this is disabled girls who lift. We are reclaiming what's rightfully ours. One podcast at a time, it's mary Beth Chloe and Marcia bringing you the thoughts and unpopular topics to get you out of that a bliss comfort zone. Hello folks. Welcome to yet another episode of disabled girls who lift. Thank you for listening. Thank you for supporting and subscribing to our newsletters and supporting us on anchor. This is Marsha from south florida is a land of the Seminole tribes. Hey all, it's mary beth from California over here on a lonely tribe, Aloni territory. So for this episode it is october which is a lot of things, but of those things, it is physical therapy month and as your neighborhood friendly physical therapists, I figured it'd be a good time to talk about how most of us learn about physical therapist, which is especially for us as athletes injury. So we get hurt, we tear something, we get surgery or we don't, we need to recover, we need help and we find a fantastic physical therapist, get back on our feet and then we're lifting again.

So I figure why not talk about it. So I think one of the things I'd like to start with his injuries, like actual personal injuries, have you had any huge setbacks and you're lifting career so far mary beth um not any major ones where I've had to, you know, stitch anything up, go to the hospital or rehab rehabilitate, but I mean we all understand what an injury is were put in 2, 3 times our body weight on our backs sometimes or just definitely a lot of us with you know chronic illnesses and injuries can happen any time any day. Exactly and there's levels. So I mean there's like the like you said the top injury level that we think of like you blow out your A. C. L. Or you you dropped a bar bell and your knee or something just catastrophic and huge and like you know, you have to get medical care.

Um And then there's also the everyday shit like okay my shoulder always nags me when I bench or there's all those little eggs. Yeah, like my shoulder doesn't pop back into place some days and I don't know what's going on or I can't sit upright while I'm at my desk still stuff. You should check out and not ignore and prolong until it gets kind of strong. Not a good idea until You try to lift a £145 dead lift I think for a lot of us we ignore these nagging things though because we see all these like pain is just weakness leaving the body bullshit. And then there's the other level of, especially in the disabled body, like you're already doing something that's so much extra and so much out of your comfort zone. Like you don't want to look like you don't wanna look like the pansy or the week one, you don't want to feel that vulnerable. You're already at the gym like for you, you're already taking how many minutes to slather up your arm and AMD hook, you know?

So if you have a lift where the hook drops and you who knows what happens to your legs and your hips and your arms when it happens, like are you just going to go home? Yeah, Or do you feel some type of way about and just keep lifting anyway? You know, and there's and there's an important in yes, obviously talking to and working with a physical therapist, but also knowing your body, knowing whether that's just, you know, a tweak that you need to change or like that one time the hook, the hook did come off my arm in the middle of a heavy dead lift and I felt a shooting pain go up my elbow into, into my shoulder and then I thought my arm was done and then I was like, oh wait, no, I just need that blood flow to come back. I need to stretch it this way, breathe into those muscles and then rest. Don't just papa Shipton of medicine and hope that'll little solve it all. Yeah. Yeah. But also knowing the difference between a cramp a spasm uh like a tear.

Getting it checked out and knowing your body for sure and how long So you were dead lifting. Um like what percent or what our pe or whatever because numbers doesn't mean anything if people don't know what way. So like how heavy was that percentage wise that could have been, That could have been a 70% which was high at the time because I hadn't touched anything over like 60 for a good year. Um So I weigh somewhat heavy. Yeah. Yeah so I mean I weigh like 1 25 1 30 then that was like a good 2 50 - 60. Yeah I mean I'm not going to percentages right now, it's too early but you know it was at least twice my body. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah something that that hook wasn't able to take and like and I think back to it and it's like okay I do my dead list bilaterally now you know I am thankful for these contraptions that I'm able to try and keep the way even on both arms but I used to live with one hand and those injuries luckily did not come to me but I see people dead lifting with one hand post injury because they only have one working arm, you know?

Um But you look at these videos of like big gas white dudes just showing there shit in the gym um because they can't they can't train with the left arm or whatever for a full year and they're fuckinup they're back. Yeah. Yeah with that one arm thing just they can't show for a little bit. Yeah no that's pretty well and knowing exactly what to use to um to like recover from that dropping a moderately heavy dead lift. That one with um that that took me luckily just until the end of the night I just like called it quits, that was my second to last set. Um And I went straight into those stretches that I talked about, those breathing drills. Um but I had to give it rest for a full day after that, so I didn't train the next day. So you're saying the hook didn't hook couldn't handle it.

