068 Lifting out of back pain with Tanya Gordon

In this episode, we're diving into the vital topic of prioritising healthy living and discovering activities that can help manage back pain effectively. We'll explore the significance of proper posture and exercise in maintaining good back health. Tanya shares her personal journey with weightlifting and how it has positively impacted her well-being.

We'll also discuss the unique aspects of the female body and how understanding its changes throughout the menstrual cycle can enhance our approach to fitness. Proper technique and self-care are key to avoiding burnout, and we'll highlight these essential elements too.

So, let's get started on lifting out of back pain and creating a more active, pain-free life!

About Tanya Gordon:

She has successfully built up a manufacturing business in a male-dominated industry and continues to do so. She is a Chartered Manager and holds a Level 7 Executive Diploma in Strategic Management with the Chartered Manager’s Institute (CMI).

Having honed her skills over the years in business she now helps other owners to grow their businesses and fast track their successes. She is passionate about helping others to thrive not just survive. She particularly likes processes to save you time and to help you gain the freedom you wanted when you started in business.

She is a firm believer that work life and home life aren’t totally separate, especially
when you start your business journey. So takes a whole of life approach to her work with business owners. Helping people to build sustainable, fulfilling, profitable businesses and rewarding lives.

She is also outnumbered by boys at home, as she lives with her husband and four of their five boys. It is a good thing she also has a sense of humour and doesn’t take herself too seriously. Even their Labrador is a boy! She is enthusiastic, pragmatic, honest (sometimes brutally) and gets sh*t done.

www.manyhatsofbusiness.com

About Sarah Bolitho:

Sarah Bolitho helps fitness and health professionals develop their careers and grow their businesses by providing specialist training in teaching, assessing, and internal quality assurance, together with qualifications in exercise referral and disability.   

With over 30 years in the health-related fitness and physical activity fields, Sarah has a wealth of experience and knowledge.  She has worked in most roles in the industry from group exercise to personal training but specialised in working with specialist populations.  For over 25 years Sarah has trained fitness and health professionals to work with clients with long-term conditions, mental health issues, disabilities, older adults and pre/post-natal women.  

She has a post-graduate diploma in exercise and health behaviour and extensive training in supporting behaviour change.  

For more about the training and support Sarah offers, visit www.sarahbolitho.com or contact her at admin@sarahbolitho.com.

Follow her on social media
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fabnewlous_active_lives
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fitnesscareer mentor
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahbolitho

Transcript

Transcript

Sarah (00:02.766)

Hello and welcome to this episode of Creating Active Lives with me, Sarah Belytha and my guest this week, Tanya Gordon.

Tanya helps people build businesses that works for various stages of their lives and the lives of their families as well, which is actually really interesting. We're going to talk about that a little bit later because I think we've gone past the stage of where you get a job for life. And now we often have various roles and various jobs that fit in with different phases of our lives. But we will talk about that. And our business is called Many Hats of Business, which anyone who's in business will know that they often have many hats, or in my case, tiaras.

What we're really going to start talking about is Tanya's back. Tanya used to have terrible back pain growing up and it only really started to get better or started to resolve when she started weightlifting when she met her second husband. But she's really passionate about leading healthy lives through activity, through going to the gym and the fact that, you know what, sometimes a good bout of gardening is just as good as going to the gym.

So it's not all about, right, let's do this, but it's finding what works for you in all areas of life, but particularly activity, isn't it? So Tanya, introduce yourself and we'll talk about your back.

Tanya Gordon (01:20.65)

Hi Sarah, yeah it's wonderful to be here and exactly what you said. For me, it's about making your business work for your life and you've got to fit that in of looking after yourself because essentially we live longer now so if we're not looking after ourselves, by the time we've done all this work and we've built this business and we've earned all this money, what are we gonna have left at the end of it? Because we're not gonna be fit and able enough to enjoy it.

Sarah (01:45.838)

Yeah, I think this is one of the things, isn't it? So many people, they end up with a healthy back balance, but unhealthy health, unhealthy body. And, you know, it's gone are the days where you retire and slow down. Now it's right, I'm going to retire and do all the things that I haven't done yet. So this is where, you know, good health and particularly a healthy back is actually really, really important because as you know, having a bad back can stop you doing a lot of things, can't it?

