Built from Broken: A Science-Based Guide to Healing Painful Joints, Preventing Injuries, and Rebuilding Your Body was the THIRD PLACE non-fiction winner of the 2022 IndieReader Discovery Awards, where undiscovered talent meets people with the power to make a difference.
Following find an interview with author Scott Hogan.
What is the name of the book and when was it published?
Built from Broken, June 2021.
What’s the book’s first line?
Broken down, beat up, or bottlenecked. Virtually everyone falls into one of these three categories. They’re not separate categories, really, just different points on the same spectrum.
The broken down are those unlucky souls who are so riddled with pain and injuries that improving fitness and building a strong, healthy body has become all but impossible.
The beat up aren’t quite so damaged. Yet they suffer the debilitating effects of muscle imbalances, chronic inflammation, and nagging aches and pains, all of which put a damper on exercise goals and active hobbies.
The bottlenecked are the healthiest of the bunch. Though joint dysfunction and pain don’t sideline them completely, they continually get stuck when attempting to stretch their bodies’ capabilities. Each time they progress in terms of strength, performance, or body composition, something breaks down and their bodies retrogress. Even elite athletes and professional fitness competitors suffer from this. Their limiting factor is rarely discipline or intensity or muscle-building capability or even time management. It’s almost always joint problems, injuries, and connective tissue degeneration.
No matter where you fall on this spectrum, the major impediment to realizing your physical potential and moving pain-free through life is the same: joint dysfunction. That’s the real obstacle. The central question this book seeks to answer is this:
How can we manage our exercise, lifestyle, and nutrition habits to overcome the obstacle of joint dysfunction?
What’s the book about? Give us the “pitch”.
Heal painful joints, prevent injuries, and rebuild your body from the ground up.
(If mainstream fitness advice has left you broken down and beat up, it’s time for a new strategy.)
Most middle-aged fitness enthusiasts and athletes have been dragged down by joint pain, injuries, and other ailments commonly accepted as “part of getting older.”
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
In fact, anyone can conquer joint pain and rebuild their body.
It simply requires understanding the hidden causes and a road map (this book) that leads to the solution.
Built from Broken presents a paradigm shift in how to think about corrective exercise, sports nutrition, and joint health.
Once you see how the system works, you’ll never look at exercise or joint health the same way again.
Part 1 lays the foundation for understanding why your joints are breaking down.
You’ll learn:
- The 5 primary causes of joint pain.
- How to prevent the “Big 3” injuries that trap you in the Pain/Injury Cycle.
- Why conventional pain management merely masks symptoms (and 3 natural pain relief techniques that actually work).
- How to identify and fix muscle imbalances that lead to tension, pain, and injuries.
- Natural injury recovery strategies that improve healing time and tissue repair quality.
Part 2 gives you a step-by-step corrective exercise guide and list of action steps to rebuild your body from the ground up.
Including:
- The ideal training schedule to maximize muscle recovery and connective tissue repair (in as little as 2 days per week, at any age).
- Illustrated corrective exercise instructions (with several home workout options).
- How to strengthen joints with cutting-edge connective tissue training techniques.
- A step-by-step training program complete with workout routines.
Whether you have been training for a few years, a few decades, or have never stepped foot in a weight room, it’s not too late to overhaul your body.
If the conventional path of lifting and stretching has left you broken down, why not try a new strategy?
This book is your way out of the pain/injury cycle.
All you have to do is follow three simple steps.
- Read the book.
- Follow the action steps inside to resolve your pain.
- Implement the 4-week corrective training program outlined in the book.
What inspired you to write the book? A particular person? An event?
After years of being plagued by overuse injuries, joint pain, and movement limitations, I decided enough was enough.
I went back to the drawing board.
Started from scratch with no assumptions about what might be causing my issues or how to fix them.
I dove deep into the literature around corrective exercise, injury recovery, mobility training, and therapeutic sports nutrition.
After years of research, interviewing experts, and gaining experience through coaching other athletes and clients suffering from the same issues, I noticed a few distinct patterns:
First, there is an accumulation of common overuse injuries when people reach a certain age. Regardless of their fitness level (because, as I explain in the book, this is largely caused by changes in connective tissue cell formations).
Second, I couldn’t find any resource that provided an understanding of the whole picture. Some of the parts were available. Plenty of literature on physical therapy methods, injury recovery tactics, and so on. But I couldn’t find anything that made sense of the whole frustrating merry-go-round cycle (and how to get the hell off of it).
And third, and most importantly, I realized that most people don’t fit into the available fitness boxes.
Well-intentioned mainstream fitness advice leads to pain, overuse injuries, and joint degeneration.
What’s the main reason someone should really read this book?
If someone has followed mainstream fitness advice – they eat right, lift weights, do cardiovascular training – but they are still broken down instead of built up by their exercise program, this book is the way back.
If they made your book into a movie, who would you like to see play the main character(s)?
Mark Wahlberg?
When did you first decide to become an author?
In 1st grade when I wrote my first book called “My Baseball Dream”
Is this the first you’ve written?
Other than blogging and content production, yes.
What do you do for work when you’re not writing?
I am the CEO and founder of SaltWrap, an online therapeutic sports nutrition company
How much time do you generally spend on your writing?
2 hours per day.
What’s the best and the hardest part of being an indie?
Control over creative direction, and having to manage the editing/production process alone
Would you go traditional if a publisher came calling? If so, why?
If the media distribution and royalty deal was attractive, yes! But we’ve had great success doing self published.
Is there something in particular that motivates you (fame? fortune?)
Not fame or fortune for sure. The main thing is using writing as a way of testing ideas, expanding my limits, organizing my mind, and sharing ideas I believe in deeply with others who are wiling to commit to a journey together.
Which writer, living or dead, do you most admire?
Jordan Peterson.
Which book do you wish you could have written?
Rest, by Alex Kim.