Increase your physical performance at work with these 4 keys, with Australian expert physiotherapist Jack O'Brien.
Episode Transcript
Nathan Shooter:
I really believe that overwhelm and overthinking leads to underachievement. Today's guest is going to, really help us to unpack and demystify some of the areas that are causing us great pain.
In the workplace, we're experiencing epidemic levels of pain and really suffering from things which are, I would say, pretty much preventable. Today, I'd like you to welcome Jack O'Brien.
Jack O'Brien:
Hi, Nathan. Excited to be here.
Nathan Shooter:
Awesome. So glad you said yes to coming on today's episode to talk about four key ways that we can optimise our performance at work. I'm not only talking about our mindset, as discussed in other episodes, but I'm really getting down to the physical things that we can do from a health standpoint.
Your background as a physiotherapist and a football player, makes you the man to talk to about this. Just fill in some blanks and tell us about yourself, both professional and personally.
About the guest
Jack O'Brien:
Yeah, sure. I'm a physiotherapist by trade, and so now, I lead Terrace Physio Plus Physiotherapy Clinic and Massage Therapy Clinic, across five locations throughout the Hunter region of New South Wales Australia.
As a physiotherapist, we see all sorts of people and all sorts of pain. I'm really passionate as a physio, but also as a business owner, as a professional now who spends a whole lot more time on a computer and less time face-to-face with people on optimising performance, both myself and my clients.
Pain is such an inhibitor, such a limiter, for both our clients and for myself. To be able to maximise that and work on tips, tricks to get on top of pain is really exciting. I have a whole lot of fun with it.
Digital culture
Nathan Shooter:
That's really great to hear because one of the impetuses behind me wanting to invite you onto the show is that we are increasingly living in a digital culture, a visual culture. It's fantastic, the more visual we get, the more creative and the more effective in our workloads we become. However, we also spend more and more time sedentary. Like you were saying yesterday, we drive to work in a seated position. We go to work, maybe have a stand-up meeting for about 10 minutes, and then what do we do? We go and sit down again. Then, we drive home in our cars, seated, to come home to Netflix in a seat.
Jack O'Brien:
It's a double-edged sword in a lot of ways. We get so much more done. It's such a great environment for creativity, being on a computer and all the tools that are at our disposal. And yet, we spend so much time in these postures that are repetitive and we're stuck in these same shapes all the time, and we're not designed to be the shape of a chair!
Nathan Shooter:
Exactly. I think that if we're going to do better at life, we need to be able to come home having, yes, toiled and having invested our effort wisely in our day at work, but come home refreshed to be able to spend time in our next investment, which is our family or our home life.
A lot of us don't come home excited about, yeah, I've worked all day, and I'm ready to come home and love and hang out with the people who are next up, which is my family. Why is it that we think we just put all our focus on our 9:00 to 5:00 and then just kind of end up giving out crumbs to people after 5:00?
Jack O'Brien:
Yeah, it's funny. I think we end up pouring everything we have and everything inside of us into what we do. That's where we find our identity, and that's where we find who we are. Bringing a whole-of-life approach to work, to health, to pain management is really important. There's a whole bunch of different aspects to life, and if we just focus on two or three at the neglect of one or two others, we don't have this well-rounded circle of life, so to speak.
Nathan Shooter:
Exactly. Obviously, this is a growing area, and I really like how you mentioned how technology and the workplace moves and changes at different speeds. I think that's one of the reasons why we've ended up in a world where we're super, uber efficient digitally, but physically, we're lagging behind.
In the same way you've moved your technology forward and your methods forward, we need to keep also doing that with the non-technology things, meaning our bodies and our physical routines.
And so, in a future episode, I'm going to be speaking with a CEO on agility and having an agile approach to things. Today, which is not a pun on the word for this episode, but I guess what I wanted to find out for us who are listening all around the world ... Because we've got people in all sorts of different cultures who join us on this podcast, but we all have the same issue of we all intrinsically want to do better at work and we just sometimes don't know how to get there.
