June 10, 2025 • 27 mins
Every day, we pay our dues by doing the harder thing when it's the right thing to do, especially when it comes to speaking up about our health and boundaries in athletic settings.
• Most coaches (98-99%) want what's best for athletes and aren't maliciously pushing too hard
• For the 2% who prioritize results over athlete health, changing gyms may be necessary
• Approaching coaches with education and empathy helps bridge the knowledge gap about injury recovery
• Focus conversations on performance enhancement rather than just injury prevention
• Building relationships with coaches through free seminars and gym visits creates better communication
• Google Docs shared between athletes, parents, coaches and PTs improve coordination during recovery
• Milestone-based recovery is more effective than arbitrary time-based protocols
• Teaching young athletes why progression matters using their gymnastics heroes as examples
• Using motivational interviewing by asking "what matters to you" creates more receptive conversations
• Natural consequences of choices work better than punishment in coaching relationships
If an athlete is struggling with speaking up about their limitations, coach them on how to communicate effectively with their coach about boundaries and help them understand why following medical guidance matters for their long-term goals.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
every day.
You essentially pay your duesby doing the harder thing when
it's the right thing to do.
Um, all right, I was.
I was just thinking as I hitrecord that maybe, like the way
that, like dogs are allowed tobe in the back of podcasts and
people can walk around, maybe weshould normalize snacking on
the podcast.
I don't want to, I don't wantto be mike, but how much better
would these recordings be if wewere, like, allowed to snack,
(00:26):
snack.
There's a good chance that Ikeep eating my bagel Just eat it
while you take a bite.
Yeah, while you're talking, I'lltry my best to chop bagels and
mute myself.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
In between, I'll have to extend the length of my
talking until you're done withyour plate.
I'll just watch you untilyou're done.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yeah, exactly Just go exactly, just go a monologue so
I can have an entire cup ofcoffee.
Um, okay, so if I'm thinkingabout how we're gonna put these
out, last week we did a returnto sport type thing and then, um
, this one I think you probablycame up with.
Mostly you were writing in theum, the doc, about maybe what
was on your mind, but it seemslike we need to have a chat
around like I don't know, likeempowering athletes to like
(01:02):
speak up for themselves whenthey're starting to have pain,
when they're getting back to thegym after an injury, um, in
general, just speaking up abouthow you're feeling and what
you're going through.
I know we had a pretty popularepisode around, like you know,
um, college programs andmodifying things when exams are
tough and all that.
So, um, this one will probablybe more on that.
But what was on your mind whenyou kind of put this in the doc
and like, what were you thinkingthrough?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I think I just I have a lot of kids that are from
different gyms in my area, soit's hard to connect with every
single coach that you'reencountering when you're trying
to do like return to sport stuff.
And I feel like I've had Irecently I've had a lot of kids
that will come in and say thatthey couldn't follow the rules
because they really had a reallyhard time speaking up for
themselves.
Their coach asked them to dosomething and they just didn't
(01:44):
know how to say no, or they feltlike they couldn't say no, or
they did say no and then it wasnot okay they were told to do it
anyways, even though they didsay no.
So I feel like I've been tryinga lot in my practice to, when
I'm giving these return to sportprograms, to kind of coach them
and into talking to their coach.
So like coaching them how tosay no, or coaching them how to
(02:07):
stand up for themselves andtheir boundaries, cause, at the
end of the day, like this istheir, this is their boundary
that they need to set, and thisis their health, this is their
body, and they need to likelearn how to stand up for
themselves in that way, ifthey're going to be allowed in
the gym with, like a limitationof things that they're allowed
to do.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yeah, and I'll start like the umbrella of this
episode.
Maybe I don't know, maybe Ithink I got like five, 10 more
years of going through this kindof like trench work that then
you have, and maybe it's a,maybe I'm like a boomer now and
I'm older and I just don't havethe chance for it.
I don't know what it is, butafter 10 years of going through
the exact same thing that you'regoing through with, like this
uphill stickiness towards a verysmall percentage of coaches I
think that 98, 99% of coachesthat I've ever worked with from
(02:47):
like I own a recreational gymand don't want to compete to
like literally people who arelike going through Olympics
right, like people I'm trying toconsult with injuries to get
them on the national team,whatever, like 99% of the
coaches are just trying to findthe safest, most effective way
to get them back towards theirgoals in a good way.
They're not malicious, they'renot, like you know, egotistical,
it's not this big drama thing.
(03:08):
They're generally just tryingto figure out can we get them
back to a timeline that matcheslike this competition leads to
this level upgrade, which leadsto this tryout, which leads to
this college scholarship orwhatever, like a lot of kids
right now are going through thisfaster progression to get back
to camps, to get recruited.
Most 98% of people are in thatbucket that if you give them a
plan, you involve them in theplan and you tell them what they
(03:29):
can and can't do with arational explanation.
It might be frustrating, thesituation might be frustrating
to the coach, but they're notmad at the athlete, they're not
whatever.
They just don't have guidancein the gym with 30 kids they're
trying to coach.
For the 2% of people that areegotistical, it's about you know
, I need you to get back fasterso we can show you off at a meet
.
It's clearly about them andit's about their perception.
(03:51):
Fuck them and change the gym.
Like do not spend time in a gymwhere this is a conversation
around don't do this skillbecause you tore your ACL and
we're risking another injury,it's not ready yet.
And if they say like, well, youcan do it.
Or like I don't believe thedoctor, I don't believe the PT,
you are going to have so muchworse problems if you stay in
that gym as a parent.
You have to have a spine andyou have to just stand up for
(04:13):
your kid and say like no, thisis what the doctor said, this is
what the PT said.
We're going by the best sciencethat we have and that's it.
And if you gonna yell at me,what are you gonna get upset
with me?
Like big deal, you can stompyour feet all you want, right?
I've had some like very highlevel coaches.
Just get very upset with me andit's like I don't tell you, man
, I'm doing the best that I canand based on the medical
research that I have and myexpert opinion for many years in
the gym, and if you don't likeit, that's okay, that's sorry.
(04:42):
I'm trying to do what's best ofthe kit, it's safety and it's
longevity of career.
So if that is the 2% situation,it's time to move gyms.
It's time to have a bit of aspine and say like no, this is
not okay.
Right, and before we go into itmore, I'm not going to say
where, when, what it was aninternational consulting program
, so it's nothing.
Here in the States girl tore herACL and the second she got hurt
.
The coach wanted her to likeget surgery and have her be back
(05:03):
in the gym and like immediatelywanted her doing like
conditioning and leg lifts andrope climbs, like we got to get
on it.
Like we need this back rightnow.
This coach, the person, theelite that I had that was
working with her it was the onlyelite she had in the cycle for
this national team to possiblyyou know, this was last quad, it
was the only athlete she had inthe pool to possibly make it to
a high level degree.
So the coach was clearlywanting to push this, to push
(05:26):
the timeline, to get her backfor a tryout.
It was more about the coach thanher and I'm like dude, this
girl has a huge knee surgery.
I'm not letting her go into agym that's disgusting with open
wounds and do conditioning Evenif it's wrapped.
If she gets an infection, it'sa wrap, there's no way.
So, like we had to be prettymean, I want to say like no,
this, we're going by thetimeline of protocol.
She can cross train with us atthe gym, she can do whatever.
Or we had a physio she wasworking with.
