About Our Guest- Steve Jordan – Importance of movement and exercise for our well-being
Steve Jordan has been a health and fitness professional for 23 years. He started his career at the White House in 1997 and has since been at the top of his profession. Steve owns a private health and fitness center in Beverly Hills where he coaches top level business executives, celebrities, athletes and all who are committed to living with health and fitness as a priority in their lives. He’s shared his remarkable story and knowledge on NBC’s Today Show, The Dr. Oz Show, The Tyra Banks Show, Men’s Fitness, Fitness, Self magazine and on his podcast I AM Healthy & Fit. His personal story will inspire you – and his practical strategies will empower you to pursue greater joy, meaning and gratitude in your life. Steve has conducted health and wellness retreats for The Robb Report, and Canyon Ranch. He has also lectured for universities and large companies including the University of Maryland, William Morris Endeavor, and Paramount Studios.
He has a podcast called I AM Healthy & Fit with over 40,000 listens in 2 years.
In 2003 Steve trademarked Posture Perfect and was the first person to introduce a home posture program using a foam roller. His program was so innovative for the times that Men’s Fitness featured him and his program which was the first time foam rollers was seen for the masses.
Full Podcast Transcription
Steve Jordan 00:00 I fell off and I landed onto my head onto the concrete, literally like diving into a pool with no water and split my head open and had a traumatic brain injury, losing spinal cord fluid and gray matter oozing out of my ears and I was almost dead.
Diva Nagula 00:28
Hello everyone and welcome to another podcast of From Doctor to Patient. Today, I am joined with Steve Jordan. Steve Jordan has been a health and fitness professional for 23 years. He started this career at the White House in 1997 and has since been at the top of his profession. Steve owns a private health and fitness center in Beverly Hills, where he coaches top level business executives, celebrities, athletes, and all who are committed to living with health and fitness as a priority in their lives. He shared his remarkable story and knowledge on NBC Today’s Show, The Dr. Oz Show, the Tyra Banks Show, Men’s Fitness, Fitness Self Magazine, and on his podcast I Am Healthy and Fit. His personal story will inspire you and his practical strategies will empower you to pursue greater joy, meaning and gratitude in your life. Steve has conducted health and wellness retreats for the Rod Report and Canyon Ranch. He has also lectured for universities and large companies including the University of Maryland, William Morris Endeavor, and Paramount Studios. He has a podcast called I Am Healthy and Fit with over 40,000 listeners in two years. In 2003 Steve trademarked Posture Perfect, and was the first person to introduce a home posture program using a foam roller. His program was so innovative at the time that Men’s Fitness featured him and his program, which was the first time foam rollers was seen for the masses. Steve, thanks for joining us. How are you?
Steve Jordan 02:20
I’m great, Dr. Diva, thanks for having me. Hearing that read by somebody else is kind of cool. I haven’t heard that in a while by somebody else reading it to me.
Diva Nagula 02:31
I’m glad. No problem anytime. And you have some very interesting accolades. And I really want to jump right into that about your story, you have an awesome story to share about how you got into fitness. And, gosh, you’ve been in the White House and also featured in Men’s Fitness with the foam roller and foam rollers are pretty much a mainstay of working out. Now, you see that in gyms, you see that in hotels, and actually there are certain hotels that actually will have a foam roller in your hotel room. So talk to us about your story, I’m really curious, and I think the listeners will be really honored to listen to how this all came to fruition for you.
