Are you tired of living with chronic pain? Looking for a natural and effective way to alleviate your discomfort?
In this episode of the me&my health up podcast, host Anthony Hartcher interviews chronic pain expert Rick Olderman, who shares his journey in discovering the root causes of chronic pain and the importance of understanding our daily habits that contribute to it. Discover how addressing biomechanics, fascia, and neurological dysfunction can help you live a pain-free life. Don't miss this chance to learn about natural ways to treat chronic pain and improve your overall well-being.
About Rick Olderman:
Rick Olderman MSPT, CPT is a sport and orthopaedic physical therapist, personal trainer, Pilates instructor, and speaker living in Denver, CO. With over 25 years of experience in practising physical therapy, Rick has developed a unique methodology that focuses on addressing chronic pain through education, biomechanics, fascia, and neurological factors.
Discover Rick Olderman's groundbreaking new book, "Solving the Pain Puzzle," now available on Amazon. This essential guide offers insights and solutions for managing chronic pain, empowering readers to take control of their own well-being.
me&my health up seeks to enhance and enlighten the well-being of others. Host Anthony Hartcher is the CEO of me&my health up which provides holistic health solutions using food as medicine, combined with a holistic, balanced, lifestyle approach. Anthony holds three bachelor's degrees in Complementary Medicine; Nutrition and Dietetic Medicine; and Chemical Engineering.
Podcast Disclaimer Any information, advice, opinions or statements within it do not constitute medical, health care or other professional advice, and are provided for general information purposes only. All care is taken in the preparation of the information in this Podcast. [Connected Wellness Pty Ltd] operating under the brand of “me&my health up”..click here for more
As what happens to medicine the next level of patients starts knocking on your door and this information will help well didn't solve and so then I had to look elsewhere. And that's why I discovered Thomas Myers work with anatomy train. He's a researcher in fascia. And he discovered the superhighways of fascia that are running through a body from head to toe. And fascia is connected to connects everything to everything. And so when I saw that and read his information, I realized, oh, this kind of gave me a way to look further away from where the pain was out to other possible culprits. And so then the next tier of patients came knocking on my door. And these were people who seemed to have like a battery inside their body that were charging their bodies to be contracting and these patterns of dysfunction. I was just like, What is this battery? Why, why are people doing this? I could break it, but it would kept coming back. And that's
Anthony Hartcher:
That was Rick Olderman sports and orthopedic physical therapist from the US coming. Joining us all the way from Denver, Colorado, and you've landed on the me&my health up podcast. I'm your host, Anthony Hartcher. I'm a clinical nutritionist and lifestyle medicine specialist. The purpose of this podcast is to enhance and enlighten your well being and Rick is joining us today to help you and enhance your well being around alleviating chronic pain. So Rick has over 25 years of experience in practice as a physical therapist in terms of dealing and managing chronic pain, he has come up with a method a methodology that really helps fix your chronic pain by you, helping you through his education. And so today we're going to be talking about chronic pain. Its drivers around biomechanical fascia, and neurological ways in which they contribute to your chronic pain and what you can do about it. And we're going to be talking about practical things that you can do in terms of how to sit properly, how to stand how to walk, or these are guaranteed to help alleviate your chronic pain. So without much further ado, I'd love to welcome you into the discussion I'm having with Rick Olderman welcome on the me&my health up podcast. How are you doing today, Rick?
Rick Olderman:
I'm great, Tony. Thanks for having me.
Anthony Hartcher:
Ahh, you're so very welcome. And where are you joining us from?
Rick Olderman:
I'm in Denver, Colorado.
Anthony Hartcher:
Awesome. Colder around there.
Rick Olderman:
Yeah, well, it's been in the 50s last couple of days, so that's nice. But we've had some real sub zero temperatures coming through here. So this is a welcome reprieve.
Anthony Hartcher:
Goodnews for the skiis
Rick Olderman:
Yes, I think so. Yeah, record snowfall in the mountains.
