The School of Greatness - Future Proof Your Body & Reduce Chronic Pain With These Daily Hacks w/ Vinh Pham EP 1268

Episode Date: May 18, 2022

Today's guest is Vinh Pham, a licensed physical therapist with over a decade’s experience working with industry-leading health and wellness brands and treating top athletes, celebrities, and entrepreneurs. He is the founder of Myodetox, a group of design-forward manual therapy clinics that are reimagining the traditional therapy and rehab experience. Using his unique system of manual therapy, Vinh posts daily educational videos that help millions of people learn how to take care of their bodies. In this episode, you will learn:How to future-proof your body.Why you should be proactive about your health.How to improve your body's movement efficiency.How to unravel all the body damage you’ve built up over time. For more, go to lewishowes.com/1268 Be sure to buy a copy of Vinh's new book, Sit Up Straight - FutureProof Your Body Against Chronic Pain with 12 Simple MovementsCasey Means on How to Recognize and Fix Unhealthy Habits: 1252Andy Galpin on Weight Loss, Stress Management, and Reversing Your Age: 1247Dr. Joe Dispenza on Healing the Body and Transforming the Mind: 826

which is essentially not about sitting up straight, it's about paying attention, which is whether you're paying attention to your body, paying attention to what you're doing, paying attention to be self-aware, and being self-aware will lead to... Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes,

former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur, and each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. I'm curious, what do you think is the biggest reason why so many people are struggling to stay flexible, mobile, and healthy today? Is it the extreme

workouts? Is it they're on their phones all day or on the computer? Is it they just aren't educated on how to be more mobile? What are you seeing? I definitely think it's a mix of all those three, four things that you said, but I say the main thing is it's not top of mind awareness. People are definitely more reactive versus proactive when it comes to their musculoskeletal health yes you know they don't really care about it until they wake up one day they're like oh i can't move or like oh i don't know what happened i slept and i can't turn my neck like oh i need to go see a physio or see a chiro or get adjusted or get a massage or you know they get very um stressed when when the symptoms show up.

But they, because there's no, the signs of MSK disease is progressive and more silent, we don't really take care of it. You know? What's MSK? Musculoskeletal. Okay. Yeah.

What does that mean? Muscle and skeleton together. Okay, a disease of the muscle and skeleton. Yeah, yeah. What are the main diseases of muscle and skeleton? No, I mean it more like issues with your body coming up. Pain, inflammation. Pain, inflammation, knee pain, back pain, neck pain.

Yes, so that's like essentially muscle and skeleton together, right? So it's kind of more like body issues. What are the biggest issues people are faced with? Is it the lower back? Is it the neck? Is it the joints? Whether knees and elbows and wrists, what are you seeing is the biggest struggle for most people? 70% of people in their lifetime will have low back pain. Really? Yes. I would say low back pain is one of the biggest ones. Crazy stats for you to know. say low back pain is one of the biggest ones um crazy stats for you to know um msk now that you understand the term issues cost on average 600 billion dollars a year for the u.s yes is that unlike uh medicine or yeah so health care health care health care costs and also um loss of wages

for for the u.s yes yes because you can't work, yeah, gotcha. Yeah, $600 billion. It's one-sixth of all healthcare spending in the U.S. Just to give you comparison. Really? Yes, yes. Just to give you comparison of numbers versus heart disease is like, I think, $309 billion.

Cancer is $243 billion. And diabetes is $188 billion. Cancer is 243 billion. And diabetes is 188 billion. Come on. Yeah. So MSK is like 600 billion versus all of that. And MSK includes what specifically? Well, back pain, neck pain, knee pain, ACL tears, joint issues, you know, all that stuff. And are a lot of these things preventable? I would would argue yes to a certain degree for sure obviously if you do sports you you're working out like crazy car crash car crash you know fall over you hit your head or something things obviously happen but overall i would say a lot of it is preventable okay it just takes a lot of work what happens when someone has lower back pain neck pain pain, and they don't address

it? Or they address it with just medication and not actually healing from the inside out, not actually doing the proper, I guess, natural remedies of mobility, stretching, adjustments, strength training, core training, flexibility. What happens if they don't do that? Yeah, it's kind of like this. Before every symptom, there's signs, signs that show up, right? Let's say you end up having high cholesterol.

Over time, the doctor goes, hey, you have high cholesterol. You're at risk for heart disease, heart attack. Do something about it, right? Yeah. You have high cholesterol you're at risk for heart disease heart attack do something about it right right yeah you have high blood pressure that's a sign you should be careful you might end up getting a stroke do something about it the problem with msk is the signs the low with low back pain the signs are silent really yeah it's silent because you don't miss because the body's still resilient and adaptable that we get away with sitting for x amount of hours however we want doing however whatever we want and then at one point in time you get the heart attack or you get the oh my i just woke up and my

my knee just gave out you know it's kind of an instant like you wake up and you're like oh i can't move my neck or why is my lower back so painful? And then it stays with you. And you might try to take painkillers or something to help go with the pain, but that's not actually fixing the problem. Exactly. Not fixing the problem. And because, again, the signs are silent,

people aren't motivated or even aware to take care of it. Or they don't have the impetus to be like, oh, I have to do something about it. Versus someone, a doctor being like, hey, you have high cholesterol. Then you start, oh man, like I need to do something about it. Versus the symptoms of like, by the time you have pain, I'm not saying it's too late by the time you have low back pain or knee pain,

but it's way more progressed at that point. It's interesting. I asked a doctor a couple months ago on the show, who's a well-known doctor, big New York Times bestseller, treated a lot of people, and I was like, you know, what's something you wish you had known earlier in your life, just in general, not even like health-related, and he said, I wish I would have flossed sooner.

And he didn't tell me what had happened, but I'm assuming there was some issues with his gums or his teeth or his mouth or something because he didn't floss consistently. And another friend of mine, an older gentleman in this industry had like gum cancer and was like really a lot of challenges with the teeth. And I don't think he flossed either. I'm just making that assumption. But it's like, we may not see the pain until later when we have something, now my neck's out or now I can't walk straight or now I have to have a surgery. As opposed to just doing the preventative care, you know, that's two minutes a day. Exactly.

