Written by Christopher Kelly
Jan. 1, 2015
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Christopher: Hello and welcome to the Nourish Balance Thrive podcast. My name is Christopher Kelly and I'm joined today by Nigel McHollan. Nigel is my biomechanics coach. Maybe you can do an intro. Who are you, Nigel?
Nigel: Yes. Hi, Chris. Thank you. My name is Nigel McHollan. As you say, I'm a biomechanics coach based in Gullane which is just outside Edinburgh. I've been a biomechanics coach for over five years now. Previously before that, I have been – and still am – a Pilates instructor and a personal trainer and a remedial and sports massage therapist for over the last 15 years.
Christopher: Excellent. I first met Nigel a few years ago through a very close friend. Nigel was helping him with his back. I didn't really have any problems with my back but I had been riding rounds in my bike for a number of years with a plastic wedge underneath one of my cleats. If you're a road cyclist or a triathlete, you probably know what I'm talking about, the idea being that this wedge fixes a leg length discrepancy and that would fix – it's kind of a curious one.
Admittedly, it did work for me. I felt better and felt like I was producing more power once I inserted this wedge underneath my cleat so that my legs were the same length. But I'm not sure that was the best possible solution. Maybe, Nigel, you could give a bit more information about what the heck was going on there.
Nigel: Sure. Yeah. Presumably, at some point, you come to the conclusion that you had a leg length discrepancy. You've been to like a bike fit guy or something local who would have assessed you maybe sitting on the bike and done some measurements, looking at the height of your saddle, how far the saddle is or how close the saddle is to your angle bars and then come up with the idea for a specific bike fit and come to the conclusion that you maybe have one leg longer than the other one.
These are what we would class in the biomechanics world as an extrinsic measurement so if you were to divide the science of biomechanics into two separate sciences which are the extrinsic measurements so like your bike fit guy or even somebody using some video analysis or gait analysis where they're doing observations or maybe some work in a laboratory where they're looking at specific points like the knee, the ankle, and the head in relation to how you move or how you function.
That's not what a biomechanics coach is looking at. We're looking at the intrinsic biomechanics of yourself so we're looking at things that you can't really see through observations. We're looking at specific measurements done through screenings which were built to test function of specific joints and muscles and also looking at the neural system as well to see whether or not the various joints and systems of the body are actually functioning. From that, one of those screens I did on you when I first met you, I came to the conclusion through these measurements and tests and screenings that you had a leg length discrepancy. Now --
Christopher: Okay.
Nigel: -- whether or not that leg length discrepancy is something you've been born with or something that you have developed through poor posture or muscle spasm or something similar that has led to you having a leg length discrepancy.
Christopher: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I think in this instance the discrepancy was measured quite crudely by placing a piece of wood across my knee as I sat up against a wall or something like that. My coach, he didn't really understand where the difference was coming from. He said it could be a difference in the length of your femurs but it might be something else. I don't know but it doesn't really make much difference to me. I'm going to put this plastic cleat in there anyway.
It did kind of work but it's like kind of stupid especially when you get to the mountain bikes because there's no real way to insert a wedge on a mountain bike. There's just no elegant solution. The pedals just don't work like that.
So tell me a bit more about the screening process. How exactly do you figure out whether this discrepancy has something to do with the length of the femur or whether it's something else?
Nigel: Sure. Yeah. The brains behind the biomechanics coach system is a guy called Martin Haines. He comes from Nottingham. Now, for several years -- I think it's almost 30 years – he has been a physical therapist but his specialty has been in intrinsic biomechanics so he's been doing a lot of lab work with lumbar motion monitors and video analysis and so on and quite a lot of expensive kind of gadgetry and machines that will measure these extrinsic movements and intrinsic movements as well.
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So he wanted to take that, looking at those systems and then develop something further which could be used as a kind of more hands on thing without use of the specialist equipment so he came up with several screenings. I think we're looking at over 20 different screens.
Christopher: So a screen being I'm lying on a massage table and you asked me to perform some movement and then based on what you see you make a decision?
