168 - The Rebound Method - Rachael shares how to safely start to move your body!

Rachael's inspiring journey through long COVID showcases the resilience of the human spirit in the face of ongoing symptoms and challenges. The episode delves into her unique recovery strategies, including her tailored exercise protocols designed specifically for individuals battling long COVID, emphasising the importance of consistency, adaptability, and trust in one's body.

• Rachael redefines recovery as a journey, not solely symptom-free living 
• Importance of building confidence through gradual, consistent movement 
• Development and success of the "90-Day Rebound Method" 
• Emphasis on mindset: focusing on consistency over progression 
• Insights on dosage, effort, and individualised exercise approaches 
• Real-life success stories from Rachael's coaching 
• Flexibility in training to accommodate fluctuating symptoms 
• Encouragement for listeners to seek supportive communities in their recovery process

Links: 

Our previous episode (Rachael's recovery story):
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1835170/episodes/14084650 

Rachael's Website:
www.rebound-athletic.com

Rachael's Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/rebound.athletic/ 

For more information about Long Covid Breathing courses & workshops, please check out LongCovidBreathing.com

(music credit - Brock Hewitt, Rule of Life)

Chapters

• 0:00 Long Covid Podcast Return and Recovery
• 8:22 Navigating Recovery Through Adaptability
• 22:01 Crafting a Safe Recovery Formula
• 34:57 Building Consistent and Safe Progression
• 42:53 Personalized Recovery and Progression Success
• 50:04 Valuable Tips for Long Recovery

Transcript

Jackie Baxter: 0:55

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Long Covid Podcast. I'm delighted to welcome back Rachel, who we've had Rachel on the podcast before and I can't remember which episode it was. It was about a year ago. Can you remember the number? Oh, god.

Rachael : 1:11

No, I can't, but I think it went out about a year ago. So look back, scroll back a bit.

Jackie Baxter: 1:16

Yeah, I'll put the link in the show notes. So Rachel was on before to share her recovery story, um, which was super inspiring and definitely worth a listen. Um, so she's back here today to talk a little bit about what's happened since and what she's now doing for work and, um, we're gonna dive into all of that. So a very warm welcome back to the podcast. It's so nice to see you again.

Rachael : 1:41

Thanks for having me. It's nice to be here and see a friendly face.

Jackie Baxter: 1:44

Yes, oh, thanks. So before we kind of dive into, you know, the sort of movement part of this which is what we're going to be doing a lot of talking about.

Rachael : 2:05

Do you want to say a little bit about yourself and where you are now? Yeah, sure, thanks, yeah, so, yeah. So a bit about me in a nutshell. So I'm a ex-capacitive athlete. I used to play tennis competitively growing up into my early 20s. I'm also a personal trainer. I'm a mum to a nearly three-year-old who was born when I had long COVID.

Rachael : 2:25

I was at my worst, actually, I was mostly bed bound and yeah, since recovering and regaining my own fitness, I've made it my mission to help people with long COVID and other chronic conditions safely rebuild via my business, um, rebound Athletic, and yeah, I guess lots happened in a in a year. Um, it's uh, I was reflecting on kind of what, what sort of happened uh, when you know, this week ahead of this call and and both physically but also and I'll talk a bit more about in terms of rebound later. But I think, like when I share my recovery story, it's recovered doesn't always mean symptom free, and it didn't for me. But when we spoke, I was considering myself recovered and because I was, which I've just returned, I was on a phased return to my work, my corporate job. Separate to this, I was able to engage more in life, I was able to exercise, I was playing paddle tennis and, despite things that might crop up, so that was kind of like, and I guess also I was at a point where I knew and I've always said this and I say this to my clients, and that if you can recover even a little bit, then full recovery has to be possible. So I've always kind of that's always stayed with me and so, even though, like, I was still having some symptoms last year, I kind of knew that as time went on I trusted that I would just keep getting better and better, because that, you know, despite it still not being linear, but that was the trajectory.

Rachael : 4:02

So, yeah, physically I'm I'm doing really well. Um, sort of another indicator of that last year was just how much more consistently I was able to exercise and more intensity, which is, like really important to me. Um, if I had like mild sort of flare-ups, normally like the flu-like symptoms that would crop up and people should be aware of they, were able to kind of pass through those much more quickly and easily and not always interfere with my day to day. So, yeah, physically good and even like even now, like the last since the new year I mean, Bill's Christmas was pretty rough, all the bugs and viruses going around and still getting quite hit hard by that kind of stuff but since then, like cognitively, I've kind of felt like I've gone up a notch again and I'm also training for the Brighton Marathon, which is nuts, but I was training for the London Marathon when I got ill in 2021. So it's always been a goal and yeah, I remember about this time last year as well.

