The very first thing that alerted me to a surprise pregnancy, 16 years ago, was a sudden onset of sciatica and pain when standing. My GP was shocked to discover I was only 6 weeks pregnant when this started. She reassured me the problem would go away once my hormones settled down after delivery. Towards the end of the pregnancy I could barely stand. Admittedly it was much better after delivery, but I still had significantly more hip pain and the sciatica did not go away.
After 6 months post partum, the Dr sent me for an Xray, which was normal, and I was told I had herniated a disc. I started to get very tender around the base of the rib cage. Fast forward 5 years and I still have the same problem; sciatica, hip pain and rib tenderness. It’s always there, and sometimes it’s very noticeable. Nearly always on my right side. I was referred to a rheumatologist after my CRP levels remained high. The rheumatologist examined me for 5 minutes and described me as rotund. He wrote to my GP advising weight loss, and my GP, horrified, wanted to get a second opinion. I declined and stopped seeing Drs.
A couple of years after that, I get extremely debilitating pain in my right knee, and I see a physio. Physio said I had an anterior pelvic tilt, and my muscles on my right leg were pulling my knee cap out of alignment. She gave me some core exercises, but this made things worse so I gave up and it eventually went away. Every few months the problem would come back.
I carry on, always with a background level of pain (very often I don’t realise that I am guarding my right leg and don’t put my weight through it - I see it in photos). Every now and then, I get symptoms on the other side, or my knee is worse, but it always calms down after a month or so.
Then, two years ago, my achillies tendon on my left side became very painful. A physio tried treating this as a traumatic injury, using percussive therapy to encourage inflammation. I was told it would take 6 months to heal. After 8 months of seeing the physio for percussive treatment, and getting no better, I stopped, and found it almost fully recovered after 3 more months.
Then this year, I ended up in A&E and was diagnosed with extreme iron deficiency and a high ferritin level. My GP told me I should see a rheumatologist, and ordered a load of blood test. The blood tests all came back normal, except CRP. Suspecting Lupus (family history plus rash), my GP made the referral.
Rheumatologist was very interested in my pelvis (although my referral didn’t mention all of the above) and he ordered more sensitive blood tests, more inflammatory marker tests, some genetic tests and an MRI of my pelvis. He said he didn’t think it was Lupus, and that he would test for it, but he said I needed to have seronegative arthritis ruled out.
So of course I googled that, and when I saw the list of symptoms for AS, my jaw dropped. I get the results of everything on Friday. I am scared, both of it being AS or something similar, and of it being “nothing” (because there is so much pain and so many things I used to do that I can’t any more - it would suck not to have answers).

Last week in a post-deleted by the OP, there was discussion about how there is no point in stockpiling antibiotics and any attemps for lay people to practice any form of health care in a widespread grid down disaster was a waste of time
Myself and some colleagues wrote: Survival and Austere Medicine
Edit. New link. in a post below.
We are slowing working on a 4th edition with some new material and minor corrections - but it is taking longer than we thought!
But I thought given the above post, I would take the opportunity to post the introduction - which address the "why bother" question for a major long-term grid down situation. Apologies for the formatting and length
"There is a sense, when considering the issues around survival medicine practice, that everything is overwhelming, that it is impossible for lay people to provide a high level of medical care and maintain a high level of population health.
We don’t think this is the case at all. We believe that intelligent lay people with some basic medical knowledge, skills, and equipment can deliver high quality health care. While it is obviously impossible for lay people to safely and competently deal with every medical problem, and there remain many complicated diagnoses requiring equally complicated or technologically advanced treatments, for 80- 90% of the health problems afflicting humanity, simple things done well are all that is required to preserve life and limb and help alleviate suffering.
Consider the following:
1. Remote Medicine Practice:
Below are the results of one of our author’s experience in the provision of health care in various remote and austere locations (some third world, some first world) to nearly four thousand people over a cumulative 30-month period (spread over 18 years) – with more data there are few minor changes from the 2005 2nd edition, but the list is essentially the same – which is interesting. The record keeping was a bit unreliable at times, but the following summary is reasonably accurate.
Top 20 presentations (representing > 95% of consultations):
1. Minor musculoskeletal injuries - ankle sprains most common, included many minor fractures which didn’t require more than diagnosis and simple care
2. Upper respiratory tract infections
3. Allergic reactions/Hay feveAnaphylactic reactions/Rashes
4. Minor open wounds – included a mix of lacerations needing closure, many needing
cleaning and advice only, and some infected wounds
5. Gastroenteritis/Vomiting/Diarrhoea
6. Mental health problems
7. Sexual health/Contraceptive problems
8. Skin infections/Cellulitis
9. Dental problems
10. Abdominal pain - 4 confirmed acute appendix (2 treated with IV antibiotics and
subsequent delayed appendix removal / 2 required evacuation) + 1 gangrenous gall bladder. Many were "no cause found". Of the remainder with a clear diagnosis the most common were renal or biliary colic)
11. Fever /Viral illness
12. Chest infections
13. Major musculoskeletal injuries (fractures/dislocations)
14. Asthma
15. Ear infections
16. Urinary tract infections
17. Burns – mostly partial thickness within the realms of management in the environment the
patient was in. Several required evacuations. Several required rehabilitation due to location and sub-optimal initial treatment.
18. Chest pain
19. Syncope/Collapse/Faints
20. Early pregnancy problems
Major trauma was uncommon but was seen including several fractured femurs and a dozen cases of multi-system severe trauma resulting in a mix of in-country surgery and evacuations
Top 12 prescribed drugs (representing >90% of medications prescribed):
1. Paracetamol (Acetaminophen)
2. Loratadine (and other assorted antihistamines)
3. Diclofenac (and other assorted antiinflammatories)
4. Combined oral contraceptive
5. Flucloxacillin
6. Throat lozenges
7. Augmentin (Amoxycillin + clavulanic acid)
8. Loperamide
9. Nystatin (and other antifungals)
10. Hydrocortisonecream
11. Ventolininhalers(Salbutamol/Albuterol)
12. Morphine
What is of note here is that the clear majority of problems dealt with are simple and straight forward – there is still potential for serious consequences but there is scope for a well-informed lay person with a basic knowledge and access to a reasonable collection of reference books to provide reasonable care. Equally the vast majority of medication prescribed are from a very narrow well defined list – despite the fact 1000’s of drugs are on the market – the list of core lifesaving or comfort preserving ones is relatively brief.
2. Why children die
The World Health Organization (WHO) has identified the following conditions as having contributed to >75% of worldwide deaths in the under 5-year age group (in no particular order):
Pneumonia Pneumonia is an infection of lungs. Prevention of this condition is somewhat limited – although good nutrition, clean and warm housing, and a reduction in the exposure to respiratory irritants (smoke) all can help. However, the most common bacteria which cause pneumonia are frequently sensitive to penicillin – which is discussed later in the book and can be produced in a low-tech environment.
Diarrhea Death from diarrhea (dehydration) is almost 100% preventable with appropriate use of oral rehydration therapy. Dirty water or poor food handling causes much diarrhea – this can be virtually eliminated by proper hygiene practices and care with drinking water.


Pre-term delivery While we are limited in the direct interventions available in an austere environment to mitigate this problem contributing factors to early labor are young age, malnutrition, smoking, poor maternal health, so there is scope for indirect intervention based on optimizing mum’s health and environment. For babies who are born prematurely the necessities of life are warmth and breast milk. With attention to detail for both things, it is possible for infants as young as 33-34 weeks to survive without high-tech intervention.
Malaria. Prevention is better than a cure, knowledge about clearing stagnant water, mosquito nets and long sleeved clothes can significantly reduce the risk. Equally quinine is derived from the bark of the Chincona tree and the Chinese have been using the herb, Artemisinin, effectively for the treatment of Malaria for years. So, while not as easy to treat or prevent as diarrhea, there is still scope for significant reduction in death rates in low-tech ways.
Blood infection Blood infection or septicemia is rapidly fatal. The ability to intervene depends on the cause of the infection and antibiotics available. Broadly, infections causing septicemia can originate from the skin, the lungs, the kidneys or bladder, and the abdominal contents. While specific treatments for these may be lacking in an austere environment – all have prevention strategies and basic low-tech treatments that can be lifesaving when applied appropriately.
Lack of oxygen at birth Of these problems, this is the one with probably the least scope for impact. Unfortunately, even if foetal distress is detected during labor (with heart beat monitoring or signs of distress like meconium), without the ability to deliver the baby quickly options are limited. That said, a caesarian section is not a massively complicated operation (and discussed in Chapter 10), and in parts of the third world is performed by trained lay people with safety and success.
Measles Again, there is limited scope to intervene directly with the disease. Measles is always around and while vaccination reduced the incidence of epidemics, sporadic cases still occur. In the absence of vaccinations epidemics of measles every few years will be inevitable. There is however some scope to minimize the spread during an epidemic with isolation and respiratory precautions during outbreaks. While some of the serious neurological complications are unavoidable in a
Prevention is better than a cure, knowledge about clearing stagnant water, mosquito nets and long sleeved clothes can significantly reduce the risk. Equally quinine is derived from the bark of the Chincona tree and the Chinese have been using the herb, Artemisinin, effectively for the treatment of Malaria for years. So, while not as easy to treat or prevent as diarrhea, there is still scope for significant reduction in death rates in low-tech ways. small number of patients, basic care such as maintaining hydration can also prevent complications such as dehydration.
Neonatal tetanus The prevention of neonatal tetanus is easy. You don’t let the site where the umbilical cord attaches to the baby get dirty. It is as simple as that.
HIV/AIDS Prevention of maternal infection is the key to prevention of infection of newborns. The steps required to prevent exposure to the HIV virus are widely known: abstinence (not undertaking sexual activity), monogamy (maintaining a single sex partner rather than multiple) and if neither is a palatable option, then safe sexual practices.
Most the conditions above have an element of either preventability or the ability to be treated to some degree in an austere environment and significant improvements in mortality and morbidity can be made.

3. The greatest advances in medicine
Several years ago the British Medical Journal ran a poll trying to identify top medical advances of the last 200 years. The following is the top 12 from that poll:
Sanitation 1st Antibiotics 2nd Anaesthesia 3rd Vaccines 4th DNA 5th Germ theory 6th = The oral contraceptive 6^th = Evidence based medicine 8th Imaging 9th Computers 10th Oral rehydration therapy 11th Smoking cessation 12th =
Just as with our discussion above about the causes of childhood deaths, this list is introduced to show just how much impact a very basic health care knowledge can have in terms of optimising health in a post-disaster or austere situation.
Of the biggest advances of medicine in the last 200 years, between 7 to 9 (depending on your knowledge and available resources) of the 12 can be applied to care in a austere situation. In particular, the knowledge of sanitation, germ theory, oral rehydration therapy, and simple manufactured antibiotics and anaesthetic agents all have the potential to be able to be continued to be applied in a post-disaster situation and to continue to contribute to a high quality of low-tech health care. In the same way that we can substantially reduce childhood death rates in a low tech post-disaster situation, we can still continue to have access to some of the biggest advances in medicine even at the end of the world.
4. Surgery in the third world
A non-specialist surgeon working at a isolated bush hospital in Papua New Guinea published his experience of Emergency Surgery over a 14 month period (similar articles have been published with similar data):
Emergency Surgery 243
Tendon repair 33 Open orthopaedics 32 Dilation and curettage 31 General surgery 29 Incision and drainage 26 Laceration repair 26 Obstetrics 23 Manipulation under anaesthesia 15 Urology 15 Gynaecology 9 Ear, nose and throat 2
Emergency anaesthesia 243
Ketamine – spontaneous breathing 166 Local anaesthesia 33 Ketamine – ventilated 16 Spinal anaesthesia 12 Propofol / thiopentone 10 Epidural 5 Epidural / GA 1
The point of this reference is to help illustrate what someone can achieve in primitive conditions with no formal surgical training and no dedicated anaesthetist. We are not suggesting that the average layperson can safely practice to this extent or breadth of surgery, but it does demonstrate that a non-surgeon can achieve much. It also shows that most anaesthetics for surgery in an austere situation can be done under local or ketamine anaesthetics.
Why this is relevant?
Each of these four references gives you insights, one way or another, into low-tech austere health care. First, it gives you an insight into the likely clinical problems that you may see in a survival situation, and how much can be dealt with in that sort of austere environment. Second, it demonstrates how medically speaking it is the small things and simple knowledge which save lives and some of the biggest killers can be mitigated with these relatively low level interventions or strategies.
In our opening summary – “Medicine at that end of the world”, we describe a pretty bleak medical reality post-SHTF. Will million’s really die from lack of access to modern heath care as we have alleged?
The short answer is yes – many will die much sooner than they otherwise would have, from disease and injury, which currently are not immediately fatal. But the answer is not nearly that simple nor bleak. The reality is that while cancer, diabetes, malnutrition or serious injury may claim many of its victim’s sooner than with today’s health care, most health problems can be treated or mitigated to a degree in a low- tech environment, with a narrow range of medications and interventions – including some cancers, non- insulin requiring diabetes and many major traumatic injuries.
Most medical problems are relatively mundane and not life threatening. Truly catastrophic problems in medicine are fortunately rare. You should focus on learning and preparing to deal with the common problems, and doing common procedures well, and you will save lives, and possibly also improve the quality of those lives.
There will be a significant change to health care but with knowledge and some preparation it isn’t quite as dire as many (including our own opening paragraph) predict. "

Hey everyone,
I wanted to share how I personally managed to overcome FQAD (or at least the worst part of it, lets hope to not relapse). I’m not quite at 100%, but I’m somewhere in the 95-99% range, depending on whether it’s a good or bad day. Initially, I experienced tendon and muscle issues all over my body—from my feet to my neck. I dealt with some minor fatigue, twitching, and cracking. It took me around 600 days, including at least 500 PT/rehab sessions, to reach this point.
I still take quite a few supplements, but they’ve helped me maintain that 95% level. If I stop taking them for a while, I notice a decline. Here’s what’s been working for me:

• Magnesium Complex: I take 4x250mg daily (a mix of glycinate, malate, and citrate).
• Boron: 6mg.
• Vitamin D3: I measure my levels, and 20,000 IU is what I need.
• PQQ: 20mg.
• Liposomal Vitamin C: 4x500mg.
• Ascorbic Acid Vitamin C: 4x1000mg.
• Tudca: 2x600mg.
• Multi Mineral: 100% RDA.
• B Vitamins: 2 servings (each ~300% RDA).
• Thiamin HCL: 4x500mg.
• Benfothiamin: 4x300mg.
• Pro Resolving Mediators: 300mcg

Other strategies that worked for me:

1. Rehab: This had the biggest impact alongside time. Over 500 rehab sessions, I gradually loaded my tendons, allowing me to regain normalcy. I can lift, hike, cycle, do chores, and work. I could even run, but I’m not a fan. I’ll continue with rehab, transitioning to normal training over time. I even made a special instagram account for my rehab progress, it also contains some information how to start if someone wants on their own, that link is in my profile here in reddit
2. Time: The 19 months of being floxed played a significant role in my recovery.
3. Fasting/Caloric Deficit: Initially, fasting caused flare-ups, but now it’s fine. The caloric deficit during fasting likely triggers autophagy, including mitophagy.
4. Breathing exercises: I do Wim Hof Breathing, Box Breathing, and the Physiological Sigh from Hubberman throughout the day.
5. Near Infrared Therapy: Once I found the right dosage, it noticeably sped up my leg recovery. (my dosage is quiet low, its currently like 1,3j/cm2 and still gradually adding more slowly slowly)
6. Heat and Cold Exposure: I exposed myself to both heat and cold, which helps with mitochondria biogenesis.
7. Social Interaction: Having supportive friends, especially my wife, made a huge difference but also finding other floxies who shared the same mindset about doing something about it
8. Supplements: I’ve tried many, but the ones listed above have been the most beneficial.

Final Thoughts:
I might be luckier than others in terms of how hard I was floxed, but who really knows? I credit my recovery to a combination of factors: antioxidants, magnesium, persistence in rehab, and the realization that I had to save myself. There’s no magic cure; it’s a process. Once I shifted my mindset, I made progress. It’s not just mental—it’s action.

As part of my recent NSAID relapse, I am now dealing with bilateral peroneal tenoniditis, tennis elbow, and left insertional hamstring tendonitis on both ends. I decided to reach out to a Physical Therapist for help in recovery and today was my initial evaluation. The new PT is probably younger than 35.
He asked me why I was there and I told him that I was dealing with a reaction to NSAIDs that has caused some systemic tendonitis. His very next question was “Have you ever taken Fluoroquinolone Antibiotics?” I said, “Matter of fact…” and we carried out a long conversation about Fluoroquinolone Toxicty.
I asked how many patients he has ever had that identified their problems as being from FQs. He said other than me only one. However, he has learned over the past few years of his practice and through his schooling that when anyone reports with non-injury related tendonitis, especially under the age of 50, he immediately goes into their history of antibiotic usage to identity if they have ever taken FQs. He also has a list of other FQT symptoms he asks them about. So, he said only one other has self identified, but he has identified many others who had no idea their symptoms were likely from FQT.
1) This made me happy not having to explain more than I had to about FQs, but 2) that the damage that FQs cause is becoming more widespread and in his case, he said they spoke about it extensively on his PT schooling.

Here is an article I recently published on my Substack. If you'd rather read (or listen to an audio version) it outside of Reddit, you can do so here.
Why jump rope isn’t already touted as a leading running drill tool is completely beyond me. But then again…
I'm by no means an "experienced runner"—having started running in 2021 at the age of 34. So, at the time of this writing, about 3 years.
Despite this, I managed to silver-medal my age group in my first race ever.
And it was a 10k. And I was wearing barefoot-shoes.
And I had only been running before that race for about 3 months.
How the heck did I manage to pull this off?
The answer eluded me for a while. Then I remembered—ah, I’ve been jumping rope nearly every day for 2 years.
But how do those connect?
But first, why the heck would some guy start jumping rope at age 32?
About 2 years before I started running, I took up jump rope really just as a fun outdoor hobby.
Even though I was pretty inactive and a bit overweight, that’s not the reason I started skippin’.
One day, I came across some footage of boxer Lulu Hawton doing some jump rope training.
In addition to her seemingly effortless rope handling skills and rhythmic footwork, what caught my eye was a giant grin that spread across her face about 45 seconds into the video. While she was probably skipping to warm up for a match or a training session, something was abundantly clear.
She was having a blast.
And this was from a prize fighter! None of the usual boxer mean-mugging—she looked more like a kid on a carousel.
So, after buying a $10 jump rope on Amazon, I took to the driveway in my swim trunks (yes, I was so inactive, I didn’t own gym shorts).
And…whoo, did I suck.
After a few months of making puddles of sweat in my driveway as well as wheezing sounds so loud that I’m surprised the neighbors didn’t whistle EMS, I eventually got pretty decent at it.
And I lost about 45 pounds in 6 months—probably also from making some lifestyle changes merely to make jump rope less of a slog. Not the original plan, but hey, not too shabby.
After about a year, I found myself constructively critiquing other people’s beginner jump rope videos.

• “Unlock your boxer skip. Then you’ll be able to skip forever without getting tired.”
• “Here’s how to do Double-Unders, though they’re overrated.”
• “You’re skipping like it hurts. Relax and skip easy. Smile every once in a while and you’ll feel it all over.”

