Pain Free Better Me (2026)

26/06/2020

🎯 Here are 6 Do’s and Don’ts when it comes to foam rolling! This is the last post on this week’s topic of foam rolling!
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You can find this video on 🎦 YouTube as well if you prefer that platform.
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For some reason my camera wasn’t focusing on me, but the foreground the entire time and I only noticed in post-production ):
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Hope you guys find the video equally entertaining and informative.
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Let me know about what you think in the comments below 👇 I’d love some feedback or even ideas for future topics!
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Love you all ♥️

18/06/2020

⁉️ Do you foam roll for performance or for recovery?
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A meta-analysis 📝 on studies that involved foam rolling before and after exercise showed some interesting results.
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Turns out that 🗞 foam rolling may be better as a pre-workout compared to post-workout.
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🎯 Utilizing foam rolling as more of a dynamic workout to get blood flowing to our muscles and readying ourselves for movement 🤸‍♂️ seems to be the explanatory mechanism for a performance boost.
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🎯 On the other hand, post-rolling can attenuate the exercise-induced decreases in sprint and strength performance. This was compared to passive recovery, or in other words - doing nothing.
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🎯 Essentially, doing something is better than nothing when it comes to recovery - and it doesn't necessarily have to be foam rolling either.
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When it comes to perceived 😧🥖 muscular pain, foam rolling can help with that, but 🚶‍♂️🚶‍♀️ light exercise could likely help just as much, so it may come down to personal preference.
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📣 Tag a friend that swears by foam rolling, or one that hasn't heard of it!
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⁉️ What do you think of foam rolling yourself? Let me know in the comments 👇

17/06/2020

🚨New Blog Post Up and Coming🚨
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This entire week's topic was all about isometric exercises, and utilizing them in their fullest potential.
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🎯 They can provide pain-killing effects, awesome gains, novel neuromuscular experience, and are an easy and covert way to fit in a workout no matter where you go!
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If you'd like to absorb 🧽 even MORE information than what I've posted on instagram recently, you can visit my website with the link in the bio or check out my most recent 🎦 IGTV video!
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Do you have a favourite isometric movement? Let me know! 😁
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📣 Tag a friend who needs to try some isometrics ASAP! @ Toronto, Canada, Ontario

15/06/2020

Despite having to stay physically distanced from others, it’s more than likely that you’re busier 🙇‍♂️🙇‍♀️ than ever. Grocery shopping, working, running errands and just overall being unable to fulfill your desires to exercise and get moving.
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🤔 What if I told you there was a way to do all of that at the same time, and for it to look completely (relatively actually) normal 😁
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Through the 🚨 power of Isometric exercise!
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Unlike normal exercises, or isotonic ones – you don’t need to change the muscle length to give yourself a workout, which means ❌ NO MOVEMENT
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Isometrics involve tensing up the muscle – usually as hard as you can with little to no movement.
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That way, you can 🤸‍♂️ exercise on the go, at work, or anywhere else where it’d be normally socially frowned upon to be doing so.
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Here are 8️⃣ exercises that you can do that targets most of the muscles in your body:
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1️⃣Prayer Squeeze
2️⃣Self-Arm Wrestling
3️⃣Modified Leg Raise
4️⃣Hover Chair Squat
5️⃣Single Leg Hip Thrust (into wall)
6️⃣Isometric Lateral Raises
7️⃣Chair Elbow Extensions
8️⃣Horizontal Shoulder Abduction
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⁉️ Have any other ideas for isometrics to do while remaining inconspicuous? Let me know in the comments below!
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📣 Tag a friend who keeps complaining about not having enough time to workout, and show them how DA WAY.

07/06/2020

The immune system is a wonderful and intricate system - it's affected by a whole host of things that we're both in control of, and not in control of.
Diet, exercise, genetics, metabolism, and of course touch.

Touch affects our immune system in many ways, but the most profound effect is the stress reduction we receive from it.

Touch from someone we're close with builds trust, increases in oxytocin (the love hormone) and decreases stress through reduction of cortisol.

Less stress = a more focused and effective immune system.

🎶 Lakey Inspired - Wonder

30/05/2020

Scapular Winging 🍗 is a disabiling condition that is as painful as it is disruptive to your daily life!
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Despite it being a rare condition, it happens to more people than we think as it can present itself as an issue with ⚖ muscular imbalances, or being derived neurologically (most of the times, both are in play).
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🎯 In this video I talk about the causes, symptoms, and exercise treatments for scapular winging. The more you understand a condition, and the more you know about yourself, the better equipped you'll be tackle this problem head on!
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🎯 With that being said, remember that all cases are unique - and that these are exercises that are "one-size fits all". These are sample exercises to use in scenarios deemed appropriate by a health care practitioner you visit yourself.
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Images involving the scapula were sourced from a video by Dr Simon Freilich.
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Visit my website for articles on pain-related topics:
https://www.painfreebetterme.com
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Follow me on:
YOUTUBE 🎦
Richard Lam
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INSTAGRAM ‣
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PINTEREST
‣ https://www.pinterest.ca/richardthelam/boards/
QUORA ‣ https://www.quora.com/profile/Richard-Lam-56
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Contact information:
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You can email me at richard@painfreebetterme.com for business inquiries, or if you're having a bad day, because I have those too.
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Please note that Richard Lam isn't giving medical advice - and that if you feel pain or discomfort during an exercise, you should stop what you're doing and consult with a health care professional. Richard can't be held liable for any direct or indirect losses from content in this video, including but not limited to injury, loss of function, illness, death and economic losses.

