 Tech Hawaii in my eighth episode of Movement Matters, and my last show to wrap up the year. Movement Matters covers topics dealing with the health and wellness of your body. If this is your first time joining us, I am Christine Linders. I've been a licensed physical therapist for over 23 years in California, New York, Connecticut, and now Hawaii in a variety of settings, including sports, orthopedics, neuro, and even on-site corporate wellness platform. I'm a board certified orthopedic clinical specialist. I'm certified in applied functional science, and I have my manual therapy certification. This show is designed to bring you the most cutting edge and effective treatment strategies so you can help your body perform better, decrease pain, and get back to doing the things that you love. I have a very special episode for you today to end 2019 on a positive note. In this show, you'll be learning how to eliminate neck pain, fix your sitting posture, and prepare yourself for your best year yet in 2020. I'd like to welcome Jonathan Hope today, coming to us from the Bahamas. John is a professional squash coach and competitive athlete. He was the current Bahamian Squash Champion. Aloha, John, and thank you for joining us today. Hello, Huckers. Thank you for having me. Pleasure to be here. I'm so glad to have you. So, John and I talked two weeks ago when we were planning for this about any potential injuries that he has. And so, we were talking about his low back a little bit, and we conferenced in this weekend, and I also found out that John has had episodes of neck pain over the past six months on and off with plank squash. So, John, tell me a little bit about your history of neck pain, back pain, how it got started. Okay, well, when I was much younger, sort of in my late teens, I found that my right leg was really, really sore, and I discovered it was sciatica. And so, that was really sort of like the first indication of anything that wasn't quite right. And so, I couldn't really do much about it then. I thought maybe it was mainly because I crossed my right leg quite a lot. And so, I tried to sit with both my feet flat on the floor more. And if I did cross my legs, I would just cross my ankles instead of one leg over the other. That kind of helped a bit. But then later on, I still found that my lower back was a bit achy. And then much later on, my back was really, really sore from playing quite a lot of squash and coaching. And so, I went to see a back specialist, and she did some blood tests. I identified that one leg was longer than the other, and then there was a bit of an S in my spine. And also, she did with the blood tests, saw that I had the HVLA2 gene, which sort of indicated that I probably had ankylosing spondylitis. So, yeah, that's really how that came about. So, ankylosing spondylitis is a condition that you can get, where they also nickname it bamboo spine. So, early on, most of the time in people's 20s or 30s, they tend to find it. And over the aging process, the spine fuses. And so, one of the things that I said to John was, wow, you're so, you sit up so straight for someone who has ankylosing spondylitis. Why is that? Did you know early on, and you know, he found out in his, I think you said your 20s, but it's, yeah, nowadays, kids are so slouched over devices and things. It makes me worried because you've been an athlete, and so you got lucky. Somehow you sit up straight, but if a kid was slouched over a device for five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 years, and then finds out they have ankylosing spondylitis, it's a little bit too late then. That's why posture is such a problem. But I'm so excited to see you up straight. That's great. How old were you when you started playing squash? And what is squash? I know it's the food that you eat. No, I'm just kidding. I know it is. But for everyone else. It's the racket sport that stems from probably the late 1900s. They first played it in two completely contrasting places. There's an earlier form called rackets, and they used to play it in prisons and also in private schools. So what they realised was that it was a very popular sport amongst the students there. But it's a very large court, and so they made smaller courts, and they devised slightly shorter rackets. And a ball that instead of being hard was squishy and soft, hence the name squash. And it's similar to racket ball that it's played inside. So it doesn't matter what the weather is, you can always play it. But there are different court markings and slightly different dimensions. And so the strategy is a little bit different. But it's still a very physical, intense high-paced sport that gives you really good workouts. And it's a lot of fun, really competitive. Players enjoy it, but you can play more casually as well. But yes, it's really fun. Okay, so my understanding of squash versus racket ball was that there's a lot of lunging involved in trying to get the ball with a racket ball. I know I used to play a racket ball, and I did play