S03E110 The Healing Journey: From Patient to Practitioner with Special Guest Dr. Jonathan Hartman

Imagine having a severe back injury at 14 and being told you needed a lumbar spine fusion. What would you do?

Coaches David Syvertsen @davesy85 and Sam Rhee @bergencosmetic welcome special guest Dr. Jonathan Hartman @thehartmancenter, who faced this reality and came out stronger on the other side, eventually becoming a renowned neurology and brain injury expert. His story, which we'll be sharing, is a testament to determination, resilience, and the power of mindset.

This episode takes you on a journey through Dr. Hartman's relentless pursuit of education that led him to become one of the few who passed a rigorous neuroscience board exam. He's not just a doctor, but also a patient, applying the same protocols to himself as he would to anyone else.

We also explore the world of functional neurology, discussing the pivotal role of neuroplasticity in rehabilitation and recovery. His work with CrossFit and therapeutic modalities has shown significant improvements in his patients, proving that with the right knowledge and approach, our bodies and brains can adapt and grow.

But it doesn't stop there. Have you ever thought about how you breathe? We delve into the world of nasal breathing and its fundamental role in our health. We also discuss the importance of comprehensive treatment teams and how Dr. Hartman guides his patients towards the right treatment.

This episode is about more than just neurology; it's about changing lives, overcoming challenges, and cultivating a mindset of gratitude. Join us for a compelling, insightful, and truly inspiring conversation with Dr. Jonathan Hartman.

Dr. Jonathan R. Hartman, DC, DACNB, DACRB, FABBIR, FACFN, FABVR has more than ten years of experience in the field of Chiropractic Healthcare. Dr. Hartman is board-certified with Diplomate status from the American Chiropractic Neurology Board – In 2017 he was one of only thirty-nine individuals worldwide who completed the requirements for this distinguished Neurology Diplomate. Dr. Hartman is also a board-certified Diplomat of the American Chiropractic Rehabilitation Board. He is an honors graduate of Palmer College of Chiropractic. He continued to expand his outstanding academic pursuits through specialized training and certification in Active Release Technique and Manual Adhesion Release, two of the most advanced soft-tissue treatments used today to break down scar tissue and adhesion formation.

@crossfitbison @crossfittraining @crossfit @crossfitgames #crossfit #sports #exercise #health #movement #crossfitcoach #agoq #clean #fitness #ItAllStartsHere #CrossFitOpen #CrossFit #CrossFitCommunity @CrossFitAffiliates #supportyourlocalbox #crossfitaffiliate #personalizedfitness

00:00:00 Functional Neurology and Changing Lives

00:09:10 Pursuit of Education and Personal Growth

00:18:26 The Role of Neuroplasticity in Rehabilitation

00:31:03 The Importance of Nasal Breathing

00:39:36 The Importance of Comprehensive Treatment Teams

00:43:36 Guiding Towards Resolution and Gratitude

S03E110 Special Guest Dr. Jonathan Hartman

[00:00:00] David Syvertsen: All right. Welcome back to the HerdFit podcast. I am Coach David Syvertsen here with my, just returned from vacation. Co-host Dr. Coach Sam Rhee, who actually within the past hour just completed Karen 150 wall balls by himself two days after he got back from vacation. Sam, how are you? I feel like, I feel like due to you've had better

[00:00:24] Sam Rhee: days.

Yeah, but it, you know, I have a million excuses, but all I can say is I better work on my wall balls now.

[00:00:30] David Syvertsen: Um, so we have a very special guest here today. We are. Being graced by Dr. Jonathan Hartman, a friend of mine, um, someone who has given me a and continues to gimme a ton of treatment and guidance with everything, all encompassing, uh, health, physical issues that I've had over the years.

Um, but more importantly, he is a business owner and he is the founder. And I guess we call you the c e o of this as well, right? Your your's, everything of the Hartman Center for Functional Neurology, and we're gonna get into his business. Um, throughout this episode, but John, welcome to the Hurt Fit Podcast.

Ah,

[00:01:07] Jonathan Hartman: thanks

for having me guys. This is, this is special. So yeah, I look forward to it. Thanks.

[00:01:11] David Syvertsen: Yeah, John, John is obviously talking to people all day, every day. He has treatment. He's been treating out of his house for a couple years now. Um, and it's, I'm really kind of happy for him that he's going to be working in a space in the area.

We'll keep that on the DL for now. Am I allowed to talk about it? Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. Harbin is going to be, Have an office in Midland Park, New Jersey, 1.4 miles from Crossett Bison. Uh, sometime this fall, he just signed a contract for the, uh, for the place that he purchased. And I could not be happier for him because I know more than most what he's been going through over the past few years to try and get here.

And if you wanna talk about someone that is just relentlessly pursuing excellence and bettering himself so that he can better you. Uh, this is the guy. So John, let's reflect a little bit on some of your story, your history. Um, this is not gonna be what Sam calls a CrossFit start story. I, I want to know, I know some of the details, but I'm kind of really interested just to hear you talk about where did this journey begin?

You know, you really dedicating your entire life to helping other people. Where

[00:02:16] Jonathan Hartman: did this, all this start? I was 14. If we're gonna go way back when, uh, when this first happened, I was 14 years old. I was, uh, power cleaning for football and you know that you are, um, good. Yeah. Sorry. Uh, You're, you're taught how to train.

