Life Notes with Sheldon
Life Notes with Sheldon
Movement Is Medicine
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We sit down with James Harris from Ideal Physical Therapy to talk through chronic pain, why movement is often the safest starting point, and how personalized physical therapy can beat a rushed one-size-fits-all plan. We also share an easy “10-10-10” routine you can start today to build strength, protect mobility, and feel more like yourself again.
• why James runs an out-of-network physical therapy practice and what that changes for quality of care
• why many people don’t need imaging or surgery as a first step for neck pain and low back pain
• movement as medicine and why getting stronger reduces injuries and pain
• how pain signals can persist even without tissue damage
• three simple daily actions: sit-to-stands, floor get-ups, and brisk walking
• how to set manageable goals, build accountability, and choose exercise you actually enjoy
• the strong connection between physical health and mental health plus a book recommendation
Friends, if you don't know where to start, let me challenge you to start with a 1010-10. 10-minute walk, 10 minutes up from your chair as fast as you can, 10 minutes lying down and getting up on the floor, and then make a 10-minute phone call and visit with James. You can go to my website at idealptnm.com, or my phone number is 505-278-0785.
Welcome And Weekend Energy
SPEAKER_00Welcome to Life Notes with Sheldon, where we talk about ways to get off the sidelines and back into the game of life as your best viewers.
SPEAKER_01Thank you for joining me on Life Notes with Sheldon, where we talk about ways to get you off the sidelines and back into the game of life as your very best old friend. Happy Saturday. The older I get, the more Saturdays are like mini national holidays. I told my kids that. I told someone that the other day. I call him my kid, he's my nephew, he's 24 years old. And uh I feel like I'm being a mentor to him like my uncle was to me in some ways, my great uncle, and it's kind of cool. He's mostly just a great friend, but he's a kid, and I tell him whatever I just told him. I forgot what it was. What did I just tell him? Oh, I don't know. I can't remember. Whatever I just said, that's what I said. But friends, I'm excited today because oh yeah, I was telling about the weekends being the mini national holidays. It's wonderful. The weekend
Guest Intro And Neck Pain Story
SPEAKER_01comes around. Today I have a wonderful guest. One, because he's a wonderful person, two, because he's become a wonderful friend, he and his family. His name is James Harris. He's with Ideal Physical Therapy, which is his branded, beautiful, wonderful business. He's gone out on his own, and we are all the better off in our community for it. James is a handsome, clean-cut, wonderful dad and father, community member, and an amazing provider of physical therapy. I want to tell you, I had a pain in my neck, which is different for me because usually I just am the pain in the neck. But hey, I had a pain in my neck and I just couldn't get rid of it when I coughed, when I did everything, it would just be horrible. Couldn't sleep on it at night. And I worked with games for probably three months. And I gotta tell you, my neck is, you know, I always afraid it's gonna have to have surgery, but uh the guy has a toolbox of all kinds of different ideas and tools, and he is amazing at what he does. I can't recommend him enough. He's practicing out of the uh Empire Athletic currently, has an office there in a gym area, and uh just a wonderful person. So if he ever needs physical therapy, I cannot recommend him enough. My physician recommended him to me, and I'm grateful for the friendship, the fellowship, and absolutely for the less pain and greater mobility I have because of him. So, James, welcome. It's great to have you today.
SPEAKER_02Oh, it's it's great, great to be here. Kind of a surprise, last minute thing, but um I'm always up for talking about my business. I it's uh it's as I'm sure other people who, you know, as as you yourself, as somebody who started many businesses know, you know, if you if you don't love your business, you probably uh shouldn't be in uh in your own business.
SPEAKER_01I stopped by a friend's house yesterday. I hadn't seen him for several years. His brother was my dearest friend growing up, and I stopped by his parents' house and he was there. I was so happy to see him set for about 45 minutes talking. And he said, anytime you go with Sheldon, it's an adventure. It was always an adventure. I never knew what I was doing. He'd say get in the car, and it was always an adventure. So you're on one of those adventures today. I didn't tell you because I thought you might not do it. Oh teasing.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I I I do appreciate that. You know, oh it's it's a great opportunity. I've I've wondered about your, you know, the the podcast and the stuff that you do. Um, and uh I'm excited to talk a little bit more about it and uh what makes my practice different because it because it is different.