That could help prevent something that could be more painful in the future. But we don't think of our bodies necessarily in this way. Absolutely. Until people like you came along and started educating us over the last decade. But let me ask you a question. Can you imagine if you didn't brush your teeth for the last 20 years, what do you think your teeth would look like

if you didn't brush or floss? I mean, there'd be cavities and yellow and falling out and everything. You can imagine that world. Imagine you up to now now you didn't brush or floss your spine or knee or stuff like that on a regular basis and that's why imagine if you did imagine how well you'd be moving right now right would be my argument i feel like if you we was instilled in the education system you were educated early about it your mom taught you how to stretch or things like that, the dividends

would pay off insane. What's more powerful for protecting our joints and reducing pain and extending life? Is it strength training? Is it flexibility and mobility? Is it stretching? What is the thing that's going to help us reduce pain and extend our life? Yes. I think in all of that is kind of like the cop-out answer.

But to be a little bit more specific, I would say you want to experience your body fully. What we don't do every day is experience the full range of motion that we're capable of. For example, let's say right now you're turning your neck to the left, to the right. Do you really know how much you're missing on each side? And then can you explore the nooks and crannies of how much, for example, I have way more range to the right

than I do on the left. Why is that most people have range more on one side than the other? It's all movement habits of things you've accumulated over time, mix of injury, mix of your whole history. Right. But you have to unravel that, all these, all this damage that you built and habits that you built over time. And that is what's going to basically future-proof yourself for the future. Gotcha. And then it's all about exploring the dark zones of your body and learning more about your body. Again, coming down to self-awareness for everything.

Forget only the body, you know, for everything. What are the dark zones of the body? If someone's like, oh, I feel like I understand every part of my body, how could they do an assessment to see what is the dark zone? Simple test. Just use your body. You're here right now i'm just lifting up my arm to the max have i ever explored this space every single day

not really how about this how about this how about this how about this how about this oh wow you know and then things start being oh this is okay but right here, I feel it here. Why do I do that? Oh, because when I sit on the couch watching Netflix, I like to do this for three hours during COVID every day for like three months. And now all of a sudden your brain, everything starts kind of like adapting to this position. And then you end up kind of being a little bit like this. And then you end up playing sports or doing whatever, and then your back goes, A. Because your body's out of alignment.

Would you call it out of alignment or off-center? Yes, I would say, yeah, out of alignment, off-center. Yeah. And then the whole idea is as you experience all this space that you're able to do, your body naturally starts getting aligned again and coming back to center. What's the practice of, because you talk about this thing, brushing your spine, flossing your muscles. What does that mean?

And why is this important to do on a consistent basis? Yeah. I always start with this question. Everyone understands, you understand the concept of hygiene, right? Great. Dental hygiene, skin hygiene, hair hygiene. Every one of those things for dental hygiene, skin hygiene, hair hygiene. Every one of those things for dental hygiene

is a two step process, generally. Brush, floss, agree? Yes. Great. Some people maybe do mouthwash, which is debatable if that's gonna be. Yeah, debatable. I do, I definitely get to do that, yeah.

When you're talking about skin, skincare hygiene. Soap, maybe a brush. Soap, brush, but generally it's like a moisturizer, cleanser, right? If you're my girlfriend, Kayla, I love you. 14 step process. She goes in. There's like so many things. I'm like, what is this syrup? What is this? You know, like just for the cheeks. Yeah. It's like, whoa. And then if it's, you know, hair, for example, it's like, just for the cheeks. Yeah, it's like, whoa. And then if it's, you know, hair, for example, it's like shampoo, conditioner, yeah, generally, right? But what is your, for example, your body hygiene for your knee? What about your big toe? What about your elbow? What about your shoulder? Would you, you know, would you argue that it's important to those things are

important to you, your joints? Absolutely. Exactly. So then why don't you think about it every day? But you think about everything else every day, right? And that's kind of like what I want to shift the whole mentality of the world towards. It's like, it's not about like, oh, let's be scared of back pain and neck pain and all these things. No, it's like you should take care of the only possession that you truly own, which is your body. And not only your teeth, not only your skin, not only your hair. But the main reason why people take care of those things is because if you don't brush your teeth, someone's going to tell you. If your hair look crazy, someone's going to tell you.

If you look at you didn't shower in a few days, someone's going to tell you. Yeah, and if you don't take care of your body, your body's going to tell you eventually. Yes, eventually. And that's the problem. It's gonna tell you. Yeah, and if you don't take care of your body, your body's gonna tell you eventually. Yes, eventually. And that's the problem, it's the eventually part. There's no warning signs, there's no dirt collecting on your back, but it is collecting. And that's what I'm trying to do.

It's collecting in your muscles, in your spines, in your joints. Essentially, it's the tension, habits. So what's the thing that people should be doing on a daily basis? Is this a thing they do in the morning, in the afternoon, at night? If they only had five minutes a day or two minutes a day, what would you recommend? Yeah, I would recommend get my book and then learn about what you need to do. But I've essentially assembled 12 movements that is essentially going through

your whole body. And if you're doing the whole 12 movements, it would take you, give or take, 15 to 20 minutes. If you start to learn your body and go, hey, listen, I actually don't need this part. I only need the front of my teeth. You know what I mean? Or like basically essentially like I only need my ankle. I only need my left shoulder. Then you can reduce it down to five minutes a day, for example.

Okay. For me personally, I have a habit of how I sleep. It's like I kind of sleep in a banana like this. That's because of how my nostrils flow and it's my preferred position. To breathe. Yes, to breathe. It brings you back to childhood. Yeah, exactly.

So imagine if I'm here like this for eight hours. Yeah. Right? What I need to have my body experience when I wake up is the other way. The other way. So my routine every morning is I need to open this up. Right. Or I could fix the way I sleep, but I don't want to. So I would rather just do the homework and have my body open up in this direction every day. And did you know this is like fun stats that I was like, you know, researching to prepare for this.

