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Meet a Physio Therapist for Horse Riders · Workplace Confessions: Behind Closed Doors

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Workplace Confessions Behind Closed Doors.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Elsa Barbie.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm Don Andrews.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: We have been friends since sixth grade.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Somewhere between a car wash job, a few questionable boy choices, and 40 years of friendship, we became the kind of people who always want to know what was really going on, including at work.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Don spent 25 years as an employment lawyer digging into workplace drama from the inside out.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: I built a long career in the beauty industry as a brand educator with a few TV cameos sprinkled in for fun.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: We came up in very different industries, but we have the same passion.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: Meeting new people and asking how they got their jobs, what they love, what they can't stand, and what happens behind closed doors.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Every episode, we talk to a new guest about their lived experience in the world of work.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And because our guests stay anonymous, they can spill the truth without the fallout.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: We get into the choices they made, the tiny cruelties, the surprise kindnesses, and some of the moments that never make it into human resources reports.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Equal Parts Informative and titillating.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: This show serves up all the tea while honoring the incredible, complicated, often messy work people are doing across the industries and across the map.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Workplace Confessions Behind Closed Doors.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get into it.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Oh but you have to elaborate on that.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_03: For$15 an hour, I would teach little kids after school riding lessons.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: And how long did you have that job for?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_05: Oh my goodness, the longest time.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_05: So I actually grew up on a farm and we had 10 acres and had horses.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_05: And so, in order to pay my way with my parents with my ponies, I would teach little kids riding lessons after school.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's so awesome.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna just pivot very quickly because I'm sure our first listeners are already asking themselves, where is that accent from?
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_03: It's from New Zealand.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Down under.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: You're welcome, everyone.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: All right, tell us what you're doing now, and then walk us through how you got from teaching kids how to ride ponies all the way to where you are now.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_05: So I am a physiotherapist and I specialize in physiotherapy for horse riders.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_05: So I'm all about biomechanics of the rider, how people sit, efficiency of the body, how to use their body properly.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_05: That's kind of my niche market, but I also treat regular humans too.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: If they're especially regular two, yeah, four-legged friends and two-legged friends.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_05: Really deep growing up with riding, I got my first pony when I was eight, and then rode all the way through school, rode all the way through high school, and then I wanted to ride full-time, and my mom was like, you know what?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_05: We're cutting the ties, and we will financially we can't really support this endeavor anymore.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_05: So either we will support you if you go to university and get something solid behind you, or if you want to be a full-time horse trainer, then that's on you and you figure out your way.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_05: So I racked my brain and I'm like, you know what?
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_05: I really want to be a physiotherapist for horses.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_05: But in order to go that path, you have to have a human physio-physical therapy degree first.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_05: So I put myself through university to be a human physio in thought pattern that I was gonna go and be a horse physio afterwards.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_05: And then as I kind of got through it, and obviously it's a four-year bachelor's, I was like, goodness, I do not want to keep going with more study, and all these horse riders are so broken, so there's a missing market.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_05: So that's how it kind of came about.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Love it.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: You did you get a job right out of college?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: I did.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Working for someone else?
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_05: Working for someone else, yeah.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_05: So in my last postgrad year, I managed to land in a really good PT studio, and he became my mentor.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_05: And so he offered me a job at the end of my placement, and then I stayed under him for six years before I started my own practice.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: And how long have you had your own practice?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_05: Oh my goodness.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_05: 18.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: So you've pretty much always have been in one type of job.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: It was been horses from day one.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_05: From day one, probably in the womb.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_05: I was probably riding a pony in the womb.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us what is it about horses that you love so much?
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_05: It's like a spiritual connection.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_05: They completely take the ego out of and out of you because you cannot come into an environment around a horse with an ego.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Was there ever a moment in your complete journey that you didn't think this was right for you?
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_05: No, never, not one second.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And you never thought about doing anything else.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_05: In the first phase, when I was like, shoot, what am I gonna go study at uni to keep going in my horse endeavors and career?
