Playing Golf and Being Healthy with Vinny Crispino (The Pain Academy)

Vinny Crispino (@PainAcademy) is a Certified Personal Trainer and the Founder of Pain Academy in California.

A former 8x All-American Olympic hopeful, Vinny’s career was halted by a severe back injury during a surfing accident. After twelve years mastering pain management and corrective exercise techniques, Vinny has helped complete beginners and elite athletes overcome debilitating injuries and pain.

The Pain Academy distills this expertise into an accessible format, offering a pathway to recovery for anyone struggling with physical limitations, and Vinny joins #OntheMark to teach you his techniques to better movement, better golf-swings and a better mind-body connection for pain reduction.

Topics covered include:
— The “Mind-Body connection” and Pain
— How the Brain functions and operates and Neural Pathways and their Function
— Nervous System Disregulation
— How the Body is designed to Heal Itself
— The Physical Symmetrical Design of the Body, and How the Golf-swing adds Assymetry
— The Golf-swing’s Adaptations and those effects on Personal Life
— Building and Growing a Swing with Nervous System Efficiency
Somatic Training
— Nervous System Rest and Getting Back to Neutral, and
— Avoiding the Spiral of Self Sabotage and Panic.
— Vinny also shares a movement set you on your way to self-regulatd balance and calm.
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ABOUT ON THE MARK: Mark’s knowledge, insight and experience have made him a sought-after mind on the PGA and European tours. Through his career, he has taught and/or consulted to various Major Champions, PGA Tour winners and global Tour professionals such as: Larry Mize, Loren Roberts, Louis Oosthuizen, Patton Kizzire, Trevor Immelman, Charl Schwartzel, Scott Brown, Andrew Georgiou and Rourke can der Spuy. His golf teaching experience and anecdotal storytelling broadcasting style makes him a popular host for golf outings.

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[Music] The one thing about this on the mark show is that it kind of follows my lead being the host and I’m very holistic as you all know when when I approach golf instruction or hosting this podcast and my guest Vinnie Christino. Well, Vinnie, I’m stepping way outside of golf to have you, our pain management expert, come and join us. So, welcome to the show, man. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. We’re going to take a quick detour outside of golf, so then we can come back into golf feeling pretty darn good. All right, I’m going to let you be the tour guide then. And I want to start this off, Mr. tour guide Vinnie with pain management and such because I’m not so sure I can count on one hand golfers that I know that are completely painfree and you’ve got a fascinating story we’ll dive into. So let’s talk about that that mind body connection cuz I believe in it and how that sort of how that works you know pardon the pun hand and glove a little bit with uh with pain and pain management. Yeah. So mind body is something that gets thrown about a lot. I’m sure people just hearing you say that there’s kind of this general, yeah, of course they’re connected. But what does that really mean? And can we actually make that real for people? So there’s a couple ways we can enter this, but probably the easiest way to enter this is there are a couple reasons why we are in pain. All right. Some of us it’s an actual structural issue. Okay. Some of us it’s the brain’s interpretation of signals. So let me make this real for you. Okay. There is a infamous story out there and it’s a it’s a classic medical case because it really changed our understanding of what mindbody even really is. And this one case, this construction worker, he’s walking around the construction site and he steps on a nail and the nail goes through the boot. This guy is doubled over in pain. The ambulance gets called. He has to take multiple rounds of painkillers and a sedative on the way to the hospital to calm him down. He’s in that much pain. Okay. And when the doctors took an X-ray of his foot to figure out what did this nail go through, the X-ray showed that the nail went in between the toes through the boot. Amen. So if pain is if damage always creates pain, then how do we explain this guy’s case? There was no damage, but the pain was very real. Mhm. And this is what enters us into a very interesting way to understand mindbody connection, which is that pain is always real, but it is not always accurate. It doesn’t always come from damage. Another thing to throw into this mix as we begin to connect this mindbody conversation for our listeners today is, you know, how many people are listening to this episode who have been told, “Yeah, I’ve got a herniation. That’s why I’m in pain. I’ve got structural damage. I’ve got stenosis. I’ve got a bulging disc, spine disc degeneration. Whatever it is, the list goes on with a diagnosis. However, there have been studies that are done on people with zero back pain and found 64% of people with zero back pain have the same conditions on their MRIs. disc bulges, disc degeneration, herniations, stenosis, etc. So, we really have to understand that not all structural issues equal damage and pain and not all pain comes from structural issues. Or said differently, you can have a structural problem and there being no pain. You can also have no structural problem and there being pain. The differentiating factor here is how this thing works. The thing in between your ears. Yeah. Your brain’s perception of what’s really going on. So when we talk about mind body, we have to understand that the mind and the body are always in communication with each other. And if that communication is good, it’s healthy, it’s regulated, you’re going to live a very full life. Things are going to feel pretty good. Movement’s going to feel great. But if that communication becomes like uh trying to talk to like an ex-wife or or an ex, um we all know what I’m talking about. Even something with good intentions turns into a huge blowout because the commu there’s miscommunication. And if there