(05:48):
Like she can get in the bike,she can do whatever, she'll
maintain her strength, but she'snot going back in the gym for
at least a month until herstitches are out and her sutures
are closed and blah, blah, blah.
So that's my monologue.
That's the rest of it.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Yeah, I don't think it's ever really malicious.
It's difficult when you don'tknow the other person.
Then they don't know you, and Ican understand that if they've
had previous experiences withother PTs where, like, they were
told that they couldn't do allof this stuff, or they were told
advice that maybe didn't make alot of sense, like to a
gymnastics coach.
But when I'm giving like veryspecific guidelines, like I will
write out like in a letter,like all the things they're
(06:29):
allowed to do on what services,and like all of basically all
the stuff that we got throughthe previous episode, when I'm
being that detailed, like youknow that I know what I'm
talking about, and then youstill choose to decide that your
whatever your opinion is on itis better than the opinion that
I gave, or that I'm being tooloud, like not letting them do
(06:50):
enough, or something like that.
I just I can't wrap my headaround it sometimes.
So I have had to have thosedifficult conversations with a
parent where I'm like theyeither need to not go to
practice or you need to have aserious conversation with this
coach about they need to followthe rules or they they're going
to get hurt again or somethingelse, because I think there's a
lot of like things that we don'treally talk about, that we're
worried about, like I had a kidwith such limited elbow, like
(07:14):
flexion, that yeah, she couldprobably do some of the stuff.
I'm not necessarily worriedabout her re-injuring her elbow
right now.
I'm worried about herdislocating her shoulder because
if she falls onto her arm.
Her elbow is so stiff but it'sprobably not going to hurt.
Her shoulder is going todislocate, Like even if she does
a pushup, her like shoulderspushing forward.
So explaining some of thosethings to the kid and to the
(07:36):
parents that they can kind ofdiscuss those things with the
coach, it's just I know thatit's probably not malicious and
they want to do what's best forthe kid, but sometimes they push
out a little bit too far insaying that like oh if you can
do a handstand, then you can doa back handspring.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
These are not the same things, right, exactly.
And I think there's two,there's two approaches to this,
right, there's like the good cop, bad cop kind of thing.
So, like the good cop approachis trying to approach it with a
big point of empathy about, like, think about the other way
around, right, if you were likea really high level coach and
you were trying to talk to aparent about you know, okay,
well, if they can do a tuck,your Chanko, they should be able
to flip a layout in thecompetition, you're like, well,
(08:10):
you know there's a lot more work, it's a lot harder technique
wise.
It's a high risk to explain toa parent or a PT about, like,
why certain techniques areimportant before you progress.
The flip of that is exactlylike this, which is that if you
(08:31):
have eight years of schooling inPT and you understand the
nuances of tendon remodeling anda coach doesn't, maybe it's
literally that they just don'tunderstand the basic science and
biology of tendon healingversus muscle healing, versus
bone healing, and there's alittle bit of gap in education
there and so they feel likethey're kind of on the outside
looking in and they're kind ofgetting like told what to do and
that's a little bituncomfortable.
So in that optimistic point ofview, you have to like take some
(08:54):
time to explain the basics ofthese things to them, of why you
know you have to load everythree days and you can't do that
harder because the tendon can'tremodel, and why you know this
progressive overload of likeweight training is more
important right now thangymnastics drills, and the
forces of the floor is 15 timesbody weight, even with basics.
So, like if you can oftentimesget a little bit of education
(09:14):
and then involve them in theplan with a Google doc or like
the parent, the coach, theathlete is on one Most times I
find, even with really highlevel coaches, a little bit of
education.
Once they know you knowgymnastics and that you did
gymnastics or that you have aneducation, you're putting an
effort.
Most people are pretty coolthere, you know.
And then I think the the lessoptimistic way it sounds like if
you get some uphill pushback isyou just hammer it down to like
(09:35):
, well, the doctor didn't clear.
Yet you know, like the doctorand the PT didn't clear it, you
go to gym and you say, well, ifyou can do a handstand, you can
do a back handspring.
It's like nope, my doctor saidthat I'm not allowed to do that
yet.
And then what happens?
Like, yes, I know thegymnastics portion of like the
gymnast in the gym.
That's a tough situation to sayno to.
But the parent should say thatthe parent should go in before
practice and say, like here'swhat we're cleared to do.
We have a Google doc, we have asheet from our PT is what
(10:00):
safety says?
And, like, the parent should bethe one who kind of lays the
law down.
And then in practice a coachcontinues to kind of pester and
batter the athlete about thatcompletely different situation.
But in the moment, you know,you kind of be like, well, it is
what it is.
You know I don't mean to bemean, but like that's the
reality we're living in is thatthis ankle sprain is really bad
and we can't go on floor yet andI'm sorry, even me coming up in
(10:20):
two weeks.
I yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
I just kind of went through like a similar situation
, kind of like that theyactually ended up pulling her
out of practice and just doingprivate lessons, cause they
still just their coach hadpreviously had an elbow injury,
like a pretty bad one actually,and she's just kind of going off
of her own experience ratherthan listening to some of the
advice that we had given andsome of the restrictions that we
had given her and they justkind of not doing things that
(10:45):
are like I'm sure it wascompletely harmless and things
that they didn't think weregoing to hurt her, but doing
things like back handspringsover like a big mat or something
and spotting her so she wasn'tputting a lot of weight on her
arm.
But then it's still like, butshe's not allowed to put weight
on her arm.
So frustrating things like that, where they just ended up
pulling her out of practice sofor like different privates and
(11:08):
kind of just pulling back a bit,which was good on the parents
and good recognition in that way, where they were like, okay, we
, they're not following therules, so we're just going to.
I don't know what else to do.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah, and I think you know there's.
There's a really good pointhere, which is that and a lot of
times people have a lot ofsimilar injuries, right?
So a bunch of kids will spraintheir ankles or hurt their elbow
, whatever.
You have to be really cognizantof the fact that if you could
simulate not that I would, butif you had like five girls all
rolled their ankle on a backhandstring drill on beam right,
every single one of them gothurt.
Five different kids, fivedifferent ages, five different
(11:39):
levels, five different skillpossibilities, five different
injury histories, five differentankle sprains, right, they're
not all going to be like, okay,rest for two weeks, then bands
for a week and then jump for aweek and then you're back right,
that's just not how biologyworks.
There's so much individualinjuries are one of the most
complex things on the uhpossible you know on the planet,
and so you're not going to havethis linear template that just
cause one girl had an elbowinjury and got back in six weeks
(12:01):
.
This other girls are going tohave an elbow injury and also
get back in six weeks.
So that's one piece of it.
I also find that it's veryhelpful from the start of an
injury, the first of value youhave with people is to educate
people on how there are phasesto this and we have to progress
through these phases.
It's not a time-based thing,it's a milestone-based thing,
right?
This happens all the time withACL.
You know, as soon as you're atsix weeks, you can do this, and
(12:23):
then at three weeks or threemonths you can run, then at six
months you're back to sports.
It's like that's.
There's actually a lot of newresearch that has come off that
says like that's just so not thecase that you have to pass
functional testing and criteriaof like symmetrical range of
motion, then symmetricalstrength and symmetrical power
and then symmetrical, you know,sport based, uh, functional
activities, not six weeks, 12weeks, 24 weeks, whatever it is.
