Tim Roberts: Principles for Success as a Clinician in Combat Sports

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the Brown Performance and
Rehab Podcast. Joining me today is Tim Roberts. Tim is
a physical therapist with the UFCPI and Tim and I
are going to be diving into his journey as a
physical therapist, including his educational background, his travel experience across
the world, and how that's shaped and influenced his ability

(00:20):
to practice as a PT, in addition to his own
personal injury history, in particular the three ACL tears that
he's experienced and how that has helped to mold and
shape him into a more effective clinician. This is a
really great episode talking about a lot of different principles
that underlie our success as an individual working with athletes.
I really appreciate Tim's time and Tim's insight. As you'll hear,

(00:42):
Tim is an incredible person and I highly recommend you
get connected with him on LinkedIn if you're not already.
Episodes like this are made possible by our sponsors Isofit
and Oro Muscles. For more on Isofit and Oro, you
can check the description below. Enjoy Tim, Welcome to the podcast.
I'm super excited to work with it today. Man, Thank
you so much for being here.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Pleasure mate, thanks for having me on.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
For people it might not be familiar with you or
all the great stuff you've been doing in the UFC
Speeds the Marshal olds speed, which may fill them in
a little bit about who you are and what all
you're doing lately.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
So I'm Tim Robertson. I'm one of the physical therapists
working for the UFCPI I'm not sure people aren't totally
aware of exactly who we are and what we do.
So at the moment, we actually have three facilities located
around the world. We've got our HQ in Vegas, which
I'm sure most people are familiar with to a point.

(01:35):
We've got our second facility, which is our largest facility,
which is in Shanghai, China, and our brand new facility
here in Mexico City. So pretty exciting, a nice broad reach.
Slightly different setups at EASE facility in Vegas, they're seeing
primarily the UFC rostered athletes that are coming in and out.

(01:55):
There's some in house athletes that live in Vegas, but
a lot sort of might come in for two or
three weeks pre fight post fight for some diagnostics and
things like that, and the staff in Vegas primarily support staff,
so sports medicine and strength conditioning, nutrition, sports science, sports psychology,

(02:16):
so that well rounded support team. Whereas in Shanghai and
Mexico we have a full time academy which is basically
the best talented athletes who aren't UFC rostered athletes from
those areas, so predominantly Chinese in Shanghai, but expanding a
little bit into the other Asian markets, and in Mexico

(02:37):
it's all of Latin America, so we have a big
mixer guys, and we essentially run them like you were
day full time high performance program where they live for free,
they eat for free, they train for free, we have
access to them all hours of the day. So slightly different,
we're trying to do different things, but I think it's
a really good compliment as we can learn off each

(02:58):
other and spread ideas, and the academy guys, I guess
we can sort of potentially try some new ideas where
it's pretty hard to do with some of the high
end UFC guys. So it's it's a naso mix.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah no, that's incredible. I love that setup and what
a unique kind of position to find yourself in at
this point. Tim I mean having access to the athletes
whenever and having the ability to kind of provide any
and every high level performance based you know, physical therapy,
strength and conditioning type of modality that way is certainly amazing,
and I think that's something a lot of us kind

(03:31):
of don't have access to, is the ability to access
the athlete kind of whenever we need, whether that's three
days a week, four days a week, five days a week.
And I think that accessibility really allows you to kind
of get to know the athlete a little bit better
and provide for them in a way you might not
be able to provide otherwise.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Definitely, and we're all away, we're in a pretty unique
position and pretty grateful for that. And obviously with that
comes a deal, like a big deal of responsibility right
where because we can get at these athletes, we can
collect with the good data, and we can set up
a full week program that should be complementary in the
different spaces. So it's really exciting opportunities that we've got,

(04:12):
and we'll have more pis opening and they're not too
distant futures, so yeah, really really exciting, and yeah, it's
been really good in Mexico. I was originally in Shanghai
for three years at that facility, and I've moved down
to Mexico with the opening in March, so been really
nice to be there from day dot and sort of
meet the athletes as they come in and brand new

(04:32):
staff and predominantly sort of Spanish speaking stuff and Spanish
speaking athletes, so trying to get a handle on that
and see it all work. So very very exciting.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
Do you ever think to yourself when you're going through
pet school and all that, that you're going to end
up where you are now in Mexico for the UFCPA,
or how did we get to this point? Was this
something you always wanted to do? Or was this kind
of just where we ended up?

Speaker 2 (04:56):
I guess I was always a big dreamer. I had
the opportunity to live overseas as a as a young child,
just through my parents' work. I lived in the Ukraine
for a year or so when I was six, and
then lived in Peru for a year or so as well.
So I always sort of had had seen the wider
world and was always intrigued by that, and my parents

(05:16):
always really encouraging to travel and go and do new
and exciting things and push the boundary, so I was
always interested in doing that. I was always keen to
get overseas and work at some point, even from I
guess sort of early high school, I didn't know what
that would encompass, and definitely not the UFC. I don't
come from a combat sports background. Born and sort of
raised in Australia on Australian rules football, which you know,

(05:39):
not everyone's familiar with outside of Australia, and basketball and
things like that, so definitely contact sports, but never combat.
So to sort of wig on my way there, it's
been an interesting journey. I was lucky sort of some good,
really good PT programs in Australias, had a good backing
there and some really good mentors. Was lucky enough to

(06:00):
get a good work opportunity in England at about twenty six,
so I went over there and had some really good
mentors over there as well, and sort of worked not
only in sort of high level clinic which was primarily
secondary and tertiary referrals from all over Europe, but also
do some multi sports stuff with the English Institute of Sports.
So I get a pretty wide ranging exposure, which was

(06:22):
great at that age. And then after a few years there,
I again got itchy feet and there were some opportunities
within Olympic sports in China that popped up, and my
brain's always a why not ended up jumping over there,
which was a bit of a wild ride. China's an
interesting place in Chinese sports an even more interesting place,
so learn a lot. I again worked in Shanghai there

(06:45):
with primarily Olympic based sports, and we had a brand
new facility that has sixteen different sports, not sixteen different teams,
fifteen different sports on one little island which was about
ninety minutes out of Shanghai, which was pretty wild. But
again you get unbelievably good exposed to everything and not
a lot of help, so you've kind of got to
figure things out on the fly. Again, good learning experience,

(07:06):
and then when the PI in Shanghai we're looking for
a predominantly rehab based physio, kind of made sense. I
was kind of in town. You're a few of the guys,
and this was COVID time, so pivoted to that role
and then moved into the man manager position after about
nine months a year, so was sort of head there
for a couple of years and always sort of knew

(07:29):
the Mexico piece was coming along. Central America has always
been super interesting to me, So it's just something that
I was always keen to explore. And yeah, when the
opportunity popped up, and it kind of made sense for
us to have someone who'd been in the system come
over here and sort of help sort of fast track
the onboarding with a brand new staff and new athlete.

