00:00.08
nextlevelguypodcast
what's so What's the weather like over there?

00:02.52
Tom Morrison
mental it just doesn't stop it's either sunny as all everything and then next torrential rain it's crazy over to south Sam yeah

00:09.43
nextlevelguypodcast
It's like here. It's like four seasons in a day. And it's like, you think you needed a jacket? You need a survival suit for the that, mate.

00:15.88
Tom Morrison
yeah well

00:17.05
nextlevelguypodcast
um But thank you so much for coming on. yeah You have no idea how much you've been looking forward to this. I have literally about 20 pages of research. But for people who don't know the James Bosque-esque guy that's sitting in front of me, how would you describe who you are and what you do?

00:34.17
Tom Morrison
I am a mobility specialist, so I help people kind of figure out injuries that they may have or flexibility limitations and stability limitations and help them essentially get pain free and back to doing things that they love. So we're very big on if you feel like it's because of your age or you've got a past injury or you just feel like your body's holding you back, that we help you to figure out how to fix things so that you can get back to doing the things that you want to do.

01:01.33
nextlevelguypodcast
Perfect. Now, a lot of guys, they know what they want to do job-wise. They can see the potential partners, but very few of them think they're not going to be able to get out the car. They won't be able to chase their kids in the garden because of the you know sins they've committed when they were younger.

01:15.96
nextlevelguypodcast
What is it about guys training indestructibly? you know We think we're never going to have any issues. why Why do guys go hell for leather, not realizing they're writing in checks that their body can't cash?

01:29.58
Tom Morrison
It's the beginner gains, so your body can cope with a lot. And whenever you first start training, like it becomes addictive and especially the mental aspect of it. People just love to push themselves and guys, especially, and you do get away with a ton. Like my entire first year of training, I didn't pick up any injury that I was aware of. I was like, why why can't I do this movement or why can't i get into this position? That's a bit weird, but I never thought anything of it. And then it was Then it becomes ah all of a sudden, it's like, my knee's sore. Oh, now my shoulder's sore. Now my back's sore. And then, oh I'm just falling apart. And you start having all these bouncing pains. And it feels like it's all of a sudden, but your body gives you many, many warning signs. And you just don't listen at the start. You're so focused on... you do start to feel better. You do start to feel fitter. Your cardiovascular health improves. You're like, you notice your body starting to change shape and stuff.

02:22.81
Tom Morrison
And you're like, this is a amazing. isn't This is great. And you don't think about the long-term effects of inefficient movement, essentially.

02:29.78
nextlevelguypodcast
because you're original Because your mission now is to get people to listen to their body, but your origin story, your superhero story is the exact opposite. You went from 23 not doing anything to like martial arts, six days a week, taking on the world, changing things.

02:45.88
nextlevelguypodcast
Which tom are we to listen to? Is it to the coach now or to the the cautionary tale? which Which version do you like to give to people?

02:56.47
Tom Morrison
i I like to try and meet people where they're at. So if I was to try and go back in time to myself, I wouldn't want to remove that enthusiasm. And I wouldn't be like, oh, you need to be careful. You'll get hurt because you do need that certain element of wanting to get better and wanting to push yourself as well. But trying to instill that into people of like, if you build a really good foundation, you could potentially miss a lot of roadblocks along the way and have a clearer path to being able to achieve your goals faster for one, but yet not have these setbacks that really demotivate you like any I don't know about yourself but anytime I did get injured immediately the diet went out the window I didn't care about anything anymore and it was like I immediately was like well i might as well have a drink this weekend then and yeah meh I'll maybe have a couple of cigarettes and you know sure can't train the way I want to so I don't really need to worry at the minute whenever I get back to it all you know knock it all in the head again and the more frequently that I did get injured I just kept falling back into those old habits again so yeah it's trying to

03:54.71
Tom Morrison
make people feel confident that they're going to do stuff that they won't need to do forever. So you don't need to stretch forever and you don't need to be careful forever. You need to lay a strong foundation that can be built on. And it doesn't take that long to do once you know what the right path is.

04:08.02
nextlevelguypodcast
So when you think back to that young Tom, that, you know, the, the devier, the suave version of Tom, that's still there, like we see in front of us, what, what was it that you were chasing then?

04:15.46
Tom Morrison
A little bit.

04:19.25
nextlevelguypodcast
you know, like, were you more, do we tie up in our self-worth as much as achieving the goals? Is it becoming strong, something that we need because it's a rite of passage, do you think?

