Jocko Podcast - Jocko Underground: Getting Old and Hurt. The New Standard.

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

>Join Jocko Underground< For the FULL EPISODE. The new standard as we get old and injured. What to do when a loved one seems to be slowly giving up on life. Dealing with neighbors crossing social boundaries. How to deal with a gym rival. What to do when you hate your parent and can't forgive.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is the Jocko Underground Podcast, number 166, here to answer questions and provide guidance and various courses of action for situations and for life. Let's get into it. First question, hey guys, what advice would you have in my situation? Early 30s, male with a young family was always in great shape and have always worked labor slash skilled labor jobs with only a high school education. I believe my family is being ready for, I believe firmly in being ready for anything and being the protector over my family. However, five years ago, I hurt my back at work. I find out I have two herniated discs in my back causing me severe sciatic pain down my leg, pain and stiffness in my lower back. There are days when I can hardly move.

Some days are all right. Many, it's not. I just can't do half the things I used to. it's getting to a point where I'm no longer as strong as I used to be. I can't work out without causing a flare up. I'm not in shape anymore. I'm not as productive in manual labor as I used to be, and I'm constantly in pain. Is this a situation where I just quote unquote suck it up or pursue doctors

to try to come up with the money to fix this issue? Or what would you suggest to get my life back and be able to become the man my family needs? If it helps, jobs and skills include hunting guide, automotive technician, farmwork, heavy equipment mechanic, and sonic drill operator. Thanks. Well, pretty straightforward here. Yeah, you need, it sounds like you need to get some help. I had neck surgery. I had, you've had two bicep surgeries.

Have you had knee surgeries? Yes, sir. What did you get knee surgery? 1996. Oh, damn, a long time ago. Back in the day. What kind? Full reconstruction.

So ACL, MCL, Wade, MCL to outer, lateral, LCL. How'd you hurt that one? Football. Jack. You couldn't just suck it up? Well. Yeah. So, I woke up one day and, well, I was actually training in Jiu-Jitsu.

And I was rolling with my buddy Mark. And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, my arm just, like, started to hurt and felt really weak. and I finished the round and I was like well something's wrong with me I woke up went to Gwen home went to bed woke up and I couldn't move my right arm like it wasn't really moving

moved it a little bit but not really got a little better over the next couple days but it was weak I couldn't do a dip I couldn't do one dip not one just boom like there was no strength at all and so went in

Yep, I had some shit going on in my neck and the doc was like, yep, let's schedule for surgery. And of course, I stretched it out and stuff like that for the next four or five weeks. It got a little bit better, but it was just gnarly, man. It was like I got to where I could do like one dip or two dips. So, yeah, there's mechanical things that can go wrong in your body that just need to get repaired. It's just those are just the facts. Yeah. So do you, you, you, I agree with putting off surgery if possible, right?

Now with nerve damage, it's a little bit different. So that's what, well, the situation with my neck, the doc's like, hey, listen, if you, if you don't get this, if you don't, if we don't do surgery, it may or may not improve. And it could get worse. And the longer you wait and we do do surgery, it's caused. more and more nerve damage over time so it may get to a point where the nerve nerve is now permanently damaged and will may never recover and so I that's what sped it up that's why I was like okay let's do surgery then oftentimes with injuries especially with the back with the neck with the but with everything with shoulders

with everything the first thing you start off with is hardcore physical therapy like very disciplined physical therapy are you doing all the stretching hour of stretching you know with that's what you got to do like in this case you got that that sciatica down the back you got to stretch you got decompressed they're going to put you in the rack they're going to pull they're going to try and get you get that thing to recover and it does oftentimes it does i've had i've had my back gone freaking blown out and felt like crap and been injured and recovered you know i was talking to someone the other day who had like some little nagging injury and it was a young person and they were kind of complaining

about it. And I said, yeah, yeah, I've had a thousand little nagging injuries that you think are never going to go away. They do. You just work around them and you get through them. But sometimes it's something more serious than that. So you want to do a disciplined commitment to physical therapy. And if you got to give that a little bit of time, maybe that's three months, maybe that's two months, maybe that's six months, but you got to give it some time. And then if that doesn't work, then it's like, okay, we got to check out the surgical options. Or actually, then we go, what's it, stem cells, right? Then we go meds, we go injection, like the steroid injection into the thing.

What's that called? Cortisol. Cortisone. Right into the spot. Like there's a bunch of steps you can take, iterative steps. And then eventually if none of that works, eventually you go, okay, we have a mechanical issue in there. I've got a piece of disc or a piece of bone hitting the nerve.

That's what it is. And it needs to get moved. It's just a mechanical issue. Now, and so that's what you're going to need. Now you probably need someone to help you with all, everything I just said. The physical therapy, someone's got to go like, okay, let's do this stretch. Let's work on this. Let's pull your head over here.