So what are the big four problems, physically speaking, that are facing workplaces all around the world?
4 Keys to Optimise Physical Performance
Jack O'Brien:
- Know thyself: Knowing yourself, knowing what works for you and what doesn't work for you in order to get the best out of yourself.
- Correct fuel: Hydration, nutrition, and supplementation. Not just for physical, but mental and intellectual performance.
- Exercise and rest: They're inextricably linked, getting the right type of exercise and the right rest.
- Manage pain: Knowing how to prevent pain, knowing who to see, when to see, and having the right people around you to be able to manage things when they come up.
Nathan Shooter:
Great. These are the four really major things that you see a lot when they walk in, literally, to your clinic every day. So do think these big four things only just for western cultures, or do they apply to every workplace in the world, do you think?
Jack O'Brien:
Every workplace, absolutely. When it comes to knowing yourself, one size does not fit all. It just don't work that way. There's a lot of gurus, there's a lot of hacks out there, and not everything will work for you regardless of culture, environment, nationality. And so knowing yourself, knowing your environment that you're in, the culture that you're in, and what's going to work best is the first place to start from its foundation principles.
Nathan Shooter:
That's a good point. Let's go and unpack all of these four big issues or each individually, just so we can give them proper attention they need.
Key 1: Know thyself
So you've just beautifully led into issue one, which is knowing yourself. And I'm not a baby anymore, I'm 33! But in a lot of ways, I still feel like I'm discovering how I work best and I think that will never change. I think I'll always be thinking of, "Oh, wow. I didn't realise I could improve that." Or, "I did that well." So when it comes to, as you say, knowing thyself, this is really like a fluid thing, isn't it? In relation to doing an audit of ourselves, how do we do that? How do we do an audit and ‘know ourselves’?
Jack O'Brien:
Self-awareness really is the game. I think it's what sets apart the crème de la crème, is that they know who they are, they know what works and what doesn't. The biggest thing would be to test and measure each different little hack that you might try, whether it's what we talk about today or somewhere else through your other guests. But trying certain things for a test period, assessing whether they work or whether they didn't, then keeping them or scrapping them.
So often we have this massive big line-up of routines or rituals or hacks, and we're not sure what's working and what's not. And you wouldn't do that ... you wouldn't expect a doctor to be trialling certain things on you not knowing whether they work or not!
So knowing what works for you and what doesn't for your body, your personality type. What works for your emotional state is super important.
Nathan Shooter:
So in our quest to knowing ourselves, which we've discussed is important, a lot of us are going to start, as a bit of a shock to you, on the internet.
Jack O'Brien:
Dr. Google!
Nathan Shooter:
There’s medical websites that send people into a spin thinking they’ve got cancer when it's actually just a stubbed toe! But I just want to empower our listeners to say, "You know what? I'm going to take some critical-thinking approaches to internet advice."
What can you say to people when they're reading advice on the internet? And not seeing in the shape of one size fits all. How do we know whether this is solid advice?
Jack O'Brien:
Good question. And that word is really important, critical thinking. As a health professional, we look at evidence or we look at claims through the lens of different levels of evidence. And so the first thing you want to look at is the fruit around someone's life. Has it worked for someone else before? Or are they just trying to sell you a really cheap and easy gimmick?
Different levels of evidence in a health sense, we look at case studies as being a really low level of evidence. You want to look at something that's been tested in a controlled environment against a placebo, and that is going to tell you whether something works or not.
Nathan Shooter:
Can you explain what a placebo might be to some people?
Jack O'Brien:
Sure. A placebo is something like taking a sugar pill for cancer. It's something that has no effect, but ...
Nathan Shooter:
Psychological effect, though.
Jack O'Brien:
That's right. Exactly. Which is important. Placebos can be a good thing. But if we're talking about different techniques or tools or methods, you want to know that they've been tested against something else and that they're better than the alternative.
