Leaders in Frequency Specific Microcurrent Education

Episode One-Hundred-Sixteen – Peter Twist 2024

Hosts: Kim Pittis, LCSP, (PHYS), MT - fsmsports365.com Peter Twist00:00:16 - Introductions and Welcome Back Introduction of guest host Peter Twist Happy New Year Greetings Carol McMakin is on vacation Overview of topics to be discussed: knees, exercise, proprioception, FSM00:03:27 - Peter Twist's Work Overview of Peter Twist's educational courses and certifications Focus on brain plus body training Passion for helping aging adults improve their health and function A new mental well-being program launching on Monday00:11:34 - Mindset and Mental Well-Being Importance of mindset for healing and rehabilitation Patients need to feel safe and excited about movement Psychological well-being is crucial for successful recovery00:15:23 - Movement as Life and Hope Movement can provide hope and improve quality of life Importance of proprioception and balance training for mind-body connectionCognitive engagement during exercise can help with dissociation and trauma00:19:33 - FSM and Tissue Response FSM can create rapid tissue change, which can be confusing for the nervous system.Importance of slow progression and adapting to the patient's pace Respecting individual differences in healing and recovery00:21:31 - Load ManagementImportance of individualized load management Knowing when to push and when to pull back Balancing physical and mental readiness00:22:58 - Meniscus Tears Typical symptoms of meniscus tears Confusion around pain presentation Peter Twist's personal experience with meniscus tears00:25:00 - Katy Bowman mentions her own experience with a meniscus tear and how she manages it without pain through movement and load management.Four key factors for managing degeneration and arthritis: load management, movement skill, sequencing, and fascia training.00:27:29 - Degeneration and Arthritis Limitations of imaging in diagnosing pain and the importance of considering the patient's presentation and symptoms.Individualization and working within the parameters of what the patient can handle, even with degenerative conditions.Meniscus tear and how a green light from her doctor, combined with movement and safe training, helped her manage the pain and return to full function.00:32:35 - FSM and Pain ManagementFascia Stretch Therapy (FST) and its approach to addressing pain and inflammation.Torn and broken patterns in the meniscus, labrum, and cartilage, and suggests FSM protocols for addressing them.Using heat, movement, and ice (METH) instead of RICE for managing pain and inflammation.The importance of considering factors like nutrition, inflammation, and the power of nature to improve overall health and reduce pain.00:39:54 - Brain-Fascia Connection and MovementThe importance of the fascia system and its rapid communication with the brain (700 mph vs. muscle's 175 mph).The role of fascia in providing information and supporting movement makes it crucial for optimizing movement training.Understanding the communication pathways between the brain, fascia, and muscles can guide us in designing effective training programs.00:50:35 - Conclusion and Overall ApproachImportance of considering the whole body and the communication pathways within it when designing training programs.Keep doing what works for them and continue progressing to reach their full potential.

Episode One-Hundred-Sixteen.mp4: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Episode One-Hundred-Sixteen.mp4: this mp4 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Kevin:
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Kim Pittis:
Hello everybody. We have a very special guest on again. This is Peter Twist. I was going to give him a great big introduction and then have him like jump on and surprise everybody. But here he is. Happy New Year everyone! Welcome back! This is our first episode of the New Year. I'm so excited to welcome everybody with one of my favorite humans on the planet. This is Coach Peter Twist. A few months ago or a year ago, I'm trying to think when the last time we had Peter Twist on. But Carol, was in Cozumel and so she's enjoying her time at the ocean, and we are enjoying our time together to speak about all things FSM. And I figured, having Coach Peter Twist on today would be such an amazing adjunct to what I was hoping to talk about and it's funny how organically this happened. We were going back and forth about what we wanted to talk about, and it was really funny because Peter Twist has some amazing educational pieces that I'd like to dive into, because at the FSM sports course that I teach, I think that a lot of you practitioners that are listening, a lot of you ask me questions like, where can I go to get more education on this or that? And I always refer to Peter Twist stuff, because whether it's about movement or just learning about fascial systems, there's so many things that are changing with exercise science that I always refer back to my dear friend about.

Kim Pittis:
So, today, we're going to be unpacking a few things. One of my favorite things that I get to do as a therapist is corrective exercise. So, after I'm using FSM and I'm doing all my myofascial work, it is important, it is crucial, it is pivotal to get these bodies aware of where they are in space again. And what we do with FSM creates so much change with the tissue health that when we're asking the body to move again, sometimes it takes a little bit of time for our central nervous systems to realize that now the shoulder has 30 degrees more range of motion, or the knee has an extra 10 degrees. So with that comes a lot of responsibility to learn how to do strength, how to do length, and how to do proprioception, which is balanced training. So, hopefully, you can unmute yourself there, Pete. I see that you are muted. Maybe you can unmute yourself or I can unmute you somehow.

Peter Twist:
Better muted. You guys are in trouble. Now, I have a voice.

Kim Pittis:
You weren't just supposed to stand there and look pretty. Welcome back. Happy New Year. So much for coming. I know this was a last-minute scramble, but sometimes it just works out the way it's supposed to.

Peter Twist:
Yeah, easy to do here. It's always a pleasure and honor and and friendship and they say, respected peer to join you, I believe in all the good work and impact you're doing there. And I'd like to say there's 8 billion people in the world. I can learn something from everyone. Everyone knows how to do something I don't. But in these specific areas, we're talking about, for me, it's easy to jump on with five minutes notice even, and we can just organically talk. So, I'm passionate about these types of areas we're going to get into.

