Tits Up Ass Out: Back Pain for Life
Paden
So we hear a lot about postural concerns in the fitness world, particularly around for decimeters, or text neck and a lot of that, but you know, one we don’t hear a lot about is when I’m going to playfully call tits up, ask out posture, throwing sucking in your stomach and a pair of heels. And you’ve pretty much tackled the classic posture that a lot of women walk through their lives having and almost feeling like it’s their normal way of walking, standing strutting, what have you. But I am here to tell you for any fitness enthusiast or fitness trainer, that that posture right there, the one that we don’t talk very much about could actually be the reason why your clients are experiencing low back pain and other crazy dysfunctions in their body. So if that sounds like something you’re going to be interested in, this is the podcast episode for you. I’m Paden Hughes and I’m gonna be interviewing Miss Kaleena Ruskin. And she’s going to be breaking down for us, not just the science, not just the behavioral psychology of what’s going on with these women. But how you as an athlete or a trainer can make subtle, smart shifts into getting out of that posture and getting back into a much more natural, much more functional stance so that you can really train pain free.
Michael Hughes
Welcome to the Gymnazo podcast where you get to peek behind the curtains of what it takes to create and run a seven figure fitness facility that ranks in the top 5% of boutique fitness studios for revenue. But to be honest, that’s the least important thing about us. Founded by me, Michael Hughes, Gymnazo has created an ecosystem of services that blend performance with restoration techniques and attracts top coaches to its facility hosted by its owners Paden and myself and our top coaches. This podcast shares our best practices on everything, from how to build a sustainable fitness business, to how to program for maximum results to how to build a hybrid training module that’s online and in person. We have marketing secrets, movement, innovation, and breaking down trends in the industry. If you’re a fitness professional or fitness business owner, this is where you learn how to sharpen your skills and to see maximum results.
Paden
All right, well, welcome. I’m having Kaleena Ruskin join us she is a movement specialist here at Gymnazo and our female pelvic floor specialist so she helps a lot of women deal with what’s going on biomechanically in their body where the dysfunction showing up and deals with some of the most random symptoms that clearly aren’t random, that are all connected to the same kind of systemic issues going on for women. But today, we called her in to the studio to talk about as out tits up and how that little combo, however we think is attractive as we waltzed around the world in that posture is quite problematic for women. So welcome, Kaleena. Thanks for having me. Okay, so talk to me about what’s going on in that posture.
Kaleena
Yeah, so it’s, it’s a behavioral posture, totally see it, like I’m an I’m gonna pick on some CrossFit athletes like that’s kind of like a standard female CrossFit athlete walk or even just like power lifters, power lifters will walk that way. Women we tend to do because we think we look good, like stick my ass out tits out. Hell yeah, like, I’m gonna parade this around. But for a lot of us, it can cause dysfunction, with how we walk biomechanically with how it affects our low back and our upper back, especially because we’re forcing this upright posture. And we’re forcing actually what we call lordosis is that severe arch in the low back, that doesn’t feel good after long periods of time.
Paden
So is it so when you say it’s behavioral? I totally get that because when yoga pants became it, like, okay to wear in public, in replacement of jeans, yeah, there was this whole, but they make my ass look really good. That kind of swept the nation, I would say, at least in America, and a lot of women were it’s cozy, but like they think it shows off their curves in that way. Yeah. And then, of course, in our country, we prefer large chested women in general, like that seems to be the set like the sexual standard that we deal with. And so as women, we’re kind of pushing out both curves to gain or just to feel confident probably in our bodies
Kaleena
that they you know, posture wise, we always think we want to like stick our chest out like, you know, I was a terrible posture as like such like a tomboy jock athlete, and I would just hunch everywhere. I still don’t have great posture, but that was like something to force you know, you thought about it. It was like, oh, we gotta roll my shoulders back. Like I have to have good posture. It was like standing super upright. Yeah. And what will tend to do to like is holding our breath you suck your stomach in. So we totally we create so much like tension and dysfunction or body’s trying to like, look good. Nobody really cares. But like butt out, tits out, suck it in, and you’re just forcing this whole unnatural tension and a nostril posture for your body and then you have to hold it and walk. looks, feels so awkward, but we’ve just trained ourselves to do this because we think it’s this aesthetically pleasing way that people want to see us or how we should look.
Paden
So it’s funny to me hearing you’d say this because the first time you said this, I was like, I felt called out like, oh shit, I actually do that, like on a daily basis, not just so like just feeling like I have to tighten my abs and stomach to feel in control. And I don’t know if that’s a dance background where like, you’re always like, strengthening your core and holding your core in to stabilize the movements in your body and extremities. I don’t know, but when you said that I was like, so conscious from that point. Anytime I walked in, like why am I doing this? But it was so habitual at that point. Yeah, that like, like relaxing. I was like, I that felt unnatural because it had been so long of tighten the core, like walk from a place of power in your center. And I don’t know where probably from dance. I got that. But that was like a big like, mind blowing moment for me when you said that. Yeah, ago.
Kaleena
Yeah, we, gosh. It could be from dance, it can be from any sort of sports practice, or just, you know, self conscious women. You know, I would do it I would recognize when I was coaching, I’m like, trying to suck in my gut. If I just ate lunch and I’m like, oh, gosh, and you’re like, hold it up all the time. Try not to let your gut just roll out or you know, after a weekend of indulging you just like oh, my pants, you know, pull up those Lulu lemons over my my belly here. But it’s it’s it’s totally behavioral for women. I think. I don’t think men do it as much, guys, you’ll definitely see the puff out the chest. Like yeah, you know, throw the shoulders back. They walk like the Hulk you know, trying to try? Oh, yeah, this strike that I’m an alpha male. Let me show you how and pluck out the chest. And same thing. We were just like, that looks terrible. Like nobody walks like that. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker
it was cyborg. Look to yourself as you waddle. Yeah.
Paden
I should say struck modeling might be a different thing. We’ll say that for all of us. Who have ever been no,
Kaleena
that’s, that’s where I’m getting to that wobble point.