One out of four people sit for work. How long? On average, including sitting at home, they sit on average 15 hours a day. 15 hours? 15 hours a day. And then you're probably sleeping for seven or eight. Yes. And during COVID, people were sitting for two hours more. So 17 hours a day. Oh my gosh. And then they're sleeping the rest. So you think about- There's no movement. What happens to the body when they're sitting or laying down most of the time?

I mean, there's so many things. Like muscle loss, decreased circulation. You start getting into all these habits, postural habits that end up staying with you. Whether you're here like this, you're here like this. Losing neck motion, you know, sedentary behavior is just the worst. Yeah. It can lead to so many things, you know? And what happens if someone, okay, so not moving at all, there's a lot of problems. What happens if someone moves too much? Is there such a thing as like, I'm working out too hard, I'm stretching too much,

I'm not relaxing enough, what happens then? Yes, I mean, then it's overuse. So you have an overuse situation, right? And then what I preach all the time is, it's all about like movement efficiency. It's like how do I make your body more efficient at moving, using your whole body versus only using a specific part? Let's talk about overuse. Do you play tennis or no? A little pickleball recently. Oh, pickleball.

I love pickleball. Yeah, pickleball is fun. I totally suck at it, but it's so much fun. But for example, let's say you end up getting tennis elbow. Okay. So one of the ways to look about fixing, to go about fixing tennis elbow is you would, let ways to look about to look about um fixing to go about fixing tennis elbow is you would let's say stretch or strengthen it for example so hey maybe it's tight it's too tight you want to stretch it or um your muscles are weak you need to strengthen it but another way to look at it is to look at it is is when you're swinging um your racket you're only using your arm and you're not using your whole body. So it's a swing mechanic situation.

And because you're swinging only with your arm, you end up overusing your forearm extensors. And that's why you end up with tennis elbow. Interesting. So that is a case of, for example, overuse. Right. So using the forewrench of your body with the activities you're doing as well, not cheating on something, right?

Yeah, not cheating. Absolutely. And the better you move, essentially, the more you mitigate the amount of damage that you accumulate on your body. Right, right. You know? Simple as that. How bad are people walking these days? Like the gait, their slouched shoulders, is it going to affect them long-term how they walk? Or is there a specific way that we should be walking?

I wouldn't say there's a specific, specific, this is the way you need to walk, but there are definitely more efficient ways and less efficient ways, right? And everybody to a certain degree is individualistic, so you can have a more personalized situation of how they should walk based on a multitude of things, injuries, limb length, blah, blah, blah.

But generally there is a, you know, maybe like this range of like this is how you should walk, give or take, if you're healthy. What should it look like, or what should we be thinking about? You should be thinking about how well is your foot articulating with the ground. What does that mean?

Articulating meaning when your foot hits the ground, it should be this thing called pronation, right? And then this is supination, right? So just to make it simple, pronation is essentially, if you were to throw a ball, do you want to throw a ball like this or you want to throw a ball like this? You want to throw a full range of motion. Full range of motion. Agreed? This looks way more better than this, right? This is pronation, right? You're loading your foot and this is supination.

You're throwing your foot. So your foot hits the ground, you're loading your foot and then it pushes off the ground and it goes into supination. A lot of people, if you sit at the airports and you start watching how people walk and stuff, people walk with their foot turned out. People walk with their foot turned in. People start whipping their foot however it is that they... Why is that? Injuries, mobility. Injuries, habits.

They don't use it. No one taught them how to do it properly. They mimic other people their sports started making their feet a certain way but no one ever like reprogrammed their feet and then they you know they go run a marathon and their their knee blows out you know for example not not to be cathedra tropic but you know sure i can't even say that word catastrophic yeah yeah You know, I can't even say that word. Catastrophic.

Yeah, yeah. That word. So we want our feet to essentially land forward and heel middle to toe, right? Yes, exactly. We don't want to be toe walkers. Yes. You see the toe walkers out there? Yes, toe walkers, yeah. You want to be a bouncy toe walker?

Have you seen people that kind of like land and they pop real quick? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all about efficiency. Exactly. The more you're efficient, the more it's like less energy for you. Gotcha. And you just whip it, you know? efficiency. Exactly. The more you're efficient, the more it's like less energy for you. And you just whip it. Okay.

And I'm sure you've seen people who run really well and people who run less well. I know. What is that? Yeah, you don't necessarily even understand, but it looks way different. You look like you're having a great time. And what about the abdomen, the shoulders, the back? How should we be? Should it be shoulders back, shoulders neutral?

A lot of people are shoulders forward when they walk. Should we be engaging our core or keeping a more relaxed gait? Yeah. I would probably go more towards relax. I think that if you experience all the motions and you do all these exercises, you kind of let the body settle in what is the most optimal alignment given what you have currently. Yeah. Right. I don't necessarily think that posture is a, there's such, there is such a thing as bad posture, but it's, it's kind of like,

this is the best posture your body could come up with based on all the factors. But as I give you more exercises over time, you develop, Oh, Hey, actually, this is more efficient for me now. It's not about, you know, the name of my book is called Sit Up Straight, but it's not about sitting up straight all the time. The whole point of Sit Up Straight was more about pay attention to your body and understand your body and take care of your body. Yes. That's what Sit Up Straight is about. and take care of your body. That's what sit-up straight is about.

You hear a lot of these stories about some of the top athletes, Tom Brady, LeBron James, Novak Djokovic. I saw him. He's got a whole team that travels with him and has a trailer with massage table and cryo and float tanks in his trailer every place he goes. These elite athletes that have realized that if they want to stay at the top, they need to invest in their body, their health, the longevity of their health. Why are you seeing more and more top athletes, especially you work with a lot of the top athletes as well and helping

them, why are they saying, I need to invest in this more than ever now and spend the money to take care of my body? Whereas 10, 15, 20 years ago, that wasn't really the thought. I think the education wasn't there before. And then also with the internet and all these things happening, people are starting to understand the importance of recovery. And to your point, you were saying when we started 10 years ago um and we met like you know seven eight years ago at these like gym events festivals all these things that we were at soul cycle orange theory fitness all these things were starting to happen you know equinox working out was no longer only a bodybuilding thing

before it was only about arnold and venice and goals gym and all of that stuff and it started being more mainstream and then for those five six years it was all about Arnold and Venice and Gold's Gym and all of that stuff. And it started being more mainstream. And then for those five, six years, it was all about boutique fitness. And then in that period of time, everyone started going to SoulCycle five days a week. And two years later, they all have hip flexor issues. Really? For example.

