In this interview, Lisa talks to physiotherapists, entrepreneurs and podcaster Brodie Sharpe on the science of pain, how pain starts in the brain and how we can negatively reinforce or positively intercept pain and the experience of it. Lisa and Brodie do a deep dive into the psychology of pain and injury and how to optimize your healing abilities. They also delve into REDS - Relative Energy Deficit and it's implications for optimal sporting performance and health and much more. Brodie is the host of " The Run Smarter Podcast" and is an online physio you can find Brodie at the following links. Links to facebook group: 'Become a smarter runner' https://www.facebook.com/groups/833137020455347/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brodie.sharpe/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/BrodieSharpe Website: www.breakthroughrunning.physio Bio: Graduated from Masters of Physiotherapy 2012. Owner of The Breakthrough Running Clinic: Online Physiotherapy for runners of all abilities. Podcast host: The Run Smarter Podcast. We would like to thank our sponsors for this show: www.vielight.com Makers of Photobiomodulation devices that stimulate the brains mitocondria, the power houses of your brains energy, through infrared light to optimise your brain function. To get 10% off your order use the code: TAMATI at www.vielight.com For Lisa's New Book Relentless visit the website below to order https://shop.lisatamati.com/products/relentless When extreme endurance athlete, Lisa Tamati, was confronted with the hardest challenge of her life, she fought with everything she had. Her beloved mother, Isobel, had suffered a huge aneurysm and stroke and was left with massive brain damage; she was like a baby in a woman's body. The prognosis was dire. There was very little hope that she would ever have any quality of life again. But Lisa is a fighter and stubborn.
She absolutely refused to accept the words of the medical fraternity and instead decided that she was going to get her mother back or die trying.
For more information on Lisa Tamati's programs, books and documentaries please visit www.lisatamati.com For Lisa's online run training coaching go to https://www.lisatamati.com/page/runningpage/ Join hundreds of athletes from all over the world and all levels smashing their running goals while staying healthy in mind and body. Lisa's Epigenetics Testing Program https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics/ Get The User Manual For Your Specific GenesSpeaker 1: (00:01)
Welcome to pushing the limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host, Lisa Tamati, brought to you by Lisatamati.com
Speaker 2: (00:13)
If your brain is not functioning at its best checkout what the team at vielight.com do now be like producers, photo biomodulation devices. Your brain function depends largely on the health of the energy sources of the brain cells. In other words, the mitochondria and research has shown that stimulating your brain with near infrared light revitalizes mitochondria. I use these devices daily for both my own optimal brain function and also for other age related decline issues and also for my mom's brain rehabilitation after her aneurism and stroke. So check out what the team do at vielight.com that's V I E L I G H t .com and use the code Tommasi at checkout to get 10% off any of their devices. Now this week I have running physiotherapists, Brodie sharpe, two guest from Melbourne. Now, Brody has been on the podcast earlier talking about prevention of running injuries, but today we delve a little bit deeper into the science of pain, how much our brain influences and the way we frame a pain in our minds and our perceptions of it and how that actually affects our healing process.
Speaker 2: (01:28)
So it's a really, really interesting topic. We also get into a relative energy deficit which is looking at overtraining in the problems associated with pushing your body too hard, too fast when you don't have enough nutrients going in. So make sure you check this out. Now before I go and hit over to Brody, just want to remind you my book relentless is coming out next week. So the time of this podcast is the beginning of March and it's going to be out on the 11th of March. So if you're listening to this after that date, it will already be published. We are going to be launching starting a new Plymouth and we have a launch tour going right through New Zealand. So if you're keen to come and meet me, if you want to find out more about the book you can come and meet me at one of the launch events.
Speaker 2: (02:14)
Head on over to Lisa Tamati And you'll see the book launch tour and you can also already preorder the book now at my show in my shop. So Lisatamati.com Push the shop button and it will take you over to the box and the shop. Okay, so now over to Brodie sharpe in Melbourne. Well, hi everybody. Welcome back to pushing the limits with Lisa Tamati today. I have Brodie sharpie with me, Brodie is in Australia and he is a physiotherapist with a bent for running people by putting an eyebrow Barney. And Barney has been already a guest on the show. We don't have many repeat these solar shy, but Brody's knowledge is just insane. He has really some specialized areas that he's working in that and I want
Speaker 3: (03:00)
It to Shay with you guys, his latest insights and also he's got a brand new podcast themselves. So he's going to tell you a little bit about that. But for only welcome to the show. Thanks Lisa. Thanks for having me. And congratulations with the new book as well. Oh, thanks. It's not a Coke maybe know two weeks and I can at least get this baby out, but it's been a rough road now Brodie, just because people haven't heard your first interview that we did, can you give them a quick sort of synopsis of who you are and what you do? Yeah, sure. So I'm from Melbourne, Australia and I've been a physiotherapist for about seven years. This go into my it and now, and it was about two years into my physio career that I started running and becoming a runner and just realized as soon as I started running and went through my own running injuries myself, that I just became a lot more passionate seeing Ramez.