can be miscommunic if there can be miscommunication between two people, can’t there be miscommunication between our mind and our body? And when we have chronic pain cases or when we have issues like my back always acts up, my hips always act up, we have to take a look at how is the mind and the body working with each other and ramping things up. This is fascinating to me and I’m going to delay the introductions of you a little bit because I’m going to mine where you are. I’m a man of faith and I believe in continual renewal of one’s mind, you know, because especially nowadays in the latter days, we there’s all sorts of noise around us at all times. And I found it curious. I had a binge day the other day where I was watching this random show in the morning. It was the librarians. Okay, forgive me. And every commercial break was like medic medication stuff and it’s about like well this case and that case and chronic this and something that and it seemed like these folks that were advertising that had targeted this audience to say hey you you’re going to fall into this and I found myself going that could be me and then all of a sudden you know then stuff starts to manifest in a certain way. Are you feeling where I’m going here? Because you know keeping the mind clear and keeping it focused on the good is is is a challenge but it’s one of the most important things. Yes. You just opened up a beautiful can of worms. Let’s do it. All right. Go. Okay. So what you just talked about was you were marketed to about pain and you probably saw commercials of people of a certain age dealing with certain issues. And in our culture, there is a normalization of, yeah, you should hurt when you age. Golfers, you know what? You should hurt if you’re playing golf in retirement. That’s normal. There is a paradox on the world stage, and I’m going to do my best to break this down. Okay? Lithuania is a country that does not have cases of whiplash. Why are their cars safer? Are their speed limits lower? No. Whiplash is just not a thing. It’s because they it’s a belief. It’s a cultural thing. Okay. It’s not a documented case that doctors are trained on to identify. It is not a case that people are told, “Yeah, when you are in a car accident, you should have whiplash.” And so this one country and let’s just deal with this cynicism or skepticism here. Well, maybe they’re just under reporting. That’s a valid question that scientists have looked at. When we really take a look, step back, scientists wanted to test this theory. They created fake car crashes. Hear me out on this. They took participants, put them in a fake car crash scenario. They faked the screeching sounds. The car was at a slight angle up and then just kind of dropped forward mimicking almost getting rear ended. Yeah. They sprinkled these German scientists, they sprinkled glass on the windshield. They created the perfect scenario where somebody feels like they were just in a car crash. And people developed 10% of these people developed severe chronic whiplash because they believe that neck should hurt after getting rear ended. So why doesn’t why don’t these people in Lithuania believe that they should hurt long after a car accident? Well, it comes back down to a lot of different things. If you get injured in America, you actually are incentivized for being in pain, right? You get a legal case. Insurance companies need to see that you’re struggling to keep doing payouts. They’re not going to help you if you’re like, “Hey, I’m fine.” There is an actual an incentive and a reward for hurting. And the reward is money. So, when we’ve got a culture that not only normalizes you should be in pain, when we’ve got a legal system and an insurance system that rewards you, which is a really weird way to speak about it, for being in pain long term, and you having to prove that you’re in pain long term, we start to get to this weird epidemiology point of culture has a huge influence on what we what we think we should feel. And if the brain’s job is to always be assessing, should we feel good like that guy uh or should we feel bad like that guy who stepped on that nail? Then our belief system, what we think we should feel has a huge impact on what we actually feel. And that is the mind body connection. And I want to add one more thing to this to make this even more real. Right. Modern pain science has given us the ability to do fMRI studies, meaning we literally get to scan the brain and see how the brain communicates and works in real time. There is a study done that takes people who are fresh into a back injury. So we’re talking within about the past three months, people who have injured their back without doing a MRI on the back without without doing X-rays on the back just by looking at the brain scans of how two regions of the brain talk to each other the preffrontal medial cortex and the nucleus encumbent. Just by looking at how those two areas communicate, researchers could predict with an 85% accuracy who was going to be in pain a year later, irrelevant of the actual back. We didn’t look at function. We didn’t test actual injuries. We’re just looking at how the brain is actually communicating the mind part of the body. And with 85% accuracy, they could predict who was going to be in pain. That’s wild. No kidding. And I would expect, correct me if I’m wrong now, I’m just thinking of the human form and how everything everything originates from the brain. Okay, forgive me that’s the other the speaker switching off. um like like like just human conditions like conditions like blood pressure. Gosh man if I see one blood pressure commercial I see thousands and and and if you just then search one time on the internet off you go and then then it become then it be do you see where I’m going here a little bit? It’s it’s almost like or how about I put it this way. I find when I’m in an announcing and I’m in the not the grind but in the exhilaration of the adrenaline going and I’m moving and it’s television live TV and stuff like that all these things I’m feeling are gone then when I have time to lie down after the day and stuff I’m like oh my gosh