Dr. Meghan Braun
September 1, 2020
Today on The Jay Allen Show, we speak with Dr. Meghan Braun. Dr. Megan is the owner of Body Mechanics Physical Therapy, a cash-based Physical Therapy clinic, and Co-Founder/Director of The Lax Box: Jacksonville’s premier indoor/outdoor lacrosse training and sports performance facility. Former NCAA Div III basketball and lacrosse athlete, current international lacrosse athlete, and medical staff for UWG. Works with athletes across all ages and athletic careers to enhance performance and reduce injury while maintaining proper movement awareness. Author of The journal series: Restore. Develop. Strengthen., YouTube vodcast host of Chalk Talk with The Doc and The Champion's Spotlight. Speaker and coach.
Enjoy it all today on The Jay Allen Show.
Today on The Jay Allen Show, we speak with Dr. Meghan Braun. Dr. Megan is the owner of Body Mechanics Physical Therapy, a cash-based Physical Therapy clinic, and Co-Founder/Director of The Lax Box: Jacksonville’s premier indoor/outdoor lacrosse training and sports performance facility. Former NCAA Div III basketball and lacrosse athlete, current international lacrosse athlete, and medical staff for UWG. Works with athletes across all ages and athletic careers to enhance performance and reduce injury while maintaining proper movement awareness. Author of The journal series: Restore. Develop. Strengthen., YouTube vodcast host of Chalk Talk with The Doc and The Champion's Spotlight. Speaker and coach.
Enjoy it all today on The Jay Allen Show.
[00:00:02] spk_0: This is what this show is brought to you by Safety Safety FM Dog Life Well, hello and welcome to this episode of the J. Allen Show. We're coming to you live from the safety of them studios in Orlando, Florida I hope everything is good in well in your neck of the woods. Well, thank you for reaching out over the last few weeks about the different episodes that we have going on. Seems like there's been a lot of enjoyment with some of the last few interviews that we have done here on Safety FM. A lot of interaction from last week's two episodes with the authors of the practice of learning teams and the one with Dr Love so good to hear that everyone is out there enjoying them so far. Want to have a special thanks out to the United States Air Force for allowing us to do the interview with Dr Love and also for placing the show on safety dot air force dot military or safety dot f dot m I l just in case, if you want to go, look really do appreciate it and appreciate all of the airman and military out there that are doing the different things that they do day in and day out. Thank you for your sacrifices. So today on the J. Allen show, we're going to take a deep dive. This is a conversation between me and Dr Megan Brown. Dr. Megan Brown is the owner of Body Mechanics, physical therapy and co founder and director of the LAX Box. It's Jacksonville's premier indoor outdoor lacrosse training and sports performance facility. Former NC Double A Division three basketball and lacrosse athlete. Current international across athlete and medical staff for you. WG works with athletes across all ages and that little careers to enhance performance and reduce injury while maintaining proper movement. Awareness. Author of the journal Siri's Restore Develop strengthened YouTube broadcast and host of chalk Talk with the Dock in the Champion spotlight. She's also a speaker and coach. So today we're gonna actually take a deep dive with Dr Million Brown about body mechanics. So I hope you enjoy it here today on the J. Allen Joe. So as we start off the conversation, I guess what got you involved with wanting to be a therapist? How did that whole journey start for you?
[00:02:40] spk_1: Yes, I knew that. I wanted to do something in the medical field and something with sports. You know, I've played sports all my life. I played basketball in the Crossing college, and I still play lacrosse internationally in the summer as well. So I knew that I wanted to do something along those lines. Um, as faras, you know, being a physical therapist, I think that a lot of it had to do with actually seeing patients every day and seeing their progress versus, you know, someone like a surgeon. You know, they're doing the surgery one time, and then they may see them, you know, six weeks later, eight weeks later, something like that. But they don't see that whole process. And to me, understanding that whole process and helping people through that process was definitely part of it.
[00:03:24] spk_0: So as you take a look at that particular aspect, then so you said professional across, let me kind of go there first, and then we'll kind of come back to a couple other things. So you do this internationally. You said so you get to try out. Okay. You want some more detail? Of course.
[00:03:38] spk_1: Yeah. So, um I wouldn't say that I'm like a professional, in a sense. I mean, I do play at, ah, high level, but it's not, you know, like the the women's professional across the or anything like that. I think I'm allowed too old for that now. But, um, so, yeah, I still play in this summer. We go overseas with a new organization out of the U. S and me play in things like the Prod Cup. Um, this summer we were actually supposed to go to Spain and Portugal, but, you know, with everything with Kobe, we weren't able to travel. So yeah, we've been in in Berlin, in Amsterdam, just playing a bunch of different national teams from different countries. And yeah, it's been it's been a lot of fun. Meet a lot of new people, get a lot of fun, fun gear from different countries. And yeah, it's a great time.
[00:04:27] spk_0: So do you get your practicing near around them?
[00:04:30] spk_1: We actually don't practice your around my practice on my own and then with, you know, people in the in the area. But we actually come from different parts of the U. S. So we pretty much meet up. Um, you know, like a week or so before our big tournament. And we do some scrimmages and practices against some other teams, and then we just get into the tournament play,
[00:04:50] spk_0: so you know you have Well, we'll see you have multiple careers to accept them, because you have now that you're doing you also are a therapist, but you also are a co founder and a director for the premier indoor outdoor lacrosse training and sports performance facility. What's the secret to the success here? Is there 25 hours of your day that we don't know about or out getting this door?