Kim Pittis:
Yeah. Thank you again. So, everybody, those of you who have obviously seen our podcast a ton, when I have guests on, I like to typically talk about one area. And so we had Doctor Charlie Weingroff on a little a while ago and we were talking about ankles. But that ankle sprains and strains, we're talking about that more in the athletic population. So getting a player who was injured back on the field as fast as possible. We're going to make a bit of a pivot, and we're going to try to focus some of our examples on knee work, and not so much like a I've talked a ton about ACLs and MCLs and those types of sprains and strains, but if we can dial it in on just a degeneration topic, I think that would just help so many of the clinicians that are listening to this podcast, and a lot of the patients that end up listening to our podcast, because we all have knees that are aging and some of us have knees that are aging faster than others due to the activities that we had when we were younger.

Kim Pittis:
And a lot of us, like myself, who are doing or trying to stay as active as possible, I now that I live in California, I'm trying to be outside as much as possible. A girl that grew up in Winnipeg that was stuck inside most of her life. I'm making up for lost time.

Peter Twist:
Absolutely.

Kim Pittis:
Yeah. So I want to keep my knees as happy as possible and that includes, training for half marathons and all that. So we're going to be talking a little bit about knees. We're going to be talking about, like I said Peter Twist educational series that he has. That is amazing. And then we're going to talk a little bit about proprioception. And throughout all of it, I thought we could tag team some things. So I'll bring it back to a little bit of FSM frequencies and the numbers that we use for some of the things, and then we can talk about, how we just can collaborate and work together and give as many people as many options to keep themselves moving as best as possible.

Peter Twist:
Fantastic. I'm all in.

Kim Pittis:
Great! So little housekeeping, everybody. You can still use the Q&A in the chat if you have any questions. Some of the questions that I think already came in, I might just put them hold on to them. Or you could send this question, like I said to Carol, for next time, because we're going to stay within kind of our scopes and keep it dialed into what we know best. So those Q&A's that are coming in that already look like they're going to be good for Doctor McMakin to answer, just throw them in an email and I'll make sure that we talk about them when she's back on with us live. Okay. So there's the housekeeping for today.

Kim Pittis:
So let's just talk a little bit about what you're doing as far as your material, your courses, and then we'll go back and forth with that a little bit.

Peter Twist:
Yeah. Oh sure. I'll narrow the focus here. But my life's work and research and compiling it into education and digital courses, certifications that education series, the staples always been athletic performance. And gosh, it was over 20 years ago now. That timing had it and seeing training different, I was honored to introduce and launch the world's very first functional training certifications. There were three of them, one on athletic strength, one on integrated balance training and one on movement skills. And that really helped change how the fitness industry and athletes in sport trained today. And so the sport performance continues but some more recent passions, really I look at both ends of the spectrum, young kids, aging adults, and those are two great opportunities that we can do things better Straight up, I believe about 99% of all aging research is fundamentally flawed and invalid and teaches us low expectations. Life does happen. We may get off track ourselves. We also all will face chapters of setbacks with injuries and illness and other things. But the body and brain remain magnificently adaptable and receptive to smart stimulus to improve. We can take an 80-year-old who's never exercised before and fundamentally improve them in all ways. And so the opportunity to, live more fully and a higher quality of life, move through pain and have full function is there for us, which is exciting. So my main education series are professionals physical therapists, trainers, coaches, teachers, health practitioners, medical experts, as well as what I like to say keen, smart, educated accountants and lawyers from other industries that love to learn and geek out on that and want their family to have a high-quality life.

Peter Twist:
There are a lot of our students too, and they're doing really well. And so one pathway focuses on courses on functional brain plus body training, and that's training that builds muscle that we want for appearance. But it's all muscle for movement skill in life. And every rep of every exercise stimulates growth, improves our brain. And I don't know about anyone else, but I'll take more of that anytime I can get it, and especially with age to keep a healthy brain. So that's an area that's really passion. And aside that, with the brain plus body is a real high focus on mental being and mindset. And I'm actually launching on Monday a… I'm writing a new course and certification, Kim, on mental well-being so that graduates can study that for themselves but become a mental well-being specialist. Wait. Hold on. There's more than pharmacology and sit-down therapy that is very important and valuable to people at different times. But there's 100 other things that we can do for our mental well-being. And so we're defining a new specialist who will be in those areas that add on to the other good work that's being done by counselors, therapists, psychiatrists. And those are all our healthy inputs that we can guide folks through But what I'm doing on Monday and then I'll leave this with you.

Peter Twist:
I've designed a 12-week mental fitness program that's periodized like we would do a rehabilitation program or a physical exercise fitness program for the body. This is all for mindset and mental being. And we know mindset affects everything. I don't think we can have optimal mental wellness if our brain isn't healthy and our mindset isn't improved. Healthy brain, better mindset, we got a lot better chance at being mentally well. It's a three-pillar approach and just like a workout program, people sign up for 12 weeks. They come in on a Sunday. They have a couple of hours of learning, and I greet them by video on their own time. It's automated and then they spend the week. I send them out with learn-by-doing practices where they implement mindset strategies and observe. How does that make them feel? How does that affect others when they show up in that way? And what are the results of every single situation that they're in and catch the benefit of that? And one week later after the net. You can hear, that's my current passion, because, we need to nourish our mental fitness. I need that for life, just like I need to keep exercising my body and so I believe we'll look at the world. All 8 billion people can benefit from this. Doesn't matter our different beliefs, our different religions, our different cultures, pretty much everyone desires health and happiness, a happy, high-quality life. And so this goes right to the heart of that.

Kim Pittis:
Okay. You gave me a lot to unpack in those first few lines.

Peter Twist:
I'm drinking yerba mate with ashwagandha and licorice root, so, you know, it's giving me some extra fuel.

