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093: The Importance of Muscle Hydration with Ryan Spratt

December 1, 2020/
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Have you ever considered the importance of muscle hydration? After today’s episode you definitely will! Our guest, Ryan Spratt, is the Co-Founder of IQBody and the inspiration behind the WAVE5 muscle hydration system.

As a muscle therapist and personal trainer, Ryan wanted his clients progress beyond their sessions. This desire inspired him to create a portable muscle-care system and a “how to” library to target muscle and joint pain. He wanted people to have on-demand care at an affordable price, and so he came up with the WAVE5 muscle hydration system.

On this episode of Awesome Health Podcast, Ryan tells us about his device. It consists of two domes, which supply you as the user with balance and stability. It also offers you the ability to determine the intensity that is right for you. It’s important to find that sweet spot where your muscles are still feeling relaxed but they are still getting worked on a deep level. You don’t want your muscles to tense up because you won’t get the results you want, but if you can stay relaxed and still add a deep, gradual pressure (while breathing normally and not tensing up) then you’re going to see your muscles change for the better.

He goes on to talk about the different features of the system, plus the app that provides exercises to do with the system. If your glutes are too tight it will give you ways to loosen those muscles, and then will recommend other areas of the body you might want to address because they commonly contribute to tight glute muscles.

Ryan explains he fully believes in chiropractic work and massage therapy, but these options are not always available for everyone either due to time, money or other constraints. So he developed the WAVE5 muscle hydration system and its corresponding app as an affordable solution.

And his system and app work alongside any therapy treatments you do get, it’s a great way to continue to make progress between treatments.

Today, Ryan details the science behind the system, the 500+ treatment plans available to app users and why tight, stiff muscles aren’t getting properly hydrated no matter how much water you drink. You’re going to learn so much from this episode so please join us for this special edition of Awesome Health Podcast.

Episode Resources:

Read The Episode Transcript:

Wade Lightheart: Good morning, good afternoon and good evening. It's Wade T Lightheart here, for an unusual, our first actual one-on-one video broadcast here. And I'm joined today by someone that actually changed my life recently. Our guest today is Ryan Spratt and he runs a company called IQ body, and the wave five muscle hydration system. Now, for those who don't know, I've been very deep in the hydration conversation for literally decades, because hydration particularly at the cellular level and what he's going to talk about is made out of muscular level, and how that influences pain and inflammation, but I'll give you a little backstory before we get talking to Ryan. I want to thank you for joining us today.

Ryan Spratt: Thank you for having me.

Wade Lightheart: But one of the interesting things that's transpired is that a couple of weeks ago, I was in a lot of lower back pain. Now I have just recently moved to Southern California. I had an extraordinary chiropractor in Vancouver that kept me tuned up, going every couple of weeks. I train hard. I lift hard. I play a lot. And the bottom line is, I was always able to stay tuned. Now with COVID and all this sort of stuff, I didn't have access to what I would call a world-class chiropractic care and I started to notice I was getting really jammed up. And in fact, ironically, Ryan showed up magically out of the blue one day here at the bio home and I went from not able to bend over to like full mobility and able to do full range squats the very next day, after this little device here was introduced. Now you're looking at this and what is this? Is this a COVID molecule design? Is this some sort of torture device? But let me tell you this might be the most genius, I don't know, muscle unlocking system I've ever seen.

Wade Lightheart: It's so small. It's so convenient. But I'm not going to steal Ryan's thunder. He's going to share with me exactly how he was able to unlock pain in my life. More importantly, he's going to talk about how you could unlock pain in your life. So, Ryan, welcome to the show.

Ryan Spratt: Thank you. Thank you very much for having me, Wade. I appreciate it.

Wade Lightheart: Now for all our watchers and viewers, and listeners. We're doing a new experiment. We were supposed to schedule one with all the big fancy cameras and stuff, but with COVID, cameras and lighting, didn't show up. So I'm running a couple of lights, you can probably see the things in the background here by the tree in the background, but that's not going to stop us. There's a little bit of an echo, we don't have the cushy stuff, but you know what, it's not about all that technical side of things. It's about getting this information to you to change your life.

Wade Lightheart: So, Ryan, can you explain to our listeners, like how did, how did this come into play? Like, what's your background, what's your history, all of that stuff?

Ryan Spratt: So I've been doing muscle therapy now for about seven years been a personal trainer before that, I was doing that for probably about 10 years. And one of the problems I ran into with clients was, they always had to come keep seeing me if they wanted to progress and to give them homework, to give them things to do. I was constantly telling them, I need you to use a foam roller here, I need you to do lacrosse ball here, use a golf ball for here, use a lacrosse ball there, use a muscle stick here. They didn't always have all those tools. And if they did, they didn't know how to use them properly. If I would tell them: target your hamstrings there, they would go home, they would do it, they'd be like: this doesn't really help. So this was a way to take what I do on my table with a client and now they can duplicate that. Each one of these tools is designed the same way that my elbow, my forearm, my thumb, wrist, hand, every thing that I use with a client on the table, they now have access to it with this tool.