Speaker 3: (03:59)
And as soon as the Ronald would come in the door, I'd have this like and passion and just want to talk about all things running all like, do you measure your cadence, what are you training for, what shoes you're wearing, all that sort of thing. And yeah, I just was really passionate about ah, getting them back onto the track and seeing them achieve their running goals and just overcoming the injuries, getting back to whatever goals I have and sort of bound a need and wanted to just address that more. I want to say more runners. I want to say more people getting back to the running goals. And so started a couple of things. I started everyday running legends podcast, which was like a passion project of mine. Trying to inspire a lot of people. And now I've just transitioned to a bit more on the business side of things.
Speaker 3: (04:49)
Starting my new company, it's called the breakthrough running clinic and I'm offering a online physio for runners. Yeah, yeah. Has taken me into then the last couple of months starting another podcast called the run smarter podcast. Wow. That's a whole lot for a to be doing one at once. Cause I know what it's like to start a new company in online especially. So congratulations on that. And you know, the last time we did speak gosh, it must be a year and a half or something like that ago. Yeah, you were thinking about the sentence. It's really nice to see that you've actually taken the leap in starting to transition out and onto your own and then into your own employer and you know, in your editing all the time to your knowledge base. And that's what I really love about you, is that you're, you're constantly on the search for the next and the, you know, constant learning. So we've, we've got a lot to talk about today. So Brodie, I wanted to start and yeah, everybody go and check out the run smarter podcast. So make sure you do subscribe to that and, you know, take advantage of meeting these core people by the forecasts
Speaker 2: (05:57)
And get more knowledge from Bryony. But probably let's talk about now going into pain and what is pain? And we've all experienced it. Well, none of us like it. Well, most of us don't. There's a few myths that's around, but what does Brian, and why is the brain what does pain and what does the brain have to do with it and why is it so important to be looking at deeper levels of pain and what, what's going on?
Speaker 3: (06:23)
Yeah. Cool. I should start with like, I'm no expert on the actual pain science, but I have delved into a lot of the books in a, all of the research and I've put together a little bit of a mini series a, my new podcast about this. It's the pain science explaining the pain science and it's hard for people to kind of wrap their mind around because a lot of people get really defensive when a health professional or doctor talk to someone about their chronic pain and say, it's all in your head. And, Hmm. I've had clients in my clinic come in with years and years of low back pain or knee pain and they sit down, they're a bit frustrated and they say, the doctor says it's all in my head, but it's not all in my head. I can feel it and I kind of associate it all being in their head, like they're making it up. Yeah. But that's not the case at all. And we have known for a long time now that 100% of the pain that you experience is from your brain. That's where the science lies and saying it's all in your head is kind of poor. Mmm. Well it can be misinterpreted really. Yeah. Really quickly and well they're trying to say is it's from your brain and it's how your brain perceives a threat. That's when all the pain signals arise. Like you could have,uyou could have someone who
Speaker 3: (07:51)
Believes has certain beliefs that increases a threat. Well, certain beliefs that day crisis, that threat and the pain signals generated signify that. And a couple of examples I use on my podcast is, Mmm. Like you hear a lot of stories of people of not knowing like that been mugged and yeah. Adrenaline is pumping and I don't really know that they've actually been stabbed in the back or it's just like, Oh, go on too quickly. They don't realize and yeah, I have no idea. It's not until later on when they realized that's when the pain starts. There's also a could go the other way where someone has some really, really Manet pain
Speaker 3: (08:32)
And okay. The, the level of damage is really, really low. But the brain starts to think, ah, had knee pain in the past. My mom had knee pain and she was limping for three years and she was on crutches for two months. And what about if I can never run again? I've got this marathon in two weeks. What about if I can never run again? And old days messages that you send yourself fades that Brian and the brain starts to assess the level of threat and we'll produce that adequate level of okay. Depending on what, yeah, not necessary what the thread is. Yeah. So to paraphrase it that it's reinforcing. So yes, there's a, there's a small tissue damage, but it's reinforcing the fact when you, when you focus in on it in a negative way with negative stress towards state of being, and sometimes it can be blown out of proportion.
Speaker 3: (09:25)
And I love the analogy with the, you know, you've been stamped in the back, but you don't feel that because you're so adrenalized. So that's, yeah, it's actually, you know, a neuro transmitter actually dampening down the pain responses. So just a question that pops to mind. They're like, I know when I've had a huge, horrendous blusters for example, right? And you'd stop for a break and then you get back out there and the pine isn't signed for the first 10 minutes and mean it, it's a really possess sort of, I don't know if people have had that experience where every time you stop and have a break and then restart, that's when you notice the does a hundred times more. You know, it's more extreme and then after 10 minutes or so it's like the endorphins or something kicks back in and the pain level becomes manageable.
