Can I ask you a question because I think what some people enjoy,
at least I know for me with strength training, what I
enjoyed, especially at the start was feeling something other than
pain, which sounds really dark when you have chronic pain.
And then you go and you do something to your muscles, you
do an exercise correctly without injuring yourself.
Key is that you do it correctly without injuring yourself.
Yes. You then have that feeling of
healthy muscular fatigue exactly, which is technically
it's a healthy inflammatory process for remodeling that
tissue and that feels so pleasant.
Yes, yeah. And I think I kind of building
off that also, it's a when I'm in the gym, I feel like I'm not
using, yes, you're using your brain to exercise, but like the
loud and anxious thoughts are not as present because my body
is tired. So it's not like my brain is
also tired then. And so the thoughts that are the
compulsive anxiety that's quieter.
Have you heard of heavy work? No, so I don't have diagnosed
ADHD, but we, there's a lot I do.
There we go, there we go. We all know how it is.
But I used to, you know, I've had boyfriends over the years
and they come home and be like, Alex, why have you moved all the
furniture in the flat? And it did tend to, you know,
correlate with me being a bit like anxious or something going
on. And for me, I started to realize
when I learned about heavy work, which is a term for types of
exercise or, or movements or different activities that people
will do sometimes to kind of. And again, I'm not a mental
health expert, OK? I have expertise, but it kind of
like helps to calm you down a bit and lets you just feel a bit
more, as you said, like it takes all those like scattered
thoughts away and just makes you feel more at peace.
I guess I would say when I learned about that, I was like,
oh, This is why I really like strength training.
And for me, it's not even about the physical aspects.
Like my number one concern is how my mental health would
deteriorate if I'm not able to exercise.
That's my greatest fear. I think you and I've talked
about that. But yeah, that's that's how you
work. I relate to that so much.
Hey, I'm Hyper Mobile and if you're listening to this, I'm
guessing you might be too. Hi, my name is Alex and I'm your
Hyper Mobile host. And today we have on a very,
very special guest. Abby is here with us today.
Abby, welcome to the show. Thank you so much, Alex.
I appreciate you asking me to be here today.
I'm honestly shocked you're here, given that you have no
social media presence. Like I was not expecting you to
be, you know, happy to be here, but I'm.
Delighted I actually to comment on that.
I did have Instagram like at one point in my life and it's still
active and I will occasionally post something on it, but I only
have started reposting things more recently because I entered
a writing competition. This is not a plug for that.
This is just me talking. But I want to know more.
I, I did not win, but the woman who was like running, it was
like very Instagram heavy. And so the only reason I like
posted something was because I thought she would unfairly judge
me because I'm like a hermit and I didn't win anyway.
And I I maintained that it's because I'm a hermit, not
because my entrance piece wasn't that very wasn't good there.
There you go, the complex world of writing competitions.
Can I ask real quick we by the way, we have you on because
you're going to talk about, just to be clear for the audience,
we're going to talk about here, talk about that entire going to
talk about your childhood spinal injury at a really serious
injury as a child. We're going to talk about how
you've kind of renegotiated a relationship with exercise and
how you found strength training to really help you, you know,
given that you're dealing with joint hypermobility.
But back to the writing thing. Tell me, tell me real quick,
what was it? Can you come in vague terms what
the story was? About So it was like the first
chapter of something I'm working on that is more of a long form.
I don't know how long it'll be, but I've had a story kind of in
my brain that I've been trying to get out on paper.
Everyone says you need to. Like, if you actually want to be
an author, you have to write a bunch of bad books before you
write a good one. So I'm trying to like, write all
that bad stuff. But I thought I would submit it
because the prize was like, that chapter would get edited by a
professional editor. So I was like, that's really
cool. But I I didn't win.
Well, next time, Abby, next time you know too.
I, I should mention this more often, but partly why we're
doing this season, because it's been a year and a half since I
recorded my last season of help my Hybrid mobile is because I
will soon theoretically be an author.
It is crazy. The book is helping Hypermobile
and it's kind of a little bit the, the vibe of this podcast.
It's looking at the realities of life for people with HEDSHSD.
We touch on other hypermobility related connective tissue
disorders. And also we have to remember
that there are people who have generalized joint joint
hypermobility who are not diagnosed for whatever reason,
partly because diagnosis takes forever.
So tell me a little bit real quick about if I can, if you
don't mind me asking this, your earliest memory of being hyper
mobile or that kind of affecting you?
Like, was it the injury we're going to talk about in a second
or was there something before that?
I mean, I've always been really flexible.
And people commented on that a lot as a kid.
Like even just a few weeks ago, I was hanging out with my sister
and we were both like trying to touch our toes because we just
finished hiking. And she was like, you've always
been able to do that. Like how is that?
A thing everyone does after hiking do you just like?
I don't know, just like stretching, I guess.
And I she, she just commented on it and it was that kind of
stuff. I think as a kid where like, you
know, when did you ever have to do those?
Like you probably didn't because where I grew up, they made you
basically do these like presidential fitness tests.
So one of the things you had to do was like touch your toes as
far as possible because you had to push the bar.
And I was just very, very good at that one.
And I would get the blue metal for doing that, which is like
the highest metal you could get. And I didn't really, I was like,
how is this a physical fitness challenge?
Like it's just pushing a bar past my feet.
So I was always flexible I guess, but I never really
noticed anything else before the injury.
OK so no like serious pain issues or stuff when you were
like 4 years old or whatever. No, in Canada at least in my gym
class we did have to do all these weird like measuring,
bending and stretching things. I think I touched like 20
centimeters past my toes, which is wild.
But it's not because I'm that flexible in my hips per SE,
although I am. I'm flexible is the wrong word
hypermobile I should be saying but I have really long arms and
a really long back and unfortunately short legs.
People say they're like normal length.
Maybe they are normal length, I don't know but compared.
Short legs on you. My arms and back are just so
long, you'll see. Like, you think I can't reach
something off the shelf and then my arms just come out.
It's it's like, you know, like what builders use those like
ladders that they like extend like this.
That's just. Say one of those like, you know,
those bendy things that stand outside car dealerships that,
like, wave in the wind? Yeah.
It's like that. It's like that.
They are heavy, long and large arms.
But enough about me. Let's talk about you back to
your back. Yeah, if I can say tell me like
what happened because you're just having to chill childhood.
Yeah, as one does life. I was on my school's basketball
team in elementary school and I played point guard, which was my
position. Basically, that's the person
that like brings the ball up the court and then tries to get the
ball to other people so they can score because I was short.
And that's what the short person typically does because you're
not that close to the basket. And the I'm from Ohio.
I think I need to say this because the girls who we were
playing against were a team from Kentucky.