Your technique is just from whoever is in the, the grade above you. Right. Grip and rip if you're pulling the bar as fast as it can. Yep. Remember those days? Oh yeah. Yeah. So freshman year, a whopping 95 pounds on a power clean and snapped and blew my back out. And then that was, that was kind of it. So I had a pretty, pretty bad extrusion at, uh, L four, L five, L five S one in the lumbar spine.

Okay. Couldn't walk for about three weeks. I was supposed to have, uh, I ended up. Going to a surgeon cuz I was supposed to have fusion from L four to S one, so, uh, like a two, three segmental fusion in the lumbar spine. Mm-hmm. And my coach sent me to a chiropractor. He's like, go, go see my guy in Hallworth.

I'm like, I don't even know how to pronounce the word chiropractor. I'd never even heard that word. My parents literally carried me in. Um, wow. I'm not, uh, easy to be carried. And my mom and dad carried me in. I went every day for three months and that changed my life. So I went from sleeping on the floor, not standing to, uh, at the end of that treatment, I could ride my bike from where I lived in Radell to Howorth and back.

And I was able to continue to play football throughout high school, throughout college. Uh, I got to play rugby when I went to grad school, and I knew. I knew since I was 14 I was gonna be in the, in the business of changing people's lives from that point on. Cuz when I saw what that guy did with just his hands, his mind and his passion for helping people non-surgically mm-hmm.

I knew I wanted to go down that path and then, um, you know, it took me down this rabbit hole into neurology and brain injuries and concussions cuz you know, getting blessed to get to play football came with some other issues as I'm sure we'll talk about later. But, um, I think that's where. Everything really started.

[00:04:17] David Syvertsen: So you, you were a pretty high level, high school football player. I'll say it. You don't have to. And you went out to play at Muhlenberg College. Yeah. You were, you were a tight

[00:04:24] Jonathan Hartman: end, uh, tight end the

[00:04:25] David Syvertsen: end, yeah. Tight end to end, and you know, just a big strong physical guide. Did you have lingering back issues throughout high school or was it really that guy really.

Just clicked it and everything

[00:04:35] Jonathan Hartman: stayed together. Uh, I was pretty good. But you know, when you're, when you're that young cartilage tendon, everything's so healthy and you're not really aware of like how much technique and form impacts how you feel. Cuz it might not be in the, in the moment then. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, I have this vivid memory of.

Like when we go, you know, when you go to camp and you have that like 2 25 squat test of failure, or you have all your max effort lifts going into camp to figure out where you are in your depth chart and you know, you got the power clean, split jerk, uh uh, back squat, bench press, all these numbers and I've, I just vividly remember on back squat, you know, we were still taught at the time, like knees can't go in front of the toes on a back squat.

Mm-hmm. And. Oh, I just, I literally, I remember I was squatting 4 75 thinking to myself, like, all I'm doing is a good morning right now. Right. And I'm just praying to everything holy like spine, don't shatter. Don't shatter. And thinking like this can't, this can't be right. Mm-hmm. But this is how we were, we, we were taught.

Mm-hmm. And it wasn't like at the time, that was the best everyone knew at the time. And I don't, I can't fault anyone for that. Mm-hmm. But then, You know how like interest compounds on a loan over time, you don't realize how much the effects of that style of training impacts you, you know, 10, 15 years down the road.

Mm-hmm. And then, you know, here it goes. One knee surgery, here it goes, a second knee surgery, and then, you know, now your goals change just to stay fit and healthy. Mm-hmm. And, um, you know, I can, I could say that those, uh, Character building opportunities kind of shaped who I am today. Mm-hmm. Uh, you know, I had a few con bad concussions throughout sports as well, and um, you know, they just kind of shaped my life's work.

Yeah. You know? So,

[00:06:30] David Syvertsen: so now you, you go to college and you graduate with what degree before you go to get your masters?

[00:06:39] Jonathan Hartman: Uh, in college I was a double major in neuroscience and biology. I had a feeling I was either gonna go to medical school or I was gonna go to chiropractic school, something. And, um, I was interning, it was actually shadowing or interning with a chiropractor my junior and senior year.

Mm-hmm. And, uh, her name was Robin and she kind of said, this is the school you gotta go to. Uh, I applied, got in. Met a couple guys that played football in college as well, that joined the rugby team. It was like our, you know, club sport there. Just a bunch of washed up athletes that still needed like a stress reliever from studying, you know, 80 hours a week.

And, um, you know, so we got to play rugby there and, uh, I ended up going from neuroscience and biology in college to chiropractic school. And then, you know, you get into your, you know, your, your patient caseload and then you're so excited and then you're wonder like, Everyone starts coming in and everything's good, and then they're like, oh yeah, I've got this lower back issue.

Uh, but you know what? I get dizzy when I turn my head to the right. I've had four concussions and three autoimmune diseases. Mm-hmm. And you're like, okay, lay in your stomach. Yeah. Let's get started. Yeah. And then you think to yourself like, how am I gonna help this person? And, and that is where I started to feel really.

School prepared me for a lot. Mm-hmm. And then my patients taught me, I really have to open up my lens of how I want to view people. Because you know Sam as well, I'm sure you've seen that. You know, patients can come in for one thing and if you can't help them address or get them the support they need for B, C, and D, even though they're coming to you for a, it's really gonna.