Anthony Hartcher:
Fantastic. And the for the listeners so that they can better understand your background and as to how you've arrived at what you're doing today, please share with them.
Rick Olderman:
Oh, sure. I'm a physical therapist, and I graduated school back in 1996. And very quickly, I realized at my first job as an orthopedic and sports physical therapist that I was a failure, especially when it came to chronic or nagging pain injuries, the techniques and information that we learned in PT school to help people with this kind of stuff just didn't apply. It worked really well for acute injuries, not chronic types of issues, and so sunk into a deep depression because of it for years. And then I moved to Denver here, and I worked for elite health club in downtown Denver. And they didn't have previously a physical therapist as on staff. And so when I joined their staff, my schedule instantly filled with people with chronic pain and nagging injuries and people in their 20s through the 60s, I mean, he's we're well off people been to a slew of doctors, physical therapists, chiropractors. And so I just realized, you know, what, oh, maybe it's not just me, maybe it's really how we're approaching chronic pain and medicine. And that's what kind of began my journey to figure this out.
Anthony Hartcher:
Yes, I please share as to where we're going wrong in terms of helping people with chronic pain, and what is it? What have you found in your research?
Rick Olderman:
Yeah, so what I've kind of bold it down to, you know, we're trained, as I mentioned, to really help people with acute issues. And so we're trained in medicine, in what I call a component thinking, where we do specific tests to understand what specific tissues are damaged. And then we treat those specific tissues, we have X rays, MRIs, and we have a million orthopedic tests to drill down into those specific tissue issues. But there are zero tests, I've realized that get at why those tissues are damaged. And so this is what I call a component thinking, which is drilling down into those tissues versus a systems approach to understanding how people were using their bodies and moving that are causing stress to these tissues. And so, you know, I intuitively felt going into PT school that our pain was due to how we were using our bodies, but that's not what I was taught in PT school. And I felt like I missed a whole class or something, you know, so like a wait, we can't be done. Yes, because I didn't learn how this is all happening. And that's because it's not taught anywhere. And so that's where I feel like we're going wrong in medicine.
Anthony Hartcher:
And, in terms of your approach. So obviously, you've done a deep dive into this and looked at more that how and what's going wrong and what's the drivers behind this chronic pain? What have you found and how can people get help for this?
Rick Olderman:
Yeah, so good question. Basically, you know, my first mentor was Dr. Shirley Sahrmann who is a PT, PhD out of Washington University in St. Louis. She's written a couple of textbooks and taught courses there. And so her whole thing is movement impairments that cause pain. And when I took all of her courses, read her textbooks and so forth and apply that information, it helped a ton of people. But then there's as what happens in medicine, the next level of patients starts knocking on your door. And this inform ation will help well didn't solve the pain. And so then I had to look elsewhere. And that's why I discovered Thomas Myers work with Anatomy Trains, he's a researcher in fascia, and he discovered the superhighways of fascia that are running through a body from head to toe, and fascia is connective tissue. It connects everything to everything. And so when I saw that and read his information, I realized, oh, this kind of gave me a way to look further away from where the pain was happening to other possible culprits. And so then the next tier of patients came knocking on my door, and these people who seem to have like a battery inside their body that were charging their bodies to be contracting in these patterns of dysfunction, I was just like, What is this battery? Why? Why are people doing this? I could break it, but it kept coming back. And then that's when I discovered talk to Dr. Thomas Hanna's work with Hanna's somatics. And he focuses on neurological base patterns of dysfunction that occur in the body. Well, here's the really fascinating thing, Tony, all three different researchers, biomechanics, fascia, and neurological dysfunction, all pointed to the same three patterns of issues that cause almost everyone's pain. And when I got Thomas Hanna's final information in place, I was just like, I was just like, oh, this now I see how it all fits together. And but the thing that they were all missing, I felt was a deeper understanding of what we're doing daily that's causing these deeper patterns of dysfunction. And so that's what I've been focusing on these past 25 years.