So that's a weight that and that's the way you haven't done in awhile so you really had no idea that that would happen or did you expect what's tough is like okay how would you know I know and I don't know some of you who are listening like know how I did live but I basically use either Harbinger hook or a Helen hook strap around my left wrist because I don't have um digits to hold on to a bar, so on top of not having digits, I don't have a wrist. So that thing that slippage is very like common. Um So yeah I still use a lot of chalk but um if the strap is overused and um say the velcro isn't as strong anymore, I don't know if it's going to, it's going to come off so some folks you know try to get a new one every year or so but um for me I just I guess needed to stitch it up some more because there's so many, there's so many levels.

There's like the injuries that are, you know, the everyday aches and pains just because you have imbalances and especially us with these disabled bodies that were coming with missing this or missing that or this weaker, this is looser, were all over the place, but there's like those injuries and then there's the you couldn't have done anything about it injury and then there's like, all right, you knew better injuries. I'm just trying to figure out if this was a you knew better injury because I definitely had one of those dead lifting in a commercial gym with socks on with that like shitty rubber, you know that remember floor, like I knew better, but I didn't think it through, you know, I didn't like I was just muscling through like, just get through this workout right here and just do this. And I'm thinking, you know, I'm in my concrete floor warehouse gym, like barefoot is fine, but on these rubbery slippery ship, that was a terrible idea and luckily I wasn't going that heavy, I think I was like 50% but you know, I locked out and literally my foot just slid out like skirt, I did the electric slide in the middle of a dead lift, like I knew better and that took me a while to come back because I'm already really uneven in my lower body, so my low back was pretty much just crunched up.

I couldn't stand on my left leg and I had too much stretch. I had to move ahead to try and do some like self corrective exercises and then I also needed adjustments to get my pelvis back because I was uneven and that's for wearing socks while dead lifting. Yeah, on a slippery on the rubber, like shitty commercial gym floor. Like any better who was like come on, they probably polished it that morning to like not knowing that people trade on it. This probably wasn't, I knew better for me too because leading up to that way everything had felt fine but like not safe. And so there's probably people listening like well you should you should probably just not be dead lifting if you don't have to hands or if you know that hook is not trustworthy, you probably shouldn't be dealt lifting but that wasn't the case. So I just like felt it through and I guess knew that there was a risk I was taking but also knew that like I wasn't gonna injure myself, you know what I mean? It's like the dead list.

Only foot off the ground. Yeah, we're like I'm not going to die. Let me just do this real quick like but he was saying though, just because we have good luck with bad decisions doesn't mean it wasn't a bad decision. Like good luck. Yeah. Let me listen to you for a second. That's why we're having this episode. Yeah, that was it was good luck with a bad decision. Like you only need that one time where the luck doesn't come through and be like, well, so I think the takeaway from the you knew better injuries is like just chill out and like really pay attention. Especially as adaptive athletes like knowing that you're trusting your tools because that is literally life or death for me, just for that one lift. Yeah, that makes sense. And same with the bench, like I've had one time and maybe all 56 years that I've been power lifting, had the barbell slipped on the bench press and that was because of an uneven, like I just don't trust anybody giving me a hand off somebody pulls that bar, It's like all out of proportion.

But oh, I didn't think about that. Yeah, perfectly balanced. And they just like throw it on you and I'm like, wait, wait, I don't have a grip yet. Let me at least touch the bar. I know that it can be really hard sometimes. Um when you have a body that isn't well regulated. So whether we're talking like sensory where too much sight and smell or sounds funk you up or we're talking about just, you know, like the things that are automatic in your body that just don't run well, you know, like you're sleeping when you should be awake type of things and sometimes it's hard to figure out because listen to your body sounds good on paper, but when your body doesn't know what it's doing, sometimes it's hard to figure out. So honestly, when it comes to that, if you're not sure what which way's up, that's when you're going to be like, okay, you need to back off, maybe spend some time doing light volume and really take note of what's going on with your body. Like for me, I'm pretty good at it now. But that really took me a solid four years. Like when I go to when I'm like, all right, I'm going to work out and I could feel that my body is lower arousal and I should be normal.