Speaker 3: (10:15)
So what's going on in that sort of a case? Can you, do you know what's happening? Oh, I could try to answer it the best I can. The first, the first concept I talk about in the podcast is a context. What, what sort of context do you give? The scenario and I played a clip on the podcast, this guy called Lorimer Moseley. He has the, is the author of this explained pine book. And he uses the example of he's walking in the Bush and he trips over a twig and scratches his legs. Nothing really happens. He's like, Oh, it's this used to watch your legs all the time. You used to scratch your legs on twigs when you were a kid. This is not a big deal. And it turns out he was bitten by a snake and he was in hospital and his a life threatening scenario.
Speaker 3: (11:05)
Yeah. But he didn't experience any pain until he realized he was bitten by the snake. A couple of years later on that same track and he finds that he clips his foot on something and he's in extreme pain because the Brian things hang on you a, he, he is a guy I knew almost died. Level of threat goes up. And uho he's in extreme levels of pain, but then realized it was only a twig. And so it's what the, the Brian tends to interpret. So going back to your blister question, as you can stop running, the Brian can say, Oh look, I'm running and I'm not dying. I'm okay. There's no real threat. Yes, it hurts, but I'm not limping. I'm not. Um'm still continuing. Like it's not the, the level of threat isn't as bad as like another injury per se. And so the, ah,
Speaker 2: (11:54)
I guess you could say the level of threats starts the day, Christ and then nice and really say it as much of a priority. I wonder if there's some neurotransmitters involved here. You don't like endorphins and stuff that was 200 or something that it actually dampens down the pain response or whether it is your cause. Another, another example I'll give was around, you know, when I ran through New Zealand and we're doing 2,250 and 42 days at two now. Mmm. And at the beginning, the first two weeks it was just getting worse and worse. And like the pain was horrific in my body was falling to pieces and noon system was going up. And watching all the rays. And it got to a point where I just had absolute rock bottom and I didn't think I could continue, but I did continue. When I did continue, I actually, we back up the other side.
Speaker 2: (12:39)
I actually got stronger and stronger and it was almost like the body's way of going, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. You're over. You know your apps that you're going to kill us, so I'm going to throw everything at you to stop. And then you didn't stop. So it went like, shit, we've got to get on with it. And we've been dealing with it and you actually got better and stronger. And I've heard that phenomenon from other ultra runners who've done thousands of kilometer races that that's what happens. And actually gets, goes really down to the rock bottom. And then if you don't stop at sea, it comes back up. And you see it even an ultra marathons where you think you're at the end and then you, you keep pushing on somehow slowly, you know, groveling your way forward and then all of a sudden you back, you know, and you don't know why or how or, or, and that's not just a pain thing, but it's more of a,uan energy thing as well.
Speaker 2: (13:31)
But it is bizarre. Had a body like we, when it perceives a threat, sorry, I say an example when I'll stop. I promise I'll stop giving examples, but let's say an example is every, almost every major race that I've done where it's been a big steering horrifying, these threatening rice if you liked, you know, 200 K or something like that. The days ahead of the race, I, I seem to always end up with either an injury, a cold or something happens in the end up not being in good shape. I think it's the body's knowing this battle is coming in. It's trying to stop you from actually standing on the start line, if that makes sense. Do any way you it teams to be a nonevent. It's like the body is faking it. Just try and stop you actually taking on this because it sees it as a threat and knows a threat is coming.
Speaker 2: (14:32)
Yeah. I think when I was talking about the pain science side of things, I tended to stay, I guess I didn't cover the endorphin side, like in the heat of the moment type of pain because that's definitely a science that is proven and shown that if you have these endorphins they can get you through these like a really intense moments. Insurance athletes. I just have another mindset that is far beyond what anyone else can experience. But it's funny that you have that story because if it's a really long endurance rice and you're doing month's wakes, so like days and days of these intense exercise, your body's going to think, not ready for this. Let's start. Yeah. Giving out signals for the body to slow down because this is a threat, right? As soon as you go through that dip and you sort of see the other side has gone through its shock and it's almost like you're convincing it, yeah, we can do this.
Speaker 2: (15:36)
Let's, let's go do this. Then there's definitely these peaks and troughs in those troughs usually come at like the halfway point where you lock audits, don't know if I can do this, but then when your mind is so strong, yeah, you're like, no, I don't care how bad we're feeling. We're doing this. The body's like, okay, let's do it. And so, Mmm. Stop prioritize other things rather than pain and say, okay, let's do what we can to get through this. Yes, I really believe that. So I mean, this is transgressing from just purely a painting, but also, you know, and that whole mindset thing and when you go in it, you know, same with the story with my mom. When you go all in and when you have an open mind to the possibilities of therapies outside of what you know, you were told as possible.