Let's push your back over here, you know, like someone that's helping you. Now, it sounds like from your question, you don't have insurance. your current scenario, you need to get insurance ASAP. Like, you need to get insurance ASAP. You need to go and find an insurer and be like, yeah, you know, I've been working for a while and I need to get insurance. And do it while you're as healthy as you can possibly be as when you're as healthy as you possibly be so that you don't red flag a bunch of preexisting conditions.

Is you know what I'm saying? Yeah. So you want to let this thing heal up a bit. Then you go on there. Yep. Good to go. Let's get some insurance. That's what you need.

And by the way, you mentioned that you got hurt at work? Like, what work were you doing? Did you get workman's compensation? Did you get this stuff documented? What was the company? Was it a big company? Like, you can't have permanent damage to your back. They should be helping you out here.

So then you may be too late. You may have been getting paid under the table. I don't know. But there is a possibility there. But yes, get some insurance. today when you hear this go find an insurance person be like yep hey I haven't had health insurance I want to get my family on a plan I'm a third and it's expensive by the way like I'm very lucky because I was in the military for 20 years so my insurance is the

U.S. military but insurance is expensive it's like a family insurance 1500 bucks a month is that's is that accurate echo Charles slightly more yeah yeah $2,000 a month like it's a very expensive very expensive Um, when you have this kind of debilitating pain and suffering, it's, it's going to be worth it. And not to mention if one of your kids gets hurt or sick or whatever. So get into, uh, get, go get insurance. SAP, man. And then follow that thing that I just said.

Get insurance. Uh, look on the look on the internet about backstretch and psych, sciatica. I'll, dude, I'll do that all day. say whatever you want about me like if I get some weird issue I'll go to YouTube or the internet be like hey I got pain over here oh they'll recommend three stretches oh there'll be some guy on there that'll be like hey oh if it hurts over here here's a stretch that you can do cool I'll try that doesn't work after four days some other guy said some else try that one too maybe I'll try two at one you know what I'm saying I don't throw away the internet just because

it's the internet man there's some knowledgeable people on the internet and I'll take advantage of So go try some of that. Maybe then you go, okay, I need some, go see a physical therapist. Yeah. And then a physical therapist will go, hold on a second, what do we got here? And then you start performing the protocol that they put you through. Look, you can completely recover from, what does it, slip? You can completely recover from herniated discs in your lower back completely.

I've known many of people that have done that. They stretch. They, they decompress their spine, you know, they hang upside down. There's all kinds of things you can do. And the disc is like this weird mushy thing. And if you allow it some time to rest, it can kind of go back in and get away from your nerves. So that's what we hope for.

But sometimes it's just like brutally damaged. And you need to get you got to, like I said, it's like a car with a broken axle, bro. Doesn't matter that you want it to keep driving. It ain't going to keep driving. It's a mechanical problem. And you just have to. to get it fixed. So sounds like you've been pushing hard. Early 30s, you've been doing some hard

work your whole life, you know, farm work, heavy equipment, hunting guide. Like, that's all some hard work. You pushed hard. It sounds like you need to recover from this situation. You need to get insurance ASAP and then go through that protocol, starting with PT going through all the way through injections and stem cells. And last resort, surgery. And by the way, I don't want to say like last resort. I had surgery on my neck. It was freaking great.

I have a friend that went and got surgery on his neck. And like the next day was 100%. Like all this excruciating pain from all this time, next day was good to go. I've had people with mixed results as well. Oh, feeling better. Greg Train got neck surgery. He's doing great. I rolled with freaking Greg Train the other day.

He was an animal. He's all pissed too He's like he's got pent up rolls in him You know and I'm like bro take it easy man I'm over here trying to just you know do Jiu Jitsu He's over here trying to fight me MMA style Yeah, yeah

But he got neck surgery Yeah And I'm literally putting him in guillotines And you know we at the beginning We're like hey you know easy on Greg's neck I'm like cool This this this dude was not going easy with Jack He was using his head as a weapon by the way

Yeah and keeping my two with him That was recently. That's not like, oh, yeah, two years ago and he's fully recovered. No, no, no. This was like within the last, I think, two or three months. Yes. Yes. And he's out rolling with Jocko's guillotine, by the way.

With my guillotine. Yeah. Yep. Yes. I will say, I backed off the guillotine a little bit. Thank you. Just out of like not wanting to be that guy. Sure.

Makes sense. But I was pushing on his head. I was grabbing his neck. You know, like kind of normal stuff. I wasn't trying to finish a guillotine. Like his first day back rolling with after getting disc replacement. I think at two. levels.

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