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_05: I originally thought I wanted to be a vet.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_05: So that was a toss-up.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Not too far off.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_05: Not too far off.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: So tell us if you will, some of the things that you specialize in, that you are trained in, what sort of sets you apart as a physiotherapist?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_05: I guess my niche marker, obviously, with the overlap between having this depth as a writer myself, and then it blending into the physiotherapy, physical therapy realm.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_05: I think if you really understand the connection between a horse and a rider, and you know how to feel that, that sets you in a different league to someone who has great depth of training in physiotherapy or physical therapy, but has never ridden a horse.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_05: So it's very different when you've done the sport to a level compared to if you haven't done it before.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_05: I think that's what gives me the point of difference in my field.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Cool.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Very cool.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now I have to ask you what brought you to the States?
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_04: Horses.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I think we're gonna end this interview with the answer is horses for every single question.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_05: I was riding super competitive.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_05: I was trying to make a team for New Zealand, and I have my private practice still going on the side.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_05: So I would treat clients from seven till noon, physical therapy clients, PT clients, and then I would drive home, and then I'd have be on my first horse by around two o'clock, and then we'd do horses all afternoon.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_05: So I was still really high in the competitive field in New Zealand, and I was trying to make a team.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_05: That was my goal.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_05: Obviously, New Zealand's a little island, so we don't have a lot of exposure.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_05: You're only competing against people in New Zealand, you don't get a lot of people coming across for big competitions, and you have to post scores of certain levels in certain calibers of competitions.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_05: So that means that if you really want to be on a world stage, you have to venture overseas to do that's what sort of sparked me here in the first place.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_05: And then so I sold all my I had six horses, a team of six.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_05: I sold everything but my top one, and then I flew the top horse over here and based myself here.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_03: How do you fly a horse on a cargo plane?
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: DHL brings them.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: What's a skill that you use now that no one warns you about in the line of work that you do?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, that no one warns me about.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_03: How to mobilize a tailbone.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_05: I did not go into PT school thinking that I was gonna be treating tailbones.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Can you describe that for our listeners?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_05: The tailbone is the very bottom of your spine and your pelvis.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: And what do you do with it?
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_05: If we're gonna align these two with my profession and my passion with riding, and you think about what we do as horse riders is you sit on your pelvis on a moving horse, so there's a lot of force load, it can cause dysfunctions in the tailbone and the coccyx.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_05: So you will get a side bend sometimes in the tailbone.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_05: You also from people who fall off their horse will land on their bottom and it can rotate a coccyx, which causes a plethora of issues.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: So, did you imagine that you would be putting your fingers in people's mouths and moving their jaw bones around?
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_05: No, I did not imagine that either.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_05: No, but that is another big realm.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_05: PJ is a huge issue for a lot of people, and if you're not trained in intra-oral, it that's a really complex area and it's hard to navigate appropriate treatment for people.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_05: But I always have gloves.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_05: Gloves are good, gloves are necessary.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_05: Don't bite.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_05: Let's say you had someone who had some wisdom teeth removed and they were at the dentist had their jaw open for hours and so had a dysfunction where when the jaw was closed, it didn't align properly on one side.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_05: If that's left for a long period of time, the muscles on one side can hypertrophy and keep the jaw in that position.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_05: So it's our job as PTs to figure this out and sometimes go intra-oral and release those muscles out.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: And for teeth grinders, right?
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_05: Teeth grinders are a biggie.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, very cool.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: What's the best part about your job?
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_05: Ooh, that every single day is different.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_05: There is not one day ever that is the same.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_05: Every human is different, and you're almost like, it's really funny because a lot of my really young ones don't understand this, but I'm like, I'm like Nancy Drew.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_05: Did you ever read the books Nancy Drew growing up?
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_05: And the Hardy, is it the Hardy Boyle voice?