Speaker 2: (16:22)
And this is the issue that I have with doctors taking away people's hope or giving people terminal Tim prognosis. You know, you've got terminal cancer and you're going to die in three months. Well, you've just bloody he and did before by sick late because you, you, you've seen that seed in the, in the brain in and that becomes a reality. You're like, it's a self fulfilling prophecy often. And there've been examples of this where people, you know, subsequently died within the time frame they've done the autopsy and there's nice no cancer misdiagnosis off that or something. And people go, well, why did they die in that timeframe? Because you've set your mind onto something and whatever you believe. And so one of the things that, with this book is that I want people to understand that either even when the doctors is telling you there is no way you have to, if you want to chance it, success, you have to go all in and ignore the naysayers completely.
Speaker 2: (17:23)
Whether they have a scientific point or not, you know whether they're actually correct or not. If you want a chance at beating the odds, then you have to go in with an attitude of not, not listening to that. Absolutely rejecting that I'm doing it my way and this is why we going because only thing do you have a tiny chance of actually making it. That's not the same. You will make it but then is to say that you have a chance because your mind is at least going on that road and you'll see things, you will learn things, you will find things that you wouldn't otherwise find. And one of the problems that I've, you know, cause I work now with a lot of people with brain injuries of nature or Alzheimer's or things that it's icing pretty major going nicely in. The problem they have with a lot of people is they don't in to what I'm saying 100% and they don't have an open mind and they have that.
Speaker 2: (18:16)
I'll try it attitude and then try it. Attitude is never ever going to get you there. Not with something as major as what, you know, when you're dealing with a mess of running a vein or a mess of healthy, you have to be, I'm going all in and my mind is open and I'm taking all this information and I'm going to price this as that and I'm going to actually be proactive. And if you go on, you know with a halfhearted attitude towards it, you don't have a show, you know, because we are talking about beliefs as well, like whatever you believe is what the brain is going to perceive. And so if you go in half-heartedly, that's not shifting your belief at all. It's I'll still believe my old thing. Yes, this one a try. It's not shifting any of that belief and you won't be successful.
Speaker 2: (19:07)
And I, and I've seen this time and the time of the game with the people and I can almost predict who are the ones that are going to have at least some level of success because they're all then that, you know, if you tell me to jump and put a Karen up on eyes, I'll do it because they are all in on the process in. And it's not about even what therapies are you doing or what are you, what are you achieving? It's the mindset first, go in with an approach into any challenge that you're facing in pain. And the hard thing with pain is that it's so intense, you know, and it's so immediate. I've been in situations, you know, I've had incredible create a big bad pain with a few of the health issues that I've dealt with. Without going into the details where I was, you know, trying to mobilize all my mental power to control the pain and was still unable to, you know, I was still unable head to get morphine shot or whatever for it to go.
Speaker 2: (20:06)
But the mass boy to get in there, like when you've got an acute pain happening and you're trying to breathe through it and you're trying to, you know, you see the ladies and giving birth and they're told to just breathe and relax and it sounds so ridiculous. But the more you fight it worse it actually is. And that's what they're trying to portray. But it isn't as easy as just, Oh well, you know, I'll take myself off to a happy place and it'll go away. I wish it was that easy, but it isn't quite that easy with intense, really intense finds at least. So what else can you tell us about the pain? You said fear plays a part, you previous experience plays apart. The context that you associate around this pain by a major Norman most Mosely or Mosely. Was it hard to say? I know I saw his Ted talk on that and actually I've seen it to my brother who was dealing with some back injury issues. And I think that was, that was really gold, you know? Yeah. And you thought that the snake was like, so it is already good. Thing. Okay. So anything else you want to add onto the painful session?
Speaker 3: (21:24)
Yes. If we're talking about beliefs and if someone does have a running injury, I ask people to have a, a good self reflection of what beliefs you have held onto. Because I say a lot of injured runners and especially those ones who have multiple running injuries or really chronic running injury, they have certain beliefs. They'll say, ah my health professional in the past has said that I have one leg longer than the other and my glutes on the left side doesn't fire right. And my hips go out of line. If I run 10 Ks and I just need to readjust that and stop firing up my glutes again, I don't know how, I don't know how to activate my glutes, but they're just not working right now. And my fate collapse and all this sort of stuff. And it's this extremely disempowering belief that they have.