And my mom was always like, oh, those corn fed girls from
Kentucky. Like you got to you got to be
like aggressive with them. And my dad was actually the
coach of the team, which is I think a little bit of context
here because he had been like, you know, giving me advice about
how to like get on the ball with the girl who I was like against.
And I was like, OK, I need to be really aggressive because she is
a lot larger than me. And when you are there's that
size differential. A lot of the time she can just
physically overpower me, which is what continually was
happening in this game. And so at this point, what I
remember before the injury occurred was I was, you know,
dribbling the ball down the court.
And this girl was again, trying to physically overpower me.
And I was really annoyed about it because this was like the
third or fourth time during the match that she had done this.
And I was like, it's unfair. It's a size differential.
So she tries to take the ball from me and I'm just just like
not letting that happen. So I like grip onto it really,
really tightly. And instead of just like, you
know, letting that go, typically the the referee will blow a
whistle when there's what they call a jump ball, when two of
the players like will not let go of the ball and they have to
separate and one team will get the ball.
But that didn't happen because it looked like there was still a
possibility for one of us to win this jump ball.
You were. Not letting.
Go. I was not letting go and instead
she basically was physically able to lift me by like me
grabbing onto the ball and drop me onto the floor and I landed
on my back, still holding the ball mind you, but she also
landed on top of me. Wait, so so.
We were kind of wrestling and I fell to the floor.
There's a word for this. So Dave, my boyfriend, he's
really into wrestling and I can't.
What's it? I don't even.
Know is it body slam? I think that's that's.
What I I didn't want to physically say body slam, but
that that's you got body slam. I got body slam and in that
moment I fractured my L4 and L5 vertebrates in my lower back on
both sides. I laid on the floor for a little
bit after this, but both of us were disqualified from the game
for this egregious fight. They claimed.
Well, they said that we were and there had been warnings
previously, you know, that you guys need to knock it off.
At this point though, I just kind of like hobbled off the
floor and like to the side of the court and was like, I don't
something doesn't feel normal. Did you have like sharp pain in
your back when you were taking those steps or was it just a
total blur for you in terms of? To be quite honest, it's really
a total blur. I, I think because I was in so
much pain. Do you know when like something
happens and you're in so much pain that you just cannot even
remember a lot of the the moments around?
Yeah, and bone pain, I find a specific, so I fractured 5
bones. And The thing is like when you
do a fracture again, people don't always know.
I've had patients where they think they've sprained
something. I send them for MRI, you know,
we, we see a fracture there. But bone pain, at least in my
experience, having fractured stuff before, it's like a very
deep like, oh, shoot type of pain.
There's like I've done a Boo Boo like this is a no, no yes.
No, it it what? From what I can remember, it was
very similar to that because even when I sat down, the pain
didn't go away. And like, at that age, I hadn't
experienced pain like this before.
Like I felt, you know, pain from stretching or pain from other
things, but never had I felt this acute intensity of pain.
And so it didn't go away. It just kept hurting.
And I like would complain to my PE teacher, like my back hurts.
I don't, I don't think I can like do this.
And I, I kept saying to my mom and I, I want to preface, no
shade to my mom. She has four children.
She was a full time pediatrician.
Like she was working her butt off to support our family.
But like she was also like, Abby, you're fine, go to school.
And I was like, mom, but my back
really hurts and she's like, it's going to be OK, go to
school. So I kept going to school, but I
failed a test for the first time.
And so my teacher called up my mom and was like, I think
there's something wrong with Abby because she's never done
this poorly on an assignment before.
And I, I just think that maybe you should look into it.
So my mom finally agreed to take me to the doctor.
So I went to the doctor and the first thing the doctor really
asked me to do was like touch my toes.
And that's one of the things I had always been, as we had been
saying, really good at. I couldn't like get past my
hips. I like, bent over as far as I
could and like this my, my arms were coming like to my thighs.
I was like, this is it, This is all I got.
And I'm almost like 00. And then I went to go get an MRI
and I had all those the, the fractures.
And she was like, OK, yeah, this is this is a serious injury.
And then I had to wear a back brace for like 6 to 8 months, I
think. And it also coincided with, you
know, being at this point I was 12 years old.
So I was, it's a very formative, you know, time in your life.
I couldn't play the rest of the season out for basketball.
And it was also meant to switch schools like to the to middle
school in the next year. And I was just, I was feeling
very defeated because my entire social scene had really been
around. I was dance and basketball like
I would did ballet and tap and jazz.
And then I also played basketball.
And so all my friends really had been.
I'd gone to a small school, so that wasn't really an issue.
But I planned when I switched schools to join like, you know,
the sports teams and make new friends that way.
And back then too, like you, like me, kind of grew up pre
Internet being huge. It's like the way that kids
played was like, go outside, like your friends were doing
things. Your Razor scooter?
Yeah, exactly. Remember from those, but yeah,
like it's like you couldn't, it's like you're like some
online community you could be a part of.
Like there were really these same types of like ways people
can are 12. Year olds in.
Online commercial, I don't know what kids do I have two cats,
but like people can like I don't know you can play video games
and stuff right yeah, it's. True, I had Animal Crossing.
Animal Crossing. You probably got a lot of Animal
Crossing in. I I did.
Were you scared of Rosati? Absolutely.
I had nightmares about that guy. I'm.
Still scared to open up that game like I that is a we're
keeping that close. That is the stuff of a
nightmare. Yeah, yeah.
If you're someone who plays Animal Crossing, you'll you'll
get this. If you don't, then you're going
to be really. But anyway, so you got all this
going on now. When was hypermobile they
mentioned like when did that come up or start?
So it's. Actually really interesting
because the concept of being hypermobile wasn't brought up to
me until I think 2022 because I, you know, I did a bunch of
physical therapy to recover from this injury.
I didn't participate in a lot of like, physical activity for a
really long time. But then in 2022, I was doing my
master's degree and I was writing my dissertation, and I
had to sit down all the time at my desk and just force myself to
write. But at that point, I hadn't
really been. I mean, I want a pretty
sedentary lifestyle during the COVID times and whatnot, but
like, I hadn't spent hours upon hours in the same exact position
doing nothing. And so my back was like really
starting to hurt. And it was that it wasn't the
exact same pain, but it was in the same spot.
So I was like, I think I need to go back to the doctor like this.
I haven't experienced the pain to this degree in so long.
I I should see somebody. So I went back.
I still was able to go to the Children's Hospital at this
time. Wait in America like.
How old are you? 23 this. 16 yeah, 18 but like
20. So because my mom's affiliated
with the hospital, I think they made an exception for weird.
Pediatrics is the best. Like I when I had my jaw surgery
done, we'll talk about another episode, but like, yeah, I, I
got like I somehow I got into the Pediatrics.
That's where it's, it is. I find it's a more positive
healthcare. They're nicer to you?
Yeah, you're because you're technically a child, even though
I was not. And there was some Unicorn
wallpaper which made me just happy.