I should be awake. And I know it's not because, you know, my shoulders nagging me. I know it's not because I didn't eat enough because I ate this much. I know I took a salt tablet. So that should be fun. Like I I can tell there are other days where I'm like, I feel like sh it this is the real ship. We're not working out. It's hard to figure out that nuance in the beginning and that yeah, that took some time. Yeah, it takes time. And so, you know where you are in that timeline is probably different from somebody else who's listening to this is barely, you know, feeling that for the first time and doesn't know the difference between whether they should force themselves through training so they don't get their coach mad or whether they should, you know, take that rest day, so that the next day would be five times better. Yeah, I mean, how many coaches are out there or, you know, your friends in the gym and like, telling you not to bitch out, right, don't sandbag, don't be a hero. Like, how many, like, how much of that language do we hear? Yeah, yeah. Just take some pre workout bro, Sniff these ammonia salts, you'll be good.

Let me slap you on the back if you let me slap your fucking place, which I love. But I mean, you know, not if I'm about to black out, it's not easy for everyone. And I think that's where a good physical therapist could come in handy because we know bodies and I think that's honestly the only reason why I am where I am, because I meet other people have some of the similar problems and they're just like, how did you know that? Or nobody ever told me this or I didn't know that this damn just the fact of understanding, like, you know, I'm coming back from a shitty day, or let's say I had I did have a catastrophic injury and I have a chronic illness and I can't tell what is causing me to feel like sh it right, Like that's just knowing how to come back from that is not easy to do on your own? And I'm sorry, like strength coaches are amazing, but everybody has their place on a team. Like nobody's an expert, like a physical therapist is, I'm sorry, I don't care if they took some random certification.

I don't care if they read books at home. I'm sorry to have both. Yeah, it's just not enough. It's not enough. You need to have somebody holding like different roles for you and your team and that's okay. Honestly, it's the same thing as like some people have a life coach and still see a psychotherapist. You know, they're doing different roles for them. And I think that's the problem when it comes to my job and how people see therapy is they think other people can fill that role? Like the way that I explain to people like, okay, you just came back from you, herniated disc in your back, that's fine. You can lift again. But here listen, let me tell you this. Um, next week, I want you to only add in squats, do this percentage and see how you feel? Give yourself this much rest break in between. Take no. Did you feel good while you were doing it when you were done? How did you feel that night? How did you feel the next day? How did you feel? Because all of those things give you an idea of how what you did affected your body. Okay now, next week, now you could try to add that list while you're doing the deadliest.

How did you feel when you stop that night? The next day? Like all of these Yeah. Questions and factors like that. That's what we know and realize and recognize that a lot of the goals of these strength coaches are not necessarily to get your body back to 100%. It's to get you back to doing their program that they work so hard on doing. So a lot of times they are a lot more impatient than a physical therapist. When you guys are looking at the finite details like What you're doing 24/7, how you're feeling 24/7 and how you're moving. I think, I think that's what strength coaches are missing out on. There are great ones. There are no and they'll and they will part that out. They'll be like, oh well look at this guy's page who does good mobility stuff. Look at this person's page, I follow them here are some exercises and I've seen strength coaches that do that and they they have like link guides ready to go. They have rex ready to go. Like look at this. Look at that and that's exactly what I mean, like understanding that you're part, you're part of a team.

If you can't lift weights for the long run, then you shouldn't really be lifting weights. I'm sorry. Like you can't just like we're not NBA players, there's no million dollar contract here. You know, these NBA players could wreck their entire bodies, but at the end of the day when they don't work anymore, they got millions. What we got. Well that's the other mentality. It's not really great. You uh so have you had like a fairly bad injury where you didn't know the difference between everyday spoon the life and funk? I just tweaked my shoulder or I just tweaked my lower body. So it's interesting because since, so before I got sick I had purely like orthopedic injuries. I've blown out a disc like the full Saya tika down to my toes and and it took me a while to come back from that. Um I've strained my pecs and this is before I was sick. I strained my pecs because I tried to quit lifting for a while and the bench shirt, I got my week, my week ass.

I needed like way more weight than I could handle. I strained my pecs trying to get that touch shirt to touch. Oh God. So that was a, you knew better injury for sure because we were just, everybody is just like, yeah, I get the weight. Yeah, you bought this custom shirt, we helped you buy it, come on, wait a touch, I'll help you just add more weight. I was so fucked both of my pecs we're just done with and then I also had other injuries when I used to play more removing sports. So like high ankle sprains, that sort of thing and all of those took me the regular amount of time, quote unquote to get through, just purely orthopedic. Um but I would say since I got sick that nuance has been a little bit harder because sometimes when I flare up, I'm actually physically weaker and being able to realize when it's from that and not from an injury is rough. So the back thing with the deadliest I told you about that was after being sick.

