Jocko Underground: Getting Old and Hurt. The New Standard.

>Join Jocko Underground< https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribeFor the FULL EPISODE. The new standard as we get old and injured. What to do when a loved one seems to be slowly giving up on life. Dealing with neighbors crossing social boundaries. How to deal with a gym rival. What to do when you hate your parent and can't forgive. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is the Jocko Underground Podcast, number 166, here to answer questions and provide guidance and various courses of action for situations and for life. Let's get into it.

• 0:14Speaker 01

  First question, hey guys, what advice would you have in my situation? Early 30s, male with young family, was always great, in great shape and have always worked labor slash skilled labor jobs with only a high school education. I believe my family is being ready for, I believe firmly in being ready for anything and being the protector over my family. However, five years ago, I hurt my back at work. I find out I have two herniated discs in my back, causing me severe sciatic pain down my leg, pain and stiffness in my lower back. There are days when I can hardly move. Some days are alright, many it's not. I just can't do half the things I used to.

• 0:57Speaker 01

  It's getting to a point where I'm no longer as strong as I used to be. I can't work out without causing a flare up. I'm not in shape anymore. I'm not as productive in manual labor as I used to be, and I'm constantly in pain. Is this a situation where I just quote unquote suck it up or pursue doctors to try to come up with the money to fix this issue? Or what would you suggest to get my life back and be able to become the man my family needs? If it helps, jobs and skills include hunting guide, automotive technician, farm work, heavy equipment mechanic, and sonic drill operator. Thanks.

• 1:38Jocko Willink?

  Well, pretty straightforward here. Yeah, you need, it sounds like you need to get some help.

• 1:44Jocko Willink?

  I had neck surgery. I had, you've had two bicep surgeries. Have you had knee surgeries?

• 1:50Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 1:51Jocko Willink?

  Where'd you get knee surgery?

• 1:52Speaker 01

  1996.

• 1:53Jocko Willink?

  Oh damn, a long time ago.

• 1:54Speaker 01

  Back in the day.

• 1:55Jocko Willink?

  What kind?

• 1:57Speaker 01

  Full reconstruction, so ACL, MCL, wait, MCL, lateral, LCL.

• 2:04Jocko Willink?

  How'd you hurt that one?

• 2:05Speaker 01

  Football.

• 2:08Jocko Willink?

  You couldn't just suck it up? Well. Yeah. So, um, I woke up one day and well, I was actually training jujitsu. And I was rolling with my buddy Mark and all of a sudden out of nowhere, my arm just like started to hurt and felt really weak. And I finished the round and I was like, well, something's wrong with me. I woke up, went to went home, went to bed, woke up and I couldn't move my right arm. Like it wasn't really moving, moved it a little bit, but not really. Got a little better over the next couple of days, but it was weak. I couldn't do a dip. I couldn't do one dip. Not one, just boom. Like there was no strength at all.

• 2:54Jocko Willink?

  And, uh, so went in, yep. I had some shit going on in my neck and the doc was like, yep, let's schedule for surgery. And of course I stretched it out and stuff like that for the next four or five weeks. It got a little bit better, but it was just gnarly, man. It was like I, I got to where I could do like one dip or two dip dips. So, yeah. You, there's mechanical things that can go wrong in your body that just need to get repaired. It's just, this, those are just the facts.

• 3:30Jocko Willink?

  So do you, you, you, I, I agree with putting off surgery if possible, right? Now with nerve damage is a little bit different. So that's what the situation with my neck, the doc's like, hey, listen. If you, if you don't get this, if you don't, if we don't do surgery. It may or may not improve and it could get worse. And the longer you wait and we do do surgery, it's causing more and more nerve damage over time. So it may get to a point where the ner- nerve is now permanently damaged and will may never recover.

• 4:05Jocko Willink?

  And so I, that's what sped it up.

• 4:09Jocko Willink?

  That's why I was like, okay, let's do surgery then.

• 4:12Jocko Willink?

