, you're coming with me to the principal's office.” And I said, “Excellent.” And she thought I was being a jerk. And I'm like, “no, really, that's where I'm looking. I need to get to the principal's office. I'm here to work on your computer system.” And she was really embarrassed. I thought it was pretty fun.
So you were on the waitroom floor? Looking young and scrawny.
Young and scrawny. I knew everyone was just staring at me. “What is this guy doing in here?” I have expected some people to come and ask me just to leave. Never happened. It's a ridiculous thought that went through my insecure mind, but I remember that. And then when we started our own gym. I made sure we had an environment that would not include a lot of that as much as we could. Our advertisement was no secret handshakes. Come on in you're welcome. And it worked really well for us. Then I just remembered that. And there's so many people that do need help that they want to make a change in their life, but they're intimidated to go in someplace. We had a standalone studio that we set up later on where it was just a one on one thing. So those that didn't want to be in a bigger gym environment, we had the other studio for them. And then I got into doing office calls and house calls. So I have my little bag and my toys and tricks and everything in there, the bands and Wobble boards and whatever I need for whomever, and just take that to people. And then that's been a really nice thing to do for people that either their physical condition doesn't allow them to get out very easily, or they're just intimidated.
And I know that that's all you're doing these days, and I want you to talk more about that. But I am still on pins and needles. Like what happened to you in that weight room when you said it didn't happen, that people threw you away or threw you out. But what actually happened? Did you fall in love with it? Did you start going every day?
I went that one time, and I tried to keep up with my roommate and his buddies, and it was a horrible, horrible mistake. I did not know what I was doing. The next three days, I stayed pretty much in the hot tub. at the apartment complex. My legs were so sore I couldn't walk, and I was so embarrassed. I would wait and look out, we were close to the pool, to see if anyone was around. Then I would literally hobble. I mean, tiny, tiny little steps to get in there. So my legs do so, I mean, I've never been that sore before or after. But I had no idea what I was doing. And I'm watching these people. I'm watching these people. It's like I wasn't doing as much weight, but they're grunting and pressing and all that. It's like, I need to be at that level right now. I didn't know I needed to work up to that.
Yeah. Also, your asthma U1
I started outgrowing it. I may have been able to out train some of it. I'm still not a runner. I'll never be a runner. And I'll go back to that word. I'm resigned not to be a runner. Because I can get a few blocks. And after that, my pulmonary system just doesn't do all that well. But anything else I'm able to do now.
Okay, good. So you did it to see if you could do it, and clearly you can. Your track record of 30 years in, it's a pretty good one.
Could do that. And then ended up doing bodybuilding competitions in multiple states. Got up on stage, and I'm up there with bodybuilders, and it was amazing. Just that I could do that. And that's all it was. I did it. I was able to do it, and it was just some personal goals for me.
So you pretty much told us what not to do. Don't start out if you've never worked out before, finding a friend in super great shape and just try to do what they're doing. So let's say I'm thinking maybe it would be good for me to get into some moving. I probably should join the gym. Let's say I'm thinking that I haven't really been in the habit of exercising ever. Or maybe I got away from it. Where should I start?
Very common question. I have a series of questions. First, that's something that I really can't answer just on the fly. I need some background. I need to know about exercise history. I need to know about medications that people are on. Some can affect tendons and ligaments. I need to know about any orthopedic issues that someone may have and that will help guide me with recommendations. If they should do body weight starting off, if machines would be better for them, if it's something where they can do free weights or a combination. Once I spend some time talking with somebody, then I can make those recommendations.
So you make individual recommendations based on each individual case?
Yes. I've had people before. It's like, “hey, I'll pay you if you'll just hand me a workout, okay?” And I'm like, “that'd be like going to be going to your doctor and say, ‘hey, you don't know me, but if you can give me some meds that might be good for me, can you go ahead and write me your prescription?’”
If you just want that canned workout, then go to YouTube.
Yeah. Go to YouTube. Go to YouTube and you can actually see. That's a great way on there. You can read it and you can see and maybe that'll be great for you.