04:31.51
Tom Morrison
for me, because I spent my entire youth like avoiding fitness like the plague, you know, I just, I had no interest whatsoever. I wanted to play heavy metal and be a rock star. And people that went to the gym to me were weirdos.

04:43.87
Tom Morrison
And was like, why would you want to do that? And then i just, I got quite overweight in my mid twenties and I thought, well, i'm going to lose some weight here. And I just bought an exercise bike and just started doing sit-ups every day.

04:54.70
Tom Morrison
And that's what I thought was going to do it. And then i don't know what

04:57.25
nextlevelguypodcast
If only, yeah.

04:58.52
Tom Morrison
Yeah, I know. I got into the UFC, the Ultimate Fighting Championship a lot, and I was like watching that going, this is cool.

05:04.46
nextlevelguypodcast
Oh.

05:06.04
Tom Morrison
Like, this isn't like the computer games. This is real life stuff. This is amazing. So I found the martial arts gym, and I went there, and first lesson, didn't know my arm from my elbow and anything, and felt so confused and was like, but seeing these guys doing this stuff, I was like, this is amazing.

05:22.57
Tom Morrison
i can Am I allowed to learn this? So that was kind of my my inspiration of like, hang on, I want to be the guy from the computer games. I want to be jumping around and doing spin kicks and doing all the cool moves and stuff. So that was really like, it was a complete lifestyle change to me. And it was for the first time in my life, apart from guitar, like a guitar, when I started learning guitar, I wanted to be better than anybody. So I would have practiced for like five to like seven hours a day. And I'm not even exaggerating. I would have practiced that long. And I took that same enthusiasm for wanting to catch up essentially into training. So you would have seen me there at the gym. as Soon as I finished work, I was bang at the gym at quarter to six, waiting for the first class to start. I did the first class strength conditioning. And then the next class was martial arts beginners. So I jumped in there, did the beginners classes, did that for months until I was allowed to go to the intermediate classes. And then I started getting to a point where I was like training for four hours in the evening and finishing up with sparring martial arts in the evening. And I was like loving life. And it was just,

06:21.14
Tom Morrison
I just couldn't believe how different I felt. And then, you know, my physical form changed. I started to look fitter, look leaner. And i thought I'm really onto something here. And then within that year, just everything started to hurt and it started to be all taken away from me.

06:36.44
nextlevelguypodcast
Because it's certainly a horrible feeling. to and i was doing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. And you know you go in and I can deadlift this. I can take on the world. i' I'm tough. And then they say, put your knees over your head.

06:47.67
nextlevelguypodcast
Like, you're doing practice roll.

06:48.31
Tom Morrison
Yeah.

06:49.21
nextlevelguypodcast
you're like, sorry, what? And your body just goes, no.

06:50.55
Tom Morrison
yeah

06:52.44
nextlevelguypodcast
You're stiff.

06:52.81
Tom Morrison
Yeah.

06:53.04
nextlevelguypodcast
You're sore. You're agony. you know You see the guys, they have like six packs on six packs, but they can barely get out the car without a 10-minute warm-up. what What did that do to you? Like what version of you needed to die before you kind of went, oh, I need to get into shape. I need to stop making mobility this dirty secret.

07:13.91
Tom Morrison
It was it like, I didn't know at the time what was holding me back. I just thought, oh, my ground game is not good. Like I couldn't get into the position for triangles and stuff like that. You know, triangle chokes when you're trying to wrap your legs around someone's head essentially, and you need to put your own knee over your own foot. And I just could not get into that position. And I was like, ah that's just stupid technique. I can't do that. But I was secretly getting more and more frustrated. Like, why is this guy that's only started can do this and I can't do it. So that kind of spurred me on a little to start stretching a little. to start um just trying to improve my fight game essentially but it started to carry over as well whenever the gym i was training in it was at the start just kind of general bodybuilding kind of training and mixed with fighting training mixed with we just dead lifted our faces off basically it was great and every every week was one rep max week and uh we just hammered ourselves and it was it was such a fun time in my life almost

08:08.82
Tom Morrison
Not knowing about proper periodization and stuff with training and things. Because I was just like, where's the heavy thing? Let me lift it. You lifted what? Right. Give me a go. And we just went at it. And it was so much fun. um But yet when we started into Olympic weightlifting, it requires a ton of mobility. And so I came across this thing called an overhead squat. Where have to be able to hold a barbell above your head and do a squat with it.