Kim Pittis:
Okay. I love all of that. So do you want to talk a little bit about mindset? We talk about that a lot actually with our podcast, because we have a lot of patients that come in. I'll just talk about a purely rehabilitative standpoint who are terrified to move because historically, for them, pain and movement were synonymous. And so as good of a therapist as I am, if that patient is not excited and doesn't feel safe about movement, that quality of movement is never going to be there. It's going to be guarded, it's going to be splinting. Primary movers are going to be shutting down because there's no way their brain is on board with the fact that this movement is going to be a good thing. So sometimes when we talk about patient progression and I'm not talking about professional athletes here, I'm talking about anybody that's coming in from an injury and is learning to move through an injury. We have to get them excited about movement. But before we get them excited about movement, they have to feel safe.

Peter Twist:
Yeah.

Kim Pittis:
So the word safety is always the foundation of what I do with movement. They have to feel safe coming into the treatment room with me. They have to feel safe starting to move their bodies, and when that safe foundation is there, then they can start to experience the joy and the happiness and the confidence with movement. And I think from being in this industry 24-25 years now, I've seen progressions moving way too fast. And I think going back to what we did with you way back. So that's why I love and will circle the story. You'll hear the word proprioception and balance work a ton in the next hour, everybody, because that proprioception feedback is the foundation that is that subconscious work that's happening, that's giving that feedback to the brain of where the body is in space.

Kim Pittis:
So I think even before we can get the movement, that mental being, that mental part is such an important part to dial into. So, it's an important adjunct for anybody. Like I said, you don't have to be a psychologist to understand that the patient's psychological well-being is more important than, in some cases, the physiological well-being of the patient. They have to feel good about what they're doing. They have to feel supported by you as the therapist. And so I think this training program that you have is amazing for a lot of us in this industry to learn a little bit more and maybe just to bring the awareness back into that, because we learn a lot of this in college. A lot of us took psychology 30, 20, whatever years ago. But it is an important reminder that patient's psychological well-being throughout their progression is so important because it's never linear. I had just written a Happy New Year email to all my clients, and I said, this is your reminder healing and performance enhancement are almost never linear. There's going to be peaks and valleys, ebbs and flows and that's okay. So I think what you're doing is a big reminder to all of us to keep our patients who get frustrated, who get depressed, who get just demotivated with the work. They should always feel happy about moving. We should try to. That should be our focus, right? I think you and I have always been on the same page as a core value that we always want to have people moving, and it doesn't matter how that movement looks like, but just get them moving and enjoying movement.

Peter Twist:
Yeah. No, absolutely. That's so well said. And what a great foundational statement. And it's fair to say, for myself included, as human beings, navigating life and life is awesome. But it's also very challenging. We can create this day, but we also absorb things that happen, and hopefully, we're well-tooled mentally to handle things graciously and positively. But suffice to say, life happens. So even without an injury or pain and feeling of say fragile and guarded, from that we may be anxious and depressed and unmotivated and low energy from a variety of different reasons, unrelated to whether we exercise or not, or we're injured or in pain. So that box is always there. But then you exacerbate potentially that with a frustrating injury. We can't move as well as we used to. We can't then participate with our friends or family and activities we love. That gave us positive energy and joy. The dominoes start to fall. With that, ee know that movement more so in for anything. But I'm thinking of disease as an illness where we're not physically injured to move. Movement is life. Movement is hope. If we can move, we have hope. And if we move, we can feel even a semblance of a life. So someone who's injured or in pain and feeling fragile and not only ready for so much getting them moving successfully, that's hope and that's life.

Peter Twist:
And we also know the language of movement is written in feel. So to be able to move successfully, to be able to move better, to gain a little bit of confidence that, hey, I can do that and not get reinjured or feel pain, I can move past pain part of the exercise, rehabilitation part, integrating strength with balance, which then is instability, strength with instability and movement skill does two things. It focuses on quality of movement. And the instability, as well as the neural complexity of moving our whole body while doing strength is very neurally complex. So that keeps us in a cognitive state. So someone's somewhat dissociated from their body, whether because they're avoiding pain or dissociating because that's been traumatic. So, they have that, dissociation from their physical making exercise where not they have to be to do it well, there's no way around it. Their brain is present in that moment. They're in a cognitive state, which means most of our movement and exercise, we're in an automatic state. We don't need to think about it. We can just do it. You and I can go for a walk. We can go for a run. We can ride a bike. We don't have to think about the technical merits of that We can talk and think and have fun and do other things, just like athletes do in sport. How can they catch a ball, run, tackle, read the play. Well, they've learned movement skills so well they no longer have to think about that. So their brain's reading the field and the court and so on. In exercise to improve or rehabilitation to get better, it's different than performance training, pushing the envelope and the engine. We're trying to improve our skillfulness and that requires a cognitive state. We must be there thinking about it and that's not an esoteric Instagram mindfulness, which isn't a bad thing, but it's a simplified version where people say mind-body. It's actually our brain and our neural pathways and our sensors and receptors throughout the body. How do we get them having to communicate to link the whole body together? It's by the strength, balance, and movement keeping us very present. And that way people can start to feel present with their body. They can feel linked from toes through to fingertips, and they can start to feel like they have some aspect of a body armor that's moving a little bit more fluidly. That's a great reset for folks.

Kim Pittis:
Yeah, absolutely. And you can give us a couple of maybe examples later of those types of movements, because when we do progress and it's a curse and a blessing all at the same time, because Frequency Specific Microcurrent does enable the tissue to respond so much faster, in my opinion, than just manual therapy alone. So when we're creating so much change, it can be confusing for someone's nervous system to all of a sudden be out of pain. Someone who's been in pain for years upon years for that pain to just go away, you can see them. I'll use a shoulder for an example just because you can see me. You'll see where they used to stop, maybe at 45 degrees. And now I know that shoulder can go further. And they're looking and they're confused because they have the absence of pain. So when we all of a sudden increase extra range of motion with the absence of pain, it is equally, if not more confusing for their nervous system to be able to strength and to load and to do any kind of active range of motion through that. So I'm a bit of a slow cooker, like I said, as I've progressed in my career that people like I said, healing is never linear, progressions are not linear. And so you have to be able, as a clinician to adapt and to move at the patient's pace.