So anyways. So I went to the Children's
Hospital to get this to basically just get reassessed by
a physician there. And I, one of the things they
asked me to do classic touch your toes.
So I bend down, I touch my toes. And the doctor is astonished by
this. She's like, hold on, I need to
bring in some medical students to witness this.
I'm like, why? Like it's just touching your
toes. And she's like, yes, but this is
a classic example of hypermobility.
And I was like, I don't know what that is.
She's like, you have very hypermobile knees.
Has anybody ever told you that before?
I'm like, no, I don't know what that is.
It's really hard when like people just say these things
about you would really explain it.
I I can find that and it's it's great that she picked up on it.
It just seems like that would have been quite a like
surprising or a lot to take. In exactly and then when you
bring in all these other medical students to like make me do
weird positions, I felt like like somebody at the circus like
I don't know it, it was it was a very strange situation and then
like they made me do things with my arms and I'd always like when
I raised my arm up, people in school had made fun of me
because my elbow like I don't know if you could see just from
doing this, but like my elbow joints are a bit strange they'll
like point forward in some sort of ways so I I had an idea that
like my joints were a bit odd, but I'd never.
Thought about you know, you were quirky.
I think like I think everyone would do hypermobile or for
people go on to be diagnosed with HDS or HSD.
I've had patients with Marfan syndrome because again it by the
way, it's really hard to talk about this stuff.
I don't leave anyone out, but there are people undiagnosed HSD
Marfan syndromes. I don't know other ones,
whatever. But all of these people, they
always tend to have a sense, even if, like, their symptoms
are pretty minimal, that there's something different about them
because they'll like to. Like for me, it was being the 20
year old who wanted to sit on the floor at dinner parties.
They're like, let me get you a chair.
I'm like, no, they're like, don't you want to sit in a
chair? And I'm like, please, no,
because I and I didn't know I was getting blood pooling.
But it's like these little quirky things will kind of be
sprinkled throughout people's youth.
And then they start, we know what, when you figure out what's
going on. Yeah.
And it's like, oh, this all makes sense.
But yeah. So all these medical students
came in the room making all these like different types of
orthopedic tests and whatnot. What happened?
Did you get any like guidance from there or were you just kind
of down to the wind? Go to physical therapy.
And it was the same sort of stuff that I've been told to do
over and over again, like as a kid, which is like stand and
hold this chair and move your leg out to a 45° angle, bracing
your core. And like do this over and over
again. And like do planks and lay and
sit on the ground and put your back up against a wall and, you
know, touch your toes and, you know, feel your hamstrings.
Like, and all this stuff that I was like, I don't know, it like
kind of helped in some ways. Like the core stuff have always
been sort of drilled into my brain.
But I nothing that anybody had ever really said made my body
feel any better or made me feel more comfortable moving in my
body. No, it's a really common
experience. I think the whole like get
physio thing is really problematic because not all
manual therapy is the same and not all rehabilitative exercise
approaches are the same. So a lot of patients, they're
seeing people in this field. And again, I know that some
people disagree with me, but when a patient's seen someone
for, they're told to get physio, like I'm an osteopath.
I do manual therapy on my patients.
I also prescribe rehabilitative exercises, which is what a lot
of physiotherapists will do and what some chiropractors will do.
All those chiropractors sometimes will adjust people,
but again, some won't. So the whole field.
My dream is that it all becomes one, like United Professional
one day, and I know some people disagree with me on that, but
that's fine. This is the Alex Show you.
Can say what you want. That's my opinion.
But when you're told to like get musculoskeletal expert support
or whatever is meant by get physio, I think the big problem
there is it's like if I told you like Abby, like we're in London,
go get some pasta. There are good pasta
restaurants, There's bad pasta restaurants.
There's different. Yeah, there's like all different
types. Like that patient needs to be
told, hey, you're hypermobile. I want you to see a
physiotherapist or osteopath or whatever who specializes in
working with people who are hypermobile so you can get
correct support for your injury. Because otherwise you're just
being given like the standard treatment when you are someone
with particular. So like I kind of got lucky in
this way because I saw the physio at the Children's
Hospital like once or twice. And then my mom was like, why
don't you see my physio? This guy in Cincinnati who I, I
think his name is Andy, I believe.
And I went to go see him once. But I, I live in London, so I
was just on holiday, like visiting my parents.
And she was like, just see him one time before you go home.
So I went and I saw her guy and he did like ART on me.
And I was like, oh, this? This is really, I feel a lot
better after this. I'd I'd never had that
experience where a physio was able to address my pain rather
than just like give me exercises.
So I asked him. I was like, do you have any
contacts in London or do you know anybody in London who sort
of does this type of movement? And he was like, yeah, I'll send
you a name. And he sent me Alex's name.
And I, that's how like we sort of met and I was able to get on
this current journey that I find myself on of addressing the pain
in a more, I think, constructive way.
Yeah, We could talk more about kind of what we're doing these
days. I should say also like you're my
patient, just fill. I just banged the mic, I'm
sorry. That's okay.
Adjusting my legs. Fidgeting is necessary here.
I love how to and I'm like, you can take your shoes off you like
Yep, taking those off OK, and I've seen you in every pretzel
variation so far. You can put your feet on the
table too. I don't care.
But yeah, no, when it comes to what we're talking about, we're
talking about like referrals. And yeah, you, Oh yeah, you, you
had active release techniques. You had ARTI should say active
release techniques is a specific type of manual therapy protocol.
So there's specific techniques done in specific ways.
And again, I don't have a relationship with them other
than the fact that I pay for their certifications because I
think their courses are really good.
So I'm not like an instructor. I don't work with the company.
I just really value their certifications and it's one of
the, you know, it's one of the postgraduate things like I look
for when I'm looking to see someone for treatment just
because I regard it that highly. The reason for this is they make
you recertify. So you've heard me talk about
after on these courses and do exams every year cost me money,
takes up my time, but it's good. And I still get nervous.
I get like sweaty little, like shaking hands, like trying to
make sure I'm doing everything right.
But what it does is it does mean that there's some type of degree
of standardization. It's medical.
Yeah, exactly. It's like.
You're a medical professional to be qualified.
And I can say, look, I did this protocol and let's say that you
moved to, I have a colleague in Berlin.
I you say say that you moved to Berlin.
I could tell my colleague in Berlin, hey, I've done this
protocol and this one and this one, they seem to help.
Abby, could you continue with those?
And we like speak the same language.
So I think there's a lot of value in active release
techniques. And it is this a certification
that I continue to maintain. What I also like about it too,
is the fact you're moving when you do it.
So it, I find it works really well for people who need to be
able to move. And there's a lot of different
ways I think that that affects the the muscles and the joints
and the tissues and the neurological function of that
patient. But that's that's a whole other
science podcast. We won't get into that today.
