Kung Fit

Are you really not going to find out?

Can you pass it?

No hands, drop from standing to cross legged, then up to your knees. From here sit back into an Asian squat and stand up.

How far did you get? Let me know.

Chances are, if you failed this, you’re lacking in the ankle or hip mobility, or lower body strength that is going to keep you healthy and independent as you age. Here’s 3 moves to fix it

Asian squats, whilst driving the heels forward, and keeping the heels down. You can hold on to something for support if you need to at first.

Cross legged pushes. This will help you get out of that hole at the bottom.

Piriformis stretches will help with the external rotation you need when you’re down on the floor. Once this get’s easy. Pop down on to the floor, and externally rotate that leg as much as you can.

Honestly it's another reason not to blindly follow AI.

Yes it can do some great things, but ultimately it is an amalgamation of everything that is out there on the internet, and have you seen the internet lately?

It's conspiracy theories, rubbish advice, memes, scams, fake news, badly reported news, blog posts that miss the point of a piece of research, people saying anything to get attention.

And what rises to the top? The most sensational, regardless of its quality. Praise or damnation it gets views, and the AI sucks that in.

So is it any wonder it wanted me to talk about the same crap half the people on here do that I strongly disagree with?

What's the most stupid thing AI has told you?

You haven't tried everything.

Maybe you have tried many things, maybe you've even tried every type of treatment.

But you aren't fundamentally broken. You can improve your function and reduce your pain. You have not tried the right thing in the right way. That's the difference.

Rehab can help or it can do sod all; it's not rehab that is at fault here. It's not you either. It's how you were prescribed it, how you were supported and how you were progressed. This makes a huge difference.

It's not about the intervention, it's about the system that drives each choice and links everything together. This is what you've been missing.

So don't give up, there's hope for you yet.

Want to see what this kind of system looks like? Drop the word "system" in the comments and I'll show you.

What if your body is lying?

We are told to listen to our body's so often these days. But actually, our body is full of s**t. It will make us quit before we should, it will tell us we are in danger or in pain, when there is nothing wrong. It will stop us from bettering ourselves.

Do you want to know why? Because evolution doesn't need a capable happy individual. It just needs enough of us to survive to procreate. That means we are programmed to be lazy. Programmed to be overly sensitive to danger. Programmed to rapidly learn when something is bad for us.

But that system has flaws, and it is slow to change its mind.

So by all means listen to what your body has to say, but don't take it as the final answer. Let your conscious self have a say too, and you just might be capable of more than you think, including getting out of pain.

Society is there to help us when we fall, but if we deliberately slam our face into the ground, is that really fair?

If you don't look after yourself, you are a drain on society.

I say this as someone with family who don't. I say this as someone who could do a better job themselves (couldn't we all, if we're honest?).

As much as I promote healthy living so that you can have a long, happy and adventurous life, it is also a moral obligation. Not to be a drain on society, to only use the safety net when we really need it.

I strongly believe in that safety net. I believe in the NHS. I know that we all need a hand sometimes, and no one is perfect. Some people have no choice, life hands hem situations which they can't escape from. But for those of us with a choice, to take no regard for your health, to make no effort to eat well, to exercise, to stay strong and capable, to me that is a dereliction of your duty to society.

Do you agree?

You are overlooking things that could really help you.

You see pain isn't just a physical thing. It's mental, it's social. It's the food you eat, the way you sleep, how you spend your day.

If you can make small tweaks throughout your life, you could feel a lot better.

I'm not saying something as simple as eating better will cure your pain, but it can reduce it, making the real fix easier to enact.

So next time you have a flare up, think about what is different. What has made today worse than normal? That's your sign to make a change.

It took 2 full rounds of physio across about 6 years and an extra 6 months.

I should have known better really, I learned how to take care of my knees on my own. But that was a congenital issue, I thought this would be different.

Turns out it wasn't that much different after all. The only difference was how long that post physio stage needed to last. The physio didn't fix anything, it just stopped me complaining about it for a while!

A real fix needs more. More time, more effort, more focus. That doesn't mean it needs to be hard for the person that needs it, so long as they have someone in their corner to navigate that complexity for them.

That's what I do for people these days, because I know what it is like to be under served by the physio and left wondering if you'll ever get out of pain.

Have you ever been treated by a physio only to find it didn't help, or the pain came right back?

Do I understand it? Yes. Should we accept it? Maybe?

The truth is healthcare systems have to make compromises. Until the world economy is rebalanced, more people go into healthcare as workers and the expectations of care standards this is how things will remain. There really isn't an easy answer to this.

Unfortunately that leaves people needing to seek help elsewhere.