Anthony Hartcher:
And I'm sure that listen to this. So intrigued at this point, as to what are we doing today to really drive those patterns?
Rick Olderman:
Yeah, I can give your listeners an example. All right, and take them through a little test. Most people have back pain who are listening. So let's just take you through a little back pain test. And I'll show you how one of these patterns of the dysfunction is playing out in you. So it's really nice just to listen to this podcast. But if you actually do what I'm asking you to do, you're going to feel the truth in your body. And this is an important thing. So try out this test, I'm gonna ask everyone just to lie down on your back with your legs straight. Alright, we're gonna lie there, it could be on the floor, it could be on your bed, it could be on the couch. A firmer surface is generally a better surface because it gives your body more feedback. But whatever you can do, so we're gonna lie there with her legs straight. And I want you to feel how your back feels in this position. Right? You can, if you want to, you can explore your low back with your hand and see how big the arches off the floor in this position. That's fine. Okay, so we've been there for a few seconds. Now I want you to bend your knees so your feet are flat on the floor. And if you don't feel a difference in your back discomfort, go ahead and hug your knees to your chest. All right, if that feels better, and you'll notice that one of these two positions either knees bent or like straight feels better for your back. And Tony, I bet you you can guess which position that would be?
Anthony Hartcher:
This bent?
Rick Olderman:
Absolutely. Yeah, Yeah, so 99% Of all people who try this test will say, Oh, yeah, my back's much better when my knees are bent. And they'll also see that their back is flat or to the ground when their knees event, right. Okay, so the next part of this test for you to really understand what's going on here is everyone now stand up and listen to this podcast for the next, you know, three or five minutes. Okay, so you're standing there listening, and I'm going to kind of hurry this through the next three or five minutes. But after about a one a minute or two minutes, you're going to notice that your knees are starting to lock backwards, alright, in a locked position. And so everyone go ahead and lock your knees in this back position, or they're not locked there already and feel your back. And now what I want you to do is unlock your knees so they're not locked, they don't have you don't have to squat, but just don't lock them anymore. And feel what just happened to your back there. And if you're not sure, go ahead and lock your knees again. And then you're going to feel that when you're locking your knees, your back is more arch. And you probably even feel a little bit more tension in your back when you do this. And so what have we learned? Well, we've learned that your back doesn't feel good when you're it's arched and when your legs are straight. And then we just learned that when you stand for anything more than a minute or two, you tend to lock your knees, which is then arching your back. So this is a really innocuous little habit locking your knees when standing and walking, that's contributing to a lot of chronic pain. And a lot of you just listening, if you were just to unlock your knees for the next three days, I can almost guarantee that you'd feel a significant reduction in your back pain just from this one little tip alone. So this is how what we're doing unconsciously is feeding these patterns of dysfunction in our back, I can talk more deeply about the patterns and what those are, if you want to hear about those too. So wherever
Anthony Hartcher:
Absolutely, Absolutely, I'm so intrigued.
Rick Olderman:
Alright
Anthony Hartcher:
Keep going.
Rick Olderman:
So what we're talking about what is this pattern that I'm discussing, okay, so we've just discovered is that you have what's called an extension problem, and I'm holding up a skeleton here, folks. So if you can listen or watch the podcast on YouTube, that might be helpful. But anyway, an extension pattern just means that there's too much arch in your back or there's too many forces trying to pull your back into an arch. And so this is proven that you have this that when your knees are bent, your back feels a lot better because your back is flatter. And then when we straighten the legs now we've increased the forces that are pulling the back into an arch. So this is one of the major patterns. I mean, you Tony not even being a physical therapist, assume that bending the knees would feel better for the back. So it's not like this is like out of this galaxy information, it's just really putting it all together. So almost everyone listening to this will have too much arch in the back as a root cause of the back pain. So that's one of the patterns. The second pattern is the opposite of this. It's called a flexion pattern. And so that's where the low back is too flat. This is very, very rare. I see maybe one of these people a year. So I usually don't even spend any time on this. But the third pattern that's really huge is what I call a side bending pattern. That's where one side of the pelvis is higher, and the same side of ribcage is lower. And you can imagine Tony looking at this that this would then create unilateral back pain back pain on one side or sciatic pain down that leg or SI joint pain. You know, unilateral symptoms are usually involving this type of pattern, and I call this a side bending pattern.