[00:05:14] spk_1: Yeah, I know it seems that way, doesn't it? You know, I I just I have a lot of passions, and to me, I didn't feel like I had to give up certain passions in order to pursue other. So I've always found a way to, you know, kind of finagle my Legace and figure out how to do the things that I love doing. And I think that's kind of, you know, the secret sauce toe life is do the things that you love doing otherwise, what's What's the point? Um, you know So I out of PT school. I quickly found out that I wanted to work for myself. So I, um you know, I started doing that in 2015 is when I opened up my body mechanics. Physical therapy is a small, you know, just myself out of ah crossfit gym for a while. And then I kind of transitioned into this bigger space that we have in conjunction with the LAX box. And the LAX box was kind of ah, brainchild, um, of myself, my other co founder, And we wanted to bring moral across to North Florida. You know, it's a growing sport. There's tons of opportunity in it. Um, and it's one of those sports that no matter where you come from, what your background is, you know, you can really thrive in this because it's it's a combination of everything. And as long as you get into it, you know early enough and start learning things and it's it's gonna be great for you. So yeah, I've just I've just found ways toe get into everything that I love and ah, keep it moving through all this craziness
[00:06:42] spk_0: now, you did kind of chuckle when you said at a PT school, you realize you want to work for yourself. Yeah, There must have been something there. I know that chuckle. So,
[00:06:54] spk_1: yeah, you know, when you're in in school, you learn things a certain way, and that's fine, because you have to have that. You know, that based knowledge. But I think as you get out into the workforce a little bit, you understand? You know, things that resonate with you, things that don't and it's OK if you don't, you know, vie with certain people on vibe with the certain ways that companies are run or, you know, people run their clinics, and especially with insurance, you know, with, um, body mechanics we our cash based. So I don't take insurance. It's all out of pocket. And I felt like that was a great model for me, especially, and for my patients, because now they're getting that quality care that they want that's not dictated by an insurance company or someone you know behind a computer that doesn't know much about anatomy or physiology or sports injuries or whatever, whatever it is, so they aren't being told. Okay, you can only come to Petey, you know four times for a whole year or eight times for whole year when he just had a knee replacement, something like that. So it gives people a lot more freedom as faras what they can do with physical therapy. And it also gives me more freedom because then I can see people a lot more often. Um, and we get better results that way.
[00:08:08] spk_0: And so let's dive in a little bit into that because as we speak today, ah, lot of the listeners are in the safety profession field, and so they get to see some kind of interesting things out in the field. Or maybe some virtual feels at this point, who knows. But as we talk about this, we see a lot of issues with body mechanics were weird interacting with workers. So you has the subject matter expert. What do you what do you see? A lot of
[00:08:36] spk_1: it depends on the type of job right now, because everyone's working from home and they're sitting in front of our computers for the majority of the day. You know, zoom calls and what not. We are seeing a lot of that kind of call it text neck or, um, you know, computer neck where we're getting the forward shoulders kind of that rounded posture head forward. So we're getting a lot of people with headaches, and that's also a vision thing. You know, if you're staring at your computer all day, so headaches are getting a lot of neck pain, upper back pain, low back pain, hip pain, things of that nature just from, you know, the very essence of sitting all day long before cove it You got a little bit more with people, you know, just moving the wrong way. If they're lifting something or just that repetitive motion. Maybe not warming up, maybe not knowing how to bend and move and pick up things properly. So it just kind of depends.
[00:09:30] spk_0: So as you look at this, is there any recommendation that you normally tell people for the computer and act the tax neck as your as your deeming it that they could do Teoh kind of, I guess, get better of what they're doing, especially if they're sitting for that length of time.
[00:09:45] spk_1: Yeah, a lot of it is ergonomics. So if you think about where your computer is in relation, you know to your eyes into your hands. So if you're on the computer a lot, you need to make sure that you're bringing it up to eye level, Um, so that you're not constantly looking down or looking up all the time, something that's obviously not necessarily physical therapy related. But I tell people to either put like a blue light filter on their phone or computer, or grab those blue light glasses that now are fairly cheap because that protects your eyes, especially when you're on the computer for multiple hours at a time. And I also tell people to set an alarm and their phone for about a now hour or so in every hour. Get up and at least move around a little bit, stretch a little bit and, uh, just get that blood flowing.
[00:10:32] spk_0: So when you say get up, move around. In that particular aspect. Is there a certain amount of time that you would recommend people being away from the computer away from whatever they're doing to make sure that they get that blood flowing? And then, of course, what it is that you would recommend?
[00:10:48] spk_1: I don't think that there's a specific time necessarily, but just giving yourself that breaks obviously more than, like, 30 seconds. But typically, I say have people start out five minutes, whether it's, you know, get up and go to the bathroom, get up and go get some water because that's the other part is we're sitting at the computer, and if you don't have water handy with you, you're probably not staying hydrated throughout the day on that. And that's a big part of injury as well as if those discs in your spine or not hydrated than they can get injured. If your muscles are hydrated, they can get injured. So you know a big thing is just getting up and getting moving. Whether that's just going for a little walk around the house or walked to the kitchen or doing some hamstring stretches, some spine exercises, some neck exercise stretches, it just varies. It depends on person to person, but as long as you're doing something, you know to get the blood flowing, get your brain off of whatever you were doing for that moment kind of refresh, and you should be good to go.
[00:11:46] spk_0: What about those foam rollers were Do? Is that something that you would normally recommend to people to use or is that normally just like post exercise? That that's a recommendation for
[00:11:56] spk_1: it just depends on how you're going to use it. So typically, you know, sometimes all use it kind of lengthwise down my spine and just lay back on it kind of open up the chest a little bit. So if I am sitting for any extended period of time, that helps to open up your chest, you know, allows you to breathe a little bit deeper as well, so you can use those. I wouldn't, you know, get on them and on Lee, use something like that because then you're kind of negating other things and you're not paying attention to other things. But you can definitely use those for some stretching and just general mobilization stuff.