Why is that? Again, you're just on a bike all day, just doing this. They're not recovering and using the full range of their body. Yes. It's like you're here like this. And then you go soul cycle here. And then you go sit at a desk.

You're here. And your hip flexors are never experiencing extension. Your hip is never experiencing extension. It's tightening. It's shrinking. Yeah. Yeah. But that is why I feel like today it's so relevant because everybody went crazy with fitness, and I happen to have this idea slash concept, mild detox, that happens to intersect with where the public consciousness is now when it comes to recovery.

Like you said, it's a lot more mainstream. And athletes are obviously ahead of the curve, but now it's starting to trickle down to the rest of the population. Right, right. But now it's starting to trickle down to the rest of the population. Right, right. And so why do you think they're willing to spend so much on their diet, nutrition, trainers, and all these different things to help them? As opposed to just use, you know, they're going above and beyond what their team provides for them.

Yes. Why is that? I think it's just they want to perform. And it's all about longevity. They want to be at the top level for longer and stay relevant forever. Not forever, but as long as possible. As long as their body can handle it, right? Exactly. Extending their career.

And they're seeing that if you do take care of yourself, you see the LeBrons, the Tom Bradys, all those guys that represent that, they're still killing it in their 40s. Right. If you see Tom Brady and LeBron, if they never did any of this, but they're, you know, amazing at their craft and they just

did the workouts that the team provided for them and maybe stretched a little bit and ate the diet that they're always used to eating, how long do you think they could have lasted at a high level

versus having stretching every day, cryotherapy on the legs, the nutrition, the mobility you see all these athletes doing now. Do you think they would all last as long at such a high level? No, absolutely not. I, you know, this is obviously my opinion. Even if there are, even if like LeBron is a freak athlete, you don't think he could have lasted this high level? There's no way. There's no way. It's like you're saying, hey, I'm going to take this Ferrari, massive engine, beautiful car.

I'm going to drive it around the track for 30 years and not maintain it. Not change the tires, not what the windows, not just let it go and just drive it. There's no way. It just doesn't make sense to me. They would not be able to maintain that level of performance and longevity. Is there any athletes, and you work with more than elite athletes, you work with big entrepreneurs and people that are up to big things in their life. Is there any case studies that you've seen from some of these individuals who had massive

transformations or is it more of just like, listen, you know you are preventing so much by doing this, and you're increasing flexibility? Or have you seen people come in with a lot of pain and walk out eventually with completely transformed? Yeah, I mean, I've been a physical therapist for like 15 years now, and then pulling from my, man, I've seen thousands of bodies. like 15 years now and then pulling from my man i've seen thousands of bodies like it's just it's giving ptsd how many how many people have treated my career um and yeah there's so many um night and day transformations that i was um luckily be been able to be a part of um one example that i actually said on our podcast recently there's this one guy when I flew down from L.A.

This is when I was kind of like new in Instagram. And then this one patient was like, not one patient, sorry, one follower was like, hey, I have shoulder pain. Like I'm scheduled for surgery next week. Like, what can I do? And I was kind of like up and coming. And I was like, hey, I'm in L.A. If you want, I'll see you for free. Like, I just want to help you out, give you advice. And I was like, hey, I'm in L.A. If you want, I'll see you for free. Like, I just want to help you out, give you advice.

And he's like, cool, let's meet up. So we met up in Venice, somewhere in Santa Monica, I forget. And I still remember because there was like a giant, beautiful tree. There was a tree with a branch sticking out. And then I was talking to him. He was like, hey, I used to be in the military. You know, things hurt, you know, and I never really took care of it. The army killed my body. I am scheduled for surgery next week. And, you know, I just really want to avoid surgery, right? I don't really think that it's that bad. But I don't, you know, it's

kind of like the doctor is telling me I need to do it. And then he goes, I go, sorry, I go, hey, what do you do to hurt your shoulder like what activities like cause you pain he's like oh like doing a pull-up like i can't even do a pull-up so i'm like oh you see that branch over there can you do a pull-up i just want to see how you move right so then he did it and he was like i can't i can't lift my uh my body weight up then i was like okay let me talk to you about your shoulder a little bit do a little bit of manual therapy do a little bit of movement work teaching you about the mechanics of how your shoulder should, your scapula should upwardly rotate, downwardly rotate, blah, blah. And within 15 minutes, give or take, I said, hey, go try that pull-up again.

And he did it. He was like, and he looked at me and he almost cried. He was like, and he looked at me and he almost cried. He was like, are you serious? And I'm like, yeah, it's kind of just like, like it's very, it's very simple if you kind of understand how things work. It's just because the human body is, the knowledge is so low across the board. And it's always been kind of like kept secret in our industry, I feel that it's like, and it's not available everywhere for everybody. Yeah. So then people resort to easier methods such as surgery.

Right. Or you go see a surgeon. Which is not easy, but recovery takes a while. Of course. You don't know the information on how to optimize your body and try to heal it naturally, right? Exactly. And then he ended up canceling surgery.

Really? Yeah. He didn't go? He didn't go. And then I, yeah, um, yeah, that was it. And he was fine since then. Obviously he would have issues here and there, but like he didn't need surgery. It was more about, he needs to maintain, he needs to do these exercises. He needs to stabilize his shoulder, blah, blah, blah. When do you feel like is a necessary time

to do surgery? And when could you prevent that? If you're feeling pain and like my shoulder hurts, my knee, you know, if someone tears their ACL or something, is surgery required? Or are there other things you can do? You know, what is it? Back surgery, neck surgery, all these things. Surgery to me is always last resort. Push it as far as possible. Because the minute people start cutting into you, things are very different for me to help you or a therapist to help you deal

with the issue. When it comes to, I would say, an ACL tear, it's kind of depending on the case. But generally, if you want to return to sports, usually you would probably have to get an ACL reconstruction. Really? Yeah, most of the time. ACL is a little bit more... You break something, you tear something in a bad way, you're probably going to need it.