Nigel: Well, majority of the movements are done by myself. Some of the screens I have to put measurements with the pen on your ankle for instance which will then give us a true, kind of accurate measurement of whether you have a true leg length discrepancy or whether it's just something you've been born with.
We then attach a screen to that movement so we have a pelvic function test called Downing's Sign which doing various movements through the leg will then tell us that that side of the pelvis according to that leg has ability or the capacity to function as it can rotate posterior or anti or forwards and backwards and cannot happen on both sides. That doesn't happen on both sides. You're looking at a rotated pelvis which has been normally rotated and stuck in position which then gives the appearance of a leg length discrepancy.
So basically one side of your pelvis is hitched up or it's gone forward and has either pulled the leg down or has brought the leg up and then your ankles wouldn't match together. So you therefore have a true and accurate description or a method of screening whether or not people's leg discrepancy as they are and also whether or not the pelvis is functioning incorrectly or functioning properly.
Christopher: So you're telling me that the pelvis, the two parts of it actually move independently and it's possible for them to get –
Nigel: Absolutely.
Christopher: Okay. So that was definitely not clear to me before I first met you and I'm not sure I fully understand it now but that seems to be like a crucial piece in order for you to get two legs that are of different lengths.
Nigel: Yes. I mean, there are several tests out there. I think there's over 20 different tests that you can do or screenings that you can do for testing or assessing pelvic function. The ones that Martin and his team chose are the three ones that we have available to us that are Downing's sign, the [0:07:34] [Indiscernible] which is also known as FABER Test, and the [0:07:38] [Indiscernible] Test.
There're just various different ways in which you are assessing pelvic function and from that you can build a really good picture of what was going on to the pelvis. But then it's from those three tests that you can then determine whether there's good pelvic function and also tells you which side of your pelvis isn't working because you're going to have a longer leg or a shorter leg. You don't actually know which one is shorter, which one is longer until you've done these pelvic function tests because one of your legs could have been pulled forward and down but the pelvis' function isn't functioning on that side so it gives the appearance of a longer leg.
Christopher: Okay.
Nigel: But it can be taken as the left leg, although that's the shorter one so you're not absolutely sure which side is working or functioning until you've done the Downing's Sign, the Downing's Test.
Christopher: That's pretty cool. So then you gave me some exercises to do and I went away for quite a long time. Nigel obviously lives in Scotland and I'm here in California so I don't get to see him every day. So it's quite a long time before I saw him again. We repeated the same tests and mysteriously my legs were now of the same length which was quite remarkable. So tell me about the exercises that you helped me do to fix this problem.
Nigel: Uh-hmm. So from the pelvic function test, we determined that one side of your pelvis wasn't functioning properly. Now, usually, the reason for the pelvis not functioning properly is a specific muscle in your glutes going to your piriformis and that's quite a key player in pelvic function.
So from that test, we determined which side of your pelvis wasn't working properly. We then assigned a corrective technique or a corrective exercise to the performance on that side that wasn't functioning properly. Now, this is a very kind of unusual way of releasing a muscle spasm because that's basically what was happening at your piriformis was a muscle spasm. Rather than being looked upon as being a tight or a shortened, stiffened muscle, we're presuming it's a spasm in muscle so you need to do a technique called an anti-spasm exercise which is done from a research done by a guy called Dvorak. He's a neurosurgeon and he came up with the idea that a low-grade endurance muscular contraction is the best way to release a muscle spasm.
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So we were going to take that piriformis into a low contraction which will then ideally – or according to his research – free up that muscle. We did that. We performed that anti-spasm technique which is that low-grade muscle contraction, and we did that four times according to the principles that we have, the 20% contraction for 20 seconds. We repeated that four times. We then reassessed the leg length discrepancy and the pelvic function test and we found that your pelvis had regained function on the side that hadn't previously been working prior to the muscle release corrected technique with it.
Christopher: Okay. Yeah. So I should describe the exercise and I think maybe the easiest way to describe it is I put my arm, my forearm underneath my glute as I'm sat down and then I push –
Nigel: The back of your leg.