Rachael : 5:02

I I got really into like meditating and like manifesting type meditations and it was this was on there and I kind of forgot about it and I realized, oh yeah, I'm doing it. So, um, but I was nervous. Like I was nervous actually when up, I was like should I be doing this? Still, you know, doubts start creeping in, like am I ready for this? Is this one step too far? But what's been really nice is that every time I do a run and I'm okay and I recover well, it just gives me more and more confidence in my body and trust in my body. So, yeah, physically, things are going great trust in my body.

Jackie Baxter: 5:45

So, yeah, physically things are, things are going great. Yeah, I think, um, for for me it was, yeah, it was building that confidence alongside the sort of fitness I suppose. Um, you know, and when you're still unwell it's very difficult to think about it in terms of fitness because it's so inconsistent and you know you're worried, you know you don't want to overdo it because you know what the cost of that is. And then for me it was when I was recovered. It wasn't that I was fully fit in the way that I was before, it was that I was able to push myself to become that. And with that there became a lot of yeah, you know, confidence building. You know, and if I went for a run I was like, oh, my goodness, I'm dying.

Jackie Baxter: 6:24

No, it's because I'm really unfit and I need to peg it back to like I haven't run for however many years, um, so it was. It was kind of building a lot of that confidence as well in your body and, you know, allowing yourself to, to really enjoy having that ability to do it again. I think for me, um, so I'm so glad that you seem to have had a sort of similar experience and marathon that's.

Rachael : 6:46

That's quite epic yeah, yeah it is, and no, I totally agree like that. Yeah, confidence thing's huge um, and yeah it is epic. But it's also my little sort of f you to covid, I love it, I love it. So how's the business?

Rachael : 7:03

going um, uh, yeah, it's good, it's good. So I, um, yeah. So when we last spoke, uh, just over a year ago now, I just a couple of months before that launched rebound athletic, and what the business at that point really was centered around was a reconditioning program called the 90-day rebound method, which I'd created for myself initially. When I was back in 2022, a year into my illness, I just had a shift change in my condition. I was starting to improve very slowly and I sort of thought, okay, cool, when I get better which wasn't then when I'm able to train, I need a condition reconditioning program that is suitable for someone coming out of a chronic illness that you know, but it isn't a big for a beginner, because I don't want to train like a beginner. So I basically designed my ideal program that kept me really excited and looking forward to that day, whenever that might be. And so that's where the business started. Minus, because I decided I can sort of make this available to other people and had some really good like success stories through that. And also it started there because it was a bit of self-preservation, if I'm honest. I was still recovering, I, I it's. That program specifically is tailored for people more to tell end of recovery. They've already bought back some exercise tolerance and not experiencing impairment.

Rachael : 8:22

I stayed to recover. I was at that point, I didn't. I went through this phase and other people do it as well. I just tried to remove myself from the word non-covered anything associated, any forums etc. And that was kind of where I was at and it was part of my, my journey.

Rachael : 8:38

So, um, so yeah, but then, like as as um last year started to progress and my capacity grew, my mental resilience, my confidence in physically and everywhere, everywhere I was, where I was at, was working more. Things just started to shift again and and I kind of thought, like how do I help more people? Like I know I can help more people, like I know I can help more people, and I felt like it was my duty. But I just was like I've got something here. And so when I had also, prior to that, had designed my own suitable recovery program based on my experiences bad experiences with things like greater exercise therapy, based on my obviously first-hand experience of long covid and the nuances around it and pen and uh, exercise intolerance etc. So, um, I, yeah, I kind of developed something. I did it myself and and actually you know it, it it got me back safely to the point where I could exercise more intensely, but, you know, without ever triggering impairment, overexerting myself.

Rachael : 9:44

So I was like, but the problem we've got is that how do you make something really, how do you give people absolute clarity on how to achieve that right? It's so complex, it's you know, from one day to the next you could be doing the same movement and it's fine, and the next it sends you to crash. Like, how do you navigate all that and make it really clear to people how you do that? So, yeah, so I that was kind of like my starting point and in my corporate world I'm a AI product manager, which means I, day to day, are solving complex customer business problems and have to like, often using data, research and things, but often having to like try to make the complex really simple for people to understand, and we do that in various, using various frameworks and things.

Rachael : 10:34

So I I, towards the end of last year, which was it last summer, I was like I basically designed something called the baseline formula, which contains all the principles to follow to ensure that you can exercise consistently, no matter where you are in your recovery.

Rachael : 10:54

They won't overexert you and push you into a crash or exacerbate symptoms essentially crash or exacerbate symptoms essentially. So, um, so, yeah, so, but I guess I'm gonna in this chat today, I'm going to dive into each um component of that, because I really wanted to be able to provide like practical and like immediately actionable advice, um that you can take away today. You can take, grab a pen now, I'd say so you can take notes, but I can take grab a pen now so you can take notes. But I'm literally giving away, like this method, this formula, um, because like to try and make it really simple for you, for people listening to understand that maybe wondering how do I navigate my symptoms of x? I know exercise is important but that that you know there's so many benefits to it, but how do you get those when you're constantly battling symptoms and um, exercise intolerance?

