Dave Snyder: Evolving as a Clinician: Strategies for Lifelong Growth

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the Brown Performance and
Rehab Podcast powered by Isofit and Firefly Recovery. Isofit is
my go to for all things isometric strength training. For
more on Isofit, be sure to check out isofit dot com.
Episodes like this are made possible by Firefly, the official
recovery provider of the Brown Performance and Rehab Podcast. For

(00:22):
more on Firefly, be sure to check out Recovery firefly
dot com. This episode is powered by doctor Ray Gorman,
founder of Engage Movement. Learn how to boost your income
without relying on sessions. Get a free training on the
Blended practice model by following at Ray Gorman DPT on Instagram.
Joining me today on the podcast is Dave Snyder. Dave

(00:44):
has a wealth of experience working with athletes as an
athletic trainer in a variety of sports. Today, Dave and
I discuss principles and framework considerations for you as a
clinician or a coach in order to stay at your
best throughtout your career. How can you continue to develop?
What are the litmus tests you should use in relation

(01:05):
to information that you're getting? You know, is it worthwhile?
Is it something you should add in or is it
something that's maybe you know, not going to fit your
framework that way. This was an amazing discussion, really actionable
discussion with Dave today and I know you're gonna love it.
Be sure to check out the ARC course which Dave
is going to be hosting in the month of July,

(01:26):
coming up very soon. Enjoy Dave, Welcome to the podcast.
I'm super excited to work with you today, man, and
I appreciate our you know, growing population of mutual connections
that way that helped us get here, whether that be
Jake Wilkes or Tyler Lasher. We just happen to know
a lot of the same phenomenal people. But you know,
maybe there's someone out there that doesn't know you as

(01:46):
well as they do, or as well as I've gotten
to know you lately. Would you mind filling them in
a little bit about who you are and all the
great work you're doing down there at Baylor.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
Well, Dave Snyder, I'm an athletic trainer. I'm the head
of athletic trainer for Ben's back basketball at Baylor. I've been
with men's basketball since about twenty nineteen. Prior to that,
I spent about sixteen years in college or professional football
at various institutions and teams and really cut my teeth
in the football world, and then had to figure out

(02:16):
how to translate that sort of experience into basketball when
I moved into basketball. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
No, that's awesome. That's awesome, And I think it's one
of those things that it sounds like you've got a
wide skill set or a wide array of skills that way,
and you've worked with a lot of different sports, and
it sounds like you also have a lot of experience
in the space. And one of the things we were
just talking about off recording actually was just that value
that comes from putting your time in, if you will.
And I'd imagine you know, because of the experience you've gotten,

(02:43):
you've seen things come and go, You've seen approaches change,
it change, You've seen a lot of things evolve over time.
And I think that's something that probably like sets you
apart from a lot of other like maybe the younger
folks like me in the space.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Well, you know, you're right, and you know, if you
spend a long enough time in anything, you're gonna see
trends come and go and you'll see things that just
kind of remain the same. So when it comes to
my approach to rehabilitation or evaluation or you know, assessments
in my injury algorithms, I try to stick to the

(03:18):
things that I feel like are the star wars, and
then I adapt to the changes that I feel like
are going to be something that's going to stick around
for a little bit. And it's obviously got to be
back by by science and evidence and everything like that,
but I definitely try to tie my anecdotal experience in

(03:38):
with the evidence based practice as best I can.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yeah, it's that kind of merging of everything together that way,
and that's something at least for myself personally. I kind
of learned very quick outside of school, right like you
get out of school, you get handed your degree, and
you feel like you're ready to tackle the world and
you can just solve everything right. And of course you
can do it all yourself because you're autonomous in your practice.

(04:03):
And then it took me probably less than a month
in the full time clinical practice to realize I don't
know nearly as much as I think I do, and
I have a lot left to go. And I was
just overwhelmed at first by this amount of new information
that was coming out all the time, and I was
just kind of stuck in this. I wouldn't say full
paralysis by analysis, because I was doing stuff, but at

(04:26):
the same time, it was just trying to kind of
question everything that I was doing, why I was doing it.
And it's very easy to get overwhelmed when you find
yourself in those situations. I think one of the most
essential elements is having some kind of built out framework
or process for understanding what your own foundation is, right,
how do I look at myself in the mirror and understand, Hey,

(04:48):
what are my strengths, what are the things I need
to improve upon, what kind of things do I see
a lot? Where's my kind of knowledge level really deep
versus other areas. Maybe it's not as deep, but maybe
it's a little bit more wide. And then ultimately, how
do I build off of that foundation that way? And
I think, again, it's getting more difficult now than ever
in my opinion, because I feel like every week new

(05:09):
certification comes out, new research is being published, and it's
challenging to keep up to date with all the changes
that are occurring in the sports space. That way, walk
me through kind of from your own experience that way,
What has been your own kind of philosophy or approach
to staying up to date with everything while also balancing
the evidence with your own clinical practice, And how have

(05:32):
you kind of built your career and built your success
off of that initial foundation from school?

Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yesterday asked the question on Instagram, I was like, you know,
what's one of the main barriers for success in athletic
training or performance? And there are a lot of great responses,
and two of them, I think are some of the
biggest barriers as ego and pride. And you know, if
you can't get out of your own way, or if
you don't have the practical humility to unders stand that

(06:00):
you may not know everything or there may be a
better way to do it, then you're probably destined for
failure of making a mistake. All the while, you can't
be paralyzed by the fear of making mistakes, because those
are going to happen. But the way I'll say to
the to the people that might work with me or
the people that I might supervise, is that you know,

(06:21):
as long as your your approach was sound, and your
your rationale was sound, and and there was effort involved,
is like if you make a mistake, it's okay, it's
gonna happen. You just learn from them, don't repeat it.
So for me, it said you know exactly like you said.
You know, early on in the profession, you felt like
you know, knew a lot, You're gonna change the world,

(06:44):
and then you realize the longer you're in it, the
more you don't know. And you know, I perfectly content
not knowing things, as in the fact that you know,
when I find that I that there's something I don't
know or I'm not very proficient in, I'm okay with that.
I just make an effort to become an expert in
it or to become sound in that thing, whether it

(07:06):
be the concept of training or conditioning, or injury evaluation
or the use of various technologies or things like that.
Is like, I understand that there's always going to be
things out there that I may not know a lot of,
So I like to be a constant student as I've
come up throughout the profession. You know, one of the
things that's been a staple for me as it relates

(07:28):
to my approach to rehab is movement. You know, there's
a time and place for static stationary work. But if
you can't progress them, well, then they're not going to
progress throughout the process. Well. And then the thing that
you know, we say a lot these days is return
to play. It's been a thing that's become a position

(07:48):
in a lot of teams and over the years that
was just a thing that you did, but you didn't
necessarily use the title all the time. And now you
have returned to play. Specialists, Well, you know what makes
you a specialist in that besides title alone. So you know,
as I've learned and progressed in all of those different
types of areas, you know, I lean on you know,

(08:12):
the articles, the journals, things that are published that are
peer reviewed, things that are not peer reviewed, and then
I just read those and I try to just dissect
them and see what's applicable and what's not, and then
and try some things out. And then my network, uh,
you know, and and I'm always trying to expand my network. Uh.
I'm fortunate to know a lot of really really intelligent

(08:34):
people in all the domains that we come into contact with,
whether it be physician, athletic trainer, physical therapist, occupational therapist,
strength coach, massage therapist, chiropractory, I mean, you name it.
All these different domains come into contact with us potentially
on a daily basis, and uh, you know, I try

(08:57):
to learn from them, you know, and unapologetically I try
to to just siphon knowledge off of them to help
me in my own practice. And I'll and I'll tell
them that. And the thing that I always offer to
others is I as I, you know, learn from them,
is like I offer myself to them if there's ever
anything that they would like to learn from me. But
you know, I look at it and all those approaches,

(09:19):
is it's going to better and fit my athlete in
some way or another, or it's going to benefit the
administrator that's gonna ask me my advice on something they're
dealing with or something their child's dealing with. Because you know,
in this business, you know, we get stopped at the
store and say, hey, you know, dealing with this thing.
What should I do? Hey, you know, I'm taking this supplement?

(09:39):
Is that okay? And if I have to, I might
even consult our nutritionness before you know, giving an answer,
or if it's something I'm relatively knowledgeable in, I'll tell
them my opinion, so you know, That's kind of the
approach that I've taken is just, you know, continue to learn,
lean on my experience when necessary, and then lean on
those that I've gotten to know over the years, because

(09:59):
I really try to surround myself by people that I
think are experts in their domain. And I think that's
how this should be. It's one big collaborative. You know,
if I come along something that I think is new,
I think it's exciting and it's going to help me
with my student athletes. It's not a secret. You know,
I'll tell others about it because you know, yeah, we

(10:21):
all want to do our part to help our teams
be successful in whatever it is we're working with, whether
it's you know, the military setting, the industrial setting, the college, professional,
high school, amateur. But you know, I want to help
everybody that I know because I feel like I'm asking
others to help me, so in turn, I would like
to try to help others.

Speaker 1 (10:41):
So well put, Dave, it's all about giving back to others, right.
I've said this a lot lately that you can't go
through life with the catchers mean in both hands. You
have to learn how to throw something back that way,
and the more you provide value to others. At least
for me, I've found the more fulfilled I feel in
my own life that way. Right, there's that other quote
I probably sound like a bit of a lost for
at this point. Put that rising tides raise all the

(11:03):
ships in the water, and I think, ultimately that's what
we're after. It's how do we lift others up, and
how do we get everyone closer to whatever their end
goal is, knowing that everyone might have different goals, or
how do we get them closer to whatever their own
definition of success is knowing that success looks a little
different for every single person. That way, I think one

(11:23):
of the big things you hit on the importance of
the network, and that's something I learned a lot as
well as initially for myself when I was in clinical practice.
I was like, shoot, I just moved to an area
where I don't really know anyone. I don't know who
I can call, I don't know who to text, I
don't have any emails. I don't really know what to
do when I get in these situations where it's like,
oh crap, where do I go from here? Versus after

(11:47):
spending some time where I am now in Maryland, it's like,
oh shoot, I filled my phone contact list with sports medphysicians,
local athletic trainers and so on that way. So now
it's like, when something does go wrong, not only do
I have access to other individuals, but we can also
be more collaborative in the care element, because I think
when it comes to rehabbing or providing strength and conditioning

(12:10):
services to an athlete, you have to recognize early on
that you can't do the whole thing yourself, regardless of
what school taught you, because I was taught the same thing.
You're autonomous. You can go out, you can do all
the things yourself. You don't need other providers. And I'm sorry,
but that's one of the biggest lies in the space.

(12:31):
You have to learn how to lean on other people
and to use a Dan Taylor ism here, you have
to have low ego and high respect while doing so.
You have to learn how to check your ego at
the door. You have to learn that sometimes you're going
to be called to steer the ship and take people
throughout the entire journey with a little bit of support

(12:51):
along the way, and you're going to have to fall
into other situations where you're kind of playing more of
the support role. You're on the back end, you're one
of the extras in the movie. But that doesn't mean
your role is not important in the final production. It
means you're just called to play a different role than
maybe you have in the past. And I think, ultimately,
as long as we keep our focus on those things

(13:13):
I mentioned earlier, right, the outcomes, the goals, the success,
and people are achieving those. At least for me, it
no longer matters what role I play in the grand
scheme of things and the bigger team. As long as
we're getting where we need to get to. I don't
care if i'm you know, main star or if I'm
kind of somewhere off in the back, as long as
we're getting the outcomes that we're after and we're doing

(13:35):
right by the people we work with.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
Couldn't agree more.