Steve Jordan 03:10
Sure, well, I’ve always been an active person, I’ll start there, fitness really was a part of my lifestyle as a kid, my dad had the weight bench in our basement, and we had a garage with an extra room off of it. And he had a universal gym in there. And those of you who are around my age and mid 40s know what a universal gym is. It’s like the one piece that had everything, the bench, the squat, the pull downs, the triceps, and my buddies and I, when we were young, probably 10 years old, 11 years old, we were just playing around in there, see who could lift the most or she would push the most, and do whatever, but there was really no like form or rhyme or reason, we would maybe see a magazine in the in the local community store, where, you know, some of the bodybuilders of the time were working out. And we would just have fun with it. But it was always something that I was attracted to. And then I got into sports I was always into sports, but I got more focused in sports. In middle school, it was about in 6th grade, I guess around 12 years old around that time. I wanted to be better at football, I wanted to be better at lacrosse, I wanted to be better wrestling. And so I ended up starting to work out when I was probably about 14 years old or 13 years old, to get stronger and to be better and better in sports and be better than my opponents so that I would be a starter and I didn’t really you know, understand what I was doing. I just did it. I just moved my body and did whatever felt right. And it was cool. It was something that we just felt good about. But I never thought of it as a profession. I just thought it was something that you did. And it was even a way of life. I grew up jersey, and people in Jersey are kind of known for their wants to look good in the summer, because everybody in Jersey lives for the beach and lives to go to the the shore, the Jersey Shore. And I think maybe there was some influence. But then I just saw it being a really great component to performance. And in in high school, especially once I got to like my junior and senior year, where I was now excelling in lacrosse and football, and I was captain of my teams and had all state honors, and I just was becoming a lot more focused and recognized the possibility of playing in college, I decided, the exercise was now to like, perform and to really up my game in the sports that I was good at so that I could potentially get a scholarship or playing college. So that became a different focus and why. I did go to college to play lacrosse, but I didn’t go to college to the college that recruited me, I ended up going to the University of Maryland, which is… the game of lacrosse, they are usually in the top five teams in the NCAA Division One. They’re awesome. They’re great. It was a reach school for me as far as the sport was concerned. And then I chose that school because it had a lot more… I just enjoyed the campus and the environment. The other schools I got recruited to that I would have played at, just didn’t excite me as much as the campus in the environment as University of Maryland did. And I’d always been someone who wanted to just like reach for the stars, I’d always been somebody who’d like was never willing to just settle with mediocrity I always wanted more so when I got a letter back from the coach and said, I can’t give you a scholarship, but if you walk on, we’ll give you a great look. And there could be a good opportunity for you if you walk on. So I saw that as a as a positive and I went for it. But something derailed my dreams and hopes to playing lacrosse. And this is where, kind of the juicy part of my story comes in. I was visiting a friend down at Johns Hopkins University, who played football for Hopkins. And it was a short drive, 30 minutes from University of Maryland, and went down there. And after the game, we were hanging out at his fraternity house and partying and having a good time. And we were on a balcony, two story balcony, and I was kind of roughhousing, doing what 19 year old kids do at kind of a jock fraternity, showing off a little bit and I fell off and I landed onto my head onto the concrete, literally like diving into a pool with no water, and split my head open and had a traumatic brain injury, losing spinal cord fluid and gray matter oozing out of my ears. And I mean, I was almost dead, I fortunately was in a good place. Because I was in Baltimore near Johns Hopkins, I was rushed to the University of Maryland shock Trauma Center, the fraternity there, my friend is now a orthopedic surgeon who went there. But these were all kids that were wanting to be doctors, and I think I got some really good care initially, once people had come to my to my aid, but once the ambulance got me, they took me to the University of Maryland shock trauma center where I had to undergo emergency brain surgery to save my life and to save my brain, and however that looked, they didn’t even know what kind of brain damage I could have suffered, but they needed to go in. So they cut my cut my brain open and cut my skull open and helped to relieve some of that pressure and fixed up my… I guess I don’t even know what they did to fuse where I was losing spinal cord fluid, basically just they repaired me. But it was a six hour brain surgery. And I came out of that I was in a coma induced state for four days and intensive care for two and a half weeks. And I don’t remember almost two weeks of my life. It’s very vague memories, just little, maybe certain parts of it. But it was a very trying and troubling time. I had no idea how I had gotten there. I don’t remember the fall I just only know from hearsay. And it ended up becoming a three and a half month process in the hospital in Baltimore, staying there and undergoing a lot of tests and procedures and things that I’d never imagined I would have fallen victim to but I was in it and I had to make a choice. And it was one afternoon the doctors came into my room, the neurosurgeon and the EMT, this was about three weeks after the initial