08:31.27
Tom Morrison
And I moved about two inches down and I was like, ah, my shoulders, ah, my back. I can't move. what I can't even do this with the training bar, like a 15 kilo bar and I can't do this movement. what was What's going on? And my friends that were more flexible were able to get down to these positions and I was raging. I was like, this is not, i'm I can deadlift more than them. I'm stronger than them. This isn't right. So that kind of really spurred me on into trying to improve my squat mobility at first. I kind of went out of the wrong way. I went from zero stretching to wrapping bands around myself and foam rolling for like 40 minutes and shoving myself into positions without any stability whatsoever. so that was kind of my first mistake. And my first introduction into the mobility world was that full on self-massage and really deep passive stretches and trying to shove yourself into yoga positions that I just wasn't ready for. So my knees started to hurt even more. My back started to hurt even more. And I started to pick up even more injuries, even though to me back then I was doing all of the right things and it just felt so unfair. So that was my first kind of mistake that I made.

09:35.99
nextlevelguypodcast
So what was that young Tom like, you know, like what was your kind of day job? Cause I've seen you talk about how you hated your day job at that point. And you know, you've said about how playing the guitar basically keeps you in that position that just makes the the worst posture possible.

09:50.52
nextlevelguypodcast
Were you doing all the wrong stuff at that point? What was, what were you doing in a day to day world that was really not helping your mobility, your ability to move like we should?

10:00.79
Tom Morrison
Yeah. On top of that. So I also worked in a batting office at the time. um So I was just sitting for eight, nine hours a day, just taking bets all day for people and just working at the till and very rarely had to get up from the chair whatsoever.

10:11.21
nextlevelguypodcast
Mm-hmm.

10:15.51
Tom Morrison
Like I sat beside the printer. So if I printed something, I could just grab it from beside me and there's just, everything was based around not needing to move whatsoever. So that my, my upper back was getting more and more locked up.

10:27.44
Tom Morrison
My hips were getting locked up and then, yeah, I tried to combine that with then after sitting all day to try and go to a gym and jump around like an idiot. And, uh, it just did not go well. So, um, the best thing I ever learned from that was like, even if you do have a job that does require to sit a lot, if you get up first thing in the morning and just give yourself five minutes of movement and just get really deep into your joints, it is such a helpful thing to help you throughout the day.

10:51.77
Tom Morrison
So that if you do train later on in the day, you're able to actually jump in and's and it's not like the first time you've moved all day. So. A lot of us don't realize now how little we move with and with our phones now and streaming services.

11:03.87
Tom Morrison
I always say like you don't even have to get off the sofa to put a DVD in anymore. You just push the button while saying that you've got your subscription that you pay for and then you have to pay for the thing that you want to watch on the subscription as well.

11:15.11
Tom Morrison
Then you get to watch it, but you still don't have to get up. So that's kind of the the issue that we all run into. You just move less and less and you don't realize.

11:22.78
nextlevelguypodcast
Because that is the thing. We could get dates sent to your house. We can get food sent your You barely need to move at all.

11:28.73
Tom Morrison
Yeah.

11:28.95
nextlevelguypodcast
is Is that the problem with a lot of guys is that we concentrate on that sort of tough side of life. But like you've said in other interviews where are we're not broken. Our bodies are just confused. We just haven't got it used to moving in particular ways or understanding the patterns we need it to do. How did it help changing that site of we can't fix you, we just need to tidy up the patterns and get you moving back to the way you should be?

11:58.33
Tom Morrison
Yeah, it's this kind of, if you're not moving your joints fully and you're not doing that regularly, and then you go to the gym and you're trying to shove yourself down into deep squats with heavy weights, and the only time you're actually moving is with the weights, it's just too much. You know, you can't expect something to be able to move properly if you haven't been doing gentle work with it first so it's just that kind of making the mobility aspect of it a bit more important to you because a lot of people will get obsessed with like their deadlift form and you know and on how their squat form maybe it looks and stuff but nobody really looks to see like is their hips moving the same side to side or you know how their ankle flexibility is side to side like are you twisting when you squat all of this kind of stuff so it's so important to

12:40.38
Tom Morrison
first thing in the day especially is get the joints moving like joints because that's what they want to do

12:44.60
nextlevelguypodcast
Thank you.

12:45.85
Tom Morrison
And that's what actually allows you to do the fun stuff. So the people that i the the kind of first thing that was highlighted to me was the ones that did the traditional martial arts, like the proper, like Kung Fu stuff. They were doing their forms for their martial arts. So they were doing deep Cossack squats. They were having to get into long lunge positions and hold them in really deep positions. So they were constantly getting their joints moving fully and working on their stability at the same time. Anytime we took those same guys from the mat over to the strength and conditioning part, it was like, here, try this overhead squat.