Speaker 1 (13:37):
And the other thing you mentioned as well, as you
mentioned about just the overall knowledge base as well, and
how the knowledge base itself is ever evolving for you, right,
you said you lean into your network, but you also
lean into journals and articles and so many other sources
of information. That way, what kind of things have led
you to like develop more of a systematic approach to

(14:00):
doing that, if you will. And the reason I ask
that is, at least for myself, I feel like I'm
very streaky when it comes to knowledge, where like one
weekend I read twenty articles and then I won't read
any again for a month. So is there a more
maybe like methodical way to go about, you know, taking
all this information that's coming out and kind of maybe
checking in on it regularly as opposed to almost binging

(14:21):
information if you will, you know.

Speaker 2 (14:23):
I think the simplest answer for me is the fact
that it's very situation. So I need to be self aware.
If I'm not self aware, none of the other things matter.
If I don't know my strengths, if I don't know
my weaknesses, if I don't have and I'm going to
steal a term from Phil Beckner, who's a notable basketball
coach and basketball trainer who I'm a huge fan of.

(14:44):
He has things called guardrails, So I need to set
up my own guardrails. And those guardrails for me are like,
don't get stuck, don't get complacent, don't get so poured
into what I'm doing right now that I'm not looking
at other things. So some of the ways that I
do that are if I'm dealing with something complex, I'll
read some things about it, and I'll go and look
at various types of journals or things or even things
that like Google pulls up from the you know, National

(15:08):
Institute of Health or or whatnot, and I and I
look specifically at things. And then what I do is
I try to follow good sources of information. So, you know,
if an article just today, an article talked about how,
you know, blood flow restriction, which I'm a huge fan of,
has a really positive response as it relates to angiogenesis,

(15:30):
which is fantastic, you know, great, you know, just continue
to convince me why it's so good, so so things
like that. So I I I take specific approach, and
then I try to surround myself with people and things
that are going to continue to put things in front
of me that I may not be looking at or
looking for specifically. But I'll just you know, see that

(15:51):
an article is posted, I'll stop and read it. I'll
look at things that I think are are great and
how it might be applicable to me, and then I'll
move on. And then I'll just refer back to that
if I need to So that's kind of the approach
that I take for myself because I know myself pretty well,
so I try to just have it come at different
angles so I can so I can break out of

(16:15):
my tunnel vision at times and and pour into things.

Speaker 1 (16:18):
And you mentioned about the metaphorical guardrails that you've kind
of built up over time that way, I'd imagine that
would kind of help as far as just filtering through
the information that you read that way, because as you mentioned,
you know, some studies you look at, maybe the peer reviewed,
you know, two thumbs up, maybe some are not, but
there's still value in those, and there's still value in

(16:40):
case studies.

Speaker 2 (16:40):
Right.

Speaker 1 (16:41):
There was an individual I was working with the other
day where the only literature I could find about the
specific condition they had was literally case studies. So it
was like, hey, this is far better than nothing that way.
But having that own kind of personal little filter or
litmus test to look through information and kind of filter
out like, hey, this is really good or hey maybe

(17:01):
this isn't as good, I think it's really essential as well,
especially when you get into the methods section of some
of these papers and how they do the statistical analysis.
And I'm by no means a mathematician, But I've found
certain papers that seem to be trying to get a
certain outcome, which is the outcome they present. And I
think knowing that you can kind of look at things

(17:23):
through that lens really separates your ability to you know,
get really good information and have a really positive effect
as opposed to just kind of falling into these little
like traps and snares that, unfortunately, I feel like, kind
of get thrown into our profession that way.

Speaker 2 (17:39):
Well, you know, two specific examples are some things that
I've looked at and then I have to determine. But
you have to know your sport and know your setting
to be able to know if certain things are going
to be applicable or not. And they may be perfectly
valid as it relates to statistics, but not in my sport. So,
for instance, you know you read some articles on recovery. Okay,
this is great. Well, well this is an article as

(18:00):
it relates to a team that plays once a week.
All right, Well, that's a completely different program and I
can't follow that because in basketball, we don't play once
a week. We play three times, sometimes four out of
seven days or whatnot. So it's not one out of seven,
So I can't recover my guys the same that somebody
that only plays once a week can, Cause it's it's

(18:21):
all about the programming, and some of the programmings aren't controlled.
Some it's not. Then it might be as it relates
to like travel, Okay, well how do you travel, how
do you help guys recover? As it relates to travel, well,
we travel differently and we travel really well. I'm not
gonna I'm not gonna lie, but we travel a lot,
so there's various things that we have to do there.
And then as it relates I'm really a big believer
in like testing, but not testing for testing sake, and

(18:44):
not over analyzing some of the testing because it's more
of like we need to do this a lot over
the course of a long time to really watch it
and then pay attention to certain things as we go
that that might be red flags to know we need
to adjust in some areas, or green flags, know that
we're doing things right. But jumping, you know, when I jump,

(19:06):
my guys can't follow the same protocol that they might
once again for a team that maybe plays once a week,
because they can set certain days and I'm going to
do this on this day every week, be consistent because
I can, and so on and so forth. And with
our schedule, we don't have the same consistency. So I
can't find the day that everybody's the most recovered because

(19:27):
our schedule might change periodically as the weeks go on.
So I have to, you know, follow those things I
read the literature and this is these are how you
should do it, but it may not always be applicable
to me, so I have to find the best way
that it's going to work for me. Or another example,
as it relates to like some of the journals and

(19:48):
the science buying certain things is like, yeah, we do
rely on experience and some anecdotal evidence, and there's some
things that we try. As it relates to some of
the treatments that we give, and we might combine certain
treatments one out of you know, we've seen that it's
been positive, and then it's also maybe as it relates
to time, like the amount of time you have with
an athlete, you might need to superset your treatments, you know.