Speaker 3: (22:19)
And how are they meant to thrive if they keep fading that Brian with these beliefs? As soon as I go for run, the Brian's going to be like, but why you have a one leg longer than the other? And those messages will stop fading the body and they will start arising as like I said, it's really, really disempowering. And if you play yourself victim to those beliefs, you just going to continuously have these injuries and it's not until you shift your focus and all those things I mentioned these leg length discrepancies and hips out align, there's no, you like science around that. If you have a one centimeter leg length discrepancy, it's not going to affect you by mechanics or what's firing or anything. There is science. Once you get beyond 20 mil leg length discrepancy, that's when it comes Flowly start to yeah, change of biomechanics. But it's extremely rare that someone has that level of discrepancy. It's like usually a couple of mail here and there. And so really what those beliefs, you give yourself a, has some self reflection and say if, what if the beliefs you have, if they really, really serving you or if they're hitting in the other direction.
Speaker 2: (23:30)
They definitely are. And then I kind of agree with you more and things like, you know, I'm an aesthetic need for our current run. You know, the amount of times that I've heard that. And it's like, do you want to seek an ominous meadow? I know lots of other rest medics who run and we, you know, like as a child with severe asthmatics, when you, when you, when you program that, that means I cannot do this. That's when you're going to limit yourself as into your potential. And on the other, the other extreme, you know, I've seen people with crazy injuries doing crazy things like, you know there's one league running for Steve's belly or a blind person running across the Sahara and Morocco or a person with model's crisis going across the desert on crutches cause they couldn't run anymore. You know, like it is up to you as to what you believe and how you think that they can be dealt with.
Speaker 2: (24:21)
And you know, one of the, the areas of study that I'm that we do an air company called epigenetic testing and it looks at the different phenotypes and health types of people. And there are certain people and within the, you know, the, the differences of human con isn't like a, there's six different health types and these are a broad overview and there are a couple that have a heightened sensitivity to neuro pain and sensitivity to the environments and seminars. So these are what they call people who are st sores, which are usually very a lot of the development we know are an embryo went into the nervous system development. So they're very brain and nervous system focused and they're very sensitive to the environment into they feel pain more intensely. They are reactive more than they are environment.
Speaker 2: (25:19)
They usually very slim eco, more body types. And they've usually very much in the O'Brien, very cognitive, like very big thinkers. And, and they have a tendency more to be, to feel the pain than say someone who is like an activator, which is another of the types in there. The short, muscular body types, very good coordination, very athletic, and they are dominant hormone is adrenaline in the adrenal and means that they can withstand more pain because they have more adrenaline going through the system. Now it has other disadvantages by having so much adrenaline. But they don't, they're not as sensitive to the pain. Well, they don't experiences it as intensely in someone over have a sense or makeup who's you know, more a similar but hard to explain but limit the sensory overload very quickly. So I think there's some gene genetic reasons why people, some people feel it more than other people as well.
Speaker 2: (26:24)
And again, this comes down to the whole chemical makeup and the dominant hormones and the dominant neurotransmitters that we have running through our bodies to how much we will experience pain and other, other areas as well. So it really, really fascinating talk next time. Yeah, absolutely. Another thing on the fee on the injury side, you know, like again, working with someone who has a back injury and they definitely have a mechanical back injury lessons, couple of disks that are, that are than a bulging and so on. But I'm convinced that the pain is not only from the back injury because I've had that for years that it's suddenly intensified. And I think there's a lot to do with other health issues going on and that's exacerbating it. Things like the gut health is affecting the, the pain levels in the body and the inflammation in the body.
Speaker 2: (27:22)
That put on weight a little bit around the middle, which is pulling me back in a different way. They mop and you probably dehydrated and not doing enough a aerobic exercise. So then stagnant in the periphery. Circulation is stagnant. What are these things contribute to the back pain? And so you can't just go and take an antiinflammatory and think you know, you'll be right or even have surgery and think you'll be alright because you're not addressing the system. And he can eat. We can have a tissue related mechanical reason that you have an injury, but it's not the only part of the equation that you need to be addressing. I mean, I've got four disks that are completely, but there's nothing in between my destiny. I don't have any pain because, but I did, but I spent a lot of time working on, on things like hydration, my immune system, my gut health my core strength in all of these aspects to it and not focusing just on I've got to go and get surgery to fuse the back, which was what was recommended. And I now don't have any touch word time, which I used to have on an absolute, you know, debilitating
Speaker 3: (28:41)
Navel. I'll quickly add, like when we're talking about mechanical pine and a law of back in discs and things like that we need to be really careful with how we explain these to patients and how people interpret their scan findings. And there's, if you're beyond 40 years old and into the 50 sixties, there's going to be date generation, there's going to be disclosures, there's going to be all these findings. Which can lay like which can be asymptomatic. And if you have, if you scan a hundred healthy paper with no pain whatsoever, you scan their backs up to, well, depending on the age, let's say if they're about 50 up to 80% of them are going to have some disc bulges. They're going to have some degeneration, they're going to show some findings and they're all healthy. They're showing no pain. So with back pain comes in and they're like, I want to get a scan and I scan that show these disc bulges.