22/05/2020

Here’s my first ▶️ YouTube video (and technically IGTV video) that covers what you need to know about tension headaches!
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Drop the 💊 pills and use the power of massage to help bring you back to your normal!
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In this 🎦 video I cover what Tension headaches are, why they happen (kind of), and factors can worsen or cause them and what to do about them.
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🚨 Little spoiler alert: Muscle knots that contribute to pericranial tension in the head have a lot to do with 🤯 headaches.
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🎯 If you can release these little suckers, you’ll feel much better. The difficult part is knowing 📍 where to find them.
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If you have a headache that matches a referred pain pattern for a certain trigger point (muscle knot), then it might be worthwhile finding that 💆‍♂️ muscle knot and releasing it!
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🎯 Remember not to press too hard, or massage too long, it could make your headache worse off than you started.

29/04/2020

You were made to move. Born to move.
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Humankind survived until now through a variety of evolutionary traits.
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Our bipedalism allowed us to rise above the various forage that other animals couldn’t see. It gave us the ability to tower over our prey, and pinpoint predators from a distance.
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Our large brains, with increased surface areas allowed for us to make complex relationships with ourselves and the world around us. Intuitively figuring out problems by taking advantage of our surroundings, forethought and hindsight, communicating with others, and so much more.
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And movement. We were given movement. Hairless descendants of our ape-cousins that soared above the animal kingdom to become the apex predator – this came from not just our brains, but also from our ability to move.
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We hunted, stalked prey, endlessly, tirelessly, trekking through marathons upon marathons of hunting grounds to take down beasts of all sizes to survive.
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We gathered, carefully inspected the various flora that nature left for us to bask in. Sitting and picking, wandering and searching – climbing and exploring.
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This was our heritage – our history.
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Then we came up with the idea of farming – instead of searching for food, why not just make our own?
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We ended our endless nomadic journey as hunter-gatherers and began an agricultural society.
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Temporary shelters became homes, groups became communities.
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We stayed put whether there was sunshine and warmth, monsoon and storm or drought and famine.
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We invented the chair.
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Factories next.
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Offices.
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And here we are.
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Modern society.
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Confined in cubicles, a third of our day chained to sedentation, how our ancestors would scoff at our unwillingness to use what our body was made to do.
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Then back to the safety of our shelters, binge-watching, laying in the comfort of our beds, staring endlessly into a screen meant to keep us there.
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But we were made to move.
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We were made to explore.
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To wander.
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Even if just a little more than yesterday, even a micron more – we need to start moving again.
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How different wiuld you feel everyday if you moved just a little more than yesterday?
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We were made to move. Born to move.

21/04/2020

Here’s a checklist ✅ I made for anyone that suffers from 🤯 headaches. This infographic contains some of the factors that could be contributing to your tension headaches, and some tips 🎯 on how to help with that.
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I’ll be creating another 📝 infographic soon on the differences between a tension headache, and a migraine.
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Also tune in soon where I’ll be making a video on the 5️⃣ best spots to 💆‍♂️💆‍♀️massage on your head for when you do have a headache!
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And as always 🚨 link in bio 🚨 to my website if you’d like to see more in-depth content on the various topics I’ve covered surrounding musculoskeletal pain.
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14/04/2020

Fun fact 📝There are actually 5️⃣ forms of thoracic outlet syndrome.
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There's traumatic 🤕 TOS, and ⚡neurogenic TOS gets split into disputed and non-disputed TOS or non-symptomatic TOS.
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🎯 Traumatic TOS, you can guess happens from trauma that damages the brachial plexus and the surrounding contents, causing the associated symptoms.
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Neurogenic TOS is split into disputed and non-disputed because of issues with 📝 evidence. Disputed cases of nTOS occur because they have all the symptoms of someone with actual nTOS, but have no physical evidence of it (X-rays, 💀 MRIs, Orthopedic tests, etc.)
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🎯 Arterial TOS occurs from compression of the subclavian artery and is a form of vascular TOS, while venous occurs from compression of the subclavian vein.
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90% of TOS cases are neurogenic in origin, while the majority of the rest are due to arterial TOS.
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If you'd like to learn more, be sure to check out my blog post on my website 🚨 link in bio🚨 on everything you'd want to know on TOS.
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08/04/2020

Yay another blog post 🤗 With all this quarantining and self-isolating – I get a bit more time to work on this stuff. Sort of.
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🎯 This week’s topic is on thoracic outlet syndrome. If you’ve never heard of it before, I wouldn’t blame you – it’s not that common of a disease compared to carpal tunnel syndrome, but it’s still worthwhile talking about.
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Here’s a little bit of a summary 📖
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Thoracic outlet syndrome occurs when there’s some sort of compression 🗜 of your brachial nerves, or your subclavian artery or vein.
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The background photo 🖼 of this post has a visual (not entirely accurate however) depiction of the brachial vasculature.
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🎯When this area gets compressed, depending on if it’s the nerve, vein or artery, will give you some nasty 🤕 symptoms like: Numbness, Pain during rest or during exercise, paresthesia, cyanotic 🥶discolouration and more.
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🎯Most of the time, conservative therapy involving 🤸‍♂️ exercise, postural/habitual corrections and the like are enough to help with thoracic outlet syndrome.
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🎯However, some cases require surgical intervention (failure of physical therapy, or more serious cases involving compression of the subclavian vein or artery).
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If you want to learn more – make sure to visit the 🚨link in my bio 🚨 to check out my most recent posts
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Stay safe and healthy!
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Pain Free Better Me

26/06/2020

18/06/2020

17/06/2020

15/06/2020

07/06/2020

30/05/2020

22/05/2020

29/04/2020

21/04/2020

14/04/2020

08/04/2020

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