Suicides Disease - CRPS to Adaptive Athlete | The Resilient Journey of Veteran Mr. Sam

On our latest episode, we sit down with the awe-inspiring Mr. Sam, an Air Force veteran turned personal trainer and adaptive athlete, whose harrowing battle with complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) and eventual amputation led him to master the art of human movement. Sam's story isn't just one of overcoming the odds; it's a profound exploration of physical and mental resilience. He shares his decision to amputate after relentless pain, a choice that propelled him into a new realm of fitness coaching. His experiences shaped his ability to train clients across the spectrum of physical capabilities, teaching us that the principles of movement and adaptation are universal.

Navigating life with chronic pain and post-amputation has given Sam a unique perspective on athleticism and the need for meticulous attention to movement quality, especially for those with prosthetics. In our conversation, he shares how his deep understanding of body mechanics has made him a go-to coach for people facing similar challenges. But it's not just about the physical—the psychological battle, learning to adapt, and the joy of helping others through his work with Less Leg More Heart are all part of the intricate dance between movement, adaptation, and the human spirit that Sam embodies.

As we wrap up, the focus shifts to the philosophies that drive Sam: learning, giving back, and the journey of self-discovery. He leaves us with an empowering message as he prepares for a 30K race in Bryce Canyon with his running blade, illustrating his belief in walking through the fire of challenges. Sam's story is an open invitation to join a community that thrives on mutual growth and resilience, a testament to the transformative power of fitness and the indomitable human spirit. Join us for this compelling episode and witness how Sam turns adversity into a source of strength and inspiration for all.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the Show Up Fitness Podcast. The great personal trainers are made. We are changing the fitness industry one qualified trainer at a time, with our in-person and online personal training certification. If you wanna become an elite personal trainer, head on over to showupfitnesscom. Also, make sure to check out my book how to Become a Successful Personal Trainer. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. Have a great day and keep showing up. Hi everybody, welcome back to the Show Up Fitness Podcast. We're lucky to have Mr Sam. He's gonna be talking to us about his life as a trainer and also as an adaptive athlete. So thank you for taking your time today, sir.

Speaker 2: 0:41

No, thanks for having me. I don't understand how my life took a turn, that I now get to spend time in my day telling people about me and my life, and it's somehow managed to help. You know, it helps people and that's something I'm very grateful for, and I appreciate another opportunity.

Speaker 1: 1:01

You have a cool story but, just like you said earlier, you had the opportunity to work with a client prior to this and it's one of the things you enjoy most about your job right now. So I think, just kinda talk a little bit more about your story and then we'll get into. You know, your current profession and even your streams of revenue with some CWCW.

Speaker 2: 1:20

All right, yeah, so picking up with the story gets really interesting. September 6th 2011,. At the time, I am active duty in the Air Force. I'm in the combat control training pipeline. It's one of two special operations jobs that the Air Force has and unfortunately, we're on a run back from the pool.

Speaker 2: 1:44

I clip a curb, I go down. I end up falling on the outside of my foot. I very vividly remember feeling like I rolled it bad enough that my heel came up and touched my ankle and that was my last moment out of pain for nine years. So in that fall there was a fracture, there was obviously a nasty sprain, but I developed a nerve condition called complex regional pain syndrome and the. I don't even know that. I feel better knowing this stat, but I was informed by my surgeon that the chances of me getting that condition was 0.000026%. That was the likelihood of that trauma causing CRPS, and for those of you that are unfamiliar with that, which is probably almost everyone listening to this, it's a very intense nerve condition. It's a lot of pain. It's very difficult to treat. If you actually take a step back and listen to the name, you realize that that tells you nothing complex regional pain syndrome. There's not a lot to be gained from that name and, yeah, it's hard to treat and unfortunately there is an actual pain chart out there and natural childbirth is actually number two on that list. Crps is number one. I was on top of this. There are ways to treat it.