I’m feeling this in my head or I’m feeling that you is is that a thing too you you get where I’m going here well yeah so what you’re talking about is actually something that we can easily see so for example um how many people have the experience of being able to go do nine or 18 holes on a golf course, go to the driving range, you’re fine when you do it, and then later at night, that’s where the pain sets in. That’s where the problem set in. If you’ve ever seen somebody fall or wipe out on a bicycle or fall off of a skateboard and they immediately get up and start running, heck yeah. That’s not random. It’s because they’re tapping into something called competing signals. The brain can only process so much at any given time. So instead of just processing all the pain from an injury and a wipeout, getting up and immediately running helps to inhibit those neural pathways and calm down the pain signals. Just like when you’re on the golf course, you’re with the buddies, you’re outside, it’s a sensory great experience. you don’t really feel a lot of what’s going on because there’s a lot of competition in your spinal cord for what information is coming and going. And it’s then when things when the stimulus lowers and you’re in those calm, quiet hours of the night, is it, oh my god, I feel those 18 rounds today. I need a beer or whatever it is. You know, it’s when the inhibiting neural pathways calm down that we really get to see what we feel like. And that’s the mind part of this mindbody connection. Yeah. One more thing and then then I got to move along. Um I read one time and then I still wrote a golf instructional article about it where I can’t remember what the little um the the the the part of the brain was, but it was essentially like a filter. And it’s the example was so you’re deciding to buy a red car and you haven’t seen a red car on the road. Now you’re like looking for red cars. Next thing you turn around and all you seeing are red cars because this part of the brain is now like well I’m going to let this information into the brain as opposed to filtering it away. Yeah. Um I wish I could remember the name of this. But I’m hearing you and I’m kind of going, you know, if you could reprogram oneself like that, all these things we’re so fearful of because a lot of athletes, golfers and such, you’re fearful of the pain. You’re fearful of the injury. You’re fearful of all that sort of stuff. The doctor says go for an MRI and then the next thing is playing tricks in your mind. You’re like, “Oh my gosh, I’m, you know, my days are numbered kind of deal.” Um the the reprogramming of this mind body connection is a massively important thing to I think overall well-being because your body is designed to heal itself. Yes, your body is in incredible at healing. You cut your skin, it heals. You break a bone, it heals. So, we have to ask the question and those people who have had stiff backs for years, painful backs for years, it hurts every time you bend forward to pick up a golf ball, whatever it is. Why isn’t your body healing? It’s not that you’re incapable of healing. What we’re now learning is that you could have healed, but your brain still thinks you’re injured. And this is the rewiring that I’m talking about because your brain, people who experience chronic conditions, chronic issues, and when I say chronic, for example, if a herniation takes 6 months to heal, but your herniation still heals 5 years later, that’s a chronic case. It’s hurt way outside of the actual healing window. We are now understanding that the brain is capable of producing any symptom in anywhere in the body. Not to sabotage you, but because it’s a learned pathway. Yeah. And when it’s a learned pathway, how many times, Mark, do you think it takes for you to swing a golf club and it hurt for you to pair and condition in your mind that golf hurts? Mhm. Mhm. Or bending forward hurts or walking 18 holes hurts, whatever it is, the question is not long or the answer is not long. We understand the psychological impact of conditioning very well. So, when you have movement that gets conditioned to pain, how many people could we have on the show right now that can predict, “Yes, squatting hurts me. Bending forward hurts me. It’s why I don’t do it. Swinging this way or doing this on the course hurts, it’s why I don’t do it.” The brain starts to lock in these patterns that this pattern equals pain. And even long after you heal, that neural pathway, right? neurons that fire together, wire together, your brain is still capable of producing pain. And the fascinating part is in these studies, and we’re going to get to the the mind part in a second. Yeah. People who experience chronic issues, chronic tension, they are processing them, these signals in the learning, memory and storytelling regions of the brain, not in the parts of the brain that actually deal with true tight muscles and tight signals. That’s crazy. said differently, what you feel is real, but it might not be accurate. And that’s where the mind body conversation really comes in. And this is where, you know, depending on how many tangents we want to go down, it’s a hard conversation to have because when that golfer says, “No, my back’s been tight for 20 years. I feel XYZ after golfing.” This is not to say that’s not real. That’s your experience of it and your brain makes you feel that it’s real, but is it accurate? And this is where a really cool conversation can happen. All right, cool. Um, I’m just going to quickly put the bow on that to say this guy that you’re talking to, I can be sitting there, my resting heart rate’s cruising around the high 50s, 60s. You walk me into a doctor’s office and you put a blood pressure cuff on me. My heart rate will go up to like 120 in the blink of an eye and I feel it happening and all systems are like off the charts. It’s it’s the most incredible thing. But under your counsel, I’m going to beat this stuff. But first, you have a very personal sounding story to me because you were an eight-time aspirin Olympian, then surfing. I’m from South Africa, so surfing is a part of our culture. You had a horrid back injury. that