But if you want some help from somebody who knows how to tailor a workout to your particular needs right. Find Jeff or someone like Jeff.
Right.
How does that process go? So you asked me all these questions and then I decide I want to start training with you.
Then we go for - we look at schedules and then I talk to the person about their habits and their personality. I have some people that I work with five days a week. And the reason that is is because if I meet with them twice a week, they'll work out twice a week. They will not work out any more than that. Even though they need to and they want to, they will not do it and we all know it. I have clients that are 26 year long clients. I never thought that was a thing. And I'm absolutely amazed. I have 20 year clients. I have 15 year clients. I have a lot of decade-long clients.
So do you have some that just needs a little kick in the behind to get started?
I have some that need some help to get started, and we may work out for a month, and they're great, they're on their own, then I can give them a written workout. I know them well enough to say, here is a range of sets, here's a range of reps, here's what you need to do. Avoid this, avoid this, avoid that. I'm working with a couple right now, and they were telling me that they had been at a local gym. They said that their personal training there was limited to, here's the equipment we have, cardio and machines, and that's all we can show you is how to use the machines. And so they did that and they said, we really feel that we need more. And this was a couple, they're in their mid sixties and very, very active, and they said, we're just not getting enough out of it with the machines. So they contacted me, they said, “can you help us with this? And this and this?” I'm like, “yeah.” Talked to them over the phone. And I said, “do you have any health issues? Orthopedic issues? Anything that I need to know about?” “No, we're fine.” Well, they show up and not true. And I'm used to that, and it's like, “oh, well, yeah, I have this, and I sprained my ankle alot.”
“I didn’t think that was important.”
Or yeah, “I didn't think it was important,” or “I've had it for so long, I forget about it” because they're used to it. And she said, “oh, you have to be really careful because my ankle flips all the time.” And I said, “okay, yeah”
Maybe you should know about that.
Yeah. I said, well, - because I noticed. I said, “what's wrong? Your feet are just wobbling all over the place.” And she says, “oh, that's normal me.” And I'm like, “Would you like to overcome that?” And she says, “well, I don't think I can.” “Not the question. Would you like to overcome that?” “Yes, I would.” “Okay. We're going to start doing that along with showing you other things that you can do besides machines.” Machines are great, body weight is great, bands are great, medicine balls are great. It's nice to have a variety in there.
Okay, so in that case, with her having the wobbly ankle. How do you overcome that?
With that, what she has is over supination.
So her foot rolls towards the outside.
It rolls towards the outside, yes. And she has to be really careful. And one of the things that she likes to do and her husband likes to do is go up to the mountains. In fact, they just got back last week from a trip to Colorado where they took grandkids up there, and they like to go hiking. And she had pretty much thought she can't hike anymore, or it's got to be very level gravel or paved. And I said, well, right now, yeah, that's what you need to do. But once we get you strong and there's no indication, - and I'm going through, she had imaging, she had orthopedic reports, she had some reconstruction when she flipped her ankle really badly and had to have some work done on that with an orthopedic surgeon. I go through sometimes the imaging, definitely the radiological reports, and see what's going on, and it's like, okay, you just have weak muscles. There's nothing structurally, that's the problem. It's just those muscles, those lateral muscles are weak. So we'll start working on those, and we started doing that, and she's a lot more stable. And I love that because before and I was joking with him, but I was serious. It's like, “oh, I thought you guys are going to be just really boring.” “Hi, we're 66. We're perfectly healthy. We have no issues whatsoever. We just want to learn a few exercises.” And I'm like, “okay, I'll work with you for a little while.” And then they show up. And then he is a musician and he performs like three or four nights a week, and he says, “well, okay, since we're talking about problems, I have the side of my back that just kills me at the end of a set on the nights when I play.” And I'm like, “oh.” I check him out. “It's like, we can make that better.” He's like, “really?” And he has had a few gigs recently and he said he's honestly forgot about his back because it doesn't hurt anymore. That's good. And it's been like that for years. So stuff like that keeps me going. I love that.