(20:13):
So there's some things that we'll do and there's not
really a lot of literature on it yet, but there might,
but it all will come from people saying, hey, you
should do a research study on this, because we've seen
some really great things on this, and so it just
kind of depends. But you just try to take everything
in and evaluate it and see if you can apply it,
is it worth trying to apply And then ultimately with

(20:35):
all of this that I just said is like, are
the athletes benefiting from it? You know? Are they benefiting
from the way I program their recovery based on our schedule?
Are they benefitting from the information that they get when
we do jump. Are they benefiting from the types of
treatments that I do based on experience and time that
we get and what we have available. So it just
kind of you've always got to be kind of on

(20:56):
it on that.

Speaker 1 (20:57):
Point on if the athletes are benefiting that way, going
to take a shot in the dark and assume that
there's ben instances where the athletes are benefiting from things
that you're doing that maybe from a literature standpoint, don't
hold up the best right Like take pole stulture sound
as an example that way that's come up in the
past on the podcast where some individuals felt like it

(21:17):
wasn't necessarily the best intervention for what the individual they
were working with had going on. Yet they always reported
improvement and feeling better and playing better afterwards, So they
did it anyways because hey, you know, we're seeing individual improvement. However,
it wasn't necessarily like option number one from the research standpoint.

(21:38):
So I think knowing that, hey, sometimes the things that
work for the individual in front of you might be
you know, the seventh best thing, but if it's moving
the needle in the right direction, and I think we're
probably still willing to make that transaction, I.

Speaker 2 (21:52):
Think there's something to be said about that. And I
think that you know, in these things where you might compromise,
you're not compromising to the detriment of the player, or
you're not going against science, or you're not going against
the literature to an extent. But yeah, you might be
picking option four where you'd really love to do option one,
but you might need to like circle back around to
use one of the worst cliches in the business and

(22:16):
try to go back to one. But you know that
you know this this athlete feels great when they do
this for one reason or another, both both physically and psychologically,
So you know that's Okay, you just have to sometimes
understand I'm looking for little wins as many times as
I can, and it's like, is this something I'm going
to fight about and then develop a negative relationship because

(22:39):
I refuse to do this because it's not the best
mode at this moment. But you have to understand what
the ultimate goal is is for the athlete to feel
good and then for them to feel ready and safe
to go out and compete or practice or train or
whatever it is. So yeah, I think that that happens
a lot.

Speaker 1 (22:59):
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(23:43):
training DM my name Dan to at Ray Gorman DPT
on Instagram and receive your free breakdown on the model. Absolutely. Yeah,
And as you mentioned, you have to begin with the
end in mind, so to speak that way. And one
of the things you mentioned earlier was just the importance
of knowing the sport that way. And you know, obviously
each sport is a little bit different. Some sports I

(24:03):
definitely see more literature and research on than others that way.
But I've certainly learned a lot about sports that don't
necessarily have a lot of research behind them. And you know,
I didn't personally play them growing up, so I don't
really have a whole lot of personal experience with by
just having conversations with athletes and coaches within the space

(24:23):
that way. And I think, going back to the networking element,
sometimes the best network is literally sitting right in front
of you. You just have to be willing to kind of,
you know, reach out and have the conversation with them.
Right again, it's what can I learn from the individuals
that I'm around, and how can I take that and
use it to help other individuals that way?

Speaker 2 (24:44):
I think you're right. I mean there's something to be
learned by everybody. You know, I learned from my athletes
coming in. You know, the world now is where a
lot of them are transfers. So there's times where when
the dust is settled and we're working through things like, hey,
you know, what sort of things have you done in
the past. Did you feel like these things help? Did
they have some things that we didn't have? You know,
things like that. As it relates to coaches, you know,

(25:05):
if you have a really great coach, then why wouldn't
you lean into them? As it relates to like things
that translate into play, whether it be drills, whether it
be techniques, whether it be early integration, to things like
why wouldn't you do that? It's like, we have some
great coaches here, and we've had great coaches that have
been through here, and it's like, you know, sometimes I

(25:27):
ask what can it? And I'm a big believer and
do whatever you possibly can within the confines and restrictions
of your your injury status or rehabilitation status. So sometimes
it seems silly, But it's like, can he sit down
and do a certain type of drill with the basketball
while seated? I'm like, well, it's not gonna hurt him.
It gets him to be able to get out and

(25:48):
do something that he enjoys, even though it's about his
base levels you could get, but there's value in it. So,
you know, why not learn from coaches? Why not learn
from strength coaches? I mean they're experts in that domain,
you know. I try to learn from nutritionness and what
we can do as it relates to what can I support?
How can I support them? When we have guys going
through process and we want to talk about supplements that

(26:10):
are helpful. What's their nutrition, you know, what's their coloric intake,
what's our prop teen intake. You know, we're all preaching hydration.
You know, my athletes tend to roll their eyes now
as I relate to everything revolves around hydration. And there's
a point where thankfully some do come backs like you
know you're right. So it's there's always something to be

(26:31):
learned by folks around here. If we bring in speakers
that speak to the team, whether it be about motivation
or determination or planning or preparation or finance, whatever. You know,
there's always something to be learned. You know, everybody talks
about the world that we're in right now is transactional.
It's always been transactional. We just say it now, But

(26:52):
you also can look at it as being transactional in
different ways. So you know, when you're maybe selling what
you're doing, selling your your rehab that you're gonna or
your plan, or you're talking with agents, or you're saying
this is like, you need to sell your rehab philosophy.
You need to sell your plan of action as it
relates to surgery, to rehab approach, to the modalities you're

(27:16):
going to use, to when you're gonna use them, how
opt you're going to use them, why you're not using
other things. Like, everything is a transaction. So there's just
so much to be learned, and it's almost like learn
as much as you can filter it out and then
stick to what you believe and how those things can
enhance what you know to be true and what the

(27:36):
evidence says to be true. And you can use the
anecdotes from these other people to help just further that.

