Today’s email is inspired by the interview between Dr. Andrew Huberman and Dr. Stuart McGill. Dr. McGill is a professor of spine biomechanics and has been helping people through their back pain for almost 40 years. I am going to give you my favorite snippets but I encourage you listen and learn on your own. As I always profess, the more you understand about your body, the easier it is to care for.
Here are the takeaways:
- McGill couldn’t answer any specific questions– Huberman kept asking questions that that he thought would lead to general recommendations that everyone could follow and benefit from – McGill kept returning to his same response, “That depends on the individual”. My Take-When it comes to your particular pain there is no one else on this earth that has it. Even though there are generalizations you can make about certain types of herniated discs, muscle strains or sciatica. There is no technique that doesn’t need to be tailored to your very specific individual needs. This is why practitioners like McGill are careful about what they say on interviews because they don’t want to state something untrue.
He uses a technique similar to my own. When someone isn’t getting better quickly I have them find positions that reproduce their pain and then find points that when digital pressure is placed, reduce the pain. This is highly individualized care but that is what works the best.
McGill primarily uses exercise to help people with pain and if you’ve tried to do exercises wither on your own, or after watching a video , or even with a PT, that exercise may not be right for YOU. You need to find practitioners that can figure out whats best for YOU rather than giving you a protocol.
- The Big 3 – The top 3 exercises he mentions that should help the most amount of people are Bird Dog, The Roll up, and Side Plank- here’s a link to a demo of all 3- These are not the do all end all of exercise but are 3 that when mastered are signs of a strong spine.
- Virtual Surgery – I loved this idea. When McGill works with someone that has tried everything else possible, chiropractic, PT, shots, exercises and still doesn’t feel better, BEFORE he will speak about surgery he suggests what he calls Virtual Spine Surgery. He literally has a sword that he ceremonially uses. He has them kneel and he touches the sword to the person’s shoulders just like in the old knight stories. He proclaims, “OK now you’ve had spine surgery”. He then has that person act as if they had spinal surgery. Meaning they are required to rest for a couple weeks, then very slowly start the baby step rehab process that is typical after spinal surgery.
McGill has found great success using this method and his theory is simply that the individual he’s caring for has committed to rest and slow recovery. All too often we are impatient with the process of healing from injury. If you really commit to rest and a slow individualized recovery schedule you’ll most likely allow for proper healing.
These are just 3 takeaways. If you goto to the Huberman Lab website you can find time stamped topics that you can listen to on your own.
Of course, McGill works differently with patients than I do but I loved everything he said about the way he cares for individuals.
If you want your own highly individualized care without flying to Canada and seeing Dr. McGill then give me a call today or book yourself a visit using my portal-links below.
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Yours in health,