So you've touched on a lot of different things. So it sounds like you can help people if they're worried about their muscle imbalance or ankles or knees.
Limited range of motions.
You've talked about - we started talking about someone that was in their 80s, and you have your oldest client being 93. And then you've touched a little bit on pain. Is there anything more you want to say about any of those topics?
I can talk a long time. It's your job to shut me up. One thing on pain is - I run into this a lot where people will tell me, “oh, this hurts, this hurts”, and then we'll go through and do some therapy work. I'm also a certified post, a PT therapist, so I work with people after they've gone through, they've had whatever happened to them, or trauma surgery. A lot of it is orthopedic. And then once they finish their PT program, I'm nationally certified to take over.
Take it to the next level.
Yeah, take it to the next level. So I'm the position in between physical therapist and a personal trainer that you would work with at a gym. So I'm that middle handoff person excellent. Where they're not ready to be in the gym, population unsupervised. Or someone that doesn't know the nuances of whatever surgery. I can't even count the hip and knee replacement patients that I've worked with prehab and the rehab,
Good to know that there is someone like that
It's a growing area in our industry, and it's still pretty small, but there are national certifications now, and they have that with the governing bodies that do the accreditation on that. So it's been great. It's been really nice to do that.
So, Jeff, if somebody wants to work with you, do they have to be in Lubbock and come to your facility?
Yeah, great question. No, absolutely not.
So why don't you talk a little bit about how you work and then tell us how we can get in touch with you.
Absolutely. I have different ways that I work with people, and it doesn't have to be one certain way. Sometimes it's a variety. I have a boutique studio here in Lubbock
Where people come to you.
Yeah, you come to me. I do house calls in this area within reason, on driving distance. I do office calls. And I have some people that's like, “hey, can you just meet me after work? Because if you don't catch me after work, you're not going to see me because I'm going to go hide somewhere.” I'm like, “yeah, I'll be there right when you close.” I also will meet people on nice days. We'll go out to the park just for a venue change to get some sunshine. And then I actually have quite a few clients not in Texas that I meet with via live video. And that's worked really well.
Do you accept new clients over to video? Can you see new people?
Oh, it depends. There's some that it's just not appropriate based on what they have going on.
So if someone wants to know, they can call you. Then if it's not appropriate, maybe you can recommend where for them to go.
Yeah. And I will help them search and do my best to find someone. Generally, if it's something where they really need hands on. And one thing that just comes to mind right now, if they have severe balance issues, then I like to be right there.
So they don't fall.
So they don't fall, yeah.
And actually balance it's interesting.
Oh, that's a great topic.
It's funny that you would say that. I know that that's a long topic and I don't know if we should get into it, but maybe if we can boil it down. I know that you and I are part of a healthcare professional group in Lubbock where people of different specialties come together and get to know and trust each other and understand each other so that we can help more people. So, like, for instance, we do Upper Cervical Care, and we have chosen to just do that right. And then do that really well. Essentially, when you're a specialist is you know more and more about a more narrow field. But that means that you're going to need other specialists to do other things. You and I, if we have somebody who needs a dentist, we have a dentist in our network, a medical doctor in our network, and so on. And you're one of the trainers in our network, and you have your niche, and the other trainer has another niche.
Right, exactly.
But in our group, you had a very interesting presentation about balance and why is it important? And if you have poor balance, what does it mean? And are you doomed?
You're not doomed, but you're likely to have a much more difficult existence. On the little visual that I did, and in fact had everybody in the group, we had like, I don't know, 40, 50 people, professionals there, and it's like, everybody stand up.
Stand on one leg for 20 seconds. Is that what we did?
11 seconds.
Oh, okay.
It felt like 20 for a lot of people, it's 11 seconds. And if you can do that, if you can stand on one leg with your arms just to the sides so you're not arms out helping balance, just arms relaxed at your side by your legs. Stand on one leg and then the other foot, you have kind of serpentined around. So you have the non supporting legs ankle on the back of the standing legs ankle
Kind of tucked behind the calf.