Paden
I don’t think so. But at some point, you will feel it. Oh, yeah. Um, okay, so let’s talk about heels. And our heels involved in this posture setup for women
Kaleena
they can be so when we go into that that ass out, what happens is the pelvis rotates where we get this what’s called an anterior tilt. And women are already predisposition to an anterior tilt. That’s just how we’re designed. It’s for labor and delivery. So the hips roll forward and kind of rolled down, right, and you can, you can feel that if you were just standing. So wearing heels, because you’re up on your toes, it actually creates that like, if you just want to stand up on your toes, your pelvis would go through that anterior tilt anyway, it’s just the biomechanics of the body. So when you wear heels, now, if you’re a woman who already has a severely rotated pelvis, which some of us do, or behaviorally, you already roll the pelvis so
Paden
far, I’m going check check you going,
Kaleena
and then you throw yourself in heels. Now we’re like, check, check, check. Yeah, and you’re throwing this pelvis into this huge anterior tilt. And in order to stand upright, your low back, your lumbar spine goes into this crazy lordosis, it goes into this curve, essentially, where you get that little low back roll, and we’re compressing not only the facettes and the joints, but we’re compressing all of the tissue, it’s like it shortens. If you wanted to stretch out your back, most of us would fall forward to stretch it out and you get that nice curve or that arch all throughout. But when you’re upright, the spine actually goes through a wave, it’s not straight up and down your thoracic spine a little curved and it comes back and then get that little lordosis curve with the low back. But when you have an anterior tilt, now you’re just getting more you’re getting more lordosis more of that pinching more of that compressing of the spine and of those tissues on the low back in the top of the pelvis. And after a while, it does not feel good to walk that way because your your tissues are just cramped, with a lot of cramping and low back pain. And then sometimes what happens is just the body gets used to it or we find different ways to adapt, but then when you go to wear flat footed shoes, where are you going to do something like hike, which is the inverse like going up hills gonna do the inverse of heels, right? Because your feet are gonna go uphill. All of a sudden you’re like, Whoa, my back is straining as I go through this because trying to go through a motion now that you haven’t taught it to go through that flexion of the hips.
Paden
Wow. So okay, bye That’s like bring me back to the days when I wore like four inch heels eight hours a single day. For years.
Kaleena
I mean, I joke that like heels were invented by men so that we can’t run away from them. Because I can’t think of any woman who is super stoked to wear heels all day every day. Like I know there are I personally don’t know anywho I thoroughly enjoy that but I like nobody
Paden
but I will say this the CLICK CLICK of heels is a power move. And like if I need a little confidence boost, I’m like throw some heels on walk 100 yards and then I feel powerful. Oh, yeah. Weird though, because I actually hate wearing like, just I want to like wear him like as I walk past people and then like take them off and wear flats
Kaleena
because it’s cozier. Aesthetically, we look really good in heels because like you get little calf pop like mmm, like as a as an athlete, like in college, massive calves and massive quads. You throw in a pair of heels like bam, and you’re like hell yeah. Like everything is just flex to the extreme and it looks aesthetically really pleasing. Yeah, but this is why you like you go out to the bars for two hours and you’re wearing your heels and you’re feeling sexy. And then after two hours, you’re like, these guys are coming off and I’m walking home barefoot. I don’t even care because my feet hurts so freakin bad. Yeah, because we’ve wedged them their traps. Oh my gosh, there’s such traps for your feet. As far as I can tell. I’ve never met anybody who has triangle toes or like pointed feet. Like when you’re shoving your feet into stilettos. Like no foot is designed like that to come to a point. But yet, here we are, because they look good. Because nobody wants a Flintstone foot heel. Like, this isn’t like
Paden
well, but I have wide feet. So I already hated heels to begin with because there’s nothing like they’re just shoving you into this crazy narrow space and then the pointed tops and even if you get rounded toes, they’re still crazy. And I had all sorts of foot issues that Yeah, almost a separate topic. And I know CJ just covered. Oh yeah, going barefoot through minimalist shoes. But it just it for all the listeners out there who are going check check check I already have in it. an anterior tilt. I already walk in heels and I already experienced some kind of back pain or stuck arm I’m sucking my stomach and all the time and pushing my button my boobs out. For women like that, like are you would you advocate never wearing heels? What’s sort of your gauge around that heels are
Kaleena
behavioral we love them and we hate them. Like there’s totally a time and place for heels. Just say if it’s causing you pain the white keep doing it, you know, you can reverse it. Just like when we sit for long periods of time, we say hey, you need to stand up and stretch, right we need to do the reverse of sitting, you can do the reverse of walking in heels you can wear flats, you can just I don’t know stretch your calves out, stretch out your hamstring stretch out the your quads actually you’re going to do a lot of load bearing for you when you walk in heels. Because of that position, you’re gonna have to work a lot on those your anterior TIB, that front of the front Shin muscles essentially is doing a lot to slow you down. So people don’t realize your feet. When we go to like step forward, your toes come up. So we’re going to what’s called dorsiflexion we land right your heel, heel goes down, toe comes up. You’re never in that position. When you’re in heels, you’re constantly in plantar flexion. So you are always hiking downhill while you were in heels. But you’re on a flat surface. So your feet are always stuck in that funky position. So like you’re just going to have to compensate in so many different areas. Now, you want to wear heels wear heels, by all means, like power me like you said, you can wear heels and like damn, I feel good. Like it’s a power move. It is like if your body hates you afterwards.
Paden
That’s not a power move.
Kaleena
Yeah, not a power move. That’s stupid. It’s like why do you keep touching the hot stove? Like,
Paden
there’s so Okay, so say that you go Yeah, I
Unknown Speaker
get this. I’m
Paden
totally resonating. I like the power move of heels. But I pay the price later. Like what kind of things do you advocate for trainers to do with their clients or for our clients to be considering to help kind of reduce some of that stress they’re putting on their bodies? Yeah.