Impact your outcomes. Mm-hmm. And with my own, I've had some pretty nasty concussions and, uh,

seeing, going into neurology, functional neurology, which is really this, this aspect of healthcare where you try to create rehabilitation rehabilitative programs for some type of, uh, neuro neurological condition. That could be concussions and brain injuries, that could be vertigo and dizziness, that could be Parkinson's and ms.

Um, how can you try to support that person's physiology in a way so that person can thrive and live a better life?

[00:09:01] David Syvertsen: So yeah. What I'm getting out of this, just listening to you talk about this, is I, again, I have to play this game I already know. You know, kind of what you've been doing over the past 10 years when you first walked into Cross at Bison, wanted to teach us about Bulgarian split squats, you know, that the, the, you have never stopped trying to further yourself education wise.

Yeah, I don't think I've ever met anyone like you in that regard. I mean, I'm looking at your name, Dr. Jonathan Hartman. D c d a c n b d a c r b f a b b i r f a c f n f a b v r. All those big acronyms next to your name. And I'm like Dave Sisson, level two CrossFit

[00:09:39] Jonathan Hartman: ghost. It's just, it's, it's just alphabet.

It's alphabet

[00:09:43] David Syvertsen: soup. But, um, but I, I bring that up and I don't wanna go into each, what, what, what those all mean. But one thing that I've always, you're always studying for something. You're always trying to pass these board exams that are borderline impossible. You're one of 39, uh, people that passed a board that worldwide for the neuroscience, right?

[00:10:03] Jonathan Hartman: Yeah. Back in 2013, whatever that was,

[00:10:07] David Syvertsen: that there are things that you're doing educationally and, and just hearing you talk about, Hey, me helping someone out with chiropractic, chiropractic care is a great thing. But it wasn't enough for you because you know there was more on the plate that you could help out with, but you had to go and learn.

So you really applied yourself to do that and I think we could all take that as an example and something to kind of look up to that as established as you are and as good as you were at being chiropractor, there is always another level. Like you never got complacent with what you had

[00:10:38] Jonathan Hartman: going on with your career.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Um, I'm still gonna bring that back to CrossFit though, because if it wasn't for having like this type of community and something like, I don't have the affordability at this, this chapter in my life to compete at the way I did when I was in college or even in my twenties, like getting to train as hard as I want, like, you know, my goals are a little different right now.

I, you know, with the, the company I'm a new dad, I'm, you know, I wanted, there's things that. I necessarily can't do in CrossFit, but I am gonna be relentless in my competition for my career path, and I think that I can take what I have learned from bison and just to like, There's always something you can do to train and CrossFit, right?

There's a absolutely shitload of access. Yeah. You're okay with that? There's a, there's a boatload of accessory work that you can do. We drop the day in, day out. You can constantly be bettering yourself in how you train and you know, I am happy to be really good. I'm in a great place now with how my body feels and I'm gonna take that.

Competitiveness and apply it towards my career path and my obligation to serve and my obligation to make whoever steps into my office overall better in somehow shape or form. So,

[00:12:09] Sam Rhee: you know, the, when I listened to you, John, and, and I've known you and I've been your patient as well in the past. The one thing that, um, I always, that strikes me is, is that you are constantly pushing for adaptation.

So plasticity, like the body adapts, the brain adapts, but you have to push it in order to do that, right? We know that better than anyone, I think in CrossFit, if you keep. Pushing the body. It will respond if you do it appropriately, right? Properly, yeah, the right way. And so where we think the brain or neurologic issues are static or set, they're not.

The brain responds just like any other part of the body. You, it's plastic, you change it, you push it, you adapt it, it gets better. You can make progress. Just like if you have a shoulder injury and you have problems with it, you can. Push it, you can adapt it, you can make it better. And everything that I've seen you do, all of the treatments, all of your thinking is how do I put this situation into a situation where I can push, make it adapt, make it grow, make it better, improve it, um, whether it's a patient's injury.

Or your own injuries or, or any other situation. And I think for clinicians, it's that knowing that you can put the person in a situation to make them better, but you have to have that knowledge of how to do it. Like you said otherwise, you're just making them do 475 pound back squats. Right. And hurting them.

Yeah. So it's that knowledge like, okay, we're gonna do it this way. We're gonna try this technique, we're gonna do this modality, we're gonna do this approach. In order to make you better, and you may not even believe you can, like I know most people who are starting with an injury or you know, just starting in CrossFit, they can't believe where they might end up.

But it takes someone who has that kind of knowledge and, and the experience and also the personal experience. I would say, you know, that's what makes you. Different than a lot of clinicians is, you've experienced a lot of this firsthand, and you, as you know, like, and I know you, you only really understand some aspects of certain issues if you personally have experienced it.

I'm not saying you should go out there and experience your injury, but, but the fact that you do have that personal knowledge, and I've talked to you about it, I've, I've listened to you, you know, before and after your most recent, um, Was it quad tendon surgery? Like Yeah. Yeah. When I roughed my quad. Yeah.

And, and, and the blood flow restriction protocols and all. And, and listening to you talk about that, like you treat yourself the same way you would treat any other patient. Yeah. I'll be the sinus

[00:14:49] Jonathan Hartman: experiment.