Wade Lightheart: Super cool. And of course, for those who don't know, Matt and I the co-founder bioptimizers, we both started in personal training, so we really understand some of the nuances of why people come to professional trainers. Some of the obstacles and muscle tightness and stiffness is a big one, that often a lot of times people say: I can't go work out with a trainer, because I got all this stiffness. I can't go to the gym… But going to the gym and get someone that can unlock these things is really why you need to go, because it's not going to get better on its own. And painkillers are very dangerous and addictive. You can spend an extraordinary amount of money on chiropractors or massage therapists with a great range. I'm a big believer in massage therapy and I'm a big believer in chiropractic, but you don't always have access to all of those thingscqnd of course, there's an exponential cost that goes on with these professionals. So let's talk about this. What is this? What do you call this?

Ryan Spratt: This is Wave five. So Wave five is a five in one tool. We started with a sphere, because it is one of the most versatile tools, you can use when you're getting into muscle groups. It offers the most direction and easier to change. You know, how deep you're going and the areas that you're trying to cover. Then what we did was we cut it in half and now we have these two domes. Now these two domes here, they supply you with balance and stability with just about any area of the body that you want. But not only that, it gives you an intensity variation that is suitable towards your needs. So if you want very little tension or very littleinsity, you can just lean on the side of the tool and you're going to cause an effect in there.

Ryan Spratt: If you want a lot, you can lay on top of it and you can really dig into those areas and not feel like you're going to fall off. One of the most common things about usingmuscle tools is that if you get into a spot and it's not a stable surface, you can fall off of it. Not either, one hurts, two, you lose the spot, three, you get frustrated and you don't want to do it anymore, because you lose where you're at. With these, it really gives you that option to pick and choose the area that you want and move your body around it, without having to worry about falling off. Plus, these are great for pent and stress movements. So a lot of people that like active release stuff, this is your tool for that.

Wade Lightheart: That's kind of what we did when we were working on my back. Basically I couldn't move. I've got on this thing. And we started working my lower back, just using this with this. And I've been on balls and I just never liked them, a lot of that stuff. I got on this and it was just like: Oh, I can actually get traction myself and start moving it, because instead of relying on someone's intuitive capacity, I can put the exact amount of pressure, move under it around it. You can maybe kind of explain some of the mechanisms that you use, when you're unlocking muscles? So you explained to me you come at it from different angles.

Ryan Spratt: Yes. So when I'm working on a client and I have them on my table, I have the option of coming at them from whatever angle I can reach. That can be from the side, that can be straight down, it could be a combination of things. So with these treads, these treads are designed, like I said, to mirror some of the tools that I use on a client and that gives them the opportunity to again, go in deep, use it for the shallow ends of things or again, to really sheer the muscle off. But because you no longer have to communicate with a therapist or communicate with somebody else, all you're doing is talking to yourself and listening to your body. It really does give you the opportunity to do whatever you want at that time, whatever intensity level your body is allowing it.

Wade Lightheart: Which brings up to another thing, like one of the most effective forms of deep tissue is a process called Rolfing. And I've done Rolfing. And for those who've done Rolfing… It might be the most painful thing that you can do, which is moving the fascia and if you get a qualified practitioner, it can just unlock things that you never imagined. However, the pain threshold that's required for that is pretty extreme. It's pretty extreme. And what happens once you hit a certain amount of pain, your body tends to tighten up and tense.

Ryan Spratt: Exactly.

Wade Lightheart: Because it's a reflective, like somebody trying to hurt me. I remember the first time I went into deep Rolfing experience, I remember thinking to myself: how inhumane torture it actually is.

Ryan Spratt: You are paying for it. You're going there and voluntarily offered for it.

Wade Lightheart: Correct. It's deep. But when I was on these, working with you, I wasn't feeling that. I was getting more results with less pain, because I was just able to dig in and not get into that reactive response that someone else might elicit. So if you're sensitive to other people's touch and uncomfortable with that, this is another way to get around that for some people.

Ryan Spratt: Absolutely. I mean, the biggest thing with this is that we teach people how to find the pressure that feels good for them and not exceed that. If you're holding your breath or you start to feel, like you said, that muscle reacting and saying: Nope, I don't want anymore, then you back off. You don't get out of that area. You just let that pressure gradually sink in and that's when you're going to create the greatest change in the tissue. That's when the muscles going to relax and let go. That's when your breath is going to come natural. And that's, when you're going to be able to sink deeper into the tissue without applying more pressure. So there's a fine balance between it, but again, your body knows what's best for it. By doing that gradual pressure and that hurts, but feels good, that's when you're going to get the most change out of your body and that's when your body's going to say: I like this. I kind of want to keep doing this, because it hurts, but it's a good type of hurt. Like it's, keep going, we're making changes. We're feeling better. We can handle this, cause we're breathing. We're thinking about it. You're caught in the moment instead of trying to get out of the moment in which like, if you're going too much, too fast, that's where it goes.

Wade Lightheart: That's a very big point in any kind of tissue work, is to be able to put sufficient amount of pressure without getting that reactive response, where your body just shuts down, tightens up.