(07:50):
So I jumped up the opportunity and just chipping away
at my Spanish. Now it's coming along very slowly, it's
better than my Chinese. So yeah, it's when you look
back and say where it's all come and you kind
of say the different crossroads and different paths to you take,
and you want to know where you could have gone otherwise,
but super super grateful it'll be where I am and

(08:11):
all roads leading to positive outcomes.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
At the moment, tim, it sounds like you've kind of
bounced all around the world, like you mentioned there, from
Ukraine to Australia to England to China to Mexico. I mean,
you've kind of been everywhere. And I think that that's
something a lot of people struggle with nowadays, is they're
scared to kind of make that jump or take that
leap and go someplace they've never been before because it's

(08:35):
uncomfortable or it's scary or something like that. But I
think a lot of growth comes from pushing yourself into
that uncomfortable situation of packing up, moving someplace you've never
been before, and experiencing a very different way of life
in all senses, you know, not just like culture and lifestyle,
but even the work standpoint as well. I'd imagine physical

(08:56):
therapy looked a little different in Australia versus A and
versus Chaina versus Mexico. And the more you get to
experience those different kind of approaches and philosophies, the more
you're kind of able to shape your own accordingly.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
I would imagine, absolutely. And I guess that was always
the That was always the reason, you know, I was
always trying to find a balance between you know, career
and social and I had a lot of friends that
did big, long stints of travel. You know. The Australian
thing is go over for six months in Europe and
find yourself and grow up. And I thought, nah, that

(09:30):
seems a bit long for me. I'd rather go and
work and dip in and out, which was pretty lucky
to do, so I guess again, pretty lucky. The Australian
physiotherapy or physical therapy system has a really sort of
rich history and some really good schools ingrained in manual therapy,
but it's sort of built on the you know, the
successes in Australian sport, where some really good minds, particularly

(09:52):
sort of early nineties two thousands, so there's a really
good information there. But I'd also had some really good
mentors that did say, look overseas is a really good
way to fast track your output. So I remember obviously
leaving Australia and pretty confident in Australian physios were the
best in the world and I'd know everything. And you
get to the UK and I quickly found out there
was people that were way, way, way way smarter than meat.

(10:12):
So kind of was a good grounding at the right time.
And then learned some different ways of thinking, different ways
of attacking the athletes, particularly integrating the different departments and
the different things like strength and conditioning and how you
can bring that into your physical therapy practice, particularly with
a particilarly adaptation based approach where you can do certain things.

(10:35):
So that was really helpful. Bear in mind, your England
and Australia were pretty close together, and then the Chinese
system's completely different. You're talking about an Eastern medicine backing
right where your Chinese doctors, I guess, hold the key
and most of their things are based on Eastern philosophies,
which is you know, it takes a good six months
to get your head around it right, because you come

(10:56):
in and you're like, this is wrong, Like I feel
in my soul that this is objectively wrong. But that's
not the way to buy in. So you kind of
got to bite your tongue for six months and work
through some stuff, and you do figure out maybe the
process isn't what you'd agree with, but they actually get
some wonderful outcomes. So there's a lot of things you
can learn from that and take from that. And I

(11:17):
also found it was really my communication with athletes improved
a lot because I couldn't do it. I couldn't speak
the language with these guys. But I had to find
a way to connect. I had to find a way
to coach. I had to find a way to get
them to buy in what I was trying to do.
When I was trying to do was different than what
they'd been doing the vast majority of their life. So
things like body language and finding ways to have a

(11:41):
something familiar with the athletes, so whether it's just a
hobby or something that you can do, and making sure
that your exercise demonstration is beautiful because they're going to
just copy exactly what you do. So I think that
really fast tracked that part of my coaching and analysis.
And I think I also my subjective questionnaires with athletes
really help because I had more time, so I would

(12:02):
ask a question. By the time it went to the translator,
to the athlete and back to me, I had more
time in my hands to actually really dive deep into
a history. So I think that really helps slow me down,
which is also a really good thing. And then I
guess switching to Mexico now a little bit different again.
And also you know, we integrate with our American colleagues

(12:22):
all the time, and you know the American PT system
again is slightly different to Australia in the UK. So
it's been fascinating putting all that together. And it's tricky.
Now I couldn't tell you from my practices and what
I do in the way I think almost where each
one's come from. It's just a it's a bit of
a bundle of all. I hope the good things that

(12:43):
I've learned, and personally, I couldn't recommend it highly enough
for people. You know, the worst thing that can happen
is you go overseas you don't like it, and you
come home and you know what you don't like. I
don't see it anyway. That's it's not a win longer
term obviously, you know, moving to a new country and
setting all that up not easy, and trying to make
friends and things. But I would not recommend it enough

(13:05):
for anyone that's thinking about getting out there and saying
some new things.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
Sounds like you had a pretty good manual therapy background
in particular, and you're absolutely right. I know that Australia
is incredibly well known for you know, researching work into
you know, pushing that needle forward in the manual therapy
space that way. And then you went to the UK,
and while in the UK you kind of got more
exposure to the strength and conditioning element and how the

(13:31):
lines between PT and what we consider you know, traditional
lescense can actually kind of blur a little bit and
then from there, going to China, you kind of got
appreciation for more the Eastern medicine approach, which by the
sounds was very different than what you're used to, and
you know, as someone who hasn't really experienced it firsthand,
I can imagine it would be a very different line

(13:53):
of thinking. But at the end of the day, to
your point, the outcomes were good. So if people are
getting better, then and it kind of becomes a situation of,
you know, instead of sitting there and questioning, well, this
is wrong, this is wrong, this is different than everything
I've ever been taught, it becomes more of a conversation
of what can I learn from this, what can I
take away from this, what can I take from this framework,

(14:16):
and then apply it to my own and then you know,
use that to provide for the future athletes and clients
we work with.

Speaker 2 (14:23):
You know, you're right.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
I think that there's definitely some similarities between Mexico and
the US. And it's so interesting the physiotherapy space in
the United States because I feel like it's kind of
an assortment of everything, and each state is slightly different
in what you see. Some states you definitely see some
more of that Eastern medicine kind of influence, and you've
got pets doing a lot of dry needling and different

(14:45):
things like that, and then other states don't allow it,
and you see more of the very old school traditional
PT where it's you know, your hot pack, ultrasound massage,
manual therapy, that those kind of things, and then you're
definitely seeing more and more of those performance oriented clinics
pop up where the strength and conditioning element is kind
of brought into it as well, and the data element

(15:07):
is added as well. And I think that's another piece
too that gets lost a lot of times. It's like
school at least for me, to not prepare me for
the data side of things, you know, in corporation of
force plates into the clinic or objective testing and that
sort of thing. This is all very new stuff to
me and I definitely had to sort through that. Another
thing that you brought up that I really loved was

(15:29):
you mentioned about the language barrier, communication barrier and having
to work through that or work around that. And I
think that that's something that you know, pace dividends throughout
your entire career, is having that ability to effectively communicate
with the person sitting in front of you in any situation,
whether it's you know, the ability to communicate nonverbally, the
ability to communicate verbally, or the ability to literally be

(15:53):
in your initial e val and have a little extra
time to kind of think and reflect about what you're
going to say next, or how your thought process is
going in the moment due to you know, the lag
time because of a translator there. I think there's a
lot of value into developing those kind of skills as
a clinician, and I think that's something that's often forgotten

(16:13):
about or overlooked, you know, on a personal side, that way,
my mind goes right back to a EVL. I had,
pretty fresh out of school, new grad, first job, and
I get this intake for a EVL I had, and
I remember looking at it. The patient was deaf, and
I was just like, shoot, what am I gonna do?