[00:12:30] spk_0: So I have a confession. I do watch a lot of late night TV, which is probably terrible thing to admit Teoh because I can't fall asleep, which probably another great thing not to admit to you but whatever. But I see a lot of those weird stands, and I've seen it a few times now where it's kind of like an anti gravity device. I'm not sure if you've seen this, but you kind of connect your computer to it and it's ableto lay all the way back. And I guess it makes you feel like you're not, You know, there's no graffitti there. Is that something that you would say worthwhile And now, you know, disparaging any kind of product trying what? What works best? Because I have. Like, I guess I have the standard office chair inside inside of where I'm at, I get to hang out on the radio all day, so I get to sit around, do some do some hours there and I have I have monitors that are kind of mostly high. I'm not looking straight up, but there will say I level by I never I always look at this and go is something like that worth while of course, I'm gonna look all kind of free young behind a camera. But what do you will normally recommend to people? If you think, for instance, the gravity chairs now worth a while? What is kind of like the recommendation? I know you said, you know, looking forward is there like a chair recommendation that she that's the preferred that you say that is the preferred brand for you Or how do you look at it?
[00:13:44] spk_1: No, I don't. I don't necessarily like to say Okay, this is a great brand because everyone's different. You know, whether it's its height, whether it's weight, Um, you know, sometimes people's torsos are longer than others versus their legs. You know, like for me, my legs are a little bit shorter than my torso is. So sometimes I have to, like, you know, put a book or something under my feet to feel a little more comfortable that they but you know, it's It's one of those things that it is up to preference. But if you are feeling discomfort when you're sitting standing, whatever it is, usually that's a sign that your body needs some movement. So I wouldn't necessarily say, you know, staying in one position for extended periods of time is not good for anyone. So if you're sitting for more than an hour at a time, you definitely need to get up and move around. If you're standing in one position for more than our time, find ways that you can move around, so it definitely varies in its it's different from person to person.
[00:14:41] spk_0: So as you've actually gone to do this path and seen so many different things, what has kind of amazed you? I guess so far in going down the several different industries that you that you're in, What have you seen that you did not think there would be kind of like the standard injury from doing X. That has surprised you.
[00:14:58] spk_1: Oh, jeez. Uh, injuries. There are funny thing, you know, sometimes.
[00:15:05] spk_0: Especially if it's not you that it occurred to
[00:15:07] spk_1: me. Oh, yeah, Injuries. You know, they sometimes they'll kind of pop out of nowhere. Will they appear to have popped out of nowhere? But usually there's, you know, a line of causation. So whether it was you were doing like I said before thes certain body mechanics and after a point, your body is just like I can't do this wrong anymore. I'm going to tell you now and then something happens, and then that person is like, Well, I was just doing the same thing that I've been doing the same way for 10 years or something, you know, And our bodies are resilient, and they're very good at compensating, which isn't always good for the rest of us. So when we start seeing those compensations, that usually is an indicator that something else is going on that you need to address. Otherwise, this compensation is going to get worse.
[00:15:57] spk_0: I've heard this theory and I wanna see what what you think. I've been told that if you actually have a knee injury and you get it surgically repaired, we'll use that as an example that normally your other need because it has to compensate for the surgically repaired one will normally tend to go bad as well. Is that correct? Or is that this met?
[00:16:17] spk_1: Um, it can be correct. Definitely. Can one. It depends on what kind of surgery happened on the other leg. It also depends on how long you know, you were maybe in pain and walking differently. So, you know, sometimes we see that a lot, and PT that you know, one knee starts toe quote go bad, and so you're favoring the other side. And in favoring that other side, you're kind of wearing it out a little bit faster than you would normally. So yes, it's definitely a possibility. Um, again, it's just it's the compensation. So if you're if you're leaning that way a lot or you're favoring another side, there could definitely be some downstream effects.
[00:16:56] spk_0: So now that we're seeing a lot of these things inside of the virtual world and things were changing into one are you offering as, um I guess we'll call it the face times zoom where people can interact with you over the phone via zoom via web chat? Or do you only accept people in person?
[00:17:13] spk_1: No, I've actually been doing telehealth artillery have since I
[00:17:17] spk_0: don't know what you never know what I'm just like think, however, works.
[00:17:22] spk_1: Yeah. So I've actually been doing that for a while before. I guess before Kobe, it was a thing. Um, but yeah, eso I've actually worked with people in different areas of the country doing things via, you know, I did it through Skype, Skype, er, zoom and it actually is really effective when the person on the other end has a little bit of understanding of their body. Um, when the person you
[00:17:51] spk_0: re do, Of course. Right? I mean, it is your body.
[00:17:54] spk_1: Yeah. Yeah. You would think. But sometimes you know, people are a little disconnected from their body. And that's also something that I really pride myself in. As A as a physical therapist is getting you to kind of reconnect with your body because our body tells us a lot of things, a lot of warning signs. A lot of you know, like, Hey, we gotta watch out for this. But if we aren't listening, we're gonna miss that, right? So when I communicate with people you know via telehealth artillery have, that's part of it, too. Is just getting them to understand how their body is supposed to move. You know what? Limbs supposed to go, where and how it's supposed to do certain things mechanically, but yet it's actually been very beneficial to do that. You know, sometimes I know people are afraid to come into the office or if they're not in the area, they obviously can't. So that's that's been another way toe connect with people a little bit broader.
[00:18:47] spk_0: So normally, what is the process look like? So I know what a what a will say a normal PT appointment look like? What does it look like when you're doing it over the phone like what is it? I mean, I can't visualize and I guess my limitation to an extent with it. But how does actually work? I mean, because I know like in the past, I had issues and I would have to do these weird things with bands. I consider it weird. I'm sure it's not weird for trying to get it corrected, but for me, it was weird because it was something I hadn't done at the time. But just like that process, so do you do something similar via via the zoom Skype chat box on?
