Episode 132

[Music] hey everybody and welcome to another exciting amazing and connected episode of Finding Peaks Yours Truly president founder chief executive officer Chris Burns so grateful to be here today with my guests but before we introduce the guests I want to tell you a little story about eight months ago or excuse me about 12 months ago back in October of last year I’ve been doing Jiu-Jitsu for about seven or eight months and at this time I couldn’t could literally could not lift my shoulders above my head and I had succumbed to the fact or the thought of a fact that maybe I just can’t do Jiu-Jitsu I had talked to my wife I was like maybe I need to quit I’m 40 years old I shouldn’t do this I’m 38 by the way and then I decided to support one of my good friends Andrew and paks alumni on a 100 mile race and I decided to support him or he asked me to support him from 80 to 100 miles and this was really really cool it was Peaks alumni it was Garden of the Gods but when we get down to the Finish Line I run into a guy who I would come to later know as Dr Christian Wade and he talks a bit about concierge wellness and I had never heard about this specifically in Colorado Springs he says he creates relationships with individuals to help them find Healing on their Journey physical spiritual mental and emotional from that day to now my life has adamantly changed spiritually mentally emotionally and most certainly physically I have the best shoulders on planet Earth I’m feeling really good um and I’m talking to people that I love and care about about concierge Wellness about Dr Christian Wade so without further Ado my doctor good friend Dr Christian way with concierge Wellness everybody hey thanks for having me absolutely man how are you doing today I’m great it’s good to be here it’s good to chat about wellness and all the things included yeah it’s it’s cool because I I go to the Jiu-Jitsu gym all the time and I’m like you know people are always hurting arms are hurting legs are hurting I’m like call my guy yeah and I get asked the question sometimes like yeah but it’s it’s $1,200 for 10 sessions and like you know what’s different about it and I say just give them a call sit down create the opportunity and walk through it and you tell me what’s different about it um I think first off and foremost Christian and you’ll be able to speak to this more clearly than I can I think the relational side is everything my PT experience was 15 minutes in with somebody I didn’t know we didn’t really have a relationship he’d pull my leg left and right and then I’d be bouncing balls off a trampoline for the next 45 minutes and I thought that’s what physical therapy was yeah and I continue to have the aches and pains in the creeks and I experience no healing and so maybe for the viewers a little bit you know what is this coner Wellness about what is an intimate relationship with a practitioner and how does that work yeah good question uh you hit on a lot of that but it it is a relationship it’s me you know it’s me every time you know until we grow and have other providers you’d still have that one provider every time but you know I think most people’s experience with physical therapy is similar to yours right we’re going in we get on the spin bike for 10 minutes someone stretches us out for 10 minutes stand on some phone pads do some band work call it good you know 12 sessions later still have a knee pain so you know I’ve worked in over 15 clinics over five states across the country and I’ve realized I’ve seen the good the bad the ugly and I realized I want to make a change I want to I want to create a different version of what PT is um so really I do it comes it starts with a thorough assessment you witnessed that you know 90 minutes with me one-on-one the whole time we go through your medical history your past history all your injuries anything that could be related um we talk about nutrition we talk about good sleep hygiene Stress Management water protein all the good stuff M um we develop a plan for you right for each person that plan is going to look a little bit little bit different with the overarching theme good nutrition good exercise I think that’s it’s just the basic stuff that we miss um and so I’ve created a company where I provide that concer service we have direct communication you know during your plan of care with me you can text me anytime right if I can’t answer over a text I’ll call you I’ll FaceTime you um it’s creating that access to good care care right so we’re not only providing quality service but quality access to that uh traditional medical model you know we’re waiting four to six weeks to see anybody these days right um before we got on the show I had a cancellation someone texted me to get in I’m seeing them tonight nice so you know worst case next week right so um it’s been nice to be able to provide that flexibility for people and so that’s part of the con process and it’s it’s it’s so important too because there’s there’s so much mistrust us with our medical model and what we’ve walked through I mean my wife had a a surgery where she had a rod put in she has never been the same yep um and she was rushed into that and people are rushed into these things unbeknownst to the outcomes and so there’s a tremendous amount of distrust and so I love what you’re talking about too because it’s not just sitting down doing physical therapy having an assessment creating wellness it’s like hey man we’re going to build a relationship that is trusting and I had never certainly i’ I’ve never been in this type of shape because I’ve never been able to walk with a provider day in and day out I was texting Christian before we got up here I mean I had a leg thing and he’s like we’ll check you out we’ll get you good that’s the type of connective tissue experience that helps kind of my bias settle a little bit and recreate some opportunity for trust and healing yeah you know yeah so it’s a it’s a beautiful process I I really really love it I encourage each and every person to at least give it a shot and