Fix Injuries, Get Your Life Back, Be Happy, Be Fit

I am a research scientist in extreme environments - the fastest, strongest, highest, deepest, hottest, coldest, bravest of human endeavors. I did lab research with thousands of subjects to find out why people get specific injuries, and what to do about them. I find why common treatments don't work and what does. I developed methods you cab use during your daily life, your normal activities, and the sports and activities you love, to retrain movement habits (function) so that all you do is pain-free, healthy, and fun again - from standing and walking, sitting, cleaning the house, taking the stairs, and bending for things, to your sports, work, art, and exercise.

 

Making Someone Give Up Activities They Love Isn't Health Care, an approach called "Limit the patient to limit the pain." Instead, we stop causes of pain and limited movement using activities you enjoy, to retrain movement habits and get stronger. This is different from stopping your life to change clothes to do exercises, then go back to injurious movement habits the rest of the day. You get healthy biomechanics built-in to all you do. This is fitness as a lifestyle.

 

Site Map is at the bottom of this page and every page.

 

---

 

All The Ways To Get Better 

 

Start Right Now - Free Articles

Identify causes, fix and prevent your pain. Free tutorials on fixing neck pain, back pain, discs, sciatica, knee pain, foot pain, The Ab Revolution to stop swayback and pain from standing and running, healthier training, mental fitness, and more. Scroll down.

 

Get The Books

Easy-to-read, portable, all in one fix-it.

 

                                

"Thank you Dr Jolie your help and guidance has been a life saver."
~ James Michie, Melbourne Australia

See Mr. Mitchie's story on the Healthier Yoga page

 

 

 

Archive of Fitness Fixer™ Articles

Almost 800 short articles from my free on-line health compendium The Fitness Fixer™. Search The Fitness Fixer Index.

These are in addition to the free fix pain Articles further down on this page.

 

 

 

Wendy traveled from the United Kingdom for an appointment.

 

 

Success Stories By Patients

Not testimonials, but tutorials so you can do it too. Patients fixed their back pain, foot pain, knee pain, shoulder pain, fallen arches, and neck pain, and went on to happy, healthier lives using these methods. Click Inspiring Patient Stories.

 

 

---

 

What We Do -  Summary of My Work

Much back, knee, neck, disc, and other pain are not diseases, but injuries that you can fix. I pioneered retraining daily life movement habits and biomechanics to be built-in health for all you do. I use tested therapeutic rehab modalities to identify and stop sources of pain, and improve your mobility, and health right away. This is not alternative medicine. It is evidence-based sports medicine techniques applied to real life - where you actually need it. The idea is to get you off constant treatments and back to your life, better than before.

 

You don't have to do sports or be an athlete to get better with sports medicine. Retraining movement habits (better biomechanics) in daily life is built-in fitness and injury prevention as a lifestyle (functional fitness medicine). I do not consider it health care to go for repeated treatments or sets and reps of rehab exercises, then have pain chronically return. Rolling a tennis ball or foam roller does not fix the source of problems. I teach you specific skills to stop sources of your pain and problems, and improve function the way you need for real life so you can get your life back, better than before.

 

Athletes use these methods to directly retrain their sports and exercises to be healthier and more effective at the same time. Good biomechanics is a powerful athletic performance enhancer. I show you top training methods and innovations to go higher, faster, farther, fix injuries you have, and prevent future injury.

 

Elders. Becoming slower, stiffer, unsteadier, and weaker as years pass is more from lack of specific healthful movement than an inescapable aging process. We restore upper back mobility and normal kyphosis, leg strength and balance, healthy knee and hip dynamics, and disc spacing associated with functionally younger age. Skills, not pills - I show you how to make it possible to straighten out, gain balance needed to get off a cane, stop painful musculoskeletal habits so you don't need pain pills in the first place, and improve strength and mobility to have your life and independence back.

 

Clinicians learn these techniques to reduce preventable hospitalizations, readmissions, emergency room visits, and to improve health outcomes for patients from youth to geriatric. These are major Health Care Reform Initiatives that will be required in hospitals, care facilities, and teaching centers.

 

Adventures! My years in the lab were devoted to healthier ways to survive - not only injury, but extremes in heat and cold, altitude and underwater, high g-Forces, top training modalities for military and athletes, and disturbances in movement. More on me and my work is on the Adventure page.