[00:14:50] Sam Rhee: And then, and, and I love that like, you're not like, okay, I'm gonna do this for myself and then I'm gonna do this for like, something different for other people like you would do for others.

Exactly. What you would do for yourself and to me that. That's the mark of someone who

[00:15:02] Jonathan Hartman: really cares. Yeah. Thanks, Sam. Now, I, I try to act as the guide to whoever I'm gonna get the opportunity to serve. And then as, as you've mentioned, that concept of, of neuroplasticity and the brain's ability to adapt and change to the demands imposed on it for better or for worse.

Right? You can eat pizza, ice cream, bagels, and your body's gonna adapt cuz it's gonna get big and bigger. Right? But that pancreas is gonna do its job and it's gonna kind of shunt. Glucose into those adipocytes and your body will adapt or set a different way. You can train, you can get stronger, you can change that brain, you can turn that body into a fat burning machine if you, if you give it what it needs.

And, um, you know, for myself with, yeah, like for example, when I ruptured my quad, like that was one of the biggest, like huge slice of humble pie because I had no. That was a big eyeopener for me, both physically, clinically, emotionally. That was one of the worst injuries I've ever come to. Tell me what happened there.

Uh, I was climbing, I was backpacking out in a half dome out west, and uh, we were coming down from like a six, seven day trip. And the last mile coming out the park is like a 3,700 foot descent over like three quarters of a mile, like a mile stretch. And uh, you know, we were already hitting like, 60 something miles at that point.

Mm. And I knew I could feel my heartbeat in my knee coming down from that trip. And I remember sleeping in my tent thinking like, bud, like something's not good. Mm-hmm. And uh, I knew going into that trip that I had a partial tear cause I'd been keeping an eye on it. But that trip broke me. And uh, when I came back I got a cell signal.

I called my surgery and I booked myself for surgery like two days later. How long ago was this? Uh, that was in 2019. Oh, wow. That, that long ago. Yeah. September, 2019. And then I was in a cast for, uh, uh, two, three months, something like that. You were banged up.

[00:16:58] David Syvertsen: That's the most I've ever seen.

[00:16:59] Jonathan Hartman: You banged up.

Yeah. It was terrible. Yeah. And then, uh, you know, I got outta my cast and then I was on the couch just kind of feeling sorry for myself with this, you know, leg. That looks like my wrist.

[00:17:09] David Syvertsen: Yeah. I remember seeing it actually. Oh, it was disgusting. It was spindly.

[00:17:14] Jonathan Hartman: And then that's when, uh, Alex Smith, uh, quarterback for the 49ers.

Yeah. Uh, he had that. There was an episode, I think they did like a E 60 Yeah. Like episode on him. Mm-hmm. And he had that compound fracture in his tib fib. Yeah. I forget who they were playing at the time. But he had necrotizing fasciitis, so he had gangrene and uh, he had some surgical complications once they, uh, closed him back up.

And, uh, for the necrotizing fasciitis, that's gangrene. They needed to do a debridement down there, and they took all of his Dorsey flexors, uh, part of, I think all of his peronial muscles as well. Mm-hmm. So he couldn't, he had drop foot and then while he was under, uh, I believe just going from memory that his wife, I think, had written off on, or, or gotten consent to amputate his leg.

Mm-hmm. Uh, I don't know if it was above the knee or below the knee. Mm-hmm. And, uh, Alex said, uh, not today buddy. Yeah. And, um, Ended up playing in the NFL again. Yeah. Yeah. So he was one of the, one of the first civilians ever. He had a letter signed by the Secretary of Defense and he had his therapy approved at the military research hospital.

And I'll never forget that cuz that was a, the turning point in my life. And then that's when I got into BFR or blood flow restriction therapy. I remember you talking about it and I. I mean, you guys both know as well. Like, it, it changed my life, you know? And that's just one modality of like several, but to get to see how that has helped build, you know, cross section, cross-sectional diameter of muscle.

But then now they're showing that this might have some applications to like tendon and ligament resiliency. And Well, to your point of what you're saying about the brain's ability to adapt to change, if you can use a modality like that, Let's say you can use CrossFit or you can use a therapeutic and someone rehabilitation wise, if CrossFit's gonna make you stronger, muscle's gonna get bigger.

You're gonna get adaptations to joint and tendon resiliency. There's a central consequence of that. Well, how does the brain, I, I just, I just spoiled it, but how does the, how does the body get stronger and adapt to Fran? To a sub six mile. A six minute mile, right? You're gonna adapt physiologically, and there's a central consequence to that.

The brain's ability to adapt, to have a growth hormone response to improve your physiological fitness is the definition of neuroplasticity. And now you can take that into the chiropractic neurology world and say, okay, this person had an acoustic neuro neuroma, blasted with radiation. So now half of their vestibular system is a little banged up.

Well, let's use the concepts of neuroplasticity to try to improve what's left, try to improve their central brain function, and then there's a downstream consequence of improving their stability. So that's, I guess, a, a long rant, and I apologize for that. But that's kind of where I've learned from CrossFit's ability to adapt and change to be a better, healthier, more rounded athlete to my patients.

I look at all of my patients. Is it your sum level of. Of an athlete, you might not realize it or want to call yourself an athlete, but we're gonna go into this treatment program as athletes and we're gonna come out better. And that's the approach that has at least worked for me with trying to, uh, to, to serve my patient base.