Anthony Hartcher:
Wow
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Anthony Hartcher:
So intriguing. And so in terms of this, I guess you know, what you see commonly amongst your patients? Is it related to sitting a lot? You know, we have a very sedentary society today and sitting and not moving much or so what can the listeners do in terms of helping alleviate this so that they get a more, I guess, a neutral spine as opposed to a serious inflection either side? Or I think you understand where I'm coming from?
Rick Olderman:
Yeah. So why are we doing it and how to resolve it? Right? So we already mentioned that the extension pattern is caused by something like locking your knees when you're standing and walking, changing your walking habits. So a lot of people think that, oh, well, if I just walk more, that'll solve my pain. Well, what if you're not walking correctly, and most people aren't, no one got out of my clinic with who had back pain on down to foot pain without learning how to walk correctly. And all of that involves really is just walking with your knees softer. And when you do this, it turns on key muscles along this whole chain of events to start stabilizing and controlling things that aren't controlled when you're locking your knees. Alright, so and then the sag side bending pattern that we just talked about where one side of the pelvis is higher, and the ribcage is lower 90, 80 to 90% of the time, this is due to some older injury on the same side that hasn't been resolved correctly. And about 10 or 20% of the time, it's due to a compensation from the other side of the body. I just had a patient telehealth patient today, he was one of those 10 to 20%. So he had all of his pain on the left side. But then we found out that his right side was very, like probably 50 or 60% of the strength of his left side, he never realized it. And he works out with weights. So amazing. So a lot of these things are sneaky, you can't it's hard to recognize, you know what might be causing them. But it really when you understand the basic patterns, it's really simple to figure out. So sitting isn't necessarily then the cause of pain. And just like standing and walking, it depends on how you sit not all sitting is created the same. So a lot of ergonomics are creating neck pain and headaches as well as back pain or hip pain. But it's not because you're sitting it's because of how you're sitting.
Anthony Hartcher:
And so how should we sit?
Rick Olderman:
Okay, so I think this would be best addressed if we talked about neck pain and headaches for a second. Okay, so if we look at if everyone looks at the body, you know, like Google the skeleton, and you'll see that we have all of these long bones in the body. And so there are only two areas, though that we have flat bones. One is the pelvis. And we know that the pelvis is the center of function for our lower lower body. In fact, the other area is the shoulder blade. The shoulder blade is also the center of function for our upper body system neck. And there are rules about how the shoulder blades should be resting and moving. And so the most common dysfunction that's occurring here is that the shoulder blades are resting too low. And sometimes this is because we train them to dress too low, because we're told in classes maybe to bring your shoulder blades down and back into your opposite back pockets in order to create good posture. Well, that's the exact opposite of what you should be doing with the shoulder blades. So anyway, there are significant attachments from the shoulder blades into the neck and the base of the skull. One of those is called the levator scapulae. It's this little teeny tiny Pinky muscle. It starts here at the corner of the shoulder blade and inserts into C1 through four, sometimes five, so it does just what the name says levator it elevates the scapulae or the shoulder blade. So when your shoulder blades are resting too low, this little teeny tiny guy is trying to pull everything up for you. And so that's when most people will they say to me, Oh, my neck is killing me right here and everyone thinks is it's the trapezius. It's not the trapezius. It's the levator scapula that's deep to the trapezius because generally PCs probably isn't doing its job correctly. So an easy test for this is if you have neck pain or headaches chronic then any turn your head left and right and look up and down and get a sense for where your pain is have someone stand behind you put their hands in your armpits and lift up those armpits for like a half inch or an inch, and then jiggle them around just a little bit and relax your arms into their hands, and then turn your head left, right up and down again, and almost guaranteed, you're gonna feel significantly less pain when someone is holding up your shoulder blades. So this is proving that the shoulder blades are the source of your pain. And it's likely everyone listening to this, no one has ever looked at their shoulder blades to solve their neck or head. And this is why they have chronic pain. And so that person would then take their hands out of your armpits and they would lower back down. And you'll probably feel even more pain because you just got a little taste of what it felt like to have that whole system on loaded because they were holding it up. Okay. So now that we've gone kind of down into that our question was, well, how should we be sitting? Well, when we sit, then we