put paid to kind of I guess your dreams, your aspirations and such. Um, tell the story about Vinnie before we go anywhere else, please. Yeah. So, um, long before I got into movement, you know, I didn’t really care about movement and pain, um, until I literally couldn’t move and I was in pain. I was a former eight-time all-American collegiate division one athlete. Uh, have 30 plus Colorado state records for swimming. So, I was a pretty elite competent athlete. And you know, I didn’t really have much adversity as an athlete. I had this experience of I found my sport. I found my calling. I never, you know, as a swimmer usually goes, you’re not really dealing with contact sports here. So, you you’re not going to run into a lot of broken bones being a swimmer. So, I never really had adversity or face problems with my body. And um you know, you can only swim up and down a lap, a pool so many times before you just lose your mind and get really bored. And I was really getting really burned out of being a swimmer. And I was thinking about, well, what what skills do I have that would carry over into other sports? And I kind of had this romantic dream. I fantasized about just becoming a pro surfer. I sold everything I had. I moved out to California where the waves were just absolutely incredible. some great worldclass surfing out in California. Uh, literally within a few months, my ego found these a storm was coming through. We’re talking, you know, 10 plus foot waves. Now, mind you, I suck at surfing. Yeah, but you guys are nut you guys are nutcases because where the rest of us will watch a hurricane forecast to go, “Okay, we’re going to batten down the ashes.” You clowns are finding where the biggest swell is and you’re taking the surfboard out there. Yeah. I’m I should have had my red nose on and makeup and clown costume because I was that clown. I remember looking at this more than double overhead wave these breaks coming through on a rocky shore break saying, “Yeah, I can do this because I, you know, have this time in the 50 meter sprint or the 100 meter sprint, whatever.” ever I was thinking it was the uh invincibility of what a young man feels before he ever deals with real physical adversity. I never had that. So I was looking at these waves as like my playground. And the very first wave I caught Mark, you know, unlike a normal wave that catches you nicely and you speed up and you pop up on the board and you enjoy it. I couldn’t even see through this wave. You know, normally I can see like the kelp through because they’re small little baby waves I’m learning on. This thing was dark and heavy. And I knew the second it before it picked me up, this was not going to go well. I tried to paddle the washing machine. They call it the washing machine when you get caught underneath that thing. Huh? Yeah. You know what? That’s my new name for it is the washing machine. And I I remember sprinting like I was still, you know, going for the Olympic trials. I swam as fast as I could away from this wave knowing I needed momentum. This thing picked me up and spit me out. I mean, I went barreling into the rocks. I tried to tuck my body and protect my head and my lower back hit a rock. And it was a, you know, it was just one of those moments where it’s there’s life before and then there’s life after. and I felt it. Um, I came up gasping for air. I was in a shade of state of shock and panic, but you know, I remember looking down at my left leg cuz it didn’t feel like it was there. I mean, we’re talking like immediate damage. Um, my lower back hit a rock. I suffered a T12 fracture, multiple herniations. The blunt force trauma of the impact shifted my spine 21 degrees to the side. And I think the only thing that saved me in that moment was my years being uncomfortable in the water training. I did what my training did, which is stay calm, go on your back, do some like little hand skulling motions. I was getting tossed around by the waves. And I finally make uh my way to shore and I’m just like crawling across the beach. I lost my board. Didn’t care at all where it was. And you know, instead of having sense and calling an ambulance for help, I just crawled into my truck and drove 40 minutes home. And it was the first time that I had ever driven like white knuckling the steering wheel. I’m holding on for dear life. And the radio’s just off. And there was something in that moment that said, I just need to be alone. And so I went home and I crawled into my house and I spent the remainder of the day and that night on the floor. It was the worst night of my uh worst night of sleep of my life. And when I finally came to in the morning, I called a friend and said, “I need help.” And he drove me to the hospital. And so begins probably what everybody’s story is, which is you have a problem. What the hell do you do? You go get expert help. And you go from one diagnosis to the next, one opinion to a second to a third, and you just bounce around the health care system for years just trying to not hurt. What what a somewhat shock shocking but somewhat inspirational story too because now on the back end of all of this, you start the pain academy and now you are helping people to wellness and health. um despite your situation. So you took something horrid and made it good. Um the the origin of the pain academy, how did this come about? Well, after going through probably 5 years of searching for answers, and by the way, my fractures had healed, my herniations healed, but I wasn’t getting better. Um, five years into me just trying to, you know, get back to feeling human again, I stumbled across this guy. You know, it was such a weird story. This person approached me in a grocery store. He saw me struggling because I couldn’t was having a hard time getting the milk, gallon of milk off the shelf. It was too heavy for me. Mhm. And this guy approached me and he hands me his business card and he’s like, “Hey, I can help you. I can help you fix your leg.” And in my mind, I’m like, “My legs, there’s nothing wrong with my leg. It’s my back that’s broken. This guy doesn’t know anything.” And he handed me his business