it feels you know it’s it’s like this investment you know it’s like waking up at 5:00 a.m. I remember my good friend Christian panoa he always says he said you invest now or you invest later yeah we invest now or we invest later and similar to waking up at 5:00 a.m. it’s much more difficult um when I become 75 years old and I have all sorts of core mobidity issues if I make it that late yep and so I want to invest today because I think we’ve done the cost benefit analysis for folks that are dealing with mental health issues uh substance use recovery uh diet nutrition exercise and movement quite frankly is all the craze right now yep what have you seen from your clients from a mental health perspective I know you’ve worked with a ton of people you know and to watch that light turn on and them go oh my gosh I’m smiling I’m happy I feel good I look good I got friends maybe chat with the viewers a little bit about like what does that experience like yeah I think that’s what drives me a lot is I was speaking with my wife about this I want to change someone’s perspective I want to change their mental ality around this injury or or chronic pain or whatever they’re dealing with and I can relate to that you know I’ve had lower back pain since College injury took me almost 10 years to kind of work through that um and various different medical professions and and opinions on it but mentally it’s it’s taxing it’s super taxing and you need someone to kind of go through that with you instead of bouncing different providers and getting unknown um answers and so from a mental perspective Ive I think what I what I found that I provide the most for people that they don’t get elsewhere is Hope right I’m giving them hope this can get better this can absolutely get better may not be tonight may not be tomorrow but it can absolutely get better and so yeah it it motivates me to give hope because a lot of people don’t have that in our current system yeah right we’re going to go see a provider we’re going to we throw it our back right we’re going to go to Urgent Care Urgent Care is going to take an x-ray make sure we didn’t break anything thing send us home with muscle relaxers some pain pills tell us to take it easy yeah probably the worst thing we could do mhm um six weeks later we follow up we might get a referral to physical therapy might not you know they’re still stuck they’re still dealing with this pain they’re probably going to get another pill probably going to offer an injection because we want that fixed yep so mentally I try to encourage people let’s give it a little bit of time this didn’t happen overnight mhm even if you think it did you know you think it was just that thing you lifted this was probably years of of poor choices adding up you know and accumulating to this injury um but yeah I just I like to provide the hope for people I think mentally that’s huge and then Clarity um and some kind of vision like what does the future look like what can that look like and we we work towards that MH yeah it’s really it’s it’s really beautiful and and I obviously we anchor into that here at Peaks recovery is like so many people have had the door shut slammed in their face of Hope over and over and over and so when we can create visibility Clarity connection and trust with our providers I think it really creates a momentum um with our mental health and with our recovery and with our clients that we have the opportunity to work with which is so cool and we were chatting a little bit about before the show you know it’s I’m I’m really big into this Wellness thing in my 16th year of recovery because when I first got into recovery they’re like you need to go to this church basement hang out there three times a day it’s going to be really dark in there but you’re going to find people that love you and care about you and there was people that loved and cared about me but what I also saw in there often times um was incredibly disconnected choices with respect to nutrition with respect to um environment um but nobody’s informing that and so as a result I think I read a study most recently that folks that struggle with mental health issues are three to five times more likely to die from all cause death mortality which breaks my heart and so I want to ensure that I’m introducing to people in recovery as we move into recovery what I like to call 2.0 um spiritual mental and emotional that they know that there’s an opportunity to actually not feel the way that they feel um I I know when I first started meeting with you I remember after like four months I was like dude I don’t think these shoulders are going to get better and then all of the sudden right it’s a process Y and you speak so clearly to allowing oneself to engage in your process um which I think is really dynamic um and fitting for the recovery process um I don’t remember many doctors growing up man um that actually prescribe movement as medicine yeah but I was listening to this podcast the other day and I know you’re familiar with it as well but they’re talking about doctors writing prescriptions for gym memberships how does that work yeah as far as I know you can write it it’s called a medical letter of medical necessity yeah so all they got to do is say hey exercises necessary for this person’s Medical Health mhm plain and simple they write on a pad could be like a prescription script pad right for pills but they write exercise or gym membership or Whole Foods whatever you can get that covered under your HSA FSA dollars so we’re using tax advantage dollars to pay for our gym memberships uh pay for our our whole foods and and supplements and our super greens and all that it makes too much sense yeah it makes way too much sense but um unfortunately doesn’t make dollars right for the pharmaceutical companies so it’s been it’s been in the dark for a while but that’s so good for people to know especially in early recovery maybe they’re coming in they’re a young adult they’re on their folks insurance plan they got an HSA this is covered yeah I didn’t know until I I