Speaker 3: (29:33)
Okay, is this related to their pain? Who knows because they're you know, you've got all these studies of all these healthy people that have these findings. How can we correlate the two? There are very, very low percentage people that will have like a really significant disc protrusion that's obstructing one of the nerves or impinging one of the nerves, which usually causes like weakness and like permanent numbness down the leg. That's a very serious condition. But when I have someone come into my clinic and they've had years of back pain, they like, well, could all this look at all these scans. I like shelve these results into my face. And they're like, look, look at this level, this level, this level. And you have to really peg them back a little bit and show them, okay. You need to give them a little bit of reassurance as well because they are panicking and it doesn't really serve them with their rehabilitation. So you need to be really careful with how you deal with these sort of clients.
Speaker 2: (30:26)
Yes. And, and then actually, you know, doing proactive things before you grow up to surgery. You know, like, let's try strengthening the core. Let's try sorting your gut bacteria out. Let's try re reducing the inflammation load in your body through other means. You know, cutting out the bad stuff and doing more, more aerobic exercise and, and doing these things in more sleep. And you know, all of these basic things, they, a lot of people neglect because they, they want the more complicated answer they want. The more the surgery, the pill though, whatever that might, it's going to make it this magically go away and see the taking a systems approach and it, everything that we don't, we always looking at the whole system as best as we can with our knowledge. You know, it's understanding what could be possibly contributing it before we go and get code under the knife, which is addressed at thing for anybody to do.
Speaker 2: (31:18)
So like it's worth my opinion trying everything else before we try that route, you know. And you know, if I hadn't done what I'd done, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be speaking from experience, but yeah, it was either get four discs fuse, which would be a huge, I'd never be as mobile again or I'd probably never be able to do a lot of things if I'd done it. And now just spending a huge amount of time in the core. There's a lot of exercise and work that goes into keeping my core and my, you know, my back and all that happen or these areas strong but on pain-free. And I know this is only one anecdotally example of this, but it's not an isolated case and same. Sure. But, okay. So now let's, let's leave the pain conversation now. Read one of your blogs on read East. Can you explain that and what the heck you mean by by that?
Speaker 3: (32:18)
Yeah. Relative energy deficiency in sport is a recognized condition. It used to be the female triad which I'll explain in a second, but now it's applied to males also cause they say this and it's a condition where you have like your body. The best I can explain it is like your body has a certain amount of energy that it can dissipate when you exercise. And if you, you need to replace that energy with things like nutrition, like proper diet. If you really exceed the app, put your energy output and your input doesn't make that level. Your body is going to stop producing, I guess you could call it output energy by extracting minerals from your muscles, from your bones and just try, they have to get the energy from some way. It can't be just created out of thin air.
Speaker 3: (33:15)
And so if you're starting to do more and more work, if you're starting to really push yourself and get into ultras and all that stuff and you're not feeding yourself the right energy, then you're going to get into this energy deficit. And so the energy deficit, if it's over a longer period of time it can take enough minerals out of the bone and stop causing things like stress fractures. It can redirect the energy from say your internal organs and you can start having gut issues and all they sort of things. And it can just be a really downward spiral into a lot of injuries, a lot of stress, a lot of chronic issues and it can get really, really dangerous and can start to lay to a lot of real health complications. And so it used to be very common in females who were in adolescents who were very like had a lot of body image issues and was like under a lot of pressure to perform as well.
Speaker 3: (34:20)
And so they would really work hard but also not feed themselves enough because they wanted to have a better image of themselves. And if they were told that any to lose a few kilos or whatever have you. So they're working hard on the track and they're also not feeding their body and they would start having like an altered menstrual cycle or because their body is redirecting preferences away from the internal organs and they started having gut issues because we're redirecting that we need to prioritize the, the energy output like the running and the body's always going to give your energy to the the physical activity that you're giving yourself. Because if you think evolutionary, you need to run away from a predator. That is the highest priority that the body's going to give is the physical output. And so then the internal guts and the, the minerals from all the other stuff that is gathering all those resources and putting it into that energy output and can lead to really, really serious consequences over training syndrome or adrenal adrenal burnout would also play into this. So I'm full of today
Speaker 2: (35:38)
As a young girl was a gymnast. And of course we would tell we had to lose weight all the time cause we had to be tiny, tiny, tiny and I was way too heavy. And that lead to a whole lot of complications. And that's very common thing with young pubescent girls, especially when they, you know, chatting the body shapes changing as well. So they hope, you know, self-image just changing. And then you're told you're fat all the time. It's brought in taught senior girls to gymnastics or something. I can say old ballet unless they're really, really tiny and don't have an issue with us. And then looking at even things like I'm studying DNA at the moment in looking at the hormone cascade and which which costs you, your body type. So if you're an anger dominant female, a female who produces quickly from your progesterone into testosterone, but very slowly into estrogens, then you're very likely, if you overtrain you, you're very likely to lose your mutual stock cycle, which is a very big red flag.