[00:19:23] spk_1: Yeah, eso initially, what would happen? So let's say you weren't able to come into the facility at all. Initially, what we would do is have a conversation we would talk about. You know what's bothering you? What you're having difficulties with kind of go through that whole subjective portion of things. And then, um, I would ask you to do certain movements are kind of talking through that. And I'd also demonstrate for you so you could actually see what I'm what I'm looking for and what I want you to do. And then based on what I'm seeing, You know, I'd have you go from different angles, kind of turn your body, you know, sideways for his backwards. And then I can see what's actually happening and going on, and this whole time we're dialoguing of Okay, Does that bother you? What if we do A couple of these? Does the pain go away? Does it start to subside? Doesn't get worse is the same. So it's It's a lot more talking, obviously, versus just the visual part of things, because I need to understand what it is you're going through. Um, I'm pretty good at reading people spaces, but sometimes it's hard, you know, through the computer to read people's faces, you can hide it a little bit better, so it's a lot more lumber questions,
[00:20:29] spk_0: and it's like make sure you have a £10 bag of ice ready and available at the
[00:20:35] spk_1: Yeah, I definitely have to tell people, you know, you will be sore after we go through this, And soreness isn't isn't a bad thing. You know, I have to remind people of that a lot as you you know, if you took time off from doing whatever it was because you were injured or hurt or in pain. Your body has to relearn how to do those things again. And it has to understand that we're not going to put it into these this spectrum of pain. We're going to stay in that in that comfort zone for now and then keep expanding on that comfort zone. So I will push you a little bit into discomfort. But it's not going to be painful. And it's not going to be a reproduction of your symptoms of why you came in in the first place.
[00:21:18] spk_0: So back when you were going to school many, many moons ago, did you ever think that this would be where would go to where you were going to be doing things online and regards of actually taking care of people remotely?
[00:21:28] spk_1: No, actually, you know, I didn't when I was graduating from school. I think that was kind of the start of people talking about, you know, maybe telehealth. At some point, they talked about it in regards to people, you know, in parts of the country that may have been really far away from hospitals or things of that nature and trying to incorporate that a little bit more, But no, I definitely didn't think it was gonna be something that would be, you know, almost every day, type of thing.
[00:21:59] spk_0: I know. It's just it's the norm now it's what it seems like. I think it's interesting on how technically savvy a lot of us have become over this small, little bit of everything going on. But it's just kind of trying to adapt to what's what's happening inside of the world.
[00:22:16] spk_1: Oh, yeah. I mean, if you don't adapt, it's just like everything else to get left behind. So if you want to keep moving forward, you got to figure it out, right?
[00:22:23] spk_0: Right. So let me ask you this, if you don't mind. So before you go into the to the physical therapy site, you actually end up getting a bachelor's in psychology. Why did you decide to have to continue down that particular path? If you don't mind me asking,
[00:22:38] spk_1: Yeah, I'm not really sure why I didn't eso I'm not quite sure how to answer that, But, um, you know, psychology. I felt like was a major that you could pretty much do anything after that, right? Because Everyone has a breaking. Everyone thinks to some degree. You know, you you have to kind of tease things out of people sometimes. But honestly, psychology has been very, very beneficial having that degree within physical therapy. You know, the cool thing about physical therapy school to is you can pretty much have your bachelors in anything. Um, and just pass all your pre RECs and get good grades with that to get into PT school. I had couple friends. One was a zoology major, and one was a history major. So, you know, you can you can do anything instead of thin.
[00:23:33] spk_0: The the other odd questions would go closer to you. How does it feel going from the Metroplex to Jacksonville? I mean, it's it's the world to change between the two.
[00:23:42] spk_1: Yeah, absolutely. Was a change. You know, I grew up in the military, so I'm no, no. Ah, stranger to change. I guess you say. But I was actually in Dallas for a while, so I was there, you know, four years undergrad. And then three years after that, um and then that's when I decided. OK, I'm gonna really, really study hard to get into PT school. Um, so then I came out to Florida for PT School and yeah, it's definitely a different change of pace. Um, different. As far as you know, culture is concerned. And demographics, um, ages things of that nature. So I mean, I've always loved the beach. I've always of the ocean, so that was kind of one of my draws as well. And I got to go to school in ST Augustine, which is a beautiful city for their Yeah, so I mean, it was a change, and I still have a lot of really good friends in Dallas, and I go back when I can and visit my OMA model when I can, but it's been great.
[00:24:42] spk_0: So now if people want to know more about you and the services, you offer work and they go to find out more information.
[00:24:47] spk_1: I'm on all social media. Um, it's at body B o d Y mech M E C H p T. So that's on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. And then you can go to my Web sites as well. Www dot body mech pt dot com and then www dot doc Megan Brown, M u G h a n e r a u n dot com Um And then you can also go take my raise your game quiz my champions mindset Quiz that Raise your game, doc Club as well. But yeah, you can. All those things Easy Way to find me.
[00:25:22] spk_0: Well, Dr Megan Brown, I appreciate you coming on to the show today.
[00:25:26] spk_1: Thank you so much day. I appreciate it.