listen to that podcast of those Stanford surgeons and they were talking about it but literally we get our doctors to write on there hey you know can we just not do the whatever and insert um gym membership at Lifetime and then now you have this coverage through your health benefit which is extraordinary that’s so cool man I learned that the other day I was like holy crap I cannot believe that most people aren’t talking about that yeah but what a beautiful thing and what a cool opportunity that’s there that um we can kind of open the bail to for our viewers yeah and we take all that right so you can use HSA FSA dollars for for con Wellness as well oh nice y I was trying to think if I had an HSA I was actually thinking um earlier this week I wanted to do a cost benefit analysis on how much I actually pay for my health benefit how much I use and kind of see what that looks like as well because you’re going in and you’re right you’re you’re getting your physical therapy you’re coming in you’re paying your $20 co-pay but then oftentimes you’re getting a bill too as well and so um just really want to speak
to the connectivity and The Purpose Driven opportunity that people have when they check in with you and your team I mean just really really cool um you speak to something very clearly uh both in session and on your website talking about elevating your well-being I think that’s really really cool because people I don’t think people connect physical therapy with well-being right how do you connect physical therapy with wellbeing yeah just to hit on all the factors right um we’ve been separated into different Specialties you know PT is just supposed to rub your back or pop it or give you some exercises but traditionally we haven’t talked about the other things and all those lifestyle factors and so I try to hit on everything General Wellness picture right um we’ve chatted many times but yeah I can manipulate your back or yeah I can get the shoulder pain down or we can get you stronger but like are you sleeping you know 8 to nine hours a night are you drinking you know half your body weight and fluid ounces are you eating a gram per gram per pound of body fat of protein a day you know are you managing your stress well all the things that go into pain right specifically um so I’m not there to fix someone’s shoulder pain I’m I’m there to get them healthier there to get them their well-being elevated right so I think with the well-being perspective I just want to approach the whole picture the whole body um it’s one it’s one you know amazing beautiful system we can’t treat it like it’s one part it’s just a spine it’s just a shoulder it’s one full system always working together yeah that’s so cool man because it it speaks to quality of life and quality of life issues and we at Peaks recovery we do on the front end we’ll do like quality of life assessments so people come in naturally they’re like yeah zero out of 10 like this is terrible yeah you know and when I started to move into more of my holistic Wellness I would have thought if you would have asked me about quality of life because of where I was at and where I had been which was like hell right so it was easy for me to be like this is great8 out of 10 but I’m 50 lbs overweight M I’m disconnected in relationships family community and culture but I’m sober so many years and so I I think there’s some there’s something to really say to speaking to the whole person and really elevating that because when I look back with the benefit of hindsight today I would have been like and I tell people this all the time I’m like five or a six of quality of life because I didn’t know what was possible I really want to like light a fire under my recovery people um that podcast we were talking about and just the recent study about steps and just taking steps I think sometimes people look at Chris Burns like dude he’s crazy man you take way too many steps you know and I’m not asking anybody to do that whatsoever I am a little bit on that edge yeah but I heard a study the other day 7500 steps a day 7500 steps a day just walking with a friend having a coffee in a park whatever it might be uh and Christian and I are going to go test how long it takes but we’re imagining it takes about 40 to 45 minutes as a casual Pace it lowers 40 to 60% all cause death mortality if I can do 7,500 steps a day it’s huge it’s huge and I know each and every person down on on our trail head campus right now all 30 of them each and every one of them on any given day can walk with me for 7500 steps and that can reduce yeah all cause death mortality what a gift huge what a gift no pills doing that yeah no pills doing that yeah it’s it’s it’s really really cool and then we bring people out and we’re like oh my gosh we can really begin to to your point get some good sleep enact the Circadian rhythm get sunlight on our face in the morning every single thing that you hit on with respect to Wellness informs mental health mhm informs mental health I sit around with people all the time you know I’ll run or I’ll run down the road I’ll be like hey they’re walking their dog it’s dark out I’m like way to engage in your mental health they’re like what yeah like this what we’re doing yeah that’s what we’re doing 100% And I feel so much better and I kind of feel compelled to tell this story as well you know you’ve been working with uh Cass my wife for the last eight weeks or so and I was chatting with her yesterday we got home as my leg was swelling up like a grapefruit and I’m just like she asks a brilliant question all the time she asks great questions but the one question that she asks all the time that I think is the greatest question on Earth she always says yeah how do you feel how do you feel love that you know how do you feel and so she was talking about her experience working with you she just got back from her walk for a mile she’s bright and beautiful more than ever because she’s doing the things and I was like how do you feel and she’s like I feel amazing yeah it’s just a couple months you know