13:17.21
Tom Morrison
And they just could do it right away. Never seen it before. Just lift the bar and even be able to put weight on it. And me as a coach back then, i was like, no no no, no, no. You can't, you can't put weight on that. night You'll hurt yourself. and Never done it before. And these guys were looking at me going, this isn't hard for me.

13:31.22
Tom Morrison
and I was just like, are you able to do this right away? It's just, it doesn't make any sense. And what I know now is that a lot of traditional martial arts is what, what MMA misses out on now is the traditional martial arts are essentially the forms and the catas and all that other stuff, they're to reset your body. They're to help you to recover from the punishment of training.

13:51.15
Tom Morrison
Whereas all we do now, especially in MMA, is the punishment and there's no side to it. So it's so important to try and bring that aspect in. So that's kind of what I try to do with my work is the program I designed, the Simplistic Mobility Method, that to me is like the human body's form. So it's if you do that regularly, it's like you're greasing the groove, your you're You're dusting your corners. You're making sure nothing's left out. And then that's ultimately how you can basically do anything that you want to, whether it be running, whether it be CrossFit, and MMA, whatever. If your joints are moving properly, spine's moving properly, you're going to run into lot less problems.

14:26.36
nextlevelguypodcast
Because the more I look into your work, the more I see it as like mobility, longevity, flexibility, health. It's almost like a love language to yourself. You know, you're saying, I'm going to be here for my kids. to be here to get out of the car when I want to go up flight steps without breathing out my hours. You know, I want to be here for my future self, partner, and kids.

14:45.94
nextlevelguypodcast
Is that a fair way of looking at we need to get guys to understand that this isn't just that five minutes annoyance that you do at the start of a class. This will keep you fit for life.

14:55.70
Tom Morrison
Yeah. Yeah. you You just don't realize how much things can catch up on you. So I, in the weirdest way, almost see it as fortunate that I got as badly injured as I did when I was so young, because the, the warning signs that I got and the pain I was getting,

15:13.02
Tom Morrison
I just rested every time it happened and was like, well, when it goes away, I'll get back to training. I never tried to fix myself. And the more I did that, the longer those rests got and the more severe each injury started to get as well. And from knowing what I know nig there could have been a point where if, if I hadn't injured myself as badly as I did, I probably just would have went, ah, you know what? This isn't for me. Maybe, you know, because I would have just been like, I would have accepted a level of normal pain and just been like, ah, well, you know, i guess I can't do this, but because I injured my back so badly and couldn't walk and put any weight on my left leg. I was like, I don't want to live like this. I can't even make a cup of coffee without pain. Like i wake up in the morning, I'm in pain. I can't walk down the stairs. um My wife's pregnant. How am I going to support her? How am I going hold a child?

15:57.83
Tom Morrison
How am I going to play with my child? What am I supposed to do here? And the fear from that, was the thing that triggered me to actually fix it. And I don't like seeing people get to that stage.

16:05.99
nextlevelguypodcast
Absolutely.

16:07.93
Tom Morrison
I want to try and get in there and be like, no, no, look, you're getting a bit of back pain now. You're getting a bit of knee pain now, but if you don't address it, it can get much worse and you don't realize how horrible your life can be.

16:19.44
Tom Morrison
So if you've ever seen any of my content, i'm quite a silly person, a happy person and, you know, jump around and do silly things. And, you know, I'm so positive, but if you had to see me then when I was at my worst, like,

16:30.07
Tom Morrison
You couldn't be around me. I wasn't a nice person to speak to. you I would have snapped at you. I was angry. I was angry at people for feeling okay. It was like, how dare other people feel okay. Look at all them people in the gym being able train and I can't do it. That's not fair. And I was just such a resentful person and it was because of pain. um I was scared. i thought it was going to be that way forever. And Now I meet people in their 50s and 60s that maybe picked up injuries like I did before I got badly injured in their 30s and they just stopped training and they didn't play with their kids and they didn't maybe pursue a career that they wanted to do because they were like, I can't do that because of my back or I can't do that because of.

17:09.94
Tom Morrison
you know, X, Y, and Z, and they held themselves back.

17:12.53
nextlevelguypodcast
Hmm.

17:12.78
Tom Morrison
And then after working with them for a few months, they're like, I feel hundred percent. I felt, I feel better than I even did in my twenties. Like this is incredible. And it's those lost years that I am like, they genuinely upset me when someone's telling me their story.

17:27.42
Tom Morrison
it's like, they didn't have to live their life in the way that they did. So that's why it's such a mission to me now to share this to so many people, because I'm It can just happen and you don't think it ever will, but it does. It really does. And pain is an awful, awful thing.