Christopher: The back of my leg. Yes. So I'm pushing quite gently downwards with the kind of similar force that maybe I would use applied to a pedal on a very easy ride so it's almost no force at all.
Nigel: Yeah. That's correct.
Christopher: It was a remarkably elegant solution. I probably spent more time on Amazon looking for some stupid gadget that was going to allow me to put this plastic wedge underneath my mountain bike cleat than I did doing the exercises. It's a pretty cool solution. I'm wondering what happens to other people that are affected by this? How common is this? Is this something that's really unusual or do you see all the time?
Nigel: Well, we would say that the pelvis is -- 6% of back pain and knee pain and shoulder pain and spinal pain, the origin of that is normally due to the pelvis. The pelvic function tests are really important to do your first screening to figure out whether there's a pelvic problem or whether it's something else like a knee or foot or shoulder or even more neural like a nerve issue.
Once we've done these tests, we then determine what are the best exercises to give the person away for say a week or so. Let him try these correct techniques, maybe just one or two of them, for two weeks and come back. If the pelvis is functioning when you come back in a week's time and you found the result has been changed and has gotten improved since the last time you saw them, then you know that the exercises you've given them are the correct exercises or techniques for them. Have they come back in a week's time and there'd been no change, then you're thinking, well, maybe this isn't a pelvic issue. Maybe there's something else like shoulder or knee or something neural instead.
Christopher: Okay. So what you're saying is I could have come to you and reported any number of symptoms and the root cause would quite commonly be this malfunction or whatever you want to call it – dysfunction with the pelvis. So I might have come to you with a bad back or bad neck or something else and it still could have been the same pelvic problem.
Nigel: Yeah. We need to look obviously the pelvis first and then determine from that what is the true cause of the problem, what's the true root of that and then soften that leg, the pain site and the pain source are two different things altogether so you know you have to compensate the effects that the body is doing because the body is a master of compensation. So you can come in with a shoulder issue and because of the fascial slings and systems that we have in our body, the true cause of that shoulder issue could be a spasm in piriformis in the opposite side of the pelvis, of the shoulder.
Christopher: Right. So if I had been – maybe I had gotten away with it likely just because I'm a cyclist. If I had been a runner and there was a lot more impact involved with the force that I'm applying with my muscles then I might have come undone in some other way that would've been worse.
Nigel: Exactly. You could've come in to see me with an inside knee problem. All too often, you go straight to the site of the pain where, using this intrinsic biomechanic screening we have, if I found there had been a leg length discrepancy and also combines the knee issue then you could presume from that that the shortened leg or the lengthened leg was then causing the knee to bend more in the way or the foot to flatten more or the lower back to be more bent to one side or the shoulder has been dropped to one side.
So the repercussions or the compensatory effects from the pelvis dysfunction can go up and down the body so you have various other factors. Again, it depends what actions you are doing [0:15:05] [Indiscernible] what your function is which will determine again maybe what joints are moving affected by pure patterns or pure dysfunctions throughout the body.
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Christopher: Uh-hmm. So when you say "root cause," that's something I'm definitely all about, figuring out root causes. I understand what you're saying about the pelvis here but I still feel like this is not the root cause. The root cause is not something to do with my pelvis; it's something to do with the way I am sitting or the way I am walking or the way I am standing or sleeping or something.
So how'd you figure that out? I mean, what stops are you – you fixed me now. What's to stop that from happening again? How do you identify the movement patterns that caused the problem in the first place?
Nigel: Sure. Sometimes there are extrinsic movement patterns that people are doing on a daily basis that are going to influence the intrinsic patterns. For instance, let's say if you sat down quite a lot and you got yourself into a pattern where the comfiest position for you to sit in was to take your knee over your other knee. You know, kind of cross-legged sitting position that quite a lot of people do?
Christopher: Uh-hmm.
Nigel: Straight away, you're going to be putting one side of your pelvis under a lot of strain compared to the other one so a repetitive motion like that could potentially cause a whole list of issues going on to the pelvis. That's just kind of a normal weight-bearing example if you like versus not putting that much stress on the body.
