108: Playing Rugby at 54: How to Heal Naturally & Stay Active for Life

Dr. Aaron Tressler was a sickly child who experienced several injuries while playing sports as a young man. Growing up in Pennsylvania with wonderful parents, Aaron found his destiny when one of his baseball teammates introduced him to a chiropractor. Aaron’s healing results through the science of chiropractic care made such an impact on Aaron that he eventually became a chiropractor himself, thus launching his dynamic career. 

Today, Aaron is a chiropractor, entrepreneur, and health expert of 30 years. Owner of In8Life – Tressler Chiropractic, he specializes in revitalizing life to the fullest naturally with chiropractic care, nutrition, exercise, and mental strength. 

As the host of the Making Pittsburgh Healthy podcast, it is his goal to educate, inspire, and provide practical application of natural health options in his community. 

He is also the author of 5 books, a Pennsylvania State Chiropractic board member, a coach, and a weight loss specialist. 

Suffering through childhood sickness and many severe injuries: 2 rotator cuff tears, broken ribs 3x, torn medial meniscus, and broken scapula at age 49, Dr. Tressler is living proof that the body has an innate healing ability as he still plays rugby at age 54.

In this podcast, we cover: 

• How chiropractic care heals all types of people—from athletes to sickly homebodies
• How Aaron conquers so many injuries that would force most people to retire from sports or quit active lifestyles
• How Aaron still plays a physically demanding sport like rugby at age 54 (he has played rugby for 30 years off and on)
• How Aaron healed naturally from a broken scapula without surgery or opioids 
• How to develop a healing mindset
• How Aaron uses resistance exercises for healing injuries
• Aaron’s dietary secrets for natural healing

What Type of Chiropractor is Dr. Tressler?

There are many different types of chiropractors, and most people don’t know that fact. So Wade asked Dr. Tressler to describe the methodology he uses with patients.

Again, Aaron looked back at his university days playing rugby, where his philosophy to healing began: hands-on adjusting. Aaron would get banged up regularly playing rough sports like rugby, and he quickly noticed, after trying other techniques, that hands-on adjusting worked best for him.

Aaron also studied nutrition and effective exercise techniques. Along the way, his “faith in the body’s ability to heal” mindset developed, and he began coaching his patients on proper mindset and how important your attitude is to heal. 

Newly married, Aaron’s wife healed from asthma after struggling for 23 years. That encouraged Aaron to continue pursuing his unconventional healing practice? 

As a chiropractor, Aaron also uses x-rays, posture, and alignment to assess a patient’s physical strengths and weaknesses to support and treat each patient.

One “Out-of-the-Box” Method to Healing Injuries More Quickly

Aaron’s secrets to overcoming injuries include adding resistance movements, or weighted exercise, for faster healing. 

This approach is individualized for each person. Usually, when someone is injured, a doctor tells the patient to rest for a long time. Depending on the type of injury, the rest period can be much shorter than you think. 

For example, when Aaron sees a new patient with a broken bone, he tells them, “Okay, this is what I want you to do. You’re going to work out with weights and push them as heavy as you can.” What Aaron does and coaches his patients to do is to work through the pain. First, he helps patients new to weight training discern the difference between injury pain and the usual pain of lifting weights. 

Next, he takes them through daily resistance training where the patient pushes their limits but then backs off when they reach their pain threshold – but only for a few days. The patient should go back to pushing their limits as soon as possible.

Aaron was doing pushups within two months after breaking his scapula when most doctors said he could not do a pushup for a year. Why? Body resistance is the key to quicker healing, according to Aaron. Resistance stimulates the muscle to a deeper level. Combining the weight with movement, or “range-of-motion” enables his patients to return to work after injury much faster than expected. 

Our host Wade enjoyed this conversation, as he has been a fan of chiropractic care for a long time. The testimonials Dr. Aaron shares are astounding—people he has served recovering from injuries in six weeks instead of twelve through counter-intuitive yet effective methods. This episode is a must for anyone suffering from pain or wanting to heal from injury at a faster rate. Be sure to tune in! 

Episode Resources: 

In8Life – Tressler Chiropractic 
Website: www.in8life.com 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/in8life/ 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/in8life/ 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/draarontressler 

Making Pittsburgh Healthy podcast
Website: www.MakingPittsburghHealthy.com
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/groups/makingpittsburghhealthy/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/makingpittsburghhealthy/ 

Free Mini-Course: The Naturally Pain-Free Workshop
www.thepainfreeway.com

Read The Episode Transcript:

Wade Lightheart: Good morning. Good evening. And good afternoon. It's Wade T Lightheart from BiOptimizers with another edition of the awesome health podcast. And today we are going to talk about how to develop a strong belief and mindset to heal naturally. And we have joining us today on the podcast, Dr. Aaron Tressler, who is a chiropractor entrepreneur and health expert of 30 years, owner of innate life Tressler chiropractic. He specializes in revitalizing life to the fullest naturally with chiropractic care, nutrition, exercise, and mental strength. As the host of making Pittsburgh healthy podcast, it is his goal to educate, inspire and provide practical application of natural health options in his community.

 Wade Lightheart: He is also the author of five books member of the Pennsylvania state chiropractic board, a coach and weight loss specialists suffering through childhood sickness and many severe injuries, including two rotator cuff tears, broken ribs, three times torn medial meniscus, and a broken scapula at age 49. Dr. Tressler is living proof that the body has innate healing ability as he still plays rugby at age 54. And if you've ever played rugby, that is definitely a He-Man. It's not a man's sport. It's a He-Man sport. That is a very rough and violent and physical sport. I'm so excited to have you on the podcast today, Dr. Aaron, and welcome to the show. Thanks.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: I am excited to be right. I feel your energy. I have the same energy coming right back at you. This is going to be a high energy show. It's a lot of fun, and I love the name of your podcast. I'm like you better trademark that like, that's the awesome health podcasts like, that's awesome. So I'm excited to be here.