surgery once I had stabilized and I got out of the intensive care unit and they said Steve, we need to do another brain surgery. You have what’s called Bell’s Palsy, facial paralysis due to a crushed facial nerve from the impact of your fall that nerve is damaged and as you notice you can’t talk out of the left side of your face, your left side, your eye doesn’t close. And we’re gonna have to put a gold weight underneath your eyes to close your eyelid. And it was true. Like when I went to sleep at night, like my eyes stayed open, like I had no control over the whole left side of my face. And I just was like, holy moly, this is nuts. And they told me the risks and the benefits, they were hoping they were going to take my peroneal nerve. And I know maybe some of your listeners or doctors are in that in that area. So I’ll talk, a little bit of terms here, but the peroneal nerve is down your calf, they were going to take that nerve and replace it and then put it into my facial nerve, and hope for 50% regeneration, that’s all they were hoping for. And it was a very time sensitive surgery, because the longer a nerve is impaired or dead or damaged or dulled the likelihood of restoring or having a reconnect activity is unlikely. And this is I mean, this is a very risky procedure to do a nerve replacement. I didn’t want to look deformed or the way that I looked. And so my family and I verbally agreed to it. But the next day, we were going to go to the hospital, or go to their offices, just outside the hospital wing there and talk further more about it and schedule the surgery. So that night, I don’t know what came upon me, Dr. Diva, but I looked into a mirror, it was the only mirror in my room, you know you’re in a hospital room. I was in a single room, I had a bed and then the sink next to the bathroom, which was outside. I stared into that mirror. And I looked in and I saw somebody I didn’t recognize I saw somebody with a head size of a basketball, I had over 100 staples and stitches in my head that showed my head together like a horseshoe around my head on the left side. I had a laceration through my eyebrow from the brow of my nose all the way through the eyebrow on my right eye. So I had like 39 stitches through there. Sewed that up and my face was deformed because I couldn’t move the whole left side of my face. I give people the analogy. I felt like I looked like that sloth in that movie Goonies. That’s how I looked like I was deformed. I was crooked. It was hard, it was just horrific. So I started to cry. And in that moment of desperation, and just unknowing and fear, something turned on inside of my being, I call it a god intervention intervention from above, from something outside of what I knew or could will on my own. But it willed me to, I willed myself to try and move my lip and couldn’t do it. And I don’t know why I tried it again. But I tried it again. And I couldn’t do it. And I did it again. And I couldn’t do it. And I don’t know how many times I tried, I wish I could, I wish I had an ability to go back and really like look at this time period. I wish somebody could go into my brain and like pull out this memory and make it more real and stronger. But I do remember that I tried and tried. And I tried until I did it. I moved my limb. By God be my witness, I lose. I’ve moved my lip, where I was able to take the left upper part of my lip and lift it up. Like I hadn’t given another example. Like if you ever again, kind of dating myself I’m 45, like Billy Idol, when he had that like lip snarl, like his lip went up. Well, my lip went up. And I didn’t like oh my god, like I didn’t say oh my god, it’s a miracle. I like moved my lip. I just did it again. And I did it again. And I did it again until I could do it without like, without hesitation without like almost any effort and went to sleep. And I woke up and my parents came to the hospital room. They’re like, alright, honey, we’re going to the doctor’s office now. And I said Mom, Dad, I was able to move my lip last night and they’re like, okay, well make sure you tell the doctor. My parents aren’t doctors, and they don’t know the science of nerves and whatnot. And so they didn’t think it was a miracle. Nor did I but they were like, okay, we’ll just tell the doctors so we get in there and the doctors again, the neurosurgeon in the EMT said, Well this is what we have to do. And these are the risks in the procedures and we need your consent, we’re gonna schedule this within the next like few days because we can’t wait much longer. And my mom said, Okay, well Steven was able to move his lip last night and they said, no, that’s impossible. The MRIs and the CAT scan doesn’t show that. My mom said, well, he was Steven show them, and I did it. And as I tell the story, if you can see me right now I’m actually almost in tears because I always brings tears to my eyes, but my hairs on my arm are standing up. And the doctors saw me move my lip and their jaws drops. The EMT walked up to me, put his hand on my shoulder and said you’re a miracle kid. Wow and walked out of the room, and the EMT and the neurosurgeon was in disbelief with like a laughter of just like, disbelief. And he made me do it again and again. And he’s like, this is unbelievable. It was just something they had never seen before. And they gave me He gave me a list of facial exercises to do, where I would make sounds and move my lips so that I would take them through the full ranges of motion. And I did these, like, if you were to have an impaired leg or knee like knee surgery, and you need to strengthen your quads or your hips or your glutes, like you would do these exercises. And I would just do these exercises from my face day in day out anytime, all the time, because my “why” was I am going to be back to where I was. And I need to look, the way