[00:25:30] spk_0: Well, this brings another episode of the J. Allen show to an end. I hope you enjoyed our conversation today with Dr Megan Brown. For more information about what she does, you can go to body, Mick p t dot com. That is B o d y m e c h p t dot com body mech p t dot com. Anyways, I hope you've been enjoying yourself lately. Hear on the radio station on the podcast, we will be adding Mawr and Mawr shows as you take a listen. Over the next few weeks beyond the lookout, we'll have some announcements of Mawr shows joining us here shortly in the very near future. This will bring another episode of the J. Allen Show to an end. Thank you for listening to safety FM, home of real safety. Talk also thank you for always being the best part of safety FM, that is, the listener will be back with another episode of the J. Allen show before too long. Goodbye for now, one smooth.
[00:26:43] spk_1: The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the host and its guest, and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the company. Examples of analysis discussed within with podcast are only example. It's not be utilized in the real world. At the only solution available is there based only on very limited undated Open source information. Assumptions made within this analysis or not reflective of the position of the company. No part of this podcast may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means mechanical Elektronik, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the creator of the podcast, J. Allen
Enjoy it all today on The Jay Allen Show.
[00:00:02] spk_0: This is what this show is brought to you by Safety Safety FM Dog Life Well, hello and welcome to this episode of the J. Allen Show. We're coming to you live from the safety of them studios in Orlando, Florida I hope everything is good in well in your neck of the woods. Well, thank you for reaching out over the last few weeks about the different episodes that we have going on. Seems like there's been a lot of enjoyment with some of the last few interviews that we have done here on Safety FM. A lot of interaction from last week's two episodes with the authors of the practice of learning teams and the one with Dr Love so good to hear that everyone is out there enjoying them so far. Want to have a special thanks out to the United States Air Force for allowing us to do the interview with Dr Love and also for placing the show on safety dot air force dot military or safety dot f dot m I l just in case, if you want to go, look really do appreciate it and appreciate all of the airman and military out there that are doing the different things that they do day in and day out. Thank you for your sacrifices. So today on the J. Allen show, we're going to take a deep dive. This is a conversation between me and Dr Megan Brown. Dr. Megan Brown is the owner of Body Mechanics, physical therapy and co founder and director of the LAX Box. It's Jacksonville's premier indoor outdoor lacrosse training and sports performance facility. Former NC Double A Division three basketball and lacrosse athlete. Current international across athlete and medical staff for you. WG works with athletes across all ages and that little careers to enhance performance and reduce injury while maintaining proper movement. Awareness. Author of the journal Siri's Restore Develop strengthened YouTube broadcast and host of chalk Talk with the Dock in the Champion spotlight. She's also a speaker and coach. So today we're gonna actually take a deep dive with Dr Million Brown about body mechanics. So I hope you enjoy it here today on the J. Allen Joe. So as we start off the conversation, I guess what got you involved with wanting to be a therapist? How did that whole journey start for you?
[00:02:40] spk_1: Yes, I knew that. I wanted to do something in the medical field and something with sports. You know, I've played sports all my life. I played basketball in the Crossing college, and I still play lacrosse internationally in the summer as well. So I knew that I wanted to do something along those lines. Um, as faras, you know, being a physical therapist, I think that a lot of it had to do with actually seeing patients every day and seeing their progress versus, you know, someone like a surgeon. You know, they're doing the surgery one time, and then they may see them, you know, six weeks later, eight weeks later, something like that. But they don't see that whole process. And to me, understanding that whole process and helping people through that process was definitely part of it.
[00:03:24] spk_0: So as you take a look at that particular aspect, then so you said professional across, let me kind of go there first, and then we'll kind of come back to a couple other things. So you do this internationally. You said so you get to try out. Okay. You want some more detail? Of course.
[00:03:38] spk_1: Yeah. So, um I wouldn't say that I'm like a professional, in a sense. I mean, I do play at, ah, high level, but it's not, you know, like the the women's professional across the or anything like that. I think I'm allowed too old for that now. But, um, so, yeah, I still play in this summer. We go overseas with a new organization out of the U. S and me play in things like the Prod Cup. Um, this summer we were actually supposed to go to Spain and Portugal, but, you know, with everything with Kobe, we weren't able to travel. So yeah, we've been in in Berlin, in Amsterdam, just playing a bunch of different national teams from different countries. And yeah, it's been it's been a lot of fun. Meet a lot of new people, get a lot of fun, fun gear from different countries. And yeah, it's a great time.
[00:04:27] spk_0: So do you get your practicing near around them?
[00:04:30] spk_1: We actually don't practice your around my practice on my own and then with, you know, people in the in the area. But we actually come from different parts of the U. S. So we pretty much meet up. Um, you know, like a week or so before our big tournament. And we do some scrimmages and practices against some other teams, and then we just get into the tournament play,
[00:04:50] spk_0: so you know you have Well, we'll see you have multiple careers to accept them, because you have now that you're doing you also are a therapist, but you also are a co founder and a director for the premier indoor outdoor lacrosse training and sports performance facility. What's the secret to the success here? Is there 25 hours of your day that we don't know about or out getting this door?