um from surviving to thriving yeah there’s a real opportunity here for people um that are feeling a little down on their luck a little disconnected from their mental health and their overall well-being to engage in something that maybe feels a little bit atypical but when you were talking I I almost thought to myself you’re like the 2024 recovery sponsor yeah that’s what it is it just costs money yeah you know so um I think one of the coolest things that I’ve that I’ve really been able to connect with since knowing you and being in relationship with you is is your willingness to Buck the status quo maybe you can talk a little bit where that passion came from you know I know you’re in um you you went to school you’ve worked at 15 different locations but where did where did you start to see like we can do this better yeah what just resonated with me when you asked that was a specific experience I worked at I did travel therapy so I was kind of put in different places around the country I was in the middle of nowhere Kingman Arizona oh yeah yeah know Kingman yeah uh you know I’m I’m pretty new to PT I think I was a year out if that um treat a lot of chronic back pain um and you know I was trying to implement things I learned in school let’s do some soft tissue and then also you’re as a new grad you know you’re kind of um you start treating how other people around you treat because you don’t know all the things yet so you’re like I’ll do what they do cuz it seems like it’s working but in this specific experience we were not getting results but the treatment was you come in you get a hot pack when going L you on a hot pack it’s going to feel good right 10 minutes later we’re going to take it off we’re going to we’re going to rub on you we give you a little massage right on the on the on the table after that we’re going to show you a couple stretches after that we might put a band around your knees and have you spread your knees might have you lay on your back and lift your hips do some bridges and they’ll say how do you feel feeling good all right we’ll see you on Tuesday you know and I I was there for nine months that was a 12E contract I left in nine months because I realized wow this is not working this is terrible I had never seen so many back fusions wow in in my life and people are going in fusing their spinal for fusing I saw people fused all the way wow couldn’t move could you imagine what they were there for back pain well back pain right you know we’re putting rods in people spines to fix back pain it’s not working we’re massaging backs it’s not working heat packs it’s not working so I was like wow what is this you know and it and then I went and started trying to learn more finding good ConEd courses there’s a company out there shout out to ice physio they’re doing great things they’re they’re what they’re doing is they’re calling PT 2.0 right it’s that next step of PT we’re not doing the ultrasounds and the hot packs and stuff we’re getting people moving we’re talking about nutrition talking about sleep HGI lifestyle habits CU all that is related and so that was like the switch for me was like we got to do better as a profession I cannot put another hot pack on somebody and think their back’s going to feel better yeah long term right yeah so that was a big switch for me I pursued more continued education I surrounded myself with like-minded individuals who are doing that so you know the phrase that a lot of my colleagues use is we’re going to mob it and load it we’re going to mobilize you whether it’s adjustments mobilization get you moving and then we’re going to load it we’re going to put some resistance on it we’re going to get you stronger we’re going to build up resiliency in those tissues and you build a capacity in those tissues that tolerate more and that’s what we really need okay that’s that’s huge yeah you know is it’s interesting when I came in today with my swollen leg Yeah you not for a second did you say all right man we’re going to we’re going to go put it up we’re going to stay off of it for the rest yeah the first thing you asked me is did you train today yeah you know I was like yeah I already trained you’re like cool man right on how’d that go he’s like I saw you with your deadlifts good job yeah it wasn’t you know you go see a doctor down they’re going to be like oh my gosh your leg would you put it up elevate it six months you know it’s insane take it easy yeah and I think the the biggest piece of advice people get is you should rest it MH so usually the worst thing you could do right mobilize I think I men if your femur is split in half let’s get that straightened out right yeah but you know most things we don’t need to rest it we call it relative rest mhm let’s not piss it off right let’s get after it other ways yeah let’s get you on the bike let’s get you doing something let’s do some upper body let’s get the blood flowing yeah it was like today you know it’s like I I like to run I like to rock I like to be on my feet I like to walk had to switch up the RX I had to row sure you’re still doing something exactly still moving yeah and the worst part is when people stop moving right now we’re not dealing with it it’s not just your your calf now you’re deconditioned your whole system is weaker right so anyone who come to me especially high level athletes anyone’s training they come to with an injury we’re still training we’re not stopping we’re training around an injury you cannot stop um it’s it’s it’s so cool because it really is like it is so synonymous Christian with the recovery process that we speak to with respect to mental health substance use we don’t we don’t get to stop right and we certainly don’t get to go backwards um this is this is a process that moves forward one day at a time and the most important thing in recovery and something that I battled with certainly over the last 16 years is just being where my feet are um and that can be really difficult when you’re injured and you’re not feeling well and you’re disconnected you’re not getting sun and