Transforming Pain into Performance: My Recovery Journey with Intentional Mobility Work

Have you ever thought you could lift one more barbell without stretching first?

So did I, until I found myself hunched over at a 90-degree angle, unable to move for a week. This episode of the 2% Solution is all about the life-changing power of mobility and recovery—a lesson I learned the hard way.

From the bliss of heavy lifting to the agony of a severe L4 and L5 vertebrae injury, I'm sharing my journey and how it reshaped my approach to fitness. Whether you're an elite athlete or just someone trying to stay active, neglecting mobility and recovery can come at a high cost, and I'm here to help you avoid your mistakes.

We'll explore how simple mobility exercises can improve your performance, reduce injuries, and allow your joints to move through their full range of motion.

I heard about the medical professionals who helped me piece my body and life back together and the pivotal lessons I learned along the way.

You'll discover practical tips on listening to your body's signals and incorporating recovery into your routine.

This episode isn't just for gym enthusiasts; it's for anyone striving for a healthier, more resilient body.

Tune in, and let's transform your wellness journey together!

Links & Resources

• 24 Minute Done With You Mobility Routine
• American College of Sports Medicine
• National Institutes of Health
• Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research
• ReadyState with Kelly & Juliet Starrett
• How to Become a Supple Leopard
• Ido Portal

Transcript

Dai Manuel: 0:08

Hey there, wellness warriors, welcome back to another episode of the 2% Solution. I'm your host, diamond Wall, and today we're diving into a topic that's often overlooked but absolutely essential for achieving optimal health. It's the power of mobility and recovery. Chill for achieving optimal health. It's the power of mobility and recovery. So grab a comfy seat or get ready to stretch it out, because this episode is all about why taking time for mobility and recovery can literally transform your health and your well-being. All right, let's kick things off with a quick statistic. Did you know that, according to the American College of Sports Medicine, regular stretching and mobility exercises can improve your performance and physical activities, decrease your risk of injuries and help your joints move through the full range of motion? I almost feel like that's common sense. But hey, if it was common, we'd all know about it, and that's right. Mobility isn't just for yogis and gymnasts, it is literally for everyone. All ages, all forms of people, all walks of life can benefit. When we talk about mobility, we're talking about the ability of your joints and muscles to move freely and efficiently. And what about recovery? Well, that's all about giving your body the time and tools it needs to repair and grow stronger after physical stress or activity.

Dai Manuel: 1:34

I'm going to share a quick story. A few years ago for those that have been connected with me for a while I was all about the heavy lifting and high intensity workouts. And you know, when I'm younger it's amazing. We have this just natural resiliency to deal with hard stuff and we sort of shrug off the hard workouts. We got those muscle soreness the day after, a couple of days after, and we just keep pushing, we keep going back, keep doing it. Remember that used to not be a problem. I'm now 47 and my body doesn't like that so much. And what happened was I was so biased to just lifting a lot of heavy weight, doing some high intensity interval training. You know, very typical CrossFit but I wasn't focusing on mobility and recovery because, honestly, I thought it was for people who, uh, I don't know what kind of slacking you know, like I knew that it was important, but I didn't think I needed it. Can you relate to that, can you? You know I was like, ah, it's good for everybody else, I don't either. Well, here's the thing. Eventually, I lifted one too many barbells without respecting that body signs you know those little cues that we get in our body and I suffered a nasty, nasty injury of my L4 and L5 vertebrae Bottom line. It sucked, okay.

Dai Manuel: 2:49

I remember at the time I was a sponsored athlete competing in CrossFit. I was competing with a local gym here in Vancouver. Fortunately for me, they had an attached medical center, so they had all these professionals there and I kind of felt like Humpty, dumpty, you know, he falls off the wall. But what happens? All the Kings men, you know all the people in the kingdom, come to the rescue to try to put them back together and I felt like all these specialists were helping me put back together.

Dai Manuel: 3:17

I went up for an MRI. It was gnarly. The doctor literally looked at me in the eye saying you know, you're not gonna be able to lift weights again, like that was it. I just right away to that, and meanwhile I was a fairly healthy, fairly fit dude. I mean, I wasn't very mobile. I could barely move at this time. I could barely move. Quite literally. I I was hunched over at about a degree angle for a good week.