 Wade Lightheart: Thanks so much. So I've been a big fan of chiropractic care for so many years and you know, I think there's a, there's a lot of people I want to dive into that first, before we get into the natural stuff, because chiropractic care, transformed my life. It allowed me to be able to perform physically far beyond my normal career. I believe my capabilities as a guy that's almost 50 now is I think certainly ahead of the game. If you look at most top athletes, they use chiropractic care. You see the NFL guys on the sideline getting corked and the guy adjusting them on the sidelines. And there's a lot of people out there who say, though, Oh, I went to a bad chiropractor that those guys are quacks or whatever. I want to take that right off the table first. And why, what got you into chiropractic care? And why do you feel that it's so important for people's long-term health?

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: And there is a lot of misinformation when I was a kid growing up, we never went to the doctor. If I got hurt, my mom patched me up. Maybe gave me a piece of tissue and said, just get outta here. Totally. So when I was sick, I wet my bed. So I was nine. I had stomach issues in fourth grade, all the way to high school, right. IBS. And back then it was just diarrhea. I had allergies, sinus trouble. So I was living off these over-the-counter meds. One day I been over at camp move. Well, buddy played baseball with me on our team. He went to a chiropractor who adjusted his back to help his foot. When I heard that I'm like, Dave, that's just, that's just weird. But when I couldn't stand up, the pain was excruciating. I was 17 years old as after football season.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: I said, dad, I think we need to go see this chiropractor. Well, I went, he adjusted me, but didn't explain anything. Didn't do any tests take any x-rays I left that day feeling absolutely amazing. I thought he gave me a drug. I mean, I w I'm an ADHD person ever since I could walk, I went home and I slept on a chair for like two hours. I was like, wow, whatever this guy did was cool. But he told me, Aaron, if you're in pain, come back. If not, you're good. Why I was on a pain five years, wait, I didn't have pain. However, I was always sick. Then my dad died at age 50 from a heart attack. And it was a couple years after my dad took me to the chiropractor. Well, that that was I just didn't understand, like what, why would he die at age 50?

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: And kind of a fast forward is years later, my health and phys ed teacher and Florida playing rugby. My back does it again to me, I go through the medical procedures, nothing works, see a chiropractor. He takes an x-ray, shows me in balance and then explains these nerves in your low back. They go and they cause pain, but they also go to your internal organs, like your bowels and your bladder. Boom. I thought you've got to be kidding me. A pinched nerve can cause pain, but a pinched nerve can block organ function. I was blown away and I was looking to get out of teaching. God, God lived my fast. I went right into chiropractic. And you know, when we look at the spine and the nerve system, it's connected to the brain, it just runs everything. It doesn't matter if you believe it or not.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: It's anatomy. And we need to take care of our structure or alignment to optimize our body function or nerve function, which it all ties in. So when I hear, I went to a bad chiropractor, Mike, so what I've been to a bad dentist, I've been to a bad doctor. I've had bad teachers. It doesn't mean you just you've closed the book. That's a, that's a quitter. That's someone that's just making an excuse. You know, if I want to be, well, I will study, train and keep pushing until I find somebody that can help me. And if you had a bad one, let it go, go find a good one. And so I train real hard in my office to be the best and to, to offer the education and the experience that patients really understand why this is so vital. So

 Wade Lightheart: Beautifully said. And I think it's, once again, it's interesting. How so often it happened in my own life, how a complex event or a tragedy or an illness or something often leads so many of the best healers to a career in that field. So as you got into the field as chiropractic, there's a lot of different types of chiropractors. There's soft tissues, there's network, that's kind of the old school crackers. Like how would you classify the way that you go about addressing somebody and whatever challenges they might experience? And what would you say is, you know, your, your branch and your field. Cause I think a lot of people are unaware that there's a whole, just like the medical field has different types of doctors. There's different types of chiropractors, et cetera. What, how would you classify it

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: In school? I was playing rugby. So I played at life university in a very competitive school and I was getting banged up. So I liked the hands-on adjusting. That's just worked best with me. I tried other techniques. They work best with me. And when I got under care there, my back healed and then all my sickness heal. I learned nutrition. I learned how to exercise better and so forth. And the whole mind thing came as I kind of developed these injuries and beliefs through my years of practice. But I saw my wife had had 23 years of asthma get under care and it was gone. And three months I said, we were going to have kids. We're just newly married. Will this work for our kids? Can we keep our kids from getting sick? So I looked at family care, pediatric care the whole way through, but I'm a hands-on guy.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: I look at x-ray and posture and alignment to take in balances or weaknesses and help them support them, improve them. So when I take a post x-ray or post-test, we actually see the x-ray getting better and the alignment getting stronger, if the discs opening up the twist to the spine, realigning it correcting. So I base it. I don't base it on how you feel I'm basing on tests. And especially x-ray to say your x-ray has improved. This is I don't care how you feel. I want you to feel better, but I want the body to function and improve that's via my tests and my x-rays. So when I see that and the patient sees that they realize, Holy crap, I'm I really am getting better. And that happens every day in our office. So that's, that's my line of thing. And I, I do some light stuff.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: I love people that, that work out, take nutrition, but we practice a lot of that here. But the, the key in my office is teaching how important the nurses is inspiring because it's the nerve system that runs your body. And we just neglect. We'd never hear this until like yourself. You know, you find a chiropractor, it changes your viewpoint, and then you start applying it and realize, wow, I can lift better. When I get injured, I heal faster. I don't have permanent injury or scar tissue because I stay adjusted and I take care of my body. This is, this is just crazy. So we kind of cover everything, but I'm more of a hands-on guy. Get in there, let's get the work done and let's do this for life.