The difference,

[00:20:34] Sam Rhee: I would say, or let me ask you this with your patients. So we know CrossFit isn't always easy. In fact, a lot of it is not easy at all. Mm-hmm. It's, it's tough. Uh, and, and it's not for everybody. A lot of mo modalities and treatments you do are not that easy. Blood flow restriction is very painful.

Yeah. And so how do you get buy-in from your patients in terms of, hey, this is not gonna be easy, this is not gonna be fun, this is gonna be hard, this might be painful, this might take a long time. How do you bring them along in your practice in terms of getting buy-in? Sure. For some of these types of treatments that you know will work, but maybe they might not want to.

[00:21:14] David Syvertsen: Do it.

[00:21:15] Jonathan Hartman: Yeah. So I, I think understanding their goals and where they're looking to go and me serving as their guide and helping them get to the end result. Right. If they, if they want to get to, uh, point B and they'll do what, whatever it takes, we're gonna interview you and see how badly you want to get there and see how, what, how hard it takes.

Mm-hmm. For me, for example, I don't care how hard or. How painful it is because there's a, there's an adaptation to that pain threshold where it's not as in the initial, so you, it's as you scale them appropriately, you don't have to start off on, you know, zero to hero and break someone on day one. Mm. It's not appropriate.

Pretty dangerous. So you have a scale model of increasing your perceived intensity and exertion of the stimulus. So it doesn't have to start off at, you know, like with, with blood flow restriction for, say for example, that's, you take someone's blood pressure on a pneumatic cuff, it's 80% of what that limb occlusion pressure is.

So, l o p or limb occlusion is like, once the blood pressure gets cut off, you find a reference point that you would train at. And maybe you start at 40%. Oh, you know what? It was uncomfortable, but you know, I've done 150 wall balls and that was really uncomfortable. So, you know, this isn't so bad. You know, I, I've trained before, I know what pain feels like.

That didn't suck that bad. Great. Tomorrow's gonna be awful. So there's scalable approaches that you can take that people on that. And then for me, my goal, uh, I wanted to be able to pick my daughter up. Without putting my hands on the floor. So when my daughter was born and I'm looking at my leg and I'm seeing, man, her leg might look bigger than mine, you know?

And I'm thinking like, all right, if I had to hold my daughter and God forbid, broke my arm, and I'm holding your ear, and I gotta get out of a burning building, can I get up from the ground with, with no hands? Mm-hmm. And in 2019, I could not do that. And 2019, I had to hold onto the handicapped railings to get off the toilet.

Mm-hmm. And, you know, I'm, I'm sure people have had, you know, far worse traumas than me, but for that, that was awful for me. And what was worse was that if I couldn't be a good husband, if I couldn't be a good dad, that was worse for me than what that level of pain would feel like, because that's just, it's temporary.

Mm-hmm. You know, it's six minutes of some uncomfortable stuff to deal with, but, You know, not being able to be an athlete again. Mm-hmm. Or, you know, being a good husband or a good dad. That is what was, that's my drive, you know, that's my why. Mm-hmm. And to understand that for patients to understand, you know, what's your why, why do you wanna do this?

And then you couple that with, it doesn't have to be painful, you know, like my brain patients as well. Like, we even do bfr, like some of my Parkinson's, my ms, my stroke patients. We still do that because now there's research supporting that. If CrossFit can help improve someone's physiological adaptations and they can get stronger now, like bfr for example, they're showing how, uh, you've heard of like stem cells, um mm-hmm.

Vascular endothelial growth factor, insulin like growth factor. There's all these like chemical mediators that get, uh, excreted into the bloodstream from the brain's adaptation to that, that say, Hey, we gotta improve. They're gonna send out all the contractors into the bloodstream to help repair the damaged tissue.

And blood flow restriction is a. Workaround to trick the body into a really stressful stimulus, but you didn't, uh, compromise the tissue. You just starved it of oxygen trained in a hypoxic state. Give it the perception that it was a, a really intense workout. So then you have that central adaptation, and now they're seeing that, that promotes neuroplastic changes, which is great for patients who are suffering from neurological conditions as well.

So interviewing the patient, finding out their why, and then having a, a scalable approach. To their level un of uncomfortable, I think has what has been helpful for me with getting them to buy in. So

[00:25:06] David Syvertsen: when you treat patients right, one thing that I've gone through and I've, you know, I've always pushed people towards your, in your direction, especially if they are willing to sit and listen and look at it from a different lens, right?

Like, let's say someone hurts their back, hurts, their knee hurts the shoulder. In a lot of cases, especially with CrossFitters, they wanna get back into the gym ASAP and workout. So they'll go to Hartman and be like, yeah, like we talked for 40 minutes. You know, like, why, why can't you just make my shoulder better?

Why can't you come in and just dig your thumb in and like, do what you guys are supposed to do and like, get me moving? And you know, I, I always tell people, I wanna challenge you because Hartman really looks at you from not just a shoulder issue. I mean, I remember when Elise, we brought her. To you to fix her wrist.

We talked about your thora, her thoracic rotation and shoulders for a half hour. Yeah. Bef to fix her wrist. Yeah. Right. And you have to go into, explain a little bit about why you treat people like that, right? You just gave us your why, why you wanted to get your knee better. Alright? Be a better father, be a better husband.