But yeah, I'm a big fan of ART. You are too.
And I think for hyper mobile people, when it's done
correctly, and I want to specify it's not designed or developed
for people who are hyper mobile. OK.
But I find that it can be used when it's adapted and modified
to the individual patient, which is how all treatment should be
done. You know, you want to always do
patient centered care. I think it can be a very
effective treatment modality. So it's my primary form of of
manual therapy for my patients. But yeah, that's how you found
me. Exactly.
And here we are. Here we are, here we are.
So you went through basically you had this really serious
injury occur in childhood. You were then basically told, we
talked about this a bit earlier, but you were told like don't do
exercise. Yeah.
And you just kind of. It was like more that they said
don't do like high intensity physical exercise.
And as a kid, when you're 12 years old, the only type of
physical exercise you're really going to be doing is high
intensity physical exercise like.
You're not going to be going to. The pool and like, oh, I'm going
to swim laps like a 12 year old's not going to do that.
So I was just really, oh, I mean, I guess if you're on the
swim team, sorry, styles to. You for four hours a day No, but
like The thing is too like even if you don't do the high stuff,
you can't injure yourself too. This whole because I was told
like you they like don't do any high impact exercises.
So I took their advice yeah, but then I just did a lot of low
impact exercise which can also injure you so.
I basically took that as an excuse to just like not
exercise. And in some ways it was really,
it was a positive impact on my life because it made me learn
how to socialize in different ways rather than just being on,
you know, sports teams and having built in friends that
way. But it was also really negative
because I couldn't really participate in a lot of
different sports activities. And though that had been a big
part of my life and my family's pretty athletic and all of us
played sports growing up. And it just, it changed the way
that I, the relationship that I had with my body and being able
to trust my body. I felt like instead of my body
being like me being a part of my body, I was like kind of at war
with my body and that I never knew how something I would do
was going to affect me. And I started to become hyper
aware of just the different movements that I did or how
sitting in a position for too long would hurt or just things
that I think when you were a teenager and you know, go with
that teen, early teens, you aren't really supposed to be
thinking about. You're supposed to just be
enjoying your life and figuring out things about yourself.
But like this, this really impacted that for me.
And so I didn't, I didn't participate in really any
physical activity. I tried to run cross country,
which ended up hurting my back a bit.
I tried to play basketball again, which I had to quit
because it just was too bad. And then eventually I played
softball for a little bit in high school, but it, it just
like wasn't a positive experience.
The only thing that I did, and I don't think we've ever talked
about this before, which I'm going to probably surprise you a
little bit. The only thing I did between
like age 18 to 21, I did a little bit of pole fitness.
Yeah, there was AI had this music teacher in where I grew up
in Cincinnati, who she was really into pole fitness and she
was like, I think you should try this.
But you couldn't do it until you were 18 because of like the
regulations and whatever. And so when I was 18, I started
doing it and I started like gaining a little bit of muscle,
but I also realized how like I hadn't moved in any sort of way
and so long and I couldn't do a lot of movements that you needed
to do. I was still flexible, but I
wasn't like able to, I was not able to bend my body in a lot of
positions because I felt like my hips would hurt if I did
something in the wrong way or like I didn't have the built up
strength necessary to do it. And so I would go like once a
week. I did that like my senior year
of high school, and then in college I did it a little bit
too, but not like a ton to the point where by the time COVID
hit I pretty much was just sedentary all the time.
OK, so did it get, did it help you get pull ups and stuff?
Like did you do any upper body strength training to help?
You. I didn't know strength training
except for the like I was. The thing I felt most
accomplished about was being able to climb the pole all the
way to the top and slide back down like a firefighter.
That's a very, yeah, that's a very interesting routine.
Well, it's not even really upper body, it's that's full legs and
you just like stick your shin onto the pole and drive it in.
And that hurt so bad. But I was like, this is really
cool. But one of the things I noticed
is how badly I would bruise after these things because like
you will get some bruising. My bruising was always so much
worse than. It's a type of quirky thing.
Like you get childhood photos of you as well.
You're going to be way more bruised than your friends.
It's one of those other little things that just comes up for.
People and also just like scars on my body.
So like, when I was 13, I was at summer camp and I did a like
mudslide and I stood up and I had this giant gash in the
middle of my leg. And I had to get this, like,
metal thing that had somehow gotten into my leg removed.
And the doctor just like, glued it back up.
And there's this huge scar right here that like, never fully
healed. I forgot that was what that was
from. There's yeah, scars, other
things. You had a very North American
childhood. I love hearing about, like
summer camp, you know, all these things.
So you kind of, you were navigating things.
OK. A lot of my patients do pull, by
the way. It's a really common type of
exercise because. It's low intensity.
Yeah, I love it. And it's it's upper body
pulling. Yeah.
I think you know how I feel about pull ups.
You know how I feel about upper body strength training.
I think it's critical. We talked a little bit.
We touched on my like really long arms at the start, you
know, neck pain was kind of my worst thing.
And having the strength, the interscapular muscle region
strength, so kind of upper mid back strength to be able to hold
my shoulder blades in place and do things with my upper body has
involved me so much because it helps me control the weight of
my long arms. OK, so we don't just like go in
wild and yeah, on my neck and whatever.
But for you. So you had pull and then COVID
happened and because. You couldn't really exit like
you could be in like exercise. And at that point also like I
had, I like tried to go to the gym a little bit in college and
like did one of those apps like where, you know, they scheduled
workouts for you. No, it was like one of the I
don't even know what it's called.
I don't want to plug anybody's apps.
That probably isn't very. Bad.
This show, we have no, no sponsors.
Anyone's listening. I'm just saying.
She was like some personal trainer that I'd seen like
online or something and I was like, oh, maybe I'll try her app
and why? Not it was.
Fine, but I also had no idea what I was doing and so I was
kind of embarrassed to just go to the gym, not know what I was
doing. And so I didn't really do that
so frequently. And then COVID happened and then
I was doing yoga in my apartment in New York City and suffering,
but like only a few times a week, not like intensive or
anything. And you know, when you're not
moving, you put on weight, like you start to feel worse in your
body in a lot of ways that I mean, personally for me, I'm, I
know other people, you know, might have different opinions
about how they move and what they like to do.
But for me, that sedentary lifestyle started to hurt me
more than it helped. It's so confusing when lying
down her too, and then standing up her too, and walking her too,
and sitting in her too. It's like, what do I do?
By the way, I love that you talk with your hands.
You're like me, but your hand keeps going in front of the
camera. Oh, I'm sorry.
Camera. Just like, because otherwise
we're gonna have like 100% footage of you.
It's OK. I love it.
But look, you talked earlier
too, about feeling like you're at war with your body.
I think that was a really important statement.