Speaker 2: 3:16

Typically, whatever happens in the first 18 months is probably how the rest of the story goes in most cases, and I was completely treatment resistant for all the different medications, injections. I had injections into my leg, injections into my spine, different kinds of nerve blocks and I saw zero result from any of those. That led to my discharge from the Air Force and basically being told to figure it out because I told them. Because when I got out and went to the VA and I didn't want opiates like well, we don't know what to do, so I was basically on my own. This at the time I had gotten right back into. I had gotten into coaching right after I got out, before I went in. I knew that that was probably something I wanted to do after my military career, but I thought we were talking 10 years down the road, so dove in on that and as my condition continued to deteriorate, I started to lose function years in. And that force I couldn't do.

Speaker 2: 4:20

First thing, running, high impact. Of course running is gonna be one of the first things to go, but then it was like jumping rope. But then it got so bad that coming off of a pull-up bar was like a week worth of extra pain, and so then it just became any longer duration of even moderate intensity and so things just kind of kept being stripped. But I kind of kept going like I got what I got and I'm not gonna leave punches that I I wanna throw every punch I can. So fortunately unfortunately this led me to dive into much deeper levels of understanding of human movement different training modalities, different. You know I had to explore it all. Some of it goofy and a little bit woo-woo, but you know I had to do what I had to do. What this turned into, luckily for me, is a better understanding on how to help others, especially those that were in pain, how to find solutions. And again I just became much more well-versed in how to A, how the body was supposed to move, like ideally, and B how to teach it. Because I was working on like limited faculties, like again I couldn't feel things in my foot, I could feel extra pain, but there's things that I couldn't feel and I couldn't get muscles to fire. So I learned new ways of that. Fast forward a little bit more In the beginning of 2020, I knew that it was time that I had one option left.

Speaker 2: 5:51

My life had become I was on a forearm crutch, I was on a cane for a little while, but that was no longer enough, and I'm now walking around on a forearm crutch just simply trying to get around and live my life, because I am still only 29 at this point. So, again, I'm doing my best. I'm doing my best and I'm 30 actually at this point, and the only option left was to try amputation. So I went to the VA, requested a consult for an amputation. I was. They tried to just flat out tell me no, even though they're not allowed to do that. That led to nine months of very intense back and forth fighting. Eventually, I was given a consult with the surgeon. I should have been sent to right away. He's one of the best guys in the whole country, for my condition was 10, 15 minutes up the road I saw him. He was like this is absolutely a case for amputation. We also, he's also. You seem to understand that this is not a guarantee he's like. But I like your chances and I also know that you're going to do the work. You've proven that over the last nine years. So we were both in the mindset what happens if it works. Now I get to take all this.

Speaker 2: 7:14

August 26th, the round noon I went into surgery. I woke up at 9 pm out of pain for my very for the very first moment, basically what felt like my whole life. I had lost my entire twenties to pain. And I wake up and I'm out of pain for the first time. I'm also in my first surgery. I've literally never been under anesthesia, or maybe one time for like wisdom teeth. So I'm high as a kite, I'm out of pain and the surgeon who answered me in the phone is like hey, it's your wife. I'm sorry it's past visiting hours, she can't come in, but it was just the wildest, the most amazing moment to get the experience, to get to have Like. It was just this incredible weight that got lifted and it's just like, all of a sudden, for the first time in a decade, there was hope in my life.

Speaker 2: 8:06

I battled and, battled, and battled and I couldn't even, like you saw, talk about the light at the end of the tunnel. I couldn't even see the speck. I couldn't even see the speck until three weeks before that surgery, when the surgery got scheduled. That was the first time I was like I have a chance. I have a chance to shine a little more light on the condition. Another name for it is the suicide disease, as in like this was used by medical professionals in a professional setting, because that is the common cause of death for someone with CRPS is suicide. I was there Like you don't want to cut your leg off because you're doing all right even, and so I'm out of pain now. This is like I said this is late 2020. And I've now got this opportunity for life. I finally get to start living life. I hit the ground running and since then I've learned that a lot of those things that I figured out while I was in pain because I kept showing up, they worked. They worked way better now that I'm out of pain.