(12:44):
So educate them on how there'sfour phases to work through and
how these things are milestonebased.
They're not going to be umtime-based all the time?
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yeah, that's a good point.
I know that you have like a lotof really good relationships
with gymnastics coaches.
Would you mind just talkingabout like how you started to
form those?
Was it?
Was it just like simplecommunication via phone, like
text?
Did you like go to the gym andmeet them, like what did that
look like in order to buildthose relationships?
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Yeah, great question.
So very early on the first yearI was working my first job at a
grad school.
Um, I would say I probably hadman.
I probably had like five to 10gymnasts total on my schedule
versus gen pop, and I hadobviously the own.
I was coaching at that time andso there were a couple of kids
that I work with locally, but ingeneral it was.
It's volunteering a lot of yourtime, going out of your way on
(13:34):
weekends and between shifts tovisit a gym, have coffee with
someone, give a free seminar,give a free lecture, right, and
I was writing a lot of stuffonline.
So I think that was part of it.
Like the blog was very popularback then when I just started
dumping my thoughts into blogposts and so between giving free
clinics to coaches, going toCongresses, going to weekend
seminars, volunteering my timeto do free screens to people at
(13:56):
gyms and then writing online,there are a lot of local people
who knew I existed, that I didgymnastics, that I had a
coaching background and stuff.
But there really is no otherexcuse or like way out besides,
just like straight up trenchwork, like you just have to be
willing to, you know, stay lateand see that extra person who's
coming from practice late, or goon a Saturday morning and
literally just grab coffee, goto a Saturday morning practice
(14:18):
and just just tell the peoplelike, hey, do you mind if I come
in and just hang out, I want towatch, I want to learn
gymnastics?
Um, and you just shoot the shitwith the coaches, you build
rapport, you joke around, youjust kind of like present
yourself as someone who'sknowledgeable and is nice.
And then the other piece of itis that on your own time, you
know you have to be good.
You have to be good as aclinician, whereas good doesn't
mean everyone gets better.
It means that you are open tolearning, you're trying your
(14:39):
best and if one person has agood experience, when the next
person on their team gets hurt,they say, oh well, actually I
know this girl, leah.
She did gymnastics and sheunderstands this.
You should go see her.
So I would say almost all of myearly two years was a
combination of donating my timeand then trying my best to do a
good job and constantly learningso that people had a good
experience, and then theyreferred their friends and they
(15:00):
referred a lot of people.
So that is still the situationat Champion, which is that
Champion doesn't market.
We don't have any marketing atall.
No paid ads, no, whatever.
Almost all of our referrals aredoctors that we know and who
trust us and send us people orclients who get referred to us
and then refer their friends, ptor working out with us.
(15:27):
It was just like a slow grindover six years of trying to do
good with somebody.
They refer somebody else tryingto do good for somebody else.
So yeah, a lot of it is justdonation of time.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Okay, that's good advice, yeah.
I definitely need to make my wayout to some more gyms I think
that's been a little bit of abarrier to try and figure out
like how to actually approachthem to say like hey, I exist,
I'm here, like how can I help?
Kind of thing, like what I canoffer from like uh, just like
walking in and like offering myexpertise and trying to allow
(15:54):
them to like be open to yeah,and I think another, another
angle of that is always skewthings in the performance bucket
, not the injury bucket.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
I learned this the hard way with um.
Like high level coaches andlike when I started doing like
elite national team type stuff,I like I really talk about
injury prevention Like for real.
I talk about running faster, Italk about doing more routines,
I talk about durability, I talkabout workloads and hitting
bigger scores, like I talk aboutthe things that I think they
care more about.
And then, of course, underneaththe radar, there's a lot of
injury overlap.
(16:21):
That has that.
But also either call the gymcold call and leave a message
like hey, can I talk to theowner?
I'm a new PT, I just moved hereto gymnastics.
I'd love to establish, you know, a relationship.
You mind, if we meet for coffeeoutside the gym or um, swing by
the gym and drop to the frontmanager, say like I'm a PT, I
just work in the area, I'd loveto come by and shadow, you know,
uh.
Or hang out for a practice andjust chat and just like kind of
(16:42):
do it.
And when you have that initialfoot in the door or social media
is great too.
You can just, you know DM, someof the people who coach or
whatever and just let them knowI haven't met a lot of people
that way but also ask them likewhat do what is your biggest
problem?
Like what do you?
What is the issue that you dealwith the most?
That's the most frustrating.
It's always like flexibility isnot good enough, their power is
not good, tight enough.
It's like a lot ofperformance-based issues and you
(17:04):
say like, oh, I'd love to, I'dlove to come in and chop it up
and just share with you about,like some flexibility drills
that are really good.
Um, free, free and service.
You guys buy the coffee, I'll,I'll come in for an hour and
teach your whole coaching staffabout getting better split.
I guarantee they would take youup on that.
(17:24):
And then you just look onlineand going to take my stuff and
go teach in a gym, it's allyours.
You take it and sell it, whichunfortunately happens.
That's a different situation,but yeah, so yeah, hopefully
that helps them.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
That is.
That's really helpful.
Actually, I hadn't reallythought about like doing that
and asking them their biggestproblem and trying to approach
it that way help them withwhatever they need.
I feel like I'm always in aplace where I'm like, oh, I like
want to communicate with thiscoach, but it's always like
during when I have one of theirpatients with an injury and it
feels like stepping on toes justa little bit, like I don't want
to like feel like I'm walkinginto their practice and being
(17:56):
like, oh, I'm here to watch thiskid, that I'm like actually
right now to make sure you'refollowing the rules or something
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Yeah, I forget there was a book that I read like I
want to say it was like five orsix years ago where essentially
it was a psychology book.
Where they were they weretrying to figure out, um, I
think it's called helping peoplechange, but essentially it's
like Northwestern researcherswere trying to figure out how do
you actually make people changetheir lifestyle and like
actually make significantchanges to um, their eating
habits, their drinking habits,their like lifestyle factors?
(18:22):
Because I think, think, I thinktheir chronic health or public
health researchers who likerealize that 98 of diabetes and
heart problems come down to likebasic lifestyle change, but
nobody would be willing tochange them and so they
essentially did, like this giantstudy on looking at um, telling
people why they should changeversus asking them what matters
to them.
And the example they use in thebook is, I want to say, uh,
(18:45):
smoking related is like this guyhad been trying to smoke and he
was like clearly getting lungcancer, like it was
progressively getting worse andworse, but year after year, you
know his family says you shouldquit, you're going to get lung
cancer, you can do this.
And he tries to quit and hegets back on.
He tries to quit gets back on.
But in this research study theywould essentially MRI their
brains before and after.
They did this approach and whenyou tell someone what to do,
they have like a very bigshutdown in the areas that are
(19:07):
receptive to change, receptiveto information.
It's not very like.
It's like a lot of like fightor flight response.
It's very like flight driven.
They're like adrenaline.
They don't want to talk topeople.
They shut down.
Versus in this study, what theydid is the other group.
They were like what matters toyou, like what do you care about
, right, what are the thingsthat you actually want in your
life?
And if you make it contextspecific to their goals, the guy
in the book wanted to walk hisdaughter down the aisle.
(19:28):
That was like the mostimportant thing this entire life
.
And the researcher was likeokay, well, you can't walk her
down the aisle if you're deadRight.