squash just like twice. But there's a lot of lunging. And when I was trying to figure out your neck pain and why you were getting it, we were talking about how the squash ball is not as bouncy as, say, a racket ball, but you're doing a lot of repetitive lunging to get the ball quickly because it's not going to bounce my guess very high. Is that right? It can bounce high, but you're having to reach the extremes. I mean, the idea of the game is to be in control of the center of the court and then to push the ball to the extremities of the court. So into the corners, up high, down low. So that means typically it's easiest to reach by, obviously, you want to swing the racket arm. So you tend to lead with whichever side you're your hand is. So if you're right handed, you tend to stretch a lot with the right side of your body and vice versa. So it is, it can be quite one sided dominant in terms of your movement. You tend to lunge with your right leg a lot if you're right handed. So you get that maximum reach. So yeah, that can definitely pose problems for imbalance with your body. Okay, so that's interesting. So when we got together on, we didn't get together, we were on a WhatsApp call on Sunday a couple days ago. I looked at John's neck because he mentioned something about having a neck pain. And John, do you want to show us what it looked like when I asked you to bend your head to the left and then bend your head to the right again? Okay, well, effectively, I could bend like this to the left, and then to the right, I could just bend a tiny bit that much because it was just... Yeah, and then when he did it, his face just crumpled up. It was like, oh, I can go to the left. I said, okay, how about the right? And he was like, oh, it just kind of, it kind of stopped. And so when we were talking about swash and what to do when you're lunging with your right leg and your right arm, it causes a relative compression on the right side of your neck because the shoulder blade, the shoulder girdle, as we call it, is coming up. You're reaching as far as you can and the space on the right side of your neck is compromised. So also, let's look at image number one. We can see what John was mentioning that he found when he went to the doctor and they did the blood work. He actually has a curve in his spine, a little bit of a scoliosis. And so in this image, you can see there's a curve that's bending to the right. And you can see that John's left shoulder is elevated. So now if we go to image number two, you'll see the same curve bending to the right in the upper part of his back. And then on the right side of the image, I drew those multifidus muscles that we talked about in our last two shows on scoliosis. And what happens with muscles that are on the outside of the curve on the left where they're more lengthened and muscles that are on the inside of the curve on the right. Now in image number three, I superimposed some lines, just a little bit off of John's curve so you could get a visual in case you really can't see that. His curve is bending to the right in both images and his left shoulder is higher. So his head isn't essentially tilting to the left. Now if you could see or if you see when John was showing us which way his head went well, his head went well to the left and it didn't go well to the right. And that's because of the way his spine is formed. His head is already bent left. So John, show us now after giving you a couple of exercises on Sunday. Let me see you move your head. Okay, so going to the left again, obviously I've still got quite a lot of range there. Yeah. But now going to the right, it's almost the same as still, I can still feel a little bit sort of tightness and pain in the side, but it's so much better than it was. It's almost equal amount of movement to me anyway. No, I'm amazed. I kicked myself for not taking the before and after picture while we were just going through the assessment because oftentimes the assessment is the treatment. You see what doesn't move. You find a way to get the muscles to cooperate. And I gave John a couple of exercises right away. And then the one that I gave him to do, John, show us what I had you do because I can see when you tilt your head to the right right now that your face does still turn a little bit with it. So show us. Okay. Without mirror, the easiest way I find is to hold my nose still like that. And then sit like that. So it keeps my nose in the same spot. So that's important because when John tilts the left, his face stays in this plane without turning, which is great. And when he tried to go to the right, when we first met, his face went to the right. So I told him, keep your face facing the center. So if you're going to do this exercise at home to try to improve your neck range of motion, it's important to tilt your head to the right without it turning to the right. That isolates certain joints and stretches certain muscles. So you want to make sure your face stays facing forward and not rolling off to the right or the left