Jackie Baxter: 12:30

yeah, and you know we talk about how everybody is so individual. Um, because that's true they are. Um, you know everyone's symptoms, everyone's experience, everyone's how they respond to certain things is so different and yet, despite all of the differences, you've developed a protocol that you think would work for everybody.

Rachael : 12:54

Yeah, I mean, yeah, exactly. I mean I've got. You know, I don't want to talk too much about the membership here. People won't find out more information. I'm sure you'll drop the information in the notes, but, yeah, like the the proofs in the pudding, and I've got you know, um, I think about 30 members um inside the club at the moment, um, all at different stages of recovery.

Rachael : 13:19

Uh, some with cfs purely um, some mostly with long covid, but obviously cfs presenting um, um, symptoms, um, and so I would say that I um, generally, if someone comes me and they are still predominantly complete, like you know, bed bound, and they've got real, really, really low capacity, they they're welcome to join and we adapt the program to suit that need.

Rachael : 13:45

But I generally at that point would say focus on things like breath work, focus on things like yoga, other forms, even more gentle movement, um, because you know, I'm probably just going to give you certain parts of the workouts which are like, going to be like maybe just the gentle mobility, like some windshield wipers from your bed or some bump, you know, bum squeezes or something like that which you know um, you perhaps don't need a full program.

Rachael : 14:11

I should be. I shouldn't be saying this. We don't probably don't need to, you know, invest at that point because it's kind of obvious stuff and you might already be doing it. But at the same time, there's also benefit in part of the community. There's also benefit in terms of having me in your pocket to talk to, to lean on, um, to find out, you know, to know when, when the right time is a little bit more so it's really it's it's absolutely uh, available to anyone, uh, any stage of recovery. We adapt it to people's different stages, um, but I would say to get the most value, you probably want to be.

Jackie Baxter: 14:42

Having a little bit more capacity where you're not solely bed burned would be my advice, and if you are, the main focus is rest and other forms of gentle movement should be your focus yeah, so it is adaptable and I think you know, maybe this is taking us into where we're going to talk a bit more specifically about some of these things, because adaptable, I think, is such an important word. Yeah, because everybody is different. They are going to respond differently to different things, but they also have different preferences, don't they? You know, if you talk about you know, what sort of sports do you like doing? Well, you play tennis. I like hill walking. You know, I go swimming in Loch Ness, like a lot of people. That doesn't work for them, um, so everybody is going to want to do slightly different things. And obviously, putting that back into a sort of long COVID and CFS context, um, you know, it might be kind of like, you know, lifting your arms versus lifting your legs, um, but you know it's going to work differently for different people, isn't it?

Rachael : 15:40

yeah, kind of. I mean, I've got people it's different, like you say, different people, different goals and different things they did previously. Uh, you know, I've got a guy whose goal has been to get back to foiling step four surfing, I think it's called like that's his thing he loves. Um, I've got other people that maybe did more yoga and pilates before they got ill, other people that I did crossfit, but what what's really great about this protocol that I developed is that it's it's a way to build back capacity and endurance in your muscles that will then enable you to do those things, whatever that might be, to get back, getting back to what you love. So, um, but yeah, like talking about like adaptability, like that's you know. Yeah, like talking about like adaptability, like that's, you know, essential.

Rachael : 16:26

And anyone that's experienced things like great exercise therapy or perhaps tried just more typical exercise um programs, um, throughout the recovery and and had bad experiences, is probably it's probably largely part part, you know, in part to that lack of adaptability. Um, and, yeah, like my, my experience with great exercise therapy is one of the reasons that led me to creating my own thing. Um, and what's? I think what's interesting about great exercise therapy is there's been a lot of talk about it, obviously last few years, um, I think those experienced anecdotally know why it's probably not appropriate for most stages of recovery. I think there probably is a place for it, but like way down the track, when you've already got, you know your capacity's already increased, you've got, you have, you're not struggling with exercise intolerance, um, then it's probably isn't quite a useful rehabilitation tool and how it's applied normally it's not.

Rachael : 17:25

There's so many conditions and illnesses that grade X thyroid therapy is used for. It's not just specific to ME CFS or long COVID, right, it's used for, like injury rehabilitation or post surgeries or cancer rehabilitation, like those things have. They're much more tangible, first of all, much more well known. You know the diagnosis of those things are much more well known. The treatment plans are much more known. The potential path forward is much more well known. And with chronic illnesses like long covid, like chronic fatigue syndrome, they're not and they, they, they there. So it's not in that one size fits all doesn't, just doesn't work.