[00:05:14] spk_1: Yeah, I know it seems that way, doesn't it? You know, I I just I have a lot of passions, and to me, I didn't feel like I had to give up certain passions in order to pursue other. So I've always found a way to, you know, kind of finagle my Legace and figure out how to do the things that I love doing. And I think that's kind of, you know, the secret sauce toe life is do the things that you love doing otherwise, what's What's the point? Um, you know So I out of PT school. I quickly found out that I wanted to work for myself. So I, um you know, I started doing that in 2015 is when I opened up my body mechanics. Physical therapy is a small, you know, just myself out of ah crossfit gym for a while. And then I kind of transitioned into this bigger space that we have in conjunction with the LAX box. And the LAX box was kind of ah, brainchild, um, of myself, my other co founder, And we wanted to bring moral across to North Florida. You know, it's a growing sport. There's tons of opportunity in it. Um, and it's one of those sports that no matter where you come from, what your background is, you know, you can really thrive in this because it's it's a combination of everything. And as long as you get into it, you know early enough and start learning things and it's it's gonna be great for you. So yeah, I've just I've just found ways toe get into everything that I love and ah, keep it moving through all this craziness
[00:06:42] spk_0: now, you did kind of chuckle when you said at a PT school, you realize you want to work for yourself. Yeah, There must have been something there. I know that chuckle. So,
[00:06:54] spk_1: yeah, you know, when you're in in school, you learn things a certain way, and that's fine, because you have to have that. You know, that based knowledge. But I think as you get out into the workforce a little bit, you understand? You know, things that resonate with you, things that don't and it's OK if you don't, you know, vie with certain people on vibe with the certain ways that companies are run or, you know, people run their clinics, and especially with insurance, you know, with, um, body mechanics we our cash based. So I don't take insurance. It's all out of pocket. And I felt like that was a great model for me, especially, and for my patients, because now they're getting that quality care that they want that's not dictated by an insurance company or someone you know behind a computer that doesn't know much about anatomy or physiology or sports injuries or whatever, whatever it is, so they aren't being told. Okay, you can only come to Petey, you know four times for a whole year or eight times for whole year when he just had a knee replacement, something like that. So it gives people a lot more freedom as faras what they can do with physical therapy. And it also gives me more freedom because then I can see people a lot more often. Um, and we get better results that way.
[00:08:08] spk_0: And so let's dive in a little bit into that because as we speak today, ah, lot of the listeners are in the safety profession field, and so they get to see some kind of interesting things out in the field. Or maybe some virtual feels at this point, who knows. But as we talk about this, we see a lot of issues with body mechanics were weird interacting with workers. So you has the subject matter expert. What do you what do you see? A lot of
[00:08:36] spk_1: it depends on the type of job right now, because everyone's working from home and they're sitting in front of our computers for the majority of the day. You know, zoom calls and what not. We are seeing a lot of that kind of call it text neck or, um, you know, computer neck where we're getting the forward shoulders kind of that rounded posture head forward. So we're getting a lot of people with headaches, and that's also a vision thing. You know, if you're staring at your computer all day, so headaches are getting a lot of neck pain, upper back pain, low back pain, hip pain, things of that nature just from, you know, the very essence of sitting all day long before cove it You got a little bit more with people, you know, just moving the wrong way. If they're lifting something or just that repetitive motion. Maybe not warming up, maybe not knowing how to bend and move and pick up things properly. So it just kind of depends.
[00:09:30] spk_0: So as you look at this, is there any recommendation that you normally tell people for the computer and act the tax neck as your as your deeming it that they could do Teoh kind of, I guess, get better of what they're doing, especially if they're sitting for that length of time.
[00:09:45] spk_1: Yeah, a lot of it is ergonomics. So if you think about where your computer is in relation, you know to your eyes into your hands. So if you're on the computer a lot, you need to make sure that you're bringing it up to eye level, Um, so that you're not constantly looking down or looking up all the time, something that's obviously not necessarily physical therapy related. But I tell people to either put like a blue light filter on their phone or computer, or grab those blue light glasses that now are fairly cheap because that protects your eyes, especially when you're on the computer for multiple hours at a time. And I also tell people to set an alarm and their phone for about a now hour or so in every hour. Get up and at least move around a little bit, stretch a little bit and, uh, just get that blood flowing.
[00:10:32] spk_0: So when you say get up, move around. In that particular aspect. Is there a certain amount of time that you would recommend people being away from the computer away from whatever they're doing to make sure that they get that blood flowing? And then, of course, what it is that you would recommend?
[00:10:48] spk_1: I don't think that there's a specific time necessarily, but just giving yourself that breaks obviously more than, like, 30 seconds. But typically, I say have people start out five minutes, whether it's, you know, get up and go to the bathroom, get up and go get some water because that's the other part is we're sitting at the computer, and if you don't have water handy with you, you're probably not staying hydrated throughout the day on that. And that's a big part of injury as well as if those discs in your spine or not hydrated than they can get injured. If your muscles are hydrated, they can get injured. So you know a big thing is just getting up and getting moving. Whether that's just going for a little walk around the house or walked to the kitchen or doing some hamstring stretches, some spine exercises, some neck exercise stretches, it just varies. It depends on person to person, but as long as you're doing something, you know to get the blood flowing, get your brain off of whatever you were doing for that moment kind of refresh, and you should be good to go.
[00:11:46] spk_0: What about those foam rollers were Do? Is that something that you would normally recommend to people to use or is that normally just like post exercise? That that's a recommendation for
[00:11:56] spk_1: it just depends on how you're going to use it. So typically, you know, sometimes all use it kind of lengthwise down my spine and just lay back on it kind of open up the chest a little bit. So if I am sitting for any extended period of time, that helps to open up your chest, you know, allows you to breathe a little bit deeper as well, so you can use those. I wouldn't, you know, get on them and on Lee, use something like that because then you're kind of negating other things and you're not paying attention to other things. But you can definitely use those for some stretching and just general mobilization stuff.
[00:12:30] spk_0: So I have a confession. I do watch a lot of late night TV, which is probably terrible thing to admit Teoh because I can't fall asleep, which probably another great thing not to admit to you but whatever. But I see a lot of those weird stands, and I've seen it a few times now where it's kind of like an anti gravity device. I'm not sure if you've seen this, but you kind of connect your computer to it and it's ableto lay all the way back. And I guess it makes you feel like you're not, You know, there's no graffitti there. Is that something that you would say worthwhile And now, you know, disparaging any kind of product trying what? What works best? Because I have. Like, I guess I have the standard office chair inside inside of where I'm at, I get to hang out on the radio all day, so I get to sit around, do some do some hours there and I have I have monitors that are kind of mostly high. I'm not looking straight up, but there will say I level by I never I always look at this and go is something like that worth while of course, I'm gonna look all kind of free young behind a camera. But what do you will normally recommend to people? If you think, for instance, the gravity chairs now worth a while? What is kind of like the recommendation? I know you said, you know, looking forward is there like a chair recommendation that she that's the preferred that you say that is the preferred brand for you Or how do you look at it?