Speaker 1 (27:43):
Yeah, one hundred percent agree, I like that a lot Dave.
And I think the other piece too that goes along
with all of that you mentioned earlier about knowing yourself too,
And a lot of these things are very difficult to
do if you don't know your own strengths and weaknesses
and how you function and how you operate as a
clinician that way, And I think it's one of those
things that's really difficult to do, and no one ever
really gets taught how to do it right. It's not like, oh,

(28:05):
just follow these steps and now you know everything about
yourself as a clinician, right. It's more of a matter
of self reflection and self evolution that way, And I
think it comes from, at least in my opinion, a
couple different things. First off, you've got to be able
and willing to put a lot of work in, because
if you never put your nose against the grindstone, you're
never going to realize how sharp you can get. Right,

(28:27):
you have to be willing to go out there and
pound the rock day after day after day and put
a lot of time in. But then you also have
to be able to step back, step away from that
and reflect upon all the work that you just did,
look back and say, hey, here's what went well, Here's
what didn't go well. Here's the conversations I had, Here's
the things that I did, Here's the exercises, parameters, all

(28:50):
the different things that could have impacted the success of
whatever it is you were doing. Look back, reflect on it,
see the outcome, think about how you did, and think
about ways that, Hey, these things are great. Other things, yeah,
I could be better about those. That's something that I've
started doing after every time I present to a group
that way. There's certain presentations I've given them like, man,

(29:11):
you know, that did not go really how I wanted
it to. Here's what I should do different next time.
And then there's other presentations I've given them like, man,
that went so so well. I just need to channel this,
this and this the next time I give something like
this out to make sure that I highlight those, and
you know, we're off to the races from there. So
understanding like, you have to put the time in. You

(29:32):
have to do the work. If you don't, you don't
have anything to reflect upon. But just as important as
doing the work, I think you have to be able
to take that step back and assess all the things
you just did, and on top of that as well.
In relation to that step back, I don't know if
you've ever done this, but there's been times where I'd
be working with an athlete or I'd have a new

(29:53):
evail come in and I'll literally just kind of step
back for thirty seconds to a minute. You know, maybe
there's like a curveball thrown at me that I didn't
expect to be coming, or you know, something along those lines.
For whatever reason, I'm caught off guard and whatever I
was thinking is no longer how I'm thinking about it.
So what I'll usually do is I'll step back and
I'll kind of say, hey, look, you know, give me

(30:15):
a minute. I got to go check something real quick
and just kind of collect my thoughts, think about things,
and then re engage, reintervene from there. But sometimes the
best step forward for us, in my opinion, is actually
to just step back a little bit.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
You know. There's that's a could be a multifaceted answer,
I would say definitely for for sure. When I was
younger in the profession, I was all about the work.
I was not about the reflection, and I wasn't great
with feedback either. And as I've grown in my experience,
and have been humbled, and I've tried to understand my
ego and pride and sort of get past that. I've

(30:51):
I've been able to step back and and look at
at how things have gone, open myself up to or
constructive criticisms and just any kind of feedback. And now
I'll welcome feedback. I understand that it may not all
be what I want it to be, but I you know,
that's what you have to open yourself up to. But

(31:13):
and that's helped me a lot. It's helped me be
able to assess, you know what, this didn't go perfectly.
This is some things that we could do different. I
could have said this different, I could have communicated it better.
I could have made sure that they understood what I
was saying. And I wasn't ten steps ahead in my mind,
but ten steps behind in my communication, which can be
the case often. So definitely stepping back and reflecting. And

(31:38):
you know what you talked about pulling back. You know,
I've done it in the immediate at times where I've
looked at something It's not what I thought it was
going to be. So I had to pull back and
kind of go back in with a different frame of
mind and continue to dive into my assessment or whatnot
to see what it is. But there's also been some
things where we might and I say we as in
myself or people I'm working with or the domains that

(32:00):
are involved, might be treating something and you know, I
can think of ankles and hamstrings and some things where
it's like, you know, it's an ankle, it's like you're
just go, go go. You're supporting it, supporting it and
supporting it, and you might just sometimes step back and like, WHOA,
we might be doing too much, or we might be
adding too much, or you know, we might need to
pull back and like realize that we're overdoing it and

(32:21):
do a little bit less to where they might make
some strides because we're not inhibiting them by the treatment
or even like the hamstring. You know, there was years
where I approached hamstrings all wrong, and it was probably
fifteen years ago where I realized that because we would

(32:44):
see soft tissue things everybody does, and it'd be certain
players mostly, But if you can catch an hamstring before
it actually has you know, damage, and you're in that
low low grade strain to spasm range, then what we
would do, though, is we'd work that hamstring out. We'd
work it out and work it out because you needed to,

(33:05):
because the hamstring was being symptomatic in a way. And
then I pulled back, and a lot of it had
to do with you know, I took the continue the
corrective exercise specialist worse years and years ago, and it
was great, but it shaped how I look at things
just right away, and that helped me in my approach
to that. But what I did is like I stopped.