  Oftentimes with injuries, especially with the back, with the neck, with the, but with everything, with shoulders, with everything. The first thing you start off with is hardcore physical therapy, like very disciplined physical therapy. Are you doing all the stretching, hour of stretching? You know, with, that's what you gotta do. Like in this case, you got that, that sciatica down the back, you gotta stretch, you gotta decompress, they're gonna put you in the rack, they're gonna pull, they're gonna try and get you, get that thing to recover. And it does, oftentimes it does. I've had, I've had my back gone freaking blown out and felt like crap and been injured, then recovered. You know, I was talking to someone the other day who had like some little nagging injury and it was a young person and they were kinda complaining about it.

• 4:55Jocko Willink?

  And I said, oh yeah, I've had a thousand little nagging injuries that you think are never gonna go away. They do. You just work around them and you get through them. But sometimes it's something more serious than that. So you wanna do a disciplined commitment to physical therapy. And if you gotta give that a little bit of time, maybe that's three months, maybe that's two months, maybe that's six months, but you gotta give it some time. And then if that doesn't work, then it's like, okay, we gotta check out the surgical options or actually then we go, what's it, stem cells, right? Then we go meds, we go injection, like the, the steroid injection into the thing, what's that called? Cortisol. Cortisol, right into the

• 5:40Jocko Willink?

  Cortisone. Cortisone, right into the spot, like there's a bunch of steps you can take, iterative steps. And then eventually if none of that works, eventually you go, okay, we have a mechanical issue in there. I've got a piece of disc or a piece of bone hitting the nerve. That's what it is. And it needs to get moved. It's just a mechanical issue.

• 6:02Jocko Willink?

  Now, and so that's what you're gonna need. Now you probably need someone to help you with all, everything I just said, the physical therapy, someone's gotta go like, okay, let's do this stretch, let's work on this, let's pull your head over here, let's push your back over here, you know, like someone that's helping you. Now it sounds like from your question, you don't have insurance in your current scenario. You need to get insurance ASAP. Like you need to get insurance ASAP. You need to go and find an insurer and be like, yeah, you know, I've been working for a while and, and I need to get insurance. And do it while you're as healthy as you can possibly be.

• 6:38Jocko Willink?

  As when you're as healthy as you possibly be so that you don't uh red flag a bunch of pre-existing conditions. Is you know what I'm saying? Yeah. So you want to let this thing heal up a bit, then you go in there, yep, good to go. Let's, let's get some insurance. That's what you need. And by the way, you mentioned that you got hurt at work. Like what work were you doing? Did you get workman's compensation? Did you get this stuff documented? What was the company? Was it a big company? Like you can't have permanent damage to your back. They should be, they should be helping you out here. So then you may be too late. You may have been getting paid under the table. I don't know. But there is a possibility there, but yes, um.

• 7:21Jocko Willink?

  Get some insurance today. When you hear this, go find an insurance person. Be like, yep, hey, I haven't had health insurance. I want to get my family on a plan. I'm a third and it's expensive, by the way. Like I'm very lucky because I was in the military for 20 years. So my insurance is the US military. But insurance is expensive. It's like a family insurance, 1500 bucks a month. Is that, is that accurate Echo Charles? Slightly more, yeah. Yeah, 2000 bucks a month. Like it's, it's a very expensive, very expensive.

• 7:54Jocko Willink?

  Um, when you have this kind of debilitating pain and suffering, it's, it's going to be worth it. And not to mention if one of your kids gets hurt or sick or whatever. So get into uh get, go get insurance ASAP, man. And then follow that thing that I just said, get insurance.

• 8:17Jocko Willink?

  Uh, look on the, look on the internet about backstretch and sciatica. I'll, dude, I'll do that all day. You can say whatever you want about me. Like if I get some weird issue, I'll go to YouTube or the internet and be like, hey, I got pain over here. Oh, those recommend three stretches. Oh, there'll be some guy on there that'll be like, hey, oh, if it hurts over here, here's a stretch that you can do. Cool. I'll try that. Doesn't work after four days. Some other guy said something else. Try that one too. Maybe I'll try two at once. You know what I'm saying?