card. I throw it in the back of my car and forget about it. At some point, I decided to take my healing into my own hands. I realized doctors weren’t helping me. PTs, physios, and chyros weren’t helping me. Um, nobody really cared about this as much as I did. I was spending a fortune trying to heal and the only thing they cared about was how many packages I could buy. Keep swiping that credit card and we’ll keep helping you. You know, I wasn’t learning anything, Mark. And I decided to put myself back through school and I started studying exercise physiology, becoming a personal trainer, a corrective exercise specialist. and I went down the academic road, you know, uh, a while passed and I’m a certified personal trainer. I’m in the gym. I can’t reckrack my own weights. I’m still a mess, man. I don’t know how I’m helping other people. I can’t even function through the day. And this one guy in the gym comes up to me and he hands me a card and he’s like, “Hey, just you look like you’re hurting. You got to go call my guy.” And the name on the card was the same gentleman who approached me in the grocery store. And I’m like, you know what? I always ask the universe for a sign, but I always angels are working over time. Yeah. Yeah. And I I always like ask the universe for a sign. And the universe always sends me 10 neon flashing signs before I’m like, “Okay, I get it.” You know? And this was that sign. And And I remember calling this guy, us having our first appointment. It was weird, man. Uh he there was no adjustments. He didn’t touch me. It was just me laying on the ground in certain positions. And he was kind of like guiding me through my thoughts and what I’m feeling, what sensations are showing up and how am I engaging them with my mind? And you know, I’m thinking, “This is stupid. This is such a waste of time. Here I am again. Another failed therapy.” And I remember standing up. It’s not a miracle, but I felt better. And it was the first time I had felt better in years where I could breathe again and he didn’t touch me. What the hell was this? Why am I better? And what just happened? You know, it was like 5 to 10% better. Again, it wasn’t this like huge big bang miracle, but I started to have this idea of like, well, if I just did that here, can I do that at home? and can I now do this every day? And this was when Pain Academy was born because I was so hopeful in that moment that I had not turned over every stone that I was missing some really important pieces of the puzzle that this guy had. I was 50% hopeful and 50% angry. Why was nobody working with my mind and body the whole time? Why was everybody just trying to adjust me and give me pills and drugs and, you know, just do exercises when the problem was nervous system dysregulation and terrible movement patterns. And in that moment, Pain Academy was born because this information everybody deserves, everybody should have access to this. And my mission became clear is to put this information and understanding in as many homes as possible because these are the missing pieces that nobody’s going to sit down and hold your hand through u because they’re not getting paid per session to do it. It’s the in between the mind and body. That’s what’s missing. And that’s what this therapy I found was. And 10 years ago I found it and I’ve improved upon it. And now we’re worldwide. I’ve got an online program where people are signing in daily to have these recreation sessions of feeling better by learning how to change their relationship with pain itself and their biomechanics, improve muscle balance, improve range of motion, strength, stability, all the stuff that makes us capable humans. Yeah. You know what I hear too? Um, for all our golf audience listening, and I’m sure people’s minds are kind of going, gosh, I I I feel what Vinnie is saying here because I’ve been struggling with X for teen years now, and I go to the doctor and they just give me another prescription for something. Yeah. Or, you know, I’ve seen countless golfers, they get to the golf course, and the warm-up regimen is kind of like a bloody mary and a few Advil kind of meal. Yeah. Together, right? Mixed in the drink. you just got to get it all done at once. It’s kind of just numbing oneself for the upcoming venture. Um Yeah. And and you know, we laugh, but that resonates with people. And I love what you say where you you talked about nervous system dysregulation and your rel biomechanics certainly changing that. Then your relationship with pain as well. And before we went hot, you talked about how certain sports, golf especially, where there’s these same movements in the same direction all of the time, and this creates one of those biomechanical dysfunctional sort of situations. Talk about that a little bit, please. Yeah. So, so let’s start off with a common understanding. We all have a good side, right? Most of us, we write with our right hand. If I were to kick a ball at you, you’d probably always kick the ball most of the time with the same foot, right? So, we all have a side that we favor too. That’s just natural. But our design is bilateral. It’s even. It’s symmetrical. We could literally with a straight line go down the body. The same joints, muscles on one side are the same as the other side. So, we have a symmetrical structure to us. with slight asymmetrical tendencies. That’s all humans. One side develops a little better than the other. Okay, that’s our foundation. Can I stop you? I’m looking I’m looking at you folks. And for the audio listeners, go check this out on YouTube because Vinnie looks infinitely cooler than me. And and then there’s me sitting there and I’m completely golf dude and my left shoulder is higher than my right. And I’m sure you’re looking at me going, “This guy’s out of whack a little bit over here.” She talking to me with So, so, okay, I’ll stop. But I did laugh, but when you talk about the body being even, and I’m imagining Da Vinci’s Vuvian man, me with my crooked head and my So, go ahead, please. Great call out, by the way. I’m much better that you called that out than me calling it out on you because whenever I do that, then