You know, get out of a burning building if you need to. Um, without, you know, get up without using your hands. What is your why behind the way you treat people and how much time you do spend? Talking and listening before you get on the table and, and dig in.

[00:26:25] Jonathan Hartman: So, uh, with regards to patient outcomes and understanding what is the fastest way you can get someone better, you know, there's plenty of of literature support that pain, neuroscience education is half the battle.

Mm-hmm. Literally half the battle. Right. And if I can improve. If I can change the directory of someone's care by spending that extra half hour to make them understand the mechanism and the why as to what's happening. Mm-hmm. And I just save 50% of my workload as I can't, like that is as efficient as I can make it.

And to make them understand why the risk, in Elise's case, why that's happening, helps with their buy-in so that now they know. Okay. I understand why they're wor, why he's working on my hip and my thoracic spine because I can't get into a front rack position because I'm, I'm overloading my symptom, which in her case was her wrist.

Mm-hmm. But there was all these other issues that just hadn't hit a, a symptom threshold of being, uh, excuse me, symptomatic. Right. So you have all these other ailments, but you're just not using pain. Like I hate, like, so, uh, I don't know where I got this from, but Pain, it's an acronym. Pay attention inside now.

So it's usually like the last indicator of health. And I don't like to use that as a barometer for how healthy a tissue is. Just because there's no pain there doesn't mean there's not some type of structural compromise. And for Elise, we were so hyper-focused initially on the wrist that we had to dial that back a little bit and say, hold on a second.

Here's your symptom. That's not what your cause is. So let's go on a rabbit hole right now to try and find that. Mm-hmm. And for her, getting her to sit a little bit more upright in the front rack, in the squat position, and getting her thoracic spine and her elbow and shoulders into a better, like, front rack position for her dissipated load away from the wrist.

So, you know, she needed some, like triage care to the wrist cuz the, the, the joint tissue was a bit compromised in initially, but, If you can have the redistribution of load away from the symptomatic joint, you know, did, that's what makes sense to me in my head, that how I would go about trying to treat that.

And

[00:28:44] David Syvertsen: that's the best way to do this, to, to make sure an issue like that does not come back. But the initial buy-in from the client, from the patient needs to be. I need to think deeper than just where my pain is right now. Yeah, yeah. And I think, and I think that you do a really good job of that. I mean, I just watched you talk to my father about his, his neck issue.

And it was, you know, har was, you know, more than gracious, gracious enough to go him over an hour of time. And we talked about his career, his diabetes, his diet, his, and then we're gonna get into that in our next episode about inflammation and how, what really causes it and what you should do with it. But let's talk about the two books that you have recently read.

Um, we'll just sum them up like five, maybe five to 10 minutes each about this. This is what Hartman is to me, right? Is he, he has a book called Breath The New Science of a Lost Art, and then Why We Sleep, unlocking The Power of Sleep and Dreams. And to me, not the coolest thing in the world to read, right?

But, but. If he told me to read these or sent me excerpts, I would read them because I know where he's coming from and he knows what my competitive goals are with CrossFit, what my fitness goals are, and he's gonna look at it from a lens of, you struggle with X, Y, and Z because you're A, B, and C are off.

You know, you're trying to fix your, your pistols by, uh, you know, improving your dorsiflexion in your ankle and making your quad more flexible. He goes, but. Your sleep A, B, and C. The basic lifestyles that you are not doing a good job of could probably be the reason why you can't make progress in this one department.

Right? And I'm using myself an example and this, this can go down so many different lanes. Let's talk about why. Let's talk about these books in general, but also why you go down this path when you are treating someone. Because I bet that these books that you read that have made an impact on you, you are going to reference them.

On so many different levels with so many different people that have so many different kinds of problems, but they do come back to how you breathe and how you sleep. Let's talk about the breathing one first. Um, Unleashing your full potential unveiling the science behind breath, the, the new science of a lost art.

Where's Adam Ramston? Yeah, so probably already

[00:31:02] Jonathan Hartman: read it. I think I was talking to Adam at maybe at ho's pool once about this, cuz we were, we were talking about how we got like these, uh, hovi and I and uh, Adam got our little rubber, like toe spacers and, you know, immediate judgment from our wives cuz we look like little freaks, but.

I think, I think Adam was even talking about tape in his mouth when he sleeps too. Yeah, he does. Yes. So

[00:31:24] David Syvertsen: cold showers. He, he, he's all in on, on all that weird stuff.

[00:31:27] Jonathan Hartman: Have you ever, have you ever taped your mouth going to sleep? I have tried at some of my best nights of sleep, max. I'd be scared shitless. I was scared shitless, but it was beatless.

It was, I woke up, I'm like, Really? This was amazing. Yeah. What do you do with that beard though? It's, it sucks pulling the tape for real. I have like this surgical tape and you pull it off like it was burn. So I gotta give credit where credit is due because my wife, who's a speech therapist, um, it was her and we had this like intellectual, our debate about breathing efficiency while training.

Mm-hmm. And. I immediately went towards, you know, it would be more efficient for you to breathe outta your mouth cuz you can increase your stroke volume, you can increase your, your, your volume going in. And, you know, she kind of sat me back down to earth and uh, you know, she went through some coursework on how.