Quality Care Outside Insurance
SPEAKER_02And um unfortunately, um the way that physical therapy has kind of gone over the last you know few years, just in the just in the time that I've been a physical therapist uh since I started school and whatnot, is it's it's more in most clinics, it's more about quantity than quality. It's more about getting as many people through as possible. And that's just the nature of insurance-based care. Um, I'm an out-of-network provider, so I I don't accept any insurances. I'm not contracted with any insurances, but because of that, that gives me the ability to provide exactly the kind of care that the patient needs and to work, really work one-on-one with the patient so that we're making the decisions about their care, not somebody who's in a cubicle 2,000 miles away.
SPEAKER_01I'm sorry, friends. I told you he was a great professional, but I just found out he's actually it's a practice. He's just practicing. So why do they call it a practice?
SPEAKER_02Why is it Well, I I really don't know, but I can 100% I'm I'm glad that we have that little joke in in medicine because I approach every single person, every everybody that I work with is so different. Uh there's no one size fits all approach. Uh, something that I might do with one person. I do a lot of manual therapy stuff like we've done it together, like cupping and scraping and dry needling and all these different things. It's not as bad as it sounds, folks.
SPEAKER_01Those are horrible sounding words, but uh sound like medieval torture device cases.
SPEAKER_02And it kind of looks like it too. Uh but it what works really well for one person doesn't work for somebody else. And so it it really does feel like practicing and feels like I'm experimenting with every single person to figure out what is going to work the best for them. Uh, because I can't you can't just throw the same thing, the same packaged um exercises and everything at every person and expect them to get better. So that's kind of that I I like the the fact that they call it practicing medicine or practicing physical therapy. Uh, because we if if you're not still practicing and trying to improve, then you're you're probably uh not being as effective as you could be.
Imaging Fear And Surgery Hype
SPEAKER_01So I'm willing to bet that some of our listeners have chronic pain currently. Maybe it's not all the time, maybe it's just been going on for a few months, a few weeks. When you have that, it can be one, debilitating, but two, disparaging because it's like, what do I do about this? Where did it come from? What's causing it? And create confusion and stress upon the pain. And that's the way I felt. I went to visit with my physician, John Kelly at Farmington Family Practice. If you don't have a family physician, I love the man and I love the way he practices because um, you know, I told him about my issues, and he's like, you know, instead of doing a bunch of scans and, you know, jumping to surgery, these kind of things, I'd I'd like to have you do physical therapy. I really recommend you go. I said, well, who do you recommend? I said, James Harris. I said, okay, sign me up. Um, you know, I feel like a lot of people may not be aware of the physical therapy route, you know, that is probably should be looked at, you know, unless it's like urgent to go to surgery in these advanced measures and painkillers. I would say that would be like the opening door to to healing that people should look at first. Am I wrong on that?