But how did that turn into running?
Though jumping rope is inherently enjoyable, 30-minute skipping sessions of staring at the wall without something in your headphones can be a bit drab.
One fateful day, about 2 years into being student of the jump rope, I began listening to the book Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall.
Even before I got to the end of the book, running—just like jump rope— sounded fun**.**
Yeah, I know that sounds counterintuitive—unless you’ve read the book.
“I knew aerobic exercise was a powerful antidepressant, but I hadn’t realized it could be so profoundly mood stabilizing and — I hate to use the word — meditative. If you don’t have answers to your problems after a four-hour run, you ain’t getting them.”
Ok, ok—I’ll bite.
I proceeded to dive into all of the normal “Couch to 5k” running programs I could find and took my jump rope to a nearby park with a 1k walking path—sprinkling in running between jump rope sessions.
But something wasn’t adding up.
There was a lot of advice about walk-running to build endurance until one could run a block, two blocks, a mile.
Not to brag, but I wasn’t experiencing most beginner snags.
**“Ah, I know why—**I did most of my newbie wind-sucking two years ago!”
This isn’t to say I wasn’t still periodically sucking wind but after two years of consistent boxer skips and double-unders, getting gassed felt like part of the fun and not a medical emergency.
I also felt much springier than the average beginning runner—able to run for miles all over the city in the most minimal of footwear.
And so, I tried my hand at my first race—a donut-themed 10k. And silvered in my age group.
(Ok, there was only two of us…but my time was still respectable. 😂)
Running became an amazingly freeing activity, like getting my driver’s license for my legs.
But I still didn’t understand why running was coming easier to me than the average newcomer.
Digging still deeper, I unearthed another exciting revelation—this time from multi-decade sub-3-hour Boston Marathon runner and one of the foremost running experts on the planet, Dr. Mark Cucuzzella.
“Running with a jump rope is also an amazingly simple drill for posture, balance, and rhythm.”
In other words—form. Overall technique.
Digging a little keeper and experimenting on myself, I discovered just how similar proper running technique and proper jump rope technique were.
Both require:

• An upright, chest-leading, elbows-back, joint-stacked posture
• A soft mid-foot landing directly under your pelvis
• A quick loading and unloading of “leg springs” from your tendons and ligaments to reduce “stickiness” and wasted energy
• A proper supination (roll out) followed by a quick pronation (roll in) of the feet to help launch one’s body
• A steady core without dropping hips from side to side to reduce energy “leakage”

And so many other commonalities. The list unraveled before me on every run.
And like running, without proper technique, jumping rope just doesn’t work—though the consequences are different.
For a jump roper, due to the lower impact, the risk of injury is quite minimal.
Most newbie rope slingers will report sore calves, slightly tender Achilles tendons, and the odd shin splint if they go full Rocky at it. No need to worry, though—most of these injuries see themselves out as the skipper becomes more experienced.
However, for runners, the injury story is more severe.
The next time you’re at a park with a good path, take a seat on a bench and watch the runners. See if you can spot folks reaching far out in front of them with straightened legs—smashing heels into the pavement.
This style of running results in everything from screaming knees, plantar fasciitis, lower back pain, to hips issues.
But why do all of these occur to new runners, but rarely to new jump ropers?
Most new runners commit a major physiological no-no when they begin their running journey: they treat running like fast, aggressive, airborne walking.
“Well, what is it supposed to be?”
Synchronized jumping.
Simply put, proper running is nothing more than a series of coordinated single leg jumps through space with each landing compressing the springs for the next stride.
To compare this synchronized jumping to the aggressive airborne walking of heel-led running, you can test these in just a few seconds.
Step 1: Stand up.
Step 2: Kick off your shoes.
Step 3: Jump up and down three times.
How did you land?
Probably on your mid-foot, knee bent slightly, with your weight stacked above your pelvis.
And did you use your compressed “leg springs” to launch you into the following two jumps?
Oddly enough, if you were to add a jump rope to this, you would on your way to spinning side swings like Lulu Hawton.
If you were to take this same technique one foot at a time moving forward, you would be running in a way that increases speed, preserves stamina (springs!), and drastically decreases your likelihood of injury.
Let’s try the same test with a few tweaks.
This time, jump, but land on your heels.
Your knees probably remained fairly straight and you felt the impact in your ankles, knees, hips, and possibly even your lower back.
Now, imagine attempting to jump rope this way.
It simply doesn’t work.
Not only would there be no second jump due to the lack of spring but the pain would stop you in your tracks—even in cushioned shoes.
But if jump rope technique and proper running technique are nearly identical, what are aggressive heel landings doing in running?
While a jump roper landing on their heels would resemble Frankenstein’s monster in an express lane to an orthopedist, this is how many people perform the aggressive airborne walk—aka, a heel-striking, over-striding run.
But why do we run this way? Well, our shoes let us get away with it.
Thick heel cushioning and a bit of forward momentum do a great job of masking the pain of repeated blows against every joint up the chain—for a while, anyway. Eventually, the chickens come home to roost in the form of stress fractures, meniscus tears, plantar fasciitis, “runner’s knee,” IT-band syndrome, and more.
Not to brag (and maybe to knock on some wood), I have never experienced any of these injuries in my three years of running.
Is this because I’m some kind of running genius with all of the cheat codes? Haha, I wish! It’s simply sheer luck that I started out with jumping rope before running—an activity that shares the same injury-preventing techniques.
So, are the shoes totally to blame? No.
It is possible to run with proper form in shoes with raised, cushioned heels. But it’s not as easy.
When your heel is totally cushioned, you will be able to run with a heel strike in the same way you can hit your head against a brick wall while wearing a football helmet. And in both instances, it will eventually become less about the forces outside of the foam and more about the forces inside the cushion against each other that do the most damage.
“So, how can getting a jump rope help me become a better runner?”
Jump rope is a tremendous training tool for runners for the same reason why running barefoot can also be helpful—the feedback is immediate.
Though running with inefficient and injurious form is possible, the feedback from doing so isn’t so immediate. When it comes to jumping rope, however, you won’t get through too many skips if you don’t learn to utilize the springs in your legs. The rope doesn’t pull punches.
So, get a rope and get started.
If you’re new to jump rope, I would recommend acquiring two pieces of equipment.
Firstly, find a jump rope with a little bit, but not too much, weight to it. The weight will help you feel the position of the rope during it’s entire rotation and remain in better sync with your wrist spins
My favorite rope for this purpose is a 7mm PVC model called the Hererope, which costs a whopping $15. If you find this to be too thick or heavy, a cheap 5mm PVC model will work as well.
Secondly, to protect your rope and provide a nice jumping surface, I would recommend a large foam-rubber exercise mat. My favorite is a massive 78” mat for $32—which is probably the cheapest jump rope mat you will find.
When it comes to footwear, barefoot is ideal. This will help strengthen and mobilize your feet—including your likely overly-supported neglected arches.
And just how does one begin to jump rope?

• Keep a tall posture—imagining a string pulling you up from the crown of your head.
• Your chest should open, elbows back, hands about a fist’s width from your pockets.
• Jump from the balls of your feet, only high enough to clear the rope. When landing, let the skin of your heels “kiss” the floor—touching without taking on weight.
• Keep your knees slightly bent, using every landing to load your springs for the next take-off.
• Keep the cadence quick to maximize spring recoil. To help, listen to a song that’s at about 160 beats per minute, such as the song “Hey Ya” by Outkast (or a song of similar tempo) to get a feel for the speed for skipping rope. (For running, many recommend using “Rock Lobster” by the B-52s for cadence tempo reference.)

Start with short seasons hopping with both feet—maybe 30 seconds on, 30 seconds rest. Aim for minimal muscular activation, instead, using the recoil of your tendons and ligaments for suspension and launch as much as possible.
From jumping with both feet, move onto learning an alternating leg bounce—essentially a jog skip. Right, left, right, left—all while keeping an imaginary belt level with the horizon.
By now, you’re essentially running in place with an extremely efficient technique.
Now, apply your jump rope skills to your running!
This is going to seem quite bizarre, but it is possible (and even beneficial) to take your jump rope for a run.

• Start skipping rope on a road or path with the alternating leg bounce. Remember to keep your elbows back, shoulders relaxed, head pulled up as if tugged skyward by a string from your crown and your imaginary belt level with the horizon.
• Then, as though leaning forward just enough to give someone a kiss or have an imaginary umbilical cord lightly tugged, begin to jump rope forward.
• Remember to continue to land and load on your mid-foot—aiming to keep your weight under your pelvis just like skipping rope. Landing on your heels will likely snag the rope and keep your foot on the ground too long.
• As you proceed with this, remember how it feels—the quick foot turnover, the posture, the recoil in your leg springs, the core stability, and the lightness of it.
• In the middle of doing this, simply toss the handles behind you and keep running as though it was still there—still pretending to spin the handles.
• At a comfortable stopping point, run back to your rope—now using your hands in a wood-chop motion to counter balance your leg bounces while keeping your pelvis (imaginary belt) level and stable.

And there you have it!
You may find it quite helpful to return to this drill once or twice a week. Also if you find your form slipping a bit or becoming slugging mid-run, feel free to skip imaginary rope to try to correct your technique mid-stride. It will restore lightness and springiness to your running.
I still find myself bringing my wrists to my pockets and spinning imaginary jump rope handles if I feel my technique is collapsing a bit or if my running is becoming less springy.
And remember, most importantly—have fun. 👍
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You can also:

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Most of us walk every day (“hot girl” style or not), but how much strain could it be putting on our bodies? If you’ve ever walked a long (or even long-ish) distance in the wrong shoes, you know the answer.
After extensive research and analyzing features such as cushioning, arch support, traction and heel drop, I have created a list of best shoes for women to walk, run and do other activities.

Best walking shoes for women 2024:

1. Brooks Ghost 15 (best overall)
2. Skechers GOwalk Joy (best budget)
3. Hoka Arahi 6 (Best ultra-cushioned walking shoe)
4. Vasque Hiking Shoes (best for uneven terrain)
5. New Balance Fresh Foam X 880v13 (Best shoes with arch support)
6. Chaco Z/1 Classic (Best walking sandal)
7. Camper Niki Boots (Best stylish boot)
8. Adidas Ultraboost Light 23 (best for heel comfort)
9. Feiyue 1920 Fe Lo - Ivory (low-profile walking shoe)
10. VenusCelia Comfort Walking Flat Loafer (best loafer)

Brooks Ghost 15 - $110

These shoes are extremely stable, with a grippy outsole, for both speed walks and less intense jaunts along smooth and uneven surfaces. The cushioned EVA foam midsole absorbs shock during the heel strike (when your heel hits the ground), should you also do higher-impact aerobic stints, such as running. Overall, there’s little activity you can’t do comfortably in the Brooks Ghost, and it’s the shoe I now wear most consistently among all the ones tested.
The Ghost is equipped with a curved insole to reduce arch stress—which is great if you suffer from sore tendons, are flat-footed or stand for long periods of time. The Ghost also has a firm heel counter (the part of the shoe that wraps around the back of your ankle) to hold the foot in place and prevent over-pronation, or rolling your ankles.

Skechers GOwalk Joy - $50

These slip-ons from Skechers provide value way beyond what you might expect from a $50 price point. These shoes include an Ortholite insole, as well as a solidly cushioned midsole that can keep you comfortably upright for hours.
They’re lightweight and come with an extra padded heel for comfortable walking. The breathable mesh and insole also make for a lightweight shoe and the fact that they’re slip-ons makes them extra handy for getting out the door quickly.

Hoka Arahi 6 - $197

The Hoka Arahi 6 is a standout shoe for those needing stability. While not overbearing in its corrections, I found it super-comfy and fun to run in. It’s also one of the lighter stability shoes out there which is always great. With mild improvements over its predecessor, the Arahi 6 is a really nice option for your new daily shoe.

Vasque Hiking Shoes - $80

If your walks are taking you off-road (or off-sidewalk), a walking shoe designed for trekking through uneven terrain may be best. These low-top hiking shoes are designed specifically for walking and are our favorite women’s hiking shoes. Stephanie Harper, an outdoors enthusiast based in Asheville, North Carolina, reports, “They’re lightweight and form to your foot without risking stability.” With a waterproof membrane and thick rubber soles, the shoes will keep your feet dry and on stable footing in inclement weather.

New Balance Fresh Foam X 880v13 - $132

The 880v13 model is made with a 3% bio-based foam, derived from renewal resources, which is helpful for reducing the impact on the environment, especially since sneakers are an item that you have to frequently replace once they have worn out.
If you have arch issues, or flat feet, the 880v13 is padded to deliver support in that area, with a 10 millimeter heel drop that alleviates pressure so your foot is on an include, and not resting in a flat position all day. The uppers are made from a breathable mesh, which ensures your feet don’t overheat in these sneakers. I found them airy, lightweight and very responsive during my longest walks. The only negative is that collar, or opening of the shoe where your foot slides in, comes up quite high on the foot, which can cause some rubbing.

Chaco Z/1 Classic - $80

The American Podiatric Medical Association has recognized every model in the Z/1 series for promoting foot health. Undoubtedly, the comfort and support they provide for walking comes at least partly from their simple design. Matt Schonwald, a certified ski-mountaineering and avalanche guide and founder of BC Adventure Guides, recommends the Chacos specifically for their lack of extra features: “I do not like bells and whistles — they usually cause blisters, fall apart, or just underperform.” Paul Ronto of RunRepeat says the grippy sole is heavy duty and dense, giving you “confidence that your feet will grip on to the slickest surfaces.” And while the sandal’s design is pared down, Chaco also has a fully customizable option so you can choose everything from the logo badge to the sole to the footbed.

Camper Niki Boots - $210

The Camper Niki Boots offer a stylish blend of comfort and durability, making them a versatile addition to any wardrobe. Crafted with high-quality leather, these boots feature a unique, contemporary design that stands out. The cushioned insoles and robust soles provide excellent support for all-day wear. However, some users may find the fit slightly narrow, so consider sizing up if you have wider feet. Overall, the Niki Boots are a solid choice for those seeking both fashion and functionality in their footwear.

Adidas Ultraboost Light 23 - $140

The Adidas Women’s Ultraboost Light 23 stands out as the best walking shoe for heel comfort, thanks to its exceptional cushioning and responsive Boost midsole. These shoes provide excellent support and shock absorption, making long walks effortless and pain-free. The lightweight design and breathable Primeknit upper ensure a snug, adaptive fit while keeping your feet cool. Ideal for those with heel discomfort, the Ultraboost Light 23 combines innovative technology with sleek style, making it a top choice for comfort-conscious walkers.

Redditors on the PCT Week 10* (13 MAY 2024)

Hey folks, welcome back! So sorry for the lack of an update last week, unfortunately a combo of technical issues and life stuff got in the way of the post, but I'm glad to be back! Enjoy some slightly longer updates this week :)
I can't believe we're already in May! Now that the majority of hikers will be on trail, the numbers of new people added to the list weekly will start to slow down.
In hiker news, it looks like there has been a big noro bubble in and around Big Bear in the last week or two. Rumor is it may actually be some sort of algae in the Mission Creek area making people sick instead of noro. The hikers in our update mostly seem to be avoiding it so far. As for weather, the Sierras are still pretty snowed in, so many folks seem to be considering their options.
I don't anticipate there will be many more folks signing up moving forwards, so I won't continue to add the signup link, but it is still available on any of the past posts! Those are linked below the table if you want to take a look.

Hiker	Trail Name	Start Date	Last Location	Update
	Ninety Four	Mar 05 (NOBO)	Somewhere in SoCal	No new update
_	Cheetah	Mar 07 (NOBO)	Past Baden-Powell	05/11: Back on trail solo after a short vacation. Summited Baden-Powell. Getting used to being back on trail and in the bubble
	$tache	Mar 10 (NOBO)	Mile 600	05/10: Walked the aquaduct and took a double zero in Mojave to rest some injuries. Past mile 600
u/ Yeah-girl	Troll	Mar 11 (NOBO)	Ridgecrest	05/05: Covered the stretch from Tehachapi to Ridgecrest with heavy packs, enjoying the wildflowers
u/AlmostJuicey	Popcicle	Mar 17 (NOBO)	Baden-Powell	05/05: Inventing new kinds of bagels. Had a little celebration at mile 420. Summited Baden-Powell
	Rowan	Mar 19 (NOBO)	Off-trail	Waiting out the snow in the Sierras
	Clear	Mar 22 (NOBO)	Hikertown	05/12: Made it into Hikertown. Taking care of some tendonitis before continuing on to the aquaduct
		Mar 22 (NOBO)	Walker Pass	05/05: Pushing through wind, sun, and lack of water to reach Ridgecrest. Dealing with soreness and pain
	Menace	Mar 23 (NOBO)	Agua Dulce	05/12: Hiking along with the tramily and enjoying the trail. Dealing with some foot issues. Took some time off trail and enjoyed Six Flags before heading back to trail
	Shade	Mar 28 (NOBO)	Agua Dulce	05/07: Took the long road walk alternate to Baden-Powell due to snow. Pushed through some touch days and enjoyed Vasquez Rocks
		Mar 30 (NOBO)	Off-trail	05/09: Diagnosed with a stress fracture and recommended to stop hiking until mid-June. Re-evaluating next steps
		Mar 30 (NOBO)	Julian	No new update
		Mar 31 (NOBO)	Off-trail	04/29: Decided to leave trail after making it from Campo to Tehachapi and moving on to the next adventure
		Mar 31 (NOBO)	Off-trail	05/04: Summited Baden-Powell, and made it to Acton for some rest. Went through Vasquez Rocks and made it to mile 500. Decided to get off trail and return to family life
	Old Money	Mar 31 (NOBO)	Somewhere in SoCal	05/05: Hit one month on trail, and nearing mile 400
	Spicy	Apr 03 (NOBO)	Somewhere in SoCal	05/06: Had a rough time on San Jacinto, but now the miles are coming faster. Made it somewhere past mile 300
		Apr 04 (NOBO)	Wrightwood	05/06: Ate at the McDonalds, enjoyed a soak in the hot springs, and made it into Wrightwood
		Apr 05 (NOBO)	Agua Dulce	Had a zero in Wrightwood and climbed Baden-Powell. Did their first marathon day on trail! Took a resupply in Agua Dulce
	Brick & Paw Patrol	Apr 06 (NOBO)	Tehachapi	05/10: Had an eventful time rescuing two lost dogs (they did get reunited with their owners!) Reflected on the desert as they near the end, on the varying ecosystems, superblooms, and mountains
	Jenga	Apr 06 (NOBO)	Baden-Powell	05/12: Took a zero in Big Bear, then continued on , avoiding the noro bubble. Got an early start to tackle Baden-Powell
		Apr 08 (NOBO)	Mile 400	05/11: Made it through Mission Creek to rest in Big Bear. Relaxed in the hot springs, ate at the McDonalds, and switched out some gear. Hit mile 400. and one month on trail
		Apr 08 (NOBO)	Big Bear Lake	05/08: Stopped in Idyllwild and met the mayor. Made it through the Mission Creek area, and managed to dodge noro.
		Apr 09 (NOBO)	Big Bear Lake	Made it through San Jacinto and Mission Creek. Took a nice double zero in Big Bear
	French toast	Apr 10 (NOBO)	Tehachapi	05/10: Had McDonalds at Cajon Pass, enjoyed the gorgeous San Gabriels, and made it up to Tehachapi
	Frozen	Apr 12 (NOBO)	Hikertown	05/12: Took a dip at the hot springs, took a few days off for his son's birthday, and enjoyed the mountain views. Went through Vasquez Rocks, and hit mile 500. Making plans for the Sierras and the rest of trail
		Apr 15 (NOBO)	Cajon Pass	05/09: Made it the first 600 miles on trail
	Frostbite	Apr 15 (NOBO)	Cajon Pass	05/10: Made it through a good part of the desert to Cajon Pass
		Apr 17 (NOBO)	Mile 300	05/07: Made it through Mission Creek, and managed to avoid noro while in Big Bear. Hit the 300 mile mark
		Apr 17 (NOBO)	Idyllwild	05/07: Hit two weeks on trail, meeting new people and enjoying the views
		Apr 17 (NOBO)	Off-trail	05/12: Made it past Big Bear before injuring a knee, maybe an ACL tear. Getting off trail for treatment, and hoping to get back on sometime
		Apr 17 (NOBO)	Past Wrightwood	Made it through Mission Creek, had the first major rattlesnake experience, and stopped in Big Bear. Enjoyed getting some fresh fruit at Cajon Pass, and took a zero in Wrightwood. Took the road walk to skip Baden-Powell, and enjoyed some trail magic
	Aloha	Apr 19 (NOBO)	Warner Springs	05/04: Made it further through the desert to Warner Springs. Status: still alive
		Apr 20 (NOBO)	San Jacinto	05/06: Met the mayor in Idyllwild, and summited San Jacinto. Getting used to the hiker hunger
		Apr 21 (NOBO)	Deep Creek Hot Springs	05/10: Dealing with the heat and fewer water sources, stopping in Idyllwild, and summiting San Jacinto. Taking care to try an avoid noro, going through Mission Creek. Took some time in Big Bear, before heading back out and relaxing in the hot springs
u/Typical-Bike718	Twinkie	Apr 22 (NOBO)		No update yet
	Wind	Apr 22 (NOBO)	Whitewater	05/06: Took a zero in Idyllwild and dealt with some blisters. Climbed San Jacinto, and stopped in Whitewater for a rest
and	Poppins & Chimney Boy	Apr 22 (NOBO)	Idyllwild	05/12: Hiked through fog, stopped in Julian, and travelled through Warner Springs. Hiked through the dust and heat, and took a zero in Idyllwild by way of PVC. Back to trail and summiting San Jacinto, before taking more time in Idyllwild
		Apr 23 (NOBO)	Big Bear	05/12: Found some cows near Warner Springs, had a big breakfast at Paradise Valley Cafe, and zeroed in Idyllwild. Continued on to I-10. Skipped Mission Creek to try and avoid sickness, and hopped up to Big Bear
		Apr 24 (NOBO)	Lake Morena	05/10: Started trail and had a cold first night. Hiked through the cold and rain to Lake Morena and took a zero.
		Apr 28 (NOBO)	Mile 100	05/06: Had a good start to trail. Hit 100 miles
		Apr 29 (NOBO)	Idyllwild	05/13: Made it to Julian for some pie and laundry. Made it to mile 100, complete with sunburn. Took a nice zero in Idyllwild
		Apr 29 (NOBO)		No update yet
		Apr 30 (NOBO)	Idyllwild	05/12: Had a good start to trail. Made it to Idyllwild to meet with the mayor
		May 1 (NOBO)		No update yet
		May 3 (NOBO)		No update yet
	Spice Girl	May 3 (NOBO)	Terminus	05/06: Classic terminus pic to start off trail
	Sleepwalker	May 4 (NOBO)		No update yet
		May 7 (NOBO)		05/10: Started trail, made it to Julian for pie, showers and laundry
		May 10 (NOBO)	Mount Laguna	05/12: Had a hot first couple days on trail, seeing lizards and a rattlesnake
		May 11 (NOBO)		No update yet
2		May 12 (NOBO)		No update yet
		May 19 (NOBO)	Not on trail yet

WEEK 1 WEEK 2 WEEK 3 WEEK 4 WEEK 5 WEEK 6 WEEK 7 WEEK 8
Edit: Reddit delete some of the usernames again :(

I’m 48 and (suspect) perimenopausal. My periods are getting a bit longer, and I’m pretty sure it’s a hormonal thing. The weirdest thing is a feeling like tendonitis in my right elbow, for about a year, and now the same pain in my left elbow. My knuckles are also sore on one hand and a weird lump is growing. I’m otherwise healthy and fit… is this ageing or is it menopause? I have a doc appt Friday for a long list of ailments 🙃 and want to know what I should be asking, or asking for?

Hello. I'm a 20-year-old male runner who received a 2nd metatarsal osteotomy in November 2020. I had been experiencing unexplained metatarsalgia under my 2nd metatarsal for 18 months, which had begun the day after a track meet my freshmen year of high school. I had gone to several doctors, who said it could be anything from a stress fracture to a neuroma, but none offered any further care. I eventually ended up at an orthopedic private practice where the surgeon said he would perform a metatarsal osteotomy to take pressure off that metatarsal. This seemed like my best option at the time.
Immediately after the surgery, the surgeon said that while operating, he had seen that my plantar plate had completely torn from my proximal phalanx and had repaired it, although I was never shown an X-ray or any form of imaging. I was relieved to find out there was a reason for my pain over the last year and a half. The surgeon then said I would have arthritis later on due to the surgery, but I didn't pay much attention to this, because I thought he meant 20-30 years from now, as I was only 17 years old and thought you had to be much older to get arthritis. To be clear, before the surgery, I was not told that arthritis was ever something I should worry about.
A year later, I began to feel extremely achy in the joint after running. Another 4-5 months later, I had to stop running because of this pain, and I haven't been able to run since. Around 6 months ago, it even began to hurt during and after walking, and it hurts everyday now. I went back to my surgeon with my concerns, and he saw me for a total of 2 minutes. In those 2 minutes, he said that I have a "funky joint" and that I should just stretch out the toe (I used to stretch out the toe almost every day, it only seems to make the pain worse, sometimes for a few days).
I went to another doctor, got X-rays, and was told I now have arthritis in the MTP joint, specifically on the proximal phalanx, which has completely degenerated since the last time I was seen at that hospital for my foot in July 2020. To be clear, the joint was completely normal before the surgery.
I decided to request my medical files from the private practice, including post-operation X-rays, about 2 months ago. I was absolutely shocked by what I found. The base of the proximal phalanx/articular surface had been drilled into, even taking off quite a bit of cartilage. I wish I could attach an image to this post to show you how egregious it is.
I've searched the plantar plate repaimetatarsal osteotomy literature extensively, and nowhere can I find post-op x-rays that involved drill incisions INSIDE the cartilage/joint. Obviously, ligament and tendon repair may require incisions for attachment, but never in the cartilage/joint itself. Arthritis is also never listed as a known complication of plantar plate repaimetatarsal osteotomy (when the surgery is done properly).
I also read the operative report and found several inconsistencies and downright contradictions. For one, the surgeon stated in one of the visit summaries "we will start a course of physical therapy", when that was untrue. I practically begged him to start me on physical therapy, to which he responded that it was unnecessary, and never referred me to a physical therapist.
I would really appreciate any input on this. I need to know what steps I should take next. I feel completely lost right now. Running was everything to me.
Thank you so much for reading.