17:42.91
nextlevelguypodcast
Because that's something that really drew me to to your your content. as As much as I love like you as a personality, I love the fact that you know you you've talk about going through the reps, the the disc issues, the pain, and the hurt, et cetera. You always see everybody's highlight story. You never see that thing of them but hobbling down the steps and barely being able to walk and can barely squat down and almost crapping themselves.

18:04.63
Tom Morrison
Yeah.

18:08.03
nextlevelguypodcast
You know, you never see these kind of things because you've said the best injury is the one that doesn't ever happen. But men try to train at 25, like they forget they're going to 45 and the debt collector will come for them.

18:13.86
Tom Morrison
Yeah.

18:20.22
nextlevelguypodcast
Why? How do we explain that to men? Because a lot of them will hide their... You know, they don't want to look at lacrosse balls, foam rollers. You know, they'd rather show you their sex toy collection than their like the rehabilitation toys.

18:34.00
nextlevelguypodcast
That's came out wrong. how How can we get people to understand that pain is feedback? It's not a betrayal as such.

18:44.09
Tom Morrison
Yeah, it's it's trying to wrap it into into their goals. And, you know, there's no logical way that I see now of, look, if I don't make your body work better as a body, there's no way it can't benefit your training. It means you'll recover better. It means you're going to feel stronger. You know, if...

19:02.58
Tom Morrison
If your joints don't feel safe, you can't produce your own level of true strength. There's some people that I've given instant PRs to with like their shoulder press just from opening their upper back and getting their shoulders stabilized in a warmup.

19:16.57
Tom Morrison
And they're like, they can't believe it. Or people that have had like one really bad shoulder for a long time. And we've done a few exercises with them and just got the joint to feel safe. And their nip in their shoulders went away immediately. And they've been able to just press a heavy weight. And it's it's just mind blowing. But to me, it's like, well, yeah, you you take the handbrake off. If the joints feel safe, the handbrake comes off. You can actually use your own true strength. I didn't make you stronger. That strength was already there. I just took away the handbrake essentially because I made the joint feel safe.

19:45.76
Tom Morrison
So people are just, if I said to you right now, I don't want you to bend your elbow past 90 degrees for like six months. You'd look at me like I was crazy.

19:57.72
Tom Morrison
Yet so many people are doing that with their hips and with their knees and with their ankles and their neck.

19:58.06
nextlevelguypodcast
Mm-hmm.

20:02.87
Tom Morrison
They're not like, when's the last time you fully turned your head left, right, up, down, side to side, as far as you could to see what your range of motion is like. You just don't think to check this stuff. And, you know, unless you're crossing the road, you don't really have a reason to turn your head. You know, it it has to be made a part of your life that you're just flossing your joints. You're just making sure things are moving well. And that's the stuff that's going to make you stronger. And how I try to tie that in with people is like, look, you've had a couple of setbacks, you've had a couple injuries. Do you want to have like two years of amazing training that you don't need to take any breaks off and really see what your body's properly capable of?

20:37.46
Tom Morrison
Let's do this mobility work. Let's fix things first, and then we'll go from there, you know, and it's just such a sensible thing to do, especially for competitive athletes. After a competition, when you come back into the gym, you don't just go right back to your one rep maxes again. Start off with the mobility phase, then go into your building muscle phase, get your reps in, then go into your strength phase. And then when it's coming back up to the next competition, that's when you want to start pushing the numbers again. so For a lot of people, especially you don't have coaches, you kind of just be like, well, I lifted that heavy last week. I should be able to lift more this week. It just doesn't work like that, you know? So it's it's all about getting the the idea of the foundation and what it can do for someone, getting someone excited about that. That's what I try to do.

21:17.98
nextlevelguypodcast
So how do you get them into that mindset? Because a lot of guys will take pain personally, but a lot of them will use it almost like a badge of honor. You know, like I used to go to the gym and I used to lift X, Y, Z. You know, I can't bend down and tie my own shoelaces, but I used to do this kind of thing. How do you make somebody understand and get them excited in that sense?

21:39.48
Tom Morrison
It's kind of so like the one of the reasons I post like silly videos of me doing mad stuff and all is just literally to be like, look, there's, there's more stuff out there. And, you know, I don't lift as heavy now as I did when I was in my early thirties, but I still feel awesome. I'm still learning new things. And, you know, I focus more on like the gymnastics side of things and learning new skills. So a lot of people, if you just ever, if you only ever squatted and benched and deadlift, You just think, well, that's what I do when I go to the gym. That's what everybody does. And it's like, it's not really. There's so many other things out there, you know, like the gymnastics rings and, you know, learning how to do fun bodyweight movements, animal movements, and combining that with your kind of bodybuilding techniques. And yeah, still doing the lifts that you enjoy too, but just having a more complete program that respects how your body moves more.