I did a video, not that you'll have seen it because you aren't
on social media really, but I I did a video.
It's one of my first kind of ones to go a bit viral where I
talked about not feeling at home and my body so like my shoulder
wouldn't feel settled and that fear of your body kind of
betraying you where you're doing everything right.
Like because all these hyper mobile young people, you know,
they're the people I was eating like spinach.
I was doing yoga, you know, doing like all these.
I was eating sour candy, yes. Well, some, some of us more than
others, but it's like you'll be doing everything right, Right,
Like you did your physio exercises and whatnot.
And then I complained the whole way though but.
That's that's a necessary part of everything.
But but you don't things don't just they you don't have that
same recovery outcome. And then it's so disorienting
and confusing. I know about know about you, but
I felt like a failure. Oh, absolutely.
I felt like a failure. I also felt like a failure
because I was like, well, I guess I will never be able to.
You know, I loved playing basketball, I loved dancing, I
loved all those things. And I'm just like, well, I guess
the things I like, it doesn't matter anymore that I like them.
I will never accomplish the things that I wanted to
accomplish. And your goals have to change.
And also at that age, it's really hard to pivot because you
have your heart set on things. And again, like you have your
friends, you have your social scene through all of it.
And then when that has to change too you, you feel like a failure
in more ways than just one. No, absolutely.
And did anyone think you were lazy?
I know that's something I got. Yeah, I'd be going for around.
There's this one, one friend and her dad, and they were runners.
And I like, you know, I did a triathlon with her and other
stuff. So I'd like to go for runs with
them sometimes in my teens. And I would always be like, oh,
my shoulders hurt when we were running.
And the dad would just kind of rolls eyes, like, oh, Alex,
like, you know, stop being lazy. And it's like my shoulders were
in agony. And now that I can run without
shoulder pain, I understand you're waiting.
Yeah. But I get to, like, that was
messed up. Like, that's an unstable
shoulder just jostling around in the joint.
Yeah. Hurting, but it's it's hard just
when you want to just be normal. Yeah, just two things.
Just just go for a ride. Exactly.
Nothing too hard. About a dance class.
So look. So we went through all that.
You saw the art provider in Cincinnati, I think you said.
You then got referred to me. You saw me.
How has your journey evolved since then?
Do you take me through a bit of that?
So okay, I think you can be honest by the way.
I will, I will. So one of the things I started
doing even before I started seeing you.
So this was like between seeing the art provider in Cincinnati
and then making my first appointment with you, I was
like, what's something that I feel not super intimidated by in
terms of physical activity that I could try?
So I started going to spin classes only once a week.
And that helped to some degree of like getting me to start
moving again in a way that I thought was fun because I don't
know why I found that like those, those PT exercises I was
given to be just absolutely dreadfully boring and not
useful. And I didn't want to do them
because I dreaded doing them. So I was like, I know that this
isn't really, you know, building that much strength, but what's
fun for me to do? So I started.
It's important. Yeah.
So I started going to spin classes.
I loved being like in the dark with the the lights and the
instructor yelling at you. Can I just fly?
So I did that. I did the exact same thing.
So spin was really important to me because I couldn't go out
clubbing. AI had no friends.
BI hate. Clubbing.
No, but I know what you mean. I hate clubbing, but I love
being in the club. Exercising, Yeah.
Exactly. So for me, my clubbing was like
Saturday morning, like 8:00 AM spin class same like.
I, I, I just am, so I don't know, I, I'm not saying I'm anti
alcohol. I will drink, but like I'm not a
like, let me get hammered and go to the club kind of person
because of all of my experiences with that have been negative.
Standing, standing I, I one time I, I don't get too much like
negative stuff online, partly because I haven't posted
forever, partly because I just try to avoid that stuff if I
can. But one of the videos I did have
some really lousy comments on it was where I talked about how
like I struggle with standing for long periods of time.
Like I would rather do 4 CrossFit classes or I don't
know, like go for AI don't know any type of any type of physical
activity. I would probably pick that over
standing for half an hour like anything.
A. 100% I agree with you. Yeah, standing because of the
blood pooling. It's because of how it starts to
hurt. Extending my knees is one of the
worst things that like I can physically do to myself.
I went to a Vampire Weekend all standing concert at the
Hammersmith Apollo last year, which was really, really fun.
But the entire time I like was trying to focus on the concert,
but also was just thinking my knees really hurt right now
because I'm hyperextending my knees and like I had to stand on
one leg, stand on the other leg, try and squat down a little bit
sometimes just to like engage the correct muscles.
Like I was so constantly hyper aware of how my body feels in
that moment rather than being able to be present and enjoy the
thing. So sometimes it's like, not even
worth going to a concert that I really want to go to if I'm not
going to enjoy myself, dude, 'cause I have to stay.
I've never been to a concert. I'm like, I know I really want
to go to 1. I know we need I will do it one
day. Well, tell me when there's a
good one, I will go. But yeah, it's partly I was
always like trying to think, why don't I want to go to 1?
And it took me a long time to realize that it's because stand
is standing in line, likes to get in, having to stand to watch
it. Like that's just a whole box of
horrors. Have you seen those like
collapsible stools? My boyfriend's sister has one of
them and she always brings them when I'm around her and go out
with her but like does she? Bring it for.
You Well, she wasn't at this concert.
She actually had to sell her ticket last minute, so we all
went without her anyway. But it was we did go a few years
ago to a music festival in Gunnersbury Park.
Nice. Where I know Gunnersbury.
Yeah, yeah, We saw MUNA. I don't know if you know that.
I don't know MUNA. They're a band from America.
And Boy Genius was the other band who was playing there.
And we, she brought the little stool and we were just like
sitting and standing and sitting and standing on the little
school together. It was really fun.
So she has inspired me to consider purchasing one of them.
But also I think it's less weird doing it outside than it would
be inside. Yeah, so I asked Dave, I'm like,
because I, I, I didn't get to clubbing as much as I didn't get
to very much at all, right. So I, I know I'm old now, but
like, I have like a dream of like, you know, seeing this.
I know, I know it's not how it is anymore.
I know all the nightclub venues are shining, but you know, like
what it's presented as being. I like wish I could have
experienced that. And I asked Dave, I'm like, can
I bring like a collapsible stool to a nightclub?
And he's like, probably not because they might think it's
like a back then. Yes.
You're not supposed to bring seating.
You're supposed to pay for seating.
I don't want to pay for seating. I don't want to down for two
minutes exactly That's it Go to the bathroom, sit on the toilet.
Dude, I've done that. Like the few times I go out I'm
like exactly take and make my sweet time Abby in terms of.
Oh sorry, I forgot to talk about the actual thing you asked me
about, like my journey back into fitness.
We got on a tangent. That's OK.
Journey into life. Yeah.