 Wade Lightheart: That's great. And I think that, you know, I remember my dad explaining engines to me a long time ago and he said, you know, there's really two problems that go wrong with your engine. It's either gas or fire. And I, you know, as the years have passed in the health industry, it's very similar in the human body. Most of what we learn in school though, is the chemical structure, the gas like how the chemical, but I believe that chiropractic is like the fire, the way the electricity travels up and down through the spine and innervates all the different organs of the body, the muscles of the body. There's some indication that the muscles moving of the muscles actually electrically charges, the organs and vice versa. It's very fascinating this entire field. And I never get tired studying it. I want to dive right into an area that I know is really important when you read your bio is that you've had some significant injuries, certainly to the extent that you would think, how is a guy at 54 playing rugby after all of these injuries. And I think it's related to how you address the naturally. Can you explain to our listeners how you've been able to overcome athletic injuries that would just really just end people's careers. There's half a dozen on your list here. You're still able to play a very physically contact sport when most people are like, you know, trying not to fall down the stairs, like what's going on here.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: Yeah. And that's where my, my process through all these injuries, and I'll explain, this has built it an extremely high level of belief, and that has to come first. If you don't have the belief that you can get well, and you have, you don't have somebody teaching you and, and kind of pulling you up to the, the, you know, holding their arm saying, you know what, we can do this. You can heal. If you don't get the belief, nothing else comes because you won't perform action steps. So in chiropractic school, first time I broke my ribs. It took me about a month or six weeks to actually get back out, running and lifting weights. And then through the years through school, through practice, when I got out of school and moved back to the Pittsburgh area, I didn't know we had rugby. We had a young family, two young kids, and all of a sudden I see a rugby team and I'm like, Oh crap, I gotta play this.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: It's in my blood. So I continued playing for the last bout. I played rugby for about 30 years off and on. And I've had three times, I broke my ribs. And this is an all through rugby. I have a farm and some of it, I just fell on my farm and got hurt, wrote to rotator cuff tears torn meniscus on my knee. And as I was going through these injuries, the one time when I tore my rotator cuff, I was a team captain. We were heading into the playoffs for the first time. Our team with a small team was going to the playoffs. I get hurt by my own guy practice. And they said, how soon can you be back? We got playoffs in about three weeks. I said, give me two weeks and I'll be back. And I couldn't wait. I couldn't lift my arm from my side.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: It was probably a grade two tear that would have probably said surgery. And I just blocked it. I said, I've healed from all these other things. All these previous injury, small injuries, I'm going to heal from it. So immediately as in my practice, I would take a two pound weight, three pound weight bands, and just do thousands of repetitions. Every day I was getting adjusted. So my nerves, traveling to my shoulder, had a hundred percent output to generate healing. I eat a very clean healthy diet, no inflammation, no sugar took some supplements. And I just, I knew if you asked me, are you going to play? There was no doubt. I'm like, yeah, give me two weeks. And I'll, I'll play two weeks. I went out, we played, I couldn't hit with that shoulder, but I could pass, run through everything. And we went into the playoffs.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: We ended up losing in the playoffs, but I played the season. And at that point I'm like, wow. I just told a rotator cuff in two weeks. This is, this is unheard of. So I started to step away from traditional medical thinking, physical therapy thinking. And there's been a lot of evolved over the last 10, 20 years where it takes six to eight weeks. Keep it in a sling. Don't do anything. Be gentle. Don't don't irritate it, go home. Rest. Mine was just the opposite. I'm like son of a gun. I'm going to move. And I'm going to push myself to the very limit every day. And I'm going to believe. And I think if I didn't have the belief, nothing would have transpired this way and then I can heal. So then a few years later, I break my ribs on my farm. I walk in the house and again, I'm holding my chest and my wife, what happened?

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: I broke my ribs. I said, get me an ice bag. She goes, Oh God. I said, well, I got rugby in two weeks on. We were kicking off the season. She goes, not again, please. I mean, she's seen me live through these. I said, Oh yeah, I used it. Exercise movement. Two weeks played the first game. I was fun. So as I'm seeing this play out in my life, I realized the body is more capable to heal than we ever imagined, but we have to have the belief and we have to have very strong action steps. I've worked through pain. I'm sure you understand this. I mean, you've had pain and problems in your life. You worked through it because