Rachael : 18:03

Um, and in fact, um, you might have seen recently there's the um coach rain, um, uh, we're meant to be doing a review of, uh, great exercise therapy for me, cfs. The last really did was back in 2020. So coach radar, like a body that do reviews of research and health care and health policy, and they did a review on great exercise therapy back in 2020, which at the time they said they found that it was still suitable. Um, and obviously there's been a lot of noise around that since and subsequent uh studies and articles have, uh have reviewed this and found that that original review was flawed. There was apparently poor control groups. There was evidence of harm was ignored. They were using fatigue as like an outcome, but obviously that's unreliable when fatigue is fluctuating. And then subsequently such a style that actually great exercise therapy is harmful for more than 50% of participants received CFS any CFS and then also need the nice guidelines. So the British National Institute for health and care excellence they've also done extensive review of all the literature around this and they've also found that great exercise therapy is harmful and should not be used.

Rachael : 19:25

So, um, what?

Rachael : 19:28

What I haven't seen certainly for my own sort of just reading and in my point, I haven't seen is any kind of study that drills down into the why, like I think we those who experience it probably know why it's not suitable, but we've not had any sort of research to back that up? Um, but you know, in terms of how it's applied, the pneumothalages that's used, like what is it that makes it? It's harmful essentially, um, and I think and this is a hypothesis, obviously, what I'm going to say but we've also there's also been a lot of research the last few years about mitochondrial dysfunction in people with long COVID and people with ME-CFS and they've now found that a clear link. So you could hypothesize of that, and they've linked that to exercise and tolerance as well. So you know, if you link the two together, then there's sort of maybe an obviously obvious reason there too why great exercise therapy is not suitable. Because it is still great essentially and I always tell, just to finish on, talk about great, because I could bang on about it for ages and why.

Rachael : 20:34

But I don't want to trigger too many people, but you know I've told this story before. I can't. I might have told it last time I was on. I can't remember, but what the one thing that always sticks in my mind when I experienced it was going from I was bed bound, I was predominantly bed bound at this point. I was having to bed rest a lot when I was doing this program. Um, but it was at a time when I didn't know it was early on, we didn't know much about the condition, didn't know. I didn't know much about PEM etc and what I know now, but I just had all these people trying to help me. Fantastic, there's not many people trying to help. Let's, let's jump into this. So yeah, I was part of a program for fatigue management and great and then sort of movement therapy, which essentially was a take on great exercise therapy, and I was just been in my bed, bed resting, and to get to the class I had to get into a taxi to get there.

Rachael : 21:19

And then when we got there because it was on the program that week but not because of what I needed I was doing, we were in a studio and I was doing things like walking, lunges and skipping and jogging across the room and I'm thinking what the I know what's going to happen after this, and I've just been in bed, um. So yeah, I can laugh at it now. I probably laugh more about it now than a year ago and a year before that. But you know, this is kind of all the stuff these are. These are my experiences and my other stories that people told me. It's kind of you know why I was so, I guess, passionate about designing the protocol I did and then now making that available to people.

Jackie Baxter: 22:01

Yeah, and it's really interesting, you know, because it's such a difficult thing, isn't it? You know we do want to increase capacity because that is the path out. You know I mean my again, I think your trajectory is probably similar. You know, you became unwell and suddenly you reduced what you did and you go down and down and down and down and down to, you know wherever you get to, um, and then that's kind of where you do the work, isn't it? You know you find the things that help you, whether it's breathing or nutrition or you know whatever that is. Maybe maybe some drugs, maybe you know whatever legal drugs. Um, you know whatever, whatever that is that you find there.

Jackie Baxter: 22:41

You know you find the things that help you, and then that's where you then need to think about, okay, how can I safely increase my activity again? And you know, maybe that's where you know some people come across graded exercise and it doesn't work because it's too much, too soon or it's too prescriptive or whatever. Um, but I think maybe where the difficulty in people's understanding comes is, yes, we want to increase, but no, we don't want to do it in a graded, prescriptive way. So how do we do that in a way that is safe for us, given that we are all individual and very different, and there's no like one way of doing it. What, what's? Yeah, well, I suppose that brings us on to the next thing we're going to talk about, isn't it? What's?

Rachael : 23:31

the formula. Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. Just to pick up on a point you said there, because I think, yeah, movement is normally medicine, right, we know that for most, a lot of people. But not if it's prescribed wrongly. It can have the opposite effect and you know it does. It's medicine because we know that it increases your blood flow and therefore oxygen to cells. It makes your heart work more efficiently, you know, by pumping more blood per beat. It we now, you know, we know that it is also what helps you to heal your mitochondria and create new mitochondria. Um, you know your powerhouse of your cells, your energy producing powers yourself, for a process called biogenesis. It's like living cells create new cells, like there's, you know, research for you know days, years, whatever, like, like, we know all this stuff right, but it's a chicken and egg when you're, like you say, when you're dealing with um, something like on covered or chronic fatigue syndrome, when, how do you do that? How do you achieve those benefits when it is impossible for you to move consistently? And you need to move consistently to be able to achieve those benefits? So, yeah, it does bring. Bring us nicely on to um, the baseline formula. So there are essentially three core components of it and it's about the correct mood modality at the correct dosage or volume, and then something that I call predictable progressions, and you add those all together and that's how you achieve your baseline, or that consistency, so then they be able to then move that forward. Um, but before we like before we get to that, where I? So I have this, this is this formula as part of the video is a video course within in the membership.