So that took me a while because it hurt on my left side and on my left side, I have pain anyway. Yeah, so I have a pelvic pain that nobody knows why. Of course everything looks fine and your skins are normal. But anyways, I always have pain on my left side, so I'm thinking it's just from that. But then I started paying more attention like, okay, I stand on one leg and try to bend down and pick up something kind of ship. I'm like, whoa, that's not good. And that's when I I started to realize like, okay, maybe you really did hurt yourself more than you thought because in the moment when I, when my foot slipped, I was like, that was stupid anyway, and I just kept I kept going because I didn't feel anything right. I wasn't paying attention. I'm sure I'm sure something happened. You didn't hear anything, you don't, but if you think it's going to be some money, like the pictures, you know when someone's clutching a black and white and it's like throbbing red, like yeah, I didn't feel that. So I thought I was Gucci, that's the other reason why that took me a while. I didn't really put that together until I tried to do my single leg work and I was like, wait a minute.

Damn now. Imagine if you didn't even like attempt to do that, you would have never realized you had an issue. Yeah, me and my back is bothering me. I'm just like, maybe my spasms are bothering me. Maybe it's just my period, I've got lower back pain, this is normal. We just go through shit every month, this is normal. So that was you as an athlete. So you as a doctor of physical therapy, how are you watching your patients? Your clients say if they have a chronic illness, say if they naturally, you know, people with the BDS, people with M. S. Like other things, their knees just naturally bow inward or, you know, it doesn't look the way that strength coaches would want, you know, your legs to look when squatting, How are you as a physical therapist? I guess, policing when that's okay when they're injuring themselves, there's a fine line because we're looking at videos and you've got people online saying, oh that's that's not a safe squat.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's the only way that person can squat, there's levels to it for sure. And I am one of those people, I was like, pancake feet and my knees literally, if I try to max out, my niece will touch and then come back open. So I am one of those people. Yeah, Yeah. Um But again, that's where us being movement experts comes into play is that I'm going to understand for that person's body. What can you do to overcome the limitations that you were handed that you can't do sh it about right? Like you got flat feet, can we get your feet any stronger? Maybe we could put some inserts in your shoe. Can we get your hips any stronger? Just tackling the things that we know you can tackle and maybe it's the opposite problem. Maybe it's not that your joints were too loose or maybe you have spasms and you're stuck somewhere and that's it. Or maybe you have like when we had Courtney from hope for a taxi, you have things that happen that you're not trying to do. But next thing, you know, you're squatting and you're turning to the right for no reason, you have no idea why.

So there's there's so many things that can happen. I think that's where if you don't have a strength coach that understands how to adapt things to your body. You need a physical therapist because they will also help you understand your body and I think that's where it falls short. When you find a shitty one, It's not somebody that you're just supposed to go to for massages and to feel good and it's over. If you work with a good physical therapist, they're going to help you like, oh okay, mary beth I don't know if you noticed, but you know, your left foot, your left foot's a little higher than the other one. You know, you're right foot doesn't externally rotate as much. You know, you're bracing mechanics. Um Your timing's kind of all we can work on that or you know, your left pecs a little tighter. Or did you notice that this arm is actually longer, You know, all these little things that most of us just barrel through or we don't really understand how things work. So we don't really understand our own bodies. Like honestly, most of us are not built for success. Like to be honest, like we're just not we're not built very well. Um That just like sometimes you just need another person who understands bodies to let you know, like I'm sorry you're not built for success, but here's what we can do.

Here's how we can get you to 10% of success. Exactly. That's what's missing. So when people comment on whoever's post and it looks unsafe. It's a fine line because maybe they really are. But nobody asked you for unsolicited advice that you can if you know them and you speak to them, ask them coaching yourself. Have you ever seen a physical therapist? Do you go to a chiropractor? Like what are you up to? What do you do? Who knows your body? What are you doing to learn your body? Have those kind of conversations. Sure. But there's so many, so many factors of a lift, right hand placement and arm placement. And do you go, hi Barlow our bar. Do you put your feet in or out? Yeah. Where your toes pointing? 45°, 90°. What are you doing? You what stands? You know, like there's so many so many things and if you don't understand your body or have someone that can you kind of sucked.