Peter Twist:
Yeah.

Kim Pittis:
The textbook told you that was written 25 years ago. So I think that's an important component as well to always respect an individual. And of course, you want to challenge somebody and you want to keep them moving in the right direction because but that's where that team approach I think is very helpful.

Peter Twist:
You mentioned the word load. I like the slow cooker and adaptable moving at the patient's pace. And yeah, I try and, not do too much too soon, but also not hold them back and know when to pull in the reins, know when to nudge them forward.

Kim Pittis:
Right.

Peter Twist:
And we just need to know our patients. What do they respond to? And this is one sidebar and I'll get back onto your load comment. But, not to take any more time down this rabbit hole, let's call it. I had a health wrinkle to iron out with stage four cancer. It was head and neck, brain and face and chest stuff. So the narrow point of the story is I was in for a checkup seeing my head oncologist, and I thought I was having some difficulties, I was concerned, and we did some scans and scopes, and my oncologist said to me, I think you just need to train harder. And because that was just a moment between us. And he was telling me, like, you're free to go out and do what builds you up.

Peter Twist:
But he said it in a way that he knows his patient and we could share a laugh and I would respond positively where someone else would be, think he's crazy and be offended. And which patients do I nudge forward because they can and need to do more? And which ones do I pull the reins in? Because they'll do too much too soon. That's all in the individualizing the pace. But sometimes when they're emotionally mentally ready, but sometimes they're not emotionally mentally ready until they do it. And now, I am emotionally mentally ready. So it's a really fine art knowing each individual.

Kim Pittis:
Yeah.

Peter Twist:
But your load part. Can we go there please on that? I really like what you were saying there and say, okay, let's one need that is common maybe degeneratively meniscus So both my knees, I have a meniscus tear. I think it's off the anterior horn. If that sounds correct. And so what should be my symptoms from that? What are typical symptoms?

Kim Pittis:
So meniscus pain can be very confusing sometimes. So some people feel pain going upstairs, and downstairs. They'll feel pain after the activity. Some people feel that pinchy feeling while they're doing the activity. So it can be confusing.

Peter Twist:
Yeah. I took something away from my sports medicine doctor. My knees have been my lifeblood. And at the age that I'm at and competing in, like, pretty much every North American sport and then training professional athletes and doing pretty much every rep with them, my peers who walked that same path, they've had hip replacements and knee replacements like 20 years ago. And a lot of our athletes, no matter how bulletproof they are, they're pushing the edge in their sport so much and it's such a battle. Some of them have, as you've covered ACLs and so on when they're 25 and 30. But it was suggested to me, I'm obviously not going to ski and trail run and not squat and don't do any deep mobility. The point is, in this particular case, and hopefully, this doesn't come across as a toxic positivity or anything, but to get to your load and what we do with patients and what's possible, and for people to understand what's possible for them I have zero pain. And I have full range of motion. I walk run trails, but I hike for hours. I ski down the double black peaks, I squat deep, I do full mobility, I walk and there's zero pain.

Peter Twist:
Now, that'll catch up to me eventually and when it does, they're my sports med doctor said there's two things he looks at, of course, is our scans and our reports. And the reports would suggest I should go in for surgery. But more than that, he looks at how does the patient present? And I'm able to present this way, I think, because of four things. And this is how I help with degeneration and arthritis and pain. Get clients moving or when they're feeling guarded or fragile or slow cooking a way forward. Number one, focus on quality of movement. But there are four things. One is load management. And that's my blessing in that I really focus, part of that is deceleration and absorbing softly and most fitness exercise I look at and how it's being done, even though there are some good things going and well-intentioned, even the instructors, they're abusing their joints more than they're helping their muscle and fascia and brain. And so all of my movement, no matter what I've done, but how I move now, has a very low orthopedic cost. And I know the timing and the technique and where to shift my center of mass, where to shift my hips, when and how and at what pace to load my legs each step so that my muscles take more of the challenge. And being very kind on my joints. That was before my meniscus tear. And it's now.

Peter Twist:
And my muscles then, as they become the shock absorber and they become the knee brace and they produce the muscle stiffness when I need it, the reactivity, the eccentric deceleration. And so I'm getting along fine without my meniscus functioning and I'm not feeling pain. But the other two things are movement skill I mentioned and sequencing. How are we sequencing moving and that would be expressed through sequence movement,a dancer sequences movement really nicely. Athletes do similarly in their venues. Don't put them on a dance floor usually though but the sequences is the muscles firing in the right order in a positive concentric as well as negative eccentric. And that's an efficiency but it's also a kindness on our skeletal system. And then of course, the fifth is more fascia training so that it can come to the rescue for us and it can get an awful lot done for us.

Kim Pittis:
Again. You've given me a lot to unpack here. So we're going to go back to our knee example for a little bit in arthritis. So for FSM numbers here and people that are speaking, we always say that in FSM land we can't put tissue back that that's gone.

Peter Twist:
What was that line, sorry.

Kim Pittis:
We can't put tissue back that's gone. So any kind of degeneration.

Peter Twist:
Yeah, right worded.

Kim Pittis:
We can't grow cartilage. We can't grow more synovial fluid. So, I think a lot of the folks that I teach "Oh, arthritis. Oh, we can't help." Next. And that is simply not true. Well, maybe we can't grow new cartilage for people, we can definitely help the structures that you were just talking about the surrounding musculature, to go back and go on a tangent for a second, when we had Dr. Charlie Weingroff on, he talked very similarly to what you were just talking about, these almost three bubbles that he always and rings that he sees patients as. You see the diagnostics in one bubble or one ring, your x-rays, your imaging, and then you have the patient presentation in the other ring and sometimes the two rings match up totally. You've got a complete tear with a whole lot of pain. And sometimes you have a complete tear and a lot of function in zero pain. And so your program and your rehab has to be somewhere in the middle of those two. And again, going back to FSM, when we take a patient out of pain very quickly, sometimes they'll say, well, is the pain going to come back? And I said, yes, it'll probably come back and you might mind it more. And they're like, what do you mean by that? Because you had the absence of it. When you chronic pain for so long, you unfortunately get used to it and then, it goes away and then, it comes back and you're just like, oh my God, it's excruciating.