(16:34):
Like I've never been taught anything about this, Like I
don't know sign language. How am I going to make
this work?

Speaker 2 (16:41):
You know.

Speaker 1 (16:41):
I got a little crafty and creative and made it work.
But I remember afterwards it's like, well, if I can
communicate with someone who literally can't even hear what I say,
then I can communicate with anyone, I can, you know,
go out and find my next patient, and I can
do a better job of communicating with them because I
just made at work when I can't even say anything

(17:03):
that the patient's going to understand, let alone, you know,
when I can see stuff and they're going to be
able to understand and reciprocate and respond accordingly.

Speaker 2 (17:11):
For sure. And the weird one is almost just you
know that those first few, first few weeks in China,
and then these athletes have no English, not a little bit.
They have none, and all the other stuff have none.
That you have your translator and you're assistant with you
and a couple of other I guess Western support stuff.
But it's even that first interaction. What do you do?

(17:32):
Do you say hello? Do you say Nehow do you
shake the hand? Do you not? Is that okay in
this custom? Is it not? Are you able to how
the females react to the male? All these things you
just it's wilder. You just you don't even know what
you're supposed to do, but you work your way through
it and then you'd be calm, and then in the
end you realize the verbal part of communication is only
such a small piece. It's such a small piece, and

(17:55):
I think we get so reliant and dependent on it
we forget all the other things. And the big one was,
even with communicating through a translator, it doesn't mean you
don't look at your transator, You look at the athlete.
You connect, You make a connection, and then the words
just happen around the connection. And I think that was
took me a while to learn that, and once that helped,
then you start to get a little bit of the language,

(18:17):
and then you can bridge the gap with some of
the language. And even if they just see you trying,
still making an effort, they appreciate. And then there's a
million things you can connect on. Right. Food, you know,
they're professional athletes, and you love sports. It's not very hard, right,
just find other sports they like and connect on that.
Connect on music, you know, play some let them play
music that they like in the sessions, and then they

(18:38):
might play something you like, and all of a sudden,
you start to connect. They're comfortable you're not just another
sort of gun for hire coming into China to make
a buck. You're actually there to make a difference. And
if as soon as you bridge that gap, then you
can do some amazing things there because there are some
low hanging fruit you can knock off. So that's there's
all those different things, and I think those experience really
prepared me well for Mexico. I think I've been able

(19:00):
to hit the ground running and connect with athletes very
very quickly because I'm used to that stuff. Bear in mind,
I'm definitely putting a lot of effort into the second
language as well. There's a lot of night study and
night school done, which is you know, but it is
you're investing in your future. And yeah, I think when
I do circle back to predominantly Indish speaking athletes in
the future, I think I'll have learned a lot of

(19:23):
a lot of skills and a lot of tools about
connection and communication that I wouldn't have otherwise. So I
think it'll be really really valuable, not just for career,
not just for future, but for the rest of my life.
So super super grateful of these opportunities.

Speaker 1 (19:37):
You going the extra mile to, you know, create an
environment that the athletes want to be in, but also
an environment that's still engaging and allows you to get
to know them better even when there is a language
barrier or better yet, you're going above and beyond by
trying to learn the language yourself. That's not something that
every provider practitioner is going to do for the people

(19:58):
that they work with. So being able to take interest
in the athletes that you work with as a person,
as a human as opposed to just well, they're a
pro fighter. I get to work with a pro fighter.
It's pretty cool kind of thing. You know. There's a
deeper level of understanding that goes into that, and I
think that you showing that extra level of care for

(20:19):
the athletes that you work with helps them get better outcomes,
because I mean, if you're showing up to work, you're
probably putting in a pretty long day. Then you're going
home and you're busting out some language learning for you know,
another thirty minutes or so that way, and then you
carry it into the clinic the next day. You know,
if you're going home and working on yourself and bettering
yourself to provide for the athletes in front of you,

(20:41):
they should, in theory, be more motivated to do the
same for you. You're putting in the work, you're walking
the walk. They can do the same thing sort of.

Speaker 2 (20:49):
Thing differently, and I think there's a lot of different
subtle ways to show that you care, and it's just
picking the right athlete who responds to those different stimulus.
Is like, for example, just today, we've got an athlete
who's ten weeks post ACL. He's a pretty young guy,
super talented, but this has been a bit of a
bump in his career and has good days and bad days.

(21:10):
And so this morning I said, look, let's not wait
till the afternoon to do your rehab session. Let's get
in the morning, let's do it together. I'll come in,
I'll do the lift with you. You put the music on,
I'll get the coffee, and we'll nail out a good
ninety minute session and I'll do what you're going to do.
And we had clearly the best session we've ever had
together in terms of effort and drive and things like that.
So that was fantastic to do. And then just this afternoon,

(21:35):
we had one of our therapy session where we sort
of the athletes can come in and access the services
from me and the other PT staff and I was
looking around in the one room. We had two Argentina
and athletes, we had a Peruvian, we had an Ecuadorian,
we had two Mexicans and a Chilean guy in one room,
and we've got an Australian physio and a Mexican physio,
and we've got one of the athletes who's sitting there

(21:55):
on the bed playing nineties Mexican music. So pretty's atmosphere, right,
and you're sort of looking around and you realize this
is not the normal. This isn't something that many people
get to do or see, and it was, honestly just like,
creating that environment is something I really pride myself on,
if possible, and making sure that it's fun and we're

(22:15):
enjoying it, and that the PT room and that the
new sports medicine space is it's not someone where they
want to be, but if they have to be, they
feel safe and there's more smiles and frowns. So I
think that's taken taken a bit of time to get
used to that. I guess I've got pretty good experience
with injuries myself, as a lot of pts do. I

(22:36):
kind of got a lot of my injuries when I
was already studying. I got into physio more. I've said this,
I've told this story a few times, but when I
was fourteen, I grew up in a small town in Australia,
about thirty thousand people, but sports mad. All country towns
in Australia sports mad. And we had one sports physio
and he was six foot seven until I can hand

(22:57):
some dating a model and drove a BMW and I thought, well,
that sounds like a pretty good idea. So that's kind
of where the ideas spawned from and haven't stopped ever since.
But I guess through the journey, I was always I
was a reasonable athlete. I was a hard trier, talented,
but probably didn't listen to my coach as well enough.
And over the journey, I've now had three acol reconstructions,

(23:20):
I've had two hip arthroscops, I've had an ankle reconstruction.
I've I've had my thumb pinned four times, four or
five concussions. So I've got the personal experience there, and
i know how lonely that rehab space can be. So
I'm always just trying to make sure that that is
a happy place for the guys, because I know what

(23:40):
it can and how dark it can be when you've
got everyone else around you doing what you want to do.
So I think I take that personal experience and try
and frame it into good light for the guys.

Speaker 1 (23:50):
Yeah, no, definitely, that certainly enhances your ability to provade
for the athletes. Having been there yourself in the past
and your rate. It can be a dope police in
the rehab world when you're watching all your other teammates
do all the things that you want to do, when
you know you're now being told when you can do
anything and everything, Hey, you know it's too early for
you to walk right now, you have to wait two

(24:11):
more weeks.