Dai Manuel: 3:37

Um, the first 48 hours I was in bed after the injury cause I couldn't move. Um, but then, after the MRI, we were able to to to make a plan and fortunately I had people in my life that were like no, no, no, no, we can help you get through this, but you're going to have to do things very differently than what you did before and I was going to have to take a break from my typical training regimen. Anyways, uh, I, I, these aches and pains, they just wouldn't go away and I remember I had some nerve pinching. So my left leg, my left foot in particular, all my toes, I couldn't feel them. So really weird situation to find myself and I was very frustrated, mentally and emotionally. Psychologically speaking, I was a dumper, dave. Okay, I was very. I was feeling depressed, feeling very sorry for myself, thinking my gosh, what if I can do weights again? My whole life's going to change.

Dai Manuel: 4:24

You know, it wasn't just about the weights but it was about the lifestyle, right Like it's very active, very fit, doing lots of different activities, but I wasn't doing much mobility or stretching. So it wasn't until I incorporate regular mobility because I did for nine months. I treated recovery like my sport and I was like, how can I win at recovery, how can I win at mobility? And I made that very intentional, very focused, and and I noticed a massive, massive difference, literally. My performance improved, I felt more energetic and those nagging pains they eventually subsided and went away. In fact I'm more mobile and I'm just as strong, if not stronger, in certain lists now than I was before, because now I've got greater range of motion. I can also hold weights under stress and tension in different positions that normally I wouldn't have been able to do before. So I have a greater array of movement ability. But I can also put those movements under load without fear of hurting myself again and again. Just to note mentally I'm much smarter than I can train now.

Dai Manuel: 5:38

I listened to those cues in the body. So, because there was something that told me in that competition, I was like, yeah, something doesn't feel right here. And yet I was going for a PR and a triple overhead squat and really I shouldn't have been picking up the barbell at that time. I should have just left it and went and dealt with it and then moved on to the next event. But I didn't. My ego got in the way and, sure enough, I hurt myself. A very familiar story, especially for a lot of guys out there. I know sometimes we're a little bit more ass than class and we ignore the things in favor of the ego. Anyways, okay, research and benefits. Let's just talk about this a little bit. The research backs up all this stuff I'm talking about A study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning. Research found that athletes who incorporate regular stretching and mobility work into their routines had significantly lower risk of injuries compared to those who don't.

Dai Manuel: 6:29

Now let's talk about recovery. National Institutes of Health highlights the proper recovery techniques, like adequate sleep, hydration and active recovery, like mobility work. Right Stretching, like basically stretching through movement, is a great thing it's one of my favorite things to do rather than static stretching. This is crucial for muscle repair and overall performance. However, all this being said, let's talk about practical, actionable steps. You know how can you incorporate mobility and recovery into your daily routine. So here's the tips. I've got five for you, and some of these are repeats of things you've heard me mention before, but you know the truth is worth repeating. Daily movement is number one.

Dai Manuel: 7:12

Start your day with a few minutes of stretching, maybe even yoga. I mean gosh, you go onto YouTube. You can type in pretty much yoga. You type in the time domain like it could be yoga, five minute stretch. You're going to find a bajillion videos on that. Either way, just start doing something. This will help loosen up your muscle, your joints, preparing you for whatever the day may bring. It's also just a nice way to wake up and sort of warm up the body. I like doing some mobility. I've got a 22 minute mobility routine that I just absolutely love. I do it very often either as a pre-workout sort of warm up the body or a wake up routine, and I've got a YouTube video posted of that and I'm going to include it in the show notes. So just click on the link in the show notes If you want to check out that video. I think you'll love it. It's a done with you video, meaning I'm guiding you through the stretches and the timing is set. So you just set the timer away, you go, you just follow the video and, bam, you're done right. So be sure to check that out Now.

Dai Manuel: 8:08

Number two, after daily movement, is hydration. All right, this is so critical. You got to drink plenty of water throughout the day. Bottom line hydration is key for muscle function but also recovery, and I could go on and on and on. I'll do an episode just on hydration one of these days. But just recognize, if you're not getting enough water. You're slightly dehydrated. It's not doing your body much good, right? We need a well hydrated body to keep that those soft tissues well lubed, especially our joints, and we want things moving a lot more smoothly. It's also going to help with flushing the body with some of that lactic acid inflammation. So drink lots of water.