Or like what if you have to bein a wheelchair with an oxygen
tank at the wedding?
And he was like devastated bythat Right.
And so they MRI'd him afterthat, like interview, kind of
like psychological counseling,and there's all the areas that
were like parasympathetic wereactivated.
So he was like open to response, open to change.
(19:49):
He was like, not in thatdefensive mode because they were
like oh, these people careabout me, they care, they want
me to.
Like what matters to me is whatmatters the most.
And so that book essentiallyopened my eyes a lot to
reframing how I was approachingeducation of, like you know,
it's not about what I want andwhat I think matters to their
gym or their athlete or whatever.
It's about what they care about.
So I approach all thoseconversations with like okay,
(20:09):
well, like, what do you want asa coach?
Like what matters to you.
And they often it's like I want, you know, people to compete
well and I want to have asuccessful team.
I want to have a lot of likeyou know, competitive people
getting to college scholarships.
That's what matters to me as acoach.
That makes them feel like I'm agood coach, like I'm a good
person, like I'm working hard.
I don't think that's how theyshould do it, like they
shouldn't measure their worthbased on the number of
scholarships they get.
But for a lot of coachesthey're uh, the number of kids
(20:32):
they have competing at a highlevel is reflective on how they
feel their coaching self-esteemis.
So when you reverse engineer,like well, what do you care
about?
Like, what things matter to you, what problems do you have for
you?
And then you follow that upwith like okay, well, I'll help
you solve those problems forfree.
If you let me come in and justgive an educational seminar,
completely different start therelationship.
Then I want to make money frommy clinic and have more patients
(20:52):
.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Sure yeah, that's a good thought.
I really liked that study.
I've read that study too.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
It's great that's.
That book was very uh verypivotal in like my approach to
coaching coaching in school.
When one of our like painscience classes or something.
Yeah, there's a great.
I had a psychology minor andthere was a really great course
that I took at Springfieldcalled motivation, motivational
interviewing.
Maybe I want to say it's like a, it's like a way you approach,
(21:17):
like chatting with people andlike discussion around, like
making sure it's what matters tothem.
But, yeah, anything fromgetting people to do
conditioning and like you know,like, well, like what do you
care about?
Like what do you want?
Like why I want to flip aYurchenko so I can get level
nine, like, okay, well, if youwant to do that, then you
probably got to run faster.
If you probably want to runfaster, you probably do a couple
of leg exercises.
(21:37):
So like, and it matters to them, um, gretchen oh, what's your
last name?
I forget her name.
She's a researcher in Canada fora gym can, but essentially she
spent her whole career on like,um, punishment versus a learned
consequences is her entire modelof like approaching, coaching,
approaching, um, you know,healthy, uh, discipline in um, a
(22:00):
gym and essentially like, oh,natural consequences, that's
what it's called.
So you set things up with kidswhereas you make choices,
choices of consequences.
Consequences can be good or bad.
Good or bad.
Consequences lead to good orbad outcomes and they reflect
your choices right.
So if you skip leg conditioningand you don't want to come to
practice, those are going tohave consequences which are
negative.
And the negative consequencemight be that you fall at vault
(22:23):
and you're embarrassed and youdon't really like the way that
your vault scores are going.
Right.
The I'm telling you what to doand you're getting punished for
not showing up to practice.
It's that you made a choice.
Your choice had a consequence.
Your consequence is somethingyou don't like.
How can we fix this situationLike?
What can we do differently as anatural consequence to your
choice and I think I'm a hugefan of that framework and
(22:44):
literally all I do with PT orcoaching, because I'm trying to
help athletes get through theirgoals and there's natural
consequences, so I like thatmore.
You're not getting punished fornot coming.
You're not getting punishedLike okay, if you don't want to
shrink, fine, it's all good,I'll see you in seven weeks at
the competition and we'll seewhat's up.
You know that's like a betterway to approach it.
Parenting's a lot like that too.
I'm not a parent, but I hearfrom a try to do that a lot with
, like some of my younger kids,just definitely a little bit
(23:07):
harder with the younger kids totry and get some buy-in from
them, Cause they just I mean,they immediately want to jump
straight into their highestlevel skill right.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
They don't want to like, wait until whatever.
Like you have to have your armstraight in a plank before you
can do a handstand and then youhave to have your arms straight
and handstand before you can doa back handspring, for example.
Like they don't want to do thelike small steps in between.
So, sitting down with them andlike having a really honest
conversation about what theyneed to be able to do and trying
to help them understand whyyou're doing what you're doing,
(23:46):
rather than just telling themlike, no, you can't do this
until you can do that.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Yeah, I think little kids, more than older kids, are
very example-based, visual typepeople.
So a lot of the times with theyounger athletes we would pull
up YouTube videos of, like who'syour favorite gymnast?
Like who's your favoritewhatever, like oh my God, I love
Simone.
We pull up videos of Simone andwatch her vault or watch her
like do these crazy skills.
And then, like, also findvideos of Simone, you know, just
(24:16):
grinding away leg lifts andjust doing like the most boring
stuff ever.
And, like you know, listen toLaurent, talk to her about skill
and technique and it's like,well, if Simone can do your
Chanko double pike, you know howdo you think she got there?
Do you think she did it by justbeing Simone?
Like no, it was a lot of workand a lot of boring stuff she
had to do to get there.
So I think little kids have alot of idols, they have people
they naturally follow, thingsthey're inspired by, and so
trying to find their heroes andexplain how, like, 80% of what
(24:37):
they do is not the most excitingfun stuff, it's like you know
the grunt work.
Um, they seem to respond reallywell to that, whereas I think
older kids tend to become alittle bit more um, there's a
word for it but like self-driven, you know, autonomous.
They try to be like more, likewell, I have goals, these goals,
these are what my goals are,and you can map their big
picture goals to medium goals,to small goals.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Yeah, I like that.
Yeah, I think, um, overall, Ithink we got that one right.
It's like, yeah, Try toapproach it optimistically with
education, donation of time, um,trying to close the gap and
maybe their knowledge level.
And I think I think Google docsare the best thing that was
ever invented, right, Likehaving a shared Google doc.
Um and their return to sportprogram, which I made for the
last podcast.
Like I just share that witheverybody.
(25:16):
It's like in a Google doc Iscreenshot the actual thing, put
it in a Google doc with theirPT program and then I give their
parents access, the kids accessif they're older, um, the coach
access, their other trainersaccess, whatever.
And then I just give everyonemy email and my cell phone and I
said, like, if you havequestions, just text me or I'll
(25:38):
hop on a call.
Um, I think being accessible isreally important for um
clinicians and for stuff viaemail or whatever.
Um, I just I God, I can't standthe call.
The front desk.
Front desk leaves a message.
Front desk gets to you.
You get back to them on yourlunch break to the front desk.
Front desk calls back the coach.
It's like a two hour nightmare,Right.
And so, yeah, athletes that areolder and cleared have.
My college girls have like mycell phone and my email to like
text or call real quick, andthen parents have my emails and
stuff.
It's a bit more of a headacheon your end, obviously, being
(26:01):
front end.
But yeah, I feel like if the ifsome of the docs from
professional sports team inBoston can call me after surgery
, then I can, I can casuallytext and call.
Some of my patients do like yougot to go out of your way for
that, no good.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Yeah, my dog is barking.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Oh, that's okay, what's?