 Wade Lightheart: A little shoulder, I got a shoulder tweak right now. And that's exactly what I'm doing. I'm, I'm, I'm working through it. You know, it's just like a go in and work around it. I was messing around with my weights and my bands is like, okay, how much movement can I get in this shoulder? And you know, it's starting to get better.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: It's and it's one of those things that you may not be able to do a shoulder press, but you can do a lateral row or, or a, a row or chest. So you do what you can. But when you, you know, you can do it, you do it to a max. I mean, I was doing thousands of repetitions a day. So then five years ago, 49 a model on a bike ride. My tire comes off. I was going about 30 miles an hour down a Hill. I hit right down on my, my right side of my head, my shoulder and the pain was I wanted to die. I w we took me to the hospital and my, my wife's like, you sure you want to go to the hospital? Cause I hate going to the hospital. I'm like this time I have to, they want to put me on opioids.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: And I said, absolutely not. I said, are you crazy? And totally, I said, I I'll do some ibuprofen, whatever it takes, but I'm not. So that day I go home, I have a friend come to my house. He adjusts my neck immediately. I want to get nerve flow flowing. The next day the surgeon says no surgery, which I had already in my mind that I wasn't doing surgery. I was going to heal. I said, can I get it out of the sling? Am I allowed to use this? He said, yeah, absolutely. It's just, his advice was just, don't do a pull-up. And I said, that's bad advice because I can't even lift my arm. I mean, what kind of advice is that? So I kind of closed his book and his recommendations. And I said, let me look this up online. So I looked online prognosis for anyone breaking a scapula, really bad news.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: It's going to take up to a year to heal. It may take a year to do a pushup. I was reading all these horror stories. And again, I closed the, the computer and I said, this isn't their story. This is my story. This isn't their body. This is my body. I believe I can heal the next day. And as I was reading the Bible, God confirmed that I'm going to be, I'm going to be strong. And I told my wife, I said, honey, I'm playing rugby again. And I'm not even out of the sling. This is day two pain is excruciating. She goes, are you insane? I said, maybe I am, but I'm going to prove to you, the, my kids. I have five kids. My patients that the body can heal. I've done it before I'm doing it. So I went on a journey and my mind was first.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: I trained my mind. Every day I meditated on I'm healing. I saw myself strong. I saw myself running and tackling lifting weights. I started training. I started getting my arm out of the sling. I did everything left-handed I couldn't use my right arm. So I lifted as heavy as I can. Could left-handed cause that supplies, energy to the opposite side, through the nervous system, I did legs. I sort of walked. I started jogging with a sling two months. I ran up a 5k race with my son. We did it about 21, one minute. So I wasn't just out there just walking. And in five months I benched two 25 and I knew at that point I'm done. I'm healed. I'm going, I'm playing rugby in the spring. And I played rugby in at eight months after breaking it. And ever since then, my belief has even gone stronger that God created amazing body.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: It can heal. We have to bleed, but we have to take the action step. We have many of us say, Oh, I, excuse me. I believe I can heal, but we don't work out for two hours a day. Right? Don't take supplements. We go eat garbage food and we hope we heal, but we never do what's necessary. And I don't have any residual pain. My strength now is better than it was before I broke it. Full range of motion. And I carry that through to all my patients, my belief. And this is what I carry through to my podcast is the body's incredible. We just have to believe it and work with it.

 Wade Lightheart: Beautiful. I want to go back a little bit just in that first. I love the fact that you've clarified the importance of belief in healing because it kind of, it's kind of like your reticular activating system. If you burn it, you know, you buy a red Chevy and all of a sudden you see every red Chevy on the world or whatever. It's like, it's you, you, you get what you focus on. And there's a lot of focus in the world, particularly in I would say the medical industry, that's very negative and you know, you're not going to be able to do this and you're going to have to make adjustments. And you're going to have to take medication, which dulls the nervous system response actually slows healing. But I want to back up to this particular point, which you indicated in the process of healing, which is you started doing what you could do. So what is the gauges that you use, for example? Okay, so let's say my shoulders hurt and I can get it to here. Right. So what is the process that you, that I'm kind of go right to that pain point or try and go a little bit beyond, or like what, what is, how do you break that down systematically through the healing process of stimulating that area with electrical flow, which like blood and nutrients and that sort, I want to kind of get into that.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: That's a great question because I think this is where we dropped the ball as as doctors, as teachers, as coaches, because we're afraid to push people through that limit. And I want to take a step back to when I was in my office, I would get the, I was, I had to take ibuprofen for about six weeks, pretty much every day. Maybe once I tried to, I tried not to take anything, but the, my pain so people can understand this. I would get this. I felt like somebody was pouring hot oil over my head. When the pain was sorta come, I would feel it start to enter my body. And I knew, Oh God, here it comes. I'd run and get a cup of ibuprofen. And I would literally, from my office, I walked back on the back porch, sit and cry for about 15 minutes, just sob and just ball until the chemical response would change.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: The pain med would kick in a little bit. And I, I felt okay that the pain was kind of subside I'd come back in. So when I was in the jail, I had my own gym. I'd go into the gym. I'm like, okay, what, what can I do? I can't even move it. So I left. And so then I started, I could move it. So I wouldn't use any weight. And I would go to a level to where the pain was very sharp, that when it's doll and it's sore and it's, it's, you know, when you're lifting weights, it's always going to hurt to some degree. But it's something when you have a terror and it hurts and you feel like your whole body is going to give out, you got to hit that level and then back off a little, but then you hit that level.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: You have to do high reps and then you do every angle position you can, that doesn't hurt. If it's very sharp, you just stop it and do another exercise. So I got to the point with, let's say, shoulder presses and I could lift my right arm without any weight, maybe a little bit above my shoulder, but my left arm had full range of motion. I did that every day until I could go a little bit more. And what I would find is if I overdid it the next day, my shoulder felt like somebody hit it with a baseball bat. So I would look and go, okay, don't do a pushup. That's what you tried yesterday. Give it three to five days and try it again. So I didn't give it two weeks or six weeks. I would give I'm going to give it a few days. So I got to the point where I could do one pump Tupac, and you'll laugh at this, but I would, I did bench. I had, I had my dumbbells. I'd take a 50, 60 pounder, my left hand and a two pounder. And my right, if you've ever tried this, it's very hard. That's really hard. So unbalanced,

 Wade Lightheart: I'm just trying to see, I was just trying something similar the other day. It's like, well, how much weight can I handle on this dress? On the left side, it's like crazy. And you can really get hurt