Dai Manuel: 8:47

Number three active recovery recovery. I talked about this already. Incorporate low intensity activities like walking, gentle cycling on your rest days. Now you're not going out there to to cycle a marathon or go do like the grand fondo 125k from vancouver to whistler. No, gentle rest recovery days. I I love going biking around the seawall as an example. It's about a 40 minute bike ride, but I'm not usually ever going over 15 to 18 kilometers an hour. So it's a very moderate paced, easy riding, more mental benefit than anything, but I absolutely love it. This will also promote blood flow and it aids in muscle recovery.

Dai Manuel: 9:24

Number four sleep. Aim for seven to nine hours of quality sleep per night. Sleep is when your body does most of its repair work. Metabolic function, hormonal health also benefits from deep quality sleep. If you don't know what kind of quality sleep you're getting, this is where I highly recommend some sort of activity tracker like an Oura Ring, a Whoop Strap, an Apple Watch. I mean there's lots of different devices out there today that can help you monitor your sleep more effectively, and there's even some really cool apps that can then take that data and give you some recommendations suggestions but also start to trend some of the patterns. It's an eye-opener for those that aren't monitoring their sleep. When you start monitoring it, holy smokes, literally you'll start to see where the opportunities are to make some subtle changes that will make huge impact.

Dai Manuel: 10:13

Number five get yourself a foam roller. Spend a few minutes each day foam rolling. This will help release muscle tension, improve mobility, flush inflammation. I mean so many things. I mean we go to a massage therapist for what? To get massaged and work out a lot of what's called trigger points, those little knots that we get in the body right, especially in our fascia. And it's not cheap, right? It's like about 120, 150 bucks a session to go in for a 45 to 60 minute session. Well, get yourself a foam roller for 40, 50 bucks.

Dai Manuel: 10:41

One of my favorites is the travel roller. I'll include a link to that in the show notes. It's my favorite. It's about 40 bucks and they're just awesome. I travel with mine literally everywhere and it's such a simple little device and yet super effective. I believe everybody on the planet should have one. Okay, and if you don't have one, I'll get one and start using it. If you're going to dive deeper into this topic, I highly recommend checking out resources from the American College of Sports Medicine, national Institutes of Health and the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. These are all great places to start your journey toward better mobility and recovery. Also, I mentioned I'm going to include in the show notes the link to the best 24 minutes of your life. Your body will thank you for it. It's actually about a 22-minute routine, but the video, I think, is 24 minutes, so definitely worth checking out. 22 minute routine, but the video, I think, is 24 minutes, so, uh, definitely worth checking out as well.

Dai Manuel: 11:32

As uh in future show I've got Kelly and Juliet Starrett of Ready State coming on. They're also formerly uh of MobilityWOD and their new company is now called Ready State. Uh. But you may know Kelly from his old days. Uh, doing a lot of MobilityWOD videos. Uh, mobility workouts of the day Really cool. He did that in conjunction. He had a CrossFit gym down in San Francisco. He's now transitioned to other businesses, but it's all. It's just evolved. Really cool.

Dai Manuel: 11:57

They're going to be on the show soon talking a lot about mobility and these different types of practices and how it benefits us, but especially talking about longevity and vitality and some of the things we can do to really ensure we live high quality life where our movement allows us to take us wherever we need to go. You know, it's easy to say, once we lose that ability to move freely and move intentionally quality of life, it takes a turn for the worst. So how do we maintain that for life and not just the ability to do it, to do it well, to thrive right? So they'll be on the show talking about that. It's going to be really interesting. Check them out online as well. As if you've never heard of someone by the name of Ido Portel, very well known in sort of the mobility calisthenics space. He's got a lot of great videos and content. Check him out online Again, another great resource for this type of stuff.

Dai Manuel: 12:46

All right, my friends, my 2% collective friends. That's all for today. Remember, taking time for mobility and recovery isn't just about preventing injuries. It's about optimizing your overall health and well-being by incorporating simple practices in your daily routine, you're not only going to feel better, but you can perform better. Thanks for tuning in to the 2% Solution. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend who might need a little reminder to stretch and recover. Don't forget to follow us on social and if you're loving this podcast, a review and subscription would mean the world to me. Stay flexible, stay strong and keep pushing your limits. Also, stay tuned for those upcoming episodes and the supple lepers themselves. Kelly and Juliet, you won't want to miss that. Expert insights in mobility and recovery. I'm Diamond Wall. You've been listening to the 2% Solution. Let's keep thriving together and I'll see you next time.