need to have arms on our chairs. First of all, if you don't have arms on your chairs, then your neck is basically holding up your whole arm system while you're working. So when we sit, our arms should be resting at the seam of our shirt right here by our side, the elbows should be roughly 90 degrees. And wherever that is on you, whatever it position is, this is exactly where your keyboard should be. So if you're reaching forward more for your keyboard, then you've just lost the support of your armrest. And now your neck is holding everything up again. If your arms or your chair can't come in close enough to support your elbows here, because they should be pretty close to your waist, then and your elbows are out like this. And you've also lost the benefit of the supportive that most people especially females are too petite. And so the arms of the chairs can't come in enough to support the arm. So I just had people bring a pillow from their bed at home folded in half shove up between their body and the arm of the chair. And that is often the perfect height for the arms to be resting. And I'll tell you folks, if you have chronic neck pain or headaches, if you just try this one tip, probably within a week, you'll feel a significant reduction in your pain. So that's how we should be sitting from an upper body standpoint,
Anthony Hartcher:
That's fantastic. It's certainly I learned a lot, no doubt the listeners have. And just to remind the listeners, you can view this on YouTube. So Rick's demonstrating a whole lot. And it's really helpful to watch what he's doing. But he's really describing it well, too. So thank you, Rick. It's a we're very much been exploring that biomechanical side of things. And you mentioned there's the fascia, which is connecting all the connective tissue and holding it together, and then the neurological side. So I'd love to talk about fascia, because it's probably something that the listeners aren't so familiar with. And I've learned there's a ralphing technique around, you know, releasing the fascia and things like that. And so I'd really like to explore this area, because we haven't done it on any podcast episode before out of 160, I'd say it's very unique. So please just share about the fascia and how that might be not supporting someone's chronic pain or alleviating it and what can be done around that fascia release and that be great.
Rick Olderman:
So first of all, I'm not a fascia expert. So I'll give you my limited understanding as it applies to pay and a fascia expert can go into much more depth than I can. But anyway, you said correctly fascias connective tissue. And so that connects muscle to muscle, muscle to bone, muscle to ligament, it holds our nerves in place our blood vessels, our guts, it's basically the thing that keeps our shape of our body for us. It's holding everything in place. So Thomas Myers found that there are and fascia also has contractile properties and different types of fascia have more contractile properties and other types of fascia. We can go into that a little bit more deeply if you want. But there are these superhighways of fascia basically, that run through the body that start at the top of the head all the way to the bottom of the feet. Now it's not just fascia and the superhighways because it connects everything together. Of course, there's going to be muscle in there, there's going to be ligaments and so forth that compose this whole superhighway. But Thomas Myers showed that you can dissect this whole sheet of fascia as one contiguous piece of tissue. And that's why it's really important because if it all connects together, that means at all. It's like those little toys where you push up something and it collapses, and then you'd let it go. Everything is connected then in along that whole sheet of fascia. So there's a sheet of fascia that runs along the back, there's a sheet of fascia that runs along the side, there's a sheet that runs diagonally through the body. And then there's got a couple of sheets that run through the front of our bodies. And so how what I've discovered is how we move is causing this fascia to contract in certain areas. And if they're fascia contracts in certain areas, it's going to affect the whole line of fascia from head to toe. So part of what I do is and this is where I get really away from that component thinking that we talked about the beginning, Tony is that if you understand how the body works as a system, you can unload this fascia at many different levels with just some simple changes to movement. Unlocking the knees is one of those if you unlock the knees when you're standing and walking. Now you've unloaded that fascia line from the bottom of the foot at least to the bottom of the room. cage, but for sure it's going all the way up to the head. But from a meaningful standpoint, you will feel effects all the way through this whole zone if you just unlock those knees. So that's what I'm talking about with fascia. And then in areas of more mechanical strain in our body, we have a different type of fascia that's laid down called myofibroblasts. Myo means muscle, and so that has four times the contractile capacity of normal fascia. And so the lump thoracolumbar fascia and the low back area is one of those areas. It's a transition zone from two different curves in the body, and it's a mechanic biomechanical center over body too. So that's why more mile fibroblasts are laid down here.