people sit tall and level things out, you know? So we all have this symmetrical design but when we start introducing asymmetrical activities and golf is one of them and actually to be fair most sports are asymmetrical in nature. Okay. But golf is one of those interesting sports that is so asymmetrical. Right? Think about like tennis. We all have the right hand that hits the ball but we sometimes do backhand. We’re rotating both ways. Mhm. Golfers don’t do that. Golfers swing one way again and again and again. So, we could easily talk about right now how the more you practice your swing, the better it gets because of nervous system efficiency. Your brain learns how to recruit muscles on one side better than the other. And that’s what makes the groove of the swing better. Beautiful. that helps you adapt to become a better golfer. However, the adaptations that make us a great golfer don’t just get left on the golf course, we bring them home like you’ve broughten into the podcast. Yeah. You’ve learned that when you swing, your left shoulder’s probably going to have a better drive and follow through when your left shoulder finishes higher. It’d be weird to have your right shoulder finish higher on a swing. Notice the efficiency that gets dialed in with your left shoulder being higher. And so there it stays day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. Now we have this symmetrical body that is asymmetrically trained. The right side’s doing something different than the left side. And so the tension, the tugof-war between right and left begins. You’re going to use one side more as the other side gets less competent. The structure that’s in the middle, right, running vertical up and down our body is our spine. So what happens when we as golfers get one shoulder that’s always higher than the other? That’s going to pull on the head, neck, and shoulders. Probably lead to a lot of midback stiffness and tension. When we rotate, let’s say we are swinging from right to left. We are externally rotating the right hip, internally rotating the left hip. All good. But we’re only doing that again and again over time. The right hip’s going to get really good at external rotation, but not no more internal rotation. The left hip’s going to get really good at internal rotation. No more external rotation because we don’t train that. And so now this golfer is being put in the real world. He’s walking. Now he’s walking with a hip disparity, a little bit of a gallop. One leg rotates better than the other. One shoulder is higher than the other. One arm swings more than the other. The adaptations on the golf course bleed over into everyday life, which creates all of these compensations that put the body under so much stress, it then makes golfing not feel great. The better you get at golfing, the worse things feel outside of golf. This is the adaptation, which some could call it beautiful, especially if golfing is your living. Who cares about feeling good outside of golfing? You want the most golf adaptation possible. However, golfing is a really interesting sport because you tend to get better most people with age. So, there’s a longevity to golf. And what I mean by that, you know, obviously despite some strength and power and range of motion stuff, you get more practice and skill. So golfing isn’t something golfers say, “I want to be in my prime from 20 to 25 and then stop.” Most golfers see themselves golfing late into retirement. Well, what it takes to be able to actually do that is maintenance on your body. Yeah. When you’re done with the golf course, doing a very gentle, simple nervous system reset routine that says, “Hey hips, you both can rotate. Hey shoulders, you both can move the same again. No longer one resting higher and your trunk and upper body always twisted one way. Hey body of mine, I’m going to bring you back down to neutral and restore basic function.” so my body outside of golf can support me at home, walking, doing whatever else I like doing. And and that’s the conversation that I think would probably be really helpful for this audience to hear, which is um you know, if golfing doesn’t feel great, it’s not golfing, it’s the body we’re bringing into golf that has the problem of limitation and movement. So, if we can get that body to move better and function better, you will golf longer. Period. And that’s really important. And I know I’ve kept you for a while and this has been so informational and and enlightening to me. These are things I know, but the way you describe it, Vinnie, sort of makes it sound like gospel to me. And you used the word hope earlier, and I’m like, gosh, this makes me hopeful. Um but I want to circle back to say after you describing the whole situation where the repetitive motion has the body essentially grown in one sort of direction then there’s asymmetry and then that affects regular life and so that’s when issues start to arise then that goes all the way back to the between the mind body connection where it’s like okay I’m asymmetrical this doesn’t feel right then I get pain then it’s in my head and then you start this continual loop between what I’m thinking, what I’m doing, and there’s this maelstrom like something like a whirlpool that’s just taking you in one direction unless you put a stop to it and you’d have one of these nervous system resets every day. Yes. Yeah. So, uh I’m now I went from elite athlete to broken disabled for about 10 years of my life and I’m now an ultramarathon runner. So, I use these I use these nervous system resets daily to remind myself that I’m okay. I’m safe. My body can be balanced. I should have access to my right side the same as the left side. And all of these things don’t wind me up so I can become a runner long term. These are all tools. What was missing in my rehab for the first five years is I was swiping my credit card thinking the more I paid the more people would just fix me. And maybe sometimes that’s true for people, but what I failed to get was skills from these big payments I was making to people. And that’s what I now focus on is the transferring of skills. So, I want to give you the skill