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_05: The Hardy voice, yeah.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_05: The Hardy voice.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_05: Nancy Drew, like navigating my way through, trying to figure out what the problem is and solve the issue.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_05: That lights me up.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_05: Having a really complex patient who maybe has seen four or five other people and they're like, we just can't get to the bottom.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_05: It's still here.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_05: I don't understand it.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_05: No one can figure it out.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_05: Let them at me.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: So, what would be your approach to that if you've like you said, like other people have not been able to figure something like that out?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: How do you approach it?
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_05: I'm big on really listening to the client to the patient.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_05: And every patient, if you listen deep enough, you can then navigate it with your questioning and pull information out of the weeds.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_05: And it tells a story if you're open to hearing it.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_05: And then yeah, you just put your little list out, and I'm gonna start here and work my way around.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's unfortunate.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think most doctors or physicians or therapists have the time to do what you do.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_05: I yeah, and that's a that's a systems issue, too, where here, especially in the US, and it's happened in New Zealand as well, it's become very heavily insurance-based, and so the treating provider has to meet their quota and they have to see so many people in a day.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_05: And if you're seeing 16 patients in a day, I don't even know how you would do that, but a lot of my colleagues do.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_05: At 20-minute treats, there's no way I could, you would never be out of Nancy Drew someone in 20 minutes.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: What would you say is the hardest part of your job then?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_05: Ooh, the hardest part of my job is the patient that doesn't have patience.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_05: They want it now, right?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_05: They want a quick fix, they want to take a pill, they wanna, they don't want to put in the time on their side because it's a double-edged sword.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_05: There's two sides to the equation.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_05: I can't fix you if you can't come to the party too and do your part.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: And how do you navigate that conversation?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_05: It's all in the way that you discuss it with somebody, and you have to get them to buy in too.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_05: You've got to find their little buy-in, and whether it's their they're so emotionally attached to their dog and going for a walk with their dog every morning.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_05: So, okay, that's their buy-in for making sure that they get up and do their appropriate gate retraining.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: Or what percentage of your patients do you think do their homework?
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_05: Ooh, oh my gosh.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_05: I wish I had the stats on this.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_05: I would most of mine are actually pretty good because I have a lot of more athlete types, and they tend to be more your A-type personalities.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_05: And so some of them I need to calm down.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_05: No, don't do six extra sets.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_05: Just do three.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_05: But definitely you can tell when they walk in the door for a follow-up if they've done their homework or not.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_05: But I never blast them.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, but you haven't done your homework.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: More visits for me.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us more about the community because you have such a niche job.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: What does your community look like?
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_05: We have a really cool community, actually.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_05: And we have a local community to a countrywide community to a global community.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_05: They're, yeah, it's very neat.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_05: And you'll get on little forums and someone will pop up from somewhere else in the world, and there's just a really nice mesh in the whole equestrian community.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's cool.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's cool.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so speaking of the industry that you're in now, if you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about your industry, what would it be?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_05: Oh my gosh, the expense of the sport.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_05: It has skyrocketed.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_05: It is, yeah, out of control.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Versus 10, 15 years ago?
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_05: And what it was already going up 10, 15 years ago, but now it's outrageous.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_05: But which I think is why, and if you think about it too, someone's oh, I ride horses, and already there's like a dollar sign in that person's head.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_05: You either have parents that are wealthy or you're really wealthy.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_05: Like, how else do you ride a hook can support that?
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_05: Which is sad for a lot of the kids coming up.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_05: It's such a great sport for teaching kids how to be self-sufficient and think about others and not just be in a selfish little bubble and look after an animal.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_05: But if you have, or if you don't have the funds available to be able to go and take a riding lesson or go to a pony camp, then they all miss out, which is really sad.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: What's a myth about your industry that drives you crazy?
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_05: Ooh, a myth.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_03: You just sit up there and look pretty.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_03: How hard is it to ride a horse?
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_03: It won't be that hard.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_03: You just sit there, right?
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_03: It's so hard.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_05: It is so hard.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_05: Those are my favorite ones.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, I'm gonna put you on this horse.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_05: Let's have a look.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Who do we have?
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: What are the muscles that are being used when riding off?