Rachael : 25:12

But the first lesson in that is actually around mindset, because there's you can ignore all of that. If you don't get this mindset shift right and it's essential then your chance of success is a lot less. So the mindset shift we start with is one of consistency over progression, and that might sound counterintuitive, shifting that, that focus of consistency, but it is what will eventually mean progression. And it's really hard, I think, especially for those like me and a lot of people that are pre-programmed to just go harder, faster, stronger, heavier, whatever. Um, and often I still I find myself being that person that reigns other people in now, like I wish I had someone like that, because it often does take a third party.

Rachael : 26:07

But if you can grasp this principle, this mindset, of this mindset shift. It means it just sets you up for success, because it means that things like on your good days, instead of doing more, you'll do the same right. Instead of doing more, you'll do the same right, and you will avoid mistakes like making progressions too quickly or by too much. And essentially it's what's going to prevent you from over exerting into a crash, because consistent consistency ultimately equates to find the amount of movement, no matter how small, that you can repeat, and even if you feel like you can do more um. So that's why it's like it's the first lesson before we get into the formula um. And you know, this consistency of first approach will allow your body to. Then, if you get it right, will allow your body to make adaptations so that you can build tolerance. It'll allow you to gauge better where you're at and when the right time is to be able to make a small progression, because you're not constantly like shocking yourself, so you're able to see how clearly you are responding um. So yeah, so that's where we start.

Rachael : 27:19

First of all, um. And then the first component, um, of the baseline formula is around the movement modality itself. So, um, the correct or the movement modality that we use is, I call it muscle activation. We're talking about deliberate strength movement here predominantly. I should say we do top and tail the workouts with mobility and gentle um, longer held, sort of yin yoga style stretches, but essentially what we're here we're here we're talking about.

Rachael : 27:55

When I talk about the movement, I'm talking about strength exercise, but the right type, and I call them muscle activation, um, but they're also known as isolation exercises and these are typically used in, like injury rehab. You'll even find them in, like, you know, traditional strength warm-ups that prepare the body for load. But they're also ideal for fatigue related conditions for a number of reasons. As the name suggests, they target a single muscle group or single muscle and then so, by nature, they are smaller, controlled movements and therefore require less energy to perform. So when we think back to, like what we know about mitochondrial dysfunction, we can maybe start to see why actually this kind of movement might make sense, because we're implementing the most energy efficient movements, strength movements possible, right, we're giving yourself the best chance of improving strength without excessive strain.

Rachael : 29:00

And then the other good things about it is that they target a lot of those isolation exercises are what targets stabilizing muscles so great for injury prevention when we've been in mobile for a long time, we're deconditioned, you know, focusing on things like hip flexors, which stabilize the lower back. They play a key role in walking um, they improve your posture, your joint ability, your core is a stabilizing muscle, your we focus on scapular muscles like your rhomboids, um, again, great for posture. And this is all important because when you do progress and you do recover enough to maybe do more exercise, maybe more aerobic exercise or back to sport or even just more intense, you know, strength training, then hopefully you've kind of built back a level of foundations, um, that will, you know, de-risk your chance of injury when you do that um. And then they're often low. They are low impact um as well.

Rachael : 29:59

And there's so many options with isolation exercises to perform them on a map before, horizontally. Obviously that's really important for energy conserving as well, but also for managing pots, which a lot of people have um. And just to like, in case anyone doesn't like, help me figure what isolation exercise is. So, um. To give you example, a squat is what we call a compound movement because it uses multiple muscle groups to perform right. A lot of energy required to perform a squat or a press up or something like that or a lunge, whereas an isolation might be like a clamp which targets your glute med predominantly and, as you can imagine, less energy to perform.

Rachael : 30:47

So, yeah, the number one is the correct movement modality, and the last thing to say on these type of exercises is that it really encourages, like it's more mindful, like those slow, you know, low-impact, controlled movements. It just helps to foster a greater like think, mind, body connection. Then more intense modalities, like the most important thing here, obviously, is the energy efficiency, but also just another byproduct of it, like how it helps you to get tuned in, like tuned into your body and, you know, really like tuning into almost every part of the movement, as well as something I encourage, and it starts to create this sense of safety and trust in your body and what you're doing. And that is so important, as you know, for people that, um, you know, might have a lot of fear, anxiety, around movement. So that's, that's the first component.