So looking at things critically, and then looking at the other people who have used. So testimonials are really good. You want to look at things that have been funded by independent parties that don't have a vested interest in the outcome. You want as pure result as you can and so unfunded testimonials, unfunded reviews, studies that have been independently looked at are really important.
And having those forums to discuss things, so whether it's your network, your circle of connections, or you can ask questions in a different environment from someone who doesn't have a vested interest in the outcome, getting some advice, that's really helpful.
Having a network of trusted advisors will be really helpful in sifting the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.
Nathan Shooter:
That’s an important thing to note, like having like a board of directors in your life just for issues of health.
Jack O'Brien:
Absolutely. We've all got blind spots, Nathan. We've all got areas in our life where either we can't see or we look at ourselves through rose coloured glasses. You might think you're healthy, you might think you're doing something in a healthy and efficient way, but those around you, whether physically or virtually, can see those areas of your life that you can't see yourself.
So I would say knowing thyself and having trusted people in your life that you can lean on for accountability, for encouragement, and for critical thinking is really important.
Nathan Shooter:
I think you’ve got to rely on others. Whether we think we can do it on our own or not, there comes a point when we do need to acknowledge our interdependence on others. Not dependence on others, but interdependence, which is more healthy.
Health is very holistic. Health is done in community.
Jack O'Brien:
Absolutely. And health is very holistic. Health is done in community. To be isolated, in and of itself, is unhealthy. And so, leaning on each other is super important.
Key 2: Correct Fuel
Nathan Shooter:
So let's move on to issue number two. This is the second biggest thing that faces workplaces and the effectiveness of people at work, and that's incorrect fuel. But before you answer, can I just say that you brought me a double shot latte before walked in into this interview on a very cold Monday morning! So tell us, Jack, unpack the idea of this incorrect fuel.
Jack O'Brien:
All right. So as performers in our workplace, we want to treat ourselves like athletes. I look at athletes as a really good example of peak performance. They do their sport, or their chosen endeavour as professionals.
And if we're in our workplaces and we want to exceed, we want to win, we want to dominate our industry, whatever that look like for you, you need to think of yourself like an athlete. And if you ask any elite athlete, we see plenty of them coming through our clinics.
And so fuel, hydration, nutrition supplementation really are those that give us exponential rewards. If you're looking at the 1% as the thing that give you an edge over your competition, it's the stuff that you put in that will determine what you get out.
Nathan Shooter:
Fuel is a really complicated thing, right? So in the more meta sense, it kind of seems insane that I would go and spend thousands of dollars on fuelling my mind. I go to conferences, seminars, webinars, put money into courses - but then when it comes to the physiological side of things, we neglect the quality fuel that we need.
So even just from a very small perspective, are there small things that we can do this week? And what's one thing that people can do to get the right fuel into them this week?
Jack O'Brien:
All right. So let's talk about hydration first. That's a really easy win for a lot of people. So, we know that we all need about two and half litres of water a day to keep us alive, really, or at least keep us functioning optimally.
1% decrease in hydration can often mean a 10% decrease in performance
A 1% decrease in hydration can often mean a 10% decrease in performance. But when we talk about hydration, again the quality of water is really important.
Nathan Shooter:
Now this is getting complicated!
Jack O'Brien:
Well, it doesn't have to be super complicated. I think hydration has been bastardised in a lot of ways. Sport drink brands lead us to believe we need their particular product to be hydrated. The truth is, they haven't sold us a lie, but they've sold us a half-truth. A lot of these products that supplement our hydration often have some of the nutrients we need, but not all.
So when it comes to hydration, what you need to think about is your blood. Hydration is adding water to our blood, but blood isn't purely water. Blood is made up of water and electrolytes. And so just giving ourselves three, four, five litres a day of water isn't proper hydration. It's actually dilution.