Kim Pittis:
It's like, it's not. It's actually probably less than it was, but you mind it more. So, I really like what you're using your own example with your knee. And I had a very similar thing. I went in for a back x-ray and the chiropractor was like, oh my God, you've got no disc. Look at that. It's gone. And I said, someone who runs as much as I do, and at my age, I don't think that's really crazy and I don't have any back pain. So that's great. And I almost wish I didn't see that x-ray.

Peter Twist:
That's right.

Kim Pittis:
Because I went in for just a little bit of hip pain, to be honest. But anyways, so whether we're training or whether we're doing rehab, I think it's always really important to imagine those three bubbles, your diagnostics, your imaging, and then your patient's symptoms, and then trying to find that piece in the middle where you're staying functional. You're helping the patient, but working within the parameters of what you might be seeing and whether that's degeneration with the meniscus or that's an anatomical long leg. There are certain things that we always just have to keep in mind that we're working with.

Peter Twist:
I love all that. And quick interjection. And also, I'll throw it over. In my experience recently with my knees, I did feel some pain in my left knee. And then I went in. One is I believe we should always look inside and with a major league sport level doctor who, I respect and continue to very much, he thought the way I presented, there's no way that I had a meniscus tear, and I went and got the scans done privately and came back to see him, and he sure gave me a lot of time then, and I was very respectful and appreciative. You can't determine what's happening inside the body without looking 100% accurate all the time. But the key point is I was starting to do less squat, less change, limit my range of motion because I had a little bit of pain and what I thoughtthe injury or damage was. And when I got the scans, even though it was worse, it was a complete tear. I understood what it was and it was when I saw him. Our words are so powerful. Now, he should tell me to do nothing if that's the best medical advice, that's what he should do. But when he looked at that and looked at how I was presenting otherwise, when he gave me the green light, I know how to load, I know how to move. I'm in a different situation than most of his patients. It's okay to do what I do and if I'm pain-free and can do that, he said. I should ramp up.

Kim Pittis:
Right.

Peter Twist:
And you know, when you don't have that and it becomes too painful, come and see me and we'll take care of it with surgery. But when I got that green light plus then I started doing more. When we do less, it's not just the injury, it's doing less that affects us negatively.

Kim Pittis:
Yeah.

Peter Twist:
We don't need to. Right? And so when I started to safely and train smart, doing more in ways that made sense and I had his green light, it was okay. The pain went away.

Kim Pittis:
Amazing.

Peter Twist:
And the pain went away mainly from his words and my green light. It's so powerful.

Kim Pittis:
And again I'm going to just throw backward. It was safe, right? You were given the green light. It felt safe to do that movement.

Peter Twist:
Yes.

Kim Pittis:
Like I said, for me, it's still in the last couple of years, it's been just very important to create a safe environment. My clinic room feels very safe. And I see little mini miracles all the time when somebody feels safe in their body and feel safe with me and feels vulnerable, but safe enough to be vulnerable and to go to those scary places and to have a positive experience. Again, I'm going to run back to the knee a little bit with FSM, and I think there's a question about a Baker cyst that I feel like we could probably talk about really quickly here. Yes. For FSM, we can't put tissue back that's not there, but we can work with the surrounding structures to keep that person as movable as possible. So with arthritis, some people feel very defeated by that diagnosis and they feel like arthritis is synonymous with immobility, which in fact it's the opposite. We want to keep those joints moving as much as possible, creating enough synovium and synovial fluid that's there. You're right. We can't put tissue back that's not there.

Kim Pittis:
So, in FSM world, we talk about 214 on our B channel. That's meniscus or labrum and 124 on our A channel is torn and broken. So, my first go to for arthritic patients from an FSM standpoint is torn and broken on the meniscus or torn and broken on the labrum or torn and broken on the cartilage. So, 124 on A, 214 on B, 157. You could even run 783, which is the periosteum. So, torn and broken is the first pattern that we want to address. And then increasing the vitality or increasing the secretions is my next follow-up. So, 49 on A, 81 on A to those other structures can be very helpful. So, to our Baker cyst question, a Baker cyst as far as I know is typically caused in conjunction with a torn labrum or arthritis. So that would be my first go to and you could also run 40 on A, which is inflammation on the capsule, on the fascia, on all those structures. And even like the lymphedema protocol that we have is very helpful. And then, I'll use that in conjunction with METH. So instead of using RICE, rice, rest, ice, compression elevation, we're transitioning to METH, movement, ice traction, and heat. We can credit our fellow Canadians for a lot of research in this topic, as well as Australia and Sweden.

Kim Pittis:
I've been reading some pretty neat papers coming out of those countries on using heat. But going back to METH really quickly before I stop talking about it. Using heat is very controversial. We always using heat as vasodilation. We don't want to increase more fluid or inflammation to the area. That's why it's not just heat. That's why M, movement, is the first letter of that acronym. Because after heat and after elevation, we want to move. We want to use our body's natural skeletal muscle pump to help vacate those macrophages that go to the area. So, if we're using heat to the muscle belly, going back to the knee, for instance, if we're going to put heat application on the quad or hamstring, we're going to elevate the knee a little bit. And then, we're going to do some movement after we apply heat to the muscle belly to help pull out from the joint. That's my little nugget on using some FSM in arthritis because it can be very helpful. So don't shy away from that. So, hopefully, that answers that question there for the Baker's cyst. If you need more, you can just pop some more stuff in the chat there.