Tanya Gordon (02:17.418)

Yeah, I mean, I was young. I remember, I feel like my back pain started when I was in primary school and obviously those horrible wooden chairs didn't help. And I went to the osteopath when I was young and discovered that I'd got scoliosis and it wasn't anything massive. That's a curvature of the spine for anyone that doesn't know. It wasn't anything huge, but it just gave me such pain. And the sitting for hours in school didn't help. And I've, I've hoarded them from a young age, but luckily Touchwood never had any disastrous falls or anything, but it got far worse when I was working in pubs. So I was about 17, 18. So it's still quite young to be suffering with a lot of back pain. And I've always been a bit of a bull in a china shop. So I was always just like, you know, you get it done, whatever needs doing. And I used to manage the seller and because of all of the bending down in this, they're not very high, the sellers. So obviously a lot of your, a lot of what you're doing, you're bending down anyway, not in the best position and you're looking heavy things. And I had a disastrous time then and like course you're standing still which is horrendous worse than walking and cause at that age I used to wear high heels sometimes as well or go out in high heels and basically it resulted in me having to have I've got a sports massage guy and he did he used to freeze polystyrene cups full of water and give me massages with those which is a very unpleasant experience so because as they melt obviously you're being massaged with a block of of ice and as it melts to try and help with the inflammation as it melts you can feel cold water trickling and it's really not very pleasant.

Sarah (04:09.294)

no. Yeah, and yeah, everybody loves these cold baths, but it's very different, isn't it, than a massage. Massage is getting in a lot deeper. Yeah. I'm not a fan of the cold myself, but it's interesting, isn't it? Because you say starting a primary school, and I think, you know, chances are there's a lot of people who could probably trace a bad, bad, bad. Children are not designed to sit still.

Tanya Gordon (04:14.41)

I haven't rushed into the cold bath, I think, having tested that. They thought I was making it up. You know, they really did think I was making up, you're too young to have back pain. And I can remember even in secondary doing some PE stuff and people, you're too young to have back pain. yeah, tell that to my back.

Sarah (04:34.734)

Yeah, it's interesting because we're not designed to sit still and particularly children we're not and if you have got that curvature that scoliosis being sat in the same position all day is probably going to exacerbate it because your body's trying to sort of right itself which is going to add to any discomfort and things like that.

Tanya Gordon (04:58.282)

And I think as children, we often don't have, certainly as we grow up, we don't have the best posture. Because I've got kids now, they're teenagers, and they'll sit in the worst positions looking at their screens and playing on their Xbox and stuff. And we're forever saying, sit up straight. And I can remember the same being said to me, but we haven't kind of got the strength to do that.

Sarah (05:17.71)

No, no, we, we, the, the problem with the body and particularly, you know, the muscles is when they are used to being in a certain position to try and come out of that position requires a lot of effort and like any, any like lifting, like resistance training and things like that. That effort results in sore muscles. So even though the muscles are, you're holding yourself in the correct posture, for anyone who can't say I'm actually sitting up nice and straight now, but you're holding yourself in the correct posture, but because your body's got used to bad posture, being in correct posture is effectively endurance training for the muscles, and they start to hurt after a while. So you think, that's not good. It's bad for me. It's not. It's just that your body's not used to it. And it's like anything going from bad posture to good posture takes time. But it also, I think it's, and we're going to come onto this, but it takes somebody showing you the right way to do it, the right muscles to activate and the right position to be in, because it's not just like going from a slump to standing tall like a soldier, there's much more to it than that. 

Tanya Gordon (06:27.69)

definitely and it's funny because you know you would assume wouldn't you that we'd all stand in the right way because like why would we not but we don't and we haven't been taught to do it properly and we do it's like anything you have to kind of practice it don't you to get that ability.