Speaker 2 (24:13):
You know.

Speaker 1 (24:13):
The locus of control really gets stripped entirely from the
injured athlete. So I really think that anything and everything
we can do to empower the athlete, especially in those
early and early mid stages of rehab, is certainly essential.
That way, on your own injury side, that way, walk
me through that a little bit more. Just kind of

(24:34):
go with the three acls for right now. Walk me
through what that process was like for you and what
you learned from going through the process of having torn
your ACL three different times, you know, as a physio
that way, because that's not something every PT has done,
you know, knock on wood, I haven't torn my ACL.
I hope I don't, but I certainly rehab a lot

(24:57):
of them on the day to day. So what was
it like for you and what were you able to
kind of teak away from that experience.

Speaker 2 (25:04):
Yeah, my first My first one was when I was
twenty four. I'd just gone back, so I'd already worked,
i'd graduated, I'd come out and I got I was
lucky to get a position not only in a football
team but also at one of the best sports medicine
clinics in Australia, which was fantastic, and they put me

(25:24):
on a new grad program, so that was really great.
And then I decided to make my life harder and
went back and did another masters, like I double masters
in sports and muscular skill little physio full time as
well as work. So it was a pretty full on year.
And then at the start of the year I had
a hip athroscopy. It was just nagging away and those

(25:45):
were in the days that if you saw, you know,
an fai, you just got in and cut it out.
So that's what happened. And then sort of three months later,
I was playing basketball was sort of just came back.
Mishap took a charge, the guy ran through me and
I felt a pop and I was pretty homefut and
I knew what it was straight away. They went in
and saw the guys and then had surgery three days later. Unfortunately,

(26:07):
I got a blood clot in hospital, so I spent
the next two weeks in hospital, not being able to
get out of bed, clicks, out, injections every day, all
those kind of fun things. So it was coming from
a long way back. But we had some fantastic therapists
in the in the city that I worked for. We
worked with all the major professional teams and were working
in this sports medicine clinic as well, and they kind
of took me under their wing. I think they felt

(26:29):
a bit sorry for this young physio. He kept hurting themselves,
so they basically ran me through, you know, a very
intensive basil program, and I was learning off these guys
step by step. We were trialing a few things that
were not new, but you know, aggressive. I was happy
to go pretty aggressive, and I guess started loading very early.
You know, we were kind of in the gym at

(26:49):
two three weeks and going for it pretty hard because
we have and I had confidence, so we could pull
it back if we needed so. I think I learned
a lot of the I guess the more aggressive stuff
from that, and was more confident than I could put
my athletes through it because I did it myself. And
I think I got a lot of experience I guess
in the gym from that as well, because he just

(27:10):
I was in there three four days a week. We
had a fantastic gym at work, and if I wasn't
in there four or five days a week, they would know.
The receptionist would tell the physios I hadn't been in
and checked in, so I'd get in trouble. So that
was a fantastic experience. I think I did that one,
I'd like to say perfectly, came back nine to twelve months,
not a problem in the world, felt fantastic, so that
all went well. My second one was in China. I

(27:33):
was playing rugby, not that I'm a rugby player, but
that was the sport to do in China. I'd actually
connected with one of the SMC coaches that we had
where I was working, and We've done a fantastic strength
program for about three months. I'd never been so strong.
Kind of movement scores through the roof squats were as
good as I'd ever been. But I wasn't doing a
lot of you know, sports specific movements. I was just lifting,

(27:55):
and then went and played rugby and thought I could
step someone and felt the knee pop again. Knew what
it was. I guess this one was a bit more
frustrating because I'd had the experience, I didn't need it again.
So I had surgery in China, and I think I
basically swapped the jobs. Maybe two months later, new job,
a lot going on, was working pretty long hours, and

(28:18):
just didn't give it the attention it deserve. Wasn't doing
the little things and wasn't didn't go so well, you know,
just diffuse swelling all the time, and it never quite
settled the way I wanted it. It was kind of
hard to get off feet and do those things. And
it was about ten months later, and this isn't what
I'm proud of, but we were on a pub crawl
and someone challenged me to some athletic endeavor running up

(28:42):
and downstairs for a certain time. And I'm not wonder
back down from a challenge, so flew up and flew
down and running downstairs after three or four viers is
not probably the best idea everund I felt it pop again,
and knew what it was, got the scam and it
was done. And then basically I had no hamstring grafts
left to do. The guys in China only could do hamstrings,

(29:06):
so I had to wait before I could get back.
So I went to America, had an opinion, went to
Australia and picked a guy in Australia who's probably one
of the best revisiona shell guys in the world. And
then a few COVID challenges, we got locked into China
for about two months, got locked in my apartment and
couldn't leave, and then we shipped out to Bali for

(29:28):
seven months for a training camp, which is another story
altogether which we could touch on. And then eventually got
back to Australia and had a quad graphed with a
latteral teen odesis, and then two weeks later had to
fly back into China and did another two weeks quarantine.
Two weeks after I just had an acial graft, which
again wasn't great. So I guess from all those experiences,

(29:50):
I've seen the good side of it, I've seen the
bad side of it. I've seen the ugly side of it,
all the symptoms and discomforts and niggles you can get
I've had, so that makes it a lot easier when
you're talking with his app. It's that through just subjective information,
it gives me so much to go on that I
can go it's time to push, it's time to pull back.
I know what you mean when you say you can't
get the feeling with his exercise. I'm pretty confident about

(30:13):
little modifications here and there to get the right stimulus
and all those kind of things. So I guess, longer term,
super super grateful for the support I've had through those injuries.
You know, work's always been super supportive and things like that.
Now that I might, I guess, you know, the back
end of it, you can look at all the learnings
that you've had and it's fantastic. But yeah, and it

(30:35):
definitely helps, you know, when you're with an athlete and
they're going through a tough time and you can show
on the scars on your knee and they go, Okay,
you get it. Now. Whether you get it or not
doesn't matter. They see the scar, they look at their
scar and they go, oh, you've had one too. And
it's definitely given me a bit of a cheat code
into get in buy him with some of the athletes,

(30:55):
so overall interesting experiences, learn a lot from them.

Speaker 1 (30:59):
But that was Yeah, three is definitely enough. I will
stop there. And it's so interesting too, because not only
have you had the experience of three different you know,
ACL injuries that way, but each one was kind of
different and unique in its own regard, whether that be
rehabbing the hamstring or rehabbing the all or it ban

(31:21):
ten odesis that way, because that's a definitely an emerging
trend we see in the ACL world right now, and
I think the rehab for it is significantly more complex
than people think. I've in my practice, I start the
flection a lot earlier, and I push on them a
lot harder from a range of motion standpoint, because that

(31:44):
thing is so so tight. And I can imagine you
probably experience that yourself, just trying to get that thing moving,
and I'm guessing you were probably like, wow, this this
is a little bit harder than the other ones were.