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: Torque your spine. But I thought the only way to win is do it. So I would work it. And then I got to where I had the straight bar. I actually put weight on the left side, but not on the right. And I had the push off all of it with my left hand. But again, I just, I just tried things because there's not a game plan to this. There's no, I didn't see anyone breaking scaffolds that have you know, a 10 step plan to rehab. I was making my own. So I, what I give the advice I give my patients is you have to push it as far as you can. When that short pain hits back off a wheel a little bit, and then go at it until a few days later, you push past that. And any range of motion that doesn't hurt, go crazy with it.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: If it hurts back off a little, but I really believe that the system set up when somebody hurts a rotator cuff, or if you went to the doctor and they said, well, you have some, some mild arthritis in there from all your years of lifting and decreased range of motion. Let's just put you on plan a well plan a is a general plan that they put everyone on. Who is everyone? This is the 60 year old guy. That's never lifted weights in his life, right? That's not me, right? It's not you. So we have to create our own own plan. And that's what I advise is, you know, you take what they give you, you'll learn and just keep pushing it. And if it hurts too much, back off 5%, 10% and keep going. And I think if you do that and you have that mindset is it's going to hurt, but it's either going to hurt now and you'll have freedom later. Or you, you, you feel comfortable now and you're imprisoned with pain and dysfunction for the rest of your life. I was not going to be the in prison guy. I said, hun, I am not going to sit on the sidelines and watch I'm plan. I'm going to hit and I'm going to get hit and I'm going to be fine. And again, she's like, you're crazy. And I'm like, well, you married me. I'm like, I am crazy, but it's fun.

 Wade Lightheart: You know, I think that's really good. And just to break down a couple more things, because I think this is really a student. I don't think I've ever had anybody kind of break this down. So when you're recovering from this, your doing those, would you say that the most important thing to start with is working on the range of motion and then maybe when would you start increasing kind of strength or load? How, how would you go about breaking that down for someone like, okay, I've got this much. So every day I'm trying to hit this from every angle just to get movement. Right. Right. If I heard you cook, let's say I got a shoulder injury of which I do right now, and it's getting better. Could I'm doing that. At what point do you start adding resistance once you've got full range or do you add resistance in movements that you don't feel pain? Or like, how do you break that down?

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: And, and again, it's a kind of like an individualized strategy is so many people when they have any type of pain, they stop. So again, if it's in the mind, like if I tell you way, this is what I want you to do, you're going to work out with waste, push it as heavy as you can. You work through it, if it's sharp back off, but do everything, you're going to push it two weeks. You're going to be strong. You have pushed through pain. You're going to be fine. Somebody else that hasn't lifted weights, just getting a weight off their chest hurts. They don't know. Is that good pain or bad pain? Right. So my thing with weights and any kind of resistance is as soon as possible, I don't know how soon. I can't remember how soon I put a weight. In my hand, I probably put a weight in my hand, in like a week or two, which no one would have advised, but just enough to dangle it and stretch it and see if I could resist just holding it.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: But it was, I was doing pushups within about two months. I shouldn't have been able to do a pushup in a year. So that's resistant. So body resistance. So as soon as you can, you're gonna, you're going to up the level of healing because you stimulate that muscle to a deeper level when you have resistance. And then the range of motion is kind of, kind of like just part of it. You know, it's like, it all has to blend in the one it's like, you don't separate them. You just say whatever you can do, do it, do it full out, go to your level. But believe that it's going to be very fast. So I have patients that come in and they're a 60 year old lady that has never done training in their life. They get some type of surgery and I tell them, what, what are the, what are the therapist tell you to do?

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: They say, well, they told me to do this. I'm like, all right, do that five times a day. And they're like, well, they just told me once. And I'm like, no, no, you do it five times a day. Get adjusted a few days a week. I'm going to show you some other things. You're going to be better in six weeks, not three months. Or like, well, they told me I can't go back to work. I'm like do it. And they do it. And it may be only, maybe it's 60% range of motion because they've never done weights and 40%, some type of resistance, but they get the same healing and they get back to work in four to six weeks. And it's just crazy.

 Wade Lightheart: This is one of the things I think where bands are incredible because you can really reduce the re the resistance and you can go from all these different types of angles. I know I have a set on my roof. I have a gym on the roof of my building, and that's what I've been doing. It's like, okay, well, it's, it hurts if I use this much, but if I just use this band and do the resistance, I get a little bit of pain, but it's not too much. And yesterday I was over messing around the gym and I went to a Gold's. They just reopened it here in Venice, sort of it's kind of changed a lot it's outdoors. And so I'm going around. Cause I haven't been able to do chest during this six weeks that have had this kind of thing going on. And I found some exercises where I could work my chest. You know, it didn't hurt and had to do lighter weight, but more and more repetitions. But it's kind of like, I walked out of there last night and I was feeling so supercharged because I had like, Oh, here's some movements that I can do. And I think these progressive wins along your healing journey are really important to kind of stair-step your way from belief to actually, would you agree with that?

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Every little, every little, every little win. You got to Pat yourself on the back and just be like, yes, that's another one. And then once you hit that, there's no turning back. It's not like we're going to start and work up to that again. That's the new, that's the new platform. That's the new level. So the next day when you go back, it's okay. I did these exercises. I'm not doing less. I'm building on that. But those wins, man. They, I love, I've played sports all my life. And I love that. You know, when I score in rugby at my age and I just turned 55, so my son asked me how, what, how far do you want to go? And I was gonna, you know, retire from it and just coach at 50. But I had, I scored like 24 points in the last game of the season when I was 50, I had all these kicks and I told that to my wife.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: She's like, you're not quitting hard. I said, I can't. So my goal was 60. So I have five more years to do this. And so it's, it's just like, we have to like what you were saying with the bands. There are so many new ways to work out now with kettlebells and bands. And I have a, I have a, pull-up a few couple pull-up bars in my barn. And I put the bands over that and I do rows. I can do one arm. You can assist doing pull-ups and chin-ups, and it's endless. And you don't have to buy a lot of equipment. They can store right under your bed. The thing is, is there's no excuse the excuses kill you don't have excuses. And there's no excuse. At this point, bans costs 10, 20 bucks a band. You get a few of them and you can do every exercise under the sun. So totally

 Wade Lightheart: A hundred percent. I've got a whole bunch of cool stuff. X three bars that I hook up on my power rack ups. There's a, you can do all these great angles with different things. And I've got these key cables that I use these. And now you can get these little police systems for a hundred bucks that you can put over it. They really like it's cut the kid in the candy store. The, one of the best things that happened to me this year was when the lockdowns happen they closed the gym and I was all excited. I was training at Gold's gym, which is like the candy store of gyms. And then I was like, I have no gym. So I literally went back to what I did when I was a kid. I built a gym in my barn to start working out and I built a gym on my roof.