Yeah, tucked behind the calf. So just for consistency, just so there's not all the variations on that, if you can stand and not have to touch down with the other foot for 11 seconds, you have, I believe, an 87 to 85% chance of living another ten years just with that 1 11 second test. And there's a lot involved in that.
And then if you can't do that?
Then learn to do it.
Balance is so important for longevity.
Yes, extremely important.
Again, we see it a lot here. People can have injuries and then they're healing and things are going well. And then one fall and boom. Oh my goodness. The setbacks. So if you struggle with balance, there's some pretty simple exercises and they can really change your life, right?
Oh, yeah. People kind of - I'm used to this. The things that I have people do are generally so small in movement and they seem like nothing. And especially if I'm working with younger guys, they'll just roll their eyes. I'm like, “I know what you're thinking. You don't need to verbalize it. Hang out with me one session. We'll talk about it tomorrow.And if you think I'm wrong, then I'll do it your way for a while.” We've never done it their way after the first session because we'll have a stretchy band and they're like, “this is ridiculous, I want to lift weights.” “You are lifting weights. It's just not what you're used to.” And that's one thing where you're talking about referring with different professions. I can work with people that have balance issues. I cannot help them with equilibrium issues. And that's something and that's that we can do. You can do that? I have no power over equilibrium. But I do know that there are things that can be done. And like with you guys, I have somewhere to send them that can help with that. So once they get that lined out with equilibrium, I can work on balance.
That's a great point. So I think to sum up our very brief introduction to balance training yes. Balance is just like muscle tone. If you don't use it, you lose it. But you can get it back.
Absolutely. At any age. At any any age.
And that's the same with muscle strength. Well, what about cardiovascular and flexibility and mobility?
Yeah, that can be improved. And I'm not saying I can work with a 65 year old and turn them into a 21 year old gymnast. There are limitations. There are some 21 year olds that I can't turn them into a 21 year old gymnast.
Yes.
I have some people in their 60s that are really healthier in a lot of different metrics than people that I've worked with in their 20s.
What you're saying is age is not the number of years you are.
Right. Yeah. It's what you've done in those years or for a big part of those years leading up to where you are right now. After I did the talk for the group about the 11 seconds, the next day, I met with a couple. They are in their early 70s. And I said, “hey, guys, here's what I did.” And they're like, “I don't know if we can do it.” I'm like, ‘yeah, you're going to show me you can right now.” And I think I stopped them after 30 seconds and I was out of the blue. It's like, “Here, stand one leg, do this, do that.” And they're like, “okay.” And I'm like now “I'm bored. Let's move on to something else. Because you can do it a long time.’ And they're like, “what does that mean?” It's like, ‘well, you have a huge probability of making it to 82 and 83 years old now. Another ten years.”
I love what we've talked about, how you can no matter what your limitations are, you can improve on it. You can help with a lot, and then what you can't help with, we can work together and figure it out. So I would say the call to action is. Take care of yourself at whatever age you are. It's never too late.
Exactly. That's so very true.
So we've covered a lot all over the place. Jeff, is there one thing that you wish I had asked you, and then what is the answer to that question?
Oh, people get scared, people get intimidated. And I hear that a lot. It's like, “this was so hard for me to call you. Someone's been pushing me, or my doctor has been pushing and pushing and pushing, my friend that I may be working with. It's like, call Jeff. Call Jeff. Call Jeff. And I was so scared, and I was so intimidated because I thought you're going to say, okay, how many pushups can you do?” I don't care how many pushups you could. I honestly don't. I go into this with no expectations other than you're going to give it a good shot. That's all I look for. I tell people it's just making that phone call, that's tough.
That's the hardest part.
