4 min read.

You may just think me & Jenni are happy, active people that give some damn-good advice on how to figure stuff out with your own body

… and that’s the way we’ve always been!

Actually, that couldn’t be further from the truth!

We both know what it’s like to be totally broken, unable to do the things we loved or aspired to do, and feel helplessly stuck no matter how hard we seemed to try!

(I won’t go into too much detail in this email, but if you want to read about my full injury history & how I recovered from it, check out  “Where I Went Wrong”!)

I broke my back because of my own limited mobility.

My hips, posture, flexibility, strength, and stability did not lend itself to the type of training I wanted to do.. I ended up with an L4/L5 disc protrusion and a L5/S1 disc extrusion with nerve impingement.

I was in constant chronic agonising pain, couldn’t walk, lie down, stand, sit, be in a car - anything, it was hellish torture that I wish upon no one….

And that’s what motivates me: I know ‘how bad things CAN be’ and I don’t ever want anyone else to feel stuck in a dark place like that; feeling like there’s no way out or that their injuries are something they just have to accept.

Luckily, I only got my disc diagnosis a year after my injury. My MRI showed all that structural disc damage EVEN THOUGH by this time I was totally pain free. I was moving & feeling better than I ever had in my entire life - I truly mean that! I was almost 30 and I felt better than I did in my teens!

Imagine if I’d been scanned & diagnosed when it first happened?!

It’s likely that I wouldn’t have tried any form of mobility work. I’d have fully believed I was broken and nothing I could do. I genuinely was told that I should think about changing my career.

But luckily, the crazy NHS wait-times helped me by NOT letting me know there was something structurally wrong.

I thought I could be healed, so I fixed it! And have helped many, many, many, many, others do the same!

When I met Jenni, she was in a similar position. She has Joint Hypermobility Syndrome meaning that her joints are basically too loose and building stability for her is extremely challenging.

She felt stuck and as if she could never be as strong as she wanted to be, she was even told by a consultant that if she kept trying to lift heavy, she could end up in a wheelchair…

But, this was just not true if she trained the right way!

Through scaling things back and working on her stability she was able to build up her tolerance to loads of forms of training - even backflips!

After a few years of being awesome, Jenni ended up injuring her back… she was in pain for so long, and her Physio recommended getting an MRI scan because months passed without any signs of healing.

And guess what?

Even with all the pain she was in every day….

She had a perfectly healthy spine, no structural damage!

Over the course of a year she recovered and got herself pain free again

So why am I telling you these things?

Because scan results do not define your pain or decide your recovery!!

It’s scary how many people can end up believing they’re so fragile, that they need to stop doing everything or giving up things they love because of something a Doctor has told them.

(COA: I’m not saying to ignore Doctor’s diagnosis, just please be proactive in your own recovery: only you live with your body every day!)

It breaks my heart when we meet people who have given up on 10-20 years of their life because of these beliefs.

THAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED TO ME!!

If my MRI & diagnosis had come quicker, I could have given up on my passion for coaching and stayed in my hateful depressing day job until I died.

THAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED TO JENNI!!

If she wasn’t surrounded and supported by people who do what we do, she may have just had one injury too many one day and given up on what made her happy!

We don’t want that for ANYONE!

Moving well and being confident and strong is such an important life goal.

At the end of the day, abs, fitness, weights on the bar don’t really matter.

Lifting yourself up when you fall, being able to sit on the floor, or sleep upside down and sideways without feeling broken do matter.

There is A LOT of information in the world and you could end up being told things that destroy your confidence and kill your ability to see what you can achieve through your own efforts.

When you start avoiding movement and living in fear…. Where does that leave you in 10 years’ time?

If you want to take the guess work out of the things you need to check with your own body then The Simplistic Mobility Method is the best place to start!