I looked before. Because looking good at 19 years old was really important. And that was something that, you know, looking the way I did, that was my number one priority, to be honest. And so that was what I did. And it was like from that point on was like, that was go time, it was like the greenlight, it was like, I am now like, full throttle, on my way to recovery, and I’m gonna do whatever it takes, and more and listen to the doctors but not listen to them as well and listen to my own insticts and intuition. Yeah, my own body to be able to heal from the inside out. And that’s where fitness took on its form for me, because when I was ambulanced home to New Jersey, I was not able to drive, I was on seizure medication. And I had to keep like activity low, I actually slept a lot. I went to cognitive therapy for a while and I did that for like, three, four months, because I did have brain damage. I didn’t I wasn’t even speaking complete sentences, I didn’t have good memory long term or short term. And they didn’t think I was gonna be able to go back to school. So you know, I was able to, I was starting to go back to the cognitive therapy. And I was sleeping a lot because I was healing and whatnot. But I also, once I could get back into the gym, I did and I started working out this time, rather than going from looking good or performing like I did before, right? When I told you the story of like how I did it in high school, I now was doing it to feel good, right to like, build my self esteem back up. your self esteem, it’s a huge muscle in your being that requires nurturing and my self esteem was broken. It was shattered. I was a an athletic, I was a good looking kid, I had really the world at my fingertips. And it was like taken from me in an instant. And I needed and wanted that back. So I use exercise as a way to start feeling good about myself and who I was and building myself up again. And from there, I got back into school, I was released from cognitive therapy and psychiatrists there. And I went back to the University of Maryland, and they embraced me back like my university school department. It was, at that time, the school of Kinesiology, which is a school of human health performance and now it’s called the School of Public Health. The dean at that time, everybody knew my story, because my parents had to call and tell them and they stopped my tuition. And I got, refunded a little bit for the time that I missed the year that I missed, but I came back and they all wanted to meet me and I bet everybody and people were like, wow, we can’t believe you made this rebound and whatnot. So they embraced me and it felt like I was part of a family too. And my friends that I left behind also embraced me and were supportive in my process. And as I was working out and feeling good, many of them were like, Hey, take me to the gym, show me what you do for this and how you do this. And like I became a role model and he came a peer influencer in and around health and fitness. And it just was an organic process. And as I got through that first year of getting back into school, which was really tough. Again, because my brain was was broken, and I had to learn how to study again and kind of redo things away. It was a whole new way paradigm of, of learning and taking tests and memorizing. But I was able to declare a field of subjects in my kinesiology program. And it was more about rehab. Like I was like, hey, I want to get into rehab. But then I had some friends graduate before me. And they were in rehab where they were in chiropractic school because I got held behind and they would call me and they’d be like, Steve, don’t do it. It’s not worth it what you’re doing already and I was studying some of the best like gurus at that time on self studying and then I got certified through the American In college sports medicine, they’re like you’re doing things that we’re doing and like, you don’t need to go through it if you don’t like school. So at that time I made it. Like my senior year, I made a decision like I’m going to, I’m going to focus on like personal training and this field that I knew was only being like, kind of exclusive to the Hollywood, rich and famous. But I was somebody that I wanted to, like, make this, you know, impact and like bridge the gap between physical therapy and fitness. Because fitness brought me back. And it was physical therapy, it was emotional therapy, it was all therapy. And so that’s how and why I got into that. And that’s how I got into the industry.I say I fell into it, no pun intended. It could be parallel for anybody, at any stage, anything they’re dealing with whether it’s… I’ve also had used exercise and as a tool to help me through a breakup, I had a breakup when I was about eight, nine years ago that I thought this was the girl I was going to marry. And I mean, it was for the first time I was devastated. I mean, I was heartbroken and exercise helped me through the recovery process of that of about a year.
Diva Nagula 23:42
And it’s so important. Right now we’re are facing some times, during this pandemic of COVID- 19. And we’re in just to give our listeners a perspective, it’s about week five, I think that we’re in a quarantine. And a lot of people are abiding and they’re stuck at home is a lot of people are getting cabin fever and sort of crazy. And it’s there’s a couple of things that are going on, some people aren’t exercising, and some people are just confined into their offices or homes and making their homes into an office where they’re sitting down a lot. And probably not using correct posture and probably have this hunched back and are probably, you know, also sitting for long periods of time. So they’re tightening their hip flexors up. And it’s getting into this contracted position and people are probably not able to relieve themselves because they don’t have access to a foam roller at home, or they don’t have access to a massage therapist or a chiropractor to assist with this. So you’re this guru of posture and you have this posture program. So for people that are suffering, this plight, what would you recommend for the people to help facilitate or stretch or lengthen their tendons and prevent this, this posture neck and this forward posture that we’re seeing a lot of.