Ryan Spratt: If it tightens up while you're putting pressure on there, you're going to hurt yourself. That's the body's protective mechanism. And if I'm applying pressure to an area and that muscle contracts, while I'm putting pressure in there, that can cause more damage than do for health. So that's where you want to listen to your body, because it will tell you when it's had enough and it will tell you also when it can have more.
Wade Lightheart: And that's kind of, I guess, where a lot of people, where a lot of the clinical research with foam rollers and stuff seems to be hit and miss. There's some data that says it's really good and some data they're really not. And I think probably it's largely about the expertise and putting this forward, the techniques being used, the devices being used exactly to unlock that. Now people who are really good at that, now Matt, my business partner, he's been a big roller. Our genetic expert Katrine has been a big roller. I never dug it at all. I mean, I've had to have tried all the devices, never really cared for them. I got on these babies and I use them virtually every day. Like sometimes I'll just stand on them. I have it at in my meditation center. I just sit these things down and I feel a little tight and I just go on there and work it for just a couple of minutes and then something unlocked and that's, what's really remarkable.

Ryan Spratt: It doesn't take long at all, but when you're trying to use some of the other tools that are on the market, they require a lot of time, they require a lot of effort. And people don't have that much time. They don't want to put in the effort. You put about 30 seconds in, on each spot or like a spot that's sore with one of these tools, you're going to feel changed. You're going to get up, feel energized and be like, that was quick, that was easy. I feel better. And then you're good to go.
Wade Lightheart: Beautiful. All right, but that's, as they say in the commercials, and this is not a commercial, this is an information point. I wanted to bring Ryan in here, because it literally unlocked an incredible aspect of my life and I'm super grateful. Well, what else have you got that's inside this?

Ryan Spratt: So inside the two domes and the sphere, we designed a lacrosse ball sized roller. Everyone likes the roller, because muscles are long. Leg muscles are long, triceps you know, we get into those areas that we need to cover a lot of space, but we didn't want to design something with random ridges on it or random bumps. We designed these two ridges to mirror my forearm. And when I'm trying to get into areas that are long and flatter, like your IT band, like your TFL, you want to be able to affect that change without just trying to smash the tissue. So with these, we show in our app that you can kind of cut alongside. I used the word cut, but if you cut along the side of the IT band and try actually lift it off of the quad, you're going to get more tissue worked underneath that quad and release that IT band from the quad to make that stability, your stabilizer of that IT band a lot more effective.

Ryan Spratt: And then these ridges, again, lacrosse ball. They are comfortable using lacrosse ball. They know that size. You put this on your glutes and you target your glutes the same way you would with a lacrosse ball, with this. You're going to notice a difference in a matter of seconds, and you're not going to feel like you're going to fall off, that's where the stability of the roller really comes into play. Instead of being a small sphere, now you can get into those real tender areas, where a lot of your body weight is already on there, and you're not going to feel like: oops, I'm going to slip. If I slip, I'm going to hurt. Or if I slip, I'm going to fall down on the ground. May not be a big fall, but it can make a big change in your eagerness, I should say, to want to do more.

Wade Lightheart: Right. So this is ingenious. Of course, if you look, most rollers are pretty wide, but this is a very narrow roller, so you can go down a specific line. And then, now I see that you've got some ridging here for whose, who can't see, you've got two lines in here and the rest over here. Why did you design it like that?

Ryan Spratt: We wanted people to know where they were at on their body. So if you're working in an area that you can't see, let's say it is your glutes, and you get on that thing, and you're moving around and all of a sudden you feel these, you know, your brain tells you, Wade, you're on the edge of that, so you've gotta be careful where you're at. Just so you know, it was more of just a guidelines to really get in there. Again, these areas still mirror some of the areas that I would use, but when it came to the roller, we really wanted to make sure people knew exactly what they were targeting, where they were at on the tool and where they were at on their body in the same sense.

Wade Lightheart: Super cool.

Ryan Spratt: Nice thing about this roller too, is most rollers are solid, this one's hollow. If you ever did want to use a muscle stick, you throw a towel or a wooden dowel through this, and it becomes a portable muscle stick as well.
Wade Lightheart: I didn't know that. There's more, but that's not all.

Ryan Spratt: That is not all. So the next part was designed with the foot in mind. A golf ball is a common thing that people use when it comes to their foot. This roller is the height of golf bal, but with these five ridges on it, it makes it similar to this, to where you get to know exactly where you're at on the body, but the slightest move inside or to the outside of your foot changes the whole way that the pressure is distributed onto your foot. So with a couple of ridges or with a ridge to the inside of your foot, you're going to use this one mostly and you're going to target that inside arch of your foot, and the more you move it in, the more the inside of the middle part of your foot gets worked, then you move it out and it just changes the whole dynamic.

Ryan Spratt: So each one of these ridges will effectively change the way your foot operates. We're stretched up in shoes all day long, whether we're at work, we're standing on our feet. However it does. I mean, sports athletes. When you put this underneath your foot, or you put this one underneath your foot, you are going to change the way your foot stands. Instead of being here like this, it's going to spread out. Those toes are going to be able to reach. They're going to be able to grab. Your squats. You're going to up your squats. I don't care how strong you are or how often you do them, we are going to change the way that your feet perform. Then with that, then we've got these two little buddies on the front and the back. I guess there was no front and back, but on each side. This one is designed similar to my knuckle, this one towards the elbow and the thumb. And these are just very aggressive or softer trigger point tools. We call them the explorers, because anytime you've got an area that you want to hit, you can look through and you can find it with one of these again, in a matter of seconds. Once you do find it, then you can decide, well, which one of these tools do I want to use to really get in there and create the change that I am looking for.