But let's say through time your body has become used to a pattern of dysfunction because you've been doing something in the gym that you've over-rotated your pelvis and it's caused a protective spasm to start in the pelvic region because of that over-rotation of your pelvis maybe because of lack of core stability or any number of reasons that can cause that as well. I mean, cyclists have [0:16:59] [Indiscernible] can afford a flexed position under some velocity through the legs and under some power can put a significant amount of tension through the sciatic nerve.
So the nervous system can kind of greatly be overlooked that it's not that important a system. But the more we look into it, we realize that the way we sit, more and more people are driving to work, sit in a desk, driving home, sit down and watch TV and then going to bed. In that whole day, they are putting a lot of pressure to their nervous system.
The sciatic nerve being one of the biggest nerves in the body runs very close in length to the performance muscle so if you have a tightened sciatic nerve or under compression then any muscles surrounding that nerve will all go in to kind of protect the spasm, performance of the spasm potentially, the hamstrings, the calf muscles again as well.
So just from purely the functionality of human beings at the moment with the kind of evolution that we've gotten ourselves into, poor posture, poor sitting, poor just day-to-day kind of life are all contributing towards these dysfunctions we have in our body. So just being aware of these and trying to kind of notice these things more and avoid these kinds of overused patterns that we got ourselves into.
I [0:18:24] [Indiscernible] biomechanics coach system which is going to then retrain the body into a better pattern, a pattern that hopefully functions better for what your needs are. And also part of the system that we use is stabilization program so we teach the core muscles to be more responsive so things like [0:18:49] [Indiscernible] pelvis won't happen as easily again around the next time.
Christopher: Okay. It sounds like there might have been sort of doing all of those and I'm sure that's often the case so the cause is multi-factorial. Certainly, in the years leading up to when I saw you, I was doing all of that. I was sitting a lot at work. I'm a computer programmer or was then. I spent hours and hours and hours in my bike which was kind of more sitting and then I'd be so exhausted from that I'd go home and do some more sitting on the couch, right?
Nigel: Absolutely.
Christopher: And then I suspect actually weirdly that one of the root causes might have been I have a deviated septum and this sounds kind of weird like talking about my nose but I can't breathe properly through my nose. I actually had it operated on which didn't really work. If you're ever thinking of doing that, think twice. It doesn't really work that well.
But, anyway, one of the things I could do to get relief from that when I was sleeping was to sleep in a very particular position to kind of stretch my face so that it would open up the airways, and then to stabilize that I would kind of hike my knee up to sort of correct, make the position stable if that makes sense. So that would be the way that I always slept. I kind of wonder now whether that might be contributing to it.
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Nigel: Yeah, almost like a recovery position. You're lying –
Christopher: Exactly. Exactly like a recovery position.
Nigel: Well, absolutely. Those sorts of things kind of contribute through time. Your body gets used to that movement pattern and muscles all develop running those ways. Your muscle systems will always kind of evolve around your kind of functionality so muscles will develop in the way that the direct repetitive movements over and over again.
Christopher: Uh-hmm. So how often are you able to identify something really specific that you can help tell someone not to do? Can you be a detective and say, oh, well, if this is something you are doing with your deadlift that you need to talk to your coach about and – is it ever that specific? Can you ever do something like that?
Nigel: You can. I mean, obviously with your initial screening that you do with somebody, when you're sitting down having a kind of pre-chat before you go on to your screening, you can ask a few kind of specific questions about has there been any traumatic events in your life such as a car crash or such as you've broken a foot or you've broken your knee or something, something that would have altered the movement pattern in the past.
Say, for instance, that they had broken their foot, all that extra weight that would normally be taken through both feet has now gone more onto one [0:21:20] [Indiscernible] crutches so their shoulders are involved in that action as well. If those movement patterns [0:21:27] [Indiscernible] have never been corrected then you're looking at the function has changed of that person and that will stay with that until it becomes corrected.
Once the person regains their use of their foot and they go back to running or cycling, whatever it was they were previously doing before their injury, their body has kind of changed and it's evolved into a different pattern. So they find that they are not able to maybe function with the same abilities ever before and may be in a higher risk of injury.