Rachael : 31:39

Second component is about dosage, or volume, if you like, and there's basically three principles around this. The first one is more of a question that people could ask themselves, and it's can I perform this amount of movement day after day without causing my symptoms to worsen. And that's not to say you would repeat it daily, because rest is important. But if you had to, could you and that is such an important question to kind of like start with? And it's like it becomes like this handbrake metric, like we don't want this to get worse. So when we come on to like progressions and which I'll talk about a second, which is the third part, like we always are, come back to this question, um, and it's really, it's just a really important um steer helps to helpful steer. So that's the first principle around those.

Rachael : 32:33

His second one is, um, you would have heard, I'm sure people have heard before, but it's like doing less than you think. When I say doing less lesson, you think you should do that you want to do or even that you feel you can do. Um, it's so important and I think that's where, again, more known approaches to rehabilitation you know, great exercise therapy, just, you know, don't allow for this type of flexibility. Right, it's kind of you do this because the program says you do this, but actually, and you know, actually you need to be doing a lot less than you think, um, in order to achieve consistency, because that's the goal, that's what we're aiming for here. That's how you're going to then eventually build back that exercise tolerance by being able to move consistently, so no matter how small that volume is.

Rachael : 33:22

And then the last one is around effort. It's like an effort gauge, it's like it should always feel easy. Whatever you're doing at this stage should always feel easy. And if so, if you're straining, if you're sweating, if you're huffing and puffing, like that is means there's a sign that you're doing too much. And the good thing is that as you rebuild capacity, the amount of movement that feels easy increases naturally and that's a really good indicator of your, of your progress. And and yeah, it's not, you know, it's not completely like one size fits all and there's like they'll just throughout different stages of recovery, like yeah, we can look at the effort a bit more, but more but just just in terms of like helpful kind of guide for now, that is, it's following these principles is a really, really good starting point and what's really interesting is, you know, this goes against what we are told from childhood, or certainly what a lot of us have been told from childhood is that you need to be on max capacity all the time.

Jackie Baxter: 34:24

You know, if you are not pushing yourself and doing all of the stuff, then you're being lazy, you're not, you know, you're not putting your back into it all of this. And you know, and I genuinely believed all of this. Um, you know, and it's such a change now where I'm now like I could go and run that 10 miles, but actually I don't really feel like doing that today. I think I might just go for a walk instead. You know it's sunny outside and you know it's like, just just because you can doesn't mean that you actually want to, let alone should. Yeah, coming back to what you were saying about consistency, you know I think that is important. Um, you know I I say that in breathing classes. You know it's that consistency that's going to pay off. Um, you know you don't. You know, coming back to my previous life as a music teacher, you know the the child that comes into their their cello lesson and you say have you practiced this week? How many times have you practiced and you know you can tell straight away when they're lying.

Jackie Baxter: 35:24

You know the person that did consistent practice all week versus the person that the night before went oh no, I've got a lesson in the morning, I'd better do a load of practice, like it is blatantly obvious who is putting in the consistent effort and who's doing the like. You know like panic practice the night before, even if the amount of minutes spent might be the same, and it sounds like kind of similar to what you're saying here. You know doing that consistently rather than one big one and then crashing for the week.

Rachael : 35:55

Yeah, absolutely yeah, it's a really good idea to use. But is that is exactly that, and it's just having these useful sort of checkpoints, I think, to you, know, to you to hold yourself accountable, I guess. So, yeah, so that, so you got. You start with the right type of deliberate strength movement, which is the isolation exercises or muscle activation, and then you combine that with the right amount that you can then perform repeatedly and that's your baseline. And when, inside the membership, where I teach your stuff, you know I help people further in terms of making sure we start you at that, that is the right point for you. Um, so then, once you've got that, the question then becomes like how do you move that baseline safely forward? How do you gradually increase your exercise tolerance? Because that's what we want to do, right, we want to, we want to progress, but, as I said earlier about consistency of progression, but, yes, that's how we get there, but we still obviously want to progress.

Rachael : 36:51

Um, and we do that with what I call predictable progressions. Right, we need to be able to know confidently that when you do make a progression, you know you're going to know what's going to happen right, in a positive way. You're not that you can sustain it. You know you're not going, it's not risky, like it's not, it's not you know roll the dice type thing, whether it's what, which way this is going to go. Um, so when you think about progression in a normal program, um straight program, people probably familiar with something called progressive overload and that looks like usually some kind of adjustment weekly, whether that be load or volume, or reducing rest or increasing time under tension, which these things like work really well for a healthy body that can recover and adapt more quickly. They don't work so well, um in in, for people with chronic illnesses, particularly fatigue presenting ones. So how do we do that in a safe and predictable way?