SPEAKER_02Oh, absolutely. And one of the things that unfortunately our medical system has uh the road that it's gone down, unfortunately, is doctors are very concerned about um about lawsuits, they're concerned about covering themselves, and they're concerned about uh something coming back and biting them. So they're very quick to do lots of imaging to and some sometimes doctors are not not all of them, but some of them are pretty happy to to cut on somebody because they they get paid a lot uh to do so. Uh but the reality is most of the time, especially you know, I I see low back pain a lot, so we'll use low back pain as an as an example. Um most people will you know everybody's discs and spines are they start degenerating as soon as we start walking. And it's just part of life that things kind of wear out, right? It doesn't mean that doesn't mean that surgery is the answer. Uh the answer almost always is to to get stronger and to move more. Our bodies were made to move, and in our modern society, we don't move as much as we should. For thousands of years, humanity had to move to survive, and now, man, we can we can stay at home, get our del groceries delivered, we can get our food delivered, we can stay within a 10-foot radius pretty much of our chair and still survive. And that's not good for our bodies. And um, I think that's part of why the chronic pain thing is such an issue is because of this decrease in movement. And when somebody comes to work with me, then my biggest goal is to help them to realize the power of movement and the fact that it's medicine. And I think another side of the of the coin is it's not just it's not just physical pain that somebody is dealing with. It impacts you on an emotional level, on a mental level. And that's part of the puzzle that I try to um to include when I'm when I'm treating people is to help them learn the science of pain, how the brain works with pain, and how it expresses pain in the body. And that sometimes those pain signals that are getting sent, they are they're unnecessary. The brain has just kind of worked itself sort of uh into a frenzy, or you can maybe say that um that it's just gotten used to sending these pain signals when there isn't any actual tissue damage. And when you are able to help people recognize that and realize that movement is not only safe but good, it can be a really, really powerful thing in helping people, especially those people that struggle with chronic pain.
SPEAKER_01So two
Degeneration Strength And Daily Movement
SPEAKER_01things that I get from that that I think are important for our listeners and for myself. One, well, things fall apart. The center cannot hold, right? Our bodies, after a certain age, begin degenerating. It's a sad fact of life. And some people, you know, because of genetic predispositions, uh degenerate faster. Sometimes it's lifestyle choices that cause that. But uh we're degenerating at a pace um that is largely unpreventable to some degree. And one of the next thing that I like that you really said, I mean, I guess we can prevent the pace of it. We can't uh prevent the fact of it post 40 plus. Um but um something you said that I really appreciate you said movement is medicine. Now that's really, really powerful, I think, because sometimes we forget how critical walking can be and how how important and vital, you know, resistance um work is to building muscle and a core in supporting. I mean, we all have spinal degeneration to some degree. Let's strengthen the muscles around it to support that. Where the bones may be degenerating, how do we compensate for that with muscle building? Am I wrong in that? Is it kind of what I'm gathering? Oh, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02That's the that is the key. Uh in our modern society, we have to make a con it it takes a concerted effort to to remain healthy and strong because not because most people, their job is at a desk. Uh, they're in in our area, there is, I think, because of the oil field and everything, I think there is a a higher, um, there are more people that are more active on a day-to-day basis when their jobs. Um, but a lot of people still are working at at desks and sitting for eight hours a day. And then when they go home, for whatever reason, sitting for that long is exhausting because you're just worn out and you don't really want to do anything when you get home. And um you have to make that concerted effort to get out and to exercise. And getting stronger is the best way to prevent injuries, to prevent pain. Uh, one of the things that I am doing, and like like I'm doing with with your company um with on the spot cleaning is uh working with employers to be able to help their individual, their workers to you know, to you know, not have not have pain, to give them exercises, to be able to strengthen themselves, to get uh to avoid uh future injuries, uh, so that people don't have to miss work, so that people um don't have to have expensive plans of care uh through the doctor and so forth. And it also just so that people can enjoy life more.