(33:26):
I stopped looking at the hamstring, and I started looking
at the surrounding musculature. And I was like, well, why
is a hamstring acting this way? And it's because it's
taking the brunt of the work, and there's a lot
of other areas that are not doing their job. I'm
a big on analogy, so it's like other muscles aren't
doing their job. So I started and it's kind of

(33:47):
like the survivorship bias. The hamstrings the spots to take
in all the bullets. But we need to really work
on these other areas because if they go, we're really
in trouble. So started working the surrounding musculature, stopped focusing
on the hamstring. If there wasn't any kind of actual
significant tissue damage. It's just fatigued. And then we started

(34:09):
seeing a lot more significant progress and quicker progress, to
the point to where I had to start telling my
staffs and coaches like, hey, look, this isn't what you think.
It's not necessarily a hamstring strain to the degree that
you think, so don't expect hamstrings to respond this quickly
like we're seeing. We just found it saudily, knew what
to look for, knew a better approach, and then we

(34:32):
started helping that sort of kinetic chain work more efficiently.
But all that was a result of step back, what
are we really doing here, why aren't we seeing success?
And then shifting with what we learned. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:45):
No, I think that's such a great point. And it's
so interesting to bring that up about the hamstring example
in particular, because I've been guilty of that myself in
the past, where it's like, well, it's flared up, it's angry,
it was injured, so let's just load it really hard
and heavy and make it stronger. But sometimes it's not
just the injured tissue that needs load, but everything else
around it kind of needs to learn how to you

(35:08):
know whether that be produced force, absorb, reduce force, act
in a true eccentric manner, whatever it is. That way,
how do we kind of look at everything else and say, like, hey,
now's an opportunity to raise everything to a higher level,
and not just the tissue that's injured that way, because
obviously it's never just one thing that contributes to these injuries.

(35:29):
It's always multifactorial and multi fasted. One of the other
things you mentioned as you were talking was feedback, and
you talked about how to take feedback. But I think
just as important as taking just as important as taking
feedback is giving feedback to other individuals that way. And
that's another thing that again I was never really I
never felt like I was taught how to take feedback

(35:50):
and how to give feedback. And just like we mentioned
the filter in relation to research, how to filter the
feedback you get because there's some people that give phenomenal
advice and I'd trust anything they say, and there's other
people that give their feedback and I just don't really
agree with it, and I end up going a different direction.
And I'm not going to say it's wrong, it's just

(36:11):
it doesn't really pass that personal gut instinct test for me,
if you will that way, how have you as a
clinician gone about, you know, getting better improving taking feedback
but also improved in the way that you give feedback
to others that way as well.

Speaker 2 (36:28):
You know, that's a great question and a great way
to describe it. And you know, like a lot of
athletic trainers, I can be guilty of uh sarcasm and
uh and poorly time with so but for me, it's
that you know, sometimes people give feedback and you know
you might will say hey, thanks, but I didn't ask.

(36:50):
So for me, it's feedback is like others are going
to give it and I and I need to understand
that they're just trying to help and they may not
have the full context and understanding of this situation and
sort of all the different things that you've worked through
and have tried out and it's just not working yet.
But h and that's great, And I've tried to become
better about taking that understand you know, being kind and

(37:13):
then you know, continuing on and then what I've done though,
to me, the best feedback is from established relationships. So
if you don't have great relationships in this profession from
all the different domains, then you're gonna fail, probably more
often than not. So what I do is if I
have something really complicated or really troubling, or I'm just

(37:35):
beating my head against the wall, I go to my
network of what I look at is the best of
the best, and I present them. You know, this is
what I'm doing, This is what I've tried, this is
what I'm seeing. What am I missing? You know? What
am I not seeing? Because I'm too you know, you know,
I'm not necessarily a stoic, but I've read a lot

(37:56):
of the different books on stoicism things like that, and
we're emotionally involved in something, then we're not necessarily going
to always see it with the same clarity that somebody
is not. So once again, years doing this, I tried
to become as self aware as I can. I know that,
so I have to separate. Understand, I'm too emotionally tied
to this thing because I pour everything into it. So

(38:16):
I was like, I need to step back. I need
to take somebody that's purely objective because they're not emotionally
tied to it, and then what do they think? So
I've kind of cultivated the relationships of what I look
at as like an elite team of people in all
the different domains that I can ask them and get
their opinion, and then they could say, hey, you're being ridiculous.

(38:36):
What are you doing? This is crazy and they could
say that, and I it just you know, doesn't phase
me because I know that a they care about me.
We've established a relationship of mutual respect and they want
what's best for me and for me to be the
best at what I do. So if they've gone through
that you know, vetting process of my own, then and

(39:00):
you know I'll do it. And they also also understand
because we all deal with high level athletes and there's
a lot of like respect and understanding. Is like, this
is a complex problem I'm dealing with. This might be
an elite individual that I'm dealing with. I need everybody
to treat this as such, and then you know, respect
that privacy as it relates to I've got a problem,

(39:21):
I need your help, but I don't need broadcasting it
to everybody. So you know, I've just put that together
over the years. And when it comes to injury evaluation,
physician selection, rehab, performance analytics, you name it, I've got
various people and all those domains that I can go
to that can give me a true, caring, unbiased opinion

(39:45):
to help me like get over some of those hurdles.
So that's taking years to develop.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
Yeah, one hundred percent. It takes so much time to
build those relations in that network and connection that way,
And just as long as it takes to build on
the flip side, you can destroy the whole thing in
seconds with your actions, with your words. Understand that you know,
while it may be your goal to have this robust
network and you know, trust in everyone and so on

