The Functional Challenge Podcast

The Functional Challenge

David George
A podcast dedicated to transforming and saving lives! The Functional Challenge serves a community of proactive healthcare professionals and health-minded individuals through sharing the latest perspectives in human optimization.  The podcast is synchronized with community-health-and-fitness-based challenges that engage, motivate and educate through actual experience rather than instruction.Join host Dr. David George and guest medical experts, performance specialists and biomedical innovators as they bring you high-value, current updates from the field of functional medicine, clinical neuroscience and rehabilitation, including cutting-edge strategies for driving recovery from pain and complex injury, living longer, competing stronger and living and loving life to the extreme!EndFragment
Where Your Life Challenges Began: Facing the Demons you Can't See
Caleigh Smith is a professional counselor who specializes in trauma-focused therapy and a particular issue called codependence.Many of you may have heard the term codependence but like most people, might not understand exactly what that is … many of you probably should.    Many professionals crash into burnout and other life crisis due to underlying issues associated with codependence.    If you feel like you keep bumping into some recurring themes in your life that are bringing you unhappiness and frustration… you may be codependent.This problem often goes by undiagnosed and wreaks havoc, as a silent destructive force in people’s lives, destroying careers and personal relationships … and the consequences of codependence are often blamed on all sorts of other problems… mostly because people who suffer from codependence most often have no idea about this problem, let alone the fact that they may be affected by it.Some of the topics covered:Her perspectives on codependence as someone who has extensive experience in working with addiction (which, by the way, is a common consequence of codependence).A model of codependence that makes this disorder a bit easier to understand and manage.How this disorder often plays out among professionals and may lead to burnout.  
Jul 27, 2018
1 hr 14 min
Trained for Revolution: Cutting through the insanity of the social-media-driven fitness industry
This week my guest is Christian Woodford, a well-known and highly-experiencedathletic performance coach in Australia and the founder of Woodford Sports Science Consulting, a world-renowned training facility that serves elite athletes, including a large number of professionals and Olympians.He is a specializes in athletic strength and power development but he isn’t a run-of-the-mill athletic training professional: He is a very colorful figure (to say the least) and he is becoming as much known for hilarious and unique personal style and flair as much for his well-researched approaches to bringing out the best in his growing body of elite athletes.He feels that he is on a mission to restore common sense and focus to an industry that has been muddied by narcissism, greed and poor accountability to truth. In this interview:We discuss some of the flaws in fashionable training approaches like “Functional” training.Some of the applications of neuroscience to athletic development.The power of simplicity in strength training.In his true style: some pretty fun and animated perspectives on some pitfalls in the fitness industry today.If you’re into fitness and looking to get a unique update, prepare yourself for a fun hour from a guy that knows his stuff and has a very unique and entertaining way of sharing it with you! 
Jul 5, 2018
1 hr 15 min
The Curse of Authority: How Your Best Advice May be Killing Your Business and Relationships
My guest this week is a highly respected and experienced expert instructor in a therapeutic approach called Motivational Interviewing (or MI).  Any experienced healthcare professional has at some time or another faced the frustration of poor compliance in the clients they serve.   Here I’m talking about those situations we find ourselves in where we’re offering our best advice to someone who clearly needs it but they just don’t seem to get it - they seem completely resistant to the message… poor compliance follows.  It doesn’t take to many of these types of encounters to serious drain our energy and motivation and may, over time, have us questioning why we’re doing this at all!As some of you might now, professional burn-out is an area of interest for me and I see so much value in what you are about to hear in terms of helping to counteract burnout in health professionals. Rather than aiming to build compliance, MI is a system that builds empowerment, self-efficacy and autonomy in patients, while supporting empathy in health professionals.  … and as many of you may be aware… empathy is the first thing out the window when we start burning out as professionals.MI was developed to deal with a condition that is highly stigmatized and tends to attract what many health professionals regard as one the most therapy resistant, defensive and non-compliant populations in healthcare: alcoholism…. But.. this system can be readily applied to any population where behavior change is a desired outcome (as someone who has worked in chronic pain for most of my career.. that’s music to my ears).Cathy Cole, is a wonderful, down to earth person and a true expert in this field.  I’m sure that you’ll gain so much from this interview, as I certainly did! 
Jun 21, 2018
1 hr 20 min
How Your Mind Traps You When You Try to Fix Things
Dr. Steven Hayes is a giant in the field of Psychology - many believe him to be one of the most important figures in the field for the past century.  He is Professor in the Behavior Analysis program at the Department of Psychology at the University of Nevada.   He has authored 44 books and nearly 600 scientific articles… and thousands more have been written about the systems of psychotherapy he developed.This interview was a powerful moment in my own life… we spoke about so many valuable concepts:Incl. How your mind traps you when you try to “fix things”.How we get stuck in lifeHow we our current approach to pain is flawed.How his concepts are being applied to communities in crisis.A system for finding fulfillment in life while avoiding the mind traps!
Jun 10, 2018
1 hr 47 min
The Olympic Way: Rowing for Elite Level Fitness
Olympian and World Champion Rower Sara (Hendershot) Lombardi and her husband, olympic coach and elite level competitor Mike Lombardi join us for a highly informative and practical interview, covering a range of topics incl. training strategies, injury avoidance, and technical pointers.  Sara and Mike generously share advice on how to bulletproof your cardiovascular fitness through training in the premier sport for cardiovascular conditioning. 
May 3, 2018
1 hr 8 min
Why You Never Need to Have a Heart Attack
Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn is convinced that Heart Disease is nothing more than a paper tiger... a foodborne illness.   He believes that his dietary approach near guarantees freedom from heart attack and even reversal of cardiovascular disease.  He has written a New York Times Bestseller on this topic and his diet has been adopted by a number of high-profile people, including former president Bill Clinton, and actors Samuel L. Jackson and Michelle Pfeiffer. He was featured on CNN's "The Last Heart Attack".   This episode is one of our cardiovascular health series.  
May 1, 2018
45 min
I had a Heart Attack Last Week.. this is What You Need to Know.
This episode will save lives!... maybe even yours. Competitive Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Champion and Coach, Paul Nava,  generously shares his real, valuable thoughts with you following just having experiencing a heart attack... just one week ago.  This is the first episode in the Functional Challenge's Cardiovascular Health series.
Apr 27, 2018
21 min
Cardiology is Broken! How You Can Avoid Falling Through the Cracks.
"The Paleo Cardiologist" Dr. Jack Wolfson believes that conventional cardiology is broken (even dangerous) and that the solution lies his approach.   In this interview he discusses his perspectives on cardiovascular disease as well as some of the challenges he has faced for adopting a non-conventional path.  He also shares some great, practical tips that you can implement toward better heart health today.  This is the 2nd episode in our cardiovascular optimization series.  This interview includes a bonus, "after the cut", extended interview available on www.FunctionalChallenge.com where Dr. Wolfson offers some candid perspectives and one or two very practical pieces of advice. 
Apr 27, 2018
49 min
Welcome to the Functional Challenge!
Functional Challenge host and Functional Neuro-Orthopedic Rehabilitation (FNOR) co-founder David George launches the podcast.
Apr 5, 2018
12 min