Yes, yes. But if it's more like an acute slash chronic pain, hey, listen, oh, that feels off. There's so many things you can do about that. You know, oh, hey, like when I'm walking upstairs, my knee hurts. Going straight to surgery is kind of. Right, don't do that. Don't do that, yeah. What made you want to get in this industry in the first place?

So funny enough, I've, and this is a crazy story. I was a Asian nerd growing up. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, I thought you were white. Super nerdy. I was super nerdy. Asian nerd.

Yeah. You know Steve Urkel? Yeah. Imagine that. But Asian, right? So I would. Growing up in Canada, right? Growing up in Canada, yeah.

So I'm originally from Montreal. And then. The French side from Montreal. Uh-huh. And then... The French side or the... The French side. You speak French? Yeah, I speak French, yeah. Really? I speak French, but I started to learn new vocabulary.

Fluent? Yeah, fluent. Parfait. Parfait. I didn't know that. Yeah. And then, yeah, so I used to hang out with my biology teacher at lunch. Super nerdy. Super nerdy.

Super nerdy. No friends. No friends, no friends. The kid hanging out at the teacher's table. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd literally hang out in his office. More than me, man. I was just sitting alone at lunch.

Yeah, there's no way. Yeah, and then in that process of me hanging out with him i was like hey mr triber like what do you think i should do you know i love biology i love anatomy but i don't really know what career i want to do i don't necessarily want to be a doctor uh and then his two of his daughters were physical therapists and he was like hey maybe you should look at physical therapy and i was like oh mr triber what is physical therapy and he was he he said you know how i walk with a limp i had an accident a motorcycle accident a few years ago and before i saw a physical therapist after the accident i wasn't able to walk and those people brought me back to this level of what you see now

and then i was like oh that's kind of cool and i kind of just took it as advice and kind of kept going with my life and then ended up in physical therapy. In college? In college. This was high school? This was high school. Yeah. So this was like I was like 16 or 17.

Fast forward. Taking kinesiology. Yes, kinesiology. Exactly. So I ended up going to McGill University, graduated at 23, ended up having a tumor in my neck, which we can go into at some point if you want. It was a crazy story but 25 years old two years out of physical therapy i was working at the jewish general hospital and i was on the post-op knee and hip surgery ward so i'm walking around fresh face physio yeah like let's let's seize the day and i go to the door and there's this um

and I go to the door and there's this, um, um, kind of like a, a board, right? And then it's written Mr. Triver, Triver on it.

And in my mind, I'm like, Oh, Hey, like that's my biology teacher's name. That's interesting. But I didn't even think about him being him. You know,

this is like 10 years later, give or take. So then I walked into the room and I realize, oh my God, my patient is Mr. Treiber. He had double knee surgery. And I was his physical therapist. No way. No way, yeah.

Did he know that you went into physical therapy? Well, I don't think he remembered, but I went crazy because I went a little- You said, dude, I remember you. Yeah, yeah. I went a little, this is a really funny story because I went like full on fanboy, you know? It's oh my god mr triper you're the reason i'm a physical therapist and he was like he's like i just had surgery man get out of my face literally he was

actually who are you yeah he was actually hopped up on on drugs oh he was yeah post-surgery and he was just like what are you talking about and i was like yeah and i was like crazy and then obviously when he woke up from all of that and i calmed myself down um he was like oh hey then i remember you you're the reason i'm here yeah wow so you got to treat the patient 10 years later who inspired you to do the career that you're in exactly yeah that's pretty cool yeah he like prepped me to take care of him basically wow yeah um okay so that's what got you into the field originally. What made you want to say, huh, there's something missing in the field and I want to learn more

about how to transform people's health to the next level. Yes. I think I always didn't like how working in the industry, I realized that it was very like a mill industry. And I'll speak specifically for Toronto. And in my experience from talking to other people, it's like that in other words as well, other worlds as well, other countries, other areas, where you come in for physical therapy and it's like, it's a factory.

You're in and you're out. Same thing with chiropractic. It's like in and you're out. Louis, you good? Yeah. See you next week. A couple of a couple cracks yeah you want an ice pack all right see you later and i was working for a um clinic in toronto and i was seeing think about this 40 patients a day come on yeah 40 so four zero 40 a day and i was rolling rotating so i'd be like hey hey how's your hamstring stretch? You good? Okay. Awesome. All right. So we're going to like four people at the same time,

four people at the same time per hour. It was insanity. Like, and it wasn't proper care in my opinion, but it was, it was meant to obviously bill insurance and make money. And it was meant to make money and not really take care of people and i was really annoyed because every job that i would apply to in toronto anyways the clinics were all like that set up to make money not really to help the patient like how much care can you get in 10 minutes i not much yeah imagine our session that we have like that when i see you 10 minutes it'd be tough be tough i'd be like yeah let's stretch a little. I'll see you later. See you later. Right. And then in that process,

I was just frustrated at the industry. I was like, Hey, I can't do this. I ended up quitting, um, working out of my condo slash my house. And I ended up being within a two years,

I ended up being full. So I was treating people on my living room. I was treating people in my condo gym. I was, I was out there hustling in this area called scarborough um yeah i was i was like the king of rehab in scarborough everyone everyone would come to my condo and i would be working on my condo i would have lineups outside of my condo wow yeah and then i did that for two years and then condo security was like

hey listen you can't do this you can't run a business out of your house and i would always kind of like at first kind of dodge them and so i'd be like oh no this is my friend lewis is here just to hang out you know but then there's like three people coming in a row um and then i ended up starting mild detox in 2014 yeah and then but the main reason is i just wasn't happy working in a place that didn't care about patients in my opinion like it wasn't about the patient and everything I do is about educating people helping people learn about movement health helping people learn about their body I truly care I this is my mission reason why I'm here on earth yeah and I'm gonna go all the way to the end whether I have to write a book yeah podcast fly here fly there I'll do whatever it takes because I believe that if I can make everyone understand how to take care of their body, the world will be a much, much, much better place.