[00:13:44] spk_1: No, I don't. I don't necessarily like to say Okay, this is a great brand because everyone's different. You know, whether it's its height, whether it's weight, Um, you know, sometimes people's torsos are longer than others versus their legs. You know, like for me, my legs are a little bit shorter than my torso is. So sometimes I have to, like, you know, put a book or something under my feet to feel a little more comfortable that they but you know, it's It's one of those things that it is up to preference. But if you are feeling discomfort when you're sitting standing, whatever it is, usually that's a sign that your body needs some movement. So I wouldn't necessarily say, you know, staying in one position for extended periods of time is not good for anyone. So if you're sitting for more than an hour at a time, you definitely need to get up and move around. If you're standing in one position for more than our time, find ways that you can move around, so it definitely varies in its it's different from person to person.
[00:14:41] spk_0: So as you've actually gone to do this path and seen so many different things, what has kind of amazed you? I guess so far in going down the several different industries that you that you're in, What have you seen that you did not think there would be kind of like the standard injury from doing X. That has surprised you.
[00:14:58] spk_1: Oh, jeez. Uh, injuries. There are funny thing, you know, sometimes.
[00:15:05] spk_0: Especially if it's not you that it occurred to
[00:15:07] spk_1: me. Oh, yeah, Injuries. You know, they sometimes they'll kind of pop out of nowhere. Will they appear to have popped out of nowhere? But usually there's, you know, a line of causation. So whether it was you were doing like I said before thes certain body mechanics and after a point, your body is just like I can't do this wrong anymore. I'm going to tell you now and then something happens, and then that person is like, Well, I was just doing the same thing that I've been doing the same way for 10 years or something, you know, And our bodies are resilient, and they're very good at compensating, which isn't always good for the rest of us. So when we start seeing those compensations, that usually is an indicator that something else is going on that you need to address. Otherwise, this compensation is going to get worse.
[00:15:57] spk_0: I've heard this theory and I wanna see what what you think. I've been told that if you actually have a knee injury and you get it surgically repaired, we'll use that as an example that normally your other need because it has to compensate for the surgically repaired one will normally tend to go bad as well. Is that correct? Or is that this met?
[00:16:17] spk_1: Um, it can be correct. Definitely. Can one. It depends on what kind of surgery happened on the other leg. It also depends on how long you know, you were maybe in pain and walking differently. So, you know, sometimes we see that a lot, and PT that you know, one knee starts toe quote go bad, and so you're favoring the other side. And in favoring that other side, you're kind of wearing it out a little bit faster than you would normally. So yes, it's definitely a possibility. Um, again, it's just it's the compensation. So if you're if you're leaning that way a lot or you're favoring another side, there could definitely be some downstream effects.
[00:16:56] spk_0: So now that we're seeing a lot of these things inside of the virtual world and things were changing into one are you offering as, um I guess we'll call it the face times zoom where people can interact with you over the phone via zoom via web chat? Or do you only accept people in person?
[00:17:13] spk_1: No, I've actually been doing telehealth artillery have since I
[00:17:17] spk_0: don't know what you never know what I'm just like think, however, works.
[00:17:22] spk_1: Yeah. So I've actually been doing that for a while before. I guess before Kobe, it was a thing. Um, but yeah, eso I've actually worked with people in different areas of the country doing things via, you know, I did it through Skype, Skype, er, zoom and it actually is really effective when the person on the other end has a little bit of understanding of their body. Um, when the person you
[00:17:51] spk_0: re do, Of course. Right? I mean, it is your body.
[00:17:54] spk_1: Yeah. Yeah. You would think. But sometimes you know, people are a little disconnected from their body. And that's also something that I really pride myself in. As A as a physical therapist is getting you to kind of reconnect with your body because our body tells us a lot of things, a lot of warning signs. A lot of you know, like, Hey, we gotta watch out for this. But if we aren't listening, we're gonna miss that, right? So when I communicate with people you know via telehealth artillery have, that's part of it, too. Is just getting them to understand how their body is supposed to move. You know what? Limbs supposed to go, where and how it's supposed to do certain things mechanically, but yet it's actually been very beneficial to do that. You know, sometimes I know people are afraid to come into the office or if they're not in the area, they obviously can't. So that's that's been another way toe connect with people a little bit broader.
[00:18:47] spk_0: So normally, what is the process look like? So I know what a what a will say a normal PT appointment look like? What does it look like when you're doing it over the phone like what is it? I mean, I can't visualize and I guess my limitation to an extent with it. But how does actually work? I mean, because I know like in the past, I had issues and I would have to do these weird things with bands. I consider it weird. I'm sure it's not weird for trying to get it corrected, but for me, it was weird because it was something I hadn't done at the time. But just like that process, so do you do something similar via via the zoom Skype chat box on?