Kaleena
Foot mobility, calf mobility are the big ones right off the bat. So getting them out of that constantly called plantar flexed position where the toes are pointing down, like riding downhill and clarify can’t dorsiflexion is the opposite way. So getting them into dorsiflexion positions stretching out the caps is going to feel great because when we’re stuck in positions for long periods of times we shorten tissue, right, we can build gunk Enos, where those tissues just get stuck, like you said like if you’re sitting, your hips are going to feel a little bit tight when you go to stand up, you’re going to get the same response when you’re in heels just in different parts of the body might be at the ankle joint it might be at the knee joint might be at the hip joint, you just everybody’s going to be a little bit different. So reversing that posture biomechanically, you can go and you can reverse that posture dorsi flexion, stretching out the calf just like a good old traditional calf stretch, stretching out the front hip, the back hip. So quads, so as hip flip access your hamstrings, glutes, all of that is going to need to be reversed and then even doing things, because you’re in that anterior pelvic tilt that whole time. How do you reverse that? Is it good? Like, well, you can’t necessarily reteach that for some women and just how do you tweak and how do you alter how they train? One of the best things that we’ve gotten women to do, they don’t even realize they’re stuck in that anterior tilt. They can’t they can’t roll their pelvis is to do a cat cow. So if you do yoga, get on, get it on, right on your knees on your hands. You’re prone, and you’re rolling, not just the shoulders, but now you’re rolling the hips arching your back. Yeah. And so we can get into that arch like, oh, yeah, because that’s your that’s your position. So sexy. Yeah, ass out. It’s up. Same thing. There’s that. But then they go to flex. They’re like, oh, like, I’m stuck. I can’t, I can’t do this. Yeah,
Paden
it’s almost painful to like, because you’re rolling in.
Kaleena
It can be Yeah, if you’ve never done it before your hips don’t know how to get there. Or we get the look like, Am I doing it? Doing? Yes, we’re getting close. But like I’ve had to actually physically, like, assess like FMR hands on the hips and help roll them forward and reel them back so that they can actually get that pelvis to go, oh, this is how we can do that. Because it’ll just be more motion than the hip or the low, low back lumbar spine has ever done before in a while.
Paden
This is good. Okay, so talk to me about if like what when you when you’ve done something for a prolonged amount of time you normalize it, whether it’s normal or not, you identify it as this is just how I walk. And so when someone’s listening to this going, we’ll shoot now I need to rethink my entire walk. What kind of cues? Or how would you describe what to do to kind of get back into a more neutral natural stance?
Kaleena
Ooh, good question. I always I do I do believe in kind of the Barefoot movement, and training your feet to do that it’s not super natural. If you’re somebody who wears heels all the time, or rails wears really supportive shoes, walking barefoot is going to be like starting a new workout program, because it completely changes how everything reacts. Because as soon as your foot hits the ground, there’s this whole chain reaction that goes up up through the rest of the body. So going barefoot is going to be a huge 180 from wearing heels all the time. Right. So because again, your foot has to have some free movement, it has to go through e-version inversions. Supination pronation, like you’re just gonna get all this ankle mobility. And it actually it’s going to feel like a stretch for your cats. If you are constantly in heels, just being flat footed is going to be this all new calf mobility and hip mobility for you. That’s, that’s brand new. So starting there, like how do I change my walk, like, we’re not going to change your walk nine times out of 10. But we can bring more awareness to it. And we can change your plane of motion for how you walk, you know, working laterally working in rotation, just to get joints moving a little bit differently, doesn’t mean we’re going to change it as it goes as you go into your normal walk going forward. But we’re going to mobilize and retrain some of those and re stimulate some of those tissues for how to have better movement patterns. Because there’s with three planes of motion, we know if we can train two planes better, you will inherently get better motion in the third plane. The whole trifecta, that’s pretty, pretty rad. But bare feet, I would encourage but if you’re new to barefoot, listen to your body. There are so many muscles and joints within the feet that people forget that it’s just like starting a new workout program, right? We think we’ll go do a bunch of squats, haven’t done them in a while, like, oh my gosh, my legs are so sore, my butt so sore, your feet are gonna feel the same way. But we tend to get scared when our feet feel sore that we should just go back to what was old, but just know your feet. Just never. I’ve never experienced this before. It’s new movement for your feet. They have to be trained that way.
Paden
Yeah, we have such an interesting relationship around discomfort. It’s like on one hand, you’ve got no pain, no gain. On the other hand, you have, oh, crap that feels bad. I’m gonna stop forever. Yeah. And it’s like, wait a second, there’s got to be something towards the center here that like understands you’re creating new pathways. You’re creating new patterns of movement, and there’s going to be some anticipation that your body’s not going to know. Because this is new, your body’s designed to protect at least from what I’ve learned from you guys over the years. Yeah. And so as we’re building that out, just anticipating that you’re going to graduate your body into a new normal and it resists in the beginning. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so as I’m walking downtown, let’s just play this out. I’ve got two little kids with me. I’ve got my flat shoes. They may not be minimalist, but they might just be flat shoes. Yeah. But I’m still kind of contorting my back and second, that stomach I’m trying to look like a pinup girl as I walk downtown. So what would you say like, Okay, start doing this, like, is there anything that you have done yourself as you walk that has been like, Okay, that was a really good analogy or that was a really good tip,
Kaleena
breathe. Breathe, because breathing is going to relax to some like deep breathing to just take those few deep breaths. Just helps relieve tension in your body. So if you’re holding tension, whether it’s in your shoulders or in your core, just some deep breath work, it’s very intentional about your exhale. You’re gonna feel your body just relax. And we’re gonna go into this we want to undulate when we walk walking should feel effortless.
Paden
It what is Anjali? It’s gonna be deviled.