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: I've only ridden a horse like a handful of.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: All of them.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, yeah, man.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_05: So the biggest ones are your intrinsics, which are like your deep core stabilizers, which is where this blend of PT and horse riders comes in, is really gorgeous.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_05: It's the deep core system, which is like your abdominals, has your scapula or your shoulder blades, all the little intrinsics that come through there, your deep neck muscles, your adductors, inner thighs.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like a full body workout.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_05: It's a full body workout, but it doesn't look like anything you just have.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: Pretty the brain, the brain workout.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_05: The brain.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_05: There is a brain workout.
• 17:04
  unknown: Yeah.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: Explain that part about the brain.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_05: Oh my gosh.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_05: It's the ability for the brain to have this connection with the deep core, right?
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_05: To facilitate that activation without recruiting all the big global muscles, like the biceps, right?
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_05: Say you're holding the reins.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_05: The brain's okay, keep your shoulder blades here, like stay stable, but feel the horse's connection to the bit, to the mouth on the bridle.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_05: But don't do a bicep curl, which is you're not your number one.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_05: You're like, oh, the horse kind of ran away.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_05: I'm just gonna pull back.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: Ah okay, now for the juicy part.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: What's the wildest, weirdest, or most unforgettable thing that you've actually witnessed at work?
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, I have two really cool ones.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_05: One was a quote from a very famous billionaire woman in the US.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_05: And we were talking about significant others.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_05: And she said to me, she was like, You need to remember this one.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_05: And it was, honey, I will never be a purse, and I will never be your nurse.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_03: And I had to compose myself so much.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, Zippet, do not laugh.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_05: She was so dead to it.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_05: Seriously, she was my favorite of all time.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_05: The other one is a not a horse rider, actually, daytime warrior.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_05: And he had some neural issues and or neurological issues, and he would have some fainting attacks.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_05: And so he was going through this process of working through scans to figure out what this was coming from with some blood pressure issues.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_05: And he said he woke one morning and he had been fine, but he was too scared to get out of bed in case he was gonna faint and fall down, and he needed to go to the bathroom.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_05: So he just rolled himself to the side and leaned over the bed and urinated on the carpet.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: By choice, not accidentally.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's the key.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_04: No, right?
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_04: Purposefully.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_04: He was so he just rolled over and peed on the carpet.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, the cleanup job.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_04: I just and I cannot laugh, and I can't have to be like What is going on in your head?
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: But are you as a human that you have to pee on the carpet?
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_05: You have a water bottle or a cup, right?
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_05: I fat yeah, I don't know.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: Have you ever had somebody fart on the table?
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_03: Ooh, yes.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, this is a good one, actually.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_03: And she was so sweet.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_05: She's I was doing a it was a seated manipulation.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_05: When people get really tight thoracic, mid-thoracic spines, often I'll do a seated manip where they're sitting upright and they put their hands behind their neck, and you kind of reach around like a butterfly, and you do some breath work, and then on an exhalation, you do a lift through the body, and often you'll get a cavitation in the thoracic spine somewhere.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_05: And so as we worked through this with some breathing patterns and we did the lift in this thoracic mope, she tooted, and she was so cute.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_03: She's oh, that was so good, but I tooted.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_04: We have a great relationship, and I've seen her a long time now, so we just both started busting out laughing.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you can't help it sometimes.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_04: You know what?
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: Is this actually a compliment to you?
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_02: There we go.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: She was so relaxed, she was so relaxed, and we got about five pops out of her rack.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_02: Not five toots.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_02: Not five toots.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: Question Have you ever had a patient act inappropriately toward you?
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_05: Slightly.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_05: It was a male patient, and he would keep navigating the conversation.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_05: We were working on cranium, like skull and neck.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_05: And he would often drop comments and they're like, Oh, I have really tight glutes.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_05: Could you release my glutes?