And what was the situation with the tumor? Oh, the tumor was 23 years old. I ended up waking up one day and I was like, what's this? And every time I would turn my neck out a golf a thing the size of a golf ball would pop out come on yeah it was it was like scary yeah it was really scary and then my friend one of my friends his name was mike he ended up actually passing away two months before that because of a tumor and i started being like oh my oh my God, like I'm next, you know, it's, this is crazy. In that process, it was a crazy process. I ended up going to see the doctor. The doctor said,

hey, listen, you're actually going to lose your voice. It's, it's, the tumor is like, you know, in your vagus nerve, it's like you're left for recurrent laryngeal. You're going to be paralyzed from the left vocal cord. You're not going to be able to, you going to have heart issues all these things anyways tells you all the the hopeful things yes all hopeful things and he's like you're good though right oh my yeah yeah but we're gonna take it out so you're gonna live yeah we got a 10 minute slot today yeah yeah yeah literally it was a 10 minute slot it was like he dropped the hammer on me gosh and then i i still remember this is in canada i was standing in front of a tim hortons, which is like a Dunkin' Donuts. Of course, yeah.

Tim Hortons. And I was like bawling in the middle of the street. I didn't, nothing else. I was like, oh my God, I'm going to lose my voice. This is crazy. You know, I'm going to have like paralysis. It's like I'm 23. I'm about to be a physiotherapist.

I'm about to go and do this. So the doctor was like, hey, we're going to do this or you're going to die. Because the tumor is occluding two-thirds of your carotid artery. Oh, my gosh. So you're going to stroke out and it's going to be a bad issue. So you've got to take this out, like, next week. 23 years old, I get pushed on the cart, right? So, you know, like, in movies, now every time I watch a movie where there's a scene with the lights and the carts, the hospital carts,

it brings me back. That's what happened. Yeah, because they pushed me on the cart, day of the operation, they pushed me. And I was like, oh my God, like I don't know what my life is going to be like after this moment. And then, you know, I was, you know, I'm Christian.

I believe in a higher power, you know, God. And I was like, you know, you know when you're in these moments where like things are not going well, you end up just looking up. It's like, hey, listen know when you're in these moments where things are not going well, you end up just looking up. It's like, hey, listen, if you think, God, if you think for a second that I should lose my voice,

I will accept it. I will accept it. I will go with it. But if for one second, if you think that I should use my voice for the greater good of humanity or to just perpetuate a message, to serve, please don't take my voice away. Please don't. And I away please don't and i remember

push and i did my prayer i did my thing and then they pushed me i did my surgery and i woke up and i remember saying mom in vietnamese man i'm like mom and then i was like oh i can speak i can speak and from that moment on when i was given the chance again to speak, there's nothing that is stopping me. I'm not afraid of anything. Like, what are you going to tell me besides from the, what are you going to tell me that's going to hurt my feelings as much as what the doctor told me that day? That you're, you're going to die. You're going to lose your voice. There's nothing, nothing.

I don't care about anything anymore. And that honestly helped me. And then I'm so happy it happened because it helped me be good at business, be good at therapy, just be driven. It's crazy, man. I mean, I remember having surgery on my wrist. And you just have to surrender. You trust hopefully people are going to be able to take care of you and hopefully they're having a good day and they do the right movements and everything works out okay, right? What happened to your wrist?

I broke it playing football. Well, here's the thing. I broke it twice. I broke it in high school, and I never had surgery on it, and I just kept playing on it. So it was just in pain, and it never fully healed

until six, seven years later, I broke it again. And it was always just kind of like hurting me, right? But I just played through the pain, and I broke it again and then I played another two months on it broken. But I had x-rays and the doctor was like, yep, there's the break in the wrist.

But it's like a bunch of little bones, I guess, in the wrist. So it was like one of the bones was broken. He's like, and I go, well, can I keep playing? And he kind of looked at me like I was crazy. He goes, well, I don't know if you could hurt yourself more, you know, but I wouldn't recommend it. But we need to do a surgery as soon as you can, essentially. And then at the end of the season, I had the surgery.

So they did a bone graft from my hip to my wrist. And it helped some, but it kind of like the range of motion never fully came back. Even with a lot of the therapy that I was doing, it just never fully came back. But the pain, a lot of the pain went away. It still kind of hurts every now and then, but. And how much do you think, you see how like such a small, not small, sorry,

an injury to such a small part of your body. Small little bone. Small little bone can affect your life in such a huge... Everything, man. Everything. Everything. The way I work out, like I can't do push-ups fully without being on my knuckles, like, you know, it affects everything.

Sometimes carrying heavy weights or whatever, so... Exactly. Yeah. And that's where, like, you know, I think it's so important because so many people are living with so many issues and it really ruins their life. Yes. And if we, if the whole industry was better and then the whole self-awareness of the world was better on how to take care of their body, there would be obviously still situations like that, but way less. And maybe if you had seen a, I'm not saying that those therapists weren't good,

but maybe it could have been a better rehab process for you during that period of time. And maybe you wouldn't be worse off right now. Right, exactly. Why is it harder for us to recover when we're older? But it seems like when we're younger, we can run around and get hurt and recover so much faster. I mean, this is aging, man. This is like your recovery, your hormones, everything just kind of goes downhill. What can make us feel like we're younger in order to recover when we're older? What is that process? Is it supplements? Is it diet? Is it nutrition? Is it the stretching? Is it everything you talk about in your book? Or is it just going to take longer

to recover when you're older? I would say you want to mitigate as much of that as possible, aging as possible, by essentially doing everything you just said which is eating healthy which is annoying which is taking taking care of your body on a regular basis which is annoying which is working out regularly which is annoying you know all you actually have to just put more work yeah essentially into it right it's almost like in order to stay baseline you gotta spend like two to three hours a day to like work on yourself. But if you don't do that, you're going to start feeling some pain and it's going to be harder for the last part of your life.