Rachael : 37:52

So there's two, there's three things within this um component, and the first one is about time. Um so time between your baselines or time between your progressions. So, rather than that being predetermined, you need to stay at an amount of movement or your baseline for as long as it takes you to build confidence in what you are tolerating. Is that that flexibility on time is that and that loose definition? Time is so, so important because it gives you space to know eventually when is when it when you'll just intuitively know when the right time is to make a little progression at that point and it's totally okay to be like, be comfortable, staying there as long as you want. I remember I remember when I was doing this program a couple years ago, like I've stayed at a certain level about six weeks, even though I knew I could do more and I was racing more. But you know what, I was just so happy to be able to do something consistently at that level without and just being content with that and safe in that and safe in the knowledge and confident in what I was tolerating, and I was just happy being there for longer. And I've had people in the membership feel that way too like, and so I won't, I won't push them up, we just wait until they're sure, you know, know that they're ready for a little bit more or want to do a little bit more, um. So that's that loose definition.

Rachael : 39:21

Time is super, super important. Then the next one is when you are ready. You need to make that move. It's about um to the next baseline. It's about what I call micro progressions. So there's really incremental, incremental increases in either volume or intensity, or maybe we might add another exercise in there. But, as I said earlier, when we make the decision, we think about that handbrake metric. We ask that question again can I, can I perform this movement consistently, repeatably, if I, if I need it, if I wanted to, if I needed to, and if there's any doubt, we'll just stay away a little bit longer and that's totally cool.

Rachael : 40:25

And then, lastly, it's about flexibility, and so we're not just about being flexible on time as the first one, but also flexibility in terms of giving yourself permission to scale back if you need to. You know, we know recovery is not linear. Then therefore, your movement um is not linear either. You need to be able to accept and give yourself permission to scale back. It's not, you're not going backwards, but you need to do that, to go forwards again, and you need to work with your symptoms and work with your fluctuating conditions. So that might mean you know you you're just rested if you need to at some point.

Rachael : 41:03

Or it might mean that and we this is where the sort of coach's book comes in we talk about it it might mean that you know you need to just, maybe just do the mobility in the stretches today or this week and that's what, that's what feels comfortable for you or right for you this week, and then you know, and then we just reassess, so, um, that flexibility is just so, so important, because it still feels like that you still we can find something, you're still able to do, so you still maintain that consistency, um, then you know you're not going backwards and it also just mentally really helps as well, I think, in that respect. Um, so yeah, so those are the.

Jackie Baxter: 41:36

That's the baseline for those are the components that make it up, um, essentially, yeah, and I like that kind of giving yourself permission because you know I think we you know I said a moment ago, you know we do feel that, you know, societal need to push um, you know, and and holding ourselves back even though we know we need to, is often very, very difficult um, so it's kind of giving ourselves that permission and it being under our control. That I think has a lot of power, doesn't it, um? And you know it also brings in you know we talk about, you know the different stressors um that that impact us and you know, with long covid and mecfs, obviously we learn this lesson an awful lot harder um than a, you know, regular, healthy, regulated person. Um, you know that that argument with your partner, instead of making you pissed off for an hour, um, you know it can put you in bed for a week. You know that over exertion, if you do too much too quickly, it can put you in bed for a week. You know that overexertion, if you do too much too quickly, it can send you into that immobilization and you're stuck there for ages.

Jackie Baxter: 42:42

So it's this, you know it's. You know it's very much more. What am I trying to say? You know it's, it's. It's bigger, isn't it? Or more more impactful. And you know, we also learn about the different things. So if someone had started to go back to work at the same time as doing this formula, for example, they might find that the extra load from that means that they maybe need to take a step back on the formula. And that is not that they're going backwards, it's that they're getting that load from elsewhere, isn it, you know? And all of these things add together and if you increase one thing, it's going to impact other things. And also that a normal I hate the word normal, but you know, a regular person would also notice that. Yeah, but to less of an extent probably.

Rachael : 43:33

Or they would, you know, ignore it more, maybe yeah, and it's a really good point and, and you know, um, we do, you know everyone you know does have other stuff going on, and often when the questions I get asked from new members is how I'm still I'm managing to walk, you know, daily or a few times a week, like I want to keep doing that, I don't want to stop that. Can I keep doing that? Alongside this, I'm like absolutely the idea is that whatever you come in at, what you're, let's say, call it that baseline um, we don't want to. Whatever we add to in terms of deliberate movement program is to not take away from anything else you're doing, whether that's work, whether it's walking, whether it's, you know, socializing, whatever, like that's the aim. So we decide what that starting volume is is for you so that it doesn't interfere or prevent you from doing all the stuff or the other progress you've made and and other aspects of your recovery in your life.