Speaker 2: 9:14

And they helped me learn how to learn a prosthetic. They helped me learn how to find optimal movement given the situation. I'll never have perfect movement on a lot of things because I don't have an ankle and toes are really important. But because of everything that I learned, I got to translate that and then I started to learn that I had some things figured out better than most amputees. I was six, seven months in. I had pulled a pretty big deadlift. I pulled 500 pounds in the first nine months of being an amputee and I got a DM from a guy who's like I've been an amputee for a decade and lifting the whole time. He's like will you explain to me how your deadlift? Because he's like you seem to have something figured out that I don't, and at that point I realized I need to learn how to communicate this, which is a whole another thing in and of itself. So that's kind of the journey. Now For the last few years I keep exploring new things.

Speaker 2: 10:16

Yes, I get experiences out of it, but again it continues to shine light and helps me understand what I figured out, because I don't understand what I figured out. Again, I wasn't supposed to survive what I did, and the more I can share that, the more purpose all that has. Like if I just do these things, it's just cool If I can spread this and more amputees can have this information and have access to quality information. Now it's got a purpose and a reason and that's what I'm chasing Like for all the cool things I'm doing. Yes, I'm having a blast. I love my life. I will regularly tell people I am the luckiest guy that ever had to choose to cut his own leg off because I get to have this purpose to it all and most people they don't get that for one reason or another. So awesome.

Speaker 1: 11:14

I mean, that message right there is so powerful and in some cases it's even looked at as taboo. They call it selective surgery and there's a whole group of people that will say that you shouldn't do that and it's so cool. Oh, I still get messages.

Speaker 2: 11:30

I get messages from doctors on occasion. It's always somebody who is way out of their scope of practice, informing me that I shouldn't have done the amputation. It's like I'm just like oh glad, patient outcomes, not a thing you're worried about.

Speaker 1: 11:43

Thanks, man Appreciate you.

Speaker 2: 11:47

Maybe I'll just go ahead and put that back on.

Speaker 1: 11:50

Let's reverse that, because the fact that I'm not in pain anymore, that's just a roll of it, that's just uh geez, I should suffer for your paperwork. Can you even begin to translate into vocabulary what that pain is like? Because you can hear people talking. Pain is awesome in the sense it's multifactorial and it's so much deeper than it is oh, I got a headache, it's fascinating. It is, it is. It's really fascinating. So how I experienced pain.

Speaker 2: 12:19

It's fascinating to the tinker.

Speaker 1: 12:21

Yeah, so talk to us a little bit more about that.

Speaker 2: 12:25

Yeah. So the first thing that I got to tell people all the time is, like, because people love to like, they'll minimize their own thing, like I know you're. So I was like it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, my pain is my pain, my scale is my scale, and the worst pain you've ever experienced is the worst thing you've ever experienced, and that is fine. I don't wish more upon you. I know what it does. So that's usually. That's usually a big piece of the understanding of pain is that it doesn't matter, like if it's getting in the way of living your life. It's something that we should, let's address. Let's take it serious, because, if you, because if we take it serious now, it doesn't have to get worse. Maybe, you know, depending on what it is. Of course, there is those outliers. I was one of them. Um, sorry, what exactly was the question? Again, I want to make sure I'm staying on track.

Speaker 1: 13:15

No, you are. It's like, when it looks at some of those, those painful memories, like what is that lingering pain of nine years Because I know someone who can't relate they're thinking of, like you said, that pain scale that they may have. So is it something that you can articulate Like it's? It's just deep.

Speaker 2: 13:35

You know, it was just constant, Like it's just as constant as constant can be. Like, again, everybody gets the condition a little bit different. My big thing was like it never, I never saw zero on a pain chart and in those last few years I never saw below a four Like a four. Getting a couple hours at just a four was a great, was like a standout day. I had a lot less pain today, Um, but yeah, no, like I had it all. Like I had electrical feeling pain. I had times when I literally felt like it was actually in a fire. I had this sensation where in my head, what it felt like, like all the way down to feeling my foot was pinned on, pinned to the floor, I felt like somebody took a railroad spike and hammered it through my foot.