while you go. So I want to go back to one other picture because I want to jump into your back for one minute. In video four, I had you send me an image of your single leg squat. So as we're looking at this video, I just want to explain something. So John's first squat looks pretty good. His shoulder is a little bit to the right of his hip, and that causes extra compression on the right side of your low back. And in the second squat, you see where he kind of dipped a little, and that's because his right hip is dropping. He doesn't have the stability. When he had talked about earlier having sciatic pain, I had mentioned after seeing this squat, this is a week and a half ago, oh, was it your right side? And you told me that it was. And I could see right away when I looked at your squat. Why? Because when the hip drops on the right side, it causes a bending of the spine on that side, which compresses the nerve roots on that side. It makes it a smaller space. So over and over and over again, John is lunging for the ball with his right arm. One foot is always more forward. Now, I don't remember which one you told me is more forward when you're lunging. You said you always tend to go one way. Yeah, the right leg is basically trying to get that right side of your body closer. It lined up in a comfortable position to strike the ball. So now I'm trying to balance it out more and play more of my left leg. Because sometimes it's more efficient as well. And obviously it's hopefully going to help my body to be more aligned as well and more comfortable. So I've been working on that for more than one reason. I think that's fantastic. It hopefully, it definitely will hope. So we're going to take a short break. I'm Christine Linders. I'm here with Jonathan Hope, professional squatch coach and athlete. And we're talking about how to improve your neck pain and range of motion in the new year. We'll be right back. Aloha. I'm Wendy Lo and I'm coming to you every other Tuesday at two o'clock live from Think Tech Hawaii. And on our show, we talk about taking your health back. And what does that mean? It means mind, body, and soul. Anything you can do that makes your body healthier and happier is what we're going to be talking about, whether it's spiritual health, mental health, fascia health, beautiful smile health, whatever it means. Let's take healthy back. Aloha. Hi, I'm Rusty Komori, host of Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. My show is based on my book also titled Beyond the Lines. And it's about creating a superior culture of excellence, leadership, and finding greatness. I interview guests who are successful in business, sports, and life, which is sure to inspire you in finding your greatness. Join me every Monday as we go Beyond the Lines at 11am. Aloha. Hey, we're back. I'm Christine Linders. This is Movement Matters. We're speaking with Jonathan Hope, a professional swash coach and athlete about how to improve your neck pain and your neck range of motion. So Jonathan, you mentioned that you started doing some strengthening to help balance out your hips since you're always lunging, tending to be more with your right leg forward. And we saw in the previous video how that hip had a functional weakness. It was dropping somewhat and you have had a history of sciatica. What kind of strengthening techniques, exercises have you been working on over the past year or so, or several years, help balance those hips out so that you can compete in your sport without having a repeat of the sciatica? Well, I actually took a little break from squash because it was just too painful. And I thought if I'm going to do anything to exercise wise, I might as well do something that's a bit more fun. So I made a choice of sticking with weightboarding and weight skating because that was more fun. I actually had to strengthen my back a bit and my core. And then when I decided to return back to playing squash, I did quite a lot of conditioning work just with general fitness. And more recently, I started doing P90X3 and I did that most solidly for six months. And that really, really helped just develop my overall strength and balance me out because it really exposes when one side is weaker than the other. And what I find about it is that it helps to bring everything in alignment and balance out of the strength rather than being lopsided. I love that. I love that. That's awesome. You're speaking to me with the alignment and balancing things out. There's something that I said over and over my shows, which is undo the sport. So whatever repetitive thing that we're doing at our desk in our sport, it's important to use the muscles opposite of what we've been using all day to prevent injury, to stay balanced and stay aligned. And that's great that you're working so hard to strengthen and balance your hips because your right leg, until you started trying to use your left leg a little bit more, was getting overused and it gets overuse weak. Like my hands get overuse weak at the end of a long week at work