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, well, I'm not working on your pelvis.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_05: You have a neck and head issue going on.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_05: And then he'd come back in next week or a couple of weeks later, and he dropped the center, and I just passed it off.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, we're working on the neck or whatever.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_05: And then this third time he's oh I was I was looking into it and I this is actually a coccyx.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_05: He goes I think mobilization of the coccyx is what I need to really fix my neck.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_05: What very far from the confirmation connected to the and it is though right and so often there are some patients with correlations with side bends or rotations on a coccyx that can cause effects up the chain.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_05: But I had navigated this conversation long enough and heard the drop comments coming through that I knew where it was going.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_05: So I was definitely not going to palpate his coccyx.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: Hard pass.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: So how did you what did you tell him?
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_05: I honestly I avoided a little bit the conversation because it did make me feel a little uncomfortable.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_05: And then I did talk to another provider at the clinic about it and I was like hey I've had this happen today and I'm not sure we share this patient right so I'm like what do you think and the other provider is male maybe you should pop in on this one.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_05: Have you ever had a patient ask you out uh I've had a pay oh this is a long time ago back in New Zealand I have had a patient ask if I would meet up like on a weekend or something.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_05: If you're going out this weekend we should meet up interesting.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_05: It's one lesson that you've learned the hard way something that I've learned the hard way sometimes leaping before you look I am obviously quite a go-getter by personality and if I set my mind to something it's gonna happen.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_05: I have definitely learned over the years that taking a little bit of a step back and making sure you plan through the process can be beneficial instead of just launching off that cliff and going yeah let's get this done so true.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_05: And how did you learn that oh man this is a deep dive yeah came when I moved countries and came over here I definitely deep dove my way to the US without really forward planning.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_05: I was a lot younger too right this is in 2014 and then it bit me in the butt a little bit and I was over here and I'd moved my whole life and my horse was here and I left my family and my friends and I didn't know I moved here and I didn't know anybody I was dating somebody here but that's a different story.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_05: And then that went tits up and then I'm like shit what do I do now I'm in this country I don't know anybody here I've left my whole life behind and do I pack up and go back to New Zealand but then I feel like a failure because I've committed myself to doing this and so yeah I wrote it out I'm like okay what step back look at the bigger picture make a plan okay how do you take good care of yourself what does your self-care regime reg regime regimen look like oh my gosh I need to be better at it actually practice what you preach right I have to I'm a working mom too so I have a six year old which is amazing but time consuming and all of the things as well so I have to make sure that my time is really the morning I set my alarm and I try and get up at least an hour or so before him.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_05: So that's my segment that's my time to either put myself in the gym we have we made a little home gym during COVID here so that it makes it a little easy you don't have to leave the house if he wakes up all of a sudden and is worried then you're still in close vicinity and get it done because by the end of the day once I've then gone to work treated patients all day and come home you can have all the best intentions in the world but once you pick up that little guy from school and then you're in mom's zone and guilt is a real thing too so I want to give my time to him at that point.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah you just have to carve it out.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Does he ride horses as well?