 

---

 

"Dr. Bookspan, you are the MVP (Most Valuable Player) of science and movement."
- Jesse McDonald

 

Black Belt Hall of Fame 2011 - My Seminar Students of "Top 10 Injury Prevention Techniques"

 

 

---

What Patients Say

 

Dr. Jolie Bookspan is the "St. Jude of the Joints. If there is a way for you to get better, she'll find it.
- Dr. James Mann, Surgeon Podiatrist, Joslin Clinic Harvard School of Medicine.

Despite consultations with my orthopedist, two rehabilitation specialists, a sports personal trainer, and a physical therapist, my best advice for post-operative care of my knee has come from Dr. Jolie Bookspan.
If you want to get on with your life, she is the door.
- Green Beret Lt. Col. R. Kelly Hill, MD, Swat Team Leader, Physician


I had been in PT for 2 years before coming to Dr. Jolie Bookspan.
I can't remember one day when I felt as good as I did after the first day with her.
- Camille Simms

 

Here is the incredible Kaethe - see her story on the Patient Success page.

More Comments

 

---

 

Why Learn From A Researcher?

As a physiologist (person who studies how the body works and why), I develop the techniques that physicians use.

I worked years as a military and university researcher in environmental physiology, which is how the body functions in the heat and cold, at altitude and underwater, breathing many mixtures of gases, doing different forms and intensities of exercise, and all kinds of injuries.

It's important to understand why things work. If you don't understand, then you can't think for yourself and are prone to repeat the mistakes of your teachers, who were repeating what they learned from other people who were repeating what they heard, maybe not correctly, and without thinking, endlessly on.

I develop techniques that make top athletes go higher, faster, farther. We fix pain, even injuries you may have been told you have to live with.

For more about my work, click the Adventure Research page, and Aviation and Diving Medicine.

Credentials and bio are on the Bio page. Some rare photos of early work are here.

 

Photo of Dr. Jolie Bookspan, barefoot climbing, by Paul Plevakas

---

 

"Thanks for all that you do for these athletes."
- Joseph Estwanik, M.D., FACSM, Orthopaedic surgeon,
Chairman of Ringside Physician's Course U.S. Olympic Training Center, National Physician of the Year, USA Boxing, 1997

2012 Black Belt Hall of Fame Students  in my Seminar "Spine Injury Prevention"

 

---

 

Get Your Life Back and Enjoy It - The Fixa U

 

We put the Fun in FUNction. It's the Health Care Reform School. We call it Fixa U™ 

 

 

Volunteering at a blood drive - I'm the one in the hat

 

When I read medical studies that claim positive medicinal effects from humor and laughter, they are numbingly humorless. When I visit medical fitness programs and gyms where people are exercising for health, everyone looks miserable.

 

Having a laugh with some friends

 

Then you have people that have fun moving in real life. Skating, biking, gardening, tap dancing, building, exploring.

 

Juggling with Mike LeRoy, professional juggler, who developed neck and shoulder pain from balancing bicycles and refrigerators on his chin. I fixed his pain and we enjoyed juggling together.

 

Josh Billings (pen name of humorist Henry Shaw) summed it up, "There ain't much fun in medicine, but there's a heck of a lot of medicine in fun.

Click here for more about The Academy and here for the  Fixa U Department of Silly Syndromes

 

 

Watch the cool video above of some tappers at the end of a 24 hour tap marathon. There is sound with this video.

If the video does not load on your device, see it on my FlickR account:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/39972966@N03/6158939003/

 

Thank you Sierra Club for my wolf photo

 

 

---

 

My Teaching Characters - Backman! and SPOT The Anomaly!

Backman! is a funny warm copyright character loved by readers for simple helpful fixes. I draw Backman! to demonstrate concepts in my books, articles, classes, and other works. My readers had a contest to name him, described on the Academy page.

Behind the scenes, Dog helped, unnamed, until the contest to name him was won by a reader who often sends in great ideas, and wanted to remain anonymous except for first initial. Congratulations Anonymous J for letting us know that dog's name is SPOT The Anomaly! I have been drawing him into class topics and quizzes where students need to assess movement, sitting, and gait, and SPOT The Anomaly! He pops up from his hiding SPOT to help when needed.

Come to class to meet him, and see if you can SPOT him on this web site in some of the articles on fixing pain. He is our new star.

 

---

 

Free Articles To Start Right Now To Fix Your Pain

 

"Dear Dr. Bookspan,
"Thank you so much for the free information you provide on your web site. I was able to apply your techniques and I feel better already. This is after buying a $2500 bed, $100 pillow, countless videos and exercise equipment, and still finding no relief.