SPEAKER_01It's been great for our company. You know, we have some people that have had chronic pain like I have, and you come in and you teach them techniques and also doing some work with them has been really, really helpful, and it's been great. Uh, I can't recommend it. What it does for company culture, you know, to say, hey, we're investing in you, we care about you, not just providing a, hey, this is how you don't get hurt so we don't get sued kind of thing, but a real active approach to wellness. Um so I'm willing to bet there's some of our listeners that uh maybe they don't have a home gym, maybe they don't have a gym membership, maybe they want to get a little more healthy and strengthen their core, but they just don't know where to begin. And it's daunting. I mean, if you haven't been active for a long time, you know, try doing 10 push-ups. It's gonna be really hard. 30 may be impossible. And that's just the fact of the way we degenerate and how quickly it happens if we don't practice any skill. And I think, you know, maintaining health is definitely a skill that requires practice. So to that individual,
Three Simple Moves For Anyone
SPEAKER_01what would you say are three things, three primary things that they could do that would have the biggest impact? And I'm talking three doable things, right? Nobody's gonna go do, you know, three hours of plank and and start with burpees, right? No. But what are three things that are approachable that the average person wanting to improve their quality of life, if you had to say these are the three things that can make the biggest bang for your money, that you could start today without equipment, without gym membership, without a major, you know, adjustment to your life, this is what they would be.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I uh I tell I have a brother who's a physical therapist as well, and we talk about this kind of thing pretty often. And uh the the three the three things that I would would recommend to anybody, um, one is that every single day, um at least once a day, preferably twice a day, to stand up and sit down from your chair 10 times as quickly as you can. Uh that's a functional thing because how many people do you you know that they get to this point where they have a hard time getting out of a chair? Uh so standing up, sitting down 10 times as quickly as you can is gonna help with building muscle. It's a functional movement. Um, also with doing it quickly, it's gonna help with some of your cardiovascular endurance as well. Um, so I'd say doing that at least, at least uh once a day to start out. The other thing is getting down onto the floor and then just laying down on your back and then getting back up because there are, I'm sure everybody off the top of their head could say, Oh, yeah, I know this person, this family member, this friend, that if they were to fall down today, they wouldn't be able to get back up without help, without grabbing onto something. Um so that would be the next thing is just lay down on the ground, get back up, do that about 10 times. Um, and then probably the third thing is just to walk, just to get out and walk. Um, doing um walking for at least 20, 30 minutes each day, like a brisk walk, get your heart rate up. It doesn't have to be um anything crazy. You should be able to uh a good, a good gauge if you're getting in a good zone for um for heart rate, for getting in a good heart rate zone for weight loss, is being able to walk and still be able to just breathe through your nose, that you don't have to open your mouth uh while you're walking. Um so, or if you're able to walk and still carry on a conversation, um, that's able to get your heart rate into that zone that is going to burn fat the most effectively. So those would be my three things.
SPEAKER_01So you don't have to run and jog to burn fat and to increase your mobility.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely not.
SPEAKER_01So those three things again are walk, jump up from your chair, get up from your chair as quickly as you can, 10 times. What was the other? And then just get down on the floor and get down on the floor and get back up. Okay, 10 times.
SPEAKER_02Yep. Doing those things every day would would help almost anybody. Like and if it's easy, then do more set, do more reps.
SPEAKER_01So you could even say, I'm gonna do a 10-10-10, 10-minute brisk walk, 10 up from my chair, 10 up from the floor to make it doable. Obviously, 30 minutes is the sweet spot, it sounds like you're saying, but I mean do a 10-10-10, like three tens, make that your starting point. And because if you start with this huge thing that you put upon yourself, like I'm gonna do an hour of walking, I'm gonna do 40 of these, you your likelihood of failing is probably a lot greater than setting a reasonable start.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. And I I try really hard to when I'm working with my with my patients, I try really hard to make sure that I'm not over-prescribing exercises because exactly because what you said is is true. If we give somebody a big long list of exercises, uh the the odds of them doing any of them are slim. The odds of them doing all of them are
Making Habits Stick With Accountability
SPEAKER_02even more slim. Uh, we did uh uh when I was in physical therapy school, we did a whole semester um project where the teacher had all of the all of us, there are 60 of us in my class, and you know, these are all people that were pr former collegiate athletes and very driven people, very uh very active. And he said, I want all of you to pick something to do, whether it be you want to be able to do 10 pull-ups by the end of the semester, or swim a mile, or you're gonna run a half marathon, whatever the thing might be. And then I you're gonna check in, you're gonna keep a log of everything. And ultimately the whole point of that exercise was for us to realize oh, we are supposed to be the the pinnacle of of exercise and whatever and and taking care of ourselves, but even we have a hard time sticking to these goals for this whole time, and life gets in the way. And the whole point of that exercise was to teach us that you can't just you can't just throw up your hands and say, Oh, well, the patient didn't do their exercises, so it's their fault they're not getting better. Um, there's probably something on your end as the therapist that you need to be changing to help out that person. So for me, sometimes I I have some patients that I'll text them every couple days and say, Hey, how are your exercises going? Trying to just to give them that that little bit of accountability to um to help out. And if they don't do their exercises, we just keep we keep picking it up and we keep work moving forward and we do what we can.