Steve Jordan 25:12
I can’t stress enough that you’re right, this is definitely a time when we are in a position of more of a sedentary life of sitting more, and it does wreak havoc on our postures, because that’s not the way that we were intended to be our human bodies were meant to stand, squat, run, walk, twist, rotate, lunge, push, press, and we’re not doing any of that we’re just sitting still with our hands up on a computer screen and head down. It’s causing overload and these tendons and joints and ligaments, and causing dis formation in the tissues. And we need to restore that. And the good news is that you can, through simple exercises, the consistency of simple exercises. I don’t want to make it sound easier than it is. They are simple exercises. But it’s the consistency of those exercises, that’s gonna be important, right? So when you’re sitting down, sitting down for five minutes, or 30 minutes isn’t bad, but it’s sitting down for four hours or five hours or six hours is bad. When you have the same posture, well, it’s the same thing to counterbalance that you need to do something that is going to work opposite of some of those positions that you’re put into. And you do them consistently, it could be morning, afternoon and evening program for 5-10 minutes, that will help to keep your body in a better position with better posture. As you told everybody in the introduction, the foam roller. Yes, 18 years ago, I was introduced to the foam roller probably 20-21 years ago, and was using it in my practice and was having some great success with it. It was a love hate relationship that people had with it because it hurt a lot when they first started to use it. But it felt good. I always said like, it hurts so good. After you’re done using it, you actually feel better, you feel looser, your body feels more mobile. And there was somebody that I knew in New York when I was working and living there who saw me using this day in day out and he said, You know this is a really interesting tool out of all the gyms that I go to. He was a group exercise instructor, one of the leading group exercise instructors, he goes, I go to 10 different clubs throughout the city all top notch. You’re the only one I see using this. And he goes, you should think about doing a program with this, and I was like, wow, that’s interesting. Thanks for that insight. So I was always into posture, I don’t know why, but I just intuitively knew posture was something good maybe because some of my friends were chiropractors and we’re going to chiropractic school. But I felt like you could manipulate your posture through exercises. It was an intuition again, just through understanding the the human body and the biomechanics and physics of it, that you can manipulate it through exercise and stretching and being able to maintain it. So I created this program called Posture Perfect. It was called Steve Jordan’s Posture Perfect Program. I created a video and it was a VHS video that dates it back and it was a manual and two foam rollers. It was the one foot foam roller, which I called the posture pillar one and then the three foot foam roller which I call the posture pillar two that one was more for travel you so if you were to travel, you’d put it in your bag or carry on and take it with you so you can continue your program. And I sold it as a kit. And I sold it like to a bunch of health and fitness magazines and trade magazines. And it just took on a life of its own. And it really started to pick up momentum and Men’s Fitness, as you said, did a feature article on it. And it was a seven page spread that was first time foam rollers was ever introduced into the public eye in a way that you know we see it today where like you said it’s everywhere. It’s a program that begins with foam roller, you use the foam roller like a massage. So you apply it to certain areas like your calves, the front of your thighs, the quadriceps, your hips, your IT band, which runs along the side of your of your leg, your shoulders underneath your armpit area, your pecs where you’re, you know, on the front of your shoulders, and even your neck and there’s so many different ways to apply it and use it and help to lengthen and restore the tissues health and be able to get more mobility out of that tissue and increased circulation. And then the next part is there’s static stretching exercises. When you do the foam roll before you do a static stretch You get better length into the tissue and you have more lasting length. Because when you foam roll, you break up areas in the muscle called adhesions. adhesions are areas where collagen, which is an inelastic protein binds up in the muscle fiber and causes a almost like a cast or a knots like you would a knot in your fabric of your T shirt. A trigger point use a trigger point or a pressure point, it becomes an area where it’s in mobile, where that fiber doesn’t want to move and it stays stuck and gluey. And what you do with the foam roller, if you’re doing the technique, right, as you open that up, and you allow for that adhesion to break, and you get restore that function of that tissue. And when you static stretch after you’re now getting stretchability and hopefully plastic change, which is change that lasts and holds over the whole tissue of the muscle rather than the healthy tissues of the muscle, you’re now making the whole muscle, more healthy, and you’re going to have better lasting results. So you do the foam rolling, and then you do static stretching. And then you do specific strengthening exercises that use your body weight, and gravity and very specific movements that strengthen muscles that are weakened, because of those muscles that were tight. So when you have poor posture, you have weak muscles, and you have strong muscles, the strong muscles are usually the tight ones that are actually working too much, there’s too much tension in them. When you foam roll and stretch, you release that that tension. And now the the muscles that are weak that have been inhibited, now can be more activated, because you have new length in the in the joints. And now we work on those muscles and we strengthen them doing very specific, again exercises with higher reps and slower movement to actualize and activate those muscles. And you get that now strengthen the muscle. And now you’ve got length and strength, which causes and creates better posture.