Speaker 2: 14:27

Um, it's nuts, Like it's, it was out of control, Like it was. So it was out of control and that was the hardest part of it. There is not really so I can kind of describe like the sensation, but the it's, the intensity and the like just beats on you. Like even the lowest level of chronic pain will get louder. It's, you know, the water torture, just drip, drip, drip, drip, and it's, I guess for those of you that have kids, at some point you had young kids hey dad, hey dad, hey dad, hey dad, hey dad. And you're like what's up bud? Oh, hey dad, and then they're good. Well, it was kind of like that, except when I gave it attention, it just got. It just needed more attention, Like it wasn't satisfied by being acknowledged. Um, yeah, like you said, that's kind of like the best and like and for all.

Speaker 2: 15:22

For everyone that doesn't understand it, I'm so stoked, Like it makes me, it makes me happy that people don't quite understand that pain. They don't need to. Uh, I hope they don't need to. Um, but yeah, like I said, there's not really, there's not really a way to add that weight if you don't have that relative experience. But like everybody's had something that, like they thought was never going to change. Like you know, you spend a month on crutches. There comes a point about two or three weeks in where you start to think like this is life. Now it's not even been that long. That feeling did actually last for nine years.

Speaker 1: 16:06

That's crazy, that's nuts. And so when the doc goes in there and they amputate the, it was your right leg, left, left, left left foot, left foot. And so how far above the lateral and medial malnayolas do they go?

Speaker 2: 16:25

We were right about mid-shed, like we were right about like I'm trying, I don't, you know, it's one of these days, I'm just gonna measure just figure how much limb length I have, cause as an amputee. How much limb length you have is actually a huge factor in how much stabilization you have. I have my knee, which is a big deal, and so like the rest of that just kind of serves as a lever, so I've got a longer lever to control my device. There's people with like longer residual limbs, but it was right about mid-shed, to be honest, like five, six inches.

Speaker 1: 17:01

Now, that coaching aspect that you were talking about, it's a skill that you learn because, like the guy reached out to you and the deadlifted to 500 pounds, and being able to articulate that to someone else with a similar condition, it's a whole new level of learning and practicing and implementing those strategies. And so now, as a coach, do you see most of your clients are in similar situations, or is it all walks of life? Where do you typically train people? How do you, or what?

Speaker 2: 17:28

time. It's pretty all walks of life. It's probably about 50-50 able-bodied versus adaptive clientele. But what's actually just I have found to be absolutely hilarious is that all the things that I have figured out to like problem solve for me as I work with my able-bodied clientele like this works better for you, like it's actually even more effective because they've got better tools for the job. They've got better tools for the job, so it's actually even more effective.

Speaker 2: 18:01

It's just not. They don't feel the same necessity for those details, like my necessity, because a good movement doesn't change. A good hinge is not different. Now it's the same. The route in which I have to go to find it is what's changed. But a hinge is a hinge and that one of the harder parts is actually getting the adaptive clientele to accept that.

Speaker 2: 18:29

Hey, the bar doesn't get lower because you lost a leg, it actually tire. My minimum level of athleticism to operate in daily life is higher due to the lost tools. Of everything that ankle did, everything that the foot does for you between proprioception, movement, flexion, extension, all these things, the athleticism I have to have to operate that prosthetic is higher than the athleticism I had to have to operate a foot. So getting that across is I can tell real quick whether or not, like how this is gonna go by, how well they accept that fact, and so like, yeah, the biggest thing is like my margin for error shrinks. So as you lose those tools, the margin for error is what shrinks. So my minimum acceptable quality for a good deadlift has gone up. I can't get away with the same stuff you can, but ideally neither of us do.