And that's another way that I ruined my pecs with that bench shirt way back. When is that the whole world benches? You know, fucking a first finger on the ring all the way wide to decrease the range of motion. I have long arms, Everybody else is doing it. Why not me? So here's what's interesting is that most of those injuries that I told you I had when I was sick was also before I finished PT school. I'm not as dumb, my dumbass, my dumbass not knowing my body and how unstable my shoulders are, said I'm going to go all the way, why I'd like everyone else and then my dumbass putting on a bench shirt, not realizing that I'm actually not strong enough. Even though the shirt adds some assistant, I'm still not strong enough for this. Yeah, sounds on the weight because that's what everybody else does. So of course I strained my pecs shit. Was that also your first time going white on the bench when you put on that venture? Yeah, it's all about one stupid as, because that's what everybody else does.

I mean, I did like the, you know, go one finger out every once in a while, but it's not that I spent a lot of time benching so wide, right? It realized that it hurt my shoulder technically it was just all off everything. Everything was off well now that you're smarter, you're gonna try it again. Let's go smarter and stronger. I don't have, I don't have the energy through. That's so stressful. Oh man equipped lifting is a whole different ball game. That was an interesting time. That was back when I did us a pl and if he went to collegiate nationals, everyone was equipped. So that's why I did equipped, there was no raw and most and most of the national competitions and the big thing like raw wasn't cool yet so well and it was that age where it's like you want to put on as much weight as possible because of the Poundage. Not like raw, I guess Rod didn't matter as much. No, I wasn't really that cool where I was going up now.

Like raw nationals blowing up. Like that wasn't a thing. Um, there used to be actually some other me and I never went to it because I was trying to learn equipped. There used to be some other thing in florida that was big called real unity and they made it like just people made a whole separate meat because they didn't want to lift equipped and that's what was cool. It was a different time. And then it doesn't help when you have people that are just like beefing you up like, oh come on, you can do it. Yeah, you can do it and they don't understand your body and all the nuances how shitty everything is in your body. And they're just like, yeah, you can do it. So look how easy that was. Go ahead, go up, just go up. Just keep going. Do you see that less so and strong man. You think because like the ship that you're the ship that you're carrying already looks humongous like gas, tires, cars, trucks, like it's worse. It's worse. It's worse. It's worse. So if I wasn't me and I just went into strong man, not as a physical therapist, not as like a seasoned power lifter, I definitely would get hurt definitely because the thing about Strongman is like a lot of people run off adrenaline.

It's a very hype sport. So it's not like power lifting, you get one shot, you hit the, you hit the platform up, you didn't get it all right, you're off like no imagine doing that and then somebody was like all right well you still got 40 seconds try. Yeah And everybody's yelling at you to try again like everyone's like oh come on, come on. And there are people who will literally fail for 50 seconds straight and then the last five seconds get it down. But then that's fucked for the rest of the that's the sport. That's our that's how it goes. It runs on hype so it's much much, much much worse if you don't really know your your limits and you go to a strong man come. I mean the thing that I still need to understand picking up the boulders from the ground the way that that is so different from the dead lift, you're using more of your back than you are your legs. Yeah, it's it's so different. The funny thing to me though is so in a strong man come for the most part if there are dead lift events they'll tell you know, sumo is allowed but here's what you'll see number one in those events.

It will be people doing true conventional with or without straps with or without the suits depends on the rules but they'll be doing real conventional or they're pretty much like snatch grip, dead lifts and their legs are all the way wide and their hands are outside of it. So you're basically doing suma but your hands are outside, right? So that sounds so uncomfortable, people are good at that. That snatch grip if you keep working at some people are good at it. So that's the setup, right? That's the idea. But let me just let me run you back through the stone though. Remember Strongman hates sumo, quote unquote. What what what do you think your body is going to do if you, let's say stood on like 3 £45 plates in a sumo stance and reach down for, you know, a kettle bell in between. Like tell me that's not the same thing as lifting a stone. Like they have so dumb to me that's enough. That's a sidebar for another day. I don't know why I hate, I'm sumo so much.