Kaleena
lating kind of that like swagger and sway that natural flow to the body. The best way I’ve heard undulating, partially described, if you have ever watched UFC Conor McGregor, he does this funky like where he walks out that is a dramatic form of undulating, right? He’s kind of he’s just flowing in and out of motion as you go through it. So if you’ve ever you know, been on our Instagram or any of our social media pages, you’ve seen us do rope flow. Yeah, right that underhand we call figure eight. So just flowing right side to left side. I’ve literally while I’m running, trying to relieve tension or just walking, we’ll start that movement of kind of rolling my shoulders back that opposite direction as I walk to get that undulating that starts in my upper half. And that usually starts to this trickle down effect where if I’m feeling tight in my upper back or my low back, as soon as I start to undulate, that just helps open everything up. And now I’m walking a little bit more freely, it’s a little bit more effortless, and I relieve that tension. So just flowing.
Paden
Okay, so get into a movement flow. Easier said than done. When you look like Bambi delicate little like tiptoe walk as you model your hips back and forth like Marilyn Monroe. I see that all the time. And of course, we live in a college town. So we get the joy. Oh, yeah, every fall of seeing all the brand new freshmen do their little like four inch heel, Daisy Duke shorts, right to the bar. Yeah, we sit there and go, Oh, I remember
Kaleena
those. So they will I’m not there. So funny.
Paden
Um, this might be a good time to pause for a second and just bring in the sponsor today’s show, which actually is gymnazoedu coaching program called the multi dimensional movement coaching program, which is the sponsor today, that’s an intensive, almost three to four month program that a lot of trainers like to buy, because it’s a combination of education around biomechanics, behavioral science, and tying it all together to create a really dynamic and memorable coaching experience, primarily small group, but can also be leveraged for one on one or our favorite, which is semi private, which is one coach to four athletes. And so that coaching program is something that we make available to the training community. And if you want more information about that, you can go to gymnazoedu.com. And we even have a quiz where you can take to figure out based on where you are in your skill development as a coach, what education and mentorship programs we offer, that could be the right fit for you as you’re looking to curate and level up in your career and really build something you’re proud of and standing out from the crowd. And so that’s today’s sponsor of the show. And so I just wanted to take a minute to to put that one out there. And then we’ll just cruise back in here to talking about sacrificing style for health. Talk to me about that. Kaleena. How often is this a female thing? Or is this just a human thing?
Kaleena
Um, I would say nine times out of 10. This is a female thing. Definitely. We’ve had. And like I said, some of its behavioral some of it is biological. But if you’re a trainer and you’ve got a female athlete who has chronic low back pain when they squat, especially weighted squats, like barbell back, squats, look at their ankles, look at their calves and check that mobility ability to get to that load and then ask them do you wear heels a lot, because again, when you’re flat footed, if you’re somebody who will when like when sorry, when you are in flat shoes, minimalist shoes and you’re not in heels, that is going to be a stretch for your calves and a new range of motion for your calves that your body might not be used to. And if your calves can’t, and your ankles can’t go into that dorsiflexion they can’t flex like when you start a squat. It just trickles on up and most of the time women are going to go into that squat. They’re going to push their weight forward because we’re also women are very, very quad dominant. So we’re gonna throw our weight forward into our quads. We’re not going to bend through our ankles and our knees, and we’re going to try and bend it our hips and our hips are going to roll right into that anterior tilt, and you’re going to have this huge lordosis. This huge low back loading. Because the other thing that we’re taught, especially with weightlifting is to have a neutral spine is to be upright. So we’ll say it will say like, Hey, have that proud chest, chest up, butts down to try and load into that. But for somebody who even has an anterior tilt to the pelvis, if you’re trying to keep your chest up and roll your hips forward, they’re going opposite directions, you’re actually cranking onto that low back, those vertebrae hate it, and the low back tissue hates it. So I’ve actually had to reteach women that it’s okay to have like a slight slight lean forward as they go through their squat, because now you’re actually going to be if somebody has an anterior pelvic tilt, and they slightly lean forward with their chest, they’re actually in that quote, unquote, neutral spine position, where they’re in that flat back, and they have the stability through their core through their hips, and then they can get their hips when they go, Oh, my God, my back pain is gone. Yeah, makes a big difference. Huge difference, just teaching somebody how to lean forward slightly, because we’ve never been told that it’s okay. Especially for women. Because most traditional fitness is designed for the male body, male pelvis, men don’t have that anterior tilt. They’re, they’re these jazzy, little cute suckers that just are perfectly level that rarely have that anterior tilt to them. And so they can get into that. And that’s no problem for them to keep that chest up, super proud to drop the hips down. But for women, it can be a lot harder, especially if you’ve had kids see that a lot. And were super afraid to bend over from the upper half to actually lengthen through that tissue. And you tend to see more low back polls, because that tissue doesn’t even know how to lengthen any more. When you’re stuck in that pelvic tilt. When you’re stuck with that chest up and you’re compressing all that tissue, it literally doesn’t even know how to bend over and doesn’t know how to lengthen. So we think like bending over, you’re still stretching out all those tissues in the low back and all along that posterior chain. But we don’t think about like, I don’t think proper form. If I go to tie my shoe, I’m just bending over to tie my shoe.
Paden
Your kids spilled milk and is about to face plant off the counter and like you go do this dive bomb move, you’re not thinking about your body and how your form is you’re reacting. And you’re that’s how for me as a mom, I threw things out. Because I was doing random stuff and not thinking about it.
Kaleena
Yeah, yeah. And your body only does what you train it to do, which is why I love Gymnazo so much, because we train the funky, and we train flexion for what it’s going to look like in real life. Now, if we’re talking like heavy, heavy loads, like traditional Olympic lifting, yeah, you’re gonna want better technique and better form. But I’m gonna go out on a limb and say most of us aren’t in our day to day life going to deadlift, the grocery cart full of 145 pounds worth of groceries, like you’re getting, you know, it’s just not going to happen. But I need to have the mobility to be able to bend over and tie my shoot or catch my kid as they fall off the couch. You know, because you’re not going to go, timeout guys are going to hit this neutral spine, knee, knee over my toes kind of deal. Like you’re just going to do what you have to do. And you need to train your body to do that.