Jackie Baxter: 44:24

So, yeah, it's a really, really important point yeah, and it comes back to, doesn't it, what is important for each individual person. For some people, you know, getting some of that, you know sort of capability and um capacity back may be the most important thing in terms of sort of being able to do movement and some exercise, whereas for some people it may be more important that they're able to start going back to work or you know whatever it is for them, and it sounds like you have the ability to tailor this to each individual person, depending on whatever it is that their stuff is yeah, yeah, I mean, I've had a couple of members recently, if you've moved house, and that's huge that is.

Rachael : 45:09

I did it actually twice during my recovery, different one year apart, but like it really, like you say, for anyone that's knackering um, so for you know, it's really that we we have to take that into massive consideration and we scale right back um, and because that's their fo, that's that focus. It's not forever. Obviously. You might take up a few weeks or whatever, a month maybe, to kind of get back to a sort of a equilibrium a little bit, before you're ready to go again. But you know it's, it's been, it's been adaptable, like you say yeah, absolutely.

Jackie Baxter: 45:46

Um, and it sounds from what you're saying that people that you have had doing this formula with you have really seen the benefits from it, from working with someone who's designed something from the inside, you know, knowing what it's like.

Rachael : 46:02

Yeah, and I think I do hear when people feedback, whether formally or informally, that trust is, I think, so powerful for people and that's why I always urge anyone in the going for something like this to uh and I don't you know whether it's me or anyone else but choosing someone, that if you want to incorporate movement and you want to help with that, trying to choose someone who's been through it, um, or whatever, whatever else, whether it's breath work, like you know, I know you have your breath course, you know, do it with someone that gets your condition for ideally, first hand, because it is different and there are different considerations and it just even just that, knowing that you know you don't have to explain to that person what you're going through, they just get it. Look, first of all, women over index, we know, on long KB, chronic illness, cfs, um, unfortunately, especially between the sort of 40 to 55 age bracket, there's perimenopausal, menopausal, so. But I do have a few, a few guys in in the group as well and Jason actually he had his stories a little bit different and he always feels bad saying it because he, you know he was probably saying like not as ill as everyone else. You know he had more of a. He had sort of cfs like symptoms, more like boom and bust, and he had a covid infection earlier, earlier last year, which kind of sent him into a big crash. Um, so he kind of gets it, but he, his, his journey was a little bit different and, um, his challenge was, like you know, he's a business owner.

Rachael : 47:34

He was kind of going through a burnout prior to that and that's probably where it all started from and he would always just push through his fatigue, push through fatigue, and whether that was with work or with exercise and what he said, it's just kind of like you know, he learned through this program to just sort of give himself the space and the rest that he needed and the right pacing to be able to kind of like manage that, not push through and manage and learn how not to do that, but then so to the point where he could get his exercise capacity back up, um, and so you know he I'm really grateful he trusted the process because I a lot of guys come in and not a lot of guys sorry, I don't probably get as many guys as well, because I think this is going to sound really mean but, like you know, even more. So guys are probably pre-programmed to go heavy and, you know, go strong, and I think this approach, this really sort of gentle approach, is maybe like not what they want to do but unfortunately is a means to an end and and um. So it's great when, when guys like jason come in and and get that and trust it and you know he's, he's achieved his goals. He's just got back to the four surfing and he also rolled on to the 90 day rebound method after that. So he's just going from strength to strength, um.

Rachael : 48:51

But then you've got someone like uh, we think like paula um, who is. You've got someone like we think like Paula, who is over four years now into long Covid and sort of her biggest challenge, I think, which all of us can probably relate to, is that in her good bits of her recovery she would get really over excited and do too much and and she also struggles with the persistent sort of heavy leg pain as well, which makes walking hard for her. So, um, but you know she she was one of our first members and um, and she's managed, you know, through this sort of deliberate, general strength work she's created this, this level of consistency that she's been able to maintain getting a confidence back, which is just huge for her. She went to ibiza a couple months ago and was dancing, um and like, just like stuff she would never imagined you know before. So it's just amazing. Actually, it's like the most rewarding thing in the world to be able to help people get some of their life back.

Jackie Baxter: 49:54

So, yeah, yeah, I agree, um, and I think you know it's so positive to hear that. You know it does. You know you are going to get there. It's just a long and, you know, painful process, um, but you know that it is that kind of persistence, consistency, um, you know, keeping going, as you said, trusting the process, putting the effort in, but the right sort of effort at the right time.

Jackie Baxter: 50:23

Um, yeah, yeah yeah, definitely well, thank you so much, uh, for coming along and sharing so many valuable tips. Um, I will make sure to put your website into the show notes so if anybody wants to see any of your YouTube videos or learn more about working with you, they can look that up and find all that information. So, yeah, thank you so much and yeah, it's been lovely chatting again.

Rachael : 50:51

No problem, thanks for having me, and I really hope that this has been useful for those listening and that someone you know that can take at least one thing away from it that will help them.