Tell me about fitness. So OK, so I started doing the
spin classes, yeah. And then I was like, OK, I'm
noticing that this is a positive thing in my life, but I also, I
still feel in pain in a lot of ways that I don't know how to
address. So I'm not entirely sure what
sparked it. Like there wasn't one morning
where I woke up and I was like, I'm going to start lifting
weights. But I moved into a building that
had a gym in it. And I was like, well, my spin
studio now is kind of far from where I currently live.
And I, I have a gym here and my parents have a Peloton and with
you have a Peloton and you like have the group membership, you
can basically put other people on your membership like your
children in this case, and they can use the classes that are on
the app. So I was like, fantastic, I'm
going to do the beginning strength Peloton classes.
Why not? Why not?
Because I have a gym now that I pay for in my rent, I might as
well use it. So I started doing that and I
would my goal to myself was like, I'm going to go to the gym
once a week for 30 minutes and try and strength train.
That's such a sensible amount. So many people, they're like,
I'm going to go to the gym like an hour like every other day.
And that is how you crash and burn.
Yeah, you were like, I'm just going to see if I can survive.
Yes. For me, it was more about like,
am I going to hurt myself? Yeah.
This is we, we talked to us, we talked to us a lot, I think.
And you know, I work with you as a patient, but it's like
trialling things and tests, you know, you can always do more,
you know, So that's, let's just take it slow.
So you did this experiment. You survived.
Well, the first few times I I did like very I didn't do.
I just did body weight exercises.
Like I didn't really do that much weight.
And what I realized was that I actually liked having a goal
that was outside of work and outside of, you know, my social
life. That was just for me.
What was your goal? My goal was to just go to the
gym once a week and just to show the thing, like show up because
I don't know, after you graduate and you're in the real world and
you're living your life, it's like, how do you how do I
continue to challenge myself in ways?
And like, you know, I was always that kid that liked to succeed
at stuff and no one is giving you gold stars anymore.
So I was like, I need to do this for myself.
I started doing that with the gym.
After going and doing it, I was like, I, I kind of like this.
Like I don't know why I like it. I can't really put my finger on
what is positive about it for me.
But like I wasn't really starting to see any, any change
in my physical like pain. It was more just OK, this is
something that I'm trying. Can I ask you a question because
I think what some people enjoy, at least I know for me with
strength training what I enjoyed especially at the start.
Was feeling something other than pain, which sounds really dark
when you have chronic pain and then you go and you do something
to your muscles, you do an exercise correctly without
injuring yourself. Key is that you do it correctly
without injuring yourself. Yes.
You then have that feeling of healthy muscular fatigue
exactly, which is technically it's a healthy inflammatory
process. We're remodeling that tissue and
that feels so pleasant. Yes, yeah.
And I think kind of building off that also it's a when I'm in the
gym, I feel like I'm not using, yes, you're using your brain to
exercise, but like the loud and anxious thoughts are not as
present because my body is tired.
So it's not like my brain is also tired then.
And so the thoughts that are the compulsive anxiety that's
quieter. Have you heard of heavy work?
No, so I don't have diagnosed ADHD, but we, there's a lot I
do. There we go, there we go.
We all know how it is. But I used to, you know, I, I've
had boyfriends over the years and they come home and be like,
Alex, why have you moved all the furniture in the flat?
And it did tend to, you know, correlate with me being a bit
like anxious or something going on.
And for me, I started to realize when I learned about heavy work,
which is a term for types of exercise or, or movements or
different activities that people will do sometimes to kind of,
and again, I'm not a mental health expert, OK?
I have expertise, but it kind of like helps to calm you down a
bit and lets you just feel a bit more, as you said, like it takes
all those like scattered thoughts away and just makes you
feel more at peace. I guess I would say when I
learned about that, I was like, oh, This is why I really like
strength training. And for me, it's not even about
the physical aspects. Like my number one concern is
how my mental health would deteriorate if I'm not able to
exercise. That's my greatest fear.
I think you and I've talked about that, but yeah, that's
that's how you work. I relate to that so much.
Like, it just like silencing the obsessiveness in my brain is
really one of the main reasons that I workout.
Yeah. But so kind of like what you
were saying, I, I started like noticing those feelings that
like, it was quieter in my mind when I was doing this and I was
feeling things other than pain in my body.
And that's when I started to see you at this point.
And I told you about like, my physical pain and we started
addressing it. But you also were like, let's
try and work on your gym routine.
Like do you do you do strength training?
And if so, what do you do? So we would like talk about what
I did and you would recommend things.
And I started actually not just like, you know, doing my like
lifting 3 kilogram weights or five kilogram weights that, you
know, you see all the people at the gym who say they don't want
to get bulky lift like the Pilates girls.
No, no shade to the Pilates girls.
You do you, but like we. We love Pilates like the whole
what do you call Pilates Princess body.
Have you heard of this? It's crazy to me.
It's yeah, it's. Terrifying.
I have no shade to the Pilates girls.
Some of my best friends are Pilates girls.
And if that's what you want to do, do it, girl.
But you should be, I think people should be from a health
as a health care provider, OK. I think people can train or do
exercise for whatever reason they want.
But if you're looking to reduce your pain or manage your
symptoms, we need to be be prioritizing functionality over
visual appearance. And I just say that because I
used to get really self-conscious of having large
shoulders. I have a large Bony frame.
I just do have a, you know, large shoulders.
And I was really, really nervous to put muscle mass on them.
But the muscle mass of my very muscular, very quite bulky to be
on his shoulder. Yeah.
I don't have shoulder pain all the time.
And it's like, I think back to when I was so scared of being
big. And it's like, you know, when
you start to read discussions of how people sometimes feel about
taking up space, like I was, it came from a lot of different
places, but I was so scared to take up space.
And that's heartbreaking, you know, So it's like, again,
people can want whatever they want, but just if you're
listening to this and you're nervous to take up space, so
you're nervous about looking bulky or big, like maybe try and
reframe it, at least for me, by focusing as you did on what I'm
trying to achieve. So I just for me, the path to
getting into the healthy or as healthy as possible place I am
now was to think of like, how can I do different movements?
How can I keep it improving? You know myself and the function
of my body. Also, you're not going to get
bulky like you're not going to get bulky.
You have to actively try to get bulky to get bulky.
In 10 years of me trying my hardest and I'm not that big.
So like I just when people say that to me, I'm just like,
you're going to be just just lift weights.
You're not going to get bulky. If anything, you're going to get
more toned like, and it's so that's so I started lifting
heavier like, and I was thanks to you, I was scared to do it
because I was like, am I going to injure myself?
What am I going to do? Like, how can I be sure that
this isn't going to hurt me? Because there's that like voice
in my head that's constantly being like, you're doing this
wrong, Like you're going to hurt yourself.
Be careful like overthinking every single thing that I do.