Anthony Hartcher:
Wow. So certainly those bent knees or lightly bent knees really important in terms of both the biomechanics and the fascia wells, not I guess there's a balance between that contraction and relaxation, right? With
Rick Olderman:
Exactly.
Anthony Hartcher:
Yeah, we just don't want it stuck. Stuck in mind. Yeah.
Rick Olderman:
Exactly. So you know, you mentioned rolfing, Rolfing is a great technique to break up the fascial contraction patterns, okay. However, if you're not changing how you're using your body, it's likely those contraction patterns will return again and again.
Anthony Hartcher:
Okay. Now, in terms of that neurological components, you mentioned that also has, you know, plays an influence on the chronic pain that someone's experiencing? Can we dig a little bit deeper in that, that'd be great.
Rick Olderman:
Absolutely. Well, we're all born with these hardwired reflex patterns in our body. One of those is called the Landau reflex. And that is what allows a baby to lift its head to look somewhere when it's crawling and wiggling on the floor. And it's lifting its head, not just by the neck muscles, it uses its whole back to lift the head, it's all part of one system of movement. And then when we stand up, eventually, and we start walking, alright, we're tapping into that reflex pattern to help us stand as well and become more erect. And if you ever walked into down a scary dark alley, and you hear a bottle, you know, break, you immediately stand up like this, and looking around. That's that Landau reflex pattern kicking in and it's engaging, though, it's locking the knees, it's arching the back, it's getting your head up taller. It's doing all of these things along that whole line of fascia that we just talked about. So that is, even though these are hardwired in our body, we can't go through our days responding reflexively to every little noise that happens. So eventually, our cerebral cortex overrides these hardwired reflex patterns, and it learns to ignore them for the most part and only let them through and during significant issues like fight or flight or fear or things like that. So for the most part, our brain overrides all of these deeper reflexes that we have so that we can function throughout the day and do what we need to do. But it doesn't mean that their hardwiring has gone away. So the another reflex pattern is withdrawal reflex. So you can watch this on YouTube folks, you'll watch someone put a little baby's foot down, and when they put the foot down, it immediately retracts from that stimulus. Well, it's not just the foot and knee that's retracting, it's this whole side of the body that's lifting and the muscles that lift this side of the body, this pelvis are attached to the ribcage, which then pulls the ribcage down. So this whole pattern is a reflex pattern occurring. So Thomas Hanna identified these primary reflex patterns that while they are overwritten, are still working on us. And when we get into pain, then we tap in these reflex patterns start are involved to try and guard against the pain. But in reality, they are deepening the pattern of pain that's causing us. So one of the reasons would be for instance, if you're bending down and you hinge at the hips all the time, and you bend down and stand up like this all the time. Well, what you're doing is energizing that whole reflex pattern, that Landau reflex pattern, you're just tapping into that, which also happens to be that fascia line. So how you're using your body is causing the reflex pattern to become stronger. And it's going to tap into the same connective tissue that Thomas Myers identified in these fascia lines. And so that's how Thomas and so Thomas Hanna came up with a technique to short circuit, the reflex contraction patterns happening in these patterns of dysfunction. It's brilliant. It's become like the peanut butter to my jelly sandwich. When I treat it's, you know, fix mechanics and do the somatics to fix the neurological battery that's charging that whole contraction pattern.