certainly when you’re not sleeping and so I love your methodology and the way that you approach this and the fact that you just called it Physical Therapy 2.0 and that’s what people are calling it well that’s what I’m calling this recovery thing 2.0 we’re not only is it the most group of the most courageous people and brave people that I’ve ever met but it’s becoming um the strongest group of people I’ve ever met at the same time so really really cool to be able to elevate people’s mind and bodies especially you know for folks like me the early part of my life it really treated my body really really really poorly you know and we can get better and we can heal yep which I think is is so cool yeah I think a lot of the dam the damage we cause could cause is certainly reversible and I think a big mindset shift that needs to occur is I was speaking with one of my clients this morning um 78 I believe comorbidities and and uh I said she wasn’t taking her blood pressure medication and you know I said you know I’m not a proponent for taking more meds but if your doc gave you this med you know ideally you are taking it to try and see if it’s working we don’t know if it’s working if you’re not taking it and her comment was well I just take so many other meds and I don’t see how I’m going to get off of any of them she said at my age I think people just stay on these meds and I was like wow that’s the problem yeah yeah the the the question should always be Doc how long am I going to be on this doc how do I get off this Statin doc how do I get off this pain med yeah we’re not asking those questions Doc’s not answering those questions let’s try another one let’s try one to counteract those side effects it’s like what are we doing what are we doing have you asked them if they slept last night yeah have you asked them what they ate for breakfast Mickey de is not cutting it m right Kell is not cutting it yeah let’s get some protein let’s get real food that’s what our bodies were designed for yeah so I think we just need to get back to the basics um but I love what you mentioned earlier about Cass your wife asking you how do you feel MH that’s a question I ask a lot of my clients some examples could be you know people are like squatting or like people think their their technique is wrong or like something I’m like well how does it feel mhm you know um yeah certain exercises like I was told never to do this how’s it feel feel good let’s go yeah um you know doc says MRI looks bad doc said I got this is the best one it’s bone on bone yeah it’s the worst I’ve ever seen yeah it’s like wow that sounds pretty bad yeah how’s it feel yeah you know I’ve seen so many people that get get these images and have this perception of like Doc H it’s really bad you know I got to have surgery it’s not really going to get better I’m not really having much pain like we can work with this we can get better 100% how do you feel so yeah I love that I love that too and it’s it’s important you know something you always mention is is the last thing you want to do is cut your body open last thing you want to do is cut your body open and so if we can move into treating chronic issues yeah with services like coner you know and it is one of those things that you know fortunately or unfortunately it’s going to be a process and it’s not a quick fix but what’s really cool about it not being a quick fix is it gets to be a sustainable and long-term fix yeah which is really really cool and that impacts quality of life I’ve been injured for two days I mean I track everything my my my resting blood my resting uh heart rate is up four beats a minute the last two nights just probably fighting this thing you know little things like that and so I’m really engaged with um and I’ve been talking to a lot of my recovery people lately um about becoming addicted to Optimal and I think wellness and Dr Christian Wade really speak to that um in a really really cool way so I appreciate you appreciate you coming on the show today yeah um appreciate you letting all the viewers know what actually is available in the community how can the how can the viewers find you where’s your website yeah so con Wellness mpt.com um you can find me there Instagram’s con Wellness another shout out to ice physio though if you want to go on their website you can go ice phys. finded clinician or just Google ice physio find a clinician uh they will help you there on their website find a solid PT nearby oh really yep cool so you don’t need to be knocking doors or going to wherever doc sent you because that’s all they know you can find quality people who are going to spend time with you and not pass you around and they speak the same language we’re going to mobilize and we’re going to load it up we’re going to get you feeling better um but just to speak on your point about optimizing right I think another point to hit on is people say you know and this is where Insurance stops paying paying let’s you know I I was told to write my notes to to insurance we want to do X Y and Z to get them back to Prior level of function Poff that was always a hot word we put in our note we want to get them back to Prior level prior level is how they got here we’re getting you better than that yeah right so I don’t want to get you back to where you came from I want to get you better than that and so we want to get be optimal not just average right and I think that’s that’s been a huge huge issue in our Health Care system is this mediocrity average back to where you came from yeah you know it’s so funny you say that cuz in recovery I was like I just need to go back to the 12-year-old like you don’t need to go back to that we’re creating a new person yeah exactly new person let’s go you know so well man I appreciate you coming on the show I appreciate what you do for me and my family and and and even bigger than that which you do for the Colorado Springs and Fountain Community Dr Christian we everybody yeah thanks you all thank you peace appreciate it [Music]
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