And I, I think one of the things that's been, I guess like the
most difficult for me on my journey to becoming a more fit
individual is finding the balance between when I am maybe
going to injure myself and when I actually can push myself and
be safe doing it and knowing when to back off and when to
like actually push myself. It's such a thin line sometime.
It's really hard. I'm going to say like even I
still struggle at it and I'm probably pretty darn good.
Yeah. But it's it's really hard
knowing your body is difficult. I call it being your own coach.
And I think when I work with patients, you in terms of your
experience as well, like I think that what helps me sometimes get
better results, especially for patients who have that athletic
background or patients who do want to, you know, do a bit more
kind of physical activity. I think that is really my, my
niche, of course, is high mobility, but my niche within
that is kind of athletic high mobility, I would say, or people
who want to be athletic, even if they're not.
But it comes down to really, you know, accepting that that voice
is there and sometimes that anxiety voice is there and
acknowledging that it might not be a bad thing.
Sometimes it's there because of a history of injury and and
trauma and you know, the stuff you've been told.
But looking at it and saying like, hey, you know, let's break
down this movement in a lot of detail.
Let's make sure we're not missing anything.
Let's take that sports specific or that elite athlete type of
approach and see like how are your feet positioned?
How are your knees positioned? Are you bracing?
You know, how how are you holding the barbell?
It's all of these little micro adjustments.
Yeah. And, and The thing is, the
average person probably with normal connective tissue or
collagen, typical connective tissue or whatever, they can get
away with having anything like less than perfect technique.
But when you're hyper mobile, because you're more vulnerable
to injury, there is that risk. If you're not doing everything
perfectly perfect or as close to that as possible, your risk of
injury is going to be higher. And again, I don't stress anyone
listening to this, you know, because like I, you know, it's,
it's hard just to go and you have to start at a certain place
and try your best. But one bit of advice that I try
to give my patients and that I'm so happy I just kind of stumbled
into because of my work early on in my career with professional
athletes, is just seeing that it's OK to want to be really
good at something. Yeah.
Like, a lot of people can do a squat, but can you do a squat
anywhere close to the level that someone who's like a
professional athlete, you know, their bio mechanics, can we try
and emulate, you know, that and get it right for your body?
But like, are we really looking at those little details with the
amount of thoughtfulness that they deserve?
Absolutely. Like, the thing that really
changed the game for me was when you taught me more about like,
it's more important to make sure your form is correct before you
start lifting heavy than it is to just start lifting heavy.
Because if you don't have right the correct form, you're going
to injure yourself and not just injure yourself, but you're not
going to succeed and trying to do what you're setting out to
do. So if I want to, you know,
actually deadlift weight on the bar rather than just the bar, I
have to make sure that my deadlift form isn't A injuring
me and B, like he's actually and I'm engaging all the correct
muscles. Because I found that I wasn't
making any progress until I learned, OK, this is how you
actually engage your core. Like I remember one of our first
sessions, you taught me actually how to engage your core and I
said to you, should it feel like I have to pee when I'm doing
this? Yeah, it's a pelvic flooring
core. There's like a lot going on in
there. We'll get into that in more
detail in another podcast. But it's so it's hard to feel
muscles and joints, you know, in your extremities.
The core stuff is something like even I'm still working on.
So I've talked with you about the personal training I'm doing
for myself right now where we're focusing on some gymnastics
based movements. And to this day, like I am still
learning, I'm still developing there.
And for me, it's been a A10 year plus very intensive journey.
So it's something, you know, even when it comes to barbell
movements once in a while, like I'll forget to brace or
whatever, but it's being able to do the self corrections.
I think once you know what it should feel like and should not
feel like and how to cue yourself and in a sense become
your own coach, then you're able to have a, you know, a lot more
successful for time because you're not getting injured.
And it's also more fun exactly because we need fun because when
you're like dealing with chronic health issues, chronic illness
and chronic pain and stuff, it's like, it's a bit depressing.
Oh, really? Depressing.
So you need a good playlist to make it fun times.
Any movements, I think it's good to have goals that let you feel
like a bit of badass. So like, do I remember when I
got a body weight deadlift and I felt like, you know, queen of
the world or like my first pull up or whatever?
So again, those movements are not safe or appropriate for
everyone, but for the patients, where they are safe and
appropriate and we can work toward them, the journey's just
as good as getting there sometimes, too.
You know, even if you don't feel it in the moment.
Yeah, 100 percent, 100%. I'm, I'm working on trying to
get my first dips, you know? Yeah, yeah.
I've, I've never had a dip. I'm very nervous.
One of the shoulder stuff stresses me.
We'll talk about my shoulders another time.
But that's a movement I've always wanted.
I've never been able to have it. I scale it.
So I'm doing again what I have done with you.
So sometimes we cut the depth to make sure that we're moving
really, really nicely instead of focus obsessing over full range,
which I think is overrated sometimes.
But yeah, working on that, you know, technique first and
foremost and just take taking our time.
Taking our time. Yeah.
Abby, is there anything else you want to touch on real quick?
I was thinking self treatment and managing being weird.
Can we talk about being weird at the gym?
Absolutely. I'd love to talk about being
weird at the gym. It's my specialty for.
Tell me about that. So one of the things I do at the
gym, which I think people would look at me and question what is
this woman doing, is Alex has introduced me to these like
metal and wooden tools. I don't know what else to call.
OK, let me do a little explainer.
It's instrument assisted soft tissue mobilization.
There are different protocols out there.
I do not do those with patients even though I'm actually
certified in one of them. I just don't like it.
I do my own protocol with patients because people who are
hypermobile, the tissue is a bit different.
You have to be careful. It's softer, more sensitive,
more prone to injury. But with my protocol, we use it
almost, I call it like mini foam rolling.
Like we're using that little edge just to subject the tissue
to a mechanical stimulus to force some blood flow there, to
warm it up and to really get on spots that you feel like maybe
you can't quite warm up in a normal warm up.
Like for me with my shoulder, I used to feel like there's a spot
in the front of the shoulder and I would try and stretch it, but
nothing quite got to it when I had that little.
And again, it doesn't matter if it's you can get stainless steel
instrument assisted soft tissue mobilization tools.
There are some plastic ones, wooden ones, whatever.
I once used an M&S wooden. I was, I was desperate in the
gym like a couple months ago and I'm like, my shoulder can feel
it right there and I just need something to get on it.
But regardless of what it is, yeah, it's a way that you can
just kind of get in and mobilize that tissue, a form of self
massage that I find this really, really well for myself and for
two people who are mobile. Well, like one of the things
I'll do is that let's say I did it yesterday, like I was doing
upper body yesterday and I was doing overhead press and I felt
like there was a part of my right shoulder that I absolutely
could not like engage properly. And it was like, you know, when
it feels like one of your, I'm going to use the wrong word for
this, but like muscle things is underneath one of the other
ones. Like a tender.