22:27.00
Tom Morrison
It just, it gives you a different level of energy. It really does, you know, because a lot of really hard training drains your body. Whereas when I train now, I like to feel like it's given me energy. I don't like to leave the gym now feeling like I'm completely beat up and I need three days sleep to catch up, you know? So it's just trying to have that mindset shift of, yeah, have if you've accomplished stuff that you wanted to do in your past,

22:49.56
Tom Morrison
Like think more about longevity. Think more about being able to still train in your fifties and sixties and seventies rather than just keep trying to push yourself into the ground essentially. So it's just a, it's a mindset shift.

23:01.27
nextlevelguypodcast
And you're almost glad now when you think back, you know, that you started late, so you didn't have these kind of preconceived notions of chasing PRs just because your ego needed it as much like when you were really young and you completely screwed yourself. You know you did get hurt. So now you can sort of empathize with the people you're coaching that you get to see because you've lived the story that you get to teach the story, that help others find their root path.

23:28.86
Tom Morrison
Yeah, well, I did go through my chasing PRs phase. So that was the funniest thing because I was first going through it and like trying to hit these numbers and things, but my mobility was holding me back. I kept forcing myself to try and get these heavier squat numbers and wanted to hit a snatch and a clean and jerk PR and all this here stuff. And after I got really badly injured over the course of a year, it took me to get fully pain free again.

23:50.46
Tom Morrison
When I started feeling like I wanted to start training again, i was like, well, you know, I'm just going to be careful now. i And i started training and my numbers crept up faster than they ever did. And I wasn't sore the next day. When I squatted, my hips felt awesome. Like I felt my quads, my adductors, my hamstrings, my glutes all equally. When I used to squat, I used to have knee pain and back pain the next day. And I thought that was normal. But after fixing myself, when I got back to training, I surpassed all of my original numbers faster than I ever had before. So

24:23.64
Tom Morrison
ah To me, I was like, hang on, I'm onto something here. This is, this is different. And yeah, like I said, the recovery as well it was so much better. Cause imagine if you're always compensating, and it's draining, it hurts your joints and it's more tiring on you. Whereas if you move efficiently all of the time, your joints are going to be a lot happier. Your muscles are going to be a lot happier and you're not going to feel beat up all of the time as well. So after I train now,

24:47.25
Tom Morrison
I'll generally finish with full range of motion joint movements. So I don't actually do deep stretches at all anymore, like any type of you know, like really deep yoga stretches or like that. When I finish my training sessions, I would have a resistance band and I would do movements from my shoulders and full ranges of motion, and I would do like different lunge variations.

25:04.70
Tom Morrison
So like extra training. So it's, you know, you're getting stronger, but you're also moving the joints respectfully as well. So yeah for me then i came back and surpassed all my ah prs i started doing just for fun i would have done crossfit workouts like five in a row back to back with my friend he would come around on like a thursday morning yeah and we would just be like right what was the crossfit open for 2016 or whatever i was like okay this this this and this right okay and would set up all the barbells and the skipping ropes and the dumbbells and to have the whole gym to ourselves we're like right let's go timer on And for like an hour and a half, we would do these workouts back to back and just try and hammer each other essentially.

25:21.77
nextlevelguypodcast
cheese

25:41.56
Tom Morrison
And i felt great. And I was like, I couldn't believe the difference in how my body can feel from training, just from going through that period of having to fix myself. You know, and like it did take me a year, but I don't know what I know now back then. So that's why I think it took me a much longer. I think I could have done it much faster if I hadn't known what I know now.

25:59.51
nextlevelguypodcast
Because I've seen you talk about how like when you had your and MRI, it came after you were pain-free. I think it was a year after after the pain went.

26:06.40
Tom Morrison
Mm-hmm.

26:08.28
nextlevelguypodcast
What would have you changed, do you think, and you know if you look at it now, that if that scan had come first, You know, if you'd been told immediately how bad the the damage was, would you have changed? Or are you almost glad in a way that our and NHS is slow to catch up? We, you know, yeah gave you that ability to learn this for yourself and find out what worked.

26:31.00
Tom Morrison
It was the weirdest thing. Like if I had a read that um MRI, when I had the worst pain I was in, you wouldn't be talking to me now. Like I would have stayed in that bat in office. I would have stopped coaching and I would have stopped training altogether. I would have been living off painkillers.