Peter Twist:
I love that. And can I add a couple of things for just the inflammation part?

Kim Pittis:
Please.

Peter Twist:
And this is naturally adjunct to what you're just speaking to. But especially when the arthritis and inflammation, I'm just updating our resources on nutrition, food supplements that have shown to lower our inflammation and our inflammatory state. And as we are able to move through some pain, that helps a lot. So that's one pillar that we make sure is present. It's not the main one to check, but patients do better with it. And by putting those sort of essential building blocks into our body that are more favorable in that state, and there's been recent research come out. We know there's so much science on the power of nature and exponentially, the power of moving in nature, of our healthfulness and our mental well-being, and so on, but specifically to diminishing inflammation.

Kim Pittis:
Interesting.

Peter Twist:
Really interesting. So there's already a lot of other benefits, as well as being a fun playground or walking meditation or social however you want to leverage it. But that's another pillar to not overlook. And I like to try and check all the boxes if it's proximal to my patients. And I get more excited about helping clients if they're helping themselves in ways that are beneficial as well. And you said slow cooker. I like to throw all these things in the crock pot and, make sure everything's in their favor if it's easily at hand. And so nature is one to mention here. Great research that has come out recently in the last couple of years on lowering inflammation by stepping into nature.

Kim Pittis:
Yeah. That research is going to be so interesting to read because it's true. I think we all feel so good outside. And I know my FSM geeks that are listening. We use something called Schumann resonance a lot with FSM and I'm going to butcher the whole explanation on this. But there's a little documentary that's out, and I believe it's called Resonance of Being by James Russell. And it talks about the Earth's magnetic pole and the frequencies of the Earth. And I think it was it seemed to be very similar to some of the first microcurrent devices.

Peter Twist:
Okay,

Kim Pittis:
That were out back in the 50s or 60s. Someone's going to jump in and correct me right away, I'm sure. But the beginning of the documentary talks about like, why do we feel so good when we're outside? And like everybody would say, oh, it's just the sunshine. It's just the fresh air. But there's more to that. And the earth has a resonance, and our bodies have a vibration and a resonance and when those frequencies can combine across the board, anybody will tell you, you just feel better after a day outside. Whether you enjoy nature and the bugs and the weather and all that stuff, there's something to be said. So they actually see some research for the geeks out there that just don't believe it would be very interesting. But combining that with anti-inflammatory properties is very interesting.

Peter Twist:
Yeah. There's therapeutic frequency therapy.

Kim Pittis:
Yeah.

Peter Twist:
That's well structured. But there's a type of frequency, say in the forest.

Kim Pittis:
Yes.

Peter Twist:
That's very valid and scientifically measured. And we can receive that as well.

Kim Pittis:
Totally. Oh, that's so interesting. I love that. I'm going to jump to the Q&A really quick because you're talking about what I was talking about. So what do I recommend for frequencies for you could use the Bursa setting. Absolutely. So inflammation in the Bursa because that's what gets irritated with that extra pressure in the area. And I believe somebody else wrote something else. Yes. 40 in the synovium to reduce the excess production of fluid with the Baker cyst. Exactly. Again, going back to frequencies just really quickly. It's like we have frequencies that will help with the pain and will help in the short term. But we have to remember why that Baker cyst was there in the first place. So, you could definitely use 40 and help the inflammation, in that pocket that is inflamed. But things don't get inflamed from outer space. There's always a cause. And I think as clinicians, it is our job to figure out how did that get there. It's just like any sort of tightness or any sort of weakness that we see with somebody. Part of it is addressing the weakness in the tightness. But the other part is going one step further and thinking, how did it get like that in the first place? And then what are the ramifications of it being there? So going back to that Baker cyst and the the degenerative changes that could be in the meniscus or the joint surface is the knee is like the crazy middle sister. So how is it affecting the ankle and how is it affecting the big sister hip? So we're looking at things locally and we're addressing it to our patient I see you I understand your pain. However I see this could be happening from an instability or an imbalance in your hip. And you move up and down the chain accordingly. So, I think that was what was always so pivotal about what you've been doing is you've never been myopic in your approach to anything as far as balance, strength, training, speed, it's always the body as a whole and how that body moves more efficiently. So, you've been before your time for a long time there with.

Peter Twist:
Before my time for a long time, thank you. Certainly, in that paradigm or philosophy, how we see the body, nothing works alone in the body. There's probably no unless we're like sprinting, full out racing, running and run into a brick wall or something, there's not many examples of an isolated injury. I'll probably get set up to that from compensatory progression and so on. But nothing acts alone. Everything's connected. And so if we're in the body is linked from head to toe, but even our internal biological system and how the body, the tissues communicate with each other and so on. So, if we can keep looking at the area of primary focus, but extending out to everything that's connected, and we ultimately, end up training the human system.

Kim Pittis:
Yes.

Peter Twist:
And you and I and your listeners may have different opportunities to work privately and so on with our patients and clients and we can take them on like an athlete model. We call it long-term athlete development.

Kim Pittis:
Right.

Peter Twist:
Our last thoroughbred that we graduated training all through his youth was in that NHL ice hockey. Connor Bedard, 18-year-old ripping up the NHL. But we had him, I think for nine years to develop him.

Peter Twist:
So you can do a lot with that continuity, with consistency and logical progressions and so on, versus in our hospital system and our doctor medical care health care system, we might get 12 minutes. What can be done in that type of case. So it's a great opportunity to be able to graduate people moving well when we were looking at the knee. But you're looking at the ankle and hip and then you're really helping them navigate the whole body so that there's no knee pain or rehabilitate successfully. So, you're teaching them whole-body movement no matter what the injury, if you're putting them back into, return to play and so on in life where, you know, someone with knee pain and back pain and depression. And 50 pounds of extra body mass, who has cancer, goes to the hospital even for the full attention of cancer treatments. Graduates healthy with 50 pounds of extra body mass, back pain, knee pain, and depressed.