Paden
Well, that reminds me of athletes too. And so often, I mean, I know that’s a topic you care deeply about. But so often, what we ask players to do, as a gut reaction, like quick thought, moment, quick pivot and twist on a field, we don’t train in the gym. And I know that’s really another topic for an amazing new episode. But it did bring that up for me too. Yeah, a lot of ways that we through traditional training may not be supporting the goals of our clients,
Kaleena
or through traditional training where we encourage somebody to keep hurting themselves or to keep pushing through quote, unquote, discomfort, that’s really pain. So like we have this system, yeah, like, oh, just work through that low back pain, but anywhere else in life, we don’t encourage people to always work through that kind of pain. Like it can ask people like, well, when you touch the hot stove and you like burn your hand, do you touch it again, to just see what’s going to happen or like be like, well, I’ll just get through this. Let me grab onto that hot plate one more time. We don’t do it because pain is a sensor for your body to it’s a warning right to stop doing this, like injury is going to happen eventually. So that’s the beauty of modifications like you can modify to work with somebody who either has maybe it’s a mobility issue, maybe it’s a stability issue, but you shouldn’t be encouraging somebody to push through pain necessarily, especially chronic pain. I think that’s where a lot of the misconception comes from like the no pain, no gain where we’ve changed it to no fatigue. No fitness is one that I’ve used like that one because we’re looking for that fatigue state like when you’re going oh my gosh, my arms are dead from all these push ups that fatigue that burn the burn of like I can do one more I can do three more push ups. It’s just my muscles are fatigued. That’s the like pain No gain portion. But if you’re like my shoulder is on fire, like this hurts the second that I, I lift it without weight. That’s not that’s not the same thing. Oh, that’s really
Paden
good. That should be its own topic. Of course, I always like have these episodes. And then I think of like six more episodes that we can build on sort of how it goes, we
Kaleena
touched a little bit on that with, with Goose and CJ got measuring pain, like what we need to work through or not work through. But
Paden
yeah, but fatiguing versus your your tissues screaming at you, yeah, is really a profound distinction that I think a lot of coaches instinctively might know, in their own bodies as athletes, because a lot of trainers are in their bodies and figuring out their thresholds and working with that, and then trying to apply it to these clients. But maybe those clients aren’t as body in tune, they don’t know what it feels like. So how do we describe it in a way that meets them where they’re at, and where what they understand?
Kaleena
Yeah, and not just that too, but my body is different than your body. Yeah, how I’ve trained, my body is different than your body. So my level of discomfort and your level of discomfort are going to come from two totally different places. So if you’re somebody who has low back pain with squatting, and so do I, but they could be stemming from totally different areas, mine could be because I have you know, we cam strings or I’m just don’t have good form. And yours could be because your calves are so tight from wearing heels all the time that you physically can’t get that to load. So you’re compensating through your low back. I mean, there’s so many different scenarios, there’s so many different dysfunctions that are caused by different things. There’s not like, Oh, this is caused by this and this, we’ll fix that or just push through it and you’re going to be okay.
Paden
So a lot of different practitioners that I’ve seen chiropractors, physical therapists and massage therapists to pick on three, all told me that my pelvis, pelvic tilt was too dramatic. And or I needed to relearn how to walk, which is my like, Okay, thank you. I’ll never see you again. What do you mean relearn how to walk like, I’m a grown ass woman, I’m not going to relearn how to walk. Yeah, concept I get. But literally, the guy expected me to like learn how to ReWalk. And I was not bought in on that. But I’ve also had like chiropractors and physical therapists basically, like, say that my entire structure is compromised by this tilt. And then you show up to your workout. And you’re super self conscious now, because not only have you just been told, like, you look funky, which just adds to the behavioral trauma of your strut down the street, because now you’re like, Oh, God, I look like a duck, my ass. I can’t even help it. This is not even conscious at this point, like what’s going on here? So what do you say when it comes to trainers, so trainers helping their clients, and the client tells them almost that same scenario, like they’ve seen all these practitioners, and they’re basically like Sol, unless you relearn how to walk or you you like, jar, your structure in such a way that it gets realigned, magically, like, what does a train what kind of encouragement could trainers experience on like, what’s their territory in this? And like, how can they affect change, where maybe some of those others weren’t
Kaleena
so good, we run into this problem all the time. Like, my doctor told me this, my chiropractor told me that done it at a DA. And I kind of use I asked questions to kind of let people come to their own conclusion and be like, Okay, well, does this motion bother you? Like we get down to like the movement? specifics that does this action caused pain? Or do you feel okay doing it? Or does it get worse as we continue the dysfunction? So if I put you into more of a tilt more, a little more mental, does your back hurt more and more and more? Yes. Okay, great. So we’re going to have to, not necessarily reteach you how to walk, but we’re going to re stimulate your muscles to learn how to work better for you. Because so often we see this proprioceptive shutdown where essentially muscles don’t work the way they’re supposed to work. So with when we talk about some of the chiropractic work, like people go to get adjusted every two weeks, but what moves the bones, muscle tissue muscle, move the bone so like if like, if I said okay, paid and go ahead and move your femur, like rotate your femur, like, can do that, but you would use muscles to rotate your femur essentially. So the muscles pull our bones. At least I didn’t realize my understanding, somewhat out of alignment, okay? So you have to not just want that’s why you have to go get adjusted every two weeks because we’re treating the bones we’re not treating the muscle. Some chiropractors do soft tissue work, and they will retrain the muscles, which is way better. But if you’re only seeing a chiropractor who just tweaks your bones every two weeks, and you feel good, and then two weeks later, you’re like I feel like crap. Well, that means that the muscles aren’t working the way they’re supposed to. And so things are going to get out of whack because it’s just It’s behavioral, like you’re going to walk, how you’re going to walk, takes too much freaking effort to think I need to relearn how to walk. Okay, well each step. So when you’re a trainer and you have this, you know, get down to the nitty gritty of what’s causing that dysfunction. Is it because they’re anterior hip doesn’t work? Is it? Because they’re both doesn’t Eva? Is it? Because it’s a behavioral thing? Is it just lack of awareness? Maybe they have an old injury that they didn’t even think about? These are just compensating man. So often you hear, you know, I’ve had this weird, like, left low back pain for like, couple years now. Okay, you dive into some health history, and you find out they had knee surgery on their right knee five years ago, and you’re like, Okay, well, when’s your back pain start about five years ago? Like, yeah, you probably have been walking funny, because you wanted to take pressure off your knees. So your hips had to adjust differently, your foot had to adjust differently. And now it’s just all resonating at your low back. Oh, my gosh, that makes the moment sense. We go in, we do our movement assessment. And like MDMC program does a great job of teaching you how to work with clients, but how learning these skills for how to assess movement? And then saying you great, how do we go from here? Maybe we need to work on that right hip doesn’t work the way that it’s supposed to? And so you’re compensating so it’s, it’s not? I wish it was an easy answer.