26:45.23
Tom Morrison
Um, think the trickiest thing was that I was going to the doctor and like, I was still able to walk into the doctor's office, even though I wasn't intense pain and,

26:56.95
Tom Morrison
I think I maybe downplayed it a bit too much or something. I was like, look, no, i'm I'm really sore all the time. And, you know, rather than saying, you know, like when I wake up in the morning, I can't bear the weight on my own leg. Like if you offered to cut my leg off, I would take you up on that.

27:09.55
Tom Morrison
I never really said any that to the doctor.

27:09.72
nextlevelguypodcast
Yeah.

27:11.31
Tom Morrison
So I think because I was so young, they were kind of like, ah, it's back pain. It'll go away. And, you know, like I said, I was just really playing it down. So that's why it took the year for me to get my um MRI scan.

27:22.50
Tom Morrison
Um, now, Saying that, here's here's a side tangent for you. and So the initial one that I got was the L4, L5 disc protrusion and the L5 S1 disc extrusion and the impinging on the S1 nerve root.

27:35.58
Tom Morrison
And so that was kind of why my all my symptoms were done on left side. i can't feel my left glute. I had dropped foot in my left foot, so I couldn't lift my foot up, which um I never even bothered to to tell the doctor about. I just dragged my foot behind me for a few weeks. eventually it did clear up. I was very lucky that it did clear up itself. and But yeah, i I think because I downplayed my symptoms to the doctor, that's why it took so long. But yeah, when I went to get it, the morning that I went for my MRI scan, I deadlifted 200 kg that morning. And then I got my appointment with the doctor, see them on like the Wednesday. And they were like, oh, it says here, Mr. Morrison, you're ah you're a personal trainer.

28:15.53
Tom Morrison
You're going to need to think of a career change because These readings aren't very good and you're going to need be careful. You shouldn't be lifting weights all this here kind of stuff. I was standing there going, I'm fine.

28:26.13
Tom Morrison
I'm doing CrossFit later. Like, are you sure you've got the right and MRI scan? and And that's what really set me on this path of going, well, hang on. this doesn't make any sense.

28:36.27
Tom Morrison
How could I possibly have structural injuries like that? Like I got my MRI scan completely, 100% pain-free. I'm moving better than I did in my teens. Like this doesn't make any sense. And that's when I started to look into the the correlation between structural injuries and pain. And there isn't one.

28:52.50
Tom Morrison
People can have mangled spines and be totally pain-free. People can have perfect looking spines and MRI scans and barely be able to stand up straight.

28:58.73
nextlevelguypodcast
Mm-hm.

28:59.46
Tom Morrison
So I was like, oh, hang on, maybe there's more to pain than people seem to understand. And then now, so 10 years later, last, um actually it must be near tear two years ago Anyway, whatever, around 10 years later, i got a bad pain in my hip and I thought, oh oh, maybe because of my nerve impingement, I haven't been able to feel my glute properly for a few years. Maybe my hips actually starting to wear down. So I thought, just out of the interest because of what I do, i went and got updated MRI scans. And because it hurt my neck really badly in the past as well, and my shoulder, and I thought I'm going to get them done just as well. So I paid privately to get all new MRI scans done. And what came back was that there's like there was like little bone growths in my hips and like nothing that bad, nothing too bad to work with. But it started to show that I actually have arthritis in my spine. So inflammatory arthritis had been attacking my spine. So you could see that like there was bits that had been attacked and broken down and tried to heal up again. And my initial...

29:59.55
Tom Morrison
L5 extrusion has now become a protrusion. So it's improved, but two levels above that. So I now have four small lumbar herniations. So my spine is just constantly trying to straighten.

30:11.81
Tom Morrison
It's losing its curves and breaking down.

30:12.42
nextlevelguypodcast
And.

30:13.29
Tom Morrison
So I have ankylosing spondylitis. So I got the gene test for that. So even though i have that for the last 10 years, I've been completely pain-free and have no symptoms even standing here now talking to you.

30:24.74
Tom Morrison
So my um MRI scan reads like someone that's degenerative of all kinds with so much damage, yet I'm totally fine.

30:33.99
nextlevelguypodcast
I love that part of your story was like, most guys are probably going, yeah, I would go on deadlift first before I go to the doctor. you know get Get the PR in and then go to the doctor.