Exactly, exactly. And I'm not saying necessarily like three hours is a little intense. Maybe like an hour, an hour and a half a day is essentially how much you should spend on conserving your body, you know, maintaining your body. What would you recommend to people who? Maybe have some extra money, you know, wherever they live in the more the world They have something they could do some of this on their own, but they're like, okay I want to see a physical therapist or get a massage once in a while

Yes, what do you recommend? Is that a once a month type of thing is great for people to do some type of stretching therapy or? Physical therapy or massage or chiropractor? What do you recommend for that? Okay. We're talking perfect world or like realistic world? Tell me both. Okay. Let's start with that perfect world. Let's say I was building a plan for you, Louis. Yes. Okay. Every day, I want you to wake up, brush your spine, floss your muscle for five minutes. Yes. the exercises you talk about in the book and you showed me here. These things, the stretching. Exactly, as you learn your body more,

I want you to start creating a program for yourself that's literally gonna take you five minutes and you understand your body. You go, hey, I need to do this, I need to do this, I need to do that, great. Step one, so you got that down, check. Second thing is I want you to be doing activity, obviously working out, boxing, running, whatever it is that you do, three to five times a week, give or take. And then I want you to get a physical therapist or a chiropractor.

physical therapist or a chiropractor, you would go see a professional to essentially fine-tune your movement in those things that you're doing. You would essentially see them for, now, let's say once a month. Once a month is great. Once a month. What would you say for me? Once a month? Yeah, once a month. I think once a month is great. Once or twice a month, okay. Yeah, once or twice a month. Yeah, yeah. And then in those sessions, once or twice a month, you would get a variety of new exercises to help fine tune your movement, or you would get body work, myofascial work, massage, stuff like that,

to kind of relax your nervous system, realign your body, flush out all the bad energy. Right, right, right. Okay, so those would be the three things for sure. Floss every day, three to five workouts a week, some type of massage, physical therapy once a month. Yeah, once a month. If you can do that, that's the-

That's like the gold standard in my opinion. Okay. If you can do that. Gotcha. But that's a lot. That's a lot. And then because on top of that, you got to work and then run this- Yeah, exactly.

This enterprise that you have going on and then you got to eat healthy, then you got to sleep well, then you've got to manage your relationships. Absolutely, man. Here's the interesting thing. The practitioners of the world who are doing this work, the therapists that are doing this work, sometimes don't take care of themselves. Is this true for yourself, or do you take time to allow your body to recover too? Yes.

I would say that in the last two years, I've definitely taken my health way more seriously and walked the walk. Yeah. When I was starting the business, as you know, I was starting a business, I was just taking care of everybody and not take care of myself.

The joke I always say is like, I was, those five years that I started the business, I was a smoking doctor. Like, I was like, Lewis, you should definitely stop smoking.

And I'm like, I'll see you later. And I go in there. Oh my God, my break. I'm like, oh my God, life is so hard.. And I go in there. I'm like, oh, my break. I'm like, oh, my God. Life is so hard.

But yes, definitely in the last two years, I've ramped it up. It's just like the first five years of my business, I had to focus on it. And I dedicate it every time, every ounce of my brain power. To the business. To the business and my people. Are you doing once a month for yourself now, therapy, or once every couple of weeks? Oh, therapy, I do once every two weeks. I get treated, yes, by my team. Oh, that's great. I do once every two weeks. I get treated, yes, by my team.

Well, that's great. Yeah, once every two weeks, I try to work out three to five times. Everything that I just told you, I kind of do. If you could only do one, have someone work on you and do some type of therapy on you, or work out, which one is more valuable? I would say work out.

Work out. Work out is, trumps everything, I would say, for sure. Moving, because moving, you know? Yes. But having, obviously, the adjunct of having a therapist oversee your situation is more like a plus. Yeah, of course. Nice to have. A couple of final questions for you, but this book is out now, Sit Up Straight. Future-proof your body againstonic Pain with 12 Simple Movements.

So if you guys want strategies for the movements, Vinny gave us a couple already. But if you want all the strategies, make sure you check this out. He's got images and explanation, all the steps that you have here. So make sure you guys get a copy of this for yourself, for your friends, if you know someone who's dealing with back pain or shoulder pain or whatever, get them this first before they go and do the surgery. I think it'll be really helpful. MyoDetox, also for people that are in Canada or in LA,

you got MyoDetox facilities. They also have an app coming out, I think. Yes, an app coming out. Which will teach you and show you how to essentially see where's the pain and how to then future proof it yourself through these strategies and advanced techniques. I think that's coming out soon, right? Yes. So the whole point of Mild Detox, the company, is how do we push this idea of movement

health to the world? Again, you understand dental health. The reason why you understand dental health is because you have a teeth issue, you can scale down or scale up your teeth issue depending on what you have. Hey, I have something stuck in my teeth, I'm gonna floss, I'm gonna brush my teeth. Oh hey, my teeth are really dirty, I really need to go see a dental hygienist. You scale up. Oh hey, I need braces. I have a cavity. I have really harder issues. Dentist, orthodontist, right? In therapy, this is kind of all mucked up, you know, when it comes to like brushing your teeth. There's nothing, no standard really. When it comes to higher level stuff with surgery, it's kind of like messy, you know, no one communicates with each other and then physical therapy is kind of like

hey just just get me out of pain and i'm good it's very pain focused you know but i'm trying to build that whole continuum of what with mayo so the app and the things like the book youtube education stuff like that would be brush your spine floss your muscle then if you want to level up you go see maybe a personal trainer that that's taking some of our courses and they will be our dental hygienist and they will kind of help you guide you foam roll do this do this sure then you go see a mild detox clinic you go hey you're going to see a dentist now they're going to give you basic ideas on your movement health dental health blah blah blah and then you go to maybe like an orthodontist high

level people like like me, obviously. I'm kidding. People who've done it for a long time and they would probably be like the sports performance guys, the health consultants, all those guys that treat it at the highest level. And then if you have to go see them, then you would scale up all the way to the orthodontist.