Sarah (06:43.983)

Can I just say going back many years many many years at school we actually had deportment lessons We did walk with a book on our head and things like that And do you know what it really does focus you particularly if it's a heavy book because if it lands on your feet it hurts But it's things like that just aren't done anymore But actually it was quite useful because it was when you were sitting you had your book on your head if you're standing you were walking you were moving and it did make you really think because if you if you didn't have the correct posture the book fell off.

Tanya Gordon (06:50.058)

so you did get to know.

Sarah (07:13.454)

So it's something that we kind of don't do anymore but maybe we should. Anyway so let's find out then how you started to get into weightlifting and how that helped your back.

Tanya Gordon (07:20.058)

Yeah, so obviously I'd got this fear probably really about doing anything too heavy or anything over the years and then I had two children with my first husband and obviously a lot of time had passed from when I'd had this major issue with working in the cellar. I'd gone into an office job and sitting around a lot so my back never got better. I discovered I'd got hypermobility when I went to see a chiropractor. Right at the end of a treatment she rolled my shoulder around and it kind of jumped out a bit and clunked and she was sounded surprised and I said isn't that how shoulders work and she said no. I said okay I thought I was normal, but apparently not. So that helped me to discover obviously this problem I'd had and with obviously having the children and everything gets laxer with your ligaments and things then, you know, I just thought back pain was something that I was going to have for the rest of my life because I'd had it most of my life. So, you know, what, what was going to change? And yeah, as I was 31, I met my husband and he is big into weightlifting. He's older than me. He's 15 years older than me. So he's been weightlifting since he was in his early 20s probably before so he's been weightlifting for 30 years so he's got a massive a lot of experience and he very much does it properly but you know that sort of longevity is really you know massive a lot of experience so he started taking me to the gym and I was you know quite anxious the first time I was squatted with a bar on my back the idea of you know you're compressing your spine the thought is there. I haven't lifted anything crazy heavy or anything but my PB was just over 60K which for anyone that doesn't know is the bar with the two big plate on each side which you know for a woman at the time it was basically what I weighed so I was squatting with myself on my back slightly more than me yeah so basically it was that and I was really anxious about my back but when I'd started this weight training and obviously it wasn't just about squatting, I did a lot of different exercises, I discovered my back ache completely went. I never had the issues. Yes, you got the muscular, as you said, like, I've got my dumbs of the delayed onset muscle soreness the next day and the day after, but nothing with my actual back pain. It was only when you start to train as well, you start to really differentiate different body parts. So you start to notice them. So I could say, that's muscular pain. You know, whereas in the past, you know, it's just general, my back hurts. You don't differentiate in the same way. feeling as if you've done something.

Sarah (10:13.354)

And actually that's really, really important. Such an important point. And it's something I always make a point of telling people who are new to activity is, you know, if you are using muscles in a completely different way for the first time, you will get some soreness, but it should be kind of, if you like comfortable soreness, it should, you could still, yeah but you can still go about your everyday life. If you can't move or it's really painful, then there's either something going on or you've overdone it. But you should, when you've used your muscles for the first time properly, you should experience little signs in your body that, yeah, I've worked, I can feel that. But it's not pain, pain is a different thing and it's really important that people like you say learn to differentiate between the two because a lot of people will will exercise they'll wake up the next day or they'll get through the next day and they'll get to the evening because you know delayed onset muscle soreness usually 24 hours or so but they'll go this hurts it's back pain I better not do that again whereas actually it's not it's the muscles going we've worked for the first time in a long time you know we're just letting you know we're there and I think that's such an important point is learning to differentiate between muscle soreness, which means yes, I've worked my muscles in the right way and it's manageable or actual pain because a lot of people will mistake normal muscle soreness for pain and stop when actually they need to keep going, don't they?