Wade Lightheart: Right. So for example, like I sit here lots of times, when I'm on a call and I just start digging around and I'm like: oh yeah, there we go.I could feel that right now, right there on that shoulder. And I just kind of work it around like this and it's super fun.

Ryan Spratt: Yeah.

Wade Lightheart: It's actually makes my phone calls much more entertaining.

Ryan Spratt: For sure.

Wade Lightheart: So I hit the mute button, cause' I might be going: Oh, that's good. People might wonder what's going on. Okay. So all of this, as you can see, just fits. You got some magnets in here, that holds the whole thing together?

Ryan Spratt: Yeah. And then two ridges to prevent it from coming apart, when you end up putting your body weight together. So you can use it as a whole right now, you don't have to take it apart to use that sphere.

Wade Lightheart: How would you? So we kind of broke it down to the small parts, but how do you use the sphere and how would you direct people to use that?

Ryan Spratt: So instead of rolling, the way that most people have been taught, when it comes to these techniques with a foam roller or with just about like a runner stick, anything, they have you moving so fast and quick into that tissue. The problem with that is it doesn't get into the problem areas, only targets the superficial layers. With these, as we were talking about before with gradual pressure, instead of someone just laying on this and I'm going to use my arm as an example, we don't show people how to use it like this, but if I were going like this on my forearm, I'm not going to create much change. But if I sink into it, find that pressure in the field that hurts, but feels good, then move it and sink into it again. That's where, especially on the quads, the hamstrings, peck, glutes, those thick, dense, large muscles. This thing will chew them up and not in a way that hurts, but in a way that's going to again, affect change without angering you or the muscle.

Wade Lightheart: Wow. Really cool. Now on top of, all this people are going: well, that sounds really great Ryan, but I don't know, I'm not a qualified therapist. I don't understand these muscles.

Ryan Spratt: We've got you covered.

Wade Lightheart: Right? Cause' you guys got an app, where you actually show people. You want to talk about the app?
Ryan Spratt: So the app was designed to take the information that I've learned over the years and how I target different muscle groups in the body, so that you can target them in the same way. We drew over 85 lines on the body and we take you from how to get into position, where to start, where to stop and where to return to as well as the tempo of a pulse that we teach. And what that does is it gives your muscles individualized pressure. For example, a part on your muscle here may not be very tender, but this muscle, this part of your muscle, may be very tender. So that doesn't require the same amount of pressure, cannot withstand the same amount of pressure, and that's where foam rolling gives you that ouch.

Ryan Spratt: Again, you use your muscles differently in different parts. Hamstrings are a big one. Up near the glutes, super tight on a lot of people, because of the way we sit and our habits throughout the day. Whereas the middle of the hamstring may not be as bad, but the knee, again, right above the knee, it needs different kind of attention. So the app walks you through step-by-step on how to not only target the muscles. See if someone comes to me with lower back pain, I don't just target the lower back. I target the lower back. I go into the glutes. I go into the hamstrings. I turn around, I get into the adductors and I get into the hip flexors. I'll even get into the abdominal region, because all of these muscles are connected together. So with the app, you hit one spot and then you say, okay, I'm ready for another or here's the recommended spot to go next, because this spot also contributes to that tightness and that pain.

Wade Lightheart: This is a super sophisticated and amazing technology. And you'd be wondering, like if I was to get a therapist to do this, you know, work on me on a day-to-day basis at this level, this would probably cost me thousands of dollars a year.

Ryan Spratt: Yeah. If you wanted to see somebody once a day for an hour a day, it's going to cost you a lot of money.

Wade Lightheart: Right. Even once a week.

Ryan Spratt: Even once a week. That's the thing, I understood a while ago that people need constant therapy, but I also understood that they can't afford me day in and day out. To be able to help somebody and identify what's going on with them on my table and say: okay, here's the problem areas that I've found and now I want you to go home and I want you to do this, this, this, and this and I want to see you next week. I'd like to do that for about a month. So I'd like to see them four times in that month, but after that, I only want to see them once a month. In order for them to continue the progress that they've gotten, they have to do stuff on their own.

Wade Lightheart: Got to do the work.

Ryan Spratt: And as a trainer, you understand that too. Like when you start working with clients, you see them three days a week, but after two or three months, if you're still seeing them three days a week, are you really giving them the full benefit of your training or have you made it so that they're reliant on you? I don't want them to be relying on me. I want to see them a few times. I want to find out: Hey, how you doing? Are you trying that new sport? Or how's work feeling now? Or are you getting those same headaches? No, I'm not getting those same headaches, but this is starting to bother me. Well, let's find out what that is. Go home. Do your homework for the next two or three weeks. Let me know how you're doing. Come in for a checkup again. And again, then it becomes a checkup and not've got to shell out another $2,000 for this month to you. I don't want that much money from you.

