She takes us through her journey creating her 100% natural pain relief ointment used by professional athletes, rodeo performers, and everyday people such as seniors and others.
Here is the transcript of the interview:
Viola (00:00):
Hi, Shelly.
Shelly, Muscle Check founder (00:01):
Good morning, Viola.
Viola (00:04):
Well, here we are. Our interview with Shelly from Muscle Check founder and CEO. Shelly is going to talk to us about her amazing product and what sets it apart from similar products on the market.
The process of creating and perfecting Muscle Check products
Shelly, Muscle Check founder (00:24):
Well, it is an amazing product. It really is. The science behind it was discovered as we went along to develop it. We actually were very hands on with our product when we were beginning to formulate it.
I was the formula creator and working with chemists at international laboratories, it was a step by step process of trial and error. We went out and we actually put it on the athletes. We traveled with a lot of athletes for about two and a half years with our product doing trial and error applications What we discovered is we needed something extremely powerful. We wanted it 100% natural and we wanted it to work very quickly because that's, what's on the market right now is products that are powerful and work quickly, but not natural, not 100% natural.
And so we worked with athletes because athletes are really turning towards natural very quickly. A lot of times they do have to be seen by the team doctor, but as soon as they can, they want to go natural.In fact, many of them are going natural right away after an injury and continuing that process.
Viola (01:53):
Yes. Natural. Well, at least in my opinion, natural is always best because nature is a miracle in its own and it's designed to heal. Right. So why not use the healing property, the natural healing properties of nature?
Shelly, Muscle Check founder (02:13):
Yes, exactly. What if we go back and look at the natural products that came first and what happened was you will see, especially my chemists in, in international laboratories, they have nicknames for a lot of products or a lot of ingredients in my product.
For instance, extra Virgin olive oil is, is nature's ibuprofen. It came first, extra Virgin olive oil, ibuprofen came after when big pharma actually decided that maybe they could change this, put some chemicals in it for longer shelf life and make it cheaper. And not as good. And so we've went back to the old traditional, I'd like to say grassroots. We really started with grassroots ingredients. For instance bees wax is used in our products because it's known one as nature's antibiotic or nature's Amoxil.
Shelly, Muscle Check founder (03:27):
We also get all kinds of benefits from bees wax that show up in our product. For instance, bees wax is t's nature's natural preservative. So we don't have to add preservatives to our product because bees wax does the job for us. It acts as a vapor variant, and it helps push the anti-inflammatory oils that we put in to the product deeper into the body, and that helps longer to push it into the body. It will penetrate into the bloodstream and boost the body's natural anti-inflammatories. So it's kind of like taking a whole bunch of plants and eating them. We find that a few things; people don't want to eat those oils and second of all taking that amount of plants in is really going to not be something you wanna do often.
Topical Ointment versus Orally taken remedies
Viola (04:34):
Your product is a topic topical ointment, right?
Shelly, Muscle Check founder (04:39):
Yes. I like to formulate topical ointments in bees wax, simply because we're bypassing the digestive system and in a lot of people who are showing lots of inflammation, which is arthritis, arthritic conditions, injury conditions, what happens is if you take it through the digestives system, a lot of times that digestive system isn't synthesizing or taking the, the product in it, actually will go through you or it won't be digest properly. So topical is what I've chosen so it can get it into your body. We can target the areas as well.
Is it true or false that “natural” products are not strong enough?
Viola (05:30):
I know that you mentioned to me that some people have preconceived ideas that because it's natural, it's not strong enough, but I also know that some athletes are using it and they stand by it. So you wanna elaborate on this, not strong enough …maybe false narrative.
Shelly, Muscle Check founder (05:51):
Right? Well, exactly. You know what we knew, or I knew, that we had to have our pain relief ointment strong. We were competing, when I traveled with sports teams, we were competing with the team doctors who were, you know, giving chemically laced painkillers and we were going, okay, so the athlete still wants that, they want the painkiller because their job is to get into the game but what we needed to do was make sure that a natural product was as strong as with the doctor’s in order to convince these athletes, because really in the eye of an athlete is they wanna get back into the game.
Number one, they wanna get back into the game. But we also know now that they want to actually get into the game and be healthier. And so the natural product lines up. So that’s what we did for our painkillers. In natural medicine, a lot of the painkillers are pepper minty, or mints that go into your body and they hit nerve endings, and they tingle you and give you a different sensation than pain. So you feel tingling instead of pain.
Shelly, Muscle Check founder (06:57):
What we wanted to do was use something extremely strong and have it happen quick. We wanted the pain relief happen quickly. And so what we did was we chose, or I chose after trying lots of products as we went into the Japanese mint plants and we chose, we went into the crystal or into the sta and got the crystals. The crystals are very, very powerful combined with the bees wax, pushing it into the body.
We can actually hit those nerve endings and dull pain within two and a half to three minutes, thus getting our athletes back in on the field. Yes. Our athletes have really, really started to come on board as the word gets out that this is such a powerful pain killer. And so we're very proud to have the athletes on and they're high caliber athletes for sure.
Muscle Check pain relief products are Health Canada Approved.
What does that mean?
Viola (08:05):
That's really, really cool. And reassuring that it has the strength that they need. And I also know that your product, muscle check is health Canada approved and to me it's important to have that in any product that I use for myself and I'm sure it is important for other people. I bet that many people don't know that it's not an easy thing to get an approval like that. So can you elaborate on that?