Hope this gives some of you hope although I recognize that all situations are unique.
Developed DQ 8 months ago. I didn’t take it seriously quick enough and only after about a month did I begin treatment.
At its worst I failed the finkelstein test terribly and my tendons were full of clicking and catching, sometimes catching so badly I thought they might rupture when I tried to free my thumb up.
I splinted for 7.5 weeks day and night, taking it off only to showedo dishes carefully. Iced most days. During the acute phase I continued working which involved occasional heavy lifting and aggravated it somewhat.
I figured I could stop splinting once I was passing the finkelstein test consistently.
Range of motion was terrible post splinting - worse than ever. Pathetically weak thumb also. Also still very painful when making a thumbs up motion, making scrolling motions like on a phone, tapping, or any type of thumb rotation movements.
Tendons were also still catching and clicking randomly, usually mild with mild pain, but occasionally still pretty severely.
As months passed, and with the implementation of elastic band strengthening thumb exercises, my thumb got stronger and the motions listed above became gradually less painful and my overall range of motion without pain improved. Daytime tendon clicking continued but less.
Tendon clicking was at its worst during the night and I have had to sleep with a splint with my thumb TAPED to my other fingers up until recently so that clicking and catching wouldn’t be waking me up.
Things I wish I did earlier:
Contrast therapy (ice and hot water immersion) would have likely sped up my recovery during the first month. I wish I had done more gentle movement exercises during the splinting weeks so my thumb wouldn’t have become so weak after.
Things to note:
My healing has been EXTREMELY non linear. This has looked like the line on a stock market graph, with major changes on a day to day and week to week basis.
Unique things that helped:
Pinning exercises - I still do these as needed. So easy. Using your good thumb, press and hold the bad area, then slide up the wrist 3 inches while performing a gentle finkelstein type wrist bend. You are essentially stretching out the tendons and sheath. Only performed this late phase - NOT during the acute phase.
(Moderate) weight lifting - I started lifting again at about the 4 month point (very carefully). My DQ always was a little better for the following ~72 hours.
I have read that a surprisingly large amount of healing comes from strengthening and stretching the muscles of the forearm, which the above two things both do.
Today I and am able to scroll/type on my phone/type on a keyboard/paddle a kayak/ play piano/ play video games/ lift weights with essentially no problem.
Occasionally I experience mild twinges of discomfort which go away quickly and if I need to, I perform the pinning technique mentioned above to instantly resolve it. Lifestyle changes are key as I am careful to not over do, although most things I am able to do as long or intensely as I want with no problem.
I don’t know if I will achieve a true legitimate 100% but if I do it will be months or years, but perhaps one day.
Gotta say while I’m no expert I’ve learned a heck of a lot about this cruel and ridiculous problem and I wish all of you the absolute best.

Book report guy back, with the Bryan Danielson book from 2014 and it has some fun backstage stories from his time in WWE!
Solid wrestling book, though not super memorable in my opinion. Some solid detail and dirt like you expect, but honestly it felt like he was holding back.
As always, it's in chronological order as best as I could do that. Hope y'all enjoy!
Bryan is a weird dude, while describing his adolescence, he casually says that he has a lot of weird hypothesis on various subjects, and we should ask Nigel McGuinness about Bryan's theory on how a penis grows. He doesn't expand on this more. He just says that and moves back to talking about his childhood.
Bryan rants a bit about how modern medicine has stunted human evolution because kids who would have died off got to live and reproduce and pass their "defects" onto the next generation. He says that he is one of those defects, sick all his childhood and sick a lot as an adult. He says that his wife Brie is also a "defect" but says she can share the details in her own book if she ever writes one.
When Bryan was 16 years old, he contacted Dean Melanko's wrestling school and was told it would cost him $2,500, but he needed a $500 deposit to secure his spot. Bryan was scared that there were hundreds of people on the waiting list and worked extra shifts at McDonald's in order to get the cash together asap. He put $500 deposit down for a wrestling school he couldn't go to for 2 more years.
Three months before Bryan graduated high school, the Melanko Wrestling School contacted to inform Bryan that the school was shutting down permanently. When Bryan asked for his $500 back, he was told that they no longer had it and that he was SOL.
While watching Monday Night RAW, an ad flashed advertising a 900 number (an old pay-per-minute phone concept that was always a money drain on the caller), and it advertised Shawn Michaels opening up a wrestling school. After an expensive phone call, Bryan was told to pay $20 more for a package to be mailed to him with more info. He did, and when he got the package, it detailed how Michaels wrestling school would cost $3,900 dollars, and it had another 900 number to call if you're interested. Bryan was demoralized and almost didn't call. When he did, though, he was speaking to Shawm Michaels mom, who was helping Shawn run it. Bryan's mom ended up doing all the talking, and the two mothers helped Bryan get set up with a place in San Antonio where the school was. They agreed to let Bryan pay monthly to help him with the finances.
Bryan's first day of wrestling school went exactly like everyone else's first day of wrestling school, with 90% of the students gassed and vomiting. Bryan said out of the 10 guys there, only he and Lance Cade didn't end up vomiting.
Bryan remembers how much Shawn Michaels prioritized his training to Lance Cade. One of the first days, Lance did a basic jump and got so much air that Michaels loudly proclaimed, "I smell money!"
Even though it was Shawn's school, the primary instructor was Rudy Boy Gonzales, a pretty insignificant wrestler from the 80s and 90s. Bryan puts over Rudy as a passionate trainer who motivated him to try harder. Bryan said Rudy would show Bryan anything Bryan saw on a tape and wanted to try.
Bryan says that he and "The" Brian Kendrick became friends immediately as they were both around the same size in the training and had the same level of passion for wrestling.
I always heard that Shawn Michaels wasn't very present for this school, but Bryan tells a different tale, putting Shawn over as someone who was always around and always showing them how to be better.
Bryan does remember some days that Shawn would come in with his sunglasses on, sit at the back of the class, and then dip out early. Bryan didn't realize then that Shawn was in deep with a bad painkiller addiction, and so some days he wasn't as present. Since Bryan grew up with his dad's addiction issues, Bryan says seeing Shawn actually kick the addiction fully put Shawn on a pedestal in Bryan's eyes.
After a couple of months, Shawn was telling the students to start thinking of ring names, and when Bryan couldn't come up with one, he asked Shawn about using his real name. Shawn thought about it for a second before adding "The American Dragon" to it. When Bryan asked why that name, Shawn said it's because Bryan wrestled like a Japanese guy. Bryan took that as a massive compliment.
Bryan didn't tell Shawn, but Bryan initially hated "The American Dragon" name.
Bryan had trouble being expressive and emoting in the ring, so Shawn had him wrestle under a mask.
On October 4th, 1999, Bryan wrestled his first ever match for Shawn Michaels' small promotion, Texas Wrestling Alliance. His opponent was Brian Kendrick (then known as Spanky), and Bryan says as rotton as it was, everyone in the back was super excited for their performance, including Shawn.
Bryan confirms that Kendrick called himself "Spanky" as a masturbation reference.
Shawn arranged for Bryan and Lance Cade to head over to Japan and wrestle for Frontier Martial Arts Wrestling, a bit of a "mudshow" wrestling promotion. Shawn got Bryan and Lance a spot on their card by agreeing to referee a match for the company.
Bryan remembers seeing one guy shove a bottle rocket up his opponents butt and light it off at that FMW show. So yeah, some pretty outlaw stuff.
Bryan describes attempting a moonsalt to the outside of the ring during this Japan tour, but he slipped and cracked his head on the cement. Bryan says, "When I came to, I didn't even know where I was" before describing how he stumbled his way through the match. He notes how concussions have always been a problem for him.
Lance Cade was invited back to FMW later for a 2nd tour, but they didn't ask for Bryan back. That's when Bryan realized that at his size, he needs to get much, much better.
In February 2000, HBK got Bryan, Lance Cade, Brian Kendrick, and another student named Shooter Shultz, a dark match on an episode of Smackdown. He says they planned for a 15-minute tag match before being told last minute that it's been cut down to 6 minutes. Bryan says HBK went and yelled at some people about "his guys" until he got it bumped up to 10 minutes.
Bryan says he got his first documented concussion that match, because they weren't used to a literal ramp, and Bryan cracked his skull on it, doing a pointless dive. He says the WWE doctor backstage told him to just make sure he doesn't fall asleep.
Bryan says when they got backstage after their match, HBK was excited and pumping them up, telling everyone backstage that they should sign all 4 guys immediately. This was on Tuesday, and by Thursday, when WWE still hadn't contacted them, Shawn called them up and threatened to take the 4 to WCW where Kevin Nash would make sure they were signed. Bryan says WWE quickly offered all 4 guys developmental contracts for $500 per week. Bryan says HBK was a great guy to have in your corner.
Shortly after getting the developmental contract, Bryan and Kendrick wrestled a main event ladder match for Shawn's TWA promotion. At the time, Bryan believed that in order to stand out, he would need to wrestle a more daredevil style, so he did some dumb stuff in this match. He did some ridiculous spot that ended with Bryan separating his shoulder. After the match, he took a table bump that legitimately knocked him unconscious for a full minute.
A week or 2 later, the teams had a rematch in a steel cage where all 4 agreed to blade for the first time. Why is he doing this dumb shit right after being offered a WWE contract?
Bryan says those ladder and cage matches made him realize he needed to change his style up and become more mat based. He wouldn't have had a long career if he kept getting hurt. At this point, Bryan has only been wrestling for 6 or 8 months and already suffered maybe 3 concussions. At least 2 for sure.
Bryan Danielson, Lance Cade, Brian Kendrick, and Shooter Shultz all moved to Memphis, where WWE's development primarily opperated out of at the time. William Regal was also a developmental system at the time, trying to show he had kicked his addiction issues.
Memphis Championship Wrestling was the territory they wrestled for, and Bryan remembers wrestling in all sorts of crazy locations like a WalMart parking lot once.
Although Shawn eventually took the mask off Bryan in TWA, the guys at MCW immediately put the mask back on Bryan.
The only time Bryan thought he might get called up to the main roster was in January 2001, when he heard rumors that WWE wanted to start up a cruiserweight division and use Danielson and Kendrick That didn't happen, though, and Bryan never heard another rumor or wiff of him being called up.
In June 2001, someone from WWE talent relations came down to evaluate talent. Brian was let go and told that despite his talent, they just had no plans for him.
In October 2001, Bryan was offered a spot in California based All Pro Wrestling's annual King Of The Indies tournament. Danielson would beat Kendrick in the first round, and after the show, Nick Bockwinkle, who was there watching, loudly told promoter Roland Alexander, "If you don't put that guy over." Bockwinkle said while pointing directly at Bryan, "You're crazy!"
APW head trainer Donovan Morgan was scheduled to beat Bryan in the second round and go on to win the tournament, but promoter Roland made the call to have Bryan win instead.
Bryan says this that while this really pissed Donovan off, what really upset the guy was when Roland offered Danielson and Kendrick trainer positions alongside Donovan.
Kendrick turned the offer down, but Bryan took it and moved to California in January 2002, where he became the head trainer. Though Bryan says he was a lousy trainer and no good at motivating anyone.
On February 2002, Bryan sat down with Gabe Sapolsky, who, after being inspired by the Super 8 tournament Bryan won, wanted Bryan part of his new promotion, Ring of Honor.
Bryan remembers both William Regal and John Laurinaitis said they would try to get Bryan an in to Japan, but both came up short, and both eventually stopped returning Bryan's calls.
In March 2002, Bryan Danielson, Christopher Daniels, and Brian Kendrick got a tryout with New Japan in Santa Monica. Antonio Inoki was actually there to oversee, but he literally had his back turned to the ring while Danielson and Kendrick wrestled. Inoki never bothered to turn around and watch them, instead watching someone stretch, Bryan says. Bryan later heard that New Japan never intended to hire anyone. They just wanted their dojo to look full for press.
After the "tryout," Bryan says that Inoki fell and had to be helped up by a bunch of people. Only the three of them didn't get up to help, with Kendrick saying loudly, "serves the motherfucker right."
Bryan kept making trips to the Santa Monica dojo every couple of weeks until Shinya "Togi" Makabe told him that if Bryan really wanted to be taken seriously, he had to be at the dojo every single day. Bryan took the advice seriously, quit his training job and moved to Santa Monica.
Bryan says he was offered to come tour with New Japan after only training at the dojo full time a few weeks. It was on this tour where Bryan first wrestled in the Tokyo Dome.
In May 2003, Bryan wrestled another Tokyo Dome show, where Bryan, Rocky Romero and TJ Perkins were all pulled aside in the hotel after the show, by Justin Cully. Cully literally slapped each man across the face, saying the slaps are from Inoki, who was disappointed in their proformances that night. Apparently Inoki expected them to wrestle more of a shoot style fight and was very upset.
In March 2004, Bryan won his first title with New Japan, the IWGP Junior Tag titles with Christopher Daniels, and Bryan would spend the majority of the year with New Japan where he wrestled 8 different tours.
Bryan pitched a 3 hour long match to Gabe Sapolsky for a ROH show and is disappointed they didn't go the full 3 hours.
Going into 2005, Bryan expected to wrestle his whole career in New Japan, but was startled when New Japan didn't get his visa renewed for the January tour like they always do. He was told it was a mistake and he would be back for March tour, but again he was told last minute they didn't have a visa for him. In May they contacted him last minute inviting him for a tour, but at a ridiculous pay cut down to $500 per week. Bryan turned the offer down and never went back to that Santa Monica dojo or work for New Japan again. He later heard that he was used as a pawn in a power struggle with the Dojo and New Japan.
In mid-2005 Bryan got an email from CM-Punk about a rumor suggesting that both WWE and TNA were interested in Bryan, Punk and Samoa Joe. Joe would quickly sign with TNA after this and Punk took a developmental deal with WWE. Bryan never heard from either company, and a few months later Gabe Sapolsky told Bryan he wanted to build ROH around Bryan but wanted a promise that Bryan wouldn't just leave to WWE or TNA. Great timing Gabe, because Bryan immediately said yes.
After winning the ROH World title in September 2005, Bryan says his title reign was falling flat until he started being cocky and cutting those "best in the world" promos. Bryan even shades Jericho and Punk a little by saying at the time no one else was saying it and that's why it worked so well for him.
Bryan puts over his matches with Nigel McGuinness in summer of 2006, but points out one in particular he regrets. Nigel had the idea for Bryan to pull Nigel's face into the steel ring post 3 times to get real blood. After 3 attempts and no blood, Nigel yelled, "One more time!" They got blood on the 4th time, and gave Nigel a severe concussion.
Five minutes into an hour long match with Colt Cabana in August 2006, Bryan landed bad on the outside of the ring, where he separated that same right shoulder as before and tore two tendons.
Three weeks later, Bryan defended his ROH title against KENTA of all people, who legitimately targeted his hurt shoulder all match. Then Bryan went to tour Japan with Pro Wrestling Noah where he and KENTA had a rematch.
Bryan would finally drop the ROH title in December 2006 and then take nearly 4 months off. This is the first time he took off since he started wrestling in 1999.
After doing a tour of Japan with Pro Wrestling Noah in April 2007, Bryan was excited to come back to ROH and signed a 2 year contract.
In June 2007, Bryan and Nigel wrestled an extremely physical match that featured a spot where the two traded headbutts. The match didn't air until September that year and in the mean time, the Chris Benoit double murdesuicide happened and the talk of concussions and safety concerns changed completely. The match was not recieved well and Gabe later told Bryan that they shouldn't have aired it at all.
ROH struggled after the Benoit incident and most everyone had to adapt and tone down their styles. Bryan wasn't one of those people, and actually refused to tone down his style. Later in 2007 he would rupture his ear drum exchanging open palm strikes with KENTA and he would suffer a detached retina in a match with Takeshi Morishima. To this day, he has trouble hearing from his left ear and has trouble with vision.
Bryan remembers being super late for a show and not even being able to meet his opponent beforehand. To Bryan's suprise, his opponent, who despite being green, was great to work with and the two had good chemistry. That was a young Jon Moxley.
In Summer of 2008, Shawn Michaels was fueding with Chris Jericho and they incorporated Lamce Cade on Jericho's side, since Shawn trained Lance. Shawn actually reached out to Bryan about also joining the WWE and being involved in the story.
Bryan met with Vince McMahon and remembers how taken back Vince seemed when they first met, and thinks it was because of Bryan's size and how plain he looked. Bryan also didn't sell himself well in the meeting, saying he is "just okay." Head of talent relations John Laurinaitis told Bryan that they would call him, but he never did.
When Bryan returned from a Japan tour in October 2008, he was shocked to find Gabe Sapolsky had been fired by ROH and replaced by Adam Pearce. Bryan details that while Gabe liked to book long shows with everyone on the card trying their hardest to steal the show, Pearce booked shorter shows and had the lower card guys preform well, but not to try everything under the sun to outshine the main event. You can see why Jim Cornette and Adam Pearce get along so well.
Bryan notes how he was fueding with Claudio Castignoli when Gabe was fired, but Pearce immediately ended that program to which Bryan says he and Claudio were disappointed.
After another failed attempt to get into WWE I'm early 2009, Bryan refocused his energies by moving to Las Vegas where he started training in kick boxing and other forms of mixed martial arts.
Bryan trained religiously for months under a former MMA fighter Neil Melanson. Neil is the one who taught Bryan the LaBell Lock.
When Bryan's ROH contract expired in May 2009, he called John Laurinaitis and left a message, but never heard back.
Bryan says in mid-2009, he was talking to Gabe Sapolsky about starting up a new promotion that would become Evolve. Bryan says that Paul Heyman was even involved with these talks.
Brian Kendrick called Danielson up to pitch Danielson coming to WWE as Kendrick's tag partner. Danielson even went and filmed a bunch of promos with Kendrick and fel optimistic. Unfortunately, Kendrick was fired just a few weeks later before any of those vignets aired and that opportunity was gone as well.
Bryan had given up ever going to WWE when John Laurinaitis called him in September 2009 offering him a main roster contract. Bryan was so excited he didn't have to go to developmental, that he would be right on the main roster immediately. Or so he thought, I guess they didn't bother telling Brilyan about NXT at that time, even though it sounds like he was signed with that in mind.
Nigel was also signed at the same time (probably also meant for NXT) but before either man could start, they had to pass WWE medical tests. They asked them both about past injuries, and Bryan just lied, saying he never had anything wrong and was fine. Didn't mention his shoulder being separated twice, or the detached retina, or any concussion. Nigel on the other hand, was very honest about his injuries, including a torn bicep that he didn't get worked on, he just rehabbed it. Nigel figured he was a lock and didn't see the need to lie.
WWE was concerned about Bryan's elevated liver enzymes, and wanted Nigel to get surgery on his bicep before they would sign him. Both guys were wrestling a farewell tour with ROH and both genuinely concerned they wouldn't actually be leaving. In their last match for ROH, Bryan accidentally gave Nigel a concussion, because apparently these guys only know how to wrestle at one speed!
Nigel couldn't afford the bicep surgery and his own doctor was telling him he is fine, so Nigel went to TNA instead. Nigel would only wrestle for another year before his body would break down too far on him and he would retire.
Bryan signed his WWE contract on October 2nd, 2009, nearly 10 years to the day of his debut match. William Regal actually told Bryan, "Your wrestling career came before this and is over now. Anything else that happens now is a bonus."
William Regal came up with the name "Daniel Bryan" for Bryan to use in WWE. Brian tried arguing to Laurinaitis to use his real name and citing John Cena as an example, Laurinaitis simply told Bryan, "We don't do that anymore."
In early 2010, Bryan and seven other guys were told one day about the NXT concept and how they would be used. Bryan found out who his NXT "pro" would be just like everyone else, when WWE posted it on their website. Bryan initially legit wanted Regal as his "pro" but soon realized being paired with Miz gives him a story immediately.
Bryan describes his time in NXT as the most unusual of his career. The "rookies" all legitimately didn't know what was going to happen on any show and everything they did was 100% unscripted and improvised.
The first night in NXT, all the "rookies" were told 15 minutes before the show, that their "pro" would cut a promo on them and they needed to react accordingly. Bryan had no idea that his pro, the Miz was going to tell him to head to the ring and cut a promo on himself, literally telling him on live TV to make the fans care about him. Bryan had no idea what to say, no real direction he was given to go in, and no tome to plan or rehearse. Miz also told him to come up with a catchphrase, and Bryan said he always hated catch phrases.
In the ring, Bryan cut a generic promo where he said he lost his train of thought and was super greatful when The Miz came out to finish the promo off. Bryan didn't know that would happen and Bryan definitely didn't know Miz was going to slap him at the end. Bryan says that later, The Miz confided to Bryan that he was worried Bryan would try to fight him over the slap.
Bryan credits Chris Jericho for getting him over in his first WWE match, and says that neither he, nor Miz knew that Miz was to beat up Brian after the match. Apparently, Miz was informed during the Jericho/Bryan match that he was to attack Bryan after the finish. Wild how much "flying by the seat of their pants" that WWE did with early NXT.
After the show, Jericho told Bryan that Vince was impressed, though he noted how Vince said, "Ugh, but he doesn't even eat meat!"
Bryan describes promo class with Vince as kinda insane to be honest. One time Bryan accidentally spilled a water bottle, and Vince asked everyone how that made them feel about Bryan. Stuff like that.
Bryan says the NXT rookies weren't allowed to use the regular dressing room and had to use some tarped off part of the backstage area.
Bryan notes how most of the NXT season, the NXT rookies never really knew what was going to happen. The 2nd week Bryan lost to Wade Barret and wasn't told that Chris Jericho would be attacking him after the match.
Bryan says his initial storyline with The Miz wasn't a losing streak idea, but something where each loss had meaning and was being built with purpose. Miz was very hands on with each show and helped to put over Bryan and the storyline, but when Miz missed 2 weeks in a row, the producers left in charge basically just turned it into a losing streak storyline, which Bryan says, "never works."
One time on a plane, Ezekiel Jackson asked "which rookie has an isle seat?" Bryan raised his had and Ezekiel said, "Not anymore." Bryan stood his ground and refused, offering his seat to anyone but Ezekiel. Ezekiel got pissed but William Regal came over and chastised Jackson, saying Bryan is like a son to him and how Bryan has more talent in his pinky ginger than Jackson has in his whole body.
Bryan says the NXT "Pros Polls" were legitimate voting done by the pros. That's why Bryan ended up in first place, despite losing every match.
A week after Wrestlemania in 2010, NXT's direction and purpose shifted away from being serious to silly, and Bryan says they were suddenly doing dumb game show competitions and putting over how demoralizing it was.
Bryan says Skip Shepfield (Ryback) was the only rookie taking the competitions seriously and trying to win each game. Sounds on brand for the big guy.
Bryan says he was trying to be humble when asked who should be eliminated and he said himself. He figured since he lost to everyone he didn't have a right to say any of them. Backstage Miz told him he made a mistake and shouldn't have put that perception out there.
A week later they liked the rookies up on TV (an hour before it goes live) and informed Bryan and fellow rookie Michael Tarver that they are both eliminated, without telling them beforehand. Bryan felt this validated all the warnings guys like Colt Cabana and other gave him about WWE.
Right after Matt Striker interviewed him backstage and when asked an insulting question, Bryan snapped and started talking down about "Daniel Bryan" and started to put over "Bryan Danielson!" Bryan says he could hear Vince screaming into Striker's ear piece and apparently Vince threw his headset when Bryan said his real name.
They made Bryan retape the interview without saying that, but still aired his original interview.
Bryan was surprisingly called back to NXT the following week to start a rivalry with Micheal Cole, who had been verbally obliterating Bryan on commentary since Bryan debuted. Bryan seems to be greatful for that program since it kept him on tv and made him confident that he would keep his job.
The RAW after NXT season 1 ended, all the rookies were pulled into Vince's office and told about Nexus and the attack in the main event. They were told not to tell anyone or else they will be fired. Bryan says he even lied to William Regal, when asked why he was dressed to wrestle.
They were supposed to attack John Cena and Rey Mysterio in the main event, because WWE let the fans vote on Cena's opponent and they assumed Rey would get it. Surprisingly it was CM Punk, and Bryan isn't sure how much Punk was told about the angle.
Bryan legit choked Justin Roberts during the melee, leaving red marks on his skin with his tie. Bryan said he doesn't trust non-wrestlers to sell good so he did it for real, with Justin going purple on Tv. Later during the brawl, Bryan was grabbing a cable to choke someone else when a cameraman told him "no choking!" Bryan does note that he thinks Justin Roberts found it pretty cool to be involved. And later Heath Slater grabbed the dismantled ring ropes to choke Cena, but Cena told him as well, "No choking."
Cena told Bryan before the angle, "It's not the hit you do that's important, it's what you do before the hit that matters." This is why Bryan spit in Cena's face before kicking him in the head.
Backstage, Bryan was reprimanded twice, for choking and spitting. Two days later Vince McMahon personally called Bryan to tell him he was let go and apologized to Bryan for it. Bryan, arrogant as all hell, responded with, "Don't apologize, I'll make more money this year on the independents than I would have working for you."
Bryan called John Laurinaitis to clear up details and Laurinaitis was shocked to hear Bryan was fired. Apparently Vince didn't tell anyone, just called Laurinaitis up and asked for Bryan's number. The comment Bryan made about money seemed to get to Vince since Laurinaitis called Bryan back and asked about it. Laurinaitis actually told Bryan that he can start working independent dates immediately if he wasn't on TV.
After working several shows and making good money off merchandise for several weeks, Bryan was shocked when John Laurinaitis called him in August and asked him to come back for a big angle leading into SummerSlam. Bryan sheepishly asked for a raise and made sure he could make all his already planned independent bookings.
Bryan says Nexas should have won at SummerSlam, noting how they went from dangerous to jobbers in one night.
Bryan remembers a taped RAW after SummerSlam where he did an angle with The Miz. When he got backstage Vince was so mad at how it came off that he made Bryan and others go back out there and do it again. It was the first time Bryan ever had to redo something like that and he said he felt humiliated.
Bryan didnt seem to see much value in being US Champion outside of how it would keep him on tv and maybe monthly ppv matches.
At Hell in a Cell 2010 ppv, Bryan had a good match with Miz and John Morrison, but was scolded after that match for a spot where Bryan threw Miz's stoog Alex Riley off the stage where he landed on cameraman. They showed the two guys the footage and accused them of doing it on purpose to get themselves over. Bryan started regretting coming back and really hating his time in WWE.
Bryan was paired with the Bella Twins in a storyline he hated, that was based on the Twins confusing the word "vegan" for "virgin" and competing to sleep with Bryan. Despite how bad that storyline was, Bryan and Brie would develop a relationship and would start dating in February 2011.
Sheamus was given a choice of Wrestlemania opponents that year between Rey Mysterio and Daniel Bryan, and Sheamus chose Bryan. Bryan was greatful but concerned Sheamus chose wrong and their match would be cut but Sheamus wasn't worried at all. A week before Mania they were informed their match was on the pre-show at a meeting with literally every other wrestler. Bryan says Sheamus buried his face in his hands and remembers how Rey Mysterio got on the card in a match with Cody Rhodes. Bryan says Sheamus picked the wrong guy.
Bryan got some details in his book messed up where he talks about Miz winning the WWE title off Cena at Wrestlemania 27 and he talks about how Miz was WWE Champion going into Over The Limit ppv 2011, but Miz lost the title by then. It's notable because he says he pitched hard for a "Rocky style" storyline where he would challenge Miz for the WWE title at the Over The Limit ppv.
Bryan says the 2011 Smackdown Money in the Bank winner wasn't decided until the day of the show but it was always between Wade Barret, Cody Rhodes and Bryan. He says despite winning the briefcase, his tv time tricked down and eventually he was spending weeks off tv, until he was randomly inserted into the World title program between Mark Henry and Big Show in late 2011.
Bryan was being left at home and off shows, even watching Survivor Series 2011 from home and was suprised when WWE had him come to the December TLC ppv show, last minute. The day of the show he was told he was cashing in and winning the title and the only direction Vince McMahon gave him was to act like he won the superbowl, so that's where Bryan's over the top celebration came from. He didn't even tell his girlfriend Brie Bella about the plan and says she was shocked when he came backstage afterwards.
The only direction Vince gave Bryan as champion is to celebrate every appearance like he won the lottery, saying, "there is no too over the top here."
Bryan said he adapted his "Yes" chants from MMA fighter Diego Sanchez who was celebrating in a similar way at the time.
Bryan's favorite moment from that first world title run was the closing sequence in the 2012 Elimination Chamber match with him and Santino Marella.
Bryan originally expected he and Sheamus to get 15 minutes or so at Wrestlemania for their match, but was shocked when Chris Jericho told him he heard it would be 8 minutes, including the pre & post match stuff. A week later Arn Anderson confirmed to Bryan that he would lose a 1-move match, dropping the world title to Sheamus at Wrestlemania that year. Bryan and Sheamus were both pissed, to say the least.
Sheamus expressed concern that the short match would turn fans against him as a new champion. Smart man.
Bryan says a bunch of guys came up to him after his Mania loss and were pissed at what they did to Bryan out there. Great Khali even came up and told Bryan that it was bullshit in his broken English.
Originally Sheamus was planned to move into a fued with Alberto Del-rio right after Mania, but the crazy crowd support for Bryan forced them to extend they story another month. Bryan says his Extreme Rules ppv match with Sheamus in 2012 is one of his favorites. Mine too!
Bryan acknowledged the weird booking of Punk as champion in 2012, noting how heels would face John Cena, lose, then be sent to face Punk with no momentum. Interesting take on the situation.
Bryan mentions how when he and Punk fueded in 2012, they never got main event spots outside of non-televised events. One time at a house show, Bryan and Punk veered too far into comedy and after the match John Cena chastised Bryan by pointing out that they didn't wrestle a "main event style" match. Apparently the next house show, Cena was moved into the main event spot with Punk/Bryan being before the intermission. An enraged Punk went and yelled at people until he got his main event spot back. This time, no comedy spots were done and they stayed the main event for the circuit.
Bryan had brand new, edgier gear made up prior to Money in the Bank 2012 and didn't tell anyone backstage. He wore shorts over his trunk and hid the jacket until he had to go out. When he got to the ring, the ref told him to lose the jacket, because I guess Vince was in gorilla position freaking out over how Bryan looked. Dean Melanko was the producer for the match, and Bryan felt bad when Vince blamed him for allowing Bryan to wear it.
Bryan was originally planned to wrestle Charlie Sheen at SummerSlam 2012 in a celebrity match, but Charlie "bailed" as Bryan put it.
Bryan was trying to be "Mr Small Package" by winning matches with Small Package and then boasting about how he has an "inescapable small package!" It didn't get over.
Bryan thought his anger management vignets with Kane and Dr Shelby were going to be terrible.
The only reason they stopped using Dr Shelby is because he had limited days off from his regular teaching job.
Bryan and Kane really wanted their team name to be "Team Friendship" and they even had shirt ideas but Vince let the fans vote and he always kept those votes legit, so their team name was "Team Hell No" which Bryan brings up a good point about. He said as a team primarily appealing to kids, a name with "Hell" in it would be hard to sell merchandise to those kids.
The plan was to break up their team so they could have a good heated fued together, but they were so popular that they kept teaming for 9 months.
Bryan says his first good Wrestlemania experience was in 2013 when he teamed with Kane.
One night after Mania in 2013, when Bryan tagged with Kane and Undertaker to face The Shield, Vince McMahon told Bryan that he would pay him several thousand dollars if he could get Undertaker to hug Bryan in the ring. After the show Bryan got on the mic and tried his hardest to get the hug but couldn't quite do it.
Bryan says that both he and Kane agree that teaming together was some of the most fun in either man's career.
Bryan was scheduled to win the biggest match of his career up to that point, he would be beating Randy Orton clean on RAW. Bryan would botch a dive that left both arms nunb and him unable to stand. He got feeling back in one arm but eventually the doctor called the match off. Backstage Bryan started screaming at Triple H for calling the match and called him a hypocrite for doing so, citing his own injuries in matches. At one point Orton tried to calm Bryan down, but Bryan snapped at him and Orton started yelling too. Brie got Bryan away to calm down, but when Vince came to talk to Bryan, the shouting started again. Much later, William Regal advised Bryan to apologize to both Vince and Triple H, to which Bryan took his advice. The next week, Bryan would get his win over Orton and he says that that drama over everything made that win matter more.
An MRI showed that one of Bryan's disks was pushing into his nerves and eventually he would need surgery. With his momentum starting to rise, Bryan opted to put surgery off.
John Cena pitched facing Daniel Bryan at Money in the Bank 2013 ppv. When Vince asked why, Cena said because it's the biggest match they could do at that time. Vince ended up agreeing, but deciding that it belongs at SummerSlam that year instead!
As proud as Bryan is of the build to and match with Cena at SummerSlam, he acknowledges that the ppv didn't do good numbers, nor did the house show business the following 2 months when Bryan was the main protagonist. He thinks a lot the the Authority promos on him stemmed from some truth.
Bryan isn't satisfied with the quality of matches he was putting out in the latter half of 2013 amd he specifically calls out the series of bad finishes he had with Randy Orton in ppv main events. From the fast counting crooked ref, to that terrible one with Big Show knocking everyone out, and then to Shawn Michaels betraying Bryan at Hell in a Cell ppv.
Bryan initially thought he was getting a Wrestlemania match with Shawn Michaels after that Hell in a Cell finish, but after talking with HBK, it was clear that was never in the cards.
Bryan feels he failed as a main eventer in the 2nd half of 2013, regardless of match quality. He didn't move business and that's all that matters.
The Slammy's were fan votes and Vince didn't think Bryan would win and almost laughed when Bryan asked him what he should say if he does win. Vince said, "whatever you want." I wish I could have seen Vince's face when Bryan won later that night.
When Bryan started fueding with Wyatt Family in late-2013, Bryan was pitching for him to be "brainwashed" and join the group. He suspects that his rising popularity in early 2014 is what convinced WWE to have Bryan turn on Bray and leave the group. At the time, Bryan was hoping to stay with the group and be involved in the planned Cena/Wyatt Wrestlemania program since Bryan had no plans for Mania at that time.
Bryan says he was disappointed when Vince told him he would be facing Sheamus again at Wrestlemania 2014. No disrespect to Sheamus, but Bryan felt he belonged in a higher spot.
Bryan felt bad for the way Rey Mysterio was boo'd at the 2014 Royal Rumble.
When Punk quit WWE after Rumble that year, Bryan remembers how plans didn't change too much for a few weeks, and he assumes Vince expected Punk to come back and for Batista to win the crowds over, and neither happened.
Triple H was being vocal about wanting to face Bryan at Mania that year, but Bryan was trying to not get his hopes up since he had seen Triple H try and fail to get his ideas on screen.
Bryan and Brie only agreed to let Total Divas shoot their wedding, because Total Divas agreed to pay for the whole wedding! Hard to say no to that!
Bryan is very satisfied with his matches at Wrestlemania 30 and says he was so focused between matches that he missed Undertaker losing to Lesnar. He heard the ring bell and looked up at the monitor in shock. He says they cameras should have filmed the guys and girls in the back because their reactions were wild, apparently.
Five days after Wrestlemania 30, Bryan and Brie got married, but 2 days after their honeymoon ended, Bryan's dad unexpectedly passed away at the age of 57. Bryan was devastated and described how he was crying still as he was writing about it.
The book ends on a complete downer, very unlike most other wrestling books. Bryan says that as long as he wrestled when asked if everything he was missing or sacrificing was worth it, Bryan always said yes. He assumed he would have more time when he was done and could catch up on what he missed, but his dad is gone and Bryan openly admits that it wasn't worth it. If he could, Bryan would change a lot of his decisions if it meant more time with his dad.
He says he is still wrestling though because he literally doesn't know what else to do or what comes after. This is especially depressing 10 years later, when Bryan is still wrestling despite having started a family of his own. I hope he doesn't regret any time missed with his daughter.
He ends the book by describing the last time he saw his dad, on Christmas in 2013, where his dad dressed up as Santa. Fuck. I'm sad now.