Speaker 2 (26:16):
your dog name Marvin.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Marvin, come here, can you get in frame, marvin, is
that what?
And the podcast with a Marvindebut.
Oh, what a good boy.
He's great Black lab.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
All right, everyone, sure, oh everyone.
Make sure you go to the videoversion of the podcast so you
can see marvin, the officialmascot of the podcast.
All right, yeah, he's just dead.
Um, we'll wrap it up there andthen I think we have one more.
We're gonna chop down for nextweek, but see you guys bye.
every day.
You essentially pay your duesby doing the harder thing when
it's the right thing to do.
Um, all right, I was.
I was just thinking as I hitrecord that maybe, like the way
that, like dogs are allowed tobe in the back of podcasts and
people can walk around, maybe weshould normalize snacking on
the podcast.
I don't want to, I don't wantto be mike, but how much better
would these recordings be if wewere, like, allowed to snack,
(00:26):
snack.
There's a good chance that Ikeep eating my bagel Just eat it
while you take a bite.
Yeah, while you're talking, I'lltry my best to chop bagels and
mute myself.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
In between, I'll have to extend the length of my
talking until you're done withyour plate.
I'll just watch you untilyou're done.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yeah, exactly Just go exactly, just go a monologue so
I can have an entire cup ofcoffee.
Um, okay, so if I'm thinkingabout how we're gonna put these
out, last week we did a returnto sport type thing and then, um
, this one I think you probablycame up with.
Mostly you were writing in theum, the doc, about maybe what
was on your mind, but it seemslike we need to have a chat
around like I don't know, likeempowering athletes to like
(01:02):
speak up for themselves whenthey're starting to have pain,
when they're getting back to thegym after an injury, um, in
general, just speaking up abouthow you're feeling and what
you're going through.
I know we had a pretty popularepisode around, like you know,
um, college programs andmodifying things when exams are
tough and all that.
So, um, this one will probablybe more on that.
But what was on your mind whenyou kind of put this in the doc
and like, what were you thinkingthrough?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I think I just I have a lot of kids that are from
different gyms in my area, soit's hard to connect with every
single coach that you'reencountering when you're trying
to do like return to sport stuff.
And I feel like I've had Irecently I've had a lot of kids
that will come in and say thatthey couldn't follow the rules
because they really had a reallyhard time speaking up for
themselves.
Their coach asked them to dosomething and they just didn't
(01:44):
know how to say no, or they feltlike they couldn't say no, or
they did say no and then it wasnot okay they were told to do it
anyways, even though they didsay no.
So I feel like I've been tryinga lot in my practice to, when
I'm giving these return to sportprograms, to kind of coach them
and into talking to their coach.
So like coaching them how tosay no, or coaching them how to
(02:07):
stand up for themselves andtheir boundaries, cause, at the
end of the day, like this istheir, this is their boundary
that they need to set, and thisis their health, this is their
body, and they need to likelearn how to stand up for
themselves in that way, ifthey're going to be allowed in
the gym with, like a limitationof things that they're allowed
to do.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yeah, and I'll start like the umbrella of this
episode.
Maybe I don't know, maybe Ithink I got like five, 10 more
years of going through this kindof like trench work that then
you have, and maybe it's a,maybe I'm like a boomer now and
I'm older and I just don't havethe chance for it.
I don't know what it is, butafter 10 years of going through
the exact same thing that you'regoing through with, like this
uphill stickiness towards a verysmall percentage of coaches I
think that 98, 99% of coachesthat I've ever worked with from
(02:47):
like I own a recreational gymand don't want to compete to
like literally people who arelike going through Olympics
right, like people I'm trying toconsult with injuries to get
them on the national team,whatever, like 99% of the
coaches are just trying to findthe safest, most effective way
to get them back towards theirgoals in a good way.
They're not malicious, they'renot, like you know, egotistical,
it's not this big drama thing.
(03:08):
They're generally just tryingto figure out can we get them
back to a timeline that matcheslike this competition leads to
this level upgrade, which leadsto this tryout, which leads to
this college scholarship orwhatever, like a lot of kids
right now are going through thisfaster progression to get back
to camps, to get recruited.
Most 98% of people are in thatbucket that if you give them a
plan, you involve them in theplan and you tell them what they
(03:29):
can and can't do with arational explanation.
It might be frustrating, thesituation might be frustrating
to the coach, but they're notmad at the athlete, they're not
whatever.
They just don't have guidancein the gym with 30 kids they're
trying to coach.
For the 2% of people that areegotistical, it's about you know
, I need you to get back fasterso we can show you off at a meet
.
It's clearly about them andit's about their perception.
(03:51):
Fuck them and change the gym.
Like do not spend time in a gymwhere this is a conversation
around don't do this skillbecause you tore your ACL and
we're risking another injury,it's not ready yet.
And if they say like, well, youcan do it.
Or like I don't believe thedoctor, I don't believe the PT,
you are going to have so muchworse problems if you stay in
that gym as a parent.
You have to have a spine andyou have to just stand up for
(04:13):
your kid and say like no, thisis what the doctor said, this is
what the PT said.
We're going by the best sciencethat we have and that's it.
And if you gonna yell at me,what are you gonna get upset
with me?
Like big deal, you can stompyour feet all you want, right?
I've had some like very highlevel coaches.
Just get very upset with me andit's like I don't tell you, man
, I'm doing the best that I canand based on the medical
research that I have and myexpert opinion for many years in
the gym, and if you don't likeit, that's okay, that's sorry.
(04:42):
I'm trying to do what's best ofthe kit, it's safety and it's
longevity of career.
So if that is the 2% situation,it's time to move gyms.
It's time to have a bit of aspine and say like no, this is
not okay.
Right, and before we go into itmore, I'm not going to say
where, when, what it was aninternational consulting program
, so it's nothing.
Here in the States girl tore herACL and the second she got hurt
.
The coach wanted her to likeget surgery and have her be back
(05:03):
in the gym and like immediatelywanted her doing like
conditioning and leg lifts andrope climbs, like we got to get
on it.
Like we need this back rightnow.
This coach, the person, theelite that I had that was
working with her it was the onlyelite she had in the cycle for
this national team to possiblyyou know, this was last quad, it
was the only athlete she had inthe pool to possibly make it to
a high level degree.
So the coach was clearlywanting to push this, to push
(05:26):
the timeline, to get her backfor a tryout.
It was more about the coach thanher and I'm like dude, this
girl has a huge knee surgery.
I'm not letting her go into agym that's disgusting with open
wounds and do conditioning Evenif it's wrapped.
If she gets an infection, it'sa wrap, there's no way.
So, like we had to be prettymean, I want to say like no,
this, we're going by thetimeline of protocol.
She can cross train with us atthe gym, she can do whatever.
Or we had a physio she wasworking with.
(05:48):
Like she can get in the bike,she can do whatever, she'll
maintain her strength, but she'snot going back in the gym for
at least a month until herstitches are out and her sutures
are closed and blah, blah, blah.
So that's my monologue.
That's the rest of it.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Yeah, I don't think it's ever really malicious.
It's difficult when you don'tknow the other person.
Then they don't know you, and Ican understand that if they've
had previous experiences withother PTs where, like, they were
told that they couldn't do allof this stuff, or they were told
advice that maybe didn't make alot of sense, like to a
gymnastics coach.