Nasal breathing in high intensity, exercising might be more advantageous for parasympathetic modulation. Mm-hmm. Or sympathetic modulation to promote parasympathetics. So you're not spiking your heart rate too high too soon. That is correct. And, but there comes a point where I'm just, I'm gassed, I'm breathing through my mouth.

Right. Well, maybe I should slow down and see if I can see how long I can train while still breathing through my nose. Yep. And, uh, So I went down the rabbit hole into James Nestor's book and um, you know, there was this part where they talk about like a horse and how a horse, no matter how fast they're running, they always breathe from their nose.

They never breathe from their mouth and a sprint. Mm-hmm. And that just sat me back. I had to reflect on that and think like, all right, let's go back to the drawing board and let's figure out why we have a news. Why is that advantageous? And then from an evolutionary, Perspective, how has that impacted our health?

Or said another way, how has the absence of nasal breathing affected our health? And that's where James went into this 10 year battle of trying to improve his nasal pharyngeal pathways, both surgically and non-surgically, about how he can increase the volume in his nasal pharynx to breathe better and how much that has affected chronic disease.

Uh, You know, from tongue ties and, and little children and how much that's impacted the sleep regressions, right? Because if they have a tongue tie, maybe their jaw, their tongue set back, their jaw is recessed, and now they're no longer nasal breathing, so their mouth breathing, that's like the gateway into chronic disease as a kid.

And, you know, my, my little girl, you know, we, we struggled for those first couple years trying to get into a real good groove with her and Jen. Went through this, she picked up that book and she leads by example. I had a follow in her footsteps. And James Nestor's book really just pointed out a lot of flaws in how we get so caught up in work.

And if you are more mindful of how often you're truly breathing through your nose, it's not as often as you might think. And, um, Here I am pausing to breathe through my nose back now cuz I'm catching myself breathing through my mouth. The same talking, but it's, it's like an incredible read on what this guy's journey was.

He went into a study where he plugged his nose for two weeks. He was, uh, with this other guy. They joined into a study with a sleep physiologist, plugged their nose with, uh, you know, some type of like, non-surgical intervention so they could not breathe outta their, outta their nose for two weeks straight.

They ran blood markers. Pre and post and found out that basically every single marker of disease manifestation was spiking in those two weeks. And, uh, from, uh, EEG monitoring Eek G uh, to homocysteine, c r p, all the inflammatory markers in their blood work was showing how his chronic disease was spiking.

By, by the absence of nasal breathing. And what was remarkable is that when they removed the, the packing to allow them to breathe nasally, all of those biomarkers for chronic disease were decreasing. And that was a a a a. That was really eyeopening for me because that's something that could really empower patients to do.

That's like low barrier of entry. Mm-hmm. Not a lot of like equipment. It's not very expensive. It's a 20 something dollars book. They can understand how much they can affect like vagal tone. Vagal, uh, vagus is a, a cranial nerve in the brainstem that modulates your autonomics. And if you can actually strengthen or massage the vagus nerve and sympathetic nervous system, you can really help modulate your autonomics, which is kind of like at the foundation of a lot of diseases.

So,

[00:36:28] David Syvertsen: Give me an opinion before we, we wrap this episode up because, we'll, we'll, we're gonna go into the sleep part of it with the inflammation episode, which is gonna come up next week, guys. Um, so make sure you get ready for that. But the mouthpiece that a lot of us are wearing at the gym now, I'm wearing one.

I know Ramsey's is another trendsetter with that one, wears a Mouthpiece and it's designed by AirWave, which is, if you read the literature about that mouthpiece and why athletes are wearing it, It really does almost kind of echo what you're saying right now. Have you heard anything about these with mouthpiece?

Do you think a general CrossFitter that's just here for fitness doesn't really care that much about the performance side of it? Do you think there is some value in playing around with wearing a mouthpiece, and what do you say to someone? Well, it doesn't make a big difference. My time in this workout was still that.

Do you, do athletes need to think a little deeper about the long-term positive impact rather than what your wad score was? Yeah, totally. When, when you do

[00:37:21] Jonathan Hartman: something like that, totally. Yeah. Like you're not, you're not here. You're not here just to wad one week. Right. You know when you come, when you come here, you come to bison, you're committed.

Mm-hmm. You know, this is a long relationship. This is a lifetime relationship. This is a lifetime commitment, and I think that the majority of us are not so narrow minded or narrow focused that. This relationship and commitment to sport and to fitness and health and longevity and performance. If it's gonna benefit you, you know the why do you wear wrist wraps?

Mm-hmm. So I don't miss a week's worth of training because on mur I ripped off half my callouses. Yeah, right. I don't like wrists and belts and lifters. These are all accessories that allow us to lift with good technique, good form, and to. Spare your joints. You know, if wear and lifters is gonna be great to maybe help with tendon adaptation in your patellar and quad tendons and keep your spine more upright and the AirWave is just gonna give you the opportunity to breathe more efficiently so you're not stressing your system so much, why not?

Yeah. Right. And,

[00:38:27] David Syvertsen: and that, that's kinda like what I wanted to get to, uh, before we wrap this episode up is, When, when Harbin goes into this, you know, literature, these books, you know, it is for his own wellbeing. But like Sam said earlier on, he'll use himself as a Guinea pig and then he'll, he'll kind of put this on his patience.