Well the stone also like as a one handed lifter, like I'd be scared of ship. Like how do I grip that months? Yeah, so I guess that could be a thing to like the dead lift gives you a little bit more of an advantage with the grips. I don't know, I don't know. Not you know when you bring that up though, that's also why you sometimes you might find more people with disabilities doing Strongman though and like what you said earlier, how do you tell the difference between bad form or what to say? Whatever like when it comes to Strongman Really? There's I mean there's ways you should do things but nobody's ever going to tell you that you're doing something wrong. Like if you got the weight up, that's what scares me. That's, that's what leads to injury my dude. Honestly, like I can't tell because that back is curved, you know, as like, it's so, that's different, it's so different. I think the people that have the best translation to those kind of events are olympic weightlifters, once you do it, you'll see what, like, once you actually try it, you'll see what I mean.

Because for us in power lifting, we don't get that triple extension in anything. So we don't really understand how powerful hips are that when it comes to the stone, that's all it is. It's two separate things. Can you pick it up? Okay, And then the triple extension to get it true at whatever height you need it. So that's like two different parts. Yeah, no olympic weightlifting was definitely like, it took a little while to get used to it because you have to start off as loose and tight, then loose and tight boom. So I guess there's a lot of essentially the same thing, but that's also why people who move from parallel strong men get a lot of injuries because they're not used to, again, you're not knowing your body, like you've been doing things in one plane emotion just facing forward, you don't move at all legs bend legs straighten, you had it easy, you come too strong man, you gotta twist and move and bend in this. They're like, hello? Yeah, or even something simpler people that do like, oh, I do convention, I'm gonna sumo on my off season, and they just try to show up why this can be like, you don't have the hips for that, what is you doing?

But you're right in that more adaptive athletes are found in strong men, because there are also adaptive categories in strong men, like, para lifting needs to get their ship together, like it's much easier to see how other athletes perform seated lifts because there are categories for it. Yeah, and everybody's already, everyone already has the mindset that you're going to figure out the best way for your body to move the weight. And I think that's the biggest difference. Like there's no one way to do it perfectly. So if you if you had a thing where you're like, I want to learn how to clean sand bags, you can literally look it up and find five different ways to do it, and nobody's going to tell you which one is the right way, you have to figure it out, you have to try it for yourself, and that's the difference in strongman powerlifting. Yeah, they're going to show up and be like, well, you know, maybe you're let's go here. Maybe you're high Barlow bar, like there are things you can tweak, but in general, someone's going to say this is how your squad should look.

Mhm. So there's, I think that might be maybe the bigger difference and the fact that Strongman events are so fluid and they could be whatever equipment might make that adaptive thing a little more plausible. I don't know. And I feel like access could be a little, that could be a big thing too because these are real life scenarios, real life equipment that you are pushing and carrying out in the real world, freaking carrier groceries, you know all of your groceries from the car to your house, lifting a car out of a ditch. These are things that you can implement into real life and vice versa. So yeah, we're access to these and the other half is that people take pride in like their D. I. Y. Is when it comes to straight so oh all you need is cement. There you go. Yeah. Yeah people will show you how like oh look at this, look at this sand, but I don't have the money to buy a sandbag to toss. So I got a medicine ball and soda strap and now I'm tossing the medicine ball like you will come up with some wild ship.

Like how did you even think of it? Like I don't have a viking press but I got some PVC pipes and some steel rings and this and that now like right, it's pretty funny versus the princess power lifter who has to have everything branded, everything Alecko, everything certified and calibrated caliber Tequila so it's got to be shiny chrome like Yeah, I'm out of here build your barbell at home. So it's different. All different. I mean, I think the quarantine people have been lifting with bags of rice and water bottles. So yeah, everybody could do strong and I think everybody really, honestly we're about ready. Yeah. The bigger thing I do also want to bring up is recovery time. People don't really know how long it should take them to come back from an injury. And so either they think they should be doing more, They think they should doing last or they go by, oh, my friend slipped his disc and it only did this for him and oh, but I know this person who was benching a week after they tore their whatever, like no, especially if you already are just not a good healer with a chronic illness.

Mm hmm. That man is gonna be way off. And or especially like for you, if you strain your right arm, it's going to take you longer because you're using your right arm more for anything. Anyway, literally. Like that was always my fear as a little kid. I was like, what would happen if I broke my right hand? I can't write anything. I can't do ship. I can't cook. Yeah. Yeah. So the timeline thing, There's no answer for that depends. There's no answer for that at all. And there's levels to every injury and that depends. What do you do for a living. What arms do you use more than the other? How do you get around anyway? Your example, somebody with a limb difference. If they hurt the dominant limb, it's gonna take them longer to heal. Yeah. Well, step one though is to not ignore it first of all. Don't ignore your injuries for sure. Including the aches and nags. Those are injuries. Exactly. Mhm.