True hydration involves the extra nutrients and electrolytes that come along. Electrolytes is just a fancy word for salts, things like magnesium, sodium, chloride, calcium, and potassium. They're the big five.
And what these well-known sport drink companies do, create products that have sodium and chloride and calcium in them, but they neglect two of the biggest hydration electrolytes that we need: magnesium and potassium.
Nathan Shooter:
Magnesium, in my understanding, is really great for muscles.
Jack O'Brien:
Correct. So magnesium is brilliant for muscles, it helps avoid cramping. Long-term endurance and performance. And potassium, in a similar way, potassium and magnesium work hand in hand together on a cellular level. And we don't need to get into the cellular level, but what you do need to know is that you need an effective balance of those five electrolytes: magnesium, potassium, sodium, chloride, and calcium.
Some sport drinks focus on sodium and chloride, which is essentially table salt. Sodium and chloride. To just have those three at the expense of the other two is going to dilute your blood and therefore decrease your performance, or at least give you an imbalance, and you're not going to perform optimally.
Nathan Shooter:
So I guess it's kind of a situation where we need to drink a bit more, but then also if we do go and by a supplement drink, reading the label is a good place to start.
Jack O'Brien:
Absolutely. And again, seek out the right information. Find a product that has magnesium and potassium in it. On the label, it's going to be Mg or K. They're the periodic table symbols for those products.
Make sure that you've got something that is a well-rounded product, that is going to give you the hydration that you need, but also the electrolyte balance.
Nathan Shooter:
That’s really important, and I think we need to be smart about hydration, not just think we're doing the right thing by chugging litres and litres of water from the water cooler.
Jack O'Brien:
Think of hydration like pumping up your tyres. When we sleep, we sweat. We get dehydrated. And so, when we wake up in the morning, the last thing you want to do is roll your car out of the garage on flat tyres.
Think of hydration as constantly pumping up your tyres, keeping you inflated for the day. And we know our tyres perform best when they're inflated properly. Our bodies and minds, we function best when we're hydrated properly.
Nathan Shooter:
And we sometimes get to the point when it's too late with hydration and we only hydrate when we're feeling dehydrated.
Jack O'Brien:
It's too late.
Nathan Shooter:
Exactly. So, let's maybe skip that and go and get hydrated before we end up with the slump.
Jack O'Brien:
Absolutely. The first thing in the morning is the best time to get hydrated. Drink a cup or two of water the first thing when you wake up, and you'll be amazed. It'll probably give you more of a kick than that double shot latte that you've got sitting next to you!
Key 3: Exercise & Sleep
Jack O'Brien:
It's important to get the right amount of sleep for you, and the right type of sleep. Having a dark room, eliminating screen time or putting night mode on your screens before you go to sleep, and getting the right volume of sleep. So for me, I know that any more than seven hours is too much. So I limit myself to only seven hours or less.
Key 4: Manage Pain
Nathan Shooter:
Well, I'm not going to give up that latte! Let's just do both, hey? Let's now have a bit of a look at the next biggest challenge in the workplace, which is number four, managing pain.
So you talk about it being a situation where we can create prevention, but also we can do some things to also cradle some pains that people already have as existing conditions. But let's first of all look at prevention. So where do we start? It's costing workplaces billions in back pain alone. How can we start by preventing pain?
Jack O'Brien:
Prevention of pain. Back pain is the number one burden of disease globally and in a number of developed countries. Preventing things like back pain is, from an economic standpoint alone, a really good investment.
If you're going to be limited with sick days throughout the year because of pain, you're limiting your efficiency. So prevention is huge. We know that exercise is the number one best prevention tool for back pain specifically. And so the right type of exercise is really important.
I want to bust a couple of myths really quickly, if that's all right? We talk about having a core - those abs and that six pack. And I want to say that having a six pack isn't the only way to prevent back pain.
Nathan Shooter:
Can I just say that that's a really big relief for me!? I feel like I don't have to have a six pack now!