Speaker 2 (31:56):
A lot harder, particularly the first one was so easier
on and I guess young healing bodies a lot of
easier as well. I guess I wasn't quite expecting the
level of pain post off as well. It was a
lot sore of than the other ones, which was tricky.
There was also a large miscus repair, so I was
non weight bearing, you know, for a few weeks, and
that was tricky. Obviously. I was basically bringing five bags

(32:18):
in my entire life back into China through Hong Kong,
which is a fairly interesting travel anyway, when I'm with
all my bags on crutches, it's not the easiest thing
in the world to do, so I guess I do
make my life hard for myself. That's definitely a consistent theme.
But I definitely found that there's just significant differences in
how you're supposed to approach it. The global things stay

(32:40):
I guess similar, but those little early things that can
get you quick winds are different. And I've definitely found
still that that yes, it feels stable, it feels strong,
but there are there is residual stiffness that you get
in that knee, and the tibial rotation is not quite clean.
It always sort of gets grippy quickly, and all those things,

(33:01):
and I guess it's a tricky one. Now that I've
got graphs, it's almost on all three sides of the
knee I've got a quad, I've got a hamstring mediately,
and I've got the ten of desis laterally. So it's
always just picking and choes in which one you target.
And it was always a tricky one that it wasn't
just rehabbing the current knee, was rehaving the old knee
as well and getting that all back to a spot,
which I guess took some really interesting programming pieces in place.

(33:24):
It couldn't just be three days a week. It was
five days a week. But you don't have five days
a week to give. So maybe it's just before I
leave work, it's twenty minutes of blood thlow restricts and
just to get a little bit of a pump. Maybe
it's you know, splitting days between Okay, this is a
quad data, this is a hamstring day, all those kind
of things. So there's always ways around a problem. You
just got to get a little bit You got to

(33:45):
get a little bit interesting with some of your programming
ideas to keep it interesting, but also that you make
sure you're getting the right stimulus. So yeah, definitely some
key learnings from that which I hope I'm putting in
practice with the athletes we have now.

Speaker 1 (33:57):
Yeah, forts is you have to think outside the barks
and approach things a little bit differently, and I think
that's something that we need more of, right. You know,
if we continue to just do the basic, the standard,
the status quo, the average stuff, then we're going to
continue to get the average results, which is, you know,
for ACL one in three don't get back period. So

(34:17):
if we just stop and settle for that, then we're
never going to get any better, and we're going to
watch more and more athletes of every level never get
back to the sport and activities that they love to
do because we're not willing to evolve and expand our
own understanding and knowledge on the subject matter. So I
certainly think that you know, again you experiencing these things firsthand,

(34:38):
it certainly enhances your clinical knowledge, but it enhances your
ability to relate to your athletes as well, like you mentioned,
but it's something that the rest of us, like myself,
who are fortunate enough to not have experienced this, can
certainly learn a lot from individuals like you who have
been in those shoes or been in you know, the
side of the patient and the have provider. You know,

(35:01):
I think that the more we take from people like you,
the better we become as clinicians, even though not everything
might be you know, not everything you did was probably
like from a research article or evidence based or something
like that. But sometimes the research runs behind the times,
and sometimes the most effective things are the ones that
people are saying, hey, look this is working right now

(35:24):
and getting us the results that we need. So try
this and see how it goes. Because at the end
of the day, everyone's you know, kind of your own
case study. For lack of a better way to put it,
an equals one. You know, I don't think there was
probably a lot of research at the time on hey,
you know, patient having third ACL hadminiscus getting it bantenades

(35:46):
is done, all that sort of thing. It's like, you know,
you kind of become the case study for yourself. You experiment,
and then you know, if you do see that athlete
in practice, someday you've at least got your own knowledge
background to go off of because you were there yourself.

Speaker 2 (35:59):
Yeah, asolutely. And I think it's sometimes with the thinking.
I think we get put sometimes in your very specific
constructs and boundaries about how we can do things in
like a rehab space, and that's sometimes a logistical piece, right,
that might be if you're working, even in a performance
clinic where you get access to the athletes three times
a week Monday, Wednesday, Friday, you've got an hour to

(36:21):
do rehab. Now, if you're looking at real tissue adaptation
and you're trying to build back muscle, bulk and strength
and all those things, you basically need those three hours
to be purely targeting maybe muscle, so then you're doing
nothing else. And if that session is you know, fifteen
minutes you're checking range, maybe a little bit of therapy
to get a move, and a fifteen minute warm up,

(36:41):
you've basically got thirty minutes three times a week, so
you've got ninety minutes of actually trying to create a
true physical adaptation that just doesn't exist. It's not a thing.
You wouldn't think you would get that from going to
the gym yourself. So it's going, okay, well, how can
we work around this? Are there other ways to do it?
Could we you know, could we into smaller sessions more frequently?

(37:02):
Could we do longer sessions? Could we? Are we going
to have to give the athletes things that they can
do at home? And how can we supplement all these
type of things, and I guess we're lucky, and I'm
lucky in my environment where I get to do I've
got the athlete as much as I want. I can
make them do as much as I want whenever I want.
It's almost more trick. You're trying to build out a
week for them. Now they're here full time, and they're

(37:23):
always looking at it, and you going, what am I doing,
our coach, and you're going, okay, I don't really want
you to do anything. So it's almost just you know,
playing with that a little bit. And I think sometimes
thinking out of the box and as opposed to going, well,
here's the constructs I've got, I've got to fit the
rehab in this. We're going what would I do in
an ideal situation, if I could do whatever I wanted,
how would I do it? And then work back from that.

(37:43):
And I think a lot of times with that thinking,
you can come up with a lot better ideas. You
can come up with a lot of things you wouldn't
have normally thought about. So I guess that's kind of
the way I like to think about it. I always
had that experience in China where they would just give
me the athletes and say you can do whatever you want,
do whatever you want. You're the expert, and I had
full control over timing and all those kind of things.
So played around with some different you can call it periodization,

(38:06):
or you can call it rehab strategies, whatever you want,
and I guess I've found I sort of stumbled across
it a little bit through a little bit of trial
and error. It's kind of the way I like to
put my guys to a program. So yeah, a little
bit of trial and error, but also a bit of
research to backup.

Speaker 1 (38:24):
I would like to see more people do is just
not be afraid to try something new or try something
different that way, because just like you saw with the
travel that you did, us willing to kind of break
them old and go a different direction than we have
in the past might be the thing that gets us
the results that have been eluding us for quite some time.

(38:45):
So I think that's really valuable. On that travel note, too,
you mentioned that you had spent some time in Bali
a little bit.

Speaker 2 (38:52):
Now.

Speaker 1 (38:52):
It's funny because I've seen a lot of people traveling
to Bali and everyone's been telling me, oh, dude, you
got to get over there. It's like greatest that sort
of thing. So what was your time in Bali like
and what did that kind of teach you or what
did you take from that that you use as a
clinician today.