And no one's trying to build that continuum. And that's why it's so confusing in the market right now. Right, so how do we, what's the app called? Right now it's, the prototype name is Mile Plus, but you know, it's kind of like the cop-out plus for everything. So that's kind of where we're at. So if they go to the app store, they can type in Mile Detox or Mile Plus and they'll see that.

Yes, they would see that and they would, it's an awesome app. And I'm so excited to show you guys because there's gonna be so much free information, stuff like that, so people, you can just like wake up, click, oh, I have this issue, this issue, this issue, and the app will shoot out. Walk you through what you need to do. Walk you through everything you need to do. Here's the routine, it's gonna take four minutes.

You have left knee pain, this is what you need to do. Don't worry about it, click play, copy what the person's doing. That's powerful, man. you need to do. Don't worry about it. Click play, copy what the person's doing. That's powerful, man. Reducing chronic pain, reversing all these different illnesses and ailments that we've had in our body, I think is a massive thing we need to be thinking about. And people are doing it in just ways that I don't think are as efficient as possible through medications and all these other things. So learning how to do this through your MyoDetox method

and the sit up straight strategies and all these different things will be really powerful for you guys. Make sure you guys check this out. Couple final questions. This is called the three truths question. So imagine it's your last day on earth many years away from now.

You transform the world with therapies and all these different things. You get to accomplish everything you want to accomplish personally, professionally. But for whatever reason, it's your last day and you've got to take all of your information with you. So no one has the books, the app, the trainings, the method. Nothing is available anymore. It's a hypothetical. It's a sad world.

It's sad, right? But you get to leave behind three lessons to the world, three things that you've learned from your life. I like to call it the three truths. What would be those three truths for you that you'd share behind? I mean, I have so many, but do you think it should be more from a therapy perspective or more from a life perspective? Either one. Either one. Okay, let me go with life because therapy perspective, we can go so far and so many advice.

The first thing is I would, don't overthink it. I've met so many people that overthink so much of how they move and how they go about life that they end up essentially getting nowhere. They get in their own way. They create problems that do not exist. You have to just sometimes, obviously, you don't want to go crazy and do whatever. Have some thought process to a certain degree to what you do. Sometimes you just got to, all right, my gut says, let's go for it. Let's just go for it.

And then you will figure it out. If you trust in yourself to figure it out, everything will go good. And that's definitely, I would say, number one, truth number one. Even today on this podcast, I was like, oh, man, this is my second podcast ever. And I'm going on like the biggest podcast in the entire world. I'm kind of stressed. But I said, you know what?

Lewis is my friend. Hopefully he won't let me hang and dry. Don't overthink it. Yeah, don't overthink it. Just show up and we'll figure it out. And then the second truth I would say is, you know, who you surround yourself with, whether it's a person or a book,

all these things that you consume, the relationships and things like that you have to make sure that you Choose well, yes being around the wrong people will Wrong people wrong book wrong thought process wrong habits will lead you in the depths of hell Right as you know just being yeah being in bad relationships with people it's just guilt everything else just like yeah it's not fun it's not fun yeah yes um and then the third one would be um sit up straight which is essentially not about sitting up straight it's about paying attention which is whether whether you're paying attention to your body, paying attention to what you're doing,

paying attention to be self-aware. Sit up straight, be self-aware. What is going on in the world? What is going on with this conversation? Is this conversation going good or not going good? Should I change the way I speak? And being self-aware will lead to change, and change is good.

That's powerful, man. How else can we be of service to you and support you besides the book, the podcast, or the app? You have a podcast as well? Yeah, I mean, I'm going to do a podcast soon. Launching a podcast soon. Yeah, I'm going to launch a podcast soon.

You're on social media, Vinny Rehab, which has got a lot of free informational tools on how to optimize these things. How else can we serve you? The best way you can serve me is come into the clinic and take care of yourself because you,

people look up to you and if you start taking your movement health seriously, the whole world will take it seriously. Okay. I'm starting to come. I got to figure out the schedule. Make it happen.

Yes. But yeah, but jokes aside, yeah, I mean, everything you're doing so far has been so helpful. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so appreciative to be here. Of course, man. Well, I want to, yeah, I mean everything you're doing so far is has been so helpful. Thank you so much for having me

I'm so fortunate to be here and of course man Well, I want to acknowledge you Vinnie for for how you've shown up for the world Because I think you did something and are doing something in the last ten years That you got a lot of pushback on people in the different therapy worlds were like What are you trying to do by integrating all these things or making it kind of your own? And you got a lot of feedback and resistance from a lot of different people judging you, frustrated with your methods, your strategies, but you saw that you were helping people heal and relieve pain and get results and mobility. And I think it's so inspiring to see you push through that challenge

and help and create a facility and a business and a platform to help people really heal themselves because there's a lot of pain in the world. There's a lot of physical pain. There's a lot of mental and emotional pain. But to give people back the freedom to use their bodies fully is a powerful gift. So I really acknowledge you for your efforts, your time, your willingness to be educated and learn from so many masters in this industry and use it in a humble way to serve. I really acknowledge you, man. Thank you so much.

You're going to make me tear up. Because it's like when you start a new idea or like a dream and you have a mission, it's like you always feel like you're going uphill. And sometimes it's tough because the whole world is against you, especially if you're trying to change the old guard. It's so tough. But hearing that makes me feel like you're giving me another two weeks of energy. You're doing it, man. You're doing it, man.

Final question. What's your definition of greatness? You're doing it, man. Final question. What's your definition of greatness? Greatness, I would say, is just pushing yourself to be better every day, right? And then, how do I say this? Comparing yourself essentially to yourself at all times, right?

And you're continuously chasing this new version of yourself that you know is just better, right? And that's how you achieve greatness. And, you know, that's kind of how I look at it. My man. Appreciate you, brother. Thank you so much, man. Thanks, bro. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's episode

and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's show with all the important links. And also make sure to share this with a friend and subscribe over on Apple Podcasts as well. I really love hearing feedback from you guys. So share a review over on Apple and let me know what part of this episode resonated with you the most.

And if no one's told you lately, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.