Wade Lightheart: Okay. So when you're talking about the app, is there any other features that are on the app? When you purchase one of these, you get one of these and then you download the app, and then what happens?

Ryan Spratt: Well, then you point to where you're hurt and we walk you through it. And like I said, we outlined 19 different muscle regions. And then we also outlined seven major joints. So for the shoulder, if you're hit, if you have pain here, you tap on the front of the shoulder and we have five different options for you. Because like I said, the pain doesn't always travel in the same spot, where the pain can come from different areas of the body. You have the front of the shoulder, then we have the side of the shoulder, then we also have the back of the shoulder. So we have over 500 different treatment plans for you to choose from based on where your pain is coming from, where your activity level is and so on.

Wade Lightheart: Wow. How many was that?

Ryan Spratt: Over 500.
Wade Lightheart: Over 500?! How long did it take you to put this all together?

Ryan Spratt: A long time. Around a couple of years.

Wade Lightheart: Wow. And then it's all easy and convenient. Of course, if people want to connect, on the show notes, we've got a special offer, where you can grab one of these. Approximately, how much are these things going for?

Ryan Spratt: 139.99. And again, it comes with this and it comes with a one-year subscription to the app.

Wade Lightheart: Dude, that's such a great value. By the way, if you click on the link that's associated the bottom of this podcast, you're going to see it - Facebook post or Instagram, whatever social media you get it or email, whatever, check it out. We've got that offer for you that you can take advantage of this. I got to tell you, for a guy that doesn't like to roll and for a guy that's almost always been reliant on chiropractors and massage therapy to unlock all the stiffness, this device that you've put together, absolutely crushes it. I want to talk a little bit about the Wave Five muscle hydration system, because that's really what this is about. They're actually correlated. Some of our people that are a little bit more science-y based or a little bit more fitness oriented. Can you explain to me what the Wave Five muscle hydration system actually is?

Ryan Spratt: Sure. So muscle hydration itself is a theory that tight, damaged, irritated tissue is simply just a dried area of tissue in your body. When your muscles get injured or overused, or anything that causes trauma to that tissue, your body will protect that tissue at all costs. And in order to do that, it will contract around it. It will try and take the stress off of this area by holding it in place and what that does is it stops these muscle fibers around it from moving, to prevent it from moving while it heals. The body is brilliant in that sense, but the body doesn't do all the work. If that dried out tissues no longer functioning the way that it needs to function, other areas of the body or other muscle tissues become… Well, that area becomes dependent on other muscles, doing things that they weren't necessarily designed for.

Ryan Spratt: So with muscle hydration, what you're doing, is you're applying pressure into that dryer irritated tissue to pull fluids back into that area. By doing so, you're regenerating. You've helped the body now finish the healing process and now you're increasing the movement. You're taking away the stress from the other body. You're reducing inflammation, because now you're increasing the circulation throughout that area and it makes it so that there's less pain, more mobility. You've got more strength and endurance now, because the increase of foods can now take place and the natural flow of movement is actually possible.

Wade Lightheart: I mean, this is incredible. I haven't heard anybody really talk about the relation to muscle stiffness and recovery relative to soreness in this kind of way that massage actually increases the hydration levels at a cellular level. Is that what you're trying to say?

Ryan Spratt: It's exactly what I'm trying to say.

Wade Lightheart: You mean drinking water isn't enough?

Ryan Spratt: No, drinking water is not enough. Drinking water is going to help your hydration level from a body standpoint, but those dry areas, they don't have any movement. And as we know, like if you were in a dam, a river, if you were to pour water over like a really dry better soil, if it's not going, if it can't get through that dryness, it's not going to help that area. It almost becomes, you're hydrating everything around it, but not into that space. So drinking your water is very helpful, keep doing it. And that's why I always say, when I'm done with working with somebody: drink your water, because what we've done is now we've taken water from your body…
Wade Lightheart: Making me thirsty.

Ryan Spratt: We've taken water from your body and now put it into that area. So we've essentially kind of dehydrated your body a little bit. Drink your water, that will rehydrate your body, because now there's more tissue and more water being used by the body.

Wade Lightheart: Specifically that tissue… So years ago, when I was working in a holistic health clinic in Vancouver, we had an electro interstitial water scan. I think it was dr. Carmichael out of Colorado, was using it with Olympic athletes for this particular component, because it does a scan and actually would pick up the hydration levels of all the different muscles and organs in your body, so you can see how well or how poorly any given part is hydrated. This isn't Hocus Pocus or Woo, this is actual science that can be verified, certainly anecdotally, just by tissue in hydration. So is there any rules of thumbs that you have, when people are using this kind of technology and then hydrating after? Is there like a time window where they're more superior to hydration? Should they like really pound a lot of water? Is there anything like that?

Ryan Spratt: Anytime I work on myself or I've talked with other clients. If I work on a client for a 15 minute session, I'm asking them to pound about 16 to 20 ounces of water, depending on that person's body weight. And I want to get it into them quickly, because most of the time clients are coming to see me or they're going to do something afterwards and I don't want them to be dehydrated while they're trying to do an activity, especially while they're driving. So anytime I have somebody work on this for five minutes, 10 minutes, I'm like: have a glass of water, when you're done. They feel so much better. And again, that not only increases circulation, not only through that area, but then through their body. They feel more energy. They don't feel tired. They're like: I'm ready to go. They don't want to take a nap. They want to go run a mile. They want to go jump in the gym and do some squats. Or some of them want to go back to work, because all of a sudden now they're more and more mobile.