Tanya Gordon (11:56.97)

definitely. And interestingly, I've managed to skip leg day. They always say in the weightlifting world, never skip leg day. Well, I've managed to skip leg day successfully now for like, I don't know, probably a couple of months. And it was a really bad idea. But on Sunday, I've done leg day again, and obviously stripped all the weight back down. And, and that's what you have to do. You know, you can't just be permanently building up, you have to if you, you know, you're losing the consistency. And with women, one of the things I've really noticed as well is where I'm at in my cycle, makes a difference on how strong I am and I think people, it's one of those things, it's a journey of learning about what you're doing and about yourself and actually instead of just following a program that somebody's made for you or you've got off the internet and you're just copying things, it's all about feeling for yourself as well and I think you sometimes you do go okay well I'll just do a couple of less reps or slightly lighter and sometimes you do you are feeling stronger and you can go more but you've got to do that listening to your body but I was really lucky with my husband's knowledge but I have used PTs along the way and I've got friends that interestingly I've got friends that have trained as PTs after I started weightlifting and I helped them because of the amount of knowledge I'd picked up from my husband in this time. And these were women that hadn't done weightlifting, then training as PTs, but I'd got that knowledge to be able to help them. But the form is the most important thing. And listen to your body and have the right form. And that's why, you know, I didn't get the backache. But some of the things you see people doing in gyms and how they're doing it, you know, it is really dangerous. And it is totally safe to do it if you do it properly and for women particularly it's so important because it helps with preventing osteoporosis later on.

Sarah (13:53.454)

Absolutely, and that's something as women we do need to worry about. Two things I want to just come back to that you've said is about how, you know, the amount you can lift, the way you lift changes with your cycle. In actual fact, I was talking to Roxy King -Clark a few months back on the podcast, it's still up there. She was talking about how, you know, our menstrual cycles will influence our activity and that there are some times where actually yeah lifting is a really good thing and you do really well and other times where actually cardiovascular might be better or stretching and meditation might be better and it's like you say you listen to your body you get to know your body and you some days when you go into the gym and you think what's wrong I can't lift as much as I used to actually it's purely because you're in a different phase of your cycle as a woman and you need to work with that not try and fight against it which is which is vital isn't it.

Tanya Gordon (14:47.146)

Yeah, definitely. And I think also it can depend on your stress levels, it can depend on how much sleep you've had. And of course, having a young kid, you know, that varies what you've eaten. And I think that's the important thing is if you know that, say, for example, you were going to do three sets of 12 reps, it's quite a normal sort of number like the first set you're picking a weight that you might have used before and you're happy with and you do the 12 sets if that feels too easy then you're going to go slightly heavier next time if it doesn't feel you know if you're struggling to get to 12 perhaps drop it down one but certainly not going up in the weight and it's just about playing with it and it doesn't matter if you do a couple of reps into your 12 and think you know this is too much or not enough okay i'll change it you know it's about that understanding with your body and like you say especially as women that changes all the time.

Sarah (15:38.574)

Yeah, it does. The other thing I want to pick up on and again, this is such an important point is learning the correct form, the correct technique right from the word go. And I'll be honest with a lot of people, that means minimal weight initially. And I, you know, you're obviously a gym goer as well. There are times where I walked through the gym and I kind of think I wish I had blinkers because I'm seeing such poor technique. And I, you know, I've said to people before, look, you know, drop the weight improve your technique and they go I'm not dropping my weight and it's like but if you drop the weight you'll improve your technique and you will get better results.

Tanya Gordon (16:06.842)

Yeah, my husband, he goes to a gym that's, it's funny, I'm a member of Champneys and he goes to a gym that's like falling apart and he loves it. Like the difference is really funny with where we go to, but if I take him to Champneys, he finds it hilarious because like sometimes I'll be looking in the mirrors thinking he's going to want to say something to them or, and then he does the same at his gym and people will always say to him like, how do you get shoulders like you? Well, he's been consistent for 30 years anyway, so consistency is a massive difference doing it in the right way and I think people especially now it's dangerous what is on Instagram and other social media channels because there's people saying they're PT's or coaches or you know fitness coach whatever they call themselves they're not qualified and they're doing exercises that aren't safe

Sarah (16:51.694)

No.

Tanya Gordon (17:05.578)

And often you can tell because you skip to the comments because there'll be a lot of people telling you that don't do this if it is something not to do. And I think I saw it once in a woman's health magazine where they were talking about about a full full upper body workout and they were talking about this full shoulder workout and they did a full diagram of the shoulder and all the three heads and then the exercises they were doing completely missed the rear. So I was like...