Diva Nagula 32:03
And that’s so important of a routine to implement on a daily basis, specifically, when we’re in confined positions for long periods of time, whether even if we’re not in this quarantine time period and timeframe, where we have to be sitting there a lot, or most likely have a tendency to sit more than not. Even still, aside from that, people are still working from home, and they’re sitting in their office because a lot of people are doing work from their computer. And so it’s important for everyone to really focus on improving their posture by these techniques. And not to mention, it’s it’s also as a society, we are like anterior or forward dominance in the sense that we are we move forward, we do everything where we are utilizing the front part of our body, we really neglect our posterior or posterior chain muscles. And it’s important that we need to have a balance and not to have an imbalance where we have one side that’s stronger than the other. Am I correct with that assumption Steve?
Steve Jordan 33:11
It’s more than assumption, it’s a fact. It’s an absolute fact that you’re right. That’s the question in the beginning, and I kind of glanced over and I want to come back to it, like how do you you know, help somebody who sits all day and who’s doing everything, like you just said, and with poor posture versus awareness. Before all the exercises and everything I just explained about my posture perfect program, it’s being aware, right? Awareness creates change, or the want to change. And that’s where you need to start first. So what you just express there if you can sit down, and we’re looking yourself in the mirror and say, I’m sitting long, and I need to move my body more, but I don’t know how to move in the right way. And how do I combat this, like you’re building a foundation, right. And when you do the posture perfect program, or any program that’s helping to improve posture, you’re building a new foundation, a stronger foundation, just like your house, if you were to build a brand new house today, and you were to you know, fast forward 20-30 years from now, even five or 10 years or 20 years from now, you have to maintain that house, you have to make sure the structure of it is fine. It’s going to weather lots of storms, you know, no pun intended rain, winds, snow, sleet and anything else other conditions in the environment. You have to maintain it and keep it keep, you know, putting the love into it so that it will stand for 100 years. Well, ladies and gentlemen, we’re living longer than ever and my hope is that I’m gonna live to 100 or more. And I want to make sure that my body is in optimal shape and form and it needs to start from the foundation. So you know I continue to do these posture perfect programs day in and day out. I do then several times a day, because it’s a part of most, if not all of my clients programs, and I do it with them in the warm up just to help them kind of see what I’m doing. So I’m fortunate that it’s part of my lifestyle, and they make it an everyday part of my routine in my work. But even if it’s not, you’re not lucky to have that opportunity, you can treat other areas in your life to be able to do it. So I would always say like, first thing in the morning, when you wake up, go to the bathroom, and then do two, three minutes of sweat have some stretches. You don’t have to go through the whole program, you don’t have to do the foam roller in the static stretches. And then strength exercises, just do a part of it. If you can do that, that’s more ideal. But you might want to just stretch in your bathroom, your hips, open up your hips, open up your calves, open up your shoulders, move your shoulders and your neck, just to get mobility and rotation and get some circulation. After your body has been sitting for a while or laying down for sleeping for a while, anything will be beneficial if you just do what’s right, and you know what you’re doing. Because you can do something and it may not be helpful, but you got to it’s like throwing a dart at a target you can’t see with your eyes closed, you got to know what your target is, and what are the right exercises, there’s 1000s of exercises out there, not all of them are intended to help your posture. So it’s important to do that.
Diva Nagula 36:24
I agree 100%, I can’t stress enough the importance of, of maintaining a good posture, loosening up the muscles, with the foam roller and with some static stretching exercises, it’s absolutely important for everyone to implement. When I was going through chemo, I was going through cycles one and a half days a month for five to six months, I became really deteriorated. My cardiovascular condition was very poor, I became increasingly deconditioned as as more time had passed with each session of chemo. And I wish I had implemented more of an aggressive exercise program routine that really would have just opened my my body up instead of really increasing this forward slouching posture that I started to develop. And as simple thing would have been just to get a foam roller and just been on the foam roller in using it on the front side of my body. And as you mentioned, the quads, quads, the chest to the shoulders, the lats on the backside, the glutes and the hamstrings and calves. And it would have just been really nice to perform that and of itself, because that would have been enough exercise for me to increase the circulation to help move blood and to eliminate the toxins and get more oxygen flowing into my organs. And I didn’t do that. But in my book, what I suggest for people to do is to do things such as walking, you know, when you’re in a state of of disease and such as cancer in which you really don’t have the capacity to do much. It’s still good to encourage regular movement. And in this case, is there any harm in using a foam roller for people that are going through chemotherapy or any type of other infusions for chronic diseases?