So basically you're looking to see if: Can the pelvis function? Can the shoulders function? Is there good movement in the spine like what we need to see? If there's a good function of the shoulders, good function of the pelvis, and good function of the spine, the risk of injury goes significantly down. The risk of biomechanical issues goes significantly down as well.
Christopher: Okay. So what you're saying is it's possible for me to become more resilient to this stupidity. You can't really avoid the stupidity.
Nigel: Yeah. Presumably so, yeah. We all got to understand and know that compared to 2 or 3 million years ago, our functionality has changed rapidly so we're no longer the hunter-gatherer who was chasing after animals or being chased by animals or reaching up in the trees or hunting and gathering like we were meant to do 2 or 3 million years ago. For the last hundred years, that function has changed rapidly and has evolved really quickly into being more sedentary, more seating positions, seated positions so our functions changed quite a lot. You just need to be aware of that and whether we need to try and train ourselves back up to the standard we were 2 or 3 million years ago or whether we need to just try and train our bodies now to be more resilient at the function that is now in the modern world.
Christopher: It's definitely something that you need to be aware of either way I'm sure. That sounds very familiar story of us. We talked about Paleo diet a lot and it's almost the same story, right? Like kind of our environment, our food change more quickly than we did and that's kind of left us with problems.
Do you see like lots of common patterns? Like you see cyclists with leg length discrepancies and tennis players with something else and swimmers with something else again. Does that happen or is each person completely unique?
Nigel: I think each person is completely unique but if you have -- because I see a variety of people. I see when you're a high performance athlete and I also see your average person of the street who has back problems or back issues. I think you can more and more you can look at your sportsman and say, okay, here we have a basketball player who is a point guard so maybe dribbling more than what the other persons in his team are. So they can be using their arms and their shoulders a lot more but only one arm because most basketball players are strong with one arm. So you could potentially see more biomechanical, kind of intrinsic biomechanical factors in that person's right arm because they are always using that right arm repetitively and their mind – everything is connected through the fascia system so if you have a spasm in one of the shoulder muscles then there's a high chance that they've got a spasm on one of the pelvic muscles as well or vice versa.
So you need to look at the individual's sport and say, okay, what are they doing repetitively? If it was a runner, then you're prone to see more kind of hip flex or hamstring issues. If it's a basketball player, potentially more arm issues. A cricketer, you're going to see somebody who is bowling is going to be different than somebody who's batting, more hyperextending shoulder problems from somebody who's bowling and more rotational problems through the pelvis for somebody who's batting, more knee problems because they're always lunging forward in the same knee to swing a bat right. You see?
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So it does become quite specifically sports people, but with the average [0:25:18] [Indiscernible] person in the street, again, they're all individual but you can tend to see more and see quite a lot sciatic issues with performance and spasms as well because they're sitting down more, they are more sedentary so you can see that kind of pattern emerging quite a bit.
Christopher: Yeah, so tell me about this. This is something that really interests me, the sciatic thing. So we're talking about back pain here.
Nigel: Yeah. You could differentiate between sciatica which would mean true sciatic and some of that would need to be diagnosed by a specialist, a surgeon, a clinical issue.
Christopher: Right.
Nigel: Maybe something like a compressed sciatic nerve which there are various points down the sciatic chain that those areas can become tight or in spasm. The sciatic nerve can be the width of your thumb across. That's a big nerve and it's like your perichord down to your lower limbs. So anywhere through the kind of chain that the sciatic nerve follows you can have dysfunction there.
Bear in mind that if you're sitting a lot, you're certainly on your buttocks which are pressing onto the sciatic nerve through various layers of tissue. A somewhat kind of compressed position is not a flex position. People driving a car quite a lot, there's a vibration that goes through the roads that transfers its way up to the car and agitates the nerve, especially the sciatic nerve which builds up fluids around a bit in there so that kind of building of the fluid can cause contraction as well. So that can all kind of give that idea that there's sciatica there.