Speaker 2: (36:38)
If anybody is experiencing that. It's not something to go, well let's describe it on you have a period every month. No, this is a serious health events. You need to be looking at why that's happening. So if you yeah, if you and your dominant and you, you know, usually you have this small embrace and you're very likely to lose your, your cycle very quickly so you can go into over-training quite quickly. And if your Easter dominant, then you can, it depends on which way you cross this in the estrogens and that's another conversation. But what, what is really important at known here is that you are running the rest when you over train, you're not actually improving when you're actually training to the optimum levels. So when you overtrain all that hardware that you're putting into it is then being wasted because you're not recovering and not giving it the nutrients.
Speaker 2: (37:34)
And when, like you said, when you are under stress and your body will prioritize the physical energy because of the fight or flight syndrome. So you then you're producing your cortisol and your adrenaline constantly, which a lot of us in dealing with, not on the athletes but just with the lifestyle that we have constant demands from computers and emails and bosses and sewn bows. So we are in this constant cycle fodder flight and that takes energy away from your immune system, takes energy away from, excuse me, mum's ringing energy away from your immune system, from your ability to fight diseases and infections, your hormonal cycle, everything, your digestive processes, your recovery processes are all in deficit. And this is why optimizing your nutrition on top of, of your training is really important in prioritizing the right amount of recovery. And this is very difficult territory for marathoners, especially if you had the mentality, I'm tough, I can handle it, I can just push her and push her and push Sheree.
Speaker 3: (38:42)
And that can be really problematic, you know because it's a, it's a problem that I've dealt with definitely. Because you, you on the one side you want to be tough
Speaker 2: (38:53)
And push through and you can, and that has great benefits.
Speaker 3: (38:57)
But on the other side, you're actually doing yourself health, the service and you can be fit but unhealthy. Which is a really important point. You might also be interested, I've got a an a podcast episode on this interwoven relationship between sleep and stress and recovery. And I do mention this cortisol that gets released through the body and the importance of that and it's this really interwoven relationship that all those concepts have and the impact it has on your running and your injury risk and performance. It's, it's a really interesting concept that not a lot of people would take into consideration. Like you were saying, people just care about Apple, they just care about running. If I run faster, if I run further, if I do it more frequently, that's how I'm going to get stronger. But it's not really the case. You get stronger, faster when you actually go and sleep better and eat properly. Good. Yeah. To try and hydrogenate a Islay pod. I've been told that a couple of times and it rings for absolutely. So yeah, we have a like a thing like a check list that we get our athletes to do. And you can do this with your HIV apps as well. They, they measure your heart rate variability. But then you can see if you're actually going in.
Speaker 2: (40:14)
So over training, you know, if you're just writing on a scan of one to 10, your hydration is today. Your sleep, your stress levels, your injury levels, your mood, all of these things will give you an indication are you getting in the wrong direction? If you're coming back with low scores and you've got a big training day to day, it might be what do I do? You not to do their training and then leave a love responsibility and not feeling guilty and understanding your body is really something that you have to learn and grow with over time. Or if you've got a great coach, you can say, your numbers aren't looking good on your HIV or whatever you need to call back today. I want you to have a day off. And that's scary for athletes. You know when you're training for some great huge beat and you've got to have a day off, you don't want to go, ah, it's all going to go to custard, but I can tell you if you can, if you start to this and then read your body better, you have a bit of performance on lists on this training.
Speaker 2: (41:07)
Then if you're pushing it to the absolute Instagram and you see this like with athletes in the last three weeks, I haven't done enough training throughout the program and then the last three weeks they're trying to cram in what they didn't do because Oh my God, the rice is around the corner
Speaker 3: (41:21)
And that's the worst thing you can do. Yeah, not going to recover enough to be, I want to run. I'm glad you're talking about this because this is the idea of the podcast. It's called the run smarter podcast because you could train hard, but you actually need to base Mott, and I say this all the time, like Ron says, don't make the best decisions. They really, really don't. And they come into my clinic and they're injured and they tell me about their story. And you feel like you just want to slap people ahead with your hand because they're just talking through their story and you're like, why are you making these decisions? Like why? It just seems that it's Ava, just their drive, their personality and they dislike their perfectionist and I want to perform and they just have to do it. Sometimes it's a bit of an addiction, but sometimes it's this lack of knowledge and they just don't understand the consequences certain things can have and the importance of sleep and recovery and having rest days and having the slow recovery days and, yeah. So it's all about training smarter and being a smarter runoff that's going to lead you to be a better runner.