That’s the hardest part is when we have an appointment for a workout, show up, or if I'm going to your office, don't leave early, be there. And then once we're together in the same room, there's nothing to it. The workouts are fun. They're a lot easier than most people think. But it's just showing up. Initially showing up, making that phone call, and then going from there. I don't think I fully answered your question. You said, how would I - someone said, “I want to do this, or I want to do that.” I had a couple that was referred to me, and I went and met with them over the weekend. They're in their later 70s, and they just like, we have great grandkids and we can't keep up, and we realize this and we need some help. And so I've been working with someone that they know, and so we got a referral on that. And they said, well, “when can we start?” I said, “I don't do that.” We were talking on the phone. I said, “let's meet. And we can do video meet. We can do conference call. Come to my place, I go to yours. Meet at a coffee shop. I don't care.” And I said, “I treat it like we're doing a speed dating, and then if everything's okay, we'll talk a little bit longer. And then if we want to have a second date, we can do that. But I want to make sure it's a good fit for everybody.” And I'm not really looking. I have a pretty full schedule, so I don't actively look for clients, and I don't advertise either.
We are advertising now.
Well, I guess I just want to share some good things with people. Really wasn't looking at advertising, but thank you. I appreciate that. It's always good. But I told him, I said, “it's like we're going on a first date and we see if we think that there's a future in this for us, then we'll continue on.” And I don't do contracts. I help people as long as they want me to. And we're making progress.
So I think to sum it up, it can be daunting and a little bit scary. But you make it easy for people. You don't have to be scared.
Yeah. It's fun.
You're a very funny person and a nice person to be around.
Well, thank you. Thank you very much. You are too. All right, Ruth, do you have time for one more story?
Of course. Anything for you, Jeff.
I appreciate it. I will make it quick. And the person I'm going to talk about, she'll be listening to this. I came over here from working with her. She's 90 years old and fell
Oh, no.
Yeah, just a few days ago. And so I'm working with her to help-. She didn't break anything, luckily. Ended up on the floor, and her muscles went into a protective state, a spasm of sorts. And after a couple of days, her family got a hold of me and asked if I would go and see what I could do to help out with her. So we just did some trigger points and some passive range of motion and blah, blah, blah, won't get into and got those muscles out of that protective state.
So protective state?
The muscles were tensed and staying tensed.
And hurt bad, right?
And they hurt. Yeah. Very, very painful for her. What was going on is akin to being in a car collision with her falling on the floor, just getting banged up, bruised, nothing broken, no bones broken, no tendon tears. They did full imaging on her. She still had a lot of pain. She went back to the hospital, talked to the doctor, said, “I am still in tremendous pain.” And the doctor said, “well, it's like you've been in a car collision.” And then so when I went and visited with her, she's like, “Why do I hurt so much?” And I said, “well, you fell.” She said, “but the whole side of my body, I don't hurt, only where I'm bruised it's all these other places.” And I felt the muscle from one side of her body to the other and just, I mean, tight. It was like she was in rigor. And so I was talking to her about protective state of the muscles, and they're spasmodic, and that's what hurts. And they're pulling too much on one side and not at all on the other side. And she says, “well, explain that to me.” I said, “well, it's like you're in a car collision.” And she said, “well, that's exactly what the doctor at the ER said. I'm like, “okay, well, that. It must be true”. And that's just how your body reacts to that. It doesn't know when the next hit is going to happen. So it tightens up and it's getting ready. It's like if you get punched and then you see someone bring their fist back to hit you again, you're going to naturally tighten whether you mean to or not. And that's what her body was doing.
All the time.
All the time.
So what have you been able to do for her?
She is not nearly in so much pain, just with passive range of motion. The more she relaxes and I can move, arm and leg and hip around, then I'm getting that mobility back in there, letting her brain know that these movements-
It's safe to move.
Yeah, exactly. It's safe to move. So we're doing that, and then we're just working on muscle strength so she's better able to not fall again. And then we're going to do balance work, and then we're going to do more balance work. And then I'm going to finish that up with some balance work.
Sounds good. No more falling for her.
“No more falling for you.”
Okay, thanks for sharing that.
But anyway, she'll hear the podcast. I left her room and I came over here and she says, "oh, I wish I'd be able to hear that, but I don't know how to do that. And I have a flip phone and computer and all that.” I said, “I will get a copy of this for you.” So that story is for her.
All right, well, I don't know you, but I'm glad you're listening and I'm glad you're better, and I'm glad you're working with Jeff.
Yay.