Speaker 1: 19:35

It's getting me to go down an alleyway of the classification of the study of movement is kinesiology, but then you have the somo is the body. So it's like body awareness, so it's like the somo kinesthetics of what's going on, because you definitely take it for granted being able to deadlift and then now you have a portion of that sensory aspect that has been taken away and you'd have to everything's heightened.

Speaker 2: 20:05

Yeah, like, oh man, like you know, I'm familiar with the term grounding, you know where people walk barefoot in the grass. You know I always liked it and I felt better when I did it. I was like I didn't really know how much like I, you know, bought into like there being an actual effect to it. Losing my leg is. I'm way more of a buyer than I was before, because the first time I walked on grass without a shiwan and a prosthetic, my body was looking for that effect and I got half of it. I was like, wow, that is way more real of an effect than I thought.

Speaker 2: 20:43

It was Very eye-opening and it's like okay, a big thing that I have to train myself and had to do for myself and I do for other, especially like lower amputees, is that it's a lot of figuring out how to increase the proprioception, like how do we leverage what we have and elevate the volume of that signal? Because, well, everything I feel in my hip that I have to use for walking, you feel it too, but it's at like a two out of 10, where your foot is a 10 out of 10. So you don't even listen to your hip. You think about your foot, because your foot tells you what you need to. But I don't have that anymore, so I had to figure out ways to turn that two into a four, into a five, into a six, sort of conceptually. That's kind of how I think about it.

Speaker 1: 21:31

The feet are fascinating, with all the receptors and everything that goes to the brain. I remember reading about elephants in Africa and they were able to be in two different locations. They do some crazy fucking dance and they're stomping around. Because of the vibrations and how big their feet are.

Speaker 1: 21:49

They'd be able to meet like a triangle distance without any type of communication via minus the stomping, and so it's like that is sick, that's so cool Animals, right, but it's like for us it's the same sense, where it's like you're taking one of those away now and so the input going to the brain is going to be it needs to be relearned, and I'm sure that there's been a lot of frustrating aspects of it, but at the same time it's like the second chance that you were saying, and so it's probably a sense of discovery and fun that goes to it, where it's like, oh shit, like whoa, I couldn't do that. I got to figure out a new way, a different way to implement this.

Speaker 2: 22:28

Yep, and that's where the mindset comes in. Man Like, that's where, like the only place some and outliers between the ears. I'm not a physical specimen, by any means.

Speaker 1: 22:39

I know that beard's pretty fucking good.

Speaker 2: 22:41

Right, that's, that's new, that's that's newer too. But physical specimens don't show up to high school for 1195 pounds. That was day one of high school for me. I am no physical specimen. You don't become a physical specimen at 30. Post amputation.

Speaker 2: 23:00

I learned the skill. I, instead of thinking about getting really good at one thing, I got really good at learning. I got really good at understanding my learning process and then being able to be aware when I'm in it, like yeah, I know I suck at this right now, but I know that I have to do this to be good at it and I have to suck at it first. And I had to be comfortable with that and I leaned into that side of it. It's funny when I was in, I think, seventh grade, we had we did some science experiment in class. Obviously, my science class and I remember you know we had to do a write up and that was part of the whole project was about teaching the scientific process and how to use it, how to document it and all this sort of stuff. And I remember getting pulled by. We all had, like your teacher pulled us all side one on one. You know we were getting we're giving a little bit of feedback, and the feedback he gave me was you have you had the best write up in the whole class. You had the best project, the experiment design. I don't know what happened in your experiment, though. He's like you seem to be really good at the scientific process, but science doesn't seem to be your Natural gift, like molecular science, and he is absolutely correct, but the scientific I could. That guy couldn't have been more spot on.

Speaker 2: 24:20

I got I got told a lot of really discouraging things growing up by teachers and the adults in my life. This was the only guy that gave me constructive criticism and had a minus but was actually dead on. I was also told never to, never to get into anything. That of all public speaking, and that's become my whole life. That I was. I was told by a teacher you will fail. Hey, public speaking. Here we are.