Speaker 2: (42:21)
Yup. And then that then is, and this is just runners, but for everybody in learning and understanding and having that maturity and you know, having, having done everything wrong in the early years of my career or even in 11 years of my Korea. But now that I'm talking about, I mean, not going back to the release syndrome or would he be Kona? I'm even doing the rice in the Himalaya's. It's 222 K rice and I came back the next week and three, three teeth fell out, you know. See something doesn't it? That the minerals in your body, it just getting smashed the hell XY even in loose to lose teeth means sure. I shit, that's crazy. Yeah. it was pretty extreme. Three tastes and awakens, it speaks of wait for failure. A lot of implants. I mean this is a, you know, I like, I have the speed, an absolute fortune of my mouth as a mortgage in my mouth in a lot of that is because I just over trying to overtrain for years and lost TAFE. Yeah. So and you can imagine what that's doing to your bones and all the other things you cycle and everything else. So sometimes being, being tough and having a strong drive and having a willpower in it and having a mainstream toughness and all that is right. But not at the expense of your health. And you have to sort of have a little bit of experience and wisdom and listen to these sorts of things to try to understand when am I just being an idiot and when am I, you know, really being sensible.
Speaker 3: (43:54)
I think it's like, well, when you talk about that, like how do I know if I'm being sensible? Take her like a birds eye view of your performance in your training over the last six months, 12 months, couple of years. Like have you been battling injuries constantly? Have you been increasing your performance? Have you been increasing your running times? Have you do you feel like you can jump out of bed? Do you feel like you can like stop the day? It's really like, I don't know if it's just a running thing. I think it's like a human thing. We really struggle to like get a mental image of what it's been like the last 12 months. We see in this like little one though and say like I need to perform, I need to get better and to get better and you need to really, really take a step back to analyze all of that thing.
Speaker 3: (44:41)
Like, you know, I know for myself, I haven't really, like I say, if I stopped performing now, I'm going to in one year's time I'm going to be at this level from a two years time. I'm going to be at that level and you can just say it happening. But in the last three years I've got no idea that, so it's taking a, a good bird's eye view of how you're tracking. It could really be a good helpful tool to, like you were talking about saying am I making smarter decisions? Am I you know, taking the goals I want to NMR making the right decisions.
Speaker 2: (45:12)
And, and that's so true. And you know, we are, we are also individuals and this hap spec to the epigenetic stuff, like not everybody's going to respond the same to each training regime like that. We can have a, an athlete that we're training and two of them, they've got the same dog, they've got the same, maybe the same age, the same, seeks the same goals and they'll get completely different results because one has different set of genes and the other one in understanding that they will, and being able to personalize it to the genes. Well that's, you know, just next level information that we can add into the conversation and change the way the times of the day that you do it and the foods that you are eating and all of that sort of information. So it's exciting times that we're living in because we never had insights into this sort of nation area.
Speaker 2: (46:00)
So now, you know, you see people making new records in, in things being broken all the time and even the average person getting much more good results. But I think from this whole conversation and we'll wrap up now, Brodie you know, you've given people a lot of food for thought, a lot of food for thought about the brain, the limitations in your, you know, are you limiting yourself with your pain, the way you're experiencing it, with the way you're experiencing your belief systems and how it's influencing your injuries. Also the release, the what does it, the energy and relative energy deficit and overtraining and just wisdom. Like, you know, for a young guy you've got a great mature outlook and obviously your education, your ongoing education has enabled that. So once again, where can people find you, your podcasts, your links, how can they reach out to you if they need help?
Speaker 3: (47:00)
Okay. So on Instagram it's bertie.shop is my handle. I've got a Facebook group called become a smarter runner and it kind of backs off like links in with the podcast. If you want to follow the podcast, it's called the run smarter podcast and it's available on all the platforms, wherever you listen to your podcasts. My website is breakthrough running.physio and that has my blogs
Speaker 2: (47:30)
And as well as like my Facebook groups and stuff like that, I'll just post my blogs, I post to evidence and couple little tips, couple of exercises here and there. So I think that's all the links will penalize links in the show notes. Alrighty. So thank you very much for your time today and your expertise and your insights and it just makes me smile because you know, a lot of the stuff I can actually relate to, obviously with my crazy anecdotes, but also it reinforces the learning that I have is that you have another, another, another means in another way of bringing it across. So really, really appreciate your time today and look forward to doing some stuff with you in the future. You're very welcome. It was a lot of fun. Good luck for the next two weeks of just grinding out this book. Thanks night.
Speaker 1: (48:16)
That's it this week for pushing the limits. We showed her write, review, and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team, at Lisatamati.com.
The information contained in this show is not medical advice it is for educational purposes only and the opinions of guests are not the views of the show. Please seed your own medical advice from a registered medical professional.