Kim Pittis:
Right.

Peter Twist:
And so our health care system does not graduate healthy patients, let alone those that can move. They deal with that one specific issue, thankfully, but it's very incomplete. But here we can look at perhaps a more complete model and try and guide clients and patients in that way.

Kim Pittis:
Yeah, that's so true. So many times those of us in private practice or have cash-based practices, are again, we're blessed and we're cursed because we get to work with patients, like you said, who have gone through models of nothing drives me crazier than a patient that has shoulder pain. And they went to PT and they rehabbed their shoulder, but they still have a dysfunctional scapula. And the scapula was most likely what caused the issue with the glenohumeral joint. Because if that scapulothoracic junction doesn't move while the glenohumeral junction doesn't move. But, I need a whole other podcast to decompress about that one.

Kim Pittis:
I want to go back a little bit to your educational series, because,

Peter Twist:
Yes.

Kim Pittis:
A lot of us were heavy on the biomechanical model with levers and fulcrums. And I do still assess with levers and fulcrums, but now we have a fascial system that we have to think about, and not that we have to think about, but learning more about fascial integration. And not just we had John Sharkey on not too long ago. And he's a beautiful mind from Ireland. He talks about bio-tensegrity a lot. So learning about the fascia system as a tensile property was one thing to add on in my tool belt. But then learning from you about strength and the connections with fascia is a whole other mind-blowing event, and you can give me statistic on it. But like the muscle-brain connection travels at what, 175 mph?

Peter Twist:
Right, yeah.

Kim Pittis:
Fascia brain is like 700 and something.

Peter Twist:
700. Right on the mark.

Kim Pittis:
Jeez! So you see, I'm still such a good student. I love learning so much. But that statistic in itself.

Peter Twist:
I'm going to send you a sticker with a star that you can put on your manual.

Kim Pittis:
I love being the best in my class, so I'd appreciate that. but that statistic in itself is just a bit of a mind-blowing concept for us, because fascia was something that I was happy to just cut away in with my gross anatomy labs, and I'm like, why did I cut it? Like, you know what I mean? Can you just talk a little bit about about that course and a little bit how we're thinking about fashion now too, as not just a piece of connective tissue?

Peter Twist:
Yeah, absolutely. No. I go back long enough ago from, university undergrad, where the anatomy labs with cadaver studies, the lab assistant and professor literally did just remove the fascia as an uninteresting, inert tissue so that we could look at the muscle insertions and origins and so on. And you mentioned levers and so on, and it still is that I believe training and movement the optimization of physics and and actually movement quality movement is the optimization of physics training to improve is disadvantaging our client using physics to impose challenges. It's a different model than I'm 100% positive with CrossFit and everything, but I use that example where it's more of a sport. If I'm going to do max reps, max speed for something, now I'm improving how I perform, like it's performance.

Kim Pittis:
Yeah.

Peter Twist:
It's performance. I'm performing my sport where improvement, if we're in an improvement and a learning and growth and get better mode, I wouldn't be able to do more than 10 or 15 reps of anything because I'm disadvantaging myself so that my brain and fascia and muscle are maximally overloaded, stimulated to think and relearn and grow. And again, that goes into that cognitive state. But it's still the manipulation of physics to challenge our client or to optimize their movement and teach them to move. Well, our fascia comes in really, when you mentioned that for everyone on here, that fascia communicates with our brain and muscle at 700 mph.

Peter Twist:
So folks make sure they understand that's sharing information. So maybe in our muscle system, we have millions of sensors receptors, the surface of our hands, the bottom of our feet are naturally flooded with sensors and receptors that collect information and send it up chain to the brain so that it can put all that data together and calculate what the next microsecond of whole body action should be. So, we receive the information by neural pathways through afferent pathways, make the computation, deliver the information, the commands to our muscles through efferent pathways so we can act cohesively. Every muscle has eight functions that it needs to be able to do. It needs to be able to shorten and lengthen and stabilize, get stiff. It needs to be able to react quickly, etc. and so each muscle needs to be able to act in a different way depending on what situation we're in. So there's lots of variables that we can train to keep improvement there. But then fascia communicates similarly along the neural pathways, bringing information from all parts of the body to the brain, back to the muscles to command movement, as well as supporting that movement 700 mph, sharing critical information about the body's challenges, moving in space and what's happening to it. It sounds important, doesn't it?

Kim Pittis:
Sounds crucial.

Peter Twist:
And if it was important, it might be seven miles per hour. Mike, we'll just get around to it soon. But 700 mph; there's no function in the body that's just there without consequence. It's there with an important purpose. If it's a function in the body, if it's an attribute of the body, part of our operating system, or software, it's highly important. And then we need to figure out what does that integrate with. What does that communicate with? How do we reverse engineer from how the brain, fascia, muscle and joints communicate? Why do they communicate? When do they communicate? What do they communicate? And then we can reverse engineer back to what are the physical guidelines and principles of how we physically train someone to stimulate those communication pathways, which will then instruct our tissue to perform better, to grow, but to move more skillfully and cohesively and play the right role at the right time. So, a lot of fitness training is approaching things There's still benefits, but from the wrong order, we're just looking at the meat of the muscle and the engine of the body and let's build those up. But I think if folks start to think less when we're talking a movement, whether we're rehabbing someone early, mid or late or return to play, I always suggest to people, whether they're physically, structurally injured, and they're going to see a physical therapist or it's an illness and a medical doctor, it's amazing what a lot of people will do when they're behind the eight ball and set back and in trouble and in injured or ill. And then so when they start to hopefully have a good patient who will do all the right things in their favor, naturally they go from a devastated, fragile, injured state back to a return to play, return to life, return to full, pain-free, full function, or at least where they were. All of the things they do to raise them back up to their progress if they just keep going. They'll become their best ever. Just don't stop that. Just keep doing what you're doing.