of understanding what a nervous system regulation routine is, how to do it, so you can just go do it for the rest of your life. I don’t know how long you’re going to be in my program for, but you’re going to be using this information for as long as you want to become a great mobile mover. So this is all about skill development and I’ve used these skills to go from a broken back having never been a runner. Remember I was a swimmer. I actually hated running to now being you know capable of running 50 mile 80 kmter races um in about 12 hours. Mhm. Okay. Um I’ve kept you for a long time now. Apart from folks reaching out to you in the pain academy, um I want to do this because I’d made this list, you know, because I hear from all these trainers and stuff we have on here, they talk about, you know, muscles and fascia and the fascia is the big deal and the the nervous system and you got to stretch the and and stretch the nerves. I’m hearing all this stuff and it all sounds very cool, but I’m listening to you going, “Hold on, that’s just a bunch of noise and yes, it’s appropriate, but this all stems from the nervous system because that is central command. That that that is the mothership.” Am I summarizing you properly here? It is the command center of everything. Mhm. The problem is if you go to a foot guy, you’ve got a foot problem. If you go to a hip guy, you got a hip problem. If you go to a exercise physiologist who understands anatomy, yeah, it’s this one muscle. Hey Mark, this one muscle is wrong and that’s the root of all your problem. Yeah. If you go to a Ralpha, your fascia is the issue. If we take a step back and we’re being academically honest here, no one system works by itself. The brain does not speak to a muscle at a time. It communicates in patterns. And the brain is the central governor over every single system in the body. So instead of chasing system, a system or a muscle or fascia or nerves or muscles, let’s go after the brain that’s actually controlling everything. Okay. Now, in the interest of leaving our global audience with a bit of a gift, because I’m sure if they’re anything like me, they’re fascinated. Um, the nervous system reset. I’m sure there elements to it. Can you describe maybe one as a bit of a tease before they come and work with you? Is that a possibility? Yeah, absolutely. So, step one, and this is kind of the counterintuitive thing. Step one is let’s actually not move. We have to downregulate all of these. If the nervous system’s disregulated, excessive signals are going out, coming in. Your brain’s mixing all these signals might be shouting pain, danger, warning, threat, whatever it is. Step one is bringing all that noise to quiet. So, literally, depending on whatever specific condition you’re having, your step one could look like laying on your back with your legs over a couch or a chair, right? Hips and knees at 90 degrees. So, think of like um you’re just laying on the floor with both legs over an object and just breathing. Before I can even help you with movement, we have to start from a calm place. If I just throw strength exercises, you’re going to use the disregulated nervous system to do the exercise. So we have to bring all of that commotion to first stillness and then systemically from there get the right muscles to do the right jobs in the right order. So it could be very gentle nervous system dysregulation is not intense. It’s actually giving somebody a little bit of underwhelm to begin to reeregulate the signals. Starting off on your back back, taking a couple big deep breaths, doing an assessment of what you feel right now, where you feel it. What inner chatter is going on while you’re doing a little body assessment? What are you hypervigilant on? What is completely flying under your radar? What are you thinking about? And now, let me give you a simple movement. and we build from there. One movement at a time until we can get the system to start moving better. Very simple and very effective and very cool. Um because I’m a believer in meditation. on this very podcast. I’ve had a gentleman on here who was a really good golfer um and stuff went bad for him and he went over to um spend 6 months in a monastery and all he did was you know essentially meditate and breathe all day long for 6 months. No note takingaking nothing. And the clarity that he came back with is you can sense it when he talks to you. I’m excitable. I speak fast. Him like you. He like you is like measured. I’m not in a rush. I’m where I’m supposed to be. And I found myself envious. And so he he led me to, you know, meditation. Just quiet. Um and then just he used to say, imagine your thoughts as clouds. Stop owning the thoughts. They’re just thoughts. Your brain’s doing its thing. Let the clouds blow by. And so I do that and I sauna and I cold plunge and I do all this sort of stuff. But still there’s there’s for me personally this unhealthy relationship with health. You know, I’m I’m paranoid by the stuff and and what you’re saying is is so refreshing. So beautiful. Thank you so much for opening up and sharing that and also being vulnerable to share something that you’re struggling with. So your foundation is to look at thoughts and detach a little bit. kind of become the observer, not have to go chase after every thought. We can do the same thing for pain because pain is just a sensation. The story, the memory, the emotions, the fear, the catastrophizing, well, what does this mean? And and is it going to be like this? This is all happening in the brain. And this goes full circle back to the start. mind, body. Yeah. If you understand even a fraction of what meditation is, you actually have a really good framework for fundamentally changing your physiology because the tools are um applicable here. So my question to you is when you feel a little bit of fear about health, where is that fear coming from? Me uh blood pressure. Blood pressure. Okay. So, what is it in that moment that you have the high blood pressure? You’re being told you have high blood pressure. The thought of high blood pressure comes into your mind. Blood pressure cuff is like it’s like