Paden
No, but that’s why so many super smart trainers sidestep these scenarios with clients, because we don’t think it’s our territory. Yeah. And or they’re super smart. But maybe they’re just missing a couple problem solving pieces.
Kaleena
Yeah. So I always get down to just like, prove it to the client, let the client feel it and understand it. And let them make that decision. Say, Okay, well, like, does your back hurt anymore? Ya know, like, super sick.
Paden
So keep doing that. Yeah. So you can see how it sustained.
Kaleena
Exactly. So then you put it into their hands and say, you can make the decision on what you feel like is best for you. Some people like going to the chiropractor, that’s perfectly fine. There’s nothing wrong with going to the chiropractor. But if it’s this perpetual problem, people are frustrated with it. Yeah. And I have to keep going back. Well, guess what? It’s probably something else. Like we can work on something else. Obviously, that’s not the one stop shop for you.
Paden
Well, it’s so interesting with chiropractors to from what I understand is like, they’ll say, like, we’re treating the, the problem to reduce symptom, but they see problem as bone structure. And we look at it from our perspective going, it’s part of the problem, but why is it the problem? What got it to be the problem to begin with? Because it shouldn’t be just moving around like this in your daily life. And so that’s where we go, that is a problem. There’s a bigger problem behind that, which is, what’s the tissue doing to push it out of alignment? And can we solve that simultaneously beforehand, after there’s no other option, etc. And that’s sort of where we come in with that. All right, so as we’re kind of wrapping up, I have a just bringing it back to orthotics. I know we haven’t talked about orthotics, so like a lot of women may be experiencing some of this foot pain, go to the foot doctor and say, or maybe it’s not foot pain, they’re just experiencing postural pain and they get kind of this Hey, my friend recommended I go get inserts because she has inserts in her hookah or hookah, whatever those massive ridiculous looking shoes, no offense if you wear them, but they do look hysterical like moon boots, but um, Says the girl who wants were like barefoot toe socks, like the frog socks at one point. So that’s that’s kind of ironic, but what would you say for them thinking like just an insert is going to solve the problem?
Kaleena
It mean it can structurally quote unquote, balance you out, you know if some of us have like, like discrepancies, but is it really a structural bone like discrepancy? Or do you have really tight muscles that make it appear that you’re just lopsided on one side, where you need you need that heel insert now? I have the world’s flattest feet. I like Kansas, it sounds like a duck when I walk like you just get slap, slap, slap slap slap on the pavement. And I was told or have been told by several people. Oh, you should have tried orthotics to like give myself an arch. But I distinctly remember growing up and wearing like a like a shoe that had a built in arch and my foot hated it. It just immediately caused my feet pain. It was super uncomfortable to walk super uncomfortable to run. I was like, Well, I don’t want to do this. So I just went back to bare feet and I had no issues with bare feet. But I also had this problem where I couldn’t point my toes, I would have never made it as a dancer. I couldn’t point my toes because my feet would cramp so bad in the arch of my foot. As because those tissues were constantly lengthened when they’re flat. So they didn’t know when you point your toes you shorten that tissue. It’s like flexing, I couldn’t flex my feet. And they would just cramp, which I figured this out like, after starting at gym nausea, like, oh my gosh, you just need to like work those tissues and mobilize them. So that and train that motion of doing that. But orthotics don’t work for everybody. And it can treat part of the problem, but it’s not going to treat the whole problem. And as somebody who had crazy, me, I have torn seven ligaments between both of my ankles from soccer years of soccer, and I had just really like unstable feet and unstable ankles. And I had this idea that I needed to be in a supportive shoe. And so but when you have gunky ankles that lacks stability, or that that are locked up, right, they don’t move really well. And you stick them in a really, really supportive shoe, you’re locking up your ankle even more, and you’re locking up your foot even more. So when you have a locked up ankle in a locked up shoe, your body is going to have to get that mobility, when you walk when you run from somewhere else in your body, like your knee or your hip. So and the way we look at it is your foot should be a mobile joint, your knee shouldn’t be a stable joint, and your hips should be a mobile joint. So we have mobility, stability, mobility. So again, if you lock up your ankle, and you lock it up in a shoe, most people will start to see knee pain, which is exactly what happened to me. So orthotics can treat part of the problem. But if you are, gosh, if you want to if you don’t feel like you can move sometimes people been like, Well, why orthotics, you know, when their pain is I had to take him out of my work shoe and into my running shoe. And you know, it’s kind of okay, but you know, I can’t move really well. And then where I can’t cut and it’s because well you you’ve changed the mechanics of what’s happening at your ankle joint where you’ve locked it into a certain position, right, because of orthotics, you’re going to put your foot into a certain position, which is only functional for that position. But your foot should have to roll through motion not just be locked in one position. So orthotics can work for some I would say they don’t work for most or again, they treat the symptom. They don’t treat the problem overall. So we’ve had a lot like I switched to I was so stubborn CJ knows this. I was so stubborn to switch to vivos as part of your charm, it is inherent skeptic I am I needed like I needed data. I needed science that said like no this is right other than like CG was like, Oh, this is cool and trendy and I’m just barefoot and
Paden
I stargazing or something. Yeah.