Speaker 2 (39:10):
Yeah, it was. It was a very interesting, very interesting
period of all of our lives in China. Went back
into China. I'd been in Vegas and working with the
guys there, and again I just want to shout out
the guys we have in Vegas. We've got some fantastic
clinicians and stuff in Vegas who were doing some awesome
stuff there as well. I'd gone home for a little

(39:31):
bit and then popped back into China. I had to
do three weeks in a hotel quarantine coming back in,
so I did two weeks in one city, couldn't leave
a hotel at to stay in there full time, and
then they flew me to back to Shanghai, did another
week in a hotel, and then popped out and then
three weeks later kind of things just rolled back into China.
And this is when they were still going with the
zero COVID policy. This was sort of early twenty twenty

(39:54):
twenty twenty two, and basically got locked at home for
seven in my apartment, could only leave to get a
COVID test. That was it. And we had a big
group of our athletes who had really important fights coming up.
I think it was in Singapore, so we had to
get them to train and we were writing guys programs
they were doing in their rooms, and their rooms weren't big,

(40:17):
you know, we're talking two meters by three maybe, So
we were writing these guys performance programs for them to
do every day, and that was you know, we give
them body weight conditioning workouts to do. We were giving
them some aerobic stuff to try and do with It's
just like it might be running on the spot, shadow boxing,
all those kind of things, and things like our technical
coaches were giving the athletes striking combinations to work and

(40:39):
by getting their mattress and putting it up against the
wall and using that as a bag. So why are
wild stuff we were getting guys to do because we
couldn't get them out. And then we basically with a
bit of a skeleton crew. I think we had five
staff and our ten athletes. We then shipped out to
Bali Bali in Asia, close to Singapore, so similar time

(40:59):
zones where a head coach We had some connections in
Bali through a good MMA gym. It was pretty cheap
to run as well, so we just went there and
figured it out and basically came up with an improvised
I guess a training camp where we had an MMA like.
Its basically a public MMA gym, but they gave us

(41:20):
access to private times and we got some of the
pro guys in, so we ran it there. We had
a nutrition support remotely from our head of nutrition in China,
but we also had a mill prep company that prepped
that linked directly with our nutritionists that were coming up
with the macros that all the guys need and certain weights,
so they were getting that delivered every day. I was

(41:42):
the medical lead and we just I treated out of
a bit of a grimy hotel room for six months.
We had one of a S and C coaches who
also was fluent in Chinese who was also translated to
the technical coaches, and our jiu jitsu coach, head coach
and our striking coach, so we were there doing our
Thingies were a little bit more interesting. We were doing

(42:03):
recoveries at some of the wellness spars in Bali, and
the wellness spas are more let's say instagrammable. So it
was kind of me taking these ten Chinese mma fighters
in maybe with some blood on their shorts and a
black eye, into these beautiful spars and getting them and
telling them in Chinese to sit in the ice bars
and what time they could get out of a sauna,
so that we got some very interesting looks over the time.

(42:26):
But basically we kind of ran an old school program
without all the bells and whistles. We were spitting saord us.
We were in the gym, we were swept it out.
I was present for every technical session, every non technical session,
going back late, treating the guys as the only medical
support any infections or breaks was all on me. I
had to you know, the nearest hospital or anywhere we

(42:48):
could get any medical support was an hour away. So
we were in Chungu in Bali and this was down
in Denpasar if anyone knows Bali well. And a lot
of times I had to get the guy, one of
the athletes they might have. You know, we had a
guy who had a pretty bad ac John. I had
to put him on the back of my scooter, pop
our helmets on and drive through the traffic. And now
down the Denpasar to get to get an X ray done,

(43:09):
and then you know, he's I'm trying to translate through
my Chinese to the support stuff they had there to
Indonesian back to Us and trying to figure out medical
interventions and not try and get scammed because they kind
of figured out we had a pretty shiny card so
they were trying to charge this everything. So pretty pretty
wild experience. We were there for six or seven months,
so I mean, all in all, we were kind of

(43:30):
living and training in paradise, so I'm not going to
complain too much. It was it was. It was also
a good time. But I think I learned. I learned
what a real MMA program looks like, what ninety five
percent of the world's MMA programs do look like. And
I think that gave me a really good rounding into Okay,
you know, this is what it looks like, and this
is how hard they've got to train, and this is

(43:52):
what the guys can tolerate. You don't need a baby
of them all the time. They're going to be fine.
You're going to have to push the envelope a little
bit as well. And that was amazing for me. I
learned so much more about the technical elements of the
sports and all those kind of things. So that was
a fantastic sort of I guess the grounding, and it
allows me to communicate better with the staff. We've got

(44:12):
here now because even though I haven't been a combat athlete,
I feel like I've had a really unique experience that
a lot of other people haven't had, who haven't actually
fought themselves. So again, just trying to find a ways
to be adaptable and get stuff done, and it's amazing
what you can get done with very little resources. So
then when you step back and you get everything, you
actually use them more effectively. You know, Okay, I don't

(44:34):
need that, but this is when I can put it in.
This is when I can put it in. Okay, the
guys don't actually need soft tissue every day, but they're
going to need it once or twice a week. So
when we do it, let's do it properly. So I
think that was an amazing experience. If everyone hasn't been
a Bali, you should go to Bali. It is a
beautiful place. It's a great place to travel. Besides all
the drunk Australians you're going to get there, so I

(44:54):
apologize for my country in that regard, but say, it
is a beautiful, beautiful place, man.

Speaker 1 (45:00):
What an incredible experience, an incredible journey that's absolutely amazing,
And there's so many great things that you mentioned there.
I mean, first off, I gotta hit you up for
whatever your go to personal you know, quarantine workouts were
how to get an arm pump in like a three
meter space that way, because I'd imagine you were probably

(45:21):
going a little stir crazy sitting around in hotel room
after hotel room for weeks and weeks on end. But
your time in Bali is absolutely amazing from you know,
as you mentioned, being the only medical support staff for
the guys that way. So I feel like you're probably
put into a lot of situations that you weren't necessarily

(45:42):
prepared for, weren't necessarily always comfortable in. But it's like, hey,
we got to figure it out on the fly and
think on the spot, and you know, provide the best
for the athlete in front of us, you know, in
the best way that we can. So being able to
problem solve acutely in ways that other people might not
have been able to think about. And the other point too,

(46:03):
is as you mentioned, you know, having limited access to
equipment and still finding a way to make it work.
It's funny because in today's day and age, I feel
like most pets, myself included, we're a little spoiled with
what we have access to in our clinics, and I
always want more. You know, it's not enough to just
have so many racks and dumbbells to a certain way,

(46:26):
and force plates and all these different things. It's like, hey,
you know this just came out. I want one of those.
I want one of those, when in reality there's people
making it work with none of that at all. And
as you mentioned, you know, two meter by three meter
space in a hotel room, body weight only, literally using
a bed as a punching bag because that's all you had.