• 8:45Jocko Willink?

  I don't throw away the internet just because it's the internet, man. There's some knowledgeable people on the internet and I'll take advantage of that. So go try some of that. Maybe then you go, okay, I need some, go see a physical therapist. And then a physical therapist will go, hold on a second, what do we got here? And then you start performing the protocol that they put you through. Hope, look, you can completely recover. From, uh, what is it slipped? You can completely recover from herniated discs in your lower back. Completely. I've known many people that have done that. They stretch, they, uh, they decompress their spine, you know, they hang upside down. There's all kinds of things you can do. And, and the disc is like this weird mushy thing. And if you allow it some time to rest,

• 9:27Jocko Willink?

  it can kind of go back in and get away from your nerves. So that's what we hope for. But sometimes it's just like brutally damaged. And you need to get, you gotta, like I said, it's like a car with a broken axle, bro. Doesn't matter that you want it to keep driving. It ain't going to keep driving. It's a mechanical problem. And you just have to get it fixed. So, sounds like you've been pushing hard.

• 9:56Jocko Willink?

  Early thirties, you've been doing some hard work your whole life. You know, farm work, heavy equipment, hunting guide, like that's all some hard work. You pushed hard. It sounds like you are, uh, need to recover from the situation. You need to get insurance ASAP. And then go through that protocol, starting with, starting with PT, going through all the way through injections and stem cells. And last resort, surgery. And by the way, I, I don't want to say like last resort. I had surgery on my neck. It was freaking great. I have a friend that went and got surgery on his neck and like the next day was a hundred percent. Like all this excruciating pain from all this time, next day was good to go.

• 10:37Jocko Willink?

  I've had people with mixed results as well. Oh, feeling better. Greg Train got neck surgery. He's doing great. I rolled with freaking Greg Train the other day. He was an animal. He's all pissed too. He's like, he's got pent up rolls in him, you know? And I'm like, bro, take it easy, man. I'm over here trying to just, you know, do jujitsu. He's over here trying to fight me MMA style.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:57Jocko Willink?

  But he got neck surgery.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:59Jocko Willink?

  And I'm literally putting him in guillotines. And, you know, we, at the beginning, we're like, hey, you know, easy on Greg's neck. I'm like, cool. This, this, this, this, this dude was not going easy with Jocko. He was using his head as a weapon, by the way.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. And keeping my two with him, that was recently. That's not like, oh yeah, two years ago and he's fully recovered. No, no, this was like within the last, I think, two or three months.

• 11:21Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  And he's out rolling with Jocko's guillotine, by the way.

• 11:26Jocko Willink?

  My guillotine. Yep. Yes. I, I will say I backed off the guillotine a little bit.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 11:31Jocko Willink?

  Just out of like, not wanting to be that guy.

• 11:34Speaker 01

  Sure. Makes sense.

• 11:35Jocko Willink?

  But I was pushing on his head. I was grabbing his neck, you know, like, kind of normal stuff. I wasn't trying to finish a guillotine, like his first day back rolling with, after getting disc replacement, I think at two levels. So, that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground Podcast. So if you want to continue to listen,

• 11:57Jocko Willink?

  go to jacoun underground.com and subscribe. And we're doing this, we're doing this to mitigate our reliance on external platforms. So we are not subject to their control. And we are doing this so that we can support the Jocko Podcast, which will remain as is, free for all, as long as we can keep it that way. But we, but we are doing this so we don't have to be under the control of sponsors. And we're doing it so we can give you.

• 12:29Jocko Willink?

  More control, more interaction, more direct connections, better communications with us. And to do that, we are, we're building a website right now where we'll be able to utilize to strengthen this legion of troopers that are in the game with us. So, thank you. It's jockounderground.com. It costs $8.18 a month. And if you can't afford to support us, we can still support you. Just email [email protected] and we'll get you taken care of. Until then, we will see you mobilized underground.