Wade Lightheart: That's amazing. A lot of people don't understand the relation with hydration and fatigue. Oftentimes it's just, you're dehydrated. You're not fatigued. It's just your body's saying: shut her down, I need to rehydrate my body and re partition water from one area to another.

Ryan Spratt: Absolutely. It'll give you headaches. If you're not drinking enough water it will give you headaches. You have a headache? Drink water first and see how you feel after that.
Wade Lightheart: Now, with this design that you have here, just as a curiosity, what is this material? Is that a silicone or something like that?

Ryan Spratt: No, it is thermoplastic elastomer. We wanted…

Wade Lightheart: A what?

Ryan Spratt: It's a rubber and plastic compound. And what we wanted to do and that's why we didn't want to use foam. Foam fails underneath your pressure and the pressure that you need to inflict change cannot fail. Like you don't want a shape that's going to squish if you put on. What's the point of having a shape? You might as well have a flat surface. This one, like my elbow, is not going to fail underneath your pressure. So this tool, you sit on this, it can, it can hold 350 pounds worth of pressure.

Wade Lightheart: Wow.

Ryan Spratt: Rarely are we putting all of our weight on there, so that's a lot of weight for someone to put on. You take these apart. 1500 pounds worth of pressure.

Wade Lightheart: Wow.

Ryan Spratt: 2000 pounds worth of pressure.

Wade Lightheart: Wow.

Ryan Spratt: 4,000 worth of pressure.

Wade Lightheart: Wow. No one's going to put that kind of pressure.

Ryan Spratt: No. If they are… Wow. That's too much. I said it hurts, but it feels good. That was the idea. My elbow's never gonna fail, when I'm working on a client, so I wanted to make a tool that was never going to fail underneath someone's pressure. If we did, then it wasn't done right, but each one of these ridges is going to stay true to its shape. If you want a flat, dull surface, that's going to get an area that's pretty large, this is going to be your go-to. If you want to get underneath your shoulder blade, in that area that no one can reach, this little point right here, that's going to get into, where you need to get into. And so on and so forth. So each one of them was made to make sure that, whatever you wanted to get out of it, you were going to get out of it.

Wade Lightheart: Well, that's another unique thing about this, as I see all these little bumps and they all have these different sizes and shapes. How did you come up with all these sizes and shape? Was this the computer program, or how did you figure that out?

Ryan Spratt: I played with a lot of different sizes and shapes, and I looked at my elbow, I looked at my forearm. And believe it or not, I can make every one of those shapes. I can give you the sensation of every one of those shapes with a part of my elbow or my forearm.

Wade Lightheart: Wow. So I think it was Einstein that said 'genius runs to simplicity'.

Ryan Spratt: Keep it simple.

Wade Lightheart: And then I believe it was DaVinci said that 'perfection is when there's nothing left to take away'. If there was ever a perfect device… It's small, it's convenient, it's got all these different tools inside it. It it's designed extraordinarily well. It's built from a person, who's had a tremendous amount of background and experience with this. And it comes with an app to explain what points hurting and what points have. I mean, this is truly genius.

Ryan Spratt: Well, thank you.

Wade Lightheart: Any mistakes that are common when people get these that they make or caveats that you can think of?

Ryan Spratt: They start rolling on it. They think it's one of the other tools that they're accustomed to, or have seen people use. Aside from that, no. I mean that's probably the biggest thing and what we want people to understand is, it has taken years and years of abuse for you to get your body to where it is. It is going to take time for those abuses to change and for you to make that change to feel better. It's not going to take years and years and years, but it is going to take more than five seconds. Sink into that area that you want to hit. Let your body adapt to that pressure and that change will happen so much faster. If you just try and go up and down this arm to try and get that change, it's not going to happen. But if I sit on the most tender spot for a few seconds, all of a sudden that tissue starts to work and so does the tissue around it. It will soften, it will relax and you will feel better, but don't rush into it. I don't want you to go over the surface. You got to sink into the problem. And if you sink into the problem, the problem will solve itself.
Wade Lightheart: I love it. When you're talking about timeframe, so let's say someone's got lower back or tight hamstrings, any generalized suggestions, or is it something they could get in for, what kind of time should they be putting into that in their daily routine to kind of unlock that?

Ryan Spratt: To find out where it's going and find out how long it's been, is something that I like to ask the question, you know, how long has this been going on? What are your activity levels? And depending on that answer, it can take anywhere between five and 15 minutes a day. I mean, while you're sitting here right now, go ahead. I want you to set these below your glutes, right at the top of your hamstrings. So he's going to sit there and what he's going to do is, he's going to break up the area right at that junction.

Wade Lightheart: Oh, it feels so good. I can just go like this, right?