 Wade Lightheart: And now I'm known in the neighborhood as the guy with the gym on his roof. And I'm out there in the sunshine. It turns out really great. So it's been beautiful about that night and I encourage people to, to, to go out there and activate your creativity around exercising and getting these things and trying stuff and see how it feels and get into the field of exercise. And I think that's really important as well. I want to switch gears a little bit because you mentioned you just kind of brushed over it, but nutrition. And I think this is an area that virtually every chiropractor I ever met is very much more versed in nutrition than our typical medical doctor that some will be would go to who are, who really doesn't have any training or very little training in nutrition. And it's very basic. What were some of the things that you do or you like to do to support your recovery and your overall health?

 Wade Lightheart: Obviously you're doing a lot of good things because you know, you're having robust health to the level. You're an athlete competing in a very violent sport. You know, like most, most people in their fifties things that's crazy. But you know, if you look back to the Spartans Leonidas, when he went into battle was 60 years old. And a lot of people don't recognize that historically people live these robust physical lifestyles, even my dad, he's in his seventies, he's out debt dug up a whole yard. I shovel in a, in a, in a wheelbarrow, like we have this ability to do this. So what are the things that you key on nutrition-wise to help you, you know, just be at your best.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: I I'm a, I'm a real foundation guy. You know, I don't like my workouts, my thought processes get the foundation strong. So I have my own farm. So I raised cow and sheep. So lamb, so and chickens with eggs. So my protein real clean grass, fed meats and eggs. Sometimes I'll get raw milk, but I'm good. Clean protein. I have to have my protein vegetables, salads. I don't do any farming on that end, but I get as much organic as I can. Lots of veggies, some fruits, I don't do a lot of fruit because of the sugar and healthy fats, raw nuts, avocado. The eggs provide that the meats provide coconut coconut oil. That's like my staple. So, and, and like, you know, lots of chicken and stuff like that. So yeah, we eat a very true, would say very structured diet that it doesn't change much, but it doesn't have to.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: When it's healthy, I don't believe, you know, we look at keto and paleo and there's advantages to all that. And some body types will respond better. But in a nutshell, if America said we're going to eat some good, healthy meats without chemicals, without hormones and steroids, grassfed like my cows just roam around and we eat some eggs and no limit the grains. I don't eat hardly grains at all. Eat some fruits, you know, the seasonals is really good. And in the summertime we have an orchard, so eat more fruit then just basic food. What God provided us. I don't think we're going to go wrong. The problem is we are a very high pay stress society. So we're on the go. And I hear this all the time. Oh, I'm so busy. I'm like put, pack a lunch. I've never, I rarely do I go out and eat lunch and I can afford it.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: I can do it. I just, the food out there. Isn't as good as what I have. Why would I, I can't, I can pack a zip wall, throw a piece of meat in, right. Okay. I had eggs, like five eggs from lunch and a salad. And they were running eggs. Cause they're healthier. My daughter, my daughter looks good. Could couldn't eat that. I put some sea salt. I said, yeah. I said, that provides nutrition. And that provides muscle. I said, that's why I do it. She just laughed. She's like, well my kids follow the same thing I do. I, and they're cool dates. I just either I didn't eat them up. I'm just not going to microwave. So basic foundational things. You know, if it is from God and its natural source, it's going to be good. Once we start art altering it, we box it and we can it.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: And we make it fancy. Look at the chemicals. I mean, you get a bag of Doritos, that stuff with Tila at my, if I gave it to my sheet, they wouldn't even eat it. They're like, this is poison yet. We ingest it. We give it to our kids. So we have to start basic and we have to drink water. We have to look at the chemicals that the sucralose is in the aspartame. I do protein away and collagen every day to supplement my protein. So much of that has sucralose. You got to look at these chemicals and say, no sucralose, no aspartame, no chemicals, no added sugars. And we start looking at this and trying to get back to real food that would, that would cover most ground at that point. And then be massive upgrades for most easily. And it's simple. It's just, it just takes work on their part to just be cognizant of it, to say, look, we're going to read labels.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: If it has chemicals, no. And then it gets hard. They were like, what do I eat? I'm like, you eat a piece of chicken and broccoli, put some olive oil you want and sea salt. How hard is that? So yeah, I'm a foundation. Basic guy. This is what I teach in my office first. And I find that the people that are searching for the advanced diets or the blood type diet, or should I go all keto? I usually ask them, well, are you eating healthy? If you're eating McDonald's every day, don't worry about keto. Just eat real food and start there. So I'm kind of tradition old fashioned. And when it comes to that,