(40:14):
that way, there's a lot of that great power with
great responsibility so to speak, in this space as well.
And as you mentioned, it's like, hey, there's certain things
that maybe we shouldn't say that, maybe we shouldn't you know, lead,
we should leave private conversations with private conversation if you will,
because I've found, at least again in my own opinion,
if you start to say too many different things that way,

(40:37):
you can turn a lot of people away. It's knowing
how do I, you know again, treat others with respect?
How do I keep my ego low and my respect
level high? You could completely disagree with what someone says,
but that doesn't mean I'm going to turn it into
a big shout in screaming match and ruin the relation.
Right as you mentioned, you know, it's one of those
things that you have to understand your emotions. That emotional

(40:59):
and elligence piece, again not often taught in the space,
but so so essential in my opinion, not just in
relation to feedback and connections and networking with other providers
that way, but also in relation to the actual work
you do with athletes because you're, unfortunately gonna face difficult times.
Athletes all face difficult times, you as the provider for them,

(41:23):
are no exception. Just like they go through hills and valleys,
you're also going to experience hills and valleys. I like
to think I'll never be the guy that this happens to,
but you know, at some point an athlete that I
worked with is going to come back in with another injury.
Maybe they retoard their ACL maybe that shoulder labor and
repair didn't hold up, whatever it is. Maybe some of

(41:45):
that was influenced by my own actions, maybe it had
nothing to do with me, But regardless, those bad situations
are going to happen, and if you can't control your
own emotions and your own response to those situations, then
ultimately you're not as adequately prepared as you could be
for them. Same thing for you on the at side,

(42:05):
like you probably see some gruesome acute injuries that you
have to respond to, and if you can't keep your
cool in that moment, how do you know you're getting
the correct assessment right? You know, you only really get one,
maybe two shots if you're lucky at a lockman or
pivot shift when someone goes down with a non contact
knee injury. If you're not completely dialed and locked in
in that moment, then we could be making the incorrect

(42:28):
judgment call.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
You know, there's a there's a book by Malcolm Gladwell
talking about Blink and at the beginning it makes everybody
think that if you just make your gut reaction, if
you make your gut decision, then you're going to make
it right because but you know, he follows that with saying, well,
you know, basically, your your first reaction is probably right
if you are an expert in your field. So first

(42:52):
become an expert, then you can lean on your evaluations
in the time where it's time sensitive and you understand
that just something is not right. You need to just
understand that and go with it. But it's not just
based out of feeling, it's based out of experience. You know.
I once had a student athlete that and thankfully I
saw it. But I once had a student athlete in

(43:13):
football that was hit and was essentially knocked unconscious on
the hit and he woke up when he hit the ground.
So but I knew based on knowing the athlete. I
also watched that play thankfully, and I saw how he
went down. I was like, none of that is right.
But then I saw that when he when he hit

(43:35):
the ground, he came to, So I was like, you know,
I trusted everything that I knew about that kid, about
what I just saw to where I needed to go
intervene to help remove them because because he you know,
he was that was an injury, a significant one, and
but it uh, it was it was unique. But yeah,

(43:56):
it was like, it can't happen any faster than that,
because it was almost like you had to convince everybody
else that had happened because they didn't really see it
that way and watched them as an individual and how
they went down a certain particular way. So but then
you know when I then showed it to them on
film later and it's like, hey, look at this, look
at how we did this, they're like, oh man, I

(44:16):
didn't even see that. But uh yeah, you've got to
develop experience, and then you've got to to lean on
that experience to where you can make the best decision.
And sometimes they're quick. I love lengthy amount of time
to make a decision. I mean who doesn't. But you
also have to be comfortable and capable to be able
to make decisions really quickly.

Speaker 1 (44:37):
Yeah, no, one per one hundred percent. It's one of
those things that there's a time component to everything we do,
and towards the beginning you also mentioned about return to
play and that kind of return to play specialist element
as well in the evolution of return to play that way, boy,
that's another thing in particular that I feel is so
time pressured lately. I know in the ACL world, for exam,

(45:00):
you know, we tell athletes nine to twelve months. I
think they only ever hear the nine, they never hear
the twelve. And I sometimes think maybe we should reframe
the way we say that to athletes. Hey, it will
take up to twelve months. It might be a little sooner,
but consider twelve not nine, because now more than ever,
at least, I've felt this pressure to hey, this athlete

(45:22):
has to be back at the nine month marker. In
some cases, athletes feel like they need to be back
before the nine month mark. And again, time pressure of
knowing we don't have that significant length of time to
get this athlete back. We have so many boxes to check,
and you know, seven months or eight months might sound
like a lot, but there's a lot of instances that

(45:43):
it's like, you know what, another month would be extremely
helpful or extremely beneficial here. So on that time component
and time pressure, I think that impacts the short term
game and acute game just as much as the long
term game and big picture game as well. And I
think it's one of those things that you have have
to have real conversations with people, and going back to

(46:03):
the importance of the networking and relation building that's not
just with other providers, but that's ultimately with the athletes
that you work with. Right That's I think why most
of us do what we do on the day to
day is to have those connections relations have those kind
of impacts and so on. But part of that relation
is sometimes being the one to unfortunately deliver the bad
news and say, look like, we're not where we want

(46:26):
to be, We're not where we should be. Here's some
different things that I think could have contributed to it.
Here's what we're going to do about it from here.
But ultimately knowing like, hey, look, you know, it's not
the right time, it's not the right spot, and again
making sure that everyone is on the same page about
that too, right Like you know, obviously, if you've got

(46:48):
one member of the high performance team saying good to
go and two others saying no, they're not, you know,
it makes a real difficult situation that way. There's an
at I was talking with just a few weeks ago
eat and down with the Carolina Core, and he was
outlining their process to me how they get everyone down
in the room together, whether that's team doc at strength, coach,

(47:09):
coaching staff on the team, everyone, and they all sit
down and they make a mutual decision of are they
going back to sport or are they not going back
to sport? Because now it's not on one person to
make the call or the decision. It's a mutually agreed
on decision. And again, it's easy to miss stuff. I
miss stuff all the time, but I don't stay there.
When you have ten sets of eyes instead of one,

(47:31):
it's a lot more difficult to miss some of those
little things that you know become so essential in these
like very difficult situations we fall into.