A trapped nerve or like some sort of something like that?
Something's we it's that feeling of something being stuck.
We talk about the freedom of movement.
Sometimes it's like, yeah, something is not quite moving as
it should. I think that sensation so.
I put the bar down. I stepped.
Away very proud of that's yeah yeah key role here.
Yeah, and I took out my tool from my little Lululemon gym bag
and I started just like scraping myself.
And people at the gym will look at you like, what are you doing?
But I also think that I'm probably not the weirdest person
at the gym. Like there are people who are on
phone calls. Sometimes there are people who
are like. There's a lot of special people.
Yeah, there's a. Lot of people.
So I feel less weird because I'm not, you know, taking a phone
call in front of like 50 other people, but I'm like, actively
doing something to make my body feel better.
But yeah, I stepped away, did that, came back.
I also realized at that point, like, OK, I reassessed.
I started lifting again. I was like, OK, I still don't
feel like 100% good about this movement.
I'm going to lower the Rep count that I want to do.
I'm also not going to continue on with working the front of my
shoulder today like I'm going to.
I'm going to do some lats instead just to see how to test
it out, see if other muscles are also giving me the same kind of
trouble. And that's one of the things
that I feel like has really helped me be more like a
comfortable in my body and also be comfortable at the gym.
Being able to be weird and like step away and maybe not always
be fully working out when you're at the gym.
Like being OK, taking up space and like letting your body feel
a certain way for a little bit and then trying again and trying
again and not overdoing it. Like when you feel something
back off. Don't don't just force yourself
through it. I really have had to come to
terms with being OK with that. Yeah, I know.
It's, I think of it as being kind to your body.
So like a good program for anyone long term is going to
involve being kind. And that day your shoulder was
OK, I'm not feeling less. You took that opportunity, took
that information, you made a decision.
You, you were your own coach. You stepped away, tried to do
some stuff to see if you could adjust it.
And I think this is key and this is how I work with patients
because it's, I think it's what's helped me get progress.
Because if you didn't have things for you to try when that
happens, you would kind of just be stalling.
We want to have ways that you can self correct or try to
manage it. And also not give up.
Yeah. Because I feel like that's what
bothered me the most. Like, I'd be like, I'm in pain.
I have to stop doing this because it's going to continue
the pain. And I would just go home and be
sad on my couch. You don't have to go home and be
sad on your couch. You can continue working out,
but you can just do something else that isn't hurting you.
If you can find something, yeah. There are some days.
Man, I swear. I like everything, but no,
absolutely the more options you have, the better.
I think it's having that, that wealth and that education, you
know, background and, and hopefully what I do is help
educate my patients so that you can look at like all the
resources you have in the gym and try and figure out, you
know, what you can do or cannot do.
And really leaning into that. Again, coming back to kindness,
you know, finding what your body needs on that given day and
giving it to yourself. And that's why with programming
you've ever even seen in how I program, it's not like week one
do this week two week do this, we have a framework.
And then if you feel good, you can do more.
If you don't feel so good, you can do less.
And if you need to do something different, than you do something
different. And I think that's ultimately
what this is all about. I think it's that being able to
accommodate different needs in different ways.
Yeah, which is a challenge. But it's also, I think it is in
a way, like, again, I'm not saying this is a positive.
Like, I, you know, nobody would wish to have a connective tissue
disorder behind mobile or whatever.
But the one kind of good thing about it is you get to know your
body and yourself, I think in a really deep way.
Absolutely. Like you, you kind of have to
come to terms with always checking in on yourself in a way
that I feel like people who don't experience this maybe
don't need to. It's an autopilot.
Yeah, exactly. And there's some days I'm like,
Oh my God, I wish I could do that.
But also I am grateful in a way for knowing my body so well at
this point that, like I, knock on wood, can hopefully prevent
as much injury as possible because I know these things.
Absolutely. And look, the way I see it is
like injuries happen. You saw me injured my back badly
a few months ago. I feel you.
That was rough. Did nothing by the way, just
like went on a normal car journey, whatever.
Your 30s. Hey, I love it.
But yeah, no, it's like, look, injury will come for us all
whether you slip on. I don't know what banana or
banana peel, who can say, right? But the the ideal situation is
that your body is resilient enough, like you've done a bunch
of strength training, which will help with things like bone
density, by the way, and other stuff.
Where then when you're like B and you fall flat on your face
running for a train instead of fracturing things, you are kind
of OK and come to clinic and see your patients.
Anyways, Abby, this has been fantastic.
We didn't have time to go into you being a Dungeons and Dragons
master. Love that DM lifestyle.
I we need to have you back on one day to talk about that.
I do. We have talked about doing an
event as well, maybe one day. So if anyone wants that, leave
it in the comments. It might happen one day.
But yeah, is there anything like if you could turn back time and
talk to little 12 year old aggressive basketball player
Abby, who's not like nothing on the ball, would you?
Is there any like advice you'd get for anything?
Two things, I think the first thing I would say is take a deep
breath. Like, remember why you're here.
You're not here to fight other girls.
You're here to play basketball. And the second thing I would say
would be like maybe start lifting weights.
I know you're 11, but like, one of the best things you'll be
able to do for yourself is control your own destiny in
terms of like athleticism. And the earlier you start doing
that, the better you're going to feel in the long term because so
many people you see as they age like people who aren't
physically active or can't be physically active.
I feel like I've seen, and this is just an anecdote, age faster
like the. No, it's it's not an anecdote.
It's very proven in research. So like if you can just keep
moving your body as much as possible in ways that are safe,
do it. No 100% I wish I could have told
myself like hey like strength train like don't just spend 4
hours in the pool. No animal?
Well, no, no Animal Crossing. Yes Animal Crossing but but also
maybe do some bicep curls. Exactly.
It's it comes down, we'll do another episode one day on like
childhood type property. We'll get an expert on hopefully
in Pediatrics and stuff because I'm not one.
But what I can say from my experience is 100% if I had a
child, I would be talking with them about like we would, we
would be doing family gyms. Yeah, together little baby
weights. But it's not scary like that.
It's also not just to, like you said, like get bulky, like do
all those things. It's to maintain your normal
state. Yeah, to feel strong, Yeah.
And yeah, when you when I find at least when I feel strong,
feeling stronger on the outside makes me feel stronger on the Oh
yeah, same. Also, like when my D&D
characters are really strong, I want to be able to be that
strong too. So sometimes I like try and
channel like one of them and I'll be like, OK, what would she
be doing? How would she be training to go
out? I love it, Abby.
Abby, thank you again for your time today.
Thank you. Please come back.
We really need to talk about DND.
I've only played once, but maybe we can change that.
But thank you again, and I hope to see you back here soon.
Thank you, Alex.