(46:48):
You know, if you can get crafty and creative enough
with what you have that way and still get results,
anyone else can do it. It's just the kind of
thing that, like we've said a few times throughout this
is you have to be willing to think outside the
box and problem solve in ways that other people would
not think the problem solve. And I think that those
kind of skills are only developed by being put in

(47:12):
that position and in that experience, you know you don't
get those by reading about it from a textbook, or
you know you're not going to get that skill by
listening to someone talk about it. You have to go
out there and actually get in the trenches yourself and
do the things that are challenging and think outside the
box and force yourself into that uncomfortable situation.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
I'd say it was just it became of a thing
of really breaking down what do they actually need to
be successful? What do we what is the what is
the absolute bare minimum that we need to get these
guys to be able to do it? And then that
that's the answer. Now, once we'd set up that and
you're like, okay, this is the bare minimum, then when
we could start branching out and we started putting a

(47:52):
few more bits and pieces in and with the technology side,
I think, now we've got access to everything. But it's
then it's what you do with it. Like if you've
got four plate force plates, you actually know what numbers
you're looking at? Do you actually know what tests you're using?
And then how do you use that to make decisions?
I think that's always a really tricky one and I
think that's a tricky one for pts. Like you said,

(48:14):
the sports science isn't something we get exposed to a lot.
That the data analytics and all those things isn't something
we get exposed to a lot. You know, some people
are very fortunate, like ourselves here where we have an
amazing sports science team that we can kind of lean
on for that information. But not everyone hasn't. So I
think it's just not getting overwhelmed by information, not getting
overwhelmed by technology, and just using it to assist your practice,

(48:37):
to answer questions that you really want to know. Are
they strong enough? Okay, how can I get that answer?
Boom boom away you go, not just going. I know
a lot of people do all these tests. I feel
like I probably should have do all these tests. So
you get an athlete and you do a million different
tests and you get all this information back, and you go,
that actually didn't change anything I was going to do,
And then you've just wasted your time. You've wasted the

(48:58):
athletes time. The whole thing doesn't make any sense. They're
a bit confused about why you did it. You're confused
about why you did it. So I think it really
is and with everything I think it's just you know,
making sure that you you know. It's it's like dune
in Kruger effect, right, but almost if you look at
it in terms of a problem, it's like the inverse
of that, where early on you think quite simplistically when

(49:20):
you start, which is great, and you're you're able to
see patience and athletes when you first start because you're
thinking simply because you don't know any better, and you're like,
this is great. And then you learn a heap more
and that everything just seems so much more complex. It
seems so much harder. It's not more complex and more harder.
You're just brains thinking a different way. And I think
the key I've always found the key is when I

(49:40):
can get back to that other side of complexity and
it becomes simple again. I find that that's when I'm
working best, and that's what I'm getting the best results.
That I know that this is a potentially complex problem,
but if I can think simply and act simply, it
just makes everything a lot easier. And I think that's
something that takes time and takes confidence. When you know

(50:02):
you've had good results in your past, you don't try
and overcomplicate things. You don't try and make it too
much harder for yourself, and you think simply and clearly
about complex problems and then you act simply and clearly.
I need this to be better. How am I going
to get it better? This is how I'm going to
do it. I'm going to test it and then going
to work on it, and then I'm going to retest it.
Did that get better? It got better? Did the athlete

(50:23):
get better? They got better? Great result, and you can
really start to move your way forward. So I think
that's something that is tricky by all means. Again, if
at a PT you can expose yourself to some of
the data stuff and work with some good sports scientists,
so I think it can only help your practice. I
was lucky enough to do a program through a Melbourne

(50:45):
University master's in High Performance, which was like a three
year part time degree which I've just finished, which is
really an exposure to strength, conditioning, nutrition, sports science, all
the other things that they don't teach us, which I
think humbled me a lot because I learned how much
I have no idea about. And you know, when you
get you get an assignment that's can you write an
annual periodized strength and conditioning program for a professional athlete,

(51:08):
and you go, I have no idea what I'm doing.
It definitely gives you a lot more compassion for your colleagues.
And I think that's a massive thing that that didn't
teach me how to write an S ANDC program, That
didn't teach me how to analyze data. They didn't teach
me how to use R to come up with beautiful statistics.
But I know what questions to ask, I know when

(51:29):
to use guys, and I know so I know how
to use the tools that might dispose them a lot better.
So I would again highly recommend everyone to sort of
reach out to people in different disciplines and get exposure
cancer to going to make your life easier.

Speaker 1 (51:41):
Yeah, No, definitely I love that point. I think collaboration
is absolutely essential. And the more we can kind of
bring everyone together on the theme spece with the theme
goal of you know, how can we provide best for
the athlete in front of us. The more we can
all do that collectively, the better that athletes outcome is
going to be. And really that should be, in my opinion,

(52:04):
the standard of care across the board. Why are we
not working together as providers, as practitioners, as coaches in
the best interest of the athlete. You know, I think
a lot of times it's very easy to get siloed.
It's very easy to kind of you know, especially as
a new grad clinician that way, it's very easy to think,
oh my gosh, I've got this, I know exactly what

(52:25):
I'm doing, I don't need any help. But you know,
in twenty twenty four, I think the ego driven approach,
the you know, outlaw approach of trying to do everything
on your own, really needs to be put to the
past because we can't solve complex problems with simple solutions.
You're right in your point that I think simple thinking

(52:46):
is a great way to go. I think that we
often over complicate things, and overcomplicate matters and get lost
in the sauce of testing and we pull up, you know,
ten page Excel documents and look through all the numbers,
and you're right, a lot of times it doesn't even
change anything. But you know, to sit there and think
that one person is going to solve all the issues

(53:07):
by themselves, it's just flawed thinking in today's day and age,
because there's so much that goes into caring for the
athlete that you really need that team environment and team
based approach, which obviously that's what you guys do at
the performance Institute. You have multiple teams of people working
together with the athletes day in and day out, and
I think that's what gives the best outcomes and best results.

(53:30):
But I think that we in the private sector need
to learn from that model and apply that better for
the athletes that we work with, because you know, some
of them could potentially be the next generation for the
UFC or for another major sport group that way, and
even if they're not, you know, if we could do
better by the person in front of us and we're

(53:51):
not willing to do that because of ego or because
of profit or whatever that way, then you know, I
think at the end of the day, we really have
to look at ourselves in the mad error and ask
like why we're even in the space we're in because
we serve people. So if we're in the business of
serving people, we should probably do rape by people. At
the end of the day.

Speaker 2 (54:11):
It is a tricky one, right, Like we all go
to school for a long period of time and we
study and we really want to be good at what
we do, and we have pride in what we do,
and that's fantastic. But when you get an athlete in
you want to fix them. You want to be the
one that helps. Not hopefully not from an ego point
of view, but just because you want to do your
job and you spend a lot of time getting good
at it. But it's just it's been comfortable leaning on

(54:34):
other people. It's been comfortable sharing a load, it's been
comfortable allowing other people to do, you know, a part
of the job as well. And I think we also
get in trouble a lot that because we're so keen
to make changes and get people better quickly and just
make an impact and get buying and things like that.
I think sometimes we rush early. We don't we do before.