Speaker 2: 24:43

And but like he told me this and you know, I didn't really think a whole lot of it. But now I look back and I'm like man that saved my life, being good at the scientific process and being good. You know I like to experiment like you're familiar with a guy, cal Deets Try phasing and all that. He's man you can't even. That guy's done so many things. I love the way he operates in the gym. That's his lab and I definitely not intentionally, but I see a lot of parallels in how we approach things and that has allowed me to try this and learn how to take what.

Speaker 2: 25:21

What are the pluses out of this? What do we need to get rid of? And also, then you just can't have any attachment to anything Like you can't have attachment to doing things a certain way. The only thing I have attachment to is the best way I can figure out, and to do that you're going to have to throw some things out that didn't fail to find something that works better. So like just having that mindset around that has allowed me to tinker. And then you toss in what did I do the 10 years prior to my amputation for survival, while I get to use all those tools. Now, you know I built up quite. You know I didn't waste that time. You know I lost those years of my life, but I didn't waste that time.

Speaker 1: 26:03

And mindset is huge, which brings us into the next topic, that CW is CW and how having that positive mindset is going to help you get over, you know, some of life's hurdles that they're going to throw at us.

Speaker 2: 26:19

Yeah, so the so CW. Cw is chop wood carry water. For me, so this is like an old, like monk, philosophy teaching. I don't know what the exact phrasing is on this. It is related to old, like long time ago monks. And yet it got kind of explained to me like this Um, we're going to start here. If chopwood carry water, we think about a long time ago, those were things that had to be done every day. We didn't have heat, we didn't have running water. So now use that as today. It's euphemism for the basics what do you need to do to keep the wheels moving? So that's euphemism for whatever that is.

Speaker 2: 27:02

And for me, my list got really intense and really demanding and my margin for error has been very small in the last 15 years of my life. And the idea is what does a monk do, monks on their path to enlightenment? What does a monk do before enlightenment? They chopwood, they carry water. And what does a monk do after enlightenment? They chopwood and carry water, the thing that got you there. You don't throw it out once you get there.

Speaker 2: 27:30

And so all these things that I did for myself to what was truly just survival. That's how I got into cold immersion and the ice baths and stuff like that. It was the only thing I could do to dampen the nervous system response that I was getting, because it was nerve pain. The nervous system was so overactive it was the closest thing I could do and breath, work and all these different little, all these other different little things that I did that were survival for me, that kept me from going past that edge and giving the CRPS moniker of the suicide disease another tally. Well, I'm going to keep doing that. That made me my best. Then what happens whenever it's not a bad time? And so now I continue to do that. So my amputation is my enlightenment. I'm going to continue to chopwood and carry water, and that's what makes this all worth it.

Speaker 1: 28:27

Keep on showing up and getting after it and that's why you're there, and the first thing that you had is a big smile, and you still have that. And one of the things that brings you joy is working with people with similar situations. So talk about the nonprofit that you work for and how that's made a big impact on your life.

Speaker 2: 28:48

Yeah, so I work with a nonprofit called Less Like More Heart. I met these guys about a year ago and the founder she sent me a DM on Instagram said hey, I don't know how you and I haven't talked. I felt like I knew all the amputees in the air, like in the country that we're doing stuff, like you, can we hop on a call and talk sometime? So they end up setting up to. What they really wanted to do was invite me out. It's up in New Hampshire. So they wanted to invite me out to New Hampshire in Boston for an event that was going on from a prosthetic company called Levitate doing a test run. Little did I know I was being set up to be gifted a running blade. So I was through the organization, money was raised and I was given a running blade and with the idea we think if you get this, you're going to help a lot of people, I was like okay on it. And so what they do is and this is part of why I like them and we're very like-minded there's a lot of people that feel and rightfully so that the medical system is an adversary to them. Insurance is a bear to deal with if you're an amputee. So the grounds in which they can deny basic stuff that you need that are not affordable. They are cost prohibited because they don't sell devices. They don't sell prosthetic feet to people, they sell them to insurance companies. So they're priced like that. Regular people can't do that. You're talking like a leg can get up to 20 grand really fast and above the amputee it can get to six figures really fast Again. Say it again how much of those blades? So they are typically up in that range, like they're not affordable except for levitate. They're trying to change this. Their mission is to be accessible. They sell a running blade that is direct to consumer that will work with the socket you already have for $2,000. That is light years cheaper than everything else on the market Because again, they're selling to insurance companies. Levitate's selling to amputees.