Solid wrestling book, though not super memorable in my opinion. Some solid detail and dirt like you expect, but honestly it felt like he was holding back.
As always, it's in chronological order as best as I could do that. Hope y'all enjoy!
Bryan is a weird dude, while describing his adolescence, he casually says that he has a lot of weird hypothesis on various subjects, and we should ask Nigel McGuinness about Bryan's theory on how a penis grows. He doesn't expand on this more. He just says that and moves back to talking about his childhood.
Bryan rants a bit about how modern medicine has stunted human evolution because kids who would have died off got to live and reproduce and pass their "defects" onto the next generation. He says that he is one of those defects, sick all his childhood and sick a lot as an adult. He says that his wife Brie is also a "defect" but says she can share the details in her own book if she ever writes one.
When Bryan was 16 years old, he contacted Dean Melanko's wrestling school and was told it would cost him $2,500, but he needed a $500 deposit to secure his spot. Bryan was scared that there were hundreds of people on the waiting list and worked extra shifts at McDonald's in order to get the cash together asap. He put $500 deposit down for a wrestling school he couldn't go to for 2 more years.
Three months before Bryan graduated high school, the Melanko Wrestling School contacted to inform Bryan that the school was shutting down permanently. When Bryan asked for his $500 back, he was told that they no longer had it and that he was SOL.
While watching Monday Night RAW, an ad flashed advertising a 900 number (an old pay-per-minute phone concept that was always a money drain on the caller), and it advertised Shawn Michaels opening up a wrestling school. After an expensive phone call, Bryan was told to pay $20 more for a package to be mailed to him with more info. He did, and when he got the package, it detailed how Michaels wrestling school would cost $3,900 dollars, and it had another 900 number to call if you're interested. Bryan was demoralized and almost didn't call. When he did, though, he was speaking to Shawm Michaels mom, who was helping Shawn run it. Bryan's mom ended up doing all the talking, and the two mothers helped Bryan get set up with a place in San Antonio where the school was. They agreed to let Bryan pay monthly to help him with the finances.
Bryan's first day of wrestling school went exactly like everyone else's first day of wrestling school, with 90% of the students gassed and vomiting. Bryan said out of the 10 guys there, only he and Lance Cade didn't end up vomiting.
Bryan remembers how much Shawn Michaels prioritized his training to Lance Cade. One of the first days, Lance did a basic jump and got so much air that Michaels loudly proclaimed, "I smell money!"
Even though it was Shawn's school, the primary instructor was Rudy Boy Gonzales, a pretty insignificant wrestler from the 80s and 90s. Bryan puts over Rudy as a passionate trainer who motivated him to try harder. Bryan said Rudy would show Bryan anything Bryan saw on a tape and wanted to try.
Bryan says that he and "The" Brian Kendrick became friends immediately as they were both around the same size in the training and had the same level of passion for wrestling.
I always heard that Shawn Michaels wasn't very present for this school, but Bryan tells a different tale, putting Shawn over as someone who was always around and always showing them how to be better.
Bryan does remember some days that Shawn would come in with his sunglasses on, sit at the back of the class, and then dip out early. Bryan didn't realize then that Shawn was in deep with a bad painkiller addiction, and so some days he wasn't as present. Since Bryan grew up with his dad's addiction issues, Bryan says seeing Shawn actually kick the addiction fully put Shawn on a pedestal in Bryan's eyes.
After a couple of months, Shawn was telling the students to start thinking of ring names, and when Bryan couldn't come up with one, he asked Shawn about using his real name. Shawn thought about it for a second before adding "The American Dragon" to it. When Bryan asked why that name, Shawn said it's because Bryan wrestled like a Japanese guy. Bryan took that as a massive compliment.
Bryan didn't tell Shawn, but Bryan initially hated "The American Dragon" name.
Bryan had trouble being expressive and emoting in the ring, so Shawn had him wrestle under a mask.
On October 4th, 1999, Bryan wrestled his first ever match for Shawn Michaels' small promotion, Texas Wrestling Alliance. His opponent was Brian Kendrick (then known as Spanky), and Bryan says as rotton as it was, everyone in the back was super excited for their performance, including Shawn.
Bryan confirms that Kendrick called himself "Spanky" as a masturbation reference.
Shawn arranged for Bryan and Lance Cade to head over to Japan and wrestle for Frontier Martial Arts Wrestling, a bit of a "mudshow" wrestling promotion. Shawn got Bryan and Lance a spot on their card by agreeing to referee a match for the company.
Bryan remembers seeing one guy shove a bottle rocket up his opponents butt and light it off at that FMW show. So yeah, some pretty outlaw stuff.
Bryan describes attempting a moonsalt to the outside of the ring during this Japan tour, but he slipped and cracked his head on the cement. Bryan says, "When I came to, I didn't even know where I was" before describing how he stumbled his way through the match. He notes how concussions have always been a problem for him.
Lance Cade was invited back to FMW later for a 2nd tour, but they didn't ask for Bryan back. That's when Bryan realized that at his size, he needs to get much, much better.
In February 2000, HBK got Bryan, Lance Cade, Brian Kendrick, and another student named Shooter Shultz, a dark match on an episode of Smackdown. He says they planned for a 15-minute tag match before being told last minute that it's been cut down to 6 minutes. Bryan says HBK went and yelled at some people about "his guys" until he got it bumped up to 10 minutes.
Bryan says he got his first documented concussion that match, because they weren't used to a literal ramp, and Bryan cracked his skull on it, doing a pointless dive. He says the WWE doctor backstage told him to just make sure he doesn't fall asleep.
Bryan says when they got backstage after their match, HBK was excited and pumping them up, telling everyone backstage that they should sign all 4 guys immediately. This was on Tuesday, and by Thursday, when WWE still hadn't contacted them, Shawn called them up and threatened to take the 4 to WCW where Kevin Nash would make sure they were signed. Bryan says WWE quickly offered all 4 guys developmental contracts for $500 per week. Bryan says HBK was a great guy to have in your corner.
Shortly after getting the developmental contract, Bryan and Kendrick wrestled a main event ladder match for Shawn's TWA promotion. At the time, Bryan believed that in order to stand out, he would need to wrestle a more daredevil style, so he did some dumb stuff in this match. He did some ridiculous spot that ended with Bryan separating his shoulder. After the match, he took a table bump that legitimately knocked him unconscious for a full minute.
A week or 2 later, the teams had a rematch in a steel cage where all 4 agreed to blade for the first time. Why is he doing this dumb shit right after being offered a WWE contract?
Bryan says those ladder and cage matches made him realize he needed to change his style up and become more mat based. He wouldn't have had a long career if he kept getting hurt. At this point, Bryan has only been wrestling for 6 or 8 months and already suffered maybe 3 concussions. At least 2 for sure.
Bryan Danielson, Lance Cade, Brian Kendrick, and Shooter Shultz all moved to Memphis, where WWE's development primarily opperated out of at the time. William Regal was also a developmental system at the time, trying to show he had kicked his addiction issues.
Memphis Championship Wrestling was the territory they wrestled for, and Bryan remembers wrestling in all sorts of crazy locations like a WalMart parking lot once.
Although Shawn eventually took the mask off Bryan in TWA, the guys at MCW immediately put the mask back on Bryan.
The only time Bryan thought he might get called up to the main roster was in January 2001, when he heard rumors that WWE wanted to start up a cruiserweight division and use Danielson and Kendrick That didn't happen, though, and Bryan never heard another rumor or wiff of him being called up.
In June 2001, someone from WWE talent relations came down to evaluate talent. Brian was let go and told that despite his talent, they just had no plans for him.
In October 2001, Bryan was offered a spot in California based All Pro Wrestling's annual King Of The Indies tournament. Danielson would beat Kendrick in the first round, and after the show, Nick Bockwinkle, who was there watching, loudly told promoter Roland Alexander, "If you don't put that guy over." Bockwinkle said while pointing directly at Bryan, "You're crazy!"
APW head trainer Donovan Morgan was scheduled to beat Bryan in the second round and go on to win the tournament, but promoter Roland made the call to have Bryan win instead.
Bryan says this that while this really pissed Donovan off, what really upset the guy was when Roland offered Danielson and Kendrick trainer positions alongside Donovan.
Kendrick turned the offer down, but Bryan took it and moved to California in January 2002, where he became the head trainer. Though Bryan says he was a lousy trainer and no good at motivating anyone.
On February 2002, Bryan sat down with Gabe Sapolsky, who, after being inspired by the Super 8 tournament Bryan won, wanted Bryan part of his new promotion, Ring of Honor.
Bryan remembers both William Regal and John Laurinaitis said they would try to get Bryan an in to Japan, but both came up short, and both eventually stopped returning Bryan's calls.
In March 2002, Bryan Danielson, Christopher Daniels, and Brian Kendrick got a tryout with New Japan in Santa Monica. Antonio Inoki was actually there to oversee, but he literally had his back turned to the ring while Danielson and Kendrick wrestled. Inoki never bothered to turn around and watch them, instead watching someone stretch, Bryan says. Bryan later heard that New Japan never intended to hire anyone. They just wanted their dojo to look full for press.
After the "tryout," Bryan says that Inoki fell and had to be helped up by a bunch of people. Only the three of them didn't get up to help, with Kendrick saying loudly, "serves the motherfucker right."
Bryan kept making trips to the Santa Monica dojo every couple of weeks until Shinya "Togi" Makabe told him that if Bryan really wanted to be taken seriously, he had to be at the dojo every single day. Bryan took the advice seriously, quit his training job and moved to Santa Monica.
Bryan says he was offered to come tour with New Japan after only training at the dojo full time a few weeks. It was on this tour where Bryan first wrestled in the Tokyo Dome.
In May 2003, Bryan wrestled another Tokyo Dome show, where Bryan, Rocky Romero and TJ Perkins were all pulled aside in the hotel after the show, by Justin Cully. Cully literally slapped each man across the face, saying the slaps are from Inoki, who was disappointed in their proformances that night. Apparently Inoki expected them to wrestle more of a shoot style fight and was very upset.
In March 2004, Bryan won his first title with New Japan, the IWGP Junior Tag titles with Christopher Daniels, and Bryan would spend the majority of the year with New Japan where he wrestled 8 different tours.
Bryan pitched a 3 hour long match to Gabe Sapolsky for a ROH show and is disappointed they didn't go the full 3 hours.
Going into 2005, Bryan expected to wrestle his whole career in New Japan, but was startled when New Japan didn't get his visa renewed for the January tour like they always do. He was told it was a mistake and he would be back for March tour, but again he was told last minute they didn't have a visa for him. In May they contacted him last minute inviting him for a tour, but at a ridiculous pay cut down to $500 per week. Bryan turned the offer down and never went back to that Santa Monica dojo or work for New Japan again. He later heard that he was used as a pawn in a power struggle with the Dojo and New Japan.
In mid-2005 Bryan got an email from CM-Punk about a rumor suggesting that both WWE and TNA were interested in Bryan, Punk and Samoa Joe. Joe would quickly sign with TNA after this and Punk took a developmental deal with WWE. Bryan never heard from either company, and a few months later Gabe Sapolsky told Bryan he wanted to build ROH around Bryan but wanted a promise that Bryan wouldn't just leave to WWE or TNA. Great timing Gabe, because Bryan immediately said yes.
After winning the ROH World title in September 2005, Bryan says his title reign was falling flat until he started being cocky and cutting those "best in the world" promos. Bryan even shades Jericho and Punk a little by saying at the time no one else was saying it and that's why it worked so well for him.
Bryan puts over his matches with Nigel McGuinness in summer of 2006, but points out one in particular he regrets. Nigel had the idea for Bryan to pull Nigel's face into the steel ring post 3 times to get real blood. After 3 attempts and no blood, Nigel yelled, "One more time!" They got blood on the 4th time, and gave Nigel a severe concussion.
Five minutes into an hour long match with Colt Cabana in August 2006, Bryan landed bad on the outside of the ring, where he separated that same right shoulder as before and tore two tendons.
Three weeks later, Bryan defended his ROH title against KENTA of all people, who legitimately targeted his hurt shoulder all match. Then Bryan went to tour Japan with Pro Wrestling Noah where he and KENTA had a rematch.
Bryan would finally drop the ROH title in December 2006 and then take nearly 4 months off. This is the first time he took off since he started wrestling in 1999.
After doing a tour of Japan with Pro Wrestling Noah in April 2007, Bryan was excited to come back to ROH and signed a 2 year contract.
In June 2007, Bryan and Nigel wrestled an extremely physical match that featured a spot where the two traded headbutts. The match didn't air until September that year and in the mean time, the Chris Benoit double murdesuicide happened and the talk of concussions and safety concerns changed completely. The match was not recieved well and Gabe later told Bryan that they shouldn't have aired it at all.
ROH struggled after the Benoit incident and most everyone had to adapt and tone down their styles. Bryan wasn't one of those people, and actually refused to tone down his style. Later in 2007 he would rupture his ear drum exchanging open palm strikes with KENTA and he would suffer a detached retina in a match with Takeshi Morishima. To this day, he has trouble hearing from his left ear and has trouble with vision.
Bryan remembers being super late for a show and not even being able to meet his opponent beforehand. To Bryan's suprise, his opponent, who despite being green, was great to work with and the two had good chemistry. That was a young Jon Moxley.
In Summer of 2008, Shawn Michaels was fueding with Chris Jericho and they incorporated Lamce Cade on Jericho's side, since Shawn trained Lance. Shawn actually reached out to Bryan about also joining the WWE and being involved in the story.
Bryan met with Vince McMahon and remembers how taken back Vince seemed when they first met, and thinks it was because of Bryan's size and how plain he looked. Bryan also didn't sell himself well in the meeting, saying he is "just okay." Head of talent relations John Laurinaitis told Bryan that they would call him, but he never did.
When Bryan returned from a Japan tour in October 2008, he was shocked to find Gabe Sapolsky had been fired by ROH and replaced by Adam Pearce. Bryan details that while Gabe liked to book long shows with everyone on the card trying their hardest to steal the show, Pearce booked shorter shows and had the lower card guys preform well, but not to try everything under the sun to outshine the main event. You can see why Jim Cornette and Adam Pearce get along so well.
Bryan notes how he was fueding with Claudio Castignoli when Gabe was fired, but Pearce immediately ended that program to which Bryan says he and Claudio were disappointed.
After another failed attempt to get into WWE I'm early 2009, Bryan refocused his energies by moving to Las Vegas where he started training in kick boxing and other forms of mixed martial arts.
Bryan trained religiously for months under a former MMA fighter Neil Melanson. Neil is the one who taught Bryan the LaBell Lock.
When Bryan's ROH contract expired in May 2009, he called John Laurinaitis and left a message, but never heard back.
Bryan says in mid-2009, he was talking to Gabe Sapolsky about starting up a new promotion that would become Evolve. Bryan says that Paul Heyman was even involved with these talks.
Brian Kendrick called Danielson up to pitch Danielson coming to WWE as Kendrick's tag partner. Danielson even went and filmed a bunch of promos with Kendrick and fel optimistic. Unfortunately, Kendrick was fired just a few weeks later before any of those vignets aired and that opportunity was gone as well.
Bryan had given up ever going to WWE when John Laurinaitis called him in September 2009 offering him a main roster contract. Bryan was so excited he didn't have to go to developmental, that he would be right on the main roster immediately. Or so he thought, I guess they didn't bother telling Brilyan about NXT at that time, even though it sounds like he was signed with that in mind.
Nigel was also signed at the same time (probably also meant for NXT) but before either man could start, they had to pass WWE medical tests. They asked them both about past injuries, and Bryan just lied, saying he never had anything wrong and was fine. Didn't mention his shoulder being separated twice, or the detached retina, or any concussion. Nigel on the other hand, was very honest about his injuries, including a torn bicep that he didn't get worked on, he just rehabbed it. Nigel figured he was a lock and didn't see the need to lie.
WWE was concerned about Bryan's elevated liver enzymes, and wanted Nigel to get surgery on his bicep before they would sign him. Both guys were wrestling a farewell tour with ROH and both genuinely concerned they wouldn't actually be leaving. In their last match for ROH, Bryan accidentally gave Nigel a concussion, because apparently these guys only know how to wrestle at one speed!
Nigel couldn't afford the bicep surgery and his own doctor was telling him he is fine, so Nigel went to TNA instead. Nigel would only wrestle for another year before his body would break down too far on him and he would retire.
Bryan signed his WWE contract on October 2nd, 2009, nearly 10 years to the day of his debut match. William Regal actually told Bryan, "Your wrestling career came before this and is over now. Anything else that happens now is a bonus."
William Regal came up with the name "Daniel Bryan" for Bryan to use in WWE. Brian tried arguing to Laurinaitis to use his real name and citing John Cena as an example, Laurinaitis simply told Bryan, "We don't do that anymore."
In early 2010, Bryan and seven other guys were told one day about the NXT concept and how they would be used. Bryan found out who his NXT "pro" would be just like everyone else, when WWE posted it on their website. Bryan initially legit wanted Regal as his "pro" but soon realized being paired with Miz gives him a story immediately.
Bryan describes his time in NXT as the most unusual of his career. The "rookies" all legitimately didn't know what was going to happen on any show and everything they did was 100% unscripted and improvised.
The first night in NXT, all the "rookies" were told 15 minutes before the show, that their "pro" would cut a promo on them and they needed to react accordingly. Bryan had no idea that his pro, the Miz was going to tell him to head to the ring and cut a promo on himself, literally telling him on live TV to make the fans care about him. Bryan had no idea what to say, no real direction he was given to go in, and no tome to plan or rehearse. Miz also told him to come up with a catchphrase, and Bryan said he always hated catch phrases.
In the ring, Bryan cut a generic promo where he said he lost his train of thought and was super greatful when The Miz came out to finish the promo off. Bryan didn't know that would happen and Bryan definitely didn't know Miz was going to slap him at the end. Bryan says that later, The Miz confided to Bryan that he was worried Bryan would try to fight him over the slap.
Bryan credits Chris Jericho for getting him over in his first WWE match, and says that neither he, nor Miz knew that Miz was to beat up Brian after the match. Apparently, Miz was informed during the Jericho/Bryan match that he was to attack Bryan after the finish. Wild how much "flying by the seat of their pants" that WWE did with early NXT.
After the show, Jericho told Bryan that Vince was impressed, though he noted how Vince said, "Ugh, but he doesn't even eat meat!"
Bryan describes promo class with Vince as kinda insane to be honest. One time Bryan accidentally spilled a water bottle, and Vince asked everyone how that made them feel about Bryan. Stuff like that.
Bryan says the NXT rookies weren't allowed to use the regular dressing room and had to use some tarped off part of the backstage area.
Bryan notes how most of the NXT season, the NXT rookies never really knew what was going to happen. The 2nd week Bryan lost to Wade Barret and wasn't told that Chris Jericho would be attacking him after the match.
Bryan says his initial storyline with The Miz wasn't a losing streak idea, but something where each loss had meaning and was being built with purpose. Miz was very hands on with each show and helped to put over Bryan and the storyline, but when Miz missed 2 weeks in a row, the producers left in charge basically just turned it into a losing streak storyline, which Bryan says, "never works."
One time on a plane, Ezekiel Jackson asked "which rookie has an isle seat?" Bryan raised his had and Ezekiel said, "Not anymore." Bryan stood his ground and refused, offering his seat to anyone but Ezekiel. Ezekiel got pissed but William Regal came over and chastised Jackson, saying Bryan is like a son to him and how Bryan has more talent in his pinky ginger than Jackson has in his whole body.
Bryan says the NXT "Pros Polls" were legitimate voting done by the pros. That's why Bryan ended up in first place, despite losing every match.
A week after Wrestlemania in 2010, NXT's direction and purpose shifted away from being serious to silly, and Bryan says they were suddenly doing dumb game show competitions and putting over how demoralizing it was.
Bryan says Skip Shepfield (Ryback) was the only rookie taking the competitions seriously and trying to win each game. Sounds on brand for the big guy.
Bryan says he was trying to be humble when asked who should be eliminated and he said himself. He figured since he lost to everyone he didn't have a right to say any of them. Backstage Miz told him he made a mistake and shouldn't have put that perception out there.
A week later they liked the rookies up on TV (an hour before it goes live) and informed Bryan and fellow rookie Michael Tarver that they are both eliminated, without telling them beforehand. Bryan felt this validated all the warnings guys like Colt Cabana and other gave him about WWE.
Right after Matt Striker interviewed him backstage and when asked an insulting question, Bryan snapped and started talking down about "Daniel Bryan" and started to put over "Bryan Danielson!" Bryan says he could hear Vince screaming into Striker's ear piece and apparently Vince threw his headset when Bryan said his real name.
They made Bryan retape the interview without saying that, but still aired his original interview.
Bryan was surprisingly called back to NXT the following week to start a rivalry with Micheal Cole, who had been verbally obliterating Bryan on commentary since Bryan debuted. Bryan seems to be greatful for that program since it kept him on tv and made him confident that he would keep his job.
The RAW after NXT season 1 ended, all the rookies were pulled into Vince's office and told about Nexus and the attack in the main event. They were told not to tell anyone or else they will be fired. Bryan says he even lied to William Regal, when asked why he was dressed to wrestle.
They were supposed to attack John Cena and Rey Mysterio in the main event, because WWE let the fans vote on Cena's opponent and they assumed Rey would get it. Surprisingly it was CM Punk, and Bryan isn't sure how much Punk was told about the angle.
Bryan legit choked Justin Roberts during the melee, leaving red marks on his skin with his tie. Bryan said he doesn't trust non-wrestlers to sell good so he did it for real, with Justin going purple on Tv. Later during the brawl, Bryan was grabbing a cable to choke someone else when a cameraman told him "no choking!" Bryan does note that he thinks Justin Roberts found it pretty cool to be involved. And later Heath Slater grabbed the dismantled ring ropes to choke Cena, but Cena told him as well, "No choking."
Cena told Bryan before the angle, "It's not the hit you do that's important, it's what you do before the hit that matters." This is why Bryan spit in Cena's face before kicking him in the head.
Backstage, Bryan was reprimanded twice, for choking and spitting. Two days later Vince McMahon personally called Bryan to tell him he was let go and apologized to Bryan for it. Bryan, arrogant as all hell, responded with, "Don't apologize, I'll make more money this year on the independents than I would have working for you."
Bryan called John Laurinaitis to clear up details and Laurinaitis was shocked to hear Bryan was fired. Apparently Vince didn't tell anyone, just called Laurinaitis up and asked for Bryan's number. The comment Bryan made about money seemed to get to Vince since Laurinaitis called Bryan back and asked about it. Laurinaitis actually told Bryan that he can start working independent dates immediately if he wasn't on TV.
After working several shows and making good money off merchandise for several weeks, Bryan was shocked when John Laurinaitis called him in August and asked him to come back for a big angle leading into SummerSlam. Bryan sheepishly asked for a raise and made sure he could make all his already planned independent bookings.
Bryan says Nexas should have won at SummerSlam, noting how they went from dangerous to jobbers in one night.
Bryan remembers a taped RAW after SummerSlam where he did an angle with The Miz. When he got backstage Vince was so mad at how it came off that he made Bryan and others go back out there and do it again. It was the first time Bryan ever had to redo something like that and he said he felt humiliated.
Bryan didnt seem to see much value in being US Champion outside of how it would keep him on tv and maybe monthly ppv matches.
At Hell in a Cell 2010 ppv, Bryan had a good match with Miz and John Morrison, but was scolded after that match for a spot where Bryan threw Miz's stoog Alex Riley off the stage where he landed on cameraman. They showed the two guys the footage and accused them of doing it on purpose to get themselves over. Bryan started regretting coming back and really hating his time in WWE.
Bryan was paired with the Bella Twins in a storyline he hated, that was based on the Twins confusing the word "vegan" for "virgin" and competing to sleep with Bryan. Despite how bad that storyline was, Bryan and Brie would develop a relationship and would start dating in February 2011.
Sheamus was given a choice of Wrestlemania opponents that year between Rey Mysterio and Daniel Bryan, and Sheamus chose Bryan. Bryan was greatful but concerned Sheamus chose wrong and their match would be cut but Sheamus wasn't worried at all. A week before Mania they were informed their match was on the pre-show at a meeting with literally every other wrestler. Bryan says Sheamus buried his face in his hands and remembers how Rey Mysterio got on the card in a match with Cody Rhodes. Bryan says Sheamus picked the wrong guy.
Bryan got some details in his book messed up where he talks about Miz winning the WWE title off Cena at Wrestlemania 27 and he talks about how Miz was WWE Champion going into Over The Limit ppv 2011, but Miz lost the title by then. It's notable because he says he pitched hard for a "Rocky style" storyline where he would challenge Miz for the WWE title at the Over The Limit ppv.
Bryan says the 2011 Smackdown Money in the Bank winner wasn't decided until the day of the show but it was always between Wade Barret, Cody Rhodes and Bryan. He says despite winning the briefcase, his tv time tricked down and eventually he was spending weeks off tv, until he was randomly inserted into the World title program between Mark Henry and Big Show in late 2011.
Bryan was being left at home and off shows, even watching Survivor Series 2011 from home and was suprised when WWE had him come to the December TLC ppv show, last minute. The day of the show he was told he was cashing in and winning the title and the only direction Vince McMahon gave him was to act like he won the superbowl, so that's where Bryan's over the top celebration came from. He didn't even tell his girlfriend Brie Bella about the plan and says she was shocked when he came backstage afterwards.
The only direction Vince gave Bryan as champion is to celebrate every appearance like he won the lottery, saying, "there is no too over the top here."
Bryan said he adapted his "Yes" chants from MMA fighter Diego Sanchez who was celebrating in a similar way at the time.
Bryan's favorite moment from that first world title run was the closing sequence in the 2012 Elimination Chamber match with him and Santino Marella.
Bryan originally expected he and Sheamus to get 15 minutes or so at Wrestlemania for their match, but was shocked when Chris Jericho told him he heard it would be 8 minutes, including the pre & post match stuff. A week later Arn Anderson confirmed to Bryan that he would lose a 1-move match, dropping the world title to Sheamus at Wrestlemania that year. Bryan and Sheamus were both pissed, to say the least.
Sheamus expressed concern that the short match would turn fans against him as a new champion. Smart man.
Bryan says a bunch of guys came up to him after his Mania loss and were pissed at what they did to Bryan out there. Great Khali even came up and told Bryan that it was bullshit in his broken English.
Originally Sheamus was planned to move into a fued with Alberto Del-rio right after Mania, but the crazy crowd support for Bryan forced them to extend they story another month. Bryan says his Extreme Rules ppv match with Sheamus in 2012 is one of his favorites. Mine too!
Bryan acknowledged the weird booking of Punk as champion in 2012, noting how heels would face John Cena, lose, then be sent to face Punk with no momentum. Interesting take on the situation.
Bryan mentions how when he and Punk fueded in 2012, they never got main event spots outside of non-televised events. One time at a house show, Bryan and Punk veered too far into comedy and after the match John Cena chastised Bryan by pointing out that they didn't wrestle a "main event style" match. Apparently the next house show, Cena was moved into the main event spot with Punk/Bryan being before the intermission. An enraged Punk went and yelled at people until he got his main event spot back. This time, no comedy spots were done and they stayed the main event for the circuit.
Bryan had brand new, edgier gear made up prior to Money in the Bank 2012 and didn't tell anyone backstage. He wore shorts over his trunk and hid the jacket until he had to go out. When he got to the ring, the ref told him to lose the jacket, because I guess Vince was in gorilla position freaking out over how Bryan looked. Dean Melanko was the producer for the match, and Bryan felt bad when Vince blamed him for allowing Bryan to wear it.
Bryan was originally planned to wrestle Charlie Sheen at SummerSlam 2012 in a celebrity match, but Charlie "bailed" as Bryan put it.
Bryan was trying to be "Mr Small Package" by winning matches with Small Package and then boasting about how he has an "inescapable small package!" It didn't get over.
Bryan thought his anger management vignets with Kane and Dr Shelby were going to be terrible.
The only reason they stopped using Dr Shelby is because he had limited days off from his regular teaching job.
Bryan and Kane really wanted their team name to be "Team Friendship" and they even had shirt ideas but Vince let the fans vote and he always kept those votes legit, so their team name was "Team Hell No" which Bryan brings up a good point about. He said as a team primarily appealing to kids, a name with "Hell" in it would be hard to sell merchandise to those kids.
The plan was to break up their team so they could have a good heated fued together, but they were so popular that they kept teaming for 9 months.
Bryan says his first good Wrestlemania experience was in 2013 when he teamed with Kane.
One night after Mania in 2013, when Bryan tagged with Kane and Undertaker to face The Shield, Vince McMahon told Bryan that he would pay him several thousand dollars if he could get Undertaker to hug Bryan in the ring. After the show Bryan got on the mic and tried his hardest to get the hug but couldn't quite do it.
Bryan says that both he and Kane agree that teaming together was some of the most fun in either man's career.
Bryan was scheduled to win the biggest match of his career up to that point, he would be beating Randy Orton clean on RAW. Bryan would botch a dive that left both arms nunb and him unable to stand. He got feeling back in one arm but eventually the doctor called the match off. Backstage Bryan started screaming at Triple H for calling the match and called him a hypocrite for doing so, citing his own injuries in matches. At one point Orton tried to calm Bryan down, but Bryan snapped at him and Orton started yelling too. Brie got Bryan away to calm down, but when Vince came to talk to Bryan, the shouting started again. Much later, William Regal advised Bryan to apologize to both Vince and Triple H, to which Bryan took his advice. The next week, Bryan would get his win over Orton and he says that that drama over everything made that win matter more.
An MRI showed that one of Bryan's disks was pushing into his nerves and eventually he would need surgery. With his momentum starting to rise, Bryan opted to put surgery off.
John Cena pitched facing Daniel Bryan at Money in the Bank 2013 ppv. When Vince asked why, Cena said because it's the biggest match they could do at that time. Vince ended up agreeing, but deciding that it belongs at SummerSlam that year instead!
As proud as Bryan is of the build to and match with Cena at SummerSlam, he acknowledges that the ppv didn't do good numbers, nor did the house show business the following 2 months when Bryan was the main protagonist. He thinks a lot the the Authority promos on him stemmed from some truth.
Bryan isn't satisfied with the quality of matches he was putting out in the latter half of 2013 amd he specifically calls out the series of bad finishes he had with Randy Orton in ppv main events. From the fast counting crooked ref, to that terrible one with Big Show knocking everyone out, and then to Shawn Michaels betraying Bryan at Hell in a Cell ppv.
Bryan initially thought he was getting a Wrestlemania match with Shawn Michaels after that Hell in a Cell finish, but after talking with HBK, it was clear that was never in the cards.
Bryan feels he failed as a main eventer in the 2nd half of 2013, regardless of match quality. He didn't move business and that's all that matters.
The Slammy's were fan votes and Vince didn't think Bryan would win and almost laughed when Bryan asked him what he should say if he does win. Vince said, "whatever you want." I wish I could have seen Vince's face when Bryan won later that night.
When Bryan started fueding with Wyatt Family in late-2013, Bryan was pitching for him to be "brainwashed" and join the group. He suspects that his rising popularity in early 2014 is what convinced WWE to have Bryan turn on Bray and leave the group. At the time, Bryan was hoping to stay with the group and be involved in the planned Cena/Wyatt Wrestlemania program since Bryan had no plans for Mania at that time.
Bryan says he was disappointed when Vince told him he would be facing Sheamus again at Wrestlemania 2014. No disrespect to Sheamus, but Bryan felt he belonged in a higher spot.
Bryan felt bad for the way Rey Mysterio was boo'd at the 2014 Royal Rumble.
When Punk quit WWE after Rumble that year, Bryan remembers how plans didn't change too much for a few weeks, and he assumes Vince expected Punk to come back and for Batista to win the crowds over, and neither happened.
Triple H was being vocal about wanting to face Bryan at Mania that year, but Bryan was trying to not get his hopes up since he had seen Triple H try and fail to get his ideas on screen.
Bryan and Brie only agreed to let Total Divas shoot their wedding, because Total Divas agreed to pay for the whole wedding! Hard to say no to that!
Bryan is very satisfied with his matches at Wrestlemania 30 and says he was so focused between matches that he missed Undertaker losing to Lesnar. He heard the ring bell and looked up at the monitor in shock. He says they cameras should have filmed the guys and girls in the back because their reactions were wild, apparently.
Five days after Wrestlemania 30, Bryan and Brie got married, but 2 days after their honeymoon ended, Bryan's dad unexpectedly passed away at the age of 57. Bryan was devastated and described how he was crying still as he was writing about it.
The book ends on a complete downer, very unlike most other wrestling books. Bryan says that as long as he wrestled when asked if everything he was missing or sacrificing was worth it, Bryan always said yes. He assumed he would have more time when he was done and could catch up on what he missed, but his dad is gone and Bryan openly admits that it wasn't worth it. If he could, Bryan would change a lot of his decisions if it meant more time with his dad.
He says he is still wrestling though because he literally doesn't know what else to do or what comes after. This is especially depressing 10 years later, when Bryan is still wrestling despite having started a family of his own. I hope he doesn't regret any time missed with his daughter.
He ends the book by describing the last time he saw his dad, on Christmas in 2013, where his dad dressed up as Santa. Fuck. I'm sad now.