 Wade Lightheart: Now you've written a number of books and a lot of people come to you to weight loss. I guess that's some of your components that you manage as in your clinic. Can you share with our listeners, what are some key things that you've learned in, in all your decades of experience about weight loss? Because we're in January when we're recording this and everybody's, this is the boat. The time where people start falling off their new year's wagon, there's three weeks in you go to the gym every year. And I remember I worked in the gym for years and we'd be like, okay, here comes the rush. And you know, it would sort itself out by February, like February, all the new people that came rushing in, in the first couple weeks they're gone and there might be one or two stragglers. And then you kind of welcomed them into the group because like, Oh, you haven't made it all your way. That, so what is some of the things that you've learned in your career about weight loss, weight management, these types of things.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: It's when I started doing this years ago, I developed my own program in my office. I didn't want to do it. I saw a need for it. The obesity levels are just skyrocketing kids. And what I saw was there's about 150 diet plans. There's probably more, they're so confusing there. So, and I thought if we can develop something just to guide them for the first six to eight, 10 weeks, they'll set new lifestyle habits. So I developed that, but it's not our products I think are really good. It's not the products. And I wrote a book on that to guide them through. It's not that again, it goes back to the mind. If they have a mindset, they come to you and say, wait, I want to get in shape. I'm done. I'm sick of it. I'm 55 years old. Get me in shape, man.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: You'll be like, I love it. This guy's going to get in sick. Cause he's ready. He's mentally ready. We have to kind of see if they're ready for it. And if they come to us like that, my program, and I think any, a lot of programs can do this is it gives them a kind of a little boost, a win that they lose three, five, 10, 15 pounds maybe in a month. And they're like, Oh my gosh, this is for real. They believe. And once they believe it's possible, then they start to trust you and start going. But it all goes back to lifestyle. It goes back to if they have the belief, the, the products, the game plan out there, the strategies, a lot of them are pretty good. There's a lot out there. It's the I'm going to transform for the rest of my life.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: So my program, when I teach them and one, one really cool thing is just, don't eat breakfast, do the intermittent fasting. It works for. It's just everyone. If you want to start somewhere, don't eat breakfast. Don't eat until like noon or two. O'clock squeeze those meals in short time. And what's your body change over a few weeks. That's a real simple strategy. And we had that implemented in our plan years ago, before this ever became a hit. I thought, ah, I knew that somehow this is cool. And once, once they come to that conclusion that this is going to be a lifestyle. My program is at the end is eat these foods. And a lot of people when I hear, Oh, that's pretty strict. They're done. They're there. They're not going to succeed. If they say I can eat this, they'll succeed because, and I tell them the foods I'm telling you to eat are the exact foods I eat every day. I'm not telling you to eat some Himalayan diet that you have to buy some crazy green mixture from a powder from this far away, land

 Wade Lightheart: Yak, yak milk from organic blessed cows on a Tibetan high lands at 15,000. Yeah. That's exactly what I don't know. So,

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: And, and that's the, once they say, why can eat this way? They're the ones that succeed. Even if they fall off or they gain some weight back they go, I know what to do. They go back and they say, I've been eating sugar. I've been eating more fruit. I'm not eat. I'm eating breakfast. I ate cereal for bread. When I say I ate cereal for breakfast, I'm like, Oh God, that's like, say you're smoking. It's like, don't eat cereal for breakfast. So they learned some strategies that just help help them through because I'll tell you the chemicals in the foods out there are just damaging their weight, gaining their chemical mind, destroying hormone destroying. And the more you eat of the process, garbage food, the more the chemicals build up in your cells, your fat cells eat you. It's very hard to lose weight and it gets very frustrating.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: So get that mindset, get back to real food and believe that you can do this and then find a program that's going to help you do it. And then know that this is for life. This isn't okay. Well, we're going to lose weight so you can get to the beach this summer. I, you know, when I work out and I, and I, I ma I have a mouth that I run in my office all the time as a, you got to get in shape Wade, come on, man. So I have to stay in shape. If I'm yelling at you and trying to encourage you, I have to be in good shape. So I've done this long enough that I work out because I want to be a leader in my community. And when somebody looks to me that says, you play rugby at 55. I'm like, yeah. I'm like, so if I can play rugby, you can lift weight for 10 minutes. You can do some pushups. You can go for a walk, come on. You know, so I have some authority doing that, but it keeps me driven because I do want to live 120. I do want to live to 120 without diapers, still driving a car and having fun. So

 Wade Lightheart: I love it. Some very good porks and I just want to take one less step one more step on that. How important I know when people are often making these lifestyle changes in breaking away from their social components or their patterns of behavior, how often do they come to see you to kind of keep their head screwed on straight in the early stages? And then later on as they go through the transformation, because it's a process.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: Yeah. And this is a great a great kind of guideline. So, you know, if you seek out healthcare practitioner, chiropractor, you look at x-rays of your spine and it's damaged. How long does it take? Is it going to just take a couple adjustments, all done? Will you need to be adjusted three days a week for a year. So, and I hear this from different extremes. You know, he adjusted me twice doc, and I'm completely fine. I'm like, wow, he must be Jesus. You know? I mean, how do you it's like, wait, I had two workouts this month. I think I'm good for the year. You're like, dude, you're smoking crack. It's like, this is an ongoing thing. So when I see x-ray damage, x-ray structural problems in a correction plan, we do three times a week. For two weeks, we do some in-house rehab, basically looking at their spine to focus on the weaknesses, to get movement restored.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: And then after two weeks, we go to twice a week for about four weeks. We give them home rehab tools to support the structure of the weaknesses in their spine. So like for example, if they don't have a curve in their neck and their heads forward and they have slopped posture, we have to put the bend in the neck and pull the shoulders back and allow the head to fall back over the shoulder. So we have specific tools in the office and at home that directly affect that. And then we go to once a week and then we'll take an x-ray after about 24 visits after about a four month period in that four month period, we will see x-ray change every time. So it doesn't take a hundred adjustments, but it certainly takes more than two or three. So excuse me. So I say, if you were training for a marathon, it takes about four to six months minimum.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: If you're even in decent shape, maybe a year and you have to train, run at least four to six days every week, you just can't cut it. You just can't shorten it up to try to get in shape the lift weights, same thing, it's a process. And once you get there, then to maintain it, my recommendations, they were from like every week, every other week, maybe every third week, but because we have so much stress in our body to come in every other week or once a week for a few minute adjustment and they do their home rehab, their spines never degenerate. They optimize nerve function, which supports digestion, supports heart function, which supports healing and immune system to control cancer. How important is that for a, a short visit to a doctor? So you don't have to go to your medical doctor and be a medical experiment with chemicals, drugs, vaccines shots, and just here wave, we'll try these three. And the next thing you know, you're on 10 medications. So if you, if you work through it and you get to a point of your healing better than you have to maintain the same with diet, same with exercise, same process.