Ryan Spratt: There's a couple of things that he's doing right now. So, because we sit for so long, what happens is that area of the hamstrings is constantly shortened. It's not being used, but it's not at the length that it was designed to be at. So what you're doing right now is you're now separating that from the glutes. You're also elongating the spine, because you're sitting up higher. So your tailbone can now drop below the hips.

Wade Lightheart: Got it. I can feel that. I'm just kind of swinging back and forth and I can feel it working right in on the edge of my adductor. It's coming under my adductor.

Ryan Spratt: That's a thing you can subtle shifts. Very small movements are going to make a big change.

Wade Lightheart: It's not painful. You kind of get that nice feeling, right? I'm just going like: Oh, like right there. I can just hold that spot for a second and then I can just feel it slowly releasing, and I can just move my leg a little bit.

Ryan Spratt: And you can be on a call. You could be doing homework. You can be in a meeting. You can be studying. You can be doing whatever it is that you're doing in a chair and you are making difference.

Wade Lightheart: I literally felt that just release right away. Right there in that spot. Bang, that fast

Ryan Spratt: And all of a sudden, now your hips are opening up more.

Wade Lightheart: Correct.

Ryan Spratt: You start to get more mobility, the spine takes a lot less stress and now you're sitting up straighter, and you did not even think about sitting up straighter.

Wade Lightheart: Correct. It's just happening automatically. I can feel it. Yeah. I can go like this.

Ryan Spratt: So when he stands up, he's going to have less strain on that lower back. His knees are going to feel better, because the hamstrings aren't pulling as hard.

Wade Lightheart: And you're going to squat better when you're on the squat racks, because you're not getting the resistance from the hamstrings of internal resistance.

Ryan Spratt: And your glutes have been separated from your hamstrings, so they can work as one, but not have to work as one if that makes any sense. They can work together much more efficiently, because each one of them is performing the way that they are meant to perform.

Wade Lightheart: I'm just sitting here and my adductors are going: Thank you. Thank you.

Ryan Spratt: But again, he's been there for about a minute. He's probably shifted his weight five or six, seven times. So he's constantly changing.

Wade Lightheart: Yeah. I can just feel it. I can just feel it. I can just bring my hips out a little further, take a little step and then I can feel it working again. It's not like I'm getting someone leaning into me and hurting, but I'm literally feeling those fibers, just unlock and relax, unlock and relax.

Ryan Spratt: When you stand up, all of a sudden that circulation, there's going to be a storm. There's going to be like a sensation that's running through.

Wade Lightheart: It's like energy just going right up the spine. I can just feel that instantly.

Ryan Spratt: It's like your shoulders naturally wanted to cut back.

Wade Lightheart: My shoulders come back. My posture come up. I feel that the tipping of my body. Wow. And it's hard to believe how much posture is effected by these little things. So one of the reasons that you see these ballerinas and stuff spending so much time in stretching, who have some of the most beautiful movements ever, a lot of women, I think, look for that you've elongated muscle.

Ryan Spratt: Yes. Very much so.

Wade Lightheart: So would you argue or suggest that a lot of the shortening effect of our muscles as we get older is really just a tightening up, because we haven't unlocked and stretched?

Ryan Spratt: They're dehydrated. They're not working. So I can look at most people and I can say: well, you're using 70% of that muscle. They'll be like: no, I'm not. I went to the gym today and I was able to do my curls and my weights were right where I wanted them to be. They've been there for the last couple of months, so I know exactly where it should be. I'm like: I understand that and your strength feels that way. But this part, this part, this part, and this part of your muscle are locked up. If you free that up, all of a sudden, now you've got a hundred percent of your muscle working. And if you've got that, I mean, when you think about it, when things stop moving, that's when things start dying.

Wade Lightheart: Correct.

Ryan Spratt: So if not a hundred percent of your muscle is working or moving the way that it's meant to, then what is it doing?

Wade Lightheart: It's dying.

Ryan Spratt: It's dying.

Wade Lightheart: Cause' it's not not getting hydrated, it's not getting nutrients in, it's not getting waste products out.

Ryan Spratt: If you rehydrate those areas, all of a sudden, a 40 year old acts like a 25 year old. Meaning, in movement sense, like you can start moving the way that you used to.

Wade Lightheart: Cause' that's the way the body's designed. So would you say that a lot of the aging and degeneration process that's going on today are really the agents or the unintended consequences of a sedentary lifestyle?

Ryan Spratt: Sedentary lifestyle. Yes.
Wade Lightheart: Sitting?

Ryan Spratt: Sitting.

Wade Lightheart: Sitting is a big one. So I got this desk that goes up and down, but sometimes I'll sit here for two or three hours, cause' I'm just going back to back to back and I forget. And that's when I need to be sitting and being conscious, even just the reminder of all those muscles are tight. Right? Like I can't believe how much relaxation I have.

Ryan Spratt: You put those on your glutes, so put them above your sit bones and just to the outside and tell me what happens.

Wade Lightheart: So if I put them out here like this?

Ryan Spratt: Just like that, you're going to sit in there. Now what's going to happen…

Wade Lightheart: Oh wow.

Ryan Spratt: It's going to pull away from the tailbone and now your glutes are going to be there, and now the hips are going to become looser on the outside. Again, your rotation here is going to increase, because now the outside of your hip isn't inhibiting lower back from moving.

