Most likely, Every profession that fixes stuff probably has a concise list that would help you avoid them.

Isn’t that the whole idea of any doctor?  To see them LESS?  

I can’t be the only person who thinks this way!

So let’s start with this statement and work it through.

And I don’t care what your profession is; I don’t care if it’s a massage therapist, chiropractor, physical therapist, physiotherapist, medical doctor, osteopath, coach, athletic trainer, or any other profession where we work with human beings.

The goal, the easier route, is to keep people healthy so they don’t have to use us as much.

The entire idea of a doctor was to make people healthy rather than treat their sickness. It’s not the same procedure.

So this article is going to be the MED.   The minimal effective dose.   What can you do that is 2.5% of the effort yet gives you 90% of the benefits.

 Tim Ferriss made this insanely famous and I use MED as the model for my entire life.

It works.

90% fewer healthcare visits.   Holy crap, I think I just solved the world’s health crisis with this one super obscure and not very popular blog article.  Hire me, Bureaucrats, I can help you save the money funnel for real emergencies!

Doctor:

Eat right, exercise, get enough quality sleep. 6 of the 7 days of the week.

Avoid the crap that is bad for you.  

Keep Doing that.

Therapists/chiro/physios

Get your mobility and activation working correctly, then add strength in that order.

Focus on the Big 3  – that’s where movement originates.  

Hips, shoulders, and ankles. Make them move correctly.   Know the muscles in these areas.  Make sure you can activate them and turn them on at will. Once and only when you have both of these working the right way, get stronger.

Keep doing that.

After surgery:

Let’s get the mobility back to the best movement you can come up with. Things have changed true, you had surgery, but there is still a better and optimal. Activate the muscles around the area, so you’re brain doesn’t forget them and just start to cheat and use somewhere else (that’s compensation.) 

We want the right muscles doing the right things. Once we have this, but only once we have this, now get stronger.   

Keep doing that.

Dentist:

Brush your teeth properly and floss properly.

Don’t eat crap that is bad for your teeth. General health affects dental health, and dental health affects general health. It’s important.

Keep doing that.

Strength Coaches/Personal Trainers/Sports Coaches:

Strength isn’t the only way to win games.   It’s more than that.   Way, way more.

Games are most often with #1 superior skill and then with speed, first step and agility, as it pertains to that sport. These are often tougher to measure and not as PC, so often, we by default, fall back to strength. Also, strength is super cool and looks great, especially in high school and college, and is probably the most fun to play with, but it isn’t even the first nor most crucial aspect of the 11 components of fitness.

You need to move better so your strength component and your speed component is an asset to your skill not a detriment and injury precursor.

Move right.  Activate the correct muscles, now add strength and pieces of all the other 11 factors.

Keep doing this with frequent re-assessments looking for the MED and how we get the most bang for our buck.

A professional getting paid for tweaking the last 5% of their game should have completely different parameters than the 15 year old.  So for the 15 year old – focus on skill first.  That’s what get’s you on the court and field. Sports strategy, watch the game and dissect it, percentages like batting average, free throws and first step gets you more playing time.

Keep doing this.

When reality interferes with strategy.

No one in real life as doctors, coaches can just come out and say these kind of things. So we take you through an exam, assessment and evaluation and we figure out what is going on.

But I want to.  

I’d love to throw this out there on a new client.

Just to ask those things would be eye opening.

I get it, when you come to see me as a chiro or go to your doctor you have an issue.  A real issue that needs evaluated and properly diagnosed.  Day 1 is not the day for:

Diet, Exercise, Sleep, Movement, and Activation.  But it should be.   Actually, if it was, prior to day one, the odds are there wouldn’t be a day 1 in the first place.

Also, I don’t have faith that I can really fix you if you aren’t going to do those basic things. Sure, I can get you out of pain pretty quickly. I’ve been doing this for a couple of decades. I’m exceptionally good at it. But long-term? True health? That’s on you.

For the most part. It’s really simple. It’s minimal and effective.

“But can you just give me an exercise or a quick “pop and crack” that will fix this?”

Yeah.  I can give you tons.   

But let’s start with the top answers.   The one that works for 95% of all issues.   MED.

“But can’t you just give me a pill?”

Yeah, 

I can give you tons. But most likely, after taking these pills for a while, you’ll need another pill to combat the effects of that one. It would be easier and better for you if you would go back to the basics.

“Can’t you just give me a filling, root canal, fake teeth?”

Sure, I can do that. In fact, that’s my profession, it says so on the plague on my walls. But there’s an easier way to just handle it from here on out once I set you back on baseline.

“But coach, Can’t I just squat my way up until I’m above the rim?”

Maybe, but that doesn’t mean you’re any good at hoops.

I’m telling you I can go on and on like this with nearly every profession. From dishwasher maintenance to why you need shoes for over pronation.

So when you have to see me or any doc for any issue, Let’s just stop the mystery and hope and simply start there. The most likely.   

Are you doing all those things?

Because if not, than is not a mystery, let’s just go back to the basics and do that stuff. truth be told, this entire article came while working on a client in my office yesterday. It took her multiple attempts to roll over on my chiropractic table. First a leg swing, then she really got it moving with a flail of rocking back and forth to gain momentum, a flip over, a fart, a sigh of exhaustion, arms counterbalancing and finally i stabilized her and helped her up. She was quite over weight and severly deconditioned. Hadn’t exercised in more than a decade.

“I cant figure it out doc, why would my sciatic start hurting all of the sudden and out of the blue?”

I mean… I can’t answer her with, “You have been on this collision course for years!”

Obviously, in the real world, there’s often more to it, but I bet you that those simple ideas , a real MED for life would keep 95% of my clients away!

In a world with never ending options, and information that is infinite, we just have to take a step back some time and get to the basics of what keeps us healthy and make sure that we have those things working the right way.

There are all types of great specialists out there when something outside of the usual happens. Use them; that’s what they are for. But 95% of our woes are our own responsibility.  You have to give a damn about Yourself first, and it’s not too late to do that.