[00:19:23] spk_1: Yeah, eso initially, what would happen? So let's say you weren't able to come into the facility at all. Initially, what we would do is have a conversation we would talk about. You know what's bothering you? What you're having difficulties with kind of go through that whole subjective portion of things. And then, um, I would ask you to do certain movements are kind of talking through that. And I'd also demonstrate for you so you could actually see what I'm what I'm looking for and what I want you to do. And then based on what I'm seeing, You know, I'd have you go from different angles, kind of turn your body, you know, sideways for his backwards. And then I can see what's actually happening and going on, and this whole time we're dialoguing of Okay, Does that bother you? What if we do A couple of these? Does the pain go away? Does it start to subside? Doesn't get worse is the same. So it's It's a lot more talking, obviously, versus just the visual part of things, because I need to understand what it is you're going through. Um, I'm pretty good at reading people spaces, but sometimes it's hard, you know, through the computer to read people's faces, you can hide it a little bit better, so it's a lot more lumber questions,
[00:20:29] spk_0: and it's like make sure you have a £10 bag of ice ready and available at the
[00:20:35] spk_1: Yeah, I definitely have to tell people, you know, you will be sore after we go through this, And soreness isn't isn't a bad thing. You know, I have to remind people of that a lot as you you know, if you took time off from doing whatever it was because you were injured or hurt or in pain. Your body has to relearn how to do those things again. And it has to understand that we're not going to put it into these this spectrum of pain. We're going to stay in that in that comfort zone for now and then keep expanding on that comfort zone. So I will push you a little bit into discomfort. But it's not going to be painful. And it's not going to be a reproduction of your symptoms of why you came in in the first place.
[00:21:18] spk_0: So back when you were going to school many, many moons ago, did you ever think that this would be where would go to where you were going to be doing things online and regards of actually taking care of people remotely?
[00:21:28] spk_1: No, actually, you know, I didn't when I was graduating from school. I think that was kind of the start of people talking about, you know, maybe telehealth. At some point, they talked about it in regards to people, you know, in parts of the country that may have been really far away from hospitals or things of that nature and trying to incorporate that a little bit more, But no, I definitely didn't think it was gonna be something that would be, you know, almost every day, type of thing.
[00:21:59] spk_0: I know. It's just it's the norm now it's what it seems like. I think it's interesting on how technically savvy a lot of us have become over this small, little bit of everything going on. But it's just kind of trying to adapt to what's what's happening inside of the world.
[00:22:16] spk_1: Oh, yeah. I mean, if you don't adapt, it's just like everything else to get left behind. So if you want to keep moving forward, you got to figure it out, right?
[00:22:23] spk_0: Right. So let me ask you this, if you don't mind. So before you go into the to the physical therapy site, you actually end up getting a bachelor's in psychology. Why did you decide to have to continue down that particular path? If you don't mind me asking,
[00:22:38] spk_1: Yeah, I'm not really sure why I didn't eso I'm not quite sure how to answer that, But, um, you know, psychology. I felt like was a major that you could pretty much do anything after that, right? Because Everyone has a breaking. Everyone thinks to some degree. You know, you you have to kind of tease things out of people sometimes. But honestly, psychology has been very, very beneficial having that degree within physical therapy. You know, the cool thing about physical therapy school to is you can pretty much have your bachelors in anything. Um, and just pass all your pre RECs and get good grades with that to get into PT school. I had couple friends. One was a zoology major, and one was a history major. So, you know, you can you can do anything instead of thin.
[00:23:33] spk_0: The the other odd questions would go closer to you. How does it feel going from the Metroplex to Jacksonville? I mean, it's it's the world to change between the two.
[00:23:42] spk_1: Yeah, absolutely. Was a change. You know, I grew up in the military, so I'm no, no. Ah, stranger to change. I guess you say. But I was actually in Dallas for a while, so I was there, you know, four years undergrad. And then three years after that, um and then that's when I decided. OK, I'm gonna really, really study hard to get into PT school. Um, so then I came out to Florida for PT School and yeah, it's definitely a different change of pace. Um, different. As far as you know, culture is concerned. And demographics, um, ages things of that nature. So I mean, I've always loved the beach. I've always of the ocean, so that was kind of one of my draws as well. And I got to go to school in ST Augustine, which is a beautiful city for their Yeah, so I mean, it was a change, and I still have a lot of really good friends in Dallas, and I go back when I can and visit my OMA model when I can, but it's been great.
[00:24:42] spk_0: So now if people want to know more about you and the services, you offer work and they go to find out more information.
[00:24:47] spk_1: I'm on all social media. Um, it's at body B o d Y mech M E C H p T. So that's on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. And then you can go to my Web sites as well. Www dot body mech pt dot com and then www dot doc Megan Brown, M u G h a n e r a u n dot com Um And then you can also go take my raise your game quiz my champions mindset Quiz that Raise your game, doc Club as well. But yeah, you can. All those things Easy Way to find me.
[00:25:22] spk_0: Well, Dr Megan Brown, I appreciate you coming on to the show today.
[00:25:26] spk_1: Thank you so much day. I appreciate it.
[00:25:30] spk_0: Well, this brings another episode of the J. Allen show to an end. I hope you enjoyed our conversation today with Dr Megan Brown. For more information about what she does, you can go to body, Mick p t dot com. That is B o d y m e c h p t dot com body mech p t dot com. Anyways, I hope you've been enjoying yourself lately. Hear on the radio station on the podcast, we will be adding Mawr and Mawr shows as you take a listen. Over the next few weeks beyond the lookout, we'll have some announcements of Mawr shows joining us here shortly in the very near future. This will bring another episode of the J. Allen Show to an end. Thank you for listening to safety FM, home of real safety. Talk also thank you for always being the best part of safety FM, that is, the listener will be back with another episode of the J. Allen show before too long. Goodbye for now, one smooth.
[00:26:43] spk_1: The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the host and its guest, and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the company. Examples of analysis discussed within with podcast are only example. It's not be utilized in the real world. At the only solution available is there based only on very limited undated Open source information. Assumptions made within this analysis or not reflective of the position of the company. No part of this podcast may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means mechanical Elektronik, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the creator of the podcast, J. Allen