Woke up at 3:30AM and worked on editing a video for about 3 hours. Got a decent bit done, but didn't take my nap at 7:30AM.
100 Pull-ups: Started these at around 7:40. Currently writing this while resting, have 15 left. Doing them in sets of 2-3 and the occasional 4. Elbows definitely sore. Will be taking some collagen supplement later and drinking lots of water to prevent tendonitis.
Had to run an errand after this that ended up taking about 2 hours. Should have learned by now and brought something to do during some of the downtime. I didn't even use that time to catch up on tracking my macros.
YouTube - spent a large portion on last night, this morning, and this afternoon editing a video. Busted out the actual camera instead of using my phone and actually tried to make it look half-decent. The editing took a long while, as it's been a while since I used Sony Vegas that in depth. I'm going to be leaning further into investing time into the channel, as I think it could interest a lot of people. It's at a little under 600 views right now after being out for 3-4 hours. Hoping this one does well since I spent so much time on it.
When I get into a workflow its hard for me to take a break to eat and do other things. Editing locked me in for a couple hours at a time, and I had to put out a lot of little fires once I was finished, such as a lot of the habits on my Notion tracker. It's definitely helping me remember to do all the little things, I can't remember the last time I've been this consistent.
Computer Science - No new progress on this front, other than some of my assignments getting graded. One did get kicked back though, as a speed-read through the prompt and thought I was looking at a list of topics, when they were actually banned topics. Will have to re-do that one tomorrow. Maybe I can use the microphone function in Word to talk my essay out on paper while doing my pull-ups. That would be extremely time efficient, kind of like Tony Stark working on his suits while doing pull-ups.
Workout - hit chest and then did some abs. Will admit I could have done more for abs. At least I hit them. I'm hoping tomorrow I get through my 6-mile and 100-pull-ups early so that I can spent time on other stuff during the bulk of the day.
​