And knowing the difference between those eggs and just general soreness. Yeah. I feel like we're so disconnected from our bodies in general. That is honestly half the work that I do with people. Honestly how you as a person connect to your body. Like there are there are times where somebody be like, oh well, you know this hurts. Okay. Can how do you describe the pain? I don't know. Don't ask. Is it a throbbing, There's an ache. I'm not sure. Um Okay. Is it better on a monday versus a friday? I don't know. Look, we are so disk. We just ignore our actual bodies. Like there's no connection between our mind and our bodies were just like moving, moving, moving. Yeah, we're so fast paced nowadays. Yeah. There's no connection. So just honestly coming back to what your body feels like is actually a hard sell. Like you think it would make sense? It's actually a really hard sell. There are tons of people. Okay, What makes you feel better? I'm not sure. Sleeping. Maybe. I don't know.

Mhm. Like these are real conversations and I have, I have them often and these are probably real conversations with highly trained athletes. People who think they know their body because they've been training for such a long time or people who are in their prime fifties who have never thought about movement before. That's interesting. Yeah, it goes, it goes at any level that goes all around and you would think that there's so much information out there that that would be different. But honestly, it's not because a lot of people might find something that mildly relates to them and they'll be like, oh well, it must be this syndrome because I saw this. Um but yet they don't, you know, there's so many people that I've met that are like, oh, it's because I slipped a disk. You know, I saw this and this and then and my back hurts, I slipped a disk and we work into it. It's like, I mean, not really, it's actually not your problem at all. So it's just the disconnect is so real. There are so many different kinds of pain and I mean, what's up as someone with chronic pain sometimes we do ignore new pains because we're just like, I'm gonna let that simmer.

That might be different. It might not. Yeah, that's a thing for sure. But in general, there's so many, you know, if you have vein issues that might be like a throbbing deep pain if you sprained your ankle? It also throbs. But is that a vein issue notes Because of the swelling? Same word doesn't always mean the same thing. You know, nerves could be shooting tingling pain but also like for me nerve pain feels like ice water. Damn. But yeah, it's not great but I know what it feels like because I pay attention to it. I think about what it feels like. It's just there's so many people that you literally ask them what hurts? Where can you point to it? Exactly. Those are right. Right. Oh my gosh. And like just building your vocabulary when it comes to pain management or when you are feeling cramps or injuries? Yeah. Understanding. Are you doing something in the moment when it hurts or does it hurt later? Is it only while you're sitting standing walking, driving a car?

Can you put your damn seat belt on? Yeah. You know people will say things like what makes it better. What what makes it worse? I don't know. Okay. Um Could you how do you how do you go when you were washing your hair? Oh I couldn't actually did hurt a lot. Oh I don't even think about that. We just keep it moving. Uh It's got to show the funk out and just take an inventory of what you feel a lot of these things are not normal and our lives are not normal sure. But like you should at least know what's happening? Yeah. And then on top of that, How much water are you drinking? What are you eating? All right, let's talk to a nutritionist. And there there are people my age who are filipino who have just been eating like sh it all their lives and have gout. Yeah, that's that's not good. Just as bad of an injury. Yeah, that's not pumping. Yeah, drinking water is a big deal for rest and recovery and if you can't sleep because spasms at night or anxiety keeps them up like that. That's a big part injury recovery like you gotta figure that sh it out.

Yeah. How would you recommend somebody find a physical therapist and a good one and someone who's not just somebody who's claiming themselves as a Petey coach or like I don't even know what they call themselves. No mobility coach, corrective exercise specialist. You need the doctor of physical therapy, go on your department of health website for your state, looked at bitches, name up if it's not there for them. First step, second step, you speak to them before you spend your money and I don't mean messaging them. Hey what are your prices if it's on their website like No, you need to look at their website anyway because you want to see the kind of words they're using. You want to see if they have pictures of people, What kind of people are they? How did they describe themselves? What kind of language do they use on social media? Do they care about Black lives? All of those kind of things. So you should have done all that homework and then you speak to them and ask them how they work or how they flow or anything that was missing and if they can't get through that step, funk them, don't pay them, fuck them.