For instance, performance condition, whether there's a tightness in the glute muscles or even for some runners the lack of hamstring flexibility which you can have runners stretching [0:27:11] [Indiscernible] that will not increase the flexibility of the hamstring but showing a sciatic nerve mobilization technique and it can increase the range of movement of hamstrings in a matter of minutes.
Christopher: Yeah, that's really interesting to me actually. I have spent much of my adult life doing kind of I guess what you'd call "static stretching." I was into kickboxing when I was maybe 17 or 18 or 19 and we did tons and tons of box splits and all sorts of forced stretching and stuff. I felt like I did see some progress there with flexibility but I was probably just quite flexible to begin with. So what you're telling me is that the static stretching that I was used to up until that point is not necessarily the best way to improving mobility?
Nigel: Again, if it's targeting the hamstrings, if you're looking at a movement screening, like a functioning movement screening which identifies that you have a poor range of movement of your hamstrings so let's say less than 70 degrees or 80 degrees of hip flexion, just lying down on your back and lifting up one leg straight and trying to keep the knees straight, and you recognize that through that movement screening that you've got a shortened hamstring.
Because the sciatic nerve runs down right into the middle of the back of the leg, that can be then determined whether that is just a shortness of the hamstring muscles as in the lack of flexibility. But whether or not that somewhere up through that chain there has been a bit of compression through the sciatic nerve which actually caused muscles of the hamstrings to overly protect that nerve and in turn has actually shortened the hamstring muscles, so if you're just doing a functional movement screening, you'll observe that and you'll note it and then you'll assign a stretching program for that person for the hamstrings.
But we haven't looked at the other side of the coin that is there is a potential for a sciatic nerve compression. So in our movement or intrinsic biomechanics screening, we have a screen or a test that is then going to determine whether or not we have sciatic nerve tension or just a tight ham or a shortened, tightened hamstring.
Christopher: Okay. I understand. So, finally, I wanted to ask you: What things should I be doing to avoid some of the pitfalls that we have been talking about? Are there like things that you see people doing that make you cringe because you know what the end result is going to be? I'm just wondering.
I don't really feel like I've kind of changed my behavior much even though I've kind of fixed the problem which is kind of disconcerting to me. So what advice would you give to people to protect themselves from injury?
Nigel: Yeah. I do use a gym myself and I do work at a local gym. There is a big influence or a big desire to know these to become a lot stronger and lift a heavier weight so often which leads to a bit of a compromise so people will lose form just to stack up the weights so in essence you're deadlifting [0:30:22] [Indiscernible] even your squat patterns that people get themselves into.
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Again, what can appear to be quite reasonably well, I'll ask you to squat without the intrinsic screening that we do. We do actually know whether or not everything is working inside the body, the intrinsic factors aren't working properly. So, again, ideally, I would always recommend if there is somebody like myself near you who does kind of look into more of the intrinsic kind of movement patterns and intrinsic screenings or biomechanical screenings that we are doing then that's going to give you a good insight to how your body is stacked up or currently functions. And then looking at some corrective techniques which will then, if you do have a day at the gym that you do these corrective techniques prior to you going into a session, then you can also then [0:31:16] [Indiscernible] session as well.
So you know that then that you're biomechanically as correct as you're going to be and that all your stuff, your functional stuff in the gym is going to appreciate that and it will develop more. Instead of the cycle of doing these so-called functional patterns that are movements in the gym and because you're not biomechanically or intrinsically biomechanically correct, there's a higher rate of injuries. You progress so far and then you find that you injure yourself and you break. That cycle can repeat itself over and over again so looking for some way to try and break that cycle that we understand our bodies better, we can assign corrective techniques to each system of the body or each joint and we're preparing ourselves for what we're about to do and also preparing ourselves for what we're about to do outside the gym as well. It's not just in the gym so office or driving the car and so on and so on.
Christopher: Right. Exactly. Everything's important.
Nigel: Yeah.
Christopher: So do you think I should be avoiding completely any kind of those – the machines where you sit down on a thing and it performs like a very specific range of motion and there's not really… You know what I'm talking about: the machines.