Steve Jordan 38:14
That’s a loaded question. I hesitate to answer. No, my instinct is to say no, because there’s all different ways of applying it. You can do soft to hard. There’s different types of foam rollers out there. But I would say it, talk to your physician first and find out from your doctor, even if they don’t know what foam rolling is, I mean, most physicians God, I hope they know what that is by now. But you should ask them and if they don’t know what it is just say a massage. Can I get a massage? Or can I have a self induced massage? That would be another way of framing it so that they wouldn’t understand. But I would say probably for most.
Diva Nagula 38:57
What type of exercise would you recommend for people who are going through periods of deconditioning whether it’s some sort of rehab process, similar to what you went through, or whether they’re going through chemo? Would you advocate for some sort of simple, low impact walking, that kind of exercise, or what would be the optimal thing for people to do on a regular basis.
Steve Jordan 39:22
100% I think that movement is medicine. I know movement is medicine. It worked for me, it’s worked for 1000s of clients that I’ve worked with through the years who have had conditions that doctors were blown away by what they were able to do and overcome with the proper movement and consistency of movement. What I would recommend people to do is do what you are familiar with. If you’re in that position. If you’re somebody that likes to walk, well then walk, don’t run. If you’d like to run well then run if you like to row, row if you’d like to do abs and workout in the gym, well then do that but do it low impact low, like a low intensity while your body is healing and going through the, you know, the recovery of chemo or other conditions or treatments from other diseases, because exercise can be a stress in of itself. I’m glad I’m bringing this up because people think that exercise, all types of exercise is good, it’s not right. We’re in a world right now, where more is better, I think that this COVID is helping to shift that. But high intensity training is a buzzword and everybody’s doing and then all the fitness studios opening up. Every day, I’m seeing a new new franchise that opening have some kind of high intensity workout in 30 minutes. These are great, and they’re fun, and they’re cool, and they keep you moving and sexy. But what they also do is they stress you more as well, if you’re already stressed from chemo or other treatments from disease, or you’re just overworked and not sleeping, and you’re just stressed because of what’s going on or whatever your condition is, then a high intensity program is not for you. So a lower intensity, like you suggested, is a better use of your time, and will benefit you more long term, even though you may not get those high endorphin rushes from it just maybe increase your time, rather than walking for 30 minutes, walk for an hour and build it up over time, you’ll see within weeks/months, you’ll start to increase your intensity. And as you recover, or you get the green light from your physicians to move or do more than you can go ahead and do that. But don’t try and go ahead and do too much too soon. Because you can actually have negative effects and reverse some of the benefits of of exercise.
Diva Nagula 41:49
And that’s such a key point here is everyone wants to jump into some sort of activity or take the next supplement because they hear it’s the it’s the best thing to do to boost your immune system or to reduce your chances of deteriorating from a chronic disease condition. And it’s really important that we need to emphasize that when you’re doing exercise more is not always the answer here. And we want to be, especially for a person who is unfamiliar with exercising, who doesn’t exercise on a regular basis, you don’t want that person to immediately go into what you’re describing is a high intensity program workout and destroy their body. In fact, there have been studies that actually show that if you’re in situations such as like running like a marathon or half a marathon for even the fittest people, there have been studies that actually showed that there is an impairment in immune system for a few days to a week right after running a marathon. And this is for people who are trained to run marathons. And so that’s why we just don’t want to emphasize the practice of doing more is basically building yourself and building your body up to be able to tolerate those types of exercises like to high intensity that we were talking about earlier.
Steve Jordan 43:05 Absolutely.
Diva Nagula 43:06
And there was this recent study that came out a few days ago about how important it is to really maintain some type of exercise regimen during these times of the COVID virus. And specifically, they were talking about how exercising our muscles in our body increases this antioxidant. That’s called superoxide dismutase. And it’s basically an antioxidant that really helps the body for infections such as the COVID and helps prevent conditions and complications from COVID, which is what’s causing these problems and deaths. And that’s known as acute respiratory distress syndrome, or ARDS for short. And it was really interesting, this article pointed out that this enzyme that was recreated and increased by exercise really showed that our bodies can fight the disease and can actually rebound a lot quicker. And I thought that was interesting. And it’s actually, we’ve always known the body, the body benefits from exercise. And this study is even a testament to show that even with the virus such as the COVID-19, this infection that we’re seeing people fight, we see that people rebound quicker. And I’m almost curious as to what really caused them to rebound quicker. And I’m assuming that a lot of it has to do with their exercise regimen, their diet, their lifestyle, and it’s good to know that we have some evidence that exercise does help facilitate a better recovery and may in some cases prevent even the body developing an infection to begin with.
