Ep112 - Eric Goodman: Posture, Breath, Heat & Cannabis: A New Approach to Pain Relief
Dr. Eric Goodman, the creator of Foundation Training, has developed a system of pain relief that integrates movement and posture, heat, breath and our favorite plant. PS: Be a mensch and share this podcast with anyone you know over 40.
Dr. Goodman demonstrating Foundation Training in action
I’ve devoted a lot of air space to the topic of cannabis and sleep in the last months, and now I want to turn to pain, the #1 condition for which people use cannabis, and introduce you to Dr. Eric Goodman. A former athlete who is no stranger to injury, surgery and rehab, Eric trained as a chiropractor, where he learned anatomy, physiology and treatment. But over time, and as his own pain continued to plague him, he realized that much of what he was taught was insufficient. “We look to the wrong places for solutions—which keeps us from finding immediate relief. “he writes in his upcoming book, tentatively titled Foundations of Health: Harnessing The Restorative Power of Movement, Heat and the Endocannabinoid System To Actively Adapt for a Healthy Life. “Ultimately, it hampers us from living healthy lives…”
These realizations set him on a road to create Foundation Training, a method that strengthens the areas around what goes wrong in our bodies so we can find relief and prevent injuries from occurring in the future.
Eric and I share the same publisher, Karen Rinaldi at Harper Wave, who a few weeks ago slipped me a pre-publication manuscript of Foundations of Health. The book integrates a decade of research, clinical evidence and patient results into something that goes beyond biomechanics and standard adjustments – it’s an integrative approach to pain, especially chronic pain, that makes sense. I gobbled it up.
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nstead of treating the area where pain occurs, Foundations identifies four factors that contribute to pain alleviation: posture and movement, breath, heat and, you guessed it, cannabis and how it affects the body’s endocannabinoid system (ECS). It offers practical methods of optimizing each of these factors, while also parsing common myths and facts: heat vs. cold for injury, rest vs. small amounts (“microdoses”) of physical stress, and how cannabis, properly used, can increase awareness of balance and movement. This enhanced somatosensory perception neatly fits his explanation of “couchlock,” in which you feel the weight of your limbs more than you typically do.
This interview also marks Eric’s coming out as a cannabis user and advocate. Like many, he harbored concerns that open advocacy could jeopardize his practice, but I predict that it will put him in the excellent company of the growing number of maverick health practitioners who use cannabis can be an excellent adjunct to pain relief with fewer side effects than NSAIDs (Advil, Aleve, Motrin) and opioids. Welcome to the fold, Dr. Goodman!
Foundations of Health (tentative title) will be out January 2022. Learn more about it
here.Learn more about Foundation Training here
Or get the Foundation training app, which has all sorts of programs including: weekend workouts; FT for surfers, runners, golfers, office workers, FT and Pregnancy, and a complimentary “Independence from Pain” workout.