"I just made a donation to your web site (I wish it could have been more, but I’m still paying off that darn bed!) I plan to buy your books and share with my family and friends.

"Most web sites only give you a small amount of information because they want you to buy their book or program. I so appreciate the fact that you are helping humanity by putting this information out, free. Seriously, when you are in pain, it is hard to enjoy life, so you are doing a great service here."

"A thousand thank yous!!!"

Regards, Leann Pearce

 

 

Fix Your Back Pain

 

• How To Fix Your Own Back Pain

• Bad Discs and Sciatica

• Lower Back Pain With Standing, Walking, Running

• Swayback, Hyperlordosis, SI joint pain (sacroiliac), Spondylolisthesis

• How (Exactly) Do Abs Fix Back Pain - You may be surprised.

• Fixing Your Back Pain When Lifting and Carrying

• Healthier Sitting For Planes, Trains, Exercise, Computers, and TV

• Français - La Révolution Abdominale™ Une Nouvelle Manière de Comprendre et d’Utiliser les Muscles Abdominaux

• Français - Prévenir le mal de dos en cas de longue station assise

• Español - Dolor de Espalda y Que Hacer?

• Hamstrings No scientific relation between hamstring flexibility and lower back pain, Toe touching is not great for discs - Hamstring stretches are good for other things, but are mistakenly mixed with back pain through an interesting error.
  

 

Photo- WMS medical conference July 2010  Fix Pain class - physicians, military, and smart students

 

 

 

Fix Neck and Upper Back Pain

Upper Crossed Syndrome, Reduced Cervical Lordosis, Forward Head, Rotator Cuff, Tightness, and Shoulder Pain

 

• Fix Your Own Neck Pain - Neck, Shoulder, Middle and Upper Back.

 

"Thank you for fixing my neck pain.
I feared i'd never play violin again after the accident." - Sha

 

Fix Knee Pain

• FIX YOUR OWN KNEE PAIN

• A page on some of my research to learn about what works for knee pain and why. Lower Body Revolution (tm).

• Patient Success Stories that tell what they did so you can too.

 

 

 

Foot and Metatarsal Pain

• Patient Success Stories - scroll down to foot pain stories.

 

 

Abdominal and Core Function

• How (Exactly) Do Abs Fix Back Pain - You may be surprised. Also summarizes basics of The Ab Revolution method.

• Swayback, Hyperlordosis, SI joint pain (sacroiliac), Spondylolisthesis.

• Ab Revolution™ Course Syllabus, Research, and Summary.

• Lifting and Carrying - Spine Use and Positioning for Healthier Function and Pain Prevention.

• Français  - Une Nouvelle Manière de Comprendre et d’Utiliser les Muscles Abdominaux, La Révolution Abdominale™

 

 

Healthier Fitness and Training

• Stretching for Real Life - Useful stretching, fixing problematic stretches, fun better ones.

• No More Crunches, No More Back Pain - The Ab Revolution™ - What abs really do may surprise you.

• Why Fitness Isn't Working - Traditional exercises and stretches that work against you and what to do instead.

• Exercises and Stretches That Hurt Your Back and Neck - Exercise is Medicine? Not all exercise is good medicine. Here are healthy built-in daily live healthy movement skills to do instead.

• Hamstring Flexibility Found Not Related to Back Pain - What do hamstrings have to do with back pain? Not much. See why, and what helps instead.

•  Nutrition. Healthier ideas and recipes.

•  Martial Arts. Cass syllabus pages for Kickboxing, Advanced Kickboxing, and Karate.

•  Healthier Yoga.

 

 

Prevent and Fix Pain From Long Sitting

 

• Sitting For Planes, Trains, Exercise, Computers, and TV.

• Français - Prévenir le mal de dos en cas de longue station assise.

 

 

Hamstrings

 

• What Do Hamstrings (Really) Have to Do With Back Pain?

 

 

Mental and Emotional Fitness Training

• Reader favorites of Emotional Fitness for health.

• Humor. My Fixa U Department of Silly Syndromes.

 

 

Massage

• Schedule a great THAI massage. Learn massage benefits and myths - Thai Massage.

 

 

True Stories by Patients and Students

• Patient Success Page. Includes my Reader Hall of Fame.

 

 

Exercise and Fitness Training - Fitness as a Lifestyle

• Bookspan Basics Functional (Useful) Fitness Training. Fitness re-training drills for yourself and your groups to learn actual healthy ways to move and function. Fix yourself and lead your schools, teams, battalions, squads, more

• Fitness as a Lifestyle (Functional Fitness). Not reps, or purchasing training "plans," but making your daily real life into your own mental, emotional and physical playground of strength mobility and health.