Jack O'Brien:
You and me both! And so, looking for the right types of exercise that teach us to move in a functional way. I don't remember the last time I had to do a crunch and get up at work from the floor. So for me, a crunch or a sit up isn't an effective functional exercise, but squatting - getting up and down out of that chair a lot or lifting and carrying, putting things up over our head, bending down, picking stuff up off the floor, they're the functional exercises that we need to be doing in order to build strength that is functional and relative to the workplace.
Nathan Shooter:
What I'm hearing, is that we're sometimes doing the exercises which are not relevant to the ergonomic situations we find ourselves in.
Jack O'Brien:
Absolutely. You’ve got to find something that's relative to what you do. So if you spend a lot of time sitting at a desk or a computer, then you want to do things that are relative to those postures.
Just like someone who's a worker out on a roads wants to do things like digging, and lifting, and carrying.
Nathan Shooter:
Exactly. So just on this issue of posture, what are some simple things that we can do this week? Like maybe even today? What can we do in terms of small things like the layout out of our office, or just posture with our sitting in a chair. What can we do now?
Movement is medicine. Motion is lotion.
Jack O'Brien:
There's so much to be done. This gets me really excited! The first thing, the mantra that I want you to take away from today would be that, movement is medicine. Motion is lotion. And so movement is the key. Let me just say that standing desks are not a magic bullet. Actually, in all things, there's no magic bullet.
And so you want to incorporate a whole lot of elements. So move. Having a standing desk or a desk that is modifiable is a really good investment. But to stand for two or three hours on end, if you haven't stood in a long time, is a sure fire way to end up with a sore back.
What I would suggest is changing really regularly. So you want to change postures every 20 minutes. Go from sitting to standing. Stand for 20 minutes, then sit for 20 minutes. Sitting isn't of itself a bad thing. Sitting for long periods is.
Nathan Shooter:
Some people demonise sitting, and I think these days, people are saying sitting in the office place is now the ‘new smoking’. I've heard that repeatedly, and I think it's unfair. And particularly to employers who are listening to this and thinking, "How do I serve my employees better? Everyone's at workstations where they can't always stand while working”.
Jack O'Brien:
Yeah, that's right. We do have to sit. And sitting is okay done in small bursts. The truth is, we're not designed to sit for long periods. But when we do sit, and if we have to sit, let's do it well.
Posture of Performance
A couple of things around your posture at work, I would say that having your chair at the right height is a big key. Have your chair low enough or too low is a problem. So to fix that, lift your chair up so that your hip crease is above your knees. That would be one of the first things I would suggest to look at. And you might need to therefore change the height of your desk.
A lot of these things are cumulative. Fixing one problem may lead to another problem, etc. So let's get our chair up first. So your hip crease is higher than your knees, and your feet are flat on the floor below your knees. That's the first place to start. Tucking your feet underneath your chair, is not great. Just like resting your feet out in front and sort of propping yourself up on your heels isn't ideal either.
So from there, we want to sit on the edge of our chair, if we can, like you and I are doing here today. You're doing better than I am, by the way! But we want to sit on the edge of our chair. And what this does is it gets us to roll forward so we're not sitting on our tail bone. We're trying to roll forward so that we're not sitting on our tail bone.
A bit of a lumbar curve and helps. You'll probably notice it if you're doing it in your work chair or car as you drive now. It gets you sit up a bit more upright. So we want hips nice and high, sitting on the edge of our chair.
And then we want a little bit of tension in our shoulder blades. What we see is a problem where people let their shoulder blades relax and round forward, and you get that typical rounded posture.
By the same token, I don't want people squeezing their shoulder blades so tight they end up cramping between their shoulder blades or in their upper back. We want just a little bit of tension. In the gym, we talk about matching tension to task. And so, if you're going to pick up something that's 100 kilos, which is a really heavy task, you need 100% tension. So it's 100% effort, 100% tension. If we're sitting at a desk and we're not doing a lot, it might only be a 10 or 20% physical effort. What I'm suggesting is a 10 to 20% tension between your shoulder blades. Just pull them back a little bit.