Hello Reddit throwaway here So I'm currently on a journey to get a diagnosis, for EDS potentially, it's not something I want to have but it's the thing that sounds as though it makes the most sense to what I've experienced in my body growing up, I've been chasing a diagnosis since I was 15 which was the first time a doctor prescribed me opiates, was told to go away lose weight and my pain would 'go away' this went on for years I was given pain killers never taken seriously never investigated
I moved to a city back in 2021 ?? Put off seeing a GP for ages, saw a few shit ones who fobbed me off again, you're plus size your weight is because your obese. Finally found a doctor who started to take me seriously, got sent for 1 set of MRI scan (they didn't get stir sequences we were originally looking for inflammation as I thought I may have had AS at the time)
Waited about a year before I got sent for more after waiting for them to be revived, got sent for more scans back in December, still haven't been reviewed by a specialist at the hospital, I've made an appointment next week to discuss all of my below issues and approach the fact since she noted the joint flexibility that it could be this is something I could have ? Any opinions please I'm so sorry I know it's long but I've been suffering in agony now 13 years and I need answers/help
As a kid, as a lot of kids are I guess I was always clumsy, always falling over, walking into things and that's something that's followed me through to this very day, on a daily basis.
I was a bendy kid also, could do the splits, I had fun party tricks where I could contort my body more than a lot of the kids my age, I've always been able to bend my thumb back to my arm(which I can still do now) a few other but not all can bend certain degrees farther back than they should and also reach both my arms behind my back to touch etc my knees hyper extend (this last one is the thing my rheumatologist noticed that started putting things into place for me
I bruise like a PEACH, I bruise very easily and somewhat excessively which I've always been confused by as well. I don't think I get dislocations however, I do have clicky joints ?? And I've had hip pain as long as I can remember. I also saw someone Ehlers Danlos can mean you have an inability to run fast and I haven't ever been able to explain it but I was always the slowest in my class didnt matter how hard I tried (if this one isn't true maybe that's just me)
I've read somewhere POTs is commonly associated with EDS and I do often have dizzy and light headed spells often upon standing up, again not sure if related but I can FEEL my blood sugar getting super low, I've been tested for diabetes that was negative
Kinda embarrassing but I'm aware it's a symptom but I've suffered urinary incontinence issues for as long as I remember?? Like all through high school, still some times to this day ?? I recently moved jobs where I'm not in hospitality anymore and it's retail based and I'm actually able to go to the bathroom if I feel I need it, but it'll come in SUDDENLY and even if I'm close by it's a struggle ?? I've never understood it always thought something was wrong even as a kid
Oh a BIGGIE is the widespread pain, I've had chronic pain ever since the age of 13/14?? I thought it always manifested itself as lower back pain but looking at the big picture my lower back was just the thing bothering me most while working full time hospitality, I've had time to adjust and move over to a job where I'm not on my feet nearly as much and I'm not putting my body through absolute carnage 12, 13 hour shifts on my feet all day long, I thought something was wrong because everyone else was still FINE afterwards, I felt as if I'd run a marathon, barely be able to stand/walk on my feet due to the agony. I thought I may have had sciatica at one point as I'd often get shooting pain down my leg and I'd also get really bad Achilles tendonitis I think it is agony in the back of your heel and the arches of my feet have always been agony, shoes have never fit properly and were never comfy the only comfy shoe I've found is crocs!!
Sorry I'm aware this is long so I'll try keep this short an sweet!!! Fatigue, extreme levels of it I experience a good maybe 60% of the time ??? I don't feel rested no matter how little or much I sleep, feel genuinely no energy Sleep next, I've had insomnia as long as I can remember experiencing depression so probs about 14 ??? Awful terrible I can't sleep (I medicate with BM 🍃 the diagnosis would mean I'm able to medicate legally (I wouldn't say my use is recreational but I know I'm not getting the full benefits I could from it
Also experienced GI issues my whole life never got it diagnosed but boy my insides are super sensitive I'm either blocked up or can't stop very rare I have in between periods where it isn't super duper rough but it is what it is, it's on my list!!!
If you got anywhere near this far you ROCK

I have a problem. Must have spent about 1k on tools over the past year and a half. I just hate paying for labor on stuff I can easily do with the right tools, so I buy them and do it myself, probably comes from growing up poor. Nothing against shops, something in me just dies when someone else works on my bikes. Anyway, two bikes, both running flawlessly, I wonder if I could have just taken them to the shop once a year instead of spending so much on tools n whatnot that get used maybe once or twice a year. I've started working on friends bikes as well just to justify the purchases. And rebuilding my nieces and nephews bikes actually makes it kinda worth it all honestly. Anyone else like this?
Edit: Story time A few things I should clarify. I don't have everything a shop would have, but everything I have is Park Tool or equivalent. Came from BMX, I'm coming back to MTB after about 7 years off for a serious injury to my knee. I never took care of my old hardtail until something broke. I didn't realize my crash on the first day with that bike had bent my derailleur hanger. So, it was never properly indexed. Years later, I was pedaling into a step down (I had no business attempting on that bike in hindsight), and the gear dropped, threw me off balance, the whip turned into a 90° turn and I tore my LCL, a patella tendon and some small fractures on my tibia. Also a concussion and laceration cause I thought a backwards hat was suitable head protection.
Fast forward to a year and a half ago, I rebuilt said bike and bought a helmet, to see if my knee could handle it. It did. So after a few rides, I bought a new full squish. Now I'm obsessed if not paranoid for maintenance. Having a great time getting back into it and really getting into the mechanics of it, both on the bike and my riding. But very few of my old tools work for the new systems, so I'm just buying until I've got everything I need.
Excluding parts, it's probably more like $600 in tools at this point. Still missing a work stand, truing stand, and hydraulics tools.
The industry I work in is extremely brand specific, so that's probably got more carryover to mtb than it should. If anyone cares, I'll make a list of what I have.

As the title suggests, I'm at the point where I'm returning to regular activities with no aggravation or re-appearing of symptoms! It's been a bit of a journey, so here's the story and how I recovered. I had a double crush type injury stemming from my neck, as well as my Thoracic Outlet, producing symptoms from my neck to my hand on the affected side, as well as some minor bilateral involvement into the other arm.
Firstly as some background, I have a diagnosed auto-immune inflammatory arthritis called Ankylosing Spondylitis (since age 9, I'm 30 now) - this is what made things a bit more complicated. The disease attacks your spine and essentially any other joint / tendon attachment / ligament attachment, which can lead to a whole host of muscles getting affected among other things. I am on immunosuppressant medication for this which generally keeps it well managed. It's EXTREMELY unlikely anyone here has this as a cause of their RSI - but I have this along side an RSI and have essentially fully recovered. I'm sharing this because even with a serious inflammatory condition I managed to fix the RSI issue - so there is hope.
My RSI issues started around 8-9 months ago. I was/am a regular bouldereclimber, and my day job was/is a VFX artist (self employed, so no paid holiday or sickness). I work from home, and often go long stretches of using a computer and mouse with no rest, then immediately go to a climbing gym after work and continue to assault my forearms and arms. I was also a gamer in my spare time too. Recipe for disaster...
Symptoms started minorly, and I brushed them off as usual muscle soreness or perhaps my arthritis playing up a bit (my neck basically always hurts, but was this due to AS (ankylosing spondylitis) or partly the RSI issue starting? (YES, IT WAS). Playing WoW after work, I noticed my arms getting so horribly fatigued from mashing my keyboard I could barely lift them. This is where it all began and gradually got worse and worse. I started getting shooting pains into my face. Then into my arm...
Below are the symptoms I started to have, which gradually got worse and worse, to the point I could barely use a knife and fork, wash my hair in the shower, brush my teeth, and of course, work and climbing were now impossible for me. Withing 5 minutes of work using a keyboard and mouse, my forearms would be so painfully tight I couldn't hold anything, and my hands would be cramping up. These symptoms were mostly all right sided, but maybe at 20% intensity on the left arm at the worst point.
Symptoms List

• My forearm pronators would easily fatigue, and get what I would describe as 'bricked' or 'pumped'. Like I'd been climbing for an hour, but I had just chopped up a carrot or brushed my teeth for example.
  
• Loss of dexterity - particularly in my thumb and forefinger, causing me to drop things
  
• Doing anything with my arms elevated was impossible, and my arm lacked blood flow when raised above my head
  
• Muscle Cramps and twitching from my shoulders down to my hands, and even my chest and face.
  
• Intense neck pain (back of neck)
  
• Jaw Pain
  
• Tightness and pain in my arm muscles and tendons (bicep, forearm, they literally felt like bone they were so tense)
  
• Rotator Cuff pain
  
• Incredibly tight scalene muscles
  
• My hands felt clumsy and uncoordinated
  
• Waking up with completely numb arm and pins and needles throughout the night
  
• Sudden shooting pains into my forearms and the back of my hand / fingers
  
• Terrible shoulder blade / rotator cuff pain
  
• Perceived weakness / feeling that something was 'off' in my arm
  
• Hand would go cold quickly
  
• Neuralgia/shooting pains into my face and right eye
  
• Intermittent tingling in various fingers and thumb
  
• Tingling in the side of face
  
• I'm sure there are many more symptoms I'm forgetting now, but basically my entire right arm was toast.
  

I went down various rabbit holes and made myself incredibly anxious thinking I had every possible terrible illness possible causing this. I tried stretching my arms out myself, and my neck, which only made things worse. I needed to keep working, and had just been hit with a huge repair bill for my flat. This caused my stress and anxiety levels to sky rocket even more.
I was still trying to do everything I was previously doing, and causing more damage to myself in the process. This plus stress then caused my arthritis condition to flare up too. I now was unable to use my arms, barely able to walk, unable to sleep due to my arms constantly getting pins and needles and going numb, in tremendous pain, feeling completely useless, and all in all not in a good way.
So, what was happening?
My first port of call, and ultimately the thing that made the biggest difference, was seeing an Osteopath. Luckily I know a brilliant one that has helped me since I was a child with my arthritis condition. He assessed me, and quickly noted my first right rib had become elevated and locked, and my right clavicle was swollen (the swelling was due to my arthritis, as the disease had been active here in the past). Everything pointed towards TOS, something I'd not heard of before.
My neck was also in a terrible way due to my (lack of) work ergonomics and AS, and had caused a gigantic knot of muscle to form, along with crepitus all along my traps, and into my shoulder blade. He would press in one particular region in the top of my traps / shoulder and it would send the exact shooting pain into my face and eye.
As well as my poor posture at my desk (sitting slumped slightly to one side in my chair, with one arm extended clicking a mouse) I was also sitting in a similar position on the sofa in the evenings, often to one side (leaning towards where my girlfriend sits on the sofa to watch TV). I was doing the same thing in bed, laying on my side and watching stuff on my laptop with my head in a forward posture.
The combination of poor ergonomic working position which was bleeding into my out of work activities, plus climbing on top of that (and 10 years of neck pain due to Ankylosing Spondylitis), caused a chain reaction of muscles getting overworked, and their work getting passed onto the next muscle group. This next group would then fatigue to the point of exhaustion, pass their workload to the next group, until clicking my mouse was involving muscles in my upper neck. I was so incredibly tense that basically everything from my neck downwards was locked in place, and was causing nerve compression. Not only in my neck (I have issues from C2-T3), but my brachial plexus / thoracic outlet too. This caused a host of downstream issues into my arms and hands.
This is what is typically called a Double Crush type injury where there are two areas of compression. The osteopath said it’s usually seen in people that have been in a car crash. You can get triple and quintuple crushes the more points of compression there are. He suspected there was some compression going on in my upper forearm too, luckily that area resolved the fastest. The neck however is another story!
Recovery Journey
I was still sceptical after the first osteopath visit, and couldn't help endlessly searching reddit and google for answers: Pro Tip, this will almost never help, and definitely didn't for me. I have terrible health anxiety, and this ended up making me even more tense, contributing to further symptoms and causing me to spiral.
Eventually, I gave up on endlessly googling and decided to more seriously follow the osteopaths advice, and started to see some improvement. But also made a lot of mistakes.
Mistake 1
Not following the professionals advice properly, and going too hard with stretches. He gave me just 4 stretches to do, and ICE ICE ICE my neck, this didn't directly target my forearms though which was my main complaint. The stretches I was prescribed were mostly for my Hips and Thoraccic spine, with one in what was my opinion at the time, rather tame stretch for my forearms. Despite him explaining exactly why, I couldn't see how this would help, so I added more of my own stretches into the regime thinking it would expedite my recovery. Big mistake. Suddenly everything was getting worse despite taking time off work. For example I was trying to stretch my tight scalene muscles in particular, which actually caused them to tighten even more. I told my osteopath, he told me to do exactly as he said, do not deviate, and rest.
Mistake 2
Going crazy with what I could do - running. The initial stress had died down after a month or so, and so had my arthritic symptoms. All my hobbies involve my hands, so I went balls to the wall with running, which I hadn't done that regularly in a while. Now I had issues with my knee and foot because of my tight hip. (I ran 3 10Ks within a week and a half from not having run since 10 months prior). This then meant I was spiralling even more thinking symptoms were spreading even more. Additionally, long runs then started to aggravate my neck as well which was in a fragile state. Slow running, and even better, walking, is what I switched to eventually.
Mistake 3 -- this is a MAJOR ONE
This is the biggest one, I KEPT trying to test myself to see if I was healing or getting worse. I was using a hand dynamometer to test my grip strength (I had this from climbing). I was seeing how long I could dead hang. I was seeing how many times I could blink my hands open and closed with the Roos test. I made a small amount of progress in recovery then went to the gym to see how easily I could deadlift 130kg. This immediately set me back to where I was 2 months previous. I could go on and on with all the stupid stuff I was doing. I've come to realise my health anxiety is most likely OCD because of this. I'm constantly 'checking' - and this was causing even more damage.
Mistake 4
Not managing stress and anxiety. I got off reddit and google - low and behold I was not now focusing 24/7 on my symptoms and googling various diseases all the time - this made me not only feel better mentally, but actually get better physically too.
What Worked
It's definitely easier to rule out things that didn't work or made it worse, so it's hard to say what was the most effective. But here is what I tried and what I believe gave me good results. I'll also list some of the things that didn't work so well.

• I'll say it again, but getting off google / reddit looking for answers. If you're spiralling, it wont help.
  
• Changing my desk / keyboard / mouse. I use a split keyboard, a wacom tablet as a touch pad plus use the pen and occasionally a vertical mouse. I set my desk at a proper ergonomic height, as well as my monitor.
  
• Stopped work and HEAVILY limited what I did with my arms for 2-4 months. It's a long time, but it was necessary. No cooking, no carrying shopping, no DIY, nothing. I luckily could afford to stop work for a month and a half and just rest.
  
• Ice. I Iced my neck, shoulder, elbow, forearm. Everyday constantly. I had about 4 ice packs constantly rotating in and out of the freezer.
  
• Posture - no more slouching, and even when walking, I'd focus on keeping my head up and shoulders slightly engaged. Don't use posture trainers/braces. They do more damage.
  
• Stretches focusing on full spine mobility, but in particular my Thoracic spine (Despite most of my issues being cervical). I did about 20 minutes of stretching at least 3 times a day. I used an app called Bend to help remind me to do this.
  
• Stretches focusing on my hips and lower body. Hard to make sense of, but there was one particular stretch for my hips, that when I did it, I could actually feel a pull in my forearm and across my chest. (I have arthritis in my right hip which is very tight, so issues can stem from here too, arthritis or not)
  
• Sleeping flat on my back using a contoured pillow. This was hard at first as a side sleeper.
  
• Walking, and using a spin bike with no arms - basically kept me from going stir crazy. I added in some gentle running when my knee got better and kept it casual.
  
• Once my first rib became more mobile from the back stretches, I was able to add in more full body stretches including my arms, following the osteopaths advice.
  
• Seeing my osteopath - exercise and stretching plans, and reassurance
  
• Sauna - I did this 2-3 times a week
  
• Ice Bath - Whenever I used the Sauna
  
• Getting enough sleep, I tried to get 9 hours each night and still aim to!
  
• Magnesium supplementation at bed time, and magnesium gel on my neck and arms in the day.
  
• Wim Hof Breathing. This helped with anxiety hugely and stress management. It's something I did years ago and fell out of practice with a bit. Happy to have this back.
  
• Limiting mobile phone use - it was just more stress on my arms. I used screen time and limited myself to an hour a day combined across my apps that I frequent.
  
• Arm Aid Massager - Really helped my forearm tension / tightness ease off.
  
• Increased protein intake. I eat a healthy non-processed diet already, this was my only diet change.
  

These next ones might be overkill, and you don't need to over complicate things, however...

• Additional Supplements(?) This is hard to quantify exactly how and whether they helped, but once I started on a supplement regime (My sister is a nutritionist so I got advice there) my recovery really started to progress much faster. Would it have happened anyway? Who knows. I wouldn't advise to take what I did as it is all individual based. You need to see someone qualified, but here's what I took anyway: Omega 3, Turmeric, a Joint Complex with Glucosamine and Vitamin C, Vitamin D3+K2 Spray (A couple of these I was already taking)
  
• Mushroom Extract supplements. This is something I've not seen mentioned before on the subreddit. I took Lions mane mushroom which supposedly, and has some evidence to suggest, can help with nerve healing. I also took Cordyceps mushroom extract as well to help with muscle recovery.
  
• CBD Balm - not really sure about this one - felt slightly soothing on the skin, not sure it did anything though. Save your money as it is rather expensive.
  
• Cutting out diet drinks (Coke zero etc) - again hard to say if this actually helped, but I've stopped this and I'm now better. Kombucha I find to be a great alternative.
  