Kim Pittis:
Yeah.

Peter Twist:
And you'll get to a higher level. And in that thought, when we start in that train, we're training more. If we think less about fitness and more about movement, skill, about balance, and integrating that with strength and more focus on communication. How are the fascia, muscle, brain, joints communicating? Why, when, and they'll take care of the tissue in the body and the biomechanics of movement. But if we reverse the order of what we're paying attention to and what we're programing for, we'll get really nice outcomes.

Kim Pittis:
What a great sort of concluding statement. This was probably the fastest hour I've ever spent.

Peter Twist:
I don't usually make it through an hour. I usually get kicked off way before an hour. This is great.

Kim Pittis:
I have a couple of things before I go off on a little bit. All the courses that we're talking about is twisteducation.ca still the best place for folks to check out what you're doing right now.

Peter Twist:
Yeah, we can give twisteducation.ca. There's lots of stuff on there if you're really keen, if you want to get right to the heart of courses, just click on the certification page. It's Monday, I've got that mindset program opening and another way to connect with me. If you want to keep it simple on Instagram, coach Peter Twist in it's 2024, you can feel free to just DM me and I can send you a link to keep it simple. Or what someone asked me for.

Kim Pittis:
Your courses are so well done. So for anybody who's looking for continuing education for all this, it's just so well packaged. It's digestible. It's in good bite-sized pieces. So you can do a little bit or a lot depending on your schedule. Your content on Instagram is so inspirational as well. So definitely it's wonderful. I've been trying to talk more about books. I'm an avid reader. I've got two here. I'm going to talk about this one next week, but this kind of is a good wrap-up. It's called The Master of Change. He wrote The Practice of Groundedness, which I devoured in one day. Master of Change is phenomenal. I ask a lot of my patients to read this book as well. When we're talking, like I said, it's a good concluding statement. We're talking about mindset. We're talking about change. A lot of times, whether we're dealing with athletes or the aging population. I hear multiple times a day, I wish I could just move like I did back when, before my injury, when I was 20. And we're not there. We can't go back and live in the past. So to conclude what you were just saying, we have to be the best versions of ourselves today.

Peter Twist:
Absolutely.

Kim Pittis:
So the Master of Change talks a lot about embracing change, how to deal with change. And we always talk about the term homeostasis. Right? And so we'll say we just have to return back to homeostasis. And there's a different word that we try to talk about is allostasis. So you've got order, disorder and instead of going back to order which is what homeostasis is. Order, disorder and then we have re-order. So this is our new normal And so I try to talk a lot about allostasis with patients. I'm like yeah it would sure be great to move like we did when we were 20. But man I wouldn't want to be 20 for anything in the world anymore. I'm very happy where I'm at today, so I think that's an important concept when we're talking about moving and rehabbing. This is our body today, and let's embrace it and do the best that we can with it.

Peter Twist:
Absolutely. Great concluding statement and a great resource of that book. Thank you for sharing that.

Kim Pittis:
He has a wonderful Instagram as well. Brad Romberg's I recommend him to everybody. It's a fantastic book. So thank you again so much. We're going to have you on again and again. Everybody check out the new courses. Like I said the fascial lines training module was game-changing for me as a clinician, as a trainer and just for rehab to just think about the body and movement as a whole, I think is phenomenal. And we do so much with fascia with FSM. So I think all your courses are such a good resource for us out there. So thank you for being you.

Peter Twist:
Thank you so much and super quick. I just want to encourage people from your comment, I agree with you. And what's the best movement we can do today? I've had cancer, a stroke, I got two and a half muscles paralysis But if I wake up and I can breathe fresh air and I'm in a safe environment, and I actually woke up today, I right away say thank you for this day. So more of a grateful spirit for where we are. But I truly believe that you, me, everyone listening, although physically I want to be able to move, I can move more skillfully and I want to hopefully able to get to a point of being pain-free and enjoying that with we all have that opportunity. Yeah, no. Physically am I going to make the Olympic qualifier next and reach the podium? Probably not now, but we can still define how we define our best, perhaps that spiritually, mentally, the quality of our character that we show up, our knowledge, our wisdom, how kind are we to people? We're more patient, less reactive, etc. there's so many ways that we can aggregate attributes and abilities to define definitely our highest self and our best self. Movement is only one part of that and if I'm standing on the right side of the ground and can move around, I'll take that as a win and add in a lot of other ways that we might aim to rise up into our highest self yet.

Kim Pittis:
Yes. Oh, what a great New Year's opening podcast. This has been so inspirational, so great. Peter Twist, my fellow Canadian. Thank you again so much for joining us today.

Peter Twist:
Thank you. Thank you for all you do. And you're amazing culture there you have with your patients with safety and care and brilliance. So thank you.

Kim Pittis:
Thanks, Peter. Bye, everybody. We'll see you all.

Kevin:
The Frequency Specific Microcurrent podcast has been produced by Frequency Specific Seminars For, entertainment, educational, and informational purposes only. The information and opinions provided in the podcast are not medical advice. Do not create any type of doctor-patient relationship and unless expressly stated, do not reflect the opinions of its affiliates, subsidiaries or sponsors or the hosts or any of the podcast guests or affiliated professional organizations. No person should act or refrain from acting on the basis of the content provided in any podcast, without first seeking appropriate medical advice and counseling. No information provided in any podcast should be used as a substitute for personalized medical advice and counseling. FSS expressly disclaims any and all liability relating to any actions taken or not taken based on, or any contents of this podcast.

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