Anthony Hartcher:
Yes. Just thinking when you're sharing that you mentioned the fight flight or freeze and how it makes it stimulates that Landau reflex and essentially makes it stand more upright. Now knees lock out and I think that's obviously making us taller and getting us ready for action, right? if you know whether we need to fight a foe or to get away or it's essentially alerting us and getting us on high alert like a one of those prairie dogs that sort of sits stairs up upright where they hear noise and get Yes. So that's stress it sounds like a pretty much a primitive sort of stress response for survival that really is activating that Landau reflex. Am I right? to sign in there. Yeah, it's a protective way in developing you know, in order to see we can't land or stomach with our head down all the time. In order to see danger. We need to look up our head had to look ahead, right? So that's one thing. And then eventually, we need to stand up. And so yes, it's it's a stress response. But it's also a protective response to this withdrawal reflex. And, you know, if we didn't have that withdrawal reflex and we stand, it stood on something sharp, we would just go right down through that sharp thing, and it would, you know, puncture our foot, but we have this lightning fast reflex pattern that occurs to get us off of that sharp thing, right, it's a protective reflex pattern, as well as evolutionary, you know, just from a functional reflex pattern. So this stressful is that, you know, stimulate people's fight flight or freeze mechanism is essentially having an effect on that fascia in terms of, you know, locking it out and contracting it and then causing, you know, the, I guess, contributing to that chronic pain. So if someone has a chronic stress in their life, then that's obviously a contributing factor to their chronic pain that they're experiencing. And obviously, there's the stress management and things like that would really help in addition to all the does your course or your books also talk about the stress side of things and how that implicates MoneyPak. Yeah,
Rick Olderman:
because so this is the other interesting thing about fascia is that fascia does not respond to a neurological input like our muscles do, it responds to a chemical inputs, that chemicals that are circulating in our bloodstream, like hormones, they're called cytokines. And there's a certain type of cytokine transforming growth factor beta one that particularly stimulates the myofibroblasts that I was talking about, that are laid down in areas of mechanical stress in the body, wherever those might be. And so what triggers the release of those chemicals are is a stress response, you know, a fear issue or so forth. stress, emotional trauma, all sorts of things will cause that to be released by our brain, and then circulate through our our body, then engage the areas of our body that are receptive, that have receptors for those types of chemicals.
Anthony Hartcher:
Wow, it's so much insight that you share with listeners today. And I'm sure they're thinking, well, I've got chronic pain, and I really need your help. So how can they best connect with you and please share any books or any other offerings or resources that are available to the listeners to help relieve their chronic pain? Oh, sure.
Rick Olderman:
So the the premise of everything that I've dived into these past 25 years is that we should all be able to fix our own pain, we just don't know how to do it. And so pain is just a signal from your body that's telling you, hey, there's something that's wrong here. So my programs are all geared towards helping people fix their own pain. And it's easier than you think. So my website is https://rickolderman.com/ O, L, D, E, R, M, A, N.com. And there you'll see I have five different programs for five different areas of the body, head, neck, back, you know, hips, knees, feet, and so you can get those programs and download them and get started today if you want it to and if you type in Fixing You F I X I N G Y O U all one word, you'll get a 20% discount off of whatever you purchase. So you can you can do that. I've also created a practitioners course now it's geared it's what I've used to train my physical therapists in my clinic over the year over the years, but I believe that everyone from coaches to surgeons need to understand all of this, anyone who's dealing with pain or movement needs to understand really how the body is producing pain and how to use movement to solve it to as well as stretch and strengthen the tire weak muscles. So there's a practitioners course there as well. And then I've got a new book coming out this spring called solving the pain puzzle. And there are free chapters for people to read on my website, if you just click under patient stories, you'll see those chapters, and then there's a button that you can click to preorder the book. So you'll get it when it's published, which a lot, like I said, should be the spring. My goal, Tony is to be the first physical therapist on the New York Times bestsellers list. So I'd appreciate all your help with with that.