Nathan Shooter:
And I would say that's also influenced by the position of the computer keyboard relative to how close it is to our bodies. So should it be a position where our forearms, are kind of like ... I guess, adjacent to our body? How should that be placed?
Jack O'Brien:
So we want our elbows just a little bit higher than our wrists. Just a little bit higher. So again, you might need to work on the combination of the height of your desk and the height of your chair to get the optimal position.
We want to make sure that our elbows are in and tucked into our ribs. So we often see what is commonly known as RSI (repetitive strain injuries) in shoulders and elbows from desks that are not optimised properly. So elbows a little bit higher than your wrists, and you want your elbows tucked in.
And this goes for anything, Nathan, whether it's sitting at a desk or carrying the groceries in from your car, lifting something in the backyard. Always think about keeping your elbows in and you'll find as you tense your shoulder blades up a little bit, your elbows naturally come in. Elbows inside your wrists is the optimal position for your shoulders.
Nathan Shooter:
And because when we're carrying a load, the leverage compounds further away it is from our centre of gravity.
Jack O'Brien:
That's right. So the closer you are to your centre of gravity, and also the more external rotation we have. So what that means is when you're carrying the groceries for instance, you don't want to drag your knuckles forward like a monkey, because we're not monkeys! We want to bring our elbows in and palms up is always a better way move.
So that's why you might find things like an upright mouse is more comfortable because palms down isn't always an optimal posture. Moving towards a palm up posture is much better for elbows and shoulders.
Nathan Shooter:
That's great. And that's also relative to travel. So a lot of our listeners are people who find themselves in planes a lot. And something that I was taught a while ago was that when I carry or pull a suitcase along, I was told to just flip my wrists so that the palm faces up. And then, for example, if the suitcase wheels goes over something, it'll release out of my hand rather than pulling my wrist.
Jack O'Brien:
Exactly right.
Nathan Shooter:
So we've just covered pain prevention. We've talked about how we can get ahead of ourselves and prevent pain from occurring. What about those of us who have a pre-existing condition? Or there's something that's happened and we need to ... Not just nurse it, but we need to find a way to work in a way that is going to heal and protect that injury.
Jack O'Brien:
We're talking about triggers here. When to do something. When is something going from right to not right? So, the first thing I would suggest is that discomfort is not always a bad thing. Pain is. And so discomfort is something that's three to five out of 10 uncomfortable is normally a good thing.
So standing, for instance, could be a little bit uncomfortable if you initially get a standing desk. Or having a walking meeting might feel a little bit uncomfortable, three, four out of 10 uncomfortable is a good thing.
Leaning into discomfort is a really good thing. When something becomes painful, five, six, seven out of 10, and stays painful for more than three days, that's when it's time to do something.
Something that is painful but gets better within a day or two – the body's really good at healing itself within a couple of days. But if it is prolonged more than three days, it's time to do something about it.
Nathan Shooter:
It's really important to take notice of red flags. It's really good to be able to, like you say, get to that threshold of discomfort before it becomes pain. But also then revisit this issue number one, which is know thyself.
So if you're going to get into a situation at work where you're doing things that create discomfort or pain, write a note so you don't end up re-inventing that same wheel next week!
Jack O'Brien:
Yeah, great. And it's an important distinction between acute pain or new pain versus long standing chronic pain. So something that's new should get better within two or three days. If it doesn't, time to see someone. If we talk about people who have dealt with pain for long periods of time, back pain is a long standing issue.
And a really important thing around the evidence of pain at the moment is not just the physical aspects, but the psychological and emotional impacts on pain. If you have a really stressful day, if things at home aren't going well for you, if you're emotionally down, your pain is going to be amplified.