 

My students of the Black Belt Hall of Fame class of 2016 seminar on how to teach healthier stretching. Martial arts teachers and their own students attended.

 

 

---

 

My Credentials And Work

My Research page tells about my work in interesting places - an underwater lab, aviation cockpit, mountain top, desert, and others. My work is for you. I never thought it mattered to tell about myself other than work. Students told me it helped them to know, so I added the following two pages:

The Bio page has some of my schooling, and a photo of me at age nine winning the science fair - for your entertainment at my expense.

The Rare Photos page has some stories of my early work. Plus the "years I thought I'd never mention again" after the accident.

 

 

---

 

Translate an Article

Translate an article and I will add it here with your name credit. The world will benefit and you will sure learn the information better for yourself. Mail: Translate@DrBookspan.com. Bravo!

 

Quien habla dos lenguas vale por dos. (He who speaks two languages has the value of two people.)

Carla Murador says, "I don't need spine surgery, thanks to Dr. Bookspan"
For the article "Back Pain and What To Do" in Spanish, click Dolor de Espina y Que Hacer, translated by Dialma Betancourt

 

---

 

The Fitness Fixer™ Column and Twitter

Dr. Jolie Bookspan is The Fitness Fixer™
When exercise and medicine aren't healthy - We Fix It

For four years I brought my column "The Fitness Fixer" to the Healthline company - almost 800 free articles. Not repeating the news, but making it. When the column ended in 2010, the company removed all photos and movies I had made for the articles. Later, they removed my articles and redirected links from my articles to their own. Most of my original articles are gone, and the few that remain are not as I wrote them. I found the BlogSpot archives that, at time of this writing, still have some of them grouped by topic with some of the graphics and original text. I made an Index of the articles and the BlogSpot links that I have found so far - fitfix-index.html.

I continued as The Fitness Fixer™ on TWITTER. I left all the posts there hoping they might be helpful, when I moved to BlueSky..

 

 

Dale Newnham @dalenewnham
@TheFitnessFixer Recovered from crippling sciatica without surgery
by following your advice age 50 ran 10K in 44min, rode 100 miles no pain!

 

Paul Jenkins @frugal_trader
@TheFitnessFixer Can you explain the swimming warm down? Seems like they are expending needed energy.

 

Renee @brukaoru
Highly recommend this website,
so much great info for mind/body/spirit health - http://www.drbookspan.com/Spirit.html

 

aikiRUNNER @aikiRUNNER
@TheFitnessFixer Nice post. But how do you feel about sitting at 135 degree angle?

 

Carol Steinfeld @wateringwoman
@TheFitnessFixer Love your stuff!

 

Shayna Waldman @ShaynaWaldman
@TheFitnessFixer What helps with altitude sickness on airplanes?

 

Gerardine Henning @fineshapesofart
@TheFitnessFixer I still use your two books that I bought a few years ago. Wonderful advice to pull me back when I forget!

 

Penelope Fiend @veryfiendish
@TheFitnessFixer Dr Bookspan, what are the ideal sleeping positions? What are bad? Do you address this in any of your books? Thank you!

 

Kent MacWilliam @geolackey
Stuck at a desk? Fix your neck pain. This worked in the length of time it took to read! http://www.drbookspan.com/NeckPainArticle.html … via @TheFitnessFixer

 

 

 

 

---

 

Books - Fix Pain, Get Healthy, Go Diving, Have Fun

Health & Fitness in Plain English, THIRD edition
How to be healthy, happy and fit for the rest of your life

 

Fix Your Own Pain Without Drugs or Surgery
With tutorial patient stories in every chapter.

Stretching Smarter Stretching Healthier

Healthier more effective movement

 

Healthy Martial Arts

For all athletes. High level training for body and mind for all you do.

 

The Ab Revolution Fourth Edition - No More Crunches No More Back Pain  4th Edition 

Core training the way your body actually needs for health. Two parts: Part 1- Learn neutral spine to stop a major form of lower back pain. Part 2- Functional strengthening from simple moves to the toughest you can get.

 

           

Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine
Three hard-to-find books. including the cult-classic Diving Physiology in Plain English EIGHTH edition Expanded, 2021.

Forensics
I am science advisor to The Vidocq Society - a world forensic cold case society. See my Books page for my colleagues' really creepy books.