Kaleena
And earthing are such different creatures, but like you’re so rad, which is on such different levels. So good. But I switched to the Barefoot issues and my poor, gunky locked up ankles started to get some much needed mobility back. Yeah. And my knee pain went away within four to six weeks, like drastically reduced because I used to have I had really funky angles. I had to take my ankles, right like for soccer, if you’re trying to cut in there, if they’re shocked and they have no stability. you tape them up so my ankles were always taped. So they didn’t have any motion. So inherently I taught my feet, my ankles to be really good. Just locked up. Yeah. And then when it came to the real world, it just didn’t apply.
Paden
Well, do you remember when I was getting a tailor bunion after Jackson? Yeah, my second pregnancy. And all of a sudden I’m wearing these super cute mom shoes called pawns. I don’t know maybe in three months, it’d be like I’m wearing the mom shoe. But these are like, Oh, I’m like hippie, California stylish Mom, look, I don’t even try him. So cool. And I was like, of course, they should have the shoes, which is of course where the vanity and behavioral stuff starts to really get a sidetrack. But it was really Clent like it was like putting a lot of pressure around my very wide foot around the was it a part of my foot. And so squishing it. And I would go in these long walks for like an hour with the baby wearing the babies are no extra weight and chasing a toddler around. And that’s just my daily thing. And within like two months, I had a full Taylor bunion popping out on my right foot and I could I would cry in pain with these shoes or any shoes that were like really confining around the width of my foot. And I remember complaining to you about it, and you really use me to wear barefoot shoes, like I swear it’s gonna help you and I was like, Oh God, it can’t be that simple. And I was like, That’s too obvious. Let me just go on vacation in my super cute brand new flip flops or not even flip flops because those might actually been better. But like more constraining sandals around the middle part of my foot and I go to Mexico and then I’m like walking barefoot on the beach and I have this moment where I look in the sand. And there’s this warped ass footprint in the sand and I look at Michael and I’m like damn, somebody has like a really funky You foot and Michael looks at me like, you lack so much self awareness. sad little person and he looks at me he’s like, those are your footprints in the sand. And I was like, horrified. And it was this moment of dammit. Okay, I need to go get these barefoot shoes and like get on the board board with it. And now I wear vivos and they make a huge difference and that Taylor bunion is gone. Yeah. And I’m wearing ponds again. So I’m back in my cute mom, she I just won’t go on long walks in them. And I won’t wear them for more than like an hour.
Kaleena
Yeah. That’s crazy. It is. And I mean, that’s like with heels to why so many women get bunions with heels because it’s the same thing. it squishes that toe box. Yeah. And it just, you know, like I I remember like, my pinky toe would just be like layered on top of that, that wrapping your toe and then just like stuck there. And you’re like, Oh, well, that’s just that’s just how that lives now. Like, you just don’t think otherwise. Until you switch to something else. You’re like, Oh my God, my toes are supposed to spread apart actually, when I’m barefoot like it’s it’s wild how those we don’t we treat our feet so poorly. Yeah. Or we just we just don’t think about them as being like a muscle or some sort of like part of our body that needs to be loved and appreciated. Even though we abuse them so much like Well,
Paden
I’m laughing because I’ve heard so many people go, I just got the bad genes of my grandma’s feet. Yeah. And it’s like, Did you though, because in my family, we would like circle up and like practice trying to get that little pinky toe and our foot to like, spread out and it’d be like, Oh, you have my feet. You have my feelings? No, we just all wear heels shoved our feet into these heels. Is it really genetic? Or is it terrain? Like we’ve trained them in these horrible shoes? Yeah. And I remember my great aunt looking at me and be like, you’ve just got my my feet and I like looked at her feet horrified because she’s like these horrible bunions. And like they’re fully in that permanent heel position. Yeah. Oh, isn’t I’m like, That is not good. I need to reverse that.
Kaleena
Oh, totally. Just like watching them into and like for somebody who doesn’t have arches, I would die going into heels because heels are they’re sloped and you’re like your toes or your toes are extended. But they have this origin was like, Why don’t they make heels was just like a piece of plywood that’s just flat so that my feet could walk in heels. But you’re just in this such as unnatural, cramped foot position. It’s so miserable, like your feet desperately want to relax. Like when you when you step down, your foot is supposed to expand. Like if they think of their like landing pads. Yeah, is always like the coolest. But if you think of like cat paws, when they step you can physically see all their little toes, they just land and it’s this big pa pad because they need that support. Right? Everything spreads out. So they’re stable. But for whatever reason, as humans we’ve decided why would we support let’s a wedge it into something that has a dime size stability point on those stiletto heels. And then just the forefoot, you know, just the forefoot were like, two points in contact should be enough. Yeah, like and try to walk like that life
Paden
isn’t challenging enough. I think I should wear heels. Yeah, and walk around
Unknown Speaker
those for a while.
Kaleena
If heels were natural, we would all we wouldn’t have to practice walking in them. Like do you remember as a teenager putting them on and walking those?
Paden
Oh, well, I would actually practice as if I would be on a catwalk ever in my life. Like as if that was actually going to be my future mentality. You know, I am only five five but it’s for sure gonna be me. And like in high school, I’d be like, let me just get like the hips to go the perfect way. Like jazz dancing my way in heels first, for present or performances and
Kaleena
horrible. Yeah, yeah. But that’s why we’re not good at them. Because our bodies are not designed to walk in heels. Well, like it is a full on trained behavior that we’re doing.
Paden
All right, final question as we talk about sort of the behavioral side of how we shove our bodies into postures, positions and footwear to look and appeal to our to other humans and our inner egos and our inner egos for sure. Because we’ve we’ve said I have to be this to be valued, loved, etc. Like what are your personal feelings on that and if you were talking directly to the hearts of listeners that go, shoot, I kind of feel like I need heels to feel good about myself. What would your message be?
Kaleena
Such a good question. You don’t need heels to look good that comes from the inside out for sure having that internal conversation of what makes you not look good, but feel good. You know, and that’s that’s a thing that takes a little bit more digging in will be more than self reassurance and self confidence. But Self confidence is not anything that anyone can give to you. Like Self confidence is fully something you give yourself So having that that little internal conversation of I don’t need these heels to feel good. Or even ask yourself like, do I feel good after I wear them? Or does this cause me anxiety then? No, it’s probably not worth it to go through that. My husband had asked me one time, he was like, hey, like, how come you don’t wear heels anymore. And my husband is six one, he’s a tall guy, like, and I’m five, five on a good day. So he was like, I kind of like when you were young, because you know, like, almost, I have it with me. And I was like, Babe, we got married, I don’t have squirrels anymore.