What Didn't Work

• Nerve Glides - seemed to just make everything worse and exacerbate symptoms. I couldn't work out in my head how dragging an irritated nerve through a compressed tunnel would help either. (my Osteopath told me not to do these when I asked him about them after trying them myself) Some people swear by them though, and I'm sure they are effective in some cases, just not mine.
  
• Trackball mouse. Seemed to make symptoms worse. I tried the Slimblade Pro for a week, didn't like how I had to click the thing, it strained my arms.
  
• Only using a vertical mouse - the pinching of the mouse with my fingers and thumb aggravated my forearm after a while. Using a touchpad/tablet 80% of the time, and having the mouse for certain things seems to be the best balance for me.
  
• Braces - in my case they weren't helpful - I was advised against using them. I did however try a cubital tunnel one to keep my arm straight in bed (I would get more pins and needles as my arms would bend / curl up in my sleep), but the brace itself was causing irritation, and caused my arm to cease up from being in one position and also caused it to go numb. Just sleeping on my back, with my arms very slightly raised on a fairly flat pillow helped. After waking and repositioning my arms for a month, my body eventually just learnt to keep my arms straight in my sleep.
  

How Am I now?
I went climbing for the first time in many months recently. I took it very easy as I'll need to build back to where I was, but I feel absolutely fine afterwards. In my next osteopath visit we will be talking about exercises to add in to strengthen weakened muscles that contributed to this RSI. I'm sure it will be another 3-4 months, if not more until I'm climbing has caught up to where it was (If anyone else is a climber, my grade was around 6c+ font, and upon returning I could still easily climb a 6a, but tried nothing harder, and mostly stuck to climbs around 4-5b just to get moving, without putting too much pressure/load through my forearms and fingers. Slab is your friend, don't go on anything overhanging as tempting as it may look!)
I'm back to working full time with NO issues. I take regular breaks multiple times a day to stretch every, and still do all my longer stretching routine every morning and evening. I use reminders on my phone and smart watch to remind me to stand up and move around every 40 minutes.
I stripped varnish, sanded and re-varnished my kitchen counters this weekend. It took 11 hours of using my arms. Again, I'm totally fine and have none of the old symptoms back, other than some slight DOMS in my forearms.
My biggest change is my work-life balance. I was burning myself out working far too late into the evening and always in work mode. I changed my desk to one that folds up, so at the end of the day I can pack up my work stuff (despite working from home) and physically shut it away. This way I don't always have a visual reminder putting my body into a tense and stressed state. Out of sight, out of mind. This also stops me sitting in the same desk chair I work in all evening too (playing computer games, carrying on with work etc).
On that note, I've decided to pretty much stop gaming though. I wasn't finding it as fun as I once did, and figured it's probably for the best. Not to say I can't, but there are just other things I value much more now. Life is basically back to what it was before, but I will never stop stretching each day now, and keep up my new found ergonomic habits to prevent any future issues!
It is also clear to me from reading posts on this subreddit, among others, that most of us seem to have some sort of mental health involvement too, whether it be anxiety and stress (in my case) or depression, and so on. It's a self fulfilling cycle. Symptoms appear, we focus on them, become stressed and anxious, which makes the symptoms become heightened, and the cycle continues.
Did I see a medical doctor at any point?
I didn't - however two of my best friends are both medical doctors, and were in agreement with my Osteo. All 3 advised if I didn't see any improvement in a couple of months to go to the GP. I did have an appointment booked with my GP to start the whole process, but when I started seeing improvement, I ended up cancelling it. My Osteopath also reassured me if he was even .5% uncertain of the cause he'd send me off for imaging. He'd treated many people with the same symptoms as me in the past.
Given I live in the UK, the timeline of when I'd actually get seen by a specialist (would this be neurology/MSK/sports PT/back to my rheumatologist/all of the above?) would have likely have taken quite a while. I also have regular blood tests and imaging done due to my auto immune arthritis (fusion of my SI joints bilaterally, damage to my sternoclavicular joint (collarbone) and inflammation in essentially all my cervical vertebrae and large parts of thoracic), and I see my Rheumatologist 1-2 times a year for check ups. In my next appointment I will of course update them with the fun I've had in the past year! Thankfully, as I was seeing progress after I accepted the cause, I carried on with what I was advised to from my osteopath. I would advise seeing a doctor though, particularly if you can't find results with an osteopath, or symptoms get worse.
These RSI issues are complicated to treat and diagnose, and there seems to be a want to label every one of these conditions/syndromes so we fit into a set of statistics with a pre-programmed recovery program. Because so many muscles get involved, and it is NOT the same for everyone, it gets complicated when it comes to which muscles you can safely stretch/massage, and start to recover. I think this is where a lot of people go wrong, and I believe osteopathy really helps as it can be a full body problem, and the root cause needs to be addressed before you can make any sort of recovery.
Lastly, recovery is not linear, it goes up and down, so try not to get disheartened when progress feels like it isn't moving forward. Day to day the progress was imperceptible, even across weeks it was impossible for me to measure whether it was getting better, until one day it was - and that was part of my issue, as I was trying to measure it in the first place. You have to trust the process and go with it.
EDIT
As people are asking, I've added the stretches I did below. Remember depending on muscle involvement that you have, it may not work in exactly the same way, and if anything is painful, don't push it. Try the first set, and if everything feels okay move onto the more advanced versions which are in the second list. Don't push past pain!
STRETCHES - BE CAUTIOUS
First 4

1. Knees to chest. Lay on the floor, hold your knees and squeeze them gently into your chest for 5 seconds, release, rest for 10 seconds, repeat. (my forearms were so painful, I actually couldn't do this at first)
   
2. Cat Cows (simple to do, google it if unsure! I'd do these for about 3 minutes)
   
3. Thoracic Extension with a towel Link here - I also supported my head with 2 fluffy pillows, and when my arms came back, I would rest them on the pillow next to my head as well. Only move your arms as you breath out, both going up and down. I did not interlock my hands, and just had them by my side. 15 or so reps. Take it slow.
   
4. Knees side to side Link here - this was the one that really pulled my forearm muscles. 15 or so reps each side. Again, go slow and controlled.
   

Once I was comofotable with these (which was after 1 session of just these to test the waters), we also added in:
Advanced 4

1. Spinal Twist Link here This is a more advanced version of the knees side to side stretch. I'd hold each side for at least a minute and then repeat. This was quite painful on my hip at first so I had to go gently. You can really feel the stretch up your lats too, and for me, into my biceps.
   
2. Seated Twist Link here This was good for both lower and upper back mobility. Hold for 20-30 seconds, but start with lower times to ease into it. Hold for longer when you're more used to it.
   
3. Sit and reach Link Here This one I found very difficult to do at first, and couldn't reach my foot at all, I was barely halfway down my shin. now I can grab my foot! Hold for 5-10 seconds. Repeat a few times.
   
4. Revolved Lunge Pose Link here Important extra step on this one. Before twisting upwards, I was told to fold down onto my elbows in the lunge position and try drop my head to the floor too, focus on breathing. I still cant get my head anywhere close to the floor, but can just about get my elbows down. After that I'd do the upward twist part of the stretch.
   

After all of this I'd do child's pose for a couple of minutes:

1. Childs Pose Link here

I'd repeat this whole process every single morning when I got up, and run through the whole routine twice. Then again at lunch time, and bed time. Sometimes I'd do this 5 times a day. These really are the only stretches I needed, but I did add in one forearm stretch which I was told to do.
Forearm Stretch

1. Interlock fingers at waist with palms facing downwards, gently press until you feel a pull.
2. Repeat step 1 but with arms extended in front of you.
3. Repeat step one, but with fingers interlocked behind you.
4. Sit on the floor as if you are going to do child's pose. Instead of hinging forwards and dropping your chest, place your palms on the floor in front of your knees, with arms rotated so fingers are pointed towards you. Gently push palms downwards to feel the stretch.
5. Repeat previous stretch, except place the backs of your hands on the floor. This will target the top of your forearm instead.

Hope this helps!

Awesome Monday, 7-0 MLB Top play (Sides), 12-5 overall, 2-0 NBA top plays. Only bummer was NHL when Panthers went to sleep.
Back from one unexpected Dr visit early AM to PT for my torn ACL which I'm not looking forward to this afternoon (have to get a reconstruction with a patellar tendon put in this summer). Hope everyone wins some again tonight. Last night was another incredible night, have to enjoy those when they come, cause regression is always around the corner. I may have a bad day or two but I always bounce back harder. Hope the gambling gods are on our side again today!
As I alway say, Nothing is ever expected so Thank you in advance to my followers who say thanks and tip when they hit. You all help me convince my wife to let me keep doing this as she's been on my back to stop a lot lately.
MLB-12-5 (Cash 7 top plays) #1-7...7-1 Top plays
NBA=2-2 (Cash 2-0 Top plays)
NHL=0-1 (fla just collapsed)
MLB=12-5 Mon (7-1 Top)/10-12 Sun/13-8 Sat (7-3 Top)/5-14 Fri/5-4 Thurs/13-8 Wed (Cash top 6 straight/12-10 Tues (Cash #1)/8-8 Mon (6-3 Top)/7-12 Sun (6-4 Top)/13-9 Sat (6-4 Top)/9-9 Fri (5-4 Top)/7-5 Thurs/14-6 Wed (9-2 TOP)/15-8 Sun (9-3 Top plays)/
392-327YTD/ (214-144 Top plays)
*All plays are standard bets unless adorned with a star. Those adorned with a star are TOP Plays.*Top plays are listed in order of strength.
⭐️Cubs-135
⭐️Yankees-111
⭐️Giants-144
⭐️Phillies-118
⭐️Mets+112
⭐️Reds+119
⭐️Baltimore Oreos-1.5-123
⭐️Rangers-112
⭐️Chicago/Tampa Over 7.5-115
⭐️Miami Fish/LA Doyers Over 7.5-105
Cleveland-118
Twins-135
Dodgers-1.5-130
Pirates-125
Royals-119
Red Sox RL (+1.5)-130
SD Chaplins/Chicago Cubbies Over 8.5-115
Arizona/Cincy Over 8-130
LAA/Pittsburgh Over 7.5-112
Detroit/Cleveland Over 8-130
Mets/Cards Over 8-135
NBA=2-2mon (2-0 Top)/2-0 Sun/1-1 Sat(Cash #1 top)/3-0 Fri/3-1 Thurs/2-2 Wed/1-4 Tues/3-3 Mon (Cash #1)/5-3 Sun (4-1 Top)/5-2 Sat (3-0 Top)/4-2 Fri/5-0 Thurs/2-3 Wed/2-4 Tues/3-5 Mon/2-4 Sun/3-3 Sat (Cash top 2)/6-3 Wed/10-5 Tues (4-2 Top)/7-7 Sun (Cash top 2)/5-2 Sat (3-0 Top)/7-2 Mon (5-0 Top)/7-4 Sun (Cash 3/4 Top))/6-3 Sun (Cash 2 top)/6-5 Sat (Cash 3/4 Top)/7-3 Tues (Cash 3/4 Top)/9-4 Wed (Cash 3/4 Top)/7-3 Thurs (Cash 3/4 top)/10-2 Wed/6-2 Mon/7-1 mon/5-2 Wed (Cash 2/3 top plays)/4-1 Mon (cash 3/4 top plays)/777-687YTD
⭐️OKC-3-115
⭐️Celtics-7 (First Half)
Cleveland/Boston Over 210-115
Dallas/OKC Over 218-114
NHL=0-1 Mon/2-1 Sun/1-0 Sat/0-3 Fri/0-1 Thurs/2-1 Wed/2-4 Tues/2-1 Mon/4-2 Sun (2-1 Top)/1-4 Sat (Cash #1)/3-3 Fri (2-1 Top)/4-1 Sun (Cash top 2)/3-0 Sat/4-3 Thurs/5-1 Sun/4-2 Friday (2-1 Top)/6-1 Fri/6-3 Thurs (3-1 Top)/4-2 Wed (2/3 Top)/5-3 Tues (Cash #1)/6-0 SUN/8-4 Sat/2-0 Fri/5-1 Sun (Cash 2/2 Top)/7-4 Sat (Cash 3 Top)/7-4 Thurs (Cash 3/4 Top plays)/4-1 Wed (3-0 Top)/6-3 Tues (Cash top 2 plays)/7-2 Sat/4-0 Fri/7-5 Sat/4-2 Friday/6-0 Sun/6-5 Sat/3-1 Fri/3-1 Wed/4-2 Tues/2-1 Sun/11-0 Sat/656-625YTD
⭐️Dallas Stars-120
⭐️Carolina/NY Rags Over 5.5+105
Carolina-120
My picks/analysis/answering questions is and will remain free- but if you’ve been crushing the books with me, would you consider a tip for my time and effort? (and keep wife off back ha!)
As always Tips are NEVER expected but GREATLY appreciated to the newborn diaper fund/medical bills for wife.
Venmo=@ECU03
PayPal=@superbae
Cashapp=$Alew1980

Awesome Monday, 7-0 MLB Top play (Sides), 12-5 overall, 2-0 NBA top plays. Only bummer was NHL when Panthers went to sleep.
Back from one unexpected Dr visit early AM to PT for my torn ACL which I'm not looking forward to this afternoon (have to get a reconstruction with a patellar tendon put in this summer). Hope everyone wins some again tonight. Last night was another incredible night, have to enjoy those when they come, cause regression is always around the corner. I may have a bad day or two but I always bounce back harder. Hope the gambling gods are on our side again today!
As I alway say, Nothing is ever expected so Thank you in advance to my followers who say thanks and tip when they hit. You all help me convince my wife to let me keep doing this as she's been on my back to stop a lot lately.
MLB-12-5 (Cash 7 top plays) #1-7...7-1 Top plays
NBA=2-2 (Cash 2-0 Top plays)
NHL=0-1 (fla just collapsed)
MLB=12-5 Mon (7-1 Top)/10-12 Sun/13-8 Sat (7-3 Top)/5-14 Fri/5-4 Thurs/13-8 Wed (Cash top 6 straight/12-10 Tues (Cash #1)/8-8 Mon (6-3 Top)/7-12 Sun (6-4 Top)/13-9 Sat (6-4 Top)/9-9 Fri (5-4 Top)/7-5 Thurs/14-6 Wed (9-2 TOP)/15-8 Sun (9-3 Top plays)/
392-327YTD/ (214-144 Top plays)
*All plays are standard bets unless adorned with a star. Those adorned with a star are TOP Plays.*Top plays are listed in order of strength.
⭐️Cubs-135
⭐️Yankees-111
⭐️Giants-144
⭐️Phillies-118
⭐️Mets+112
⭐️Reds+119
⭐️Baltimore Oreos-1.5-123
⭐️Rangers-112
⭐️Chicago/Tampa Over 7.5-115
⭐️Miami Fish/LA Doyers Over 7.5-105
Cleveland-118
Twins-135
Dodgers-1.5-130
Pirates-125
Royals-119
Red Sox RL (+1.5)-130
SD Chaplins/Chicago Cubbies Over 8.5-115
Arizona/Cincy Over 8-130
LAA/Pittsburgh Over 7.5-112
Detroit/Cleveland Over 8-130
Mets/Cards Over 8-135
NBA=2-2mon (2-0 Top)/2-0 Sun/1-1 Sat(Cash #1 top)/3-0 Fri/3-1 Thurs/2-2 Wed/1-4 Tues/3-3 Mon (Cash #1)/5-3 Sun (4-1 Top)/5-2 Sat (3-0 Top)/4-2 Fri/5-0 Thurs/2-3 Wed/2-4 Tues/3-5 Mon/2-4 Sun/3-3 Sat (Cash top 2)/6-3 Wed/10-5 Tues (4-2 Top)/7-7 Sun (Cash top 2)/5-2 Sat (3-0 Top)/7-2 Mon (5-0 Top)/7-4 Sun (Cash 3/4 Top))/6-3 Sun (Cash 2 top)/6-5 Sat (Cash 3/4 Top)/7-3 Tues (Cash 3/4 Top)/9-4 Wed (Cash 3/4 Top)/7-3 Thurs (Cash 3/4 top)/10-2 Wed/6-2 Mon/7-1 mon/5-2 Wed (Cash 2/3 top plays)/4-1 Mon (cash 3/4 top plays)/777-687YTD
⭐️OKC-3-115
⭐️Celtics-7 (First Half)
Cleveland/Boston Over 210-115
Dallas/OKC Over 218-114
NHL=0-1 Mon/2-1 Sun/1-0 Sat/0-3 Fri/0-1 Thurs/2-1 Wed/2-4 Tues/2-1 Mon/4-2 Sun (2-1 Top)/1-4 Sat (Cash #1)/3-3 Fri (2-1 Top)/4-1 Sun (Cash top 2)/3-0 Sat/4-3 Thurs/5-1 Sun/4-2 Friday (2-1 Top)/6-1 Fri/6-3 Thurs (3-1 Top)/4-2 Wed (2/3 Top)/5-3 Tues (Cash #1)/6-0 SUN/8-4 Sat/2-0 Fri/5-1 Sun (Cash 2/2 Top)/7-4 Sat (Cash 3 Top)/7-4 Thurs (Cash 3/4 Top plays)/4-1 Wed (3-0 Top)/6-3 Tues (Cash top 2 plays)/7-2 Sat/4-0 Fri/7-5 Sat/4-2 Friday/6-0 Sun/6-5 Sat/3-1 Fri/3-1 Wed/4-2 Tues/2-1 Sun/11-0 Sat/656-625YTD
⭐️Dallas Stars-120
⭐️Carolina/NY Rags Over 5.5+105
Carolina-120
My picks/analysis/answering questions is and will remain free- but if you’ve been crushing the books with me, would you consider a tip for my time and effort? (and keep wife off back ha!)
As always Tips are NEVER expected but GREATLY appreciated to the newborn diaper fund/medical bills for wife.
Venmo=@ECU03
PayPal=@superbae
Cashapp=$Alew1980

An Aggregated Summary of Human and Alien Comparisons
By Dr. Krill, Dr. Katie Quinn, and Dr. Adric Dracondi
It has long been known, since humans were first introduced onto the galactic stage, that humans are, arguably, the most powerful sentient alien species in the known universe. These are not simply popular conjectures by nonscientific minds, but the scientific community itself has conducted multiple studies regarding the adaptability and prowess of the human in comparison to other species. Many of these studies have examined, intelligence, hunting prowess, strength, and adaptability as their primary focus, (Diss, A., Wallin, G., and Millard; Wix and Veen). Based on these prior studies, this paper will attempt to summarize the overall strength of a human based on their homeworld evolution, comparison to other species, and their technological interplay.
Humans have existed on their home planet of earth for roughly 200,000 years. In comparison to other alien species, they are rather young, and still within the historical memory of the Rundi, who have existed through two major technology jumps, leaving much of their older historical records lost to time (Keple, J., et, all). Humanity began its life in the Miocene Epoch climbing through trees in the African Savanna using both their feet and hands as tools for climbing. During this time, they developed the ability to stand upright in order to use their hands for foraging. This gave them an increased ability to forage, and allowed them to share their food between pack members, creating, what we now understand to be, the human's social bonds (Keller, A., Winzer, C, V., and Pellar, Q). Of course, this wasn't the only reason for human's increased social bonds. Sometime during this period, the African Savanna went through a period of natural deforestation, reducing the number of trees humans could climb. For this reason, they were forced to turn to the ground where larger predators lurked (Huntsman, J,. Et. Al). At this point in time humans did not have many advantages against large predators, and even as of now, an unarmed human against most mid-sized predators is going to lose. Compared to their own planetary predators, humans are not very fast, not very strong and not particularly dangerous when viewed alone. However, one of the human's greatest advantages was originally their pack sizes encouraging cooperation among members to both protect each other and watch for predators. Predators would be much less likely to hunt a human in a large pack, just as they are less likely to hunt other animals if they are in large groups preferring to attack those who are alone, weak or sick (Keller, A., Winzer, C, V., and Pellar, Q).
Why then, were humans able to survive at all as they have some serious strategic disadvantages? Humans are slow, have no trees to climb, poor smell, arguably poor hearing, and dismal strength in comparison to Savannah predators. Furthermore, the transition into humans walking upright caused the narrowing of the pelvic bone, which would become an issue as humans continued to evolve. The answer to this question comes with later iterations of the evolved humans. After their descent from the trees, humans gained a few important abilities: first of all they lost all of their fur, giving them the ability to sweat, their legs were lengthened and their arms were shortened giving them a superior sense of balance for throwing, and their cranial size increased giving them the ability to use and create tools for cracking bone which would aid them in foraging: the increased brain size would later give them the unique ability to speak. These two distinctions being important precursors for sentient life (Wheeler., R, Winter, F., And Nix., L).
The human ability to sweat, coupled with their upright walk gave humans the natural ability to run while carrying tools, such as spears and weapons. Early humans evolved for running long distances. The arches of their feet act as springs which depress and spring back as they run. Tendons in the back of the ankle do the same, while powerful muscles in their lower backs and butts keep them standing upright and provide power. Humans keep their balance using muscles in their shoulders, and the swinging of their arms gives extra momentum and balance. The head is held in place by special tendons on the sides of their necks, while their eyes and brains correct for the bouncing of their gait. Furthermore, while other animals require panting and shade to cool off, human sweat rolls into the skin and then evaporates, cooling them off as they move. In this way, humans are superior at long distance running and often used pursuit predation to run their prey to death before spearing them with tools they made (Dillinger, F., and Walker, P). While many animals on their planet are capable of throwing, humanity's long legs and short arms gives them the superior balance required to throw hard without losing their balance giving them the advantage of long-distance weapons. Coupled with tool making, humans did not have to directly interact with much of the prey they were hunting.
During this time humans grew more socialized and pack oriented. As their brains got bigger, childbirth became more dangerous, and their offspring were forced to be born earlier and more underdeveloped than ever before. Packs grew in size as did family groups. Their ability to speak was probably one of their greatest accomplishments, though ironically, the drop of their larynx into their neck, which supported the transition to speaking, also made them more prone to choking (Huntsman, J,. Et. Al). As the climate on earth gradually began to change, humans moved north using their tools and abilities to survive in colder and colder climates. Different iterations of humanity formed, the Neanderthals VS the Sapiens for a time before the Neanderthals eventually merged with the Sapiens or died out. Humans gained the ability to bond with other animals – a trick which only the Rundi have separately managed. In turn this sparked the rapid evolution of technology which eventually led them to space travel.
Humans may appear impressive to most outside alien species, but on their planet, domination came about only because of luck, and adaptability. Their evolution to walking on two feet was the catalyst for them being smart enough to outmaneuver heavier and more dangerous species.
Now as we examine sentient species today, we can examine a few commonalities between the groups. The first being the ability to speak. No sentient species has evolved without some sort of communicatory language. The starborn can speak telepathically, and most other species vocally. The Lumens and the Mikes also communicate based on light frequencies, though these are still translatable into structural sentences if one knows what they are doing. Even the Adaptids have a very base and rudimentary speech which requires the use of smell (Krill, 4020). Another common trait is hands or other limbs used for the manipulation of objects. While some aliens also developed the ability to stand upright on two legs: Drev, Tvek, Finnari, Gnar’lak. Some retain that ability only partially: Rundi, Kree, while the vast majority require at least three or more limbs to stay upright using tails to balance or adding extra legs for stability like: Tesraki, Vrul, Iotins Burg etc. regardless of walking upright all of these creatures have the ability to manipulate objects to use tools.
The question now remains. Where do humans and other aliens stack up? The answer seems clear in that humans are not powerful because of their dominance in one specific area, but because humans are generalists where others are specialists. There is a human saying that goes along well with this research. Jack of all trades, the master of none, but better than the master of one. A general knowledge of everything seems to be the precursor for being the best survivalists. Let us examine intelligence first, as we know Rundi, Tesraki, Burg and Drev are comparable to humans, which are all well behind Vrul and Gibb in average intelligence, though intelligence is one of the more difficult factors as intelligence is an important prerequisite to space travel (Kisk., Gana., Fuller., and Millward). Humans are not the fastest, that goes to the Rundi, though they are the second fastest, and can arguably outdistance a Rundi in a footrace. Human hearing isn't as good as a Tesraki, but better than most others just as their eyesight isn't nearly as good as a Drev, but still much more powerful than others. Drev also take the main spot as being one of the strongest with humans closely behind. Smell is a relatively rare ability among nonhuman species, though the Drev have it to some degree. The Adaptids are known for their superior smelling ability, though it is arguable if they count as sentient just yet. Starborn can survive in space, which is an ability that no other nonhuman species has, except for humans who can survive for about 15 seconds in the vacuum of space with damage: the only known case of this being of course Admiral Vir, who is as of now, the only human to have attempted this maneuver at all.
The argument we make here is not based primarily on human abilities, which seem second to all, but based primarily about how these interacted with their technological advances. Humans are the youngest species EVER to reach space, and that includes the Drev. In fact, most humans still possess instincts which are often lacking in older sentient species, replaced by thought and logic. A human is still said to be able to sense danger before it comes, and can read body language better than any other sentient species currently known, which has much to do with the juvenile nature of their species. Furthermore, human durability is one of the greatest factors.
The average human can stand about 5gs of force without passing out while trained humans can reach up to sustained 12gs. Most alien species on the other hand had to find ways to keep their craft below 4gs at all times in order to avoid passing out. Nonhumans spent much longer developing their technology before reaching space, while humans were busy strapping rockets to tin cans. A similar situation can be noted with the Drev, who can sustain 7 to 8gs if trained. Both of their species were allowed to leave their planet before fully developing out of their more primitive natures, as was common with other nonhuman or Drev species. In general, human and Drev durability have allowed them to operate machinery which would be too dangerous for other species, giving them a time advantage in the race to the stars.
At this point one might wonder if Drev are comparable to humans, after all Drev are stronger, more durable and just as intelligent as humans. This is true of course, but humans do have some strategic advantages, long distance running ability, pack bonding, and superior technology development, which might have been negated if it weren't for the Drev religion which calls into question the nature of technology as dishonorable. Furthermore, though they can distinguish less colors than Drev, human sense of smell and hearing is stronger, giving them a distinct battlefield advantage in at least once sense as they are able to pinpoint the direction and height of sounds where Drev have trouble.
A discussion about the abilities of humans can go on all day, though the conclusion scientists have agreed upon focuses primarily on human adaptability and generalization skills as the primary function of their abilities, and seeming power over other species. It seems good then that human pack bonding instincts easily travels across species making them relatively easy to make alliances with compared to some other, more stubborn species.
Previous First [Next](link)
Want to find a specific one, see the whole list or check fanart?
Here is the link to the master-post.
Intro post by me
OC-whole collection
Patreon of the author