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_05: He does not which I am okay with it I wasn't sure how I was gonna feel about it.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_05: And my wallet is probably really happy about it.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_05: No I'm totally okay with it.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_05: But he's a go-getter too he loves all sorts of running around being crazy outside he loves climbing and adventuring and biking and yeah if somebody was thinking of getting into this field what advice would you give them find a really good mentor yeah and go and put your time in and it takes time this field really just takes time it's time and experience and commitment and being passionate for knowledge and getting into the weeds on things yeah give yourself some time but definitely align with a mentor.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_05: And what kind of skill set would that person need I think it sets you apart if you have a background in horses I think it really if you are trying to come into the niche market or niche market of equestrian physio and you don't have affinity or background in horses I think it's really tricky because if you've never ridden a bike a bicycle how do you really know what it feels like to ride a bicycle yeah great point great point and what about working with an affluent clientele honestly I see both and everything in between from the kids that they're working at the barn to pay for their lessons those are the those are my favorite actually because they are so committed and they will do anything to be at the barn and to be with those horses versus the ones who the parent forces them to have riding lessons and it's more of the mom's dream than it is the kid's dream and the kid doesn't really want to be there.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_05: So what's your favorite part of the body to work on a human my specialty I guess is either upper cranium where kind of the skull attaches to the top of the neck though that's a big player for me and I really love that area.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_05: I also love lumbopelvic so where the lower spine and the pelvis join forces and do you work with both I'm assuming you work with both male and female what is the percentage of each I would say probably 80% female and of the 80% what age would you say that you work with the most probably my 40 to 60 year olds.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah I bet a figure any advice that you would give to any of our 20 year old listeners about how to take care of their body for their future listen to your body do not put anything off if you feel like something is slightly off or your gate stride is less on one side deep dive into it and figure out why don't put that off because when you start developing compensatory patterns it's gonna lead into deeper kind of defects later on what do you think about tech connects and are you seeing an increase in people coming in with tech related injuries huge and the younger ones on their phone constantly just looking down at their phone.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: What about pickleball injuries everyone seems to get hurt playing pickleball my older population they're the ones that come in and they're like oh my shoulder I played pickleball for the first time yesterday and it was two hours yeah they played for so long I'm like when do you ever go do exercise for four hours straight and I've probably never picked up a racket and hit a ball in 15 years that's why I think thinking of when you first started to what you're doing now on the human body what has changed what type of injuries did you not see 15 20 years ago versus what you're treating now I don't know that injury wise anything has really changed.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_05: I think our depth of knowledge definitely my depth of knowledge has changed right with experience comes depth and breadth that I just am I'm now quicker and more efficient at navigating where a pain pattern is coming from but I don't I yeah I don't really obviously the phone side of things yes that is one player in the game with techneck type scenario maybe actually in the younger generation they're spending more time sitting I see more low back pain in the younger generation than I would have seen 15 years ago.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: And what do you think of topical creams when treating soreness or anything on the body do you ever refer for it?
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_05: I do I really like CBD I use it on my own body I you have it in my cupboard for my family if needed so what about what do you think of Annika Love Annika okay cool yep I have topical and ingestible little tablets.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_05: Love them okay cool have you thought about writing a book ooh I have thought about writing a book actually yes where do you see yourself in five or ten years it's a good one so well obviously this A-type personality has a lot of different goals in five or ten years I would like to be back in the competitive horse realm obviously that has been a sideline and has been sidelined in my career path because it's navigated in a different direction I don't think it's dead yet and I would like it to come back to life a little I don't know what that looks like but yeah we'll see and then I would also like to run a multidisciplinary clinic that's been brewing in the brain for a long time so whether that's a five year or 10 year goal from here we'll see.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah I think if we could blend practitioners together it'd be so much more efficient and better for the client and then you work together I don't know why everybody wants to work so individual why don't we have these facilities and studios where you can have the nutritionists and the podiatrist and the PT and the physician and why don't we bring all that together do you think the red light therapy and saunas that everybody goes to are working for them I don't know if it's your first line I think there is definite benefit to both of them we use a lot of red light in the clinic for cellular response and healing but I it's not the number one right it's not gonna you don't come in and have a pelvic dysfunction and we put a red light on you and next thing you're cured but is it something that can be in a treatment plan?
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_05: Absolutely I could imagine staying abreast of all that technology like how do you know which one's good for your which one do you follow yeah you have to stay up with the play so much you've got to be interested in it right and the more passion you have then the more you're gonna want to stay up with the play.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah definitely intellectual curiosity oh it's so important yeah thank you so much for being our guest today on Workplace Confessions Behind Closed Doors.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's truly been a door that we've never opened before have we had have we done and with that we want to thank you for sharing your story with us you've officially joined the ranks of the brave and the bold thank you.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: You're welcome that's it for this week's confession we've laughed cringed and maybe questioned our own career choices.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: Big thanks to our anonymous guests for keeping it real and reminding us that behind every job title is a story worth telling if you've got a workplace confession of your own we're all ears hit us up at our email address.
• 34:32
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• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: Until next time keep your badge clipped your coffee strong and your stories wild this is Workplace Confessions behind closed doors