Steve Jordan 44:50
Yeah, no doubt. I think it’s really important in this time period, understand that. Even outside of that study, you know, the studies that they’re also showing are the ones that are contracting it and losing life or having really, very bad symptoms from it are those that are unhealthy, that don’t have good positive lifestyles that have respiratory issues. I mean, these people are probably, they’re not the ones running out. I mean, there’s, of course, there’s always exceptions, but the majority of them are not going out, you know, being able to run a mile, right, they’re probably can’t even walk a mile. They’re older, obviously they’re just their health, and their fitness is not a priority in their life.
Diva Nagula 45:29
Exactly. And I think that’s the change that I hope that people will start to gravitate towards. After we come out of this, I think there’s gonna be a whole new changes for people, people are going to want to get more information on how to improve their overall health and wellness is people like us, that’s going to help people that are interested in improving their bodies and preventing disease. And I’m really looking forward to helping people and increase their awareness and education.
Steve Jordan 45:58
Well, you’re doing a great job here, Dr. Diva, and I’m grateful to be a part of this conversation and the awareness that we’re bringing to people’s attention in and around posture, and health and wellness during a time like this. The statistics are showing that, you know, home workouts are now becoming a part of the normal conversation. And going back to big gyms may not be as accepted as it once was, I mean, the gym owners and big gym owners and I’m a gym owner, but a small boutique gym, are hopeful that it is but there’s a very good possibility that it’s not I know many of my clients are, you know, strongly considering continuing the online training we’re doing. And I’ve created several programs to facilitate that and to harness this opportunity. And one is recreating my Posture Perfect Program that I’m calling Posture Perfect 2.0. And it’s now on my website at SteveJordan.com and it’s I’ve reduced the price to $29.99. It was $79.99. During this time when people need help financially and need more health and wellness. And it’s what we’ve been talking about in this conversation is the foam rolling, the static stretches and the exercises that are specific to strengthen muscles that are weak to help you have better posture. And really, honestly, overall general health and fitness, although it is a Posture Perfect Program that helps you focus on that. If you do it with the intention to build posture, great, awesome, you will have that no doubt 100% guaranteed. But if you also go into it with the intention of having better health, and feeling better, you will absolutely have that as well, you kind of can’t have one without the other. I mean, when you start working on yourself and doing things that are supporting yourself, you’re gonna start picking up better habits, you’ll start finding yourself wanting to or actually sleeping better, eating better, making better lifestyle choices that play into the whole conversation, and the whole program of living a healthy and fit life. So please check out my website and order that program. And if you have any questions, there’s actually one free day, if you sign up, you get a one day program for free to see how it works. And if you want a foam roller, go on Amazon, Amazon has several different options to choose from now foam rollers you can get them for as low as $10-12. And they can cost you up to $50-60 depending upon what kind of model and what kind of unique difference it is some vibrate, some have knobs, I would just recommend a black hard foam density, it’ll run you around $18, one foot is fine, you don’t need a three foot one, there’s benefits to having a three foot one. But just having a one foot one will benefit anything you do in the posture perfect program.
Diva Nagula 48:57
And it’s portable, so you can take it with you when we’re able to resume traveling.
Steve Jordan 49:01 Absolutely!
Diva Nagula 49:03
Awesome. Steve, thanks so much for joining us today. I appreciate you being a guest on my podcast and sharing these tips that are gonna help a lot of people who are forced to be restricted in their homes and leading sedentary lives that we know that we need to be more active and move that blood and really just kind of flush out these toxins that are stored and improve oxygenation. And that’s really important. I’m glad you have a program that’s out there that can help facilitate all these and get rid of people’s knots and improve people’s postures, and it’s such an important tool that we need to do now and even in the future after we get out of these social restrictions that we’re that we’re dealing with right now.
Steve Jordan 49:44
You’re welcome. It’s my pleasure. I’m grateful that I’m able to share my story and offer the opportunity to help people. And I think what you’re doing is awesome as well. Thank you for asking me to be on your show.
Diva Nagula 49:55
And one more time what’s the name of your website and how can people find you?
Steve Jordan 50:00
SteveJordan.com is the website and if you go into the tabs on the top, you’ll see online programs and you’ll see several of them. Posture Perfect 2.0 is the one we’ve been talking about. You can also follow me on Instagram at @SteveJordanLifestyle, and Facebook, Steve Jordan Fitness and you can reach me at Steve@SteveJordan.com if you have any questions or comments. I’m happy to answer those for you.
Diva Nagula 50:28
Awesome. Thanks again, Steve. Take care.
Steve Jordan 50:31 Thank you very much.