You're in pain so you go to the doctor who sends you home, tells you to rest, take these pills and come back in 4-6 weeks if the pain hasn't gone away. You go back, still in pain once the pain medication wears off, and they walk back in the office with a huge ass needle and tell you that this will help. You feel great! The pain goes away in a few days and you're on your merry way. Several more weeks pass, and the pain is back. So, you schedule another appointment, they bring the big needle out again... This happens again and again and again until your doctor tells you that the cortisone shots will compromise the integrity of your tissues, and- you should either consider a joint replacement and/or just lose weight or start swimming. There are so many issues within today's medical model, and what I know now is that doctors are burnt out. By and large, people are lazy. They want to be out of pain NOW without doing any of the work required to get out of pain and stay out of pain. If you've lived with aches and pains throughout your body (this does not include things like autoimmune diseases, etc.) you're comfortable with the narrative that you're just aging, that deadlifts are bad for your back, that squatting is bad for your knees, and that this is just the way it is. And what's worse is, many people love the narrative (read: excuse) of essentially feeling validated to sit on the couch all evening because they're in pain any way. What gets us out of this loop? Pursuing strength in functional, real-world applications. I know, that's not what everyone wants to hear. And while some general practitioners truly are out of their scope of practice (like, they're actually not educated enough in the field of movement), many are just tired of telling people what to do because they know many are not going to do it. So "cortisone shot, schedule a surgery, and let's get on with our lives" is the route many doctors and patients take. But what if you're like me and you don't want to keep treating symptoms? What if you're like me and you don't want to take the easy way out? This episode is for you.