Sarah (17:33.198)

Yeah and actually in most people, yeah and most people they like for anyone who doesn't know the shoulder muscle the deltoid kind of comes in three you've got anterior medial which is one on the top and then the the rear one at the back and actually it's the rear one that most women need because it'll improve their posture. Yeah but

Tanya Gordon (17:34.602)

And this is like a publication that supposedly knows what they're doing.

Tanya Gordon (17:52.522)

Yes, because we're always arching forward on our computers and such like.

Sarah (17:56.75)

But like I say, it's so important to get the right advice and the right technique because it will make the difference. You will get the best results by doing it that way. And it isn't, sometimes it's less about the weight and more about the technique. Well, always it's less about the weight, more about the technique, but certainly in the early stages. And if you want to change something or tweak something, sometimes dropping the weight and going back to refining your technique actually suddenly you'll start to get the results that you'd plateaued on because you've actually just tweaked your technique slightly which means that you can lift those heavy weights can't you and it's i agree i mean i think that the term is fitness influences and it's yeah there's a lot of of kind of I suppose it's almost like those, say Chinese whispers where you start with saying something and then by the time it gets down, it's diluted or it's changed completely. And I think there's quite a lot of that is people just, they're not informed or experienced or qualified. So they're not sure whether the advice they're giving is correct or not. And like I say, it's always best to go to somebody who is qualified, who's experienced and who listens to you and what you want to achieve is another thing, isn't it?

Tanya Gordon (19:15.882)

definitely. And I think also like one of the things to note for people is if they want to start doing a bit and having a play and they might have had a PT, but then they want to play and develop more themselves. One of the things to do to avoid adding weight is to slow it down because the time under tension massively improves, increases, and then you're getting the exact, a far greater effect on the same weight. So if people are kind of not feeling about putting more weight onto what they're lifting. If they slow it down, then they get a better effect as well.

Sarah (19:51.15)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And but again, this is where that advice is so important, because, you know, you can injure yourself with weights, either because the weights too heavy or because you're but more importantly, because your technique's not right. And you also need to be it isn't just I'm gonna work my biceps, I'm gonna have nice big biceps. It isn't just what's happening with the biceps. It's what's happening with your back, your core, your legs, your glutes, your shoulders because all of those although they're not specifically working they're assisting in which

Tanya Gordon (20:25.706)

One of the things I really struggle with, and I think it had a lot to do with my back pain as well, is my core strength. So even, and you can test this when you're standing. So if you try and stand up properly with good posture, see how long it is before it really quite aches and you don't want your back and you want to give up. And it's not because of your back, it's because your core's not strong enough to hold you in that posture. So it's amazing how core strength plays a difference in every and all of our life and it isn't about doing sit -ups is it at the end of the day?

Sarah (20:59.182)

No, it's absolutely not about doing sit ups. It's, it's, again, I don't want to get into too many specifics, but you know, when we talk about the core, most people will immediately think the six pack and actually that that's kind of the six packs kind of immaterial really, if you can get yourself out of bed in the morning, those particular muscles are probably working well enough, you know, but it's the ones that surround and support the spine and help the spine with with stability, with strength, with movement.

And then you've got layers that kind of support the inner layers and then you've got the outer layers, which are the ones that are kind of, if you like, the cosmetic ones that are much more to do with movement. And it's you've got to strengthen that inner core. And like, you know, you were saying about things like squatting and deadlifting and lifting with a bar in actual fact, part of the technique for that is knowing how to properly engage through the core, which means that your core is being worked effectively appropriately with each movement and I think again that's something that a lot of people they'll work on the actual muscles thinking all right I'll work this muscle but they don't think actually I need to work everything that is supporting me in this movement.

Tanya Gordon (22:10.154)

Yeah, and I think it's that thing as well that like people they think, okay, I might go into resistance training, but some of these big movements, such as the deadlift and the squat, people think, well, you know, that's for the big boys, I won't be doing those. But they those big compound movements that work every bit of your body are really, really important to do. But it's very important that you get the right form. Because, you know, if you if you did them and nothing else, you'd be working your whole body.