Wade Lightheart: Right. And I can just kind of feel that and work the same thing. You know, it's funny, because I have a really great, an extraordinary massage therapist. He actually had a background in ballet and dance, and he's super intuitive guy. And he was explaining to me, when he's working, he's like: Wade, you gotta open up your hips. You need a wider base here, cause that's tightening up on you as you get older and you can unlock this. He's always talking. In the first few times he was telling me about this, I had no idea what he was talking about. And I have a background in this area, but people weren't talking to me this language, but I can literally feel this as I'm sitting, I feel my muscles opening up and I can just feel more free here. As you're saying, this rotary forces.

Ryan Spratt: Back to that degeneration aspect of things. When we get injured, what happens? We baby that area.

Wade Lightheart: Right.

Ryan Spratt: We stop moving that area. And then we kind of just play it off as: oh, you know, I've got a hip injury, so I can't do those moves.

Wade Lightheart: Right.

Ryan Spratt: That's not true. Once your body is done healing, even when it starts healing, you can continue to help pumping those fluids into that area to assist the healing process. So that knee or that hip injury don't take the same toll that it would turn to somebody else. They stop moving or they don't move your leg as much, because of that or they don't go up the stairs as fast, their knee doesn't come up as high. You can fix that. You can take that out of the equation. You can make it so that you don't stop moving.

Wade Lightheart: Yeah, I'm sitting here and as he's talking, I'm just like really putting some deep pressure here on my muscle tissues.

Ryan Spratt: And you notice what happens. Once you start to feel like that pressure sink in, your body will become more adapted to it. The tissues around it will soften up and allow you to dig in more, because that super tender area is no longer super tender.

Wade Lightheart: I can just kind of get around the muscle. Can you explain, these fibers kind of going in spindles and muscles, can you talk a little bit more about coming in it from different angles? Because as you're doing this, as we're talking, I can feel myself. For those who are watching on the video, I'm turning my hips here and I'm feeling it come at different angles that would be very difficult for a therapist to get at.

Ryan Spratt: A lot of people, I think, look at muscles as two dimensional. They look at them as flat. They're not flat. They're cylindrical, like you said, they're spindles and they run along each other like this. So if I'm trying to push down on a tissue, I'm only getting one little piece of that, but if I can come at it from here. Let's say I've got a knot, so to speak in this spindle here. If I pushed down on it, I'm helping it from this angle. If I come at it from here, I'm helping it from this angle and if I come at it from here, I'm helping it from that angle. But what about this? What about the bottom part of it? So what if I can get underneath it here and push this way? What if I can get to the side of it and push it this way? Then I can really start generating that effect and now all of a sudden that whole piece that was affected. Again, this is two dimensional here, but if it was a sphere, if it was a knot that people call, and it feels like a golf ball, some people have said, I feel like I got a golf ball back there. We'll get at every angle of that golf ball and you will find that not only does that part change, but everything around it.

Wade Lightheart: Yeah. As you were saying that, I just twisted here and I could just feel it unlocked down through my leg. And it's so fast.

Ryan Spratt: Quick.

Wade Lightheart: Super fast, and super nice.

Ryan Spratt: As long as it doesn't hurt and you're not forcing the pressure, you will find spots. Don't get me wrong.

Wade Lightheart: I got a spot right there. I'm really feeling that one.

Ryan Spratt: If that's too much, he's off of it. Or shift a little.

Wade Lightheart: Shift a little bit and sheer at that edge until you can get under it and…

Ryan Spratt: Press on it.

Wade Lightheart: So these muscle spindles can actually just be sticking together and start to calcify, right? And really what we're doing is breaking up those calcium deposits?

Ryan Spratt: And you are pulling fluids into those areas. So if you think, like a sponge. If you were to take a sponge and you were to squeeze a layer, if you were to take a sponge and you put it in like a bucket of water, it'll fill up with water. But if you squeeze that sponge and then let go of it, that water will get sucked in. So we're thinking along those lines is, if you push on those dry areas, you're going to use positive pressure to break through those dry spots. And then when you let go, that's when the water comes back in and all of a sudden now you've got free moving muscles.

Wade Lightheart: Dude. This is amazing.

Ryan Spratt: Love it.

Wade Lightheart: Well guys, that's another edition of The Awesome Health Podcast. For those who want to know, check out the links here, the Wave Five muscle hydration system. This is IQ body. Ryan, this has been awesome.

Ryan Spratt: Thanks for having me, Wade. I appreciate it.

Wade Lightheart: I've never had an interview, where I'm literally feeling better during the interview. I thought we were going to have to go on the mats to start doing stuff, but I'm doing this right in my chair. Last time we worked on the mats when he came over, this time we got this going on. I can't believe it. This is so awesome. Buddy, thank you so much.

Ryan Spratt: Thank you so much for having me, Wade. I really appreciate it.

Wade Lightheart: All right, everybody. Check out the links below. Get this product, get the app. This will change your life. Believe me. So excited, just another way to biologically optimize with BiOptimizers of The Awesome Health Podcast. Thanks for joining us and we'll see you again on the next episode.

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