Satan to me. Yeah. Because it comes with something, right? Yeah. So, let’s slow this down real quick. In that moment, what is the internal conversation? I hope this number is lower. The number on the machine. Yeah. And so there’s a little bit of I hope this is lower on the machine. And then what do you do? The anxiety starts to come in. What is it going to say? And ironically, what is your blood pressure do? Skyrockets, right? And so what I’m what we’re talking about here is one of the skills I teach people, which is somatic tracking. So in these moments instead of allowing the blood pressure mechanism to actually kick off higher blood pressure, it’s okay. I’ve got a cuff on me. That’s that’s allowed. That’s okay. There’s no attachment to the outcome. There’s no attachment to I hope he says this or this happens. It’s actually sending yourself I’m going to be okay because there will be a plan in this moment. I’m safe. I’m actually doing something really good by getting this blood pressure cuff on me. And this is going to give me the information so I can continue to be safe and continue to be health healthy. In these moments, it’s assigning whatever you’re going through with messages and words of safety. And that doesn’t mean it’s immediate. That doesn’t mean it immediately changes your blood pressure. But again and again and again, that’s what healing chronic issues are, is choosing healing over allowing this spiral of sabotage and panic to set in. And then now you’re conditioning yourself to get anxious about blood pressure, which is perpetuating the blood pressure problem. Yeah. You know what the cool thing is there, Vinnie? It’s almost like you knew where you were going here. The spiral of sabotage and panic. I’m going to use that because that in itself, what you just described is what nearly every golfer at every level will go through that at one stage or the other because every golf shot is riddled with disaster and there’s a modeicum of success involved and you know every shot has an influence on the next shot and then we hit a bad one then we live in the previous one and then we take that where and the next thing the golfer’s mind is what if what’s going to happen what about now this person’s you know and the Next thing, our focus on what should be uplifting and doing the right thing with a golf swing or the golf shot or whatever is occupied elsewhere. Mhm. And we’re trying to perform a very difficult um movement. It’s a highly volatile thing in a very volatile arena on a golf course and we’re hoping that it’s going to work out and it’s just got very little chance. If if it was a gambling situation, you had a one in 10 chance of the thing succeeding if that. Yeah. And so that’s the cha that is the objective challenge to get this tiny ball exactly where you want it. Yeah. That is challenging enough. And now you’re going to layer on stories and pressure and stakes that either your buddies put on it or the purse of winning a tournament. You’re going to layer all this stuff on and then you’re going to step up to a ball and actually perform well. the chances are maybe but probably not in your favor. And so there is this level of how do we work with the mind to help the body. And we see this actually all the time um baseball, it’s a highly superstitious sport because somebody will step up to the plate, they’ll be in the flow state, they’ll hit a home run and think back, oh god, I need to recreate this. And the brain starts going through like a routine and a process. Oh yeah, I touched my ear. I tapped my cheek, tapped the bat three times, and spit over my left. You see these baseball players develop these weird rituals. And that’s an external obvious thing, but golfers, what is your ritual when you step up to the ball? Maybe it’s not as obvious because it might not be as culturally accepted as it is with baseball players. Maybe a golfer, you have etiquette, but what is the mind doing to try to force you into the flow state? And if you’ve ever been in flow state, you know it’s not something that happens when you’re under pressure. Yeah. It happens when you’re chill and reserved and measured and calm. So, how do we get there quicker? Well, it all comes down to somatic tracking. Being able to observe what’s happening without going with it, without attaching meaning, catastrophizing, holding on. You are literally just sitting on the side of a riverbank, letting all this stuff flow by you, but you’re not jumping in after it, altering your way just to show up and perform. And that is a sweet spot of performance. Easier said than done. Well, well said. What a great way to finish. Okay. Now, I know people are going to want to reach out to you. So, help us. Uh, where do people go if they want to find out more from you and the pain academy, please? Yeah, probably easiest way is the website. So, pain www.painacademy.net. Um, I understand I’m talking a lot about these things. It’s stuff that you really just have to feel. So, I offer everybody their first week free in my program if you just want to jump in and actually feel for yourself what this is about. If you’re not there yet and you’re somebody who really takes your time with decisions, um, follow me online, pain academy. We have over a million sub uh, followers right now and just dip your toes, try some of the exercises I’m talking about and just feel for yourself what does this actually have to offer and if it’s got legs, dive in. Love it. Uh, the Pen Academy that’s on Instagram. Yes. Was it YouTube? YouTube, Instagram, and Tik Tok. We somehow got all channels to have the same name. So that’s good. Fantastic. That’s incredible. Well, listen, I I appreciate the time. I came into this with an open mind, but excited, and you’ve way exceeded everything I wanted to get out of this for our viewers and for our listeners. So, thank you so much. Thanks for having me on, Mark. And I’d love, you know, if there’s a community interest, if you notice some questions, I’d love a round two and be able to answer those questions your community has. That’s coming. Don’t you worry. Yeah, that’d be lovely. So, please let me know. [Music] [Music]