Sarah (22:41.518)

That's it. And it's, you know, we're talking here about specific exercises in the gym, but you know, you use the movements that we've mentioned just now, squat and deadlift. We use those movements every single day in everyday life. If we know the right technique for those movements in the gym, we will apply that technique to when we're picking up children, when we're picking up grandchildren.

Tanya Gordon (22:55.978)

We should. Yeah.

Sarah (23:05.134)

we're lifting shopping when we're squatting to go on the loo or we're squatting down to clean under our circuit boards.

Tanya Gordon (23:11.338)

Well you think nowadays in the workplace there's manual handling training and that's because nobody lifts properly. In the old days everybody knew to bend your knees to lift. People don't do that now because it's too hard. So we just bend down and pick stuff up off the floor and hurt our backs. Before we knew all of this and we've just sort of gone away from it haven't we over the years.

Sarah (23:17.582)

It's something I talk about a lot on courses, actually, the specialist courses that I do particularly is as a species, if you like, the Western world, we have unbelievably successfully factored activity out of our everyday lives. We now have to find time to be active. We have to go to the gym or do things. Whereas actually, if you go back 50, 60, whatever, 100 years, you couldn't not be active in actual fact putting your feet up was a rare treat because the rest of the time you were walking to the shops, you were shopping, you were cooking, you were doing the washing with a washboard. You know, we factored everyday activity out of our lives. We now have to find ways of putting it back in. Whereas before, because our lives were so active, we didn't need the gym, we didn't need a lot of these because we learnt the techniques from our parents and grandparents and we were just active people. And you know, this is one of the big things for me is, yeah, if you want to go to the gym, go to the gym. If you want to go to a class, go to the class. But find what you like doing. But make sure that... Yeah. Yeah. That's it.

Tanya Gordon (24:44.779)

And that's so important, isn't it? Find what you like and what works for your life because it doesn't matter what you're doing. I mean, I've done weightlifting and I'm telling you, weeding is highly effective on your hands and knees. Like, every time I work in my garden, every single time I come away and go, I don't know how old people do it, you know, because old people have more time for gardening and that's what they seem a lot of them do. And you just like I'm knackered. And they do it all the time.

Sarah (25:17.262)

Yeah, but chances are though that they spend most of their adult lives being active in everyday life. And this is the thing, you know, like I say, yeah, go to the gym, whatever, but make sure that your life generally is active. Do some stretches, do some mobility, do some walking, do some lifting, you know, just for fun. Because the more active you are, the more benefit you'll get generally. And it's just so important, particularly lifting. You mentioned osteoporosis earlier on. We know that this is a disease, a condition that is increasingly common. And a lot of it is down to the fact that as women particularly, we've stopped lifting things. We've stopped lifting things in everyday life.

Tanya Gordon (26:03.466)

definitely. Yeah I mean when I when I was stronger I've got a nearly three year old male so I've had a few years where I haven't done as much because you know time and tiredness doesn't allow as much but I'm starting to have a big push again now of putting myself first because well, not even put myself first, but perhaps not last, because as a mum, I've always been that I put myself at the bottom of the pile. I've got friends that do the same. One of my friends, actually, she's just started playing rugby because she used to do it in university and we're now nearing 40. And she said, like, she's just started playing rugby again because the local team's playing and she's having a great time. And she said for her, because she's part of a team and she's committed, she doesn't want to let people down she goes. If she was going to go to the gym she wouldn't go because she wouldn't put herself first which is exactly what I do you know I don't prioritize myself and I'm just having a push on it now because I know I'm approaching that perimenopause time where it's going to be really important that I look after myself.

Sarah (26:53.454)

And this is the thing, isn't it? It's, you know, I'm not saying that, you know, every woman should go out there and play rugby or whatever, but I mean, actually rugby is really good because the contact, you know, the contact is bone loading. You know, you're getting stress through the bones, which is really good for your bones. And also there is an element of training. There'll be, you know, training once or twice a week and things like that, which is really good. But find something. There's so many different sports out there that will give you that activity, that will give you that boost.

Tanya Gordon (27:14.378)

Yeah, I'm not doing that.