But when I'm giving like veryspecific guidelines, like I will
write out like in a letter,like all the things they're
(06:29):
allowed to do on what services,and like all of basically all
the stuff that we got throughthe previous episode, when I'm
being that detailed, like youknow that I know what I'm
talking about, and then youstill choose to decide that your
whatever your opinion is on itis better than the opinion that
I gave, or that I'm being tooloud, like not letting them do
(06:50):
enough, or something like that.
I just I can't wrap my headaround it sometimes.
So I have had to have thosedifficult conversations with a
parent where I'm like theyeither need to not go to
practice or you need to have aserious conversation with this
coach about they need to followthe rules or they they're going
to get hurt again or somethingelse, because I think there's a
lot of like things that we don'treally talk about, that we're
worried about, like I had a kidwith such limited elbow, like
(07:14):
flexion, that yeah, she couldprobably do some of the stuff.
I'm not necessarily worriedabout her re-injuring her elbow
right now.
I'm worried about herdislocating her shoulder because
if she falls onto her arm.
Her elbow is so stiff but it'sprobably not going to hurt.
Her shoulder is going todislocate, Like even if she does
a pushup, her like shoulderspushing forward.
So explaining some of thosethings to the kid and to the
(07:36):
parents that they can kind ofdiscuss those things with the
coach, it's just I know thatit's probably not malicious and
they want to do what's best forthe kid, but sometimes they push
out a little bit too far insaying that like oh if you can
do a handstand, then you can doa back handspring.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
These are not the same things, right, exactly.
And I think there's two,there's two approaches to this,
right, there's like the good cop, bad cop kind of thing.
So, like the good cop approachis trying to approach it with a
big point of empathy about, like, think about the other way
around, right, if you were likea really high level coach and
you were trying to talk to aparent about you know, okay,
well, if they can do a tuck,your Chanko, they should be able
to flip a layout in thecompetition, you're like, well,
(08:10):
you know there's a lot more work, it's a lot harder technique
wise.
It's a high risk to explain toa parent or a PT about, like,
why certain techniques areimportant before you progress.
The flip of that is exactlylike this, which is that if you
(08:31):
have eight years of schooling inPT and you understand the
nuances of tendon remodeling anda coach doesn't, maybe it's
literally that they just don'tunderstand the basic science and
biology of tendon healingversus muscle healing, versus
bone healing, and there's alittle bit of gap in education
there and so they feel likethey're kind of on the outside
looking in and they're kind ofgetting like told what to do and
that's a little bituncomfortable.
So in that optimistic point ofview, you have to like take some
(08:54):
time to explain the basics ofthese things to them, of why you
know you have to load everythree days and you can't do that
harder because the tendon can'tremodel, and why you know this
progressive overload of likeweight training is more
important right now thangymnastics drills, and the
forces of the floor is 15 timesbody weight, even with basics.
So, like if you can oftentimesget a little bit of education
(09:14):
and then involve them in theplan with a Google doc or like
the parent, the coach, theathlete is on one Most times I
find, even with really highlevel coaches, a little bit of
education.
Once they know you knowgymnastics and that you did
gymnastics or that you have aneducation, you're putting an
effort.
Most people are pretty coolthere, you know.
And then I think the the lessoptimistic way it sounds like if
you get some uphill pushback isyou just hammer it down to like
(09:35):
, well, the doctor didn't clear.
Yet you know, like the doctorand the PT didn't clear it, you
go to gym and you say, well, ifyou can do a handstand, you can
do a back handspring.
It's like nope, my doctor saidthat I'm not allowed to do that
yet.
And then what happens?
Like, yes, I know thegymnastics portion of like the
gymnast in the gym.
That's a tough situation to sayno to.
But the parent should say thatthe parent should go in before
practice and say, like here'swhat we're cleared to do.
We have a Google doc, we have asheet from our PT is what
(10:00):
safety says?
And, like, the parent should bethe one who kind of lays the
law down.
And then in practice a coachcontinues to kind of pester and
batter the athlete about thatcompletely different situation.
But in the moment, you know,you kind of be like, well, it is
what it is.
You know I don't mean to bemean, but like that's the
reality we're living in is thatthis ankle sprain is really bad
and we can't go on floor yet andI'm sorry, even me coming up in
(10:20):
two weeks.
I yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
I just kind of went through like a similar situation
, kind of like that theyactually ended up pulling her
out of practice and just doingprivate lessons, cause they
still just their coach hadpreviously had an elbow injury,
like a pretty bad one actually,and she's just kind of going off
of her own experience ratherthan listening to some of the
advice that we had given andsome of the restrictions that we
had given her and they justkind of not doing things that
(10:45):
are like I'm sure it wascompletely harmless and things
that they didn't think weregoing to hurt her, but doing
things like back handspringsover like a big mat or something
and spotting her so she wasn'tputting a lot of weight on her
arm.
But then it's still like, butshe's not allowed to put weight
on her arm.
So frustrating things like that, where they just ended up
pulling her out of practice sofor like different privates and
(11:08):
kind of just pulling back a bit,which was good on the parents
and good recognition in that way, where they were like, okay, we
, they're not following therules, so we're just going to.
I don't know what else to do.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah, and I think you know there's.
There's a really good pointhere, which is that and a lot of
times people have a lot ofsimilar injuries, right?
So a bunch of kids will spraintheir ankles or hurt their elbow
, whatever.
You have to be really cognizantof the fact that if you could
simulate not that I would, butif you had like five girls all
rolled their ankle on a backhandstring drill on beam right,
every single one of them gothurt.
Five different kids, fivedifferent ages, five different
(11:39):
levels, five different skillpossibilities, five different
injury histories, five differentankle sprains, right, they're
not all going to be like, okay,rest for two weeks, then bands
for a week and then jump for aweek and then you're back right,
that's just not how biologyworks.
There's so much individualinjuries are one of the most
complex things on the uhpossible you know on the planet,
and so you're not going to havethis linear template that just
cause one girl had an elbowinjury and got back in six weeks
(12:01):
.
This other girls are going tohave an elbow injury and also
get back in six weeks.
So that's one piece of it.
I also find that it's veryhelpful from the start of an
injury, the first of value youhave with people is to educate
people on how there are phasesto this and we have to progress
through these phases.
It's not a time-based thing,it's a milestone-based thing,
right?
This happens all the time withACL.
You know, as soon as you're atsix weeks, you can do this, and
(12:23):
then at three weeks or threemonths you can run, then at six
months you're back to sports.
It's like that's.
There's actually a lot of newresearch that has come off that
says like that's just so not thecase that you have to pass
functional testing and criteriaof like symmetrical range of
motion, then symmetricalstrength and symmetrical power
and then symmetrical, you know,sport based, uh, functional
activities, not six weeks, 12weeks, 24 weeks, whatever it is.
(12:44):
So educate them on how there'sfour phases to work through and
how these things are milestonebased.
They're not going to be umtime-based all the time?
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yeah, that's a good point.
I know that you have like a lotof really good relationships
with gymnastics coaches.
Would you mind just talkingabout like how you started to
form those?
Was it?
Was it just like simplecommunication via phone, like
text?
Did you like go to the gym andmeet them, like what did that
look like in order to buildthose relationships?
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Yeah, great question.
So very early on the first yearI was working my first job at a
grad school.