Shelly, Muscle Check founder (08:44):
Yes. So basically the product, every ingredient has to be double certified, so we're not just bringing in inferior ingredients. We have to bring in quality ingredients in order to get our NPN (Natural Product Number) licensing. One of the things is the quality we have is pure natural Alberta bees wax and it is tested a couple of times before it comes into our lab. And so there's certification of each individual product.
There's certifications in the lab, the lab that's producing has unbelievable Canadian health standards to meet. And once they formulate my product, what happens is, we then need a second independent lab to come in or, well, we actually send it up to Edmonton. Then what happens is there's also a certification of every word that we put on our label, it has to be substantiate and confirmed.
So we can't just say healing unless we have proof behind what we say. And so that's regulated, actually size of label, size of writing on the label is all certified too.
Canada has a very, very, I guess, invested program in our natural health products. It's one of the only countries that has this much requirement. So getting your NPN number, it just tells you that what is in the product is, is certified. It is healthy. But you know what, I would not use a product that is not NPN certified. It is unbelievable what is in products nowadays and what I'm gonna have to say what we're getting in from other countries. Yeah. Trust me. We have no way of knowing.
Viola (11:03):
So many horror stories with products like that. For sure. That's why I'm looking for the health Canada approval, the NPN number. Yes.
Shelly, Muscle Check founder (11:13):
Yes.
Viola (11:14):
When using anything natural it might be a few dollars more expensive but is your health worth it, right?
Shelly, Muscle Check founder (11:22):
Well, it's sort of like sitting at your dinner table and going, geez, do we want to eat this hamburger, or do we to be assured that is healthy certified hamburger. It is the same idea. Natural health products are food and we have to think of it as what are we putting into our bodies.
Who is using Muscle Check pain relief products?
Viola (11:53)
Absolutely. Yes. Well, thank you so much. Is there anything else you would like to say about your muscle check products? Oh, just one more. Maybe a little bit about who is using it right now.
Shelly, Muscle Check founder (12:20):
Okay. So we actually have four categories that we market to and use it. We have a very large following of seniors with arthritis, or it doesn't even have to be a senior but people who suffer from arthritis. We're seeing arthritis at younger and younger ages. Now it used to be definitely a senior’s ailment, but now we're seeing it very, very young. So we, we see that type of personal use for arthritis and inflamed injuries in the general public. But we are certainly getting a lot of professional athletes using it too. One of our big supporters is Kamar Jorden from of Calgary Stampeders He had a horrific, potentially career altering injury in 2019. And it was said that he would never come back and he worked his way back.
Shelly, Muscle Check founder (13:32):
Of course, we do work with doctor and they had to stabilize the injury, but as soon as he could, he went to the natural Muscle Check pain relief ointment.
We also have ultra marathon runners and marathon runners. They really like our product because it's so instant and it works when you're on the trail and you're are hurting. There's actually an organization or an association, of ultra marathon runners that have proof that when you're on day three and day four of ultra marathon running you're so close to that finish line that you don't wanna give up. So they're popping Tylenol and all kinds of painkillers that are chemically laced. And so that has been banned and now they are turning to the natural and Muscle Check pain relief products are right on the forefront of that.
Shelly, Muscle Check founder (14:32):
We have lots of chiropractors and professional wellness people who are definitely seeing the benefits of going natural but it has to be powerful.
The difference between gels, creams, and ointments.
I'm gonna speak for a minute on creams vs. ointments and why we chose not to use creams and gels that are water based. What you need to know is that there are preservatives in them and preservatives are chemical. We did try that and it's cheaper to do that, but we weren't satisfied with putting chemicals in there for preservatives and also the penetration. We, in our studies found that gels and creams in game conditions went in for about 20 to 30 minutes. They absorbed into the body. And because it's water based as it became body temperature, it started to come out in the pores and you could swab it, it was on the skin. We put our ingredients into bees wax bees, this way we didn’t need to add preservatives because bees wax does that job and then we can also ended up with five to six hours in game conditions of it penetrating and pushing those anti-inflammatories into the body.
Viola (16:00):
That is such a good explanation. I didn't know that. Thank you.
Shelly, Muscle Check founder (16:04):
Well, you know what there are so many gels and creams out there and the studies done to say and show you that it, it is not absorbing as deep as an ointment. Ointments might not be a favorite thing for people's to put on their skin, however, it's very, very effective.
Viola (16:29):
Yeah. Especially when you are in pain, you want something effective, right?
Shelly, Muscle Check founder (16:34):
Would. Absolutely. Yes. So just in conclusion what I would really like to say about Muscle Check is how clean and pure it is. It's the ingredients.
For instance, I, I had a person who distributes to many stores and what he had wanted was to take Muscle Check use bees was from other countries. And you know what, we didn't do it. We said, no, even though we could make more money on it, a lot more money by getting inferior ingredients. We have stayed true and that's really, we're very proud of that. Pretty much across the board in natural health products is they will get started in the industry and then all of a sudden they're starting to switch out the ingredients so they can make more money. We will not do that. My company will never do that. We love this formula and we're really pleased to be able to present it to the public in this form.
Viola (18:08):
That's really reassuring. Well, thank you so much, Shelly.
Shelly, Muscle Check founder (18:14):
Well, you're welcome.
Viola (18:15):
This was really informative. We'll talk soon.