Speaker 2: 31:02

So the goal of less leg is to complement what the medical system is not doing. Oh, they're not helping you with this. We got you. The woman who runs the company is an amputee and worked in the medical system. So it's like some of it, like she's like. I understand why they can't do that. I'm going to she's like, but instead of complain I'm going to be a problem solver, another reason why we click. I don't dwell on problems. You get to talk about the problems once, but after that we're talking about solutions or we're not talking. And so one of the things that we provide through less leg, more heart that I personally have a role in is we provide personal training for amputees for up to three months, no charge, like zero out of pocket for the amputee Because I get asked this question what's the hardest part about being an amputee?

Speaker 2: 31:49

And there's a lot of things, but I really think the hardest thing to do is getting quality information, getting quality education, coaching and instruction. A lot of the people that are like the front runners and amputee physical therapy all seem to have two feet, and that doesn't mean that they don't know anything. That doesn't mean that they're not helping, but they don't speak the language at all. I see these things where they get described like they get told what to do based on what it looks like, not on how it functions, a term that I use a lot in personal training with whoever is. Feel versus real. Real being like what it looks like, feel being on what you actually need to feel and be doing to execute the movement. On a deadlift, we don't actually arch and we don't drive our back backwards in a good deadlift. We drive our feet down. We drive our legs down, hips forward, maintain tension in the trunk and that allows us to stand upright. It's not a yank away from the bar. Feel versus real Again, that's a perspective they just can't understand. So now we're giving amputees an opportunity to get that time with me Again. I've learned all these things, I've done all these, I've worked through all this stuff and now I get an opportunity to get these people off to a much better start.

Speaker 2: 33:16

A big goal of mine long term is by the time I'm in the ground, I want to know that I played a positive impact in changing how physical therapy is done right out of the gate for amputees. I want to change the standard operating procedure at some level to get, because the first thing that happened to me when I was giving a leg, all right, walk, what, Okay? And I realized real quick, like how this was being done is not how humans learn. I don't even know what it feels like to load that prosthetic. So the was this correct or not? Was did I fall? If I didn't fall, we moved on to the next thing. It's like no. So day one of that I went I didn't even I don't even know if I went home first I think I went straight to my gym, got in a trap bar, loaded a little bit of weight on there and use that to learn how to engage my posterior chain and drive through my prosthetic.

Speaker 2: 34:15

I would do five to eight deadlifts, right, about 135 pounds, and I'd go walk around in a circle and every every set I kept getting better, cause I kept learning how to do that. So I use the deadlift and like it was little basic things like that. So I asked the. So the next time I went in I was like do you guys have like a deadlift bar? Do you guys have anything like they didn't warm me up, no band of good mornings, no clamshells, no, like like the basic things that are that can help you learn how to feel that they didn't know that that was, they, didn't know that that was the thing. So like they, they he's.

Speaker 2: 34:46

Like I'm supposed to try and walk, which is not like when you actually break down gate mechanics. They're not as simple as you want it to be. You've just been doing them since you, since before you could talk, but also if I, when I walk around Walmart, I'd be like your back hurts, your hip hurts, bet your knees are shit. You know I can see cause of poor gate mechanics because we don't ever work on it, we don't ever practice them. You know it's one of the reasons why people get hurt running is they don't have good gate mechanics and then running is just an explosive application, extrapolation of our gate and we improve that. We improve a lot of things in quality of life and then again, as the amputee, my margin for error, strength, so like I want to be able to impact that stuff at a positive level and less leg is behind me on that. And they believe in what I'm doing and you know so we're working together to, you know, raise money to fund more, more training for people, you know, get people off to better starts.