SPEAKER_01Start with something that's manageable. Don't be too hard on yourself if you don't make it. You know, I I heard a phrase once that I really like. Someone said you can have a bad day, but don't ever have a bad weekend. That was really great. I mean, we're all gonna fail, we're all gonna fall, we're all gonna forget. Sometimes the day is so busy and it's 10 30, we're too tired. But go back the next day. Don't give up, keep going, keep going through it. Um
Finding Time And Enjoyable Exercise
SPEAKER_01how do you find that you um how do you make time for this in your life? Because you're one of the busiest people I know. You're starting this business, starting this practice. You also do some work for another institution. A little bit. You do some other things to help your community, you're involved in your community, um, you have hobbies, you have how many kids?
SPEAKER_02Four kids.
SPEAKER_01Four kids, a wonderful wife.
SPEAKER_02So, how do you make time for those things? It's hard. I I'm not gonna I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. It it's hard. I'm I'm a very fortunate person that I that I get to be up and active. And so I kind of sprinkle it in throughout my day with my with my patients. Uh I do things with them. Um, but the the biggest thing that I've tried to do is for one, to try and have an accountability partner of some some kind, um have somebody who you're you're gonna meet up with on a regular basis. Um the other thing is to find the type of exercise that you enjoy. Um, for me, I really like mountain biking. And so that's something that for me is is uh the way that I get myself to exercise. I think we need to make sure we don't just box ourselves in and think, okay, exercise is lifting weights or running. It's it can be so many different things. I have uh a client that I'm using um a virtual reality headset to to help him be more active. Um and so he does these different exercise apps on there to to get his heart rate up and to get moving. Um I I there's so many different ways to be active and to stay healthy, and it doesn't have to just be lifting weights or running.
SPEAKER_01Awesome. Briefly,
Mental Health Benefits And Resources
SPEAKER_01we're almost out of time, but tell me how critical and how deeply entwined is the correlation between physical health and mental health.
SPEAKER_02Oh man. You should have started with that question. I could do it at all, I could talk forever about that. The the amount of research that's out there um that supports and that supports that correlation of um physical health and mental health is staggering. Um people who are active and who are getting their heart rate up on a regular basis, um, they they just have better mental health. The correlation is incredibly strong. And I like you know, like you said, we're almost out of time, but there's a really great Book that's called Spark. It's by a guy named John Rady. He's a psychiatrist. And um he talks goes really deep into the science of exercise and the brain. And um I'd highly recommend that to anybody who's interested. I would love to someday talk. I could talk about just that topic for a long, long time.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. I
How To Reach James And 10-10-10
SPEAKER_01look forward to it. Next week, maybe. Hey, uh, this is James Harris with Ideal Physical Therapy. Um, you can find him at Empire Athletic. What's your phone number? How do they get a hold of you?
SPEAKER_02Um, you can go to my uh website at idealptnm.com, or uh my phone number is 505-278-0785.
SPEAKER_01Friends, if you don't know where to start, let me challenge you to start with a 1010-10. 10-minute walk, 10 minutes up from your chair as fast as you can, 10 minutes lying down and getting up on the floor, and then make a 10-minute phone call and visit with James. I can't tell you how much it's done for me, our business, our team, countless others in our community. And he's just one of the nicest guys and most uh intelligent and authentic and honest practitioners that you can find out there. Again, James Harris, ideal physicotherapy. Thank you for tuning into Live Notes with Sheldon. I feel like we really did talk about ways to get people off the sidelines back into the game of life as their very best self. Thanks, James.
Closing Thoughts And Next Note
SPEAKER_00Listen every week for a brand new note on life. We hope that we have given you a way to get off the sidelines and back into the game of life. As your best view, we're not gonna do it.