Um, I would say I probably hadman.
I probably had like five to 10gymnasts total on my schedule
versus gen pop, and I hadobviously the own.
I was coaching at that time andso there were a couple of kids
that I work with locally, but ingeneral it was.
It's volunteering a lot of yourtime, going out of your way on
(13:34):
weekends and between shifts tovisit a gym, have coffee with
someone, give a free seminar,give a free lecture, right, and
I was writing a lot of stuffonline.
So I think that was part of it.
Like the blog was very popularback then when I just started
dumping my thoughts into blogposts and so between giving free
clinics to coaches, going toCongresses, going to weekend
seminars, volunteering my timeto do free screens to people at
(13:56):
gyms and then writing online,there are a lot of local people
who knew I existed, that I didgymnastics, that I had a
coaching background and stuff.
But there really is no otherexcuse or like way out besides,
just like straight up trenchwork, like you just have to be
willing to, you know, stay lateand see that extra person who's
coming from practice late, or goon a Saturday morning and
literally just grab coffee, goto a Saturday morning practice
(14:18):
and just just tell the peoplelike, hey, do you mind if I come
in and just hang out, I want towatch, I want to learn
gymnastics?
Um, and you just shoot the shitwith the coaches, you build
rapport, you joke around, youjust kind of like present
yourself as someone who'sknowledgeable and is nice.
And then the other piece of itis that on your own time, you
know you have to be good.
You have to be good as aclinician, whereas good doesn't
mean everyone gets better.
It means that you are open tolearning, you're trying your
(14:39):
best and if one person has agood experience, when the next
person on their team gets hurt,they say, oh well, actually I
know this girl, leah.
She did gymnastics and sheunderstands this.
You should go see her.
So I would say almost all of myearly two years was a
combination of donating my timeand then trying my best to do a
good job and constantly learningso that people had a good
experience, and then theyreferred their friends and they
(15:00):
referred a lot of people.
So that is still the situationat Champion, which is that
Champion doesn't market.
We don't have any marketing atall.
No paid ads, no, whatever.
Almost all of our referrals aredoctors that we know and who
trust us and send us people orclients who get referred to us
and then refer their friends, ptor working out with us.
(15:27):
It was just like a slow grindover six years of trying to do
good with somebody.
They refer somebody else tryingto do good for somebody else.
So yeah, a lot of it is justdonation of time.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Okay, that's good advice, yeah.
I definitely need to make my wayout to some more gyms I think
that's been a little bit of abarrier to try and figure out
like how to actually approachthem to say like hey, I exist,
I'm here, like how can I help?
Kind of thing, like what I canoffer from like uh, just like
walking in and like offering myexpertise and trying to allow
(15:54):
them to like be open to yeah,and I think another, another
angle of that is always skewthings in the performance bucket
, not the injury bucket.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
I learned this the hard way with um.
Like high level coaches andlike when I started doing like
elite national team type stuff,I like I really talk about
injury prevention Like for real.
I talk about running faster, Italk about doing more routines,
I talk about durability, I talkabout workloads and hitting
bigger scores, like I talk aboutthe things that I think they
care more about.
And then, of course, underneaththe radar, there's a lot of
injury overlap.
(16:21):
That has that.
But also either call the gymcold call and leave a message
like hey, can I talk to theowner?
I'm a new PT, I just moved hereto gymnastics.
I'd love to establish, you know, a relationship.
You mind, if we meet for coffeeoutside the gym or um, swing by
the gym and drop to the frontmanager, say like I'm a PT, I
just work in the area, I'd loveto come by and shadow, you know,
uh.
Or hang out for a practice andjust chat and just like kind of
(16:42):
do it.
And when you have that initialfoot in the door or social media
is great too.
You can just, you know DM, someof the people who coach or
whatever and just let them knowI haven't met a lot of people
that way but also ask them likewhat do what is your biggest
problem?
Like what do you?
What is the issue that you dealwith the most?
That's the most frustrating.
It's always like flexibility isnot good enough, their power is
not good, tight enough.
It's like a lot ofperformance-based issues and you
(17:04):
say like, oh, I'd love to, I'dlove to come in and chop it up
and just share with you about,like some flexibility drills
that are really good.
Um, free, free and service.
You guys buy the coffee, I'll,I'll come in for an hour and
teach your whole coaching staffabout getting better split.
I guarantee they would take youup on that.
(17:24):
And then you just look onlineand going to take my stuff and
go teach in a gym, it's allyours.
You take it and sell it, whichunfortunately happens.
That's a different situation,but yeah, so yeah, hopefully
that helps them.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
That is.
That's really helpful.
Actually, I hadn't reallythought about like doing that
and asking them their biggestproblem and trying to approach
it that way help them withwhatever they need.
I feel like I'm always in aplace where I'm like, oh, I like
want to communicate with thiscoach, but it's always like
during when I have one of theirpatients with an injury and it
feels like stepping on toes justa little bit, like I don't want
to like feel like I'm walkinginto their practice and being
(17:56):
like, oh, I'm here to watch thiskid, that I'm like actually
right now to make sure you'refollowing the rules or something
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Yeah, I forget there was a book that I read like I
want to say it was like five orsix years ago where essentially
it was a psychology book.
Where they were they weretrying to figure out, um, I
think it's called helping peoplechange, but essentially it's
like Northwestern researcherswere trying to figure out how do
you actually make people changetheir lifestyle and like
actually make significantchanges to um, their eating
habits, their drinking habits,their like lifestyle factors?
(18:22):
Because I think, think, I thinktheir chronic health or public
health researchers who likerealize that 98 of diabetes and
heart problems come down to likebasic lifestyle change, but
nobody would be willing tochange them and so they
essentially did, like this giantstudy on looking at um, telling
people why they should changeversus asking them what matters
to them.
And the example they use in thebook is, I want to say, uh,
(18:45):
smoking related is like this guyhad been trying to smoke and he
was like clearly getting lungcancer, like it was
progressively getting worse andworse, but year after year, you
know his family says you shouldquit, you're going to get lung
cancer, you can do this.
And he tries to quit and hegets back on.
He tries to quit gets back on.
But in this research study theywould essentially MRI their
brains before and after.
They did this approach and whenyou tell someone what to do,
they have like a very bigshutdown in the areas that are
(19:07):
receptive to change, receptiveto information.
It's not very like.
It's like a lot of like fightor flight response.
It's very like flight driven.
They're like adrenaline.
They don't want to talk topeople.
They shut down.
Versus in this study, what theydid is the other group.
They were like what matters toyou, like what do you care about
, right, what are the thingsthat you actually want in your
life?
And if you make it contextspecific to their goals, the guy
in the book wanted to walk hisdaughter down the aisle.
(19:28):
That was like the mostimportant thing this entire life
.
And the researcher was likeokay, well, you can't walk her
down the aisle if you're deadRight.
Or like what if you have to bein a wheelchair with an oxygen
tank at the wedding?
And he was like devastated bythat Right.
And so they MRI'd him afterthat, like interview, kind of
like psychological counseling,and there's all the areas that
were like parasympathetic wereactivated.
So he was like open to response, open to change.
(19:49):
He was like, not in thatdefensive mode because they were
like oh, these people careabout me, they care, they want
me to.
Like what matters to me is whatmatters the most.