Nigel: Yeah, yeah. Resistance machines. Machines definitely have their part but, say, the machines they are better in the kind of first six weeks of a rehabilitation program. I think it was Mel Siff that came up with the idea that post-six weeks, using machines for longer than six weeks, your body actually loses its natural kind of inherent ability to change directions and move naturally.
So if you're using machines on a daily kind of basis and for several months or if not years, then your body will become the machine so you will start to move like a machine. Bear in mind that a lot of machines are working in the same plane of movement so you become very, very efficient in that plane of movement and very efficient for those movement patterns that the machine has got you into, but involve some triplanar movements or some movements for your rotation in kind of the transversal plane. It's hard or something gives because your body is just not used to working on those weights.
So I definitely always advocate that in the first instance you look into the kind of the rehabilitation using machines but post-six weeks, get yourself off those machines and onto more – I'm going to use the word "lately" but more functional movements that are going to get appropriate for your sport.
Christopher: Okay.
Nigel: Your needs themselves.
Christopher: Uh-hmm. And then if I were a cyclist in California listening to this and I've got a leg length discrepancy, when will the next time you'll be here be so that you can meet some of these people?
Nigel: Yeah. As far as I know, there are biomechanics coaches in North Carolina but it hasn't really reached all of the states big time.
Christopher: Oh, really?
Nigel: It's more popular in the U.K. I just enrolled myself into the Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon next year so I will be in California beginning of June, 2015.
Christopher: You're going to have to keep your plastic wedge until then.
Nigel: Yeah.
Christopher: Sorry. Where can people find you online then and what area do you work with? You have to be quite local obviously to be able to work with you.
Nigel: Sure. I mean, I can give you my website. I can give you a few other websites.
Christopher: Yeah, and so we'll link to that in the show notes.
Nigel; Yeah. I mean, people who want to look into a bit more into intrinsic biomechanics, they can find out even more about it. Because this therapist if you like, the intrinsic biomechanics coach needs to be there kind of hands on to apply these little specific measurements to the body and do the screenings. It's harder to do it online. I mean, I have done it before, done it before with yourself, Chris, but it's not easy.
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Christopher: Yeah. So it seems like you're happy now to – my friend, Ross, who might be listening to this knows that you've been able to help him a lot remotely via Skype and through video and so is that something that you kind of do push or is it something you would actually be willing to do with new people?
Nigel: I trained up Ross' wife to do this specific kind of movement streams I really needed to keep an eye on when I was back over at home. In that way, you can build up a good picture of whether or not Ross was starting to function better. I did it with yourself, Chris, and I just had to kind of give you a few kind of pointers on where to place these measurements.
A great benefit of using Skype or FaceTime, we were able to see each other and I was able to watch what you're doing and research for a few specifics and screens and results, and particular results from that and then applied our corrective techniques.
Christopher: Okay.
Nigel: It's not impossible but ideally you want to have that kind of benefit of having somebody there with you and that can give you a very thorough screening and do all the screenings that are available to us.
Christopher: So it sounds like what people need to do is take a mountain bike holiday in the U.K., fly over and ride over Lake District or Scotland or something and then give you a visit and then once they've done that you can then work with him via Skype and help in that one.
Nigel: Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
Christopher: A perfect solution.
Nigel: Or pay me; I'll cross to California.
Christopher: Yeah, you can do that too actually. That is like what Russ did. It's like, okay, screw it. If the one person that can help me is in Scotland then I'll bring him here.
Nigel: Absolutely. Yeah, so my website is www.nigelmchollan.co.uk, so if you've got your podcast notes for that, people can get the correct spelling from that.
Christopher: Yeah.
Nigel: But the other ones are – I mean, Marin Haines has got his own website. So he's www.martinhaines.com. There's also our main education provider as well and she is again www.biomechanicseducation.com. These are all the guys that taught me everything I know about intrinsic biomechanics.
Christopher: That's pretty cool. I will put those in the notes so don't like crash your car or anything right now to go to this site. That's great.
Thank you so much for your time, Nigel. This has been an extremely enlightening conversation and I'm very grateful for your time.
Nigel: Thank you.
Christopher: Okay. Cheers then.
Nigel: Cheers.
[0:37:57] End of Audio
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