FYI, this is a story COLLECTION. Lots of standalones technically. So, you can basically start to read at any chapter, no pre-read of the other chapters needed technically (other than maybe getting better descriptions of characters than: Adam Vir=human, Krill=antlike alien, Sunny=tall alien, Conn=telepathic alien). The numbers are (mostly) only for organization of posts and continuity.
OC Written by Charlie Stastarrfallknightrise,
Typed up and then posted here by me.
Proofreading and language check for some chapters by u/Finbar9800 u/BakeGullible9975 u/Didnotseemecomein and u/medium_jock
Future Lore and fact check done by me.
Science stuff… yaaay?
Previous First Next
Want to find a specific one, see the whole list or check fanart?
Here is the link to the master-post.
An Aggregated Summary of Human and Alien Comparisons
By Dr. Krill, Dr. Katie Quinn, and Dr. Adric Dracondi
It has long been known, since humans were first introduced onto the galactic stage, that humans are, arguably, the most powerful sentient alien species in the known universe. These are not simply popular conjectures by nonscientific minds, but the scientific community itself has conducted multiple studies regarding the adaptability and prowess of the human in comparison to other species. Many of these studies have examined, intelligence, hunting prowess, strength, and adaptability as their primary focus, (Diss, A., Wallin, G., and Millard; Wix and Veen). Based on these prior studies, this paper will attempt to summarize the overall strength of a human based on their homeworld evolution, comparison to other species, and their technological interplay.
Humans have existed on their home planet of earth for roughly 200,000 years. In comparison to other alien species, they are rather young, and still within the historical memory of the Rundi, who have existed through two major technology jumps, leaving much of their older historical records lost to time (Keple, J., et, all). Humanity began its life in the Miocene Epoch climbing through trees in the African Savanna using both their feet and hands as tools for climbing. During this time, they developed the ability to stand upright in order to use their hands for foraging. This gave them an increased ability to forage, and allowed them to share their food between pack members, creating, what we now understand to be, the human's social bonds (Keller, A., Winzer, C, V., and Pellar, Q). Of course, this wasn't the only reason for human's increased social bonds. Sometime during this period, the African Savanna went through a period of natural deforestation, reducing the number of trees humans could climb. For this reason, they were forced to turn to the ground where larger predators lurked (Huntsman, J,. Et. Al). At this point in time humans did not have many advantages against large predators, and even as of now, an unarmed human against most mid-sized predators is going to lose. Compared to their own planetary predators, humans are not very fast, not very strong and not particularly dangerous when viewed alone. However, one of the human's greatest advantages was originally their pack sizes encouraging cooperation among members to both protect each other and watch for predators. Predators would be much less likely to hunt a human in a large pack, just as they are less likely to hunt other animals if they are in large groups preferring to attack those who are alone, weak or sick (Keller, A., Winzer, C, V., and Pellar, Q).
Why then, were humans able to survive at all as they have some serious strategic disadvantages? Humans are slow, have no trees to climb, poor smell, arguably poor hearing, and dismal strength in comparison to Savannah predators. Furthermore, the transition into humans walking upright caused the narrowing of the pelvic bone, which would become an issue as humans continued to evolve. The answer to this question comes with later iterations of the evolved humans. After their descent from the trees, humans gained a few important abilities: first of all they lost all of their fur, giving them the ability to sweat, their legs were lengthened and their arms were shortened giving them a superior sense of balance for throwing, and their cranial size increased giving them the ability to use and create tools for cracking bone which would aid them in foraging: the increased brain size would later give them the unique ability to speak. These two distinctions being important precursors for sentient life (Wheeler., R, Winter, F., And Nix., L).
The human ability to sweat, coupled with their upright walk gave humans the natural ability to run while carrying tools, such as spears and weapons. Early humans evolved for running long distances. The arches of their feet act as springs which depress and spring back as they run. Tendons in the back of the ankle do the same, while powerful muscles in their lower backs and butts keep them standing upright and provide power. Humans keep their balance using muscles in their shoulders, and the swinging of their arms gives extra momentum and balance. The head is held in place by special tendons on the sides of their necks, while their eyes and brains correct for the bouncing of their gait. Furthermore, while other animals require panting and shade to cool off, human sweat rolls into the skin and then evaporates, cooling them off as they move. In this way, humans are superior at long distance running and often used pursuit predation to run their prey to death before spearing them with tools they made (Dillinger, F., and Walker, P). While many animals on their planet are capable of throwing, humanity's long legs and short arms gives them the superior balance required to throw hard without losing their balance giving them the advantage of long-distance weapons. Coupled with tool making, humans did not have to directly interact with much of the prey they were hunting.
During this time humans grew more socialized and pack oriented. As their brains got bigger, childbirth became more dangerous, and their offspring were forced to be born earlier and more underdeveloped than ever before. Packs grew in size as did family groups. Their ability to speak was probably one of their greatest accomplishments, though ironically, the drop of their larynx into their neck, which supported the transition to speaking, also made them more prone to choking (Huntsman, J,. Et. Al). As the climate on earth gradually began to change, humans moved north using their tools and abilities to survive in colder and colder climates. Different iterations of humanity formed, the Neanderthals VS the Sapiens for a time before the Neanderthals eventually merged with the Sapiens or died out. Humans gained the ability to bond with other animals – a trick which only the Rundi have separately managed. In turn this sparked the rapid evolution of technology which eventually led them to space travel.
Humans may appear impressive to most outside alien species, but on their planet, domination came about only because of luck, and adaptability. Their evolution to walking on two feet was the catalyst for them being smart enough to outmaneuver heavier and more dangerous species.
Now as we examine sentient species today, we can examine a few commonalities between the groups. The first being the ability to speak. No sentient species has evolved without some sort of communicatory language. The starborn can speak telepathically, and most other species vocally. The Lumens and the Mikes also communicate based on light frequencies, though these are still translatable into structural sentences if one knows what they are doing. Even the Adaptids have a very base and rudimentary speech which requires the use of smell (Krill, 4020). Another common trait is hands or other limbs used for the manipulation of objects. While some aliens also developed the ability to stand upright on two legs: Drev, Tvek, Finnari, Gnar’lak. Some retain that ability only partially: Rundi, Kree, while the vast majority require at least three or more limbs to stay upright using tails to balance or adding extra legs for stability like: Tesraki, Vrul, Iotins Burg etc. regardless of walking upright all of these creatures have the ability to manipulate objects to use tools.
The question now remains. Where do humans and other aliens stack up? The answer seems clear in that humans are not powerful because of their dominance in one specific area, but because humans are generalists where others are specialists. There is a human saying that goes along well with this research. Jack of all trades, the master of none, but better than the master of one. A general knowledge of everything seems to be the precursor for being the best survivalists. Let us examine intelligence first, as we know Rundi, Tesraki, Burg and Drev are comparable to humans, which are all well behind Vrul and Gibb in average intelligence, though intelligence is one of the more difficult factors as intelligence is an important prerequisite to space travel (Kisk., Gana., Fuller., and Millward). Humans are not the fastest, that goes to the Rundi, though they are the second fastest, and can arguably outdistance a Rundi in a footrace. Human hearing isn't as good as a Tesraki, but better than most others just as their eyesight isn't nearly as good as a Drev, but still much more powerful than others. Drev also take the main spot as being one of the strongest with humans closely behind. Smell is a relatively rare ability among nonhuman species, though the Drev have it to some degree. The Adaptids are known for their superior smelling ability, though it is arguable if they count as sentient just yet. Starborn can survive in space, which is an ability that no other nonhuman species has, except for humans who can survive for about 15 seconds in the vacuum of space with damage: the only known case of this being of course Admiral Vir, who is as of now, the only human to have attempted this maneuver at all.
The argument we make here is not based primarily on human abilities, which seem second to all, but based primarily about how these interacted with their technological advances. Humans are the youngest species EVER to reach space, and that includes the Drev. In fact, most humans still possess instincts which are often lacking in older sentient species, replaced by thought and logic. A human is still said to be able to sense danger before it comes, and can read body language better than any other sentient species currently known, which has much to do with the juvenile nature of their species. Furthermore, human durability is one of the greatest factors.
The average human can stand about 5gs of force without passing out while trained humans can reach up to sustained 12gs. Most alien species on the other hand had to find ways to keep their craft below 4gs at all times in order to avoid passing out. Nonhumans spent much longer developing their technology before reaching space, while humans were busy strapping rockets to tin cans. A similar situation can be noted with the Drev, who can sustain 7 to 8gs if trained. Both of their species were allowed to leave their planet before fully developing out of their more primitive natures, as was common with other nonhuman or Drev species. In general, human and Drev durability have allowed them to operate machinery which would be too dangerous for other species, giving them a time advantage in the race to the stars.
At this point one might wonder if Drev are comparable to humans, after all Drev are stronger, more durable and just as intelligent as humans. This is true of course, but humans do have some strategic advantages, long distance running ability, pack bonding, and superior technology development, which might have been negated if it weren't for the Drev religion which calls into question the nature of technology as dishonorable. Furthermore, though they can distinguish less colors than Drev, human sense of smell and hearing is stronger, giving them a distinct battlefield advantage in at least once sense as they are able to pinpoint the direction and height of sounds where Drev have trouble.
A discussion about the abilities of humans can go on all day, though the conclusion scientists have agreed upon focuses primarily on human adaptability and generalization skills as the primary function of their abilities, and seeming power over other species. It seems good then that human pack bonding instincts easily travels across species making them relatively easy to make alliances with compared to some other, more stubborn species.
Previous First Next
Want to find a specific one, see the whole list or check fanart?
Here is the link to the master-post.
Intro post by me
OC-whole collection
Patreon of the author
Thanks for reading! As you saw in the title, this is a cross posted story written by starrfallknightrise and I'll just upload some of it here for you guys, if you are interested and want to read ahead, the original story-collection can be found on tumblr or wattpad to read for free. (link above this text under "OC:..." ) It is the Empyrean Iris story collection by starfallknightrise. Also, if you want to know more about the story collection i made an intro post about it, so feel free to check that out to see what other great characters to look forward to! (Link also above this text). I have no affiliations to the author; just thought I’d share some of the great stories you might enjoy a lot!
Obviously, I have Charlie’s permission to post this and for the people already knowing the stories, or starting to read them: If you follow the link and check out the story you will see some differences. I made some small (non-artistic) changes, mainly correcting writing mistakes, pronoun correction and some small additional info here and there of things which were not thought of/forgotten or even were added/changed in later stories (like the “USS->UNSC” prefix of Stabby, Chalar=/->Sunny etc). As well as some "biggemajor" changes in descriptions and info’s for the same stringency/continuity reason. That can be explained by the story collection being, well a story collection at the start with many standalone-stories just starring the same people, but later on it gets more to a stringent storyline with backstories and throwbacks. (For example Adam Vir has some HEAVY scars over his body, following his bones, which were not really talked about up till half the collection, where it says it covers his whole body and you find out via backflash that he had them the whole time and how he got them, they just weren't mentioned before. However, I would think a doctor would at least see these scars before that, especially since he gets analyzed, treated and goes shirtless/in T-shirts in some stories). So TLDR: Writing and some descriptions are slightly changed, with full OK from the author, since he himself did not bother to correct these things before.

I just wrote half of this as a reply on the thread about RBs, but it's long and sparked a few other interesting thoughts. I know "Quick" is in the title, it won't be quick 🤷‍♂️ The "B R E A K guy" is ripping bongs rambling about Running Backs again 😂
TLDR; Scroll down for snippets on Roschon Johnson, Tyrone Tracy, Rasheen Ali, Carson Steele, Aidan Robbins, Ryan Flournoy

 B R E A K 

When it comes to late round backs, I look for small school guys who do the dirty stuff. Find the backs who pass block. Depth backs who can put the hammer to extra blitzers/bail out a beaten lineman have the upper hand to earn snaps. If you can't be a "football player" on 3rd down and block, lineup wide in an empty set, or produce in "short yardage"; there's never a path to touches. (Guerendo 👀).
I also look at special teams tackles in college before earning the starting job. I just want "football players". A RB who used to go kill punt returners as a gunner in college is probably a scrappy fucker. Jaylen Warren would be a recent success story example. Undrafted, small school, pass blocking chops. His best NFL moment is a block 💯
30-Visits. Late round guys who teams do their due diligence on before the draft, usually have an easier time making the 53-Man Roster. There's a reason they used a visit on them, there's a reason they drafted them, and they're not likely to get cut unless they're a turd. These visits also are telling of who's interested. Like Buffalo for example. I figured they'd go RB eventually because of their visits, but this wasn't really talked about until it happened. I got Rhamondre and 2.04 for my 1 share of Cook predraft and now have a flier on Ray Davis and drafted Benson at 2.04.
Fumble issues. I'll take fliers all day on guys with fumble issues. People slide for it yearly, but it's usually not a big deal. Adrian Peterson and Tiki Barber had "fumble issues" and they corrected themselves, Melvin Gordon went his first 322 carries in college without fumbling and broke himself in the NFL. Fumbles happen.

 B R E A K 

I'm not worried about Roschon Johnson. He's one of the best pass blocking RBs in football. He will always have a job. The offense figures to be in the red zone more, and he's the big back now that Swift is in and Foreman is out. Swift has an extensive injury history and could miss time. Roschon was in the game and pass blocking on 39/71 3rd down snaps last season, more than Herbert and Foreman combined. The Bears ran 181 total 3rd down plays in games Roschon played in. This means he was in on 39.2% of 3rd downs 👀 Worth noting all 3 missed a few games last year (Roschon missed 2 with a concussion making this stat even more impressive). Sneaky respectable 65.8 PFF Grade shows this "football player" stuff matters. He averaged 4.4ypc, and caught 34 of 42 targets. This sub hates him for whatever reason 🤷‍♂️ I can't find a video, but Roschon had a pass block last year against the vikings in Week 12 where he destroyed two vikings blitzers at the same time. It was dope. (If you can find it, please share 🙏).
EDIT: Someone found it, week 12 Minnesota:
https://twitter.com/clayharbs82/status/1729338389692850185?t=hqAPXQeO37llYrtzZDJxsQ&s=19

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I'm happy to see all the Tyrone Tracy love. I have been taking him in the late 2nd some places because I'm obsessed with the skillset and not losing out. I think he's a potential All-pro. Everyone already knows him by now, so I won't bore you. I'll go grab a link to a writeup I did the day after the combine about him. Tracy is a converted receiver, but he's 210lbs and has that Iowa Hawkeye grit. He also had 8 special teams tackles in 12 games.
https://www.reddit.com/DynastyFF/s/pWmn1FctT6

 B R E A K 

Both Rasheen Ali and Carson Steele had an unusual level of interest pre-draft. Rasheen Ali had seven 30 visits and Steele had 3 or 4 with only playoff teams. Rasheen Ali ended up in Baltimore behind a high-mileage Derrick Henry, and Steele ended up in KC. I think both will get an opportunity. I went and looked at both to figure out why so many teams are doing 30 Visits with these two dudes.
Steele is basically a combination of Peyton Hillis downhill power at 6' 230lbs, combined with the receiving ability of Rex Burkhead. He didn't catch thattttt many passes in college, but the passes he did catch show his smoothness in the receiving game. Yes, he's white, excuse my lazy comparisons but they work. The Chiefs had a 30 Visit with him, and immediately signed him after the draft. Worth noting he ran a slow hand-timed 4.75 at the pro day, but he also squats 600+, benches 400+, and has only 7% body fat. NFLdraftbuzz.com estimated his 40 at 4.5 flat with 70% confidence. He made Bruce Feldmans freak list. I'm assuming he'll be an awesome NFL pass blocker with his strength/size. I love Pacheco, and his success over CEH is an indicator the Chiefs don't care about draft capital anymore. I'm all about Carson Steele and he's 4% rostered. He also has long Clay Matthews-esque hair and owns a pet alligator. The fans are gonna love this guy 😂

 B R E A K 

Rasheen Ali is a guy who was getting senior bowl buzz before he ruptured his biceps tendon. His visits were probably just checking on the recovery progress. He had 25 TDs in 13 games his sophomore year, and caught 46 balls and returned a kick for a touchdown. 5'11 210lbs. He regularly lined up at receiver or in the slot in empty sets last year. NFL.com says this about his pass blocking; "Mirrors incoming blitzers and never flinches into contact". He had 4 special teams tackles before taking over as a full-time RB. I feel like "smooth" is a good way to describe his run style. He didn't run a 40 because of his injury, but NFLdraftbuzz has him at a 4.4 flat with 92% confidence. He averaged a fumble every 49 touches in college. This, his small school, and his bicep caused his slide. He still was a 6th round pick despite all of this. Baltimore might be grooming him to replace Henry. 56% rostered.

 B R E A K 

Aidan Robbins. He first hit my radar when he had a 30 visit with the Browns predraft. The Browns had a few RBs in (Ali was one too) and made it clear predraft they wanted to bring a guy in. Robbins signed immediately following the draft. He wasn't even on sleeper until a few days ago and he's 0% rostered right now. I haven't moved the needle yet with my shares I guess 🙃 He's 6'3 240lbs from BYU. He is basically a slightly slower (low 4.5) Braelon Allen as far as physical profile. Browns brought in Foreman, and he's the same size. That could be telling of a scheme change with Alex Van Pelt becoming the Patriots OC and bringing in some dude from Buffalo. I didn't like his film either. He doesn't break many tackles for his size. But he's free and he pass blocks. He's probably going to get a few touches while Chubb is rehabbing. I'll be watching him like a hawk all preseason, because the Browns backfield is open.

 B R E A K 

Lastly, not technically a RB. I have a sneaking suspicion that the Cowboys will use Ryan Flournoy at Running Back similarly to how the Falcons used Cordarelle Patterson. Maybe it starts as a Deebo-type usage, but I don't see him as an NFL receiver. He could easily be talked about like Tyrone Tracy Jr if he had a college coach who wanted to get creative. It could end up being the reason they didn't take a running back. He is a freak. 6'1 205lbs, 4.44, 1.53 10yd, 39.5" vert, 11' broad, 19 bench reps. Hes strong. He's physical like Percy Harvin used to be as a receiver. He was raved about at the senior bowl, he's raved about as a coachable, team first, high character player. He will be one of those bust receivers that's begging to be a running back like Laviska Shenault if he isn't moved to the backfield IMO. He is 13% rostered. Get on the Ryan Flournoy for Cowboys RB1 train with me! CHOO CHOO!