And so it's really important to be conscious of that and be mindful and present when you're thinking about your pain. You might have a really sore back, but when you take a chance to step back from it, it's actually just because things at home aren't going well and the bank balance is screaming at you and the kids aren't sleeping. And that can really compound the effect of pain.
Nathan Shooter:
Those are very important and influential factors on pain. And the other thing that we discussed a little bit earlier, was acknowledging that pain itself is not a bad thing provided we pay attention to it.
So I think pain is really something that we need to partner with and be a friend with, and as bizarre as that sounds. If I've done something that causes pain, I almost say to myself, "Okay, thanks for that. I've received that message." So I now have a choice. I can either:
A: Change something because I've received this pain signal.
B: Be angry at it, and not actually do anything about correcting it.
Jack O'Brien:
Pain is the warning signal of our body. And so, let's talk about chronic pain, long standing pain that people have had for a long time. Just because something hurts, doesn't necessarily mean there's something physically wrong. Just because your back hurts might not mean that you've got a torn muscle or a blown.
Just a side note, discs don't ‘blow’. We can talk about lumbar discs if you'd like. Think of them like fluid sacks. They're very sturdy things and they actually heal more often than not. So having long standing back pain isn't necessarily a sign of tissue damage, and this is where going to see someone who's going to give you effective advice is really helpful.
So when you go and see someone, if you've had long standing pain, we know that the most effective treatments are those that help deal with your emotional and mental state, believe it or not, and are active. So that is you physically doing something.
Managing systems might mean going to get a massage or passive treatments where you go and you do nothing, you lie on a couch for half an hour, and someone manipulates you. That feels good at the time, Nathan, but it doesn't fix anything. It doesn't solve the underlying cause of the pain. It might give you symptomatic relief, but it's probably more cost efficient just to pop a couple of paracetamol.
Passive treatment doesn't work for long standing back pain. If anything, it perpetuates the pain cycle and creates a dependency on others to solve something that you need to deal with yourself.
We know that the best solutions for long standing pain are active. That is you being involved actively in the process. Things like the right type of exercise, the right volume of exercise, and the right advice around your thought patterns when you have a pain episode.
How you respond to that is really important. I would suggest that if you've got a long standing problem, finding a health professional that could be your trusted advisor (not a ‘guru’) is one of the most important keys.
Nathan Shooter:
And that's a really good distinction to make, someone who's actually a trusted advisor. Because they've got runs on the board and they're accredited, and not just trying to sell you something.
Jack O'Brien:
Correct. In this day and age, the evidence suggests that when you go and see someone with a chronic issue, they shouldn't actually lay hands on you. It's going to perpetuate your problem.
You need to find someone who can sift through the advice - it comes back to knowing thyself. The adviser should be able to find the right approach, right treatment for you and give you advice you on the right exercise, right postures for your particular condition.
Nathan Shooter:
There's so much great advice in this session here that we've heard from you. Let's just finish off by recapping and then looking at some things that we can implement today.
So the big four challenges facing workplaces are:
- People not knowing themselves properly.
- Using the incorrect fuel.
- Not exercising and resting enough.
- Managing pain properly.
Nathan Shooter:
So, Jack, you mentioned in a pre-interview chat that you want to be able to help people get started. You've been generous enough to offer a free video consult. Can you just tell us what that is?
Jack O'Brien:
It's essentially a physiotherapy consult over the internet. We've got the technology now to be able to do some one-on-one consulting to help you work out what your main problem is, give you some quick tips and tricks to solve the problem relative to you, and then a plan to get on top of it.
Nathan Shooter:
Great. So if you want to do that, listeners, just go ahead to terracephysioplus.com.au and get in touch with Jack and the team there and mention this podcast for a free video consult.
It’s been an absolute pleasure to have you on the show today, and I know that a lot of people are going to be helped by this episode and we really do look forward to seeing people improve. I also hope that people will connect with you online. So thanks very much, Jack.
Jack O'Brien:
Thanks for having me.