sometimes, or if I don't take breaks or take care of myself. So that's important. So I want to bounce back now to your neck since it's doing so well. If we go to video five, we'll see one of the first exercises that I gave John was to work on doing a chin tuck. And when what you want to do in this exercise is lay on your back, like that, and tuck your chin down. You don't lift your head. Now when John first got down to the ground, he was saying, Oh my gosh, I can't, I can't get my head down. I can't get down my head down. It was so painful. And we modified it with a pillow as well. But he was able to get his head down and learn how to nod his chin without lifting his head. Now you may need to at home put a pillow underneath there, because if your head is migrated too far forward from leaning forward, looking down at your phone, looking at a screen slouching, you want to support your head so that your chin is not up while you're laying on there, on the floor, on the bed, wherever. So you want to put a head, a pillow between your head, so that your face is level or parallel to the floor. So in image number six, it's video six, you'll see that we did put the pillow because now the second exercise I call the chin tuck press. So you nod your chin down, and then you just gently squish the pillow. So while the first exercise is strengthening, excuse me, the deep neck flexors on the front and stretching the neck extensors on the back, this second exercise is strengthening the neck muscles on the front, excuse me, and then using the neck extensors, the muscles on the back, to pull the head back into alignment. So now you have strong neck stabilizers to stabilize your spine from the shoulders up, and then you have strong neck extensors to keep your head aligned so that it doesn't want to fall forward at the end of the day, or if you do overuse it and bend your head forward, you want to make sure this undoes the sport. You want to make sure that you strengthen those neck extensors to keep your head up. Now John, how are those exercises working out for you right now? It's been a couple of days. Yeah, now they're working really, really well. I still find it a little hard on the floor, so I tend to do it up against the wall instead because it's just a little bit more comfortable, and it's not too bad even using the cushion, or in the office I don't have a cushion, so I've been just folding up a jumper and using that instead, but it still works, and it's definitely helping. I can fill the ranges improving bit by bit, so it's pretty good. I think that's fantastic. So in image seven, we'll show what John was mentioning about the wall posture. I felt bad because I was worried about him having to get down to the floor to do this exercise because the first time was so difficult. So he went and stood up against his wall, and I said, you know what? It's a great place, the wall, to do the chin nods, but not necessarily a great place to do the tuck and squish. So he went and got his jumper, put it behind his head. You want to have something behind your head that you can tuck and squish into, not the wall. You don't want to strain your neck. So this was the wall exercise that John's talking about, tucking your chin and then putting something behind your head and tucking and squishing. So in image number eight, this is one that John and I didn't go over, but we did go over in the first two times that I was on Think Tech Hawaii, and it's something that you can do against the wall where you put your hands up, it's the stick on up stretch, and you squeeze your shoulder blades back into the wall. So the wall is a great place to do it, but you can do it just sitting at your desk. I tell people when you're typing for a long period of time or you catch yourself hunching over, you're like into a project, and you're, oh my gosh, that's right, undo the sport. Sit up straight, nod your chin down so it's not elevated. Put your hands up, squeeze your shoulder blades back, and undo the sport. Just squeeze and release, squeeze and release. That exercise is the muscle on the back that has been strained from coming forward. So you don't continue to go forward as you go home and eat your dinner, you'll be up and erect. As you get into your car to drive, you'll be up and erect. So the last exercise I'm going to show today is image nine, and this is one of my favorites that I believe I showed in the first two shows as well. That is to grab an exercise band or not and rotate your palms out with your palms facing the ceiling and squeeze your shoulder blades. You just go back and forth, squeezing your shoulder blades. Again, you can do it at your desk, you can do it anywhere. If you just played volleyball, if you just played squash, if you had an overhead sport where you're working in front of you, racket ball, squash, pretty much everything, you're using all the muscles in front of you, push-ups, cross-fit, you name it, you undo your sport. You grab a band, palms up, keep your elbows in at your side. You rotate your hands