Speaker 2 (47:41):
Yeah, no, I agree, And you've got to have that
a lot of sets of eyes, a lot of communication.
I think that's some of the things. Like you know,
you talk about nine to twelve months. I mean we're
still dealing with the concept of six and rarely as
it's six. And then there might be times where somebody's
ready in six and you know, if they're ready and
they've met all the criteria, then okay, great. I'm not
a big believer in holding somebody back because it's fast.

(48:05):
I mean, if they've hit the necessary criteria and they've
excelled in their their their training and their limbs symmetry
index is where it needs to be and all that
sort of thing. Great, you are an exception, You're you
are blessed with amazing DNA and a great central nervous system.
But uh, you know, if you're not and you fall
into the category of that typical you know, potentially nine

(48:26):
months to twelve months, that's also okay. But I think
a lot of hands and eyes are also great. Is like,
as you begin those long term types of rehabs, there's
times where life is happening all along the way and
there might be things here and there that get in
the way, whether it be the athlete schedule or holidays
or whatever, you know, so the other eyes and hands

(48:47):
are involved as well as like, hey, look, you know
we're not hitting the marks that we need to hit
every two weeks or every time we reassess with things
like that. We need to like dial back in on
some of these things. You know, we need to focus
back in on this deficiency or enhance this range of
motion or whatever. They're ready to progress. We need to run,
we need to jump, you know, we need to load more,

(49:09):
you know, things like that. So I think that's really valuable.
If you can have a really well oiled performance team,
then it makes everything better and essentially it makes programs better.
And that's where it's like, well how do we fit.
That's where we fit into whatever team or a clinic
or hospital or whatever that you're working with. Is like

(49:31):
you're working efficiently and your people are getting better, and
then it's putting people back on the floor, you know
in the industrial setting, decrease in time loss, decrease in
work loss, you know, whatever it is, but it's pivotal.
So if folks don't have that, they need to seek
it out and try to get it. And sometimes, you know,
the setup might not be fit for that, depending on

(49:53):
the location, but you can still try to put that
together in your own way as best you can. So
it's huge. And then those are also what could be
considered guardrails. There's more people, more eyes to help you
just not miss something.

Speaker 1 (50:07):
One hundred per I love that. I love that, Dave.
I realized we could probably talk about this all day long,
because we're obviously both very passionate about the space that way.
Is there anything we missed in our discussion or any
other kind of closing thoughts or closing remarks you got?

Speaker 2 (50:22):
I don't know, maybe, I mean I could talk about
some of this stuff all day long, but uh, you know,
I think that you know, as as as sports and
and just you know, the aspects that we both share
as it relates to health is ever evolving. I think
you just got to continue to advance, you know, continue
to advance the network, you know as people you've referenced

(50:46):
earlier on and that folks that sort of got us together.
Is that those are just based on relationships, and those
were both on both based on extension of ourselves, you know. Uh,
speaking of Tyler Lesher, Tyler's been fantastic. It's become a
great friend of mine in the business. And you know,
it all stemmed from us going and playing each other

(51:08):
in an MTE in Las Vegas, and then we both
communicated going into that and we met up and hung
out some and just that's where it started. And it's
been fantastic and it's been incredibly fruitful for me and
hopefully me to him. But uh, it's about it's about relationships.
I mean, that's you know, who can you lean on,

(51:29):
who can you throw ideas by? Hey, what are you
doing that I'm not doing? What's working for you? And
that's where most of my probably success has come from,
is just being a subjective of knowing great people. Just
like some of the teams that I've been a part
of with success, you know, it's like, you know, we
had great players, we had great coaches, we had a
great strength coach, we had great doctors. You know. All

(51:51):
those things make me better, you know, so it also
inspires me to be better as well. So but without
those I see the same success. So I'm really fortunate,
is where I look at it.

Speaker 1 (52:03):
Yeah, I completely agree. I love that, always having that
attitude of gratitude and just being thankful for the people
you get to connect with, the impact you get to
have on others, and the role you get to play
in the grand scheme of things. Day. For people who
want to find out more about you, or maybe they
want to find out more about the advanced Rehab certification,
where can they find you all at?

Speaker 2 (52:23):
You know, I try to make myself available as best
I can within the confines of time. But I like
to think that I get back to people pretty quick
and I'm always open to answering questions if they ever
have any. But I think right now the easiest way
to get me is on Instagram. It's probably where I'm
the most active. I'm dp snide on Instagram and I'm

(52:46):
trying to grow there because I think it's probably a
great platform for growth and idea exchange. So that's where
they can find me and I'm always happy to help
somebody has a roadblock and just give a fair, unbiased opinion.

Speaker 1 (53:02):
Yeah, now that's awesome. I'll link to that in the
description below. That way, if you didn't quite catch it,
you can just click there and see everything that Dave
is up to and reach out to him directly if
you're interested in finding out more about the Advanced Rehab Certification. Dave,
this is awesome, man, Really appreciate your time and thank
you for everything you're doing. Man, thank you.

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Dave Snyder: Evolving as a Clinician: Strategies for Lifelong Growth

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