Speaker 2: 35:39

And, like I said, it couldn't. You know I've been approached by, you know, because of the other stuff that I've done on social media. It's not that I have a huge social media page, but in the amputee community my page is pretty wild and so I've been approached by a bunch of them. It's like that he's didn't jive with most of them, but this less leg man, they, you know, it's not even that they're bad organizations, just not. It wasn't the best fit for me to use my talents to help the most people, and less leg is going to be is helping so many people and they're so good at understanding it. What do we actually need to help this person with? Next?

Speaker 1: 36:15

And is that? I saw a 30 K that you're going to be doing here as soon as that in same thing. What do you mean? Same thing, like doing a sponsored event or something, or is that something different?

Speaker 2: 36:28

So no, so I'm running. So it's apparently, it's like, called like a vacation race, I don't really know. Apparently there's a whole series of them in national parks, but so, yes, I'm in May, I am running a 30 K in Bryce Canyon National Park. Seems like I've never gotten to go there. I love like the desert scenery, I love a Western setting and I was like this seems like a great way to experience that.

Speaker 2: 36:54

And yeah, less like is who put that motion? Because they got me a running blade. You know, they got me a running blade and set the, set the wheels in motion and with that run I will be working to raise money for less like more heart and just kind of going from there. So, yes and no, it's not like directly a less leg event. It's a race that tons of people do and you know I've got a friend he's going to run the 100 miler that day, you know. So it's like yes, so they got everything from a 30 K up to 100 mile, of course, and I just wanted an experience and kind of slay that dragon running, running. So I got hurt on a run and I didn't even care, I wasn't even like, I didn't like love running before that, but I'm like I can't let that dictate what my life experiences I have have is an option, because if I do that, that means running gets a vote, and I'm the only one that gets a vote these days.

Speaker 1: 37:54

Right, that's good, and slay the dragon, and so, for those that are listening, then we'll be your, your final speech or motivational talk on someone who is maybe in those shoes that Sam was in six years ago, seven years ago, where you're in the middle of the battle and you can't see that line.

Speaker 2: 38:16

You're in the hole, man. The only the only way out is through. There is no walking around a fire. The fire will just follow you. You have to walk through it, you have to acknowledge it and, for all the negative that is obviously true in that story, to acknowledge that is the truth means you have to acknowledge the positives that can be taken out of it and that's that kept me alive. What can I pull from that? Every morning, I think myself for everything that I learned from my pain, that I now get to help other people with and help myself with and live a better life because of. So, in the end, you are exactly who you choose to be. Whether you like it, you love it or hate it. You've chosen to be that person through all your choices. Act accordingly.

Speaker 1: 39:10

You've done some pretty remarkable stuff. My man and I love your story. I'm, you know, honored to be able to speak to you about this, proud of what you're doing and you're making a huge change, so thank you. Where can people find you?

Speaker 2: 39:22

I appreciate that. So best place to find me, especially if you've got questions and want to talk, I'd love to talk shop. Instagram, sam Schaefer, one S-A-M-S-C-H-A-E-F-E-R, the number one, and then you can also find Sam Schaefer on YouTube. I'm working on building that up. I'll be detailing prep for the race. You know I've been detailing. You know how I've been learning to run and the different. You know the different strategies I've used for learning to run on. My prosthetic is on there as well. So if you've got somebody that that could help, I would be incredibly grateful for you know that share. And, like I said, if you've got questions for me amputee stuff for a friend I'm here to help. Like I don't have secrets. I want everyone to win and yeah, that's really it. Those are the best places to come and get me.

Speaker 1: 40:18

Thanks my man. I appreciate it. This was awesome and we'll be chatting soon. Have a good one, All right.

Speaker 2: 40:24

Thank you.

Speaker 1: 40:25

Thanks, my man.