Paden
I’ve retired, I’m really trying to land a mate for life move, you know,
Kaleena
and if it’s causing you pain, and you like wearing heels, everything in moderation, just like honestly anything else or change the type of heels you wear wear a wedge wedge at least is have a little bit more support on them than say, like a stiletto. But finding, finding another way to get that height that you’re looking for, but not destroying your body in the process of doing that.
Paden
And then any parting wisdom for trainers who are listening this resonating with this going, Oh, my gosh, you just described 40% of my clientele. And maybe they don’t have mobility worked in, or they don’t have some of the things that we’ve stumbled across in gymnasts that have really helped us in our training program, like what things would you say, okay, that describes your clients, these are some of the things I would have you do in your training programs. For style?
Kaleena
Yeah, well, like you said, if you have that client who does that incorporating some sort of mobility, but you can disguise mobility, that’s kind of the fun thing you can do, you can just tweak your position or tweak the action to where you say cam looking for this, this exact angle at your foot joint, there are 1000 different ways that you can get that angle at that foot joint and disguise it with weights or with loading doesn’t have to be intense loading. But you can do different sorts of lunges, you can go into different planes of motion, you can use a wood wedge, we use wood wedges all the time with live love it, it’s super fun functional, for even if you have somebody who’s preparing you like a snowboarding trip and have to go downhill, doing squats on something like that, or somebody who needs to go hiking, you have to get them going uphill, using wood wedges to get that ankle, essentially, you’re pre positioning them for success, or failure, you know, depends on how you do that. But you can disguise mobility. And you can disguise joint biomechanics through exercise, you don’t have to say, we’re going to totally stop everything because you need to foam roll and stretch your calves only, like that’s not going to be what your client wants. So you need to you need to have enough to sneak it in there. It’s kind of the coolest way to do that. But if you got a client who really wants to fix that, give them homework, when most of our clients, we see him one time a week, guess what, we’re not going to undo the damage that they did all week, they need to do something at home, and you’re going to provide more value to them. And they’ll keep coming back for more because if they do their homework, and they go, you took away my knee pain, you took away my back pain, you just you just grew exponentially in their world and gained so much more credibility because you said by the way, I want you to do five minutes of this exercise every single day or take your heels off, do this immediately after you’re done. Take your heels off when you get home. be something simple as just like foam, rolling your calves and stretching your calves. Yeah, you know, and that changes all of a sudden their perception of you and that percentage of their perception of how they treat their body.
Paden
And just another to add to that I know I love what you guys do after your one on one sessions. Gymnazo is always film homework in video form describing it because it’s it’s so classic that people go okay, yeah, I’ll do it. And they walk out. And just like from a client perspective, it’s like, oh, shoot, I forgot what they said. I think it was something about this doorway, and like moving in this funky way. And you’re like, forget it. I’m just gonna watch Netflix. Yeah, and it’s like, but if you have something super quick and easy, then it removes the friction to actually following through and that that also gets a lot of people people will pay for results. Yeah, and sometimes just that hour, like you said, isn’t gonna be enough to reverse the damage and we’re habit stacking we’re trying to make small shifts on top of one another over time to create exponential results. So yeah,
Kaleena
and the video is great too. Like you said people leave here and they totally forget what you said. But there’s an accountability piece of it to the next time they come back to see you because they don’t have an excuse for why didn’t you do your homework? Oh, I forgot when you turn your phone. Yeah. So if you are coming to me and you are complaining about your back pain in your knee pain, I gave you some homework to do and you didn’t do any of it for the last week. That’s not our responsibility per se like you have to that self ownership of that is huge is a huge piece of it. To all
Paden
our listeners. This is why clean it goes by coach all the team because she is a tough one when it comes to taking personal responsibility for your results and people love her for it. So there you go. If Thank you so much for being with me today and talking about all the postural concerns with women around behavioral issues and trying to look our best so we can feel our best versus feeling our best so that we can present ourselves with more confidence naturally. I love it.
Kaleena
Thanks, pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Michael Hughes
Hey all. I hope you guys enjoyed today’s episode. And if you did, please share it with your fitness obsessed friends and peers who are also navigating this world of fitness and trying to succeed the trends and misinformation. As you guys can see, this podcast is basically a masterclass for trainers wanting to level up in their coaching skills, and their fitness business model. We launched this in 2020. Because you and your fitness tribe deserve to see an unfiltered look at all the aspects of what it takes to stand out as a next generation coach, and build a successful fitness business sell, share it far and wide. And please, when you do do me a favor, take a screenshot of this screen and share it to your social media accounts and use the hashtag Gymnazo podcast that’s hashtag Gymnazo podcast that way we can see you and share your posts with our audience. And finally, when you’re ready, go to the next level as a coach or in your business. And to reach more people, please go check out gymnazoedu.com. We have put together the best 90 Day coaching program on the market for trainers wanting to become a masterful practitioner and build a business that gives them the freedom and impact. So let us help you do just that. We have online training and one on one coaching to guide you through a full 90 Day certification. We even get you training our clients live because it’s always better to work out your kinks on someone else’s clients than yours. But we promise you this, your clients will be blown away by the transformation our program will help you make you’ll be masterful at a whole new level and part of an incredible community of coaches worldwide, taking their skills to the next level. So if you thought to this episode, it had some fire to it and inspired you to take action. Wait until we see what we deliver on this program. So just go to gymnazoedu.com. And we’ll see you on the other side. Remember that turning your passion for fitness into transformation and sustainable business is critical to reaching the people and lives you were put on earth to help it matters and truly can make an impact in other people’s lives. So hope you do that. Keep sharing a passion and we’ll talk to you soon.
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