 Wade Lightheart: Oh, beautifully said. And well, illustrated, let's talk, let's go to a talk a little bit. You've got a website innate life.com. It's I N eight life.com. Can you tell me about the website and kind of your front facing front facing component on the digital world?

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: We, I have my daughter who I have five kids and I I've wanted them to be all chiropractors. Well, my one daughter runs my office. He runs my front desk. The other daughter does all my marketing. So she handles my, all my social media stuff. And we do a lot of promotion on chiropractic on health, on structure posture, the digital world, staring at a computer with that posture.

 Wade Lightheart: Yeah. Is the texting neck, right? That's the big one. That's you see him right now? Right?

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: There's there's a, they predict a 15% increase in dementia at early age because of technic, the hump. And these are kids that are three, five, six years old on this. So our website's more kind of just a general, you know, from my office and some teaching coaching, I have another program called the pain-free way.com. I'll make sure you have that link, but there's a free mini course on there that is mined chiropractic, posture, structure, nutrition, and exercise, like the foundational basic. And it's a free mini course, free short videos, tons of resources. I send all my patients there and say, get this, get grounded here. And if you get grounded there, then we'll talk, you know, do you need extra strategies? Do you need supportive things, but get grounded. So we love to post videos. We love to on Instagram and do educational things because that's, I'd love to teach.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: And I love that guy. I love being on podcasts to hopefully inspire, motivate, educate, and maybe even get that mind saying, huh, maybe chiropractic. Maybe I need to see a chiropractor or an all my pain-free way. Dot com is a free download for what should you expect when you go to a doctor? What are pain doctors not telling you? Like, should you have an x-ray? What does an x-ray reveal? I walked through all that process. So anywhere in the world, if you're going to your chiropractor and he doesn't take an x-ray, you could ask doc, if you didn't take an x-ray, how are you going to know the alignment? And if I have any arthritis, you, maybe you educate them. Maybe you take, take their game up a notch. It's like going into the gym. And if I said, Hey, I want to, I want to train and get strong.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: And you walk me over and throw me on the bench. You don't even, you don't know who I am. What am I training for? What am I what's my age? Do I even have range of motion that I ever, maybe I broke my shoulder and I have, I did, maybe I have pins and screws in there. Maybe I shouldn't do a flat bench. Maybe I could only do B you know, there has to be some analysis to say, there's a starting point. So I'm very big on that education process. So anywhere when people get on, if they, if they look at my information, they can be informed when they go out and say, you know what? I need to find a different chiropractor. And we, I find people, you know, chiropractors all over the world. If I can, if I can find somebody to match them, but it gives them at least a tool to get started. So I love doing that stuff. Yeah.

 Wade Lightheart: Okay. Before we close off, is there any words that you would like to share with our listeners? They're maybe struggling with their health, struggling with their weight. They've got an injury that they feel they can't do the things that they wanted to do. What would be since you've come from such a wealth of experience, both in your own life, but also as a clinical chiropractor. Can you share with them any message that you would tell them right now of what they need to do and how they need to go about it to summarize?

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: Yeah. And let me offer this is I would love to offer a free consultation just to talk one-on-one and wherever you are in the world. I, I, my podcast goes all over the world. So I've talked to people in Australia and South Africa, and I just, I want to help. And I want to help guide you through this process. So if you want, there's no catch. There's no gimmick, there's no sell. I can try. Maybe help figure some out things out for you, because here's my message. You have much more in you than you ever imagined possible to heal your, you heal through your brain and in their system. And you heal through your lifestyle, but you have to have the belief that hopefully if the, at the end of this, you, you have your you're intrigued with, dang it. Maybe I can heal. Maybe there is a possibility.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler:  There is always a possibility. God made an incredible healing body. When you cut your leg, you skin your leg, or your kid cuts their leg. You don't call the church and put them on a prayer chain. You don't run to the hospital and say, please take care of my son. He skinned his knee. They would look at you like, you're crazy. You're like, your son will heal himself. Just clean it and let it heal itself. If it can heal a skin, a cut on a skin, it can heal the heart. It can heal the lungs. It can heal internal organs. You have to have that belief. And if when you have that, then you start to seek and then you get fired up with, you know what? I'm going to find a doctor. I'm going to find somebody that's going to support my level of belief.

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: And if you don't have that, but you keep finding it. And don't, you know, if they, if they discourage you, fire them, you hire your doctor to help you. If you don't like what they give you, get rid of them. And then somebody. So if you have that belief and you have that mindset, great things can happen. So start there believe, and then go after it, don't be a sideline player. That's what I keep telling my kids. I'm like, I'm not going to sit on the sideline. I don't care if I go out there and get hurt, hurt, and cut and banged up. And I limp into my office on Monday, I'm playing this game of life. The best I can play it. I don't know why I chose rugby or maybe rugby chose me. It could have been an easier sport that he played in my fifties, but it is what it is. I love it. And I'm living life. That's what we gotta do.

 Wade Lightheart: Beautifully said, Dr. Aaron trusts the full contact chiropractor with an inspirational message for all of us in a very generous offer that he'd, we willing to take a conversation, please check out his website, www innate life.com. He's got all the we'll put on the show notes here, the Facebook, the Instagram, the YouTube, all that sort of stuff. What amazing message and so full of life and so full of energy. I love this kind of things is why I do this podcast. And for all our listeners out there with BiOptimizers, this is another edition of the awesome health show. We will see you on the next one. Don't take no for an answer. Take your healing by control

 Dr. Aaron Tressler: Because you are awesome. See you later.