Anthony Hartcher:
Absolutely.
Rick Olderman:
It's a book that really talks, it has case studies in it basically that show how this information, how I used it to solve pain. And the purpose of the book is to give people hope, and maybe a little bit of understanding of hey, how would this work for me. So I hope it's a useful book to help people
Anthony Hartcher:
Absolutely. And I share your mission. So it's essentially empowering others to improve their health and well being. And that's exactly the mission you're on. So we're very aligned. And I'll be more than happy to get this far and wide. As far as I can reach, I'll get the message out there to help you empower others in terms of managing their chronic pain. And essentially, as you said, you felt very disempowered when you started out in practice. And that really disappointed you because you went into practice to help others. And as a result of that it served you because you then dug deep deeper and come out with all these, I guess resources that now can help people resolve their own pain. So I think that journey was just the journey you're meant to go on. And that disappointment in the early days is just, I guess, enabled you to shine today in terms of having the answers for chronic pain that you know, in the earlier days you didn't have so well done, Rick,
Rick Olderman:
Thank you. It was a long and rough road. It's funny when I wrote this book, I was as I was reading back through it, I'm just like, holy smokes, I've had anxiety all my life. But I use that anxiety to drive my desire to figure all this out. So I use it for good and Yes,
Anthony Hartcher:
Absolutely. And look at serving others. I mean, you've shared terrific insight with me today in terms of those three underlying areas that can really drive chronic pain. And as opposed to just giving them a band aid solution such as a painkiller, essentially, you're providing them permanent relief, if they obviously follow the procedures and the techniques and the exercises that you prescribe, which is wonderful, because it's actually getting outcomes that the clients are seeking. So it's really, really fantastic. I love the work you do. And I look forward to getting it out as far and as wide as I can. So thank you for coming. I really appreciate it. And to the listeners, please help Rick on his mission. Really, if you know anyone with chronic pain out there, get it out to those people because it can really serve them in terms of resolving it so they're not constantly or chronically going from practitioner to practitioner practitioner, I'm spending a lot of money but getting nowhere and still taking painkillers in the process. So this can really put them on the straight and narrow and Brix 25 years of experience is really going to empower them to fix it themselves. So really encourage your listeners to get it out there to help me help Rick on his mission and empower and enhance and enlighten the well being of others. So thank you.
Rick Olderman:
Oh, absolutely! My pleasure. And thank you Tony, appreciate it.
Anthony Hartcher:
You're welcome Rick okay. Across disclaimer, this podcast and any information, advice, opinions or statements within it do not constitute medical, healthcare or professional advice and are provided for general information purposes only. All care is taken in the preparation of the information in this podcast. Connected Wellness provides you unlimited operating under the branch me&my health up does not make any representations or give any warranties about his accuracy, reliability, completeness or suitability for any particular purpose. This podcast and any information advice, opinions or statements within it are not to be used as a substitute for professional medical, psychological, psychiatric, or any other mental health care or health care in general. me&my health up recommends you seek the advice of a doctor or qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Inform your doctor of any changes that you make to your lifestyle and discuss these with your doctor. Do not disregard medical advice or delay visiting a medical professional because of something you hear in this podcast. This podcast has been carefully prepared on the basis of current information. Changes in circumstances after publication may affect the accuracy of this information to the maximum extent permitted by the law me&my health up disclaims any such representations or warranties to the completeness, accuracy merchantability or fitness for purpose of this podcast and will not be liable for any expenses losses damages incurred indirect or consequential damages or costs that may be incurred as a result of the information being inaccurate or incomplete in any way. And for any reason. No part of these podcasts can be reproduced or redistributed, published, copied or duplicated in a form without prior permission of me&my health up.