And if you're gonna be treated by Harbin either now or down the road, I can almost guarantee you that something, an example would be. This book on breathing and how a lot of us don't, do, not do it efficiently, subconsciously, we just don't think about it. You know, when he ever gives you some piece of advice like this, or next week's episode when we start talking about the sleep and the nutrition.

Um, it's not just for the quick fix. I think that's one thing I've always respected and admired about getting treatment from Hartman. It's not about fixing you for next week. It's like what he said, you know, it's a lifelong dedication to making your body better. So, you know, any, any closing thoughts before we wrap this episode up?

And don't worry, he is coming back next week, um, from either Sam or Hartman just on, you know, where, where we are, um, heading into next week's episode and, and, you know, any, any thoughts on what he has said, Sam? Yeah.

[00:39:36] Sam Rhee: Two things. The first thing is a lot of these principles you may not even know. Are being touched on with the AirWave, right?

Mm-hmm. And you don't even, A lot of, when I first got it, I didn't even know why I was getting it. Like, I was just like, okay, rich Froning has it, so I'm gonna try it. And then you sort of dive into it, and then you, you understand some of these principles. Um, I don't know if the AirWave is necessary. It, it can help, just like some of these adjuncts can help.

Like I don't need a weight belt most of the time, right? In certain cases I will use it. Same with lifters, same with the AirWave. I, I don't love the AirWave because I tend to. Go through them a lot and it seems to be kind of expensive for me to run through all these airwaves, but Right. Um, but it can help, uh, especially if you're someone who tends to be a mouth breather.

Chris Henshaw talks about breathing, so it's being approached by a lot of different people. Right. And so when, when you talk about it, Don't just take it as what Dr. John Hartman saying, this is valid science that's coming up like with the whoop, with the heart rate variability. Mm-hmm. I know you're a, you are an Aura guy, right?

Yeah, yeah. Um, the parasympathetic sympathetic interaction, like I see on the medical side, people are implanting vagal nerve stimulators. Like that's one of the hottest surgeries right now. Right? Right. For a number of different reasons, not just for like one indication, but like 500 different. Medical indication.

So this is a tidal wave that's coming if it hasn't already occurred about parasympathetic sympathetic, um, interaction, health and breathing is, is a big part of it. Um, so there's no doubt that these are, if, if you as a CrossFitter haven't sort of seen these, you might already be doing some of these things or, or being touched on with some of the things that you do without even knowing it.

But understanding the science behind it might, might make it better, and, and that's a really good way of doing it with that book. The second thing is, I also wanted to touch on with Hartman, which I really like about you and I've always known about you, is, is that as much, um, as you know about the non-surgical treatments, there are also instances, and I'm thinking of one person at our gym, and I won't mention her name, but as soon as there was something that was acute happening, You like took care of her and said, you gotta go see someone right away for surgery like yesterday.

Yeah. And you also have a cadre of people around you that you trust. So you know, like this is a non-surgical issue. This is a surgical issue. And I've known providers who feel like they're supermen and they can handle everything. And that's really not the case. A good provider knows what they can handle and then, What they shouldn't.

Yeah, thanks, Sam. And the, and the people that you have around you. And it was so funny because I remember the first time I met you, you, you told me, you know, if there's an orthopedic issue, I like this guy. And I was like, dude, that's the same guy that at my hospital, the people in the know, like the people who operate mm-hmm.

Who are in the or. They, they like this. Like this is the guy, this is the guy that they would go to. And I was like, how do you even know that this was the guy? Like mm-hmm. And not that I'm saying that like, there are plenty of really good guys who operate or, you know, surgeons not, not guys, but just surgeons.

Um, but I feel like you are very good at sort of completing the treatment circle. So it's not just all about you, it's about what resources you have around you. Who do you have around you? It's not like you're like, okay, I can't treat this, so go see someone else. No, you're like, you should go see this person.

They can be very helpful. And your, um, your treatment plan is comprehensive in that regard. And, and that's the part that I really

[00:43:29] Jonathan Hartman: like as well. Thank you. I, I really appreciate that. I'm, I'm, my goal is to help build that team. And I'm gonna look at that person as if that was my family member or if that was my loved one.

And I, I really appreciate that. I'm, I'm, I'm really hyper aware of what I know I can help, and I'm extremely aware of what I know. I can't help. And I wanna make sure that if I can put that PO person in the fastest position to get resolution. Because as you know, in that case that there's a couple things that are, you know, relatively life-threatening where there's a window of opportunity.

You know, those, there's certain conditions like that where the clock is ticking. And you know, unfortunately, I know that realistically I'm not always the first call, and that person might have gone somewhere else and maybe the clock's ticking 24, 48 hours. And there's certain conditions like that that weren't immediate surgical intervention.

And my job is to guide that person towards resolution. I'm not trying to be the hero. I'm trying to be the guide to get the hero. To the end goal. I

[00:44:33] Sam Rhee: will say, this person that I'm thinking of, and I, I won't mention her, so grateful. And when you have someone who is like that, like it, that really impressed me a lot that they were so grateful with how prompt and immediate and, and correct the, the.

Identification and the treatment was, and, and getting them to the right person. That was really cool.

[00:44:55] David Syvertsen: Thanks. Awesome. Yeah. So more of the story. Listen to this guy when he talks. All right. John's gonna come back with us next week. We're gonna talk about something that all of us CrossFitter struggle with at some point.

So make sure you come back and hit us up next week. Thanks, John.