Sarah (27:36.398)

And for most of them, you know, because you're using techniques that kind of are right for your body, that your body likes, it will start to improve back health as well because your back is moving in a way that it needs to in order to stay healthy. And I think that's another thing, isn't it, with backs is people think I've got back pain, I must rest. Whereas actually, the advice is the opposite. It's you actually need to move more, but move appropriately, safely but move because your back is designed to move in the way that you know like elbows and knees we expect to bend and flex them all the time the back is a series of joints there's lots of joints in the back and yet for some reason we don't think I need to keep these joints moving

Tanya Gordon (28:28.394)

No exactly and like if it seizes up you know you're really struggling at the end of the day aren't you and there's always yoga now interestingly I said I've always been a bit of a bull in a china shop so you wouldn't naturally put me and yoga together anyone that knows me well wouldn't put me and yoga together but I've done it a few times and realized I was quite good at it because obviously I've got high mobility so flexibility wasn't a problem for me. If anything, it's about not going too far but anything that involves twisting all the way kind of around in a seated position, I'm like part owl and I'm like, keep going round and everyone's like, wow, you're doing well. But yoga for me has been really good because with running the businesses, and having the children. You know, you can get quite stressed at the end of the day that, and I'm all about trying to manage everything to make sure your business works for your life, but sometimes you have deadlines and that's just stuff that all the best laid plans, you know, can go out the window to a point. And I started doing yoga, which I can do in my lounge. And I absolutely love it. And I think it's sometimes that thing that if you find something that you're quite naturally good at. There's nothing like being naturally good at something to give you a boost of enthusiasm for something. And I think that's that thing of testing a load of different things. I've got friends that have started playing netball now. And some of them, when they started that, were like, we're not as fit as we were when we were 14, surprisingly. But they persisted because they've enjoyed it and they've got that team thing. And it's about especially if you can do it in a social way with friends and things it's really nice which makes it much easier.

Sarah (30:14.766)

I know for men that walking football is taking off hugely because you've got the fun of the football but without the running and the impact but you've also got the social element and like you said before quite often you think well I've got to go because I'll let people down if I don't. And you, in a way, you're putting yourself first by thinking of other people first, but you're still putting yourself first and getting that activity. So you mentioned, you mentioned business and things like that though. So tell us a little bit more about your business, many hats of business. Because, you know, again, it's something that you've developed and I, you know, I was going to say sitting at a desk all day isn't the best for our backs, but you've obviously found a way of managing your back health and a very successful.

Tanya Gordon (30:40.874)

Yeah, for me, I had a manufacturing business. I've had it for 15 years now. And essentially, in doing that, and because I was previously a finance manager, I realized that a lot of people that I was speaking to hadn't got the business skills that they needed to be able to run successful businesses. So essentially, many hats of business came about the fact that we have got a hell of a lot of hats to wear and we need to... I believe we should learn enough about all of the different hats so that we know then what we want to delegate, but we can do it effectively because we have an understanding. So for example, one of the things I help people with is getting their websites ranking on Google because it's always been a massive part of our strategy of bringing in work. Half of our new business comes from Google searches and the other half is referral. So, you know, I've, when I've had the kids and things, I haven't had to go and get work in because they automatically find us, which has been great. But people go and get a website built when they first get a business and it's always something they tend to do early in their journey and then they've got this website and they expect to be found and they're gonna get all of these orders and then nothing happens and it's demoralizing because they've often spent at least £1 ,500 on the website that they haven't necessarily got to be throwing around at that time and it's just so it all sort of stemmed from that as well really of that thing of people just having that disappointment and me knowing I could help people.

Sarah (32:43.918)

which is, and again, it's something that I think quite often, you know, it's supporting people, isn't it? It's supporting other people, whether it's through fitness, whether it's through lifting techniques in the back or whether it's through business. It's kind of seeing where people need that support, but also making sure that people know where they can find you to get that support. And that's, you know, again, like you're saying about websites is you can have the shiniest website in the world, but if nobody knows it's there, then it's not doing its job. And, you know, it's really, really helpful that people can come to you and say, look, what can I do to improve referrals coming into my business? What can I do to increase my leads?