30:44.41
nextlevelguypodcast
ah love for that's how that's our kind of mindset. Do you think that's ah the problem, with guys, is we'd rather... you know like Rather than show that five-minute awakeness, we'd rather hide or not o admit to what we're saying. you know We'd rather not tell the full story or really let ourselves feel that self-analysis and going, oh, that's sore. Oh, that's twisted. I can't move that. I can't change that.

31:09.94
Tom Morrison
Yeah, I think especially for men, you just, you don't want to appear weak, you know, and there's so many times as well, while I was at my worst, you know, I wouldn't speak to my wife about anything as well. And, you know, she helped get me through it initially when it first happened.

31:25.67
Tom Morrison
It was one morning I came down the stairs, and like it took me forever to get out of bed and turn and twist and then forever to get to the land and and then like, 10 full minutes just to walk down the stairs one step at a time while nearly crying. and I was just standing in the kitchen and she came in and just said to me, what's wrong?

31:40.80
Tom Morrison
And I just said, I wish I hadn't woke up this morning. I can't live like this anymore. And, you that was one of the only times I really broke down at her and it was awful.

31:48.68
nextlevelguypodcast
Hmm.

31:50.38
Tom Morrison
You know, there was like a weird relief, but then I was also embarrassed at the same time of, you know, you know, I want to be the strong husband that provides. And i this is just, a word that I do not use lightly at all.

32:04.20
Tom Morrison
Like I hate this word. And I think it's the most awful thing you can call someone is pathetic to call someone pathetic. But that's how I felt. I felt pathetic. And like, I just didn't want to live anymore because I just felt useless. Like I couldn't serve anybody. And you know, how could i provide for a family if this is the way i was like, you know, and like I was shouting at my wife, you know, she was offering to help me like with my shoes and my socks and stuff. And I was like, no, get away from me, get away from me. And I would have just, you know, grit my teeth and cried through it to try and get myself dressed in the morning. So, you know, there's a big thing of pride there, I think. And yeah, it's just such embarrassment, I think.

32:41.12
Tom Morrison
And you just don't want to admit to anybody that you're weak, essentially, but it can happen.

32:46.36
nextlevelguypodcast
And it's amazing how quickly it can happen. You know, it's like how you can go from being the highs in the gym to suddenly barely being able to move without almost crying or worse.

32:57.05
Tom Morrison
Yeah.

32:57.37
nextlevelguypodcast
What did being that level of pain teach you, you know, that success never could? What did it really, you know, like, because a lot of guys are sitting there going, yeah, I've got bit an ache, but it's not that bad. You know I'm not like crawling out of bed kind of stage, but what, what,

33:13.46
nextlevelguypodcast
Do we need to know about pain or understand about that to you know to really say, fix it now or you're going to get screwed later on?

33:24.63
Tom Morrison
There's a level of, like, I'm sure you heard many times from many people before that people say, like, everything's connected. You do not realize just how connected things are until your entire body screams at you. Anytime you try to move something, if I move my knee and ever so slightly, I felt how that was connected to my lower back and my hip. If i turned my head a certain way, could feel how my lower back would actually be involved in that motion. Every time I took a step, I felt how the the muscles shifted from one side of the body to the other side of the body being on. And I just couldn't believe how much everything affected everything else. But now I've turned that around. Like I have amazing body awareness. I can fire any muscle I want to at any point. I'm able to like to the point of I want to do a muscle activation drill. I can almost immediately make myself cramp because I'm able to put so much into it. And it's just something I never would have learned if it wasn't for the pain. So pain is the ultimate teacher.

34:24.06
Tom Morrison
And even now, the weirdest thing is, so my nerve impingement is to my left side. But my balance, there was the side that I had the most extreme pain on, but my balance is much better on my left leg.

34:35.15
nextlevelguypodcast
Thank you.

34:35.48
Tom Morrison
So even the foot that went numb for me and I couldn't move and the glute that's significantly smaller than the other one, that's the side that had the most pain. And that's actually the side that I could balance all day long on and do all kinds of mad, crazy stuff, like even single leg deadlift, 100 kg on that leg.

34:50.91
Tom Morrison
for three reps and like, yeah. And it's just like pain taught me that stuff of how to keep things connected. And it's just, like i said, nothing I could have learned if I hadn't went through that.

35:01.91
nextlevelguypodcast
Because Jenny has hypermobility syndrome where our body kind of works against the the the normal route it should go. Did that also help because you saw you had the you built it as much for her as yourself that you saw your pain, but you also understood how the body can actually work in the exact opposite way of what most people would come to you for?

35:26.65
Tom Morrison
Yeah, so um Jenny, whenever she moved here, um she joined the gym that I was in and she could do all kinds of mad, crazy yoga stuff and everything. severely