out, squeeze your shoulder blades. I even brought a band to show live. Palms up, elbows in, chest up, chin down. You rotate out, squeeze your shoulder blades, rotate out. If you have shoulder pain and that's bothering you with the band, all you need to do is rotate out. I tell people it's like flipping the pages of a newspaper, flipping the pages of a magazine. So John, I want to talk a little bit about as we get into the new year. Is there anything that you do to prepare yourself, write goals, make plans, anything like that, financial goals, meditation goals, sleep goals, fitness goals, anything? Well, I'm obviously going to continue with the exercise that you showed me because I want to extend my motion and be trying to go younger. But yeah, language, I'm trying to brush up on some Spanish. I work with a lot of Mexican people here. So speaking another language helps you to explore. Yeah, definitely a lot of traveling. That's my plan, really trying to set some new places to see through the new year. But also diet-wise, I'm trying to cut out as much meat as I can and try and stick with a plant-based diet. Okay. I'm trying to help my blood flow as well because I've been experimenting with that for the last couple of weeks. And it's surprising that even in two weeks, playing, I feel less fatigue. Wow. When I'm playing and also in terms of the recovery, going back on foot, most of the guys I play with, you know, conventional meat eaters, if you like. And that's what I've been doing differently. And they're still in the same place, but I seem to be able to outlast them a little bit more from just two weeks of diet change. So I'm definitely going to continue pursuing that. I want to find out more about what you're doing with that for sure. Because as my ankle is healing, I want to get back to playing beach volleyball. And since the girls are so young and fit and playing so much longer than me, I'm going to need to do that. So those goals are great goals. That's fantastic. That's a great way to go into the new year. Do you write them down? Do you type them up? How do you keep track? Or is it just something that you, how do you keep it in your mind in the new year? Just register it in there. And you know, with the Spanish stuff, it's pretty much just trying to attend 15 minutes each day. The exercises, you know, I coach and play a lot. So I just incorporate that into part of my routine. So always do a warm up before my sessions. I love that. That's perfect. Repeat that. You always do a what before your sessions. I always warm up when I'm playing. I'm a little bit lazy when it comes to teaching, I must say. But even then, I really ought to do a little bit of stretching. And I tend to do some stretching just not as much because I'm normally not the person doing as much work when I'm coaching obviously as the student. But it depends on training. Sometimes I need to put in a bit more movement as well. So it's always worth it because it's the times when you think, oh, this is going to be easy. And then you're lazy with your movement. You don't, you know, hold your posture as well with the positioning. That's when you pull a muscle when you think, but I wasn't doing anything. So I think it's, yeah, not getting any younger, gotta keep stretching. I think that's great. We had mentioned that when we did a volleyball session on how to not hurt your shoulder doing the perfect cut shot. And the dynamic warm-up is so perfect. So I always wrote goals down when I was in my 20s. And I would write, oh, I want to go hike Joshua Tree. I want to learn a language. I love learning languages as well. I want to save X amount of money. I want to take these classes for physical therapy. And I did write them down. I think I might have done it before the end of the year because I was getting, I get excited in December. It's my birth month and all the holiday parties and everything. I like starting over a new year and I like closing off one year. And so I tend to write them down what I want to accomplish in the new year. And sometimes it's fun halfway through the year to look and say, oh, oh my gosh, I went rock climbing. And I think the true thing is, is that when we write things down, they're more likely to come into our lives. And as we go into 2020, write down your goals, whether they're fitness goals, financial goals, relationship goals, interpersonal goals, career goals, family goals, travel goals, write a few down every one so that you can keep track. And if we go to image number 10, I like to think with this beautiful plumeria flower as the new year is a blossoming flower. And you can make whatever you want of this next year. You can accomplish whatever you want. So in closing, John, thank you so much for coming on Think Tech Hawaii. This was great. I can't wait to follow up with you again. I hope we go into the new year well. And I also want to thank everyone for watching us, our sponsors, our producers, and Think Tech Hawaii for allowing us to have this show today. Aloha, everyone, and have a great day.