Tanya Gordon (33:25.738)

Yeah, definitely. I'm doing a business health check for people at the minute because it's just a quick, easy way for it takes them about half an hour to fill in a form and they can get some really useful advice quickly. That's totally bespoke on what they've put. And I think that's going to be really useful for people as a low cost. At the minute it's free, but by the time this comes out, it's just starting to be charged for something where they can just take action quickly and start to move in the right way.

Sarah (33:53.582)

Do you know what? And I've just, it's just popped into my head every year, every single year, whether we need to or think we need to or whatever or not, we take our cars along to have an MOT. And the garage will check what's working, what's not working, what's looking a bit iffy have what you can improve and things like that, just to make sure that you're completely road -worthy. We don't do it for our health, we don't do it for our businesses necessarily. And maybe that's something we should say, actually, I need to be treating my health and my business the same way I treat my car and get it checked out properly every year and fix the bits that aren't working and boost the bits that are.

Tanya Gordon (34:37.29)

I think actually, interestingly you say that, because I think if we looked at how we treat and what we do for our material possessions and put that onto ourselves and our businesses, I think we'd be very different. My husband's a financial advisor, so I obviously have a large understanding of insurance for your income and things like that. And it's unbelievable when people all pay, you know, 15 quid a month to ensure their phone, but they won't ensure themselves and their income. And you just like, it is just that thing, isn't it? People, we get these preconceived ideas, we have different information thrown at us from so many sources, but we don't, we don't sit back and reflect and take a wider look at things as often as we should really. It isn't normalised.

Sarah (35:26.414)

No, and that includes, as I say, it includes our health and our health, wealth, happiness, and our backs as well. So coming back to backs, and thank you for that. And I will make sure that all the links for your business are in the podcast when it goes out. But, coming back to back, what advice would you give to somebody who says, well yeah, I've always had a bit of a bad back, it's just kind of part of me now. Because I think people get to that stage, don't they? A lot of people get to the point where it's just, I just got a bad back.

Tanya Gordon (35:58.25)

Yeah, and I think I didn't, I've not had treatment now for years, apart from the odd, a very chemotherapy massage, which you can't really count, but which is totally lovely, highly recommend it. But I think go and see someone, but I saw a lot of people along the way, but I think exercise and I don't, I think you've got to.

Perhaps this is going to seem harsh, but we're very good at making excuses and I think we can easily say that we can't do anything. But there's not, nobody can do nothing. Walk up the stairs a couple of extra times, go for a walk, but stretching is really important. And one of the great things, for example, about yoga is, there's loads on YouTube that you can find easy ones. And I think you can do it in your house and no one's going to see you if you really want. And I think you've just got to start somewhere and every single one of those moves, if you can't do one of them, you know, no one cares if you can't do a downward dog, you know, just bend forward a bit. If you can't touch the floor, it doesn't matter. If you bend down until you touch your knees, it all makes a difference.

Sarah (37:05.038)

Yeah, it's making that start, isn't it? You've got to start somewhere and build slowly and gradually. But honestly and truthfully, you know, as somebody who has experienced balance of back pain in my life, the difference when you don't have back pain is just, it's indescribable. If you're living with back pain at the moment, honestly and truthfully, you know, get out there, get moving because not having back pain is very freeing, isn't it?

Tanya Gordon (37:32.618)

yeah, you know, I can't imagine having it now. Like, and I had it for so long that I genuinely never believed I would be without it. And it was exercise.

Sarah (37:46.286)

Yeah. So everybody get out there, get creating an active life. And if you, if you want to create an active business, get in touch with Tanya. Tanya, thank you so much for coming on to chat to us. It's been really, really good. We've covered quite a lot of angles of fitness as well as business, but a lot of stuff coming in there with, with fitness. But thank you so much. It's been really, really good to talk to you.

Tanya Gordon (37:49.482)

Thank you, I've really enjoyed it.

Sarah (38:07.566)

Thank you. You've been listening to me, Sarah Bolitho and my guest Tanya Gordon this week on Creating Active Lives. Don't forget to like and subscribe and we will see you again very soon.