And so that book essentiallyopened my eyes a lot to
reframing how I was approachingeducation of, like you know,
it's not about what I want andwhat I think matters to their
gym or their athlete or whatever.
It's about what they care about.
So I approach all thoseconversations with like okay,
(20:09):
well, like, what do you want asa coach?
Like what matters to you.
And they often it's like I want, you know, people to compete
well and I want to have asuccessful team.
I want to have a lot of likeyou know, competitive people
getting to college scholarships.
That's what matters to me as acoach.
That makes them feel like I'm agood coach, like I'm a good
person, like I'm working hard.
I don't think that's how theyshould do it, like they
shouldn't measure their worthbased on the number of
scholarships they get.
But for a lot of coachesthey're uh, the number of kids
(20:32):
they have competing at a highlevel is reflective on how they
feel their coaching self-esteemis.
So when you reverse engineer,like well, what do you care
about?
Like, what things matter to you, what problems do you have for
you?
And then you follow that upwith like okay, well, I'll help
you solve those problems forfree.
If you let me come in and justgive an educational seminar,
completely different start therelationship.
Then I want to make money frommy clinic and have more patients
(20:52):
.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Sure yeah, that's a good thought.
I really liked that study.
I've read that study too.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
It's great that's.
That book was very uh verypivotal in like my approach to
coaching coaching in school.
When one of our like painscience classes or something.
Yeah, there's a great.
I had a psychology minor andthere was a really great course
that I took at Springfieldcalled motivation, motivational
interviewing.
Maybe I want to say it's like a, it's like a way you approach,
(21:17):
like chatting with people andlike discussion around, like
making sure it's what matters tothem.
But, yeah, anything fromgetting people to do
conditioning and like you know,like, well, like what do you
care about?
Like what do you want?
Like why I want to flip aYurchenko so I can get level
nine, like, okay, well, if youwant to do that, then you
probably got to run faster.
If you probably want to runfaster, you probably do a couple
of leg exercises.
(21:37):
So like, and it matters to them, um, gretchen oh, what's your
last name?
I forget her name.
She's a researcher in Canada fora gym can, but essentially she
spent her whole career on like,um, punishment versus a learned
consequences is her entire modelof like approaching, coaching,
approaching, um, you know,healthy, uh, discipline in um, a
(22:00):
gym and essentially like, oh,natural consequences, that's
what it's called.
So you set things up with kidswhereas you make choices,
choices of consequences.
Consequences can be good or bad.
Good or bad.
Consequences lead to good orbad outcomes and they reflect
your choices right.
So if you skip leg conditioningand you don't want to come to
practice, those are going tohave consequences which are
negative.
And the negative consequencemight be that you fall at vault
(22:23):
and you're embarrassed and youdon't really like the way that
your vault scores are going.
Right.
The I'm telling you what to doand you're getting punished for
not showing up to practice.
It's that you made a choice.
Your choice had a consequence.
Your consequence is somethingyou don't like.
How can we fix this situationLike?
What can we do differently as anatural consequence to your
choice and I think I'm a hugefan of that framework and
(22:44):
literally all I do with PT orcoaching, because I'm trying to
help athletes get through theirgoals and there's natural
consequences, so I like thatmore.
You're not getting punished fornot coming.
You're not getting punishedLike okay, if you don't want to
shrink, fine, it's all good,I'll see you in seven weeks at
the competition and we'll seewhat's up.
You know that's like a betterway to approach it.
Parenting's a lot like that too.
I'm not a parent, but I hearfrom a try to do that a lot with
, like some of my younger kids,just definitely a little bit
(23:07):
harder with the younger kids totry and get some buy-in from
them, Cause they just I mean,they immediately want to jump
straight into their highestlevel skill right.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
They don't want to like, wait until whatever.
Like you have to have your armstraight in a plank before you
can do a handstand and then youhave to have your arms straight
and handstand before you can doa back handspring, for example.
Like they don't want to do thelike small steps in between.
So, sitting down with them andlike having a really honest
conversation about what theyneed to be able to do and trying
to help them understand whyyou're doing what you're doing,
(23:46):
rather than just telling themlike, no, you can't do this
until you can do that.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Yeah, I think little kids, more than older kids, are
very example-based, visual typepeople.
So a lot of the times with theyounger athletes we would pull
up YouTube videos of, like who'syour favorite gymnast?
Like who's your favoritewhatever, like oh my God, I love
Simone.
We pull up videos of Simone andwatch her vault or watch her
like do these crazy skills.
And then, like, also findvideos of Simone, you know, just
(24:16):
grinding away leg lifts andjust doing like the most boring
stuff ever.
And, like you know, listen toLaurent, talk to her about skill
and technique and it's like,well, if Simone can do your
Chanko double pike, you know howdo you think she got there?
Do you think she did it by justbeing Simone?
Like no, it was a lot of workand a lot of boring stuff she
had to do to get there.
So I think little kids have alot of idols, they have people
they naturally follow, thingsthey're inspired by, and so
trying to find their heroes andexplain how, like, 80% of what
(24:37):
they do is not the most excitingfun stuff, it's like you know
the grunt work.
Um, they seem to respond reallywell to that, whereas I think
older kids tend to become alittle bit more um, there's a
word for it but like self-driven, you know, autonomous.
They try to be like more, likewell, I have goals, these goals,
these are what my goals are,and you can map their big
picture goals to medium goals,to small goals.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Yeah, I like that.
Yeah, I think, um, overall, Ithink we got that one right.
It's like, yeah, Try toapproach it optimistically with
education, donation of time, um,trying to close the gap and
maybe their knowledge level.
And I think I think Google docsare the best thing that was
ever invented, right, Likehaving a shared Google doc.
Um and their return to sportprogram, which I made for the
last podcast.
Like I just share that witheverybody.
(25:16):
It's like in a Google doc Iscreenshot the actual thing, put
it in a Google doc with theirPT program and then I give their
parents access, the kids accessif they're older, um, the coach
access, their other trainersaccess, whatever.
And then I just give everyonemy email and my cell phone and I
said, like, if you havequestions, just text me or I'll
(25:38):
hop on a call.
Um, I think being accessible isreally important for um
clinicians and for stuff viaemail or whatever.
Um, I just I God, I can't standthe call.
The front desk.
Front desk leaves a message.
Front desk gets to you.
You get back to them on yourlunch break to the front desk.
Front desk calls back the coach.
It's like a two hour nightmare,Right.
And so, yeah, athletes that areolder and cleared have.
My college girls have like mycell phone and my email to like
text or call real quick, andthen parents have my emails and
stuff.
It's a bit more of a headacheon your end, obviously, being
(26:01):
front end.
But yeah, I feel like if the ifsome of the docs from
professional sports team inBoston can call me after surgery
, then I can, I can casuallytext and call.
Some of my patients do like yougot to go out of your way for
that, no good.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Yeah, my dog is barking.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Oh, that's okay, what's?
Speaker 2 (26:16):
your dog name Marvin.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Marvin, come here, can you get in frame, marvin, is
that what?
And the podcast with a Marvindebut.
Oh, what a good boy.
He's great Black lab.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
All right, everyone, sure, oh everyone.
Make sure you go to the videoversion of the podcast so you
can see marvin, the officialmascot of the podcast.
All right, yeah, he's just dead.
Um, we'll wrap it up there andthen I think we have one more.
We're gonna chop down for nextweek, but see you guys bye.
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