You see something, you see some Blue lives matter ship on their personal page for them. Like you see, you know, stock photos and every stock photos, like a skinny white girl for them. You know what I'm saying? Like these are like step one, are you licensed step to do you look like you're probably a dick. Like these are all things that are available that could save you some heartache that's for sure. Yeah. And it goes, you think that you think that you don't want to mix politics. You think you don't want to mix up personal beliefs with business, but this affects business. This affects how they're going to treat you as a clinically, it affects whether or not they view you as a whole human and how they understand how your life is totally different than there is. Probably, yep, If you're working 80 hours a week and they only have to work 20, they don't understand your lifestyle or you know, they just don't understand what it's like. Uh so we mentioned this to when we were talking about mental health and choosing a clinical psychologist, a clinical therapist, someone who's licensed, just remember to do your research, y'all.

Yeah. So are they license money talks step one, step two to look like they could be a dick and then step three now now you're going to spend time and money and you're gonna go to your first visit or console or whatever. And I think the thing is that you have to view it if you're seeing if they're a good fit for you and they're also seeing if you're a good fit for them and if you don't hear that kind of language for them honestly because I tell people that all the time this is how I operate and I want you to be on board with it. It's got to be some back and forth. So if you don't feel that back and forth vibe. If you don't feel like they're listening to you, if they don't let you talk and pay attention to just because they have 200,000 followers and have this following on social media doesn't mean they're a good P. T. Or even a pt at that definitely. So step one license. Step two are they dick? Step three, you fill out that first visit and then step forward gets tricky because maybe they did okay for all three of those steps and you start seeing them and you don't really get better.

You might, you might have to say funk them even though they made it that for. Yeah, thank you, thank you for your time. But suck you. Yeah, but this isn't working for me. You're not working for me. Moving on. I'm sorry. Yeah. So that's the other thing too is sometimes you I want to impress. The same thing we're talking about. You want to press your strength coach. Some people are like that too. Like they want to impress their physical therapists and they'll tell them, oh yeah, no, I'm feeling better yourself. You're paying them okay. You're paying us to do the service. So let the service work. Yeah, I mean and we care about they care about you long term, not just for your next meet so that you can live until what is it? 110 nowadays. Yeah, exactly. So I think those are probably my top points for finally a good physical therapist. You will spend time and effort for sure whether or not you spend money. I mean I'm you'll wait out some people That's important though. I feel like 90% of the people out there do not know this.

So thank you. Yeah, I think we could probably get more into nitty gritty of how to do mobility stuff or how to move around or tips in general for those, you know better type of injuries but in general ship happens but that's okay. Kind of good physical therapist will figure it out and there's there's so much mental stuff too, which we I don't think we really got into of injury. Yeah. Um and I think a lot of times we wrap our identity up into how our body moves, so if our body doesn't move, like who are we type of ship, don't do that. Oh, that's true, don't do that. And I know it's going to be hard to say you got into a really, really bad, bad accident or you just performed a shooter dead lift. Don't be so hard on yourself because looking at all these other people too who have overcome some injuries and gone to the right physical therapist and did the proper rehabilitation.

There's a light at the end of the tunnel, even if you got to take a little break from para lifting and strong man for a little bit, that's okay, there's a light, there's a light. And also before we finish, I do want to point out a lot of people don't realize they're a ship ton of specialties and physical therapy. So you pee when you dead lift, see a pelvic help, physical therapy, Yuto yuri cl you're gonna see a sports or an orthopedic physical therapist, you know, you got a new diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, you got a stroke or some sh it. Now you're gonna see your neuro physical therapist, there's a million specialties. So you also want to make sure you're picking someone that knows about what you need to accomplish in your area. Um because that's, that's a whole different ball game. You're not going to go see a neuro pt when you want to learn, you know, weightlifting and all they do is newly injured folks come home setting. They're not going to be at your level, not to say there are bad therapists, they're just going to be bad for what you need. So there's also that part of it.

I don't want to make sure I don't miss out on. Yeah, no, it'd be almost a waste of time. But yeah, we can talk more about exercises next episode and for now, put some respect on physical therapy names and stop paying unlicensed white dudes. Okay, disabled girls out. Thanks for listening to disabled girls who left. We appreciate all of your support and everyone who's taken the time to show us some love. Don't forget to subscribe rate already. Review of our channel. We're on Apple podcasts, Spotify player FM, google podcasts and more. You can also find us on instagram at disabled girls who left. Yeah, II