(54:56):
We think it's just okay, okay, whatsare point of the area.
You go and do a bunch of tests. Here's about
your therapy, and to give you some exercises. You kind
of want to punch it all in together. And then
all of a sudden, you two or three weeks down
the road and you've kind of been doing the same thing.
And if someone actually asked you and sat you down
and went what's your diagnosis, like, what is your actual diagnosis,
Like what's the anatomy here that's damaged, and what's the

(55:18):
physiology of that that's the problem, and then what are
the impairments you're working on a lot of people stumble,
which is just which is wild to me, because that's
our whole first job is to make a clear decision
on what we're trying to do. You get an athlete
in what's the problem, Okay, what do we need to fix?
How long is it going to take? What are what
we're going to do along the pathway? If you take

(55:39):
your time early and think really hard but clearly, everything
else becomes so much easier as you go and you
don't get in that trap of all of a sudden
you're going, I'm not really sure where I am. And
then it gets tricky because when you get asked a
question by someone outside your little circle who might have
the good intentions of just finding out where they are,
you get threatened because you're not sure exactly what's going on,

(56:00):
so then you kind of bite back, and then all
of a sudden there's his tension. Whereas if you look
very clear in what you're trying to do, and you
know what's going on and you've communicated that should be
a really easy answer. If you've got a strength and
conditioning coach that comes to you and goes, what are
we working on? You can go this and they can go,
oh great, and then they can go, well, would you
like some help with that? You definitely I need this

(56:21):
guy to get stronger? Can you do that? And all
of a sudden you don't have to do as much
as the athletes are happy a bad and everything starts
to work. So that's one big thing that I always
try and press on younger staff and students is don't
rush yourself. I see a lot of students that they
get in, you know, they just they feel uncomfortable talking
with the athlete. It's sort of two minutes into a

(56:43):
subjective history and all of a sudden they just touching them.
And I'm like, stopt, you're making your life too hard.
You don't know anything, so you're going to have to
do fifteen orthopedic tests to try and come to an answer,
Whereas if you just took a bit more time and
work through the problem and did a thorough subjective examination,
you'd come in and basically have two hypotheses. That's it.

(57:03):
So then your objective tests you just go boom, ball
and boom, it's this thing. And then from there you're
good to go. And then you can get away from
the pathological diagnosis and look at the impairments. Okay, I
know this is a sprained MCL, but now I can
spend my time on why did this happen? Do they have,
you know, some kinetic chain weakness? Was there a technical

(57:23):
deficiency in what they're doing? And then you can really
start to solve the problem. So it's just take the
time early and then everything starts to snowball. And I
think I learned that from some clinicians and early on
that just I sat in with these guys and their
subjective questioning was just gorgeous. You know, they would just
sit there and just get so much information that the
patient was sitting there just enamored with these people, and

(57:46):
I was thinking, that's incredible, and that that's kind of
what I've tried to do as much as possible. And
you know, have the manual skills, how the objective testing
skills in my back pocket when I need them as
a little special trip, having to rely on that to
get to the answers all the time.

Speaker 1 (58:03):
Yeah, No, I think that's such a great point. Is
at the end of the day, I'd say eighty to
ninety percent of the evail comes from just talking with
someone and getting to know them and their story.

Speaker 2 (58:14):
And you're right, I.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
Mean a lot of times I'm putting a lot less
stock and special tests and a lot more stock in
what they tell me. I mean there's certain things like
you mentioned at the knee, Like you know, obviously, if
they come in and they tell me, hey, non contact
TURTI pop went down, couldn't stand up afterwards, immediately swollen,
I'm probably gonna go right to a lockman and uh,

(58:36):
you know, I'll put a lot of stock on that.
But you know a lot of times people come in
and they'll see me like, oh, you know, yeah, shoulders
a little crummy, and it's like, okay, we got one
or two shoulder tests that are positive. That way, I'm
putting a little less stock in that because some of
them are positive on everyone, including myself, and I don't
have any shoulder pathologies. So understanding what things you as

(58:59):
a clinician and can put your stock in, and you know,
as we've said throughout this. It comes with experience and repetition,
and it comes with time, and it comes from learning
from a lot of different providers and a lot of
different good people, you know, in some cases across the world,
and never being willing to settle for where you're at,
and always willing to kind of learn and enhance your

(59:19):
knowledge and skill set to the next level. But I mean, Tim,
I feel like you and I could probably talk about
that all night long. At this point, you've certainly lived
an incredible life thus far. You've been on an amazing journey,
and it's amazing to see where you're at right now
in the UFC space and all the great things that
you're doing. Is there anything that we didn't cover in

(59:41):
relation to your journey today or anything else that you
really want to hit and bring home that way?

Speaker 2 (59:48):
I think that's that's pretty good full circle. I mean,
it's been a very lucky journey. I'll say, I think
you do make your own lucky. You take some risks,
and it hasn't all been it. It hasn't all been roses.
You know, been locked in your hotel for seven weeks
at a time and just trying to do push up
so you don't shrivel away is the most enjoyable part.

(01:00:08):
But if you stay the course and you're consistent, I
think you get to where you want. I guess one thing,
it's always you know, you sort of get asked when people,
you know, they see the outcome, they see your working
in professional sport, and they kind of go, how do
you get there? And I want to do that? And
all those kind of things. It's realistically, it's not for
the faint of heart. You've got to love it, and

(01:00:29):
you've got to love it truly. It's got to be
something that you would do for free, and you've got
to do a lot of stuff for free, and you've
got to stick with it because you know, it takes
time before you get that opportunity, and I think a
lot of people get sort of five, six, seven years
down the road and it's just it's just too much.
There's too much free time, there's too many weekends, there's

(01:00:50):
too much free work. There's you know, too many research
articles to read, there's too many CPD you know, things
you should have watched or sort of done. But I
think it's if you stick the course and you truly
love it, things always work out. And I can't stress enough,
you know, just always being a lifelong learner. I think
if you find ways to continually learn and get better

(01:01:13):
all the time and you really stick to it, everything
will work out. So you know, that's always always be
keen to reach out to people. You know, you might
reach out to ten people and only three people get
back to you, but that's three people whose information you
wouldn't have heard, or stories you wouldn't have heard, and
podcasts of fantastic access to information, all those kind of things.
But a one on one conversation with someone, even over

(01:01:35):
the phone, or you'll get little pieces of information that
you just never would have thought of and it could
significantly change your practice or your outlook, or it could
change your idea and an experience. You might talk to
someone who's lived overseas and it's changed their life. So
I'd always say reach out to people, stick the course,
and you've got to really love what you do, and

(01:01:56):
then in the end you'll get where you want to be. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:01:59):
No, I think that's a great point and a great
rundown there, Tim. I think you kind of summarized everything well,
and like I said, I feel like you're such a
wealth of knowledge and insight, and I'm really looking forward
to chatting with you again soon and having you back
on the podcast real soon. But you know, if anyone
wants to reach out in the meantime, do you have
much of an online presence or where could people find

(01:02:19):
out more about you?

Speaker 2 (01:02:21):
I've got the best ways, probably LinkedIn. If you just
said Tim Roberts and UFC, I'll pop up there and
I try and get back to everyone that reaches out
as much as possible. I'm a bit of a chatter,
so I'll try and jump on a quick call. I
always find, you know, fifteen minute calls better than fifteen
emails going across. So anyone that waches out and wants

(01:02:42):
more information or just to chat about any of those
experiences or living overseas or MMA or whatever it is,
I always try and do that. The other way, you
can always email me for certain things, so it's as
t Roberts at UFC dot com, so please reach out there.
The other social media is I try and keep off
as I get distracted way, way, way too easily, and

(01:03:03):
my Spanish teacher won't be happy if I'm spending all
day sprawling memes as opposed to learning my vocabs. So yeah,
LinkedIn an email the best ways to get at me.

Speaker 1 (01:03:13):
That's awesome. Tim will link to all that in the
description below. That way, if you didn't quite catch it,
you can just click there. I really appreciate your time
and just the wealth of knowledge and insight that you
have that way. Tim, thank you so much for sharing
everything with us.

Speaker 2 (01:03:27):
No, I appreciate it, mate, thanks for having me and
I hope it's a very useful for some of the listeners.

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