The Show Up Fitness Podcast

Paradigm of Perfection - The calisthenics DPT

• Chris Hitchko, CEO Show Up Fitness • Season 2 • Episode 89

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Doc Laura's voyage is one of transformation and inspiration. Our latest conversation with the creator of Paradigm of Perfection explores how a career pivot led to an online phenomenon, with close to half a million followers captivated by Laura's journey. As Laura recounts her evolution from gymnast to social media influencer and physical therapist, she reveals the impact of calisthenics on her life post-gymnastics and her dedication to fostering authenticity and motivation through her Instagram presence.

Grasping the complexities of physical therapy, especially when intertwined with the physical demands of gymnastics, can be as intricate as the movements themselves. Reflecting on my own shoulder surgery, we delve into how my gymnastics background may have influenced the injury, as well as the financial and competitive aspects of carving out a career in physical therapy. Laura and I dissect case studies, like handling hip instability, to underscore the nuanced expertise required in this field—knowledge that can mean the difference between healing and long-term impairment.

Wrapping up this deep dive, we shine a spotlight on the multifaceted ways Laura connects with her audience—from social media to her innovative app, Paradigm of Perfection Post Train. The tools of her trade, such as Adobe Premiere Pro and CapCut, are more than software; they're the brushes Laura uses to paint her digital canvas. Her final morsels of wisdom for burgeoning influencers are a testament to her success: be consistent, understand your audience, and above all, nurture a sincere wish to make a difference in others' lives.

Want to ask us a question? Email email info@showupfitness.com with the subject line PODCAST QUESTION to get your question answered live on the show!

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Show Up Fitness podcast, where great personal trainers are made. We are changing the fitness industry one qualified trainer in 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, and welcome back to the Show Up Fitness podcast. Today we're really fortunate to have Ms Doc Laura, and she has the Instagram page Paradigm of Perfection, and thank you for taking your time today and showing up. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so let's talk a little bit about why you got into therapy.

Speaker 1:

I was going through your page and I was like, holy crap, you are one mobile athletic, as we call them hunkettes. You are awesome at everything you do, Thank you. So I actually didn't really intend to do physical therapy.

Speaker 2:

At first I thought I was gonna be an engineer, like both my parents. And then I took calculus when I was in high school and I said I will never take a math again. So I started to research different things that might sound interesting, and I was like I don't really want a desk job that does the same thing over and over again. I wanna be continuously learning, and so I came up with a list of different career paths. I forget if I came up with a list of career paths. I forget if I came up with physical therapy or my mom did, because she was helping me with the list at the time, because I was in high school and I ended up shadowing a physical therapist at the time and I was like, yep, that's what I'm gonna do and that's kind of how it all started, Because I just had a passion for how the human body moves and that type of thing. So that's kind of how it started.

Speaker 1:

And so where'd you get your undergrad?

Speaker 2:

University of Pittsburgh.

Speaker 1:

Pittsburgh and then over there, are they the Knights, are they the Cougars? What are they? Panthers, panthers, damn it. Florida gets your DPT Correct, yeah. And then now you look at your Instagram page and you have almost a half a million followers and you're doing some pretty awesome stuff. So let's talk a little bit about that transition from almost 20 years of gymnastics into physical therapy school, and now you're an internet sensation.

Speaker 2:

I wouldn't quite say that. What do you wanna know about it?

Speaker 1:

I guess, Probably just how you got into your social media and you're so consistent in everything you do. You have a niche following. It's just so cool to see that success online.

Speaker 2:

Gotcha. So, after retiring from gymnastics in 2015, I went into PT school and there's not really adult gymnastics anywhere or anything like that. So I was struggling to find out how I wanted to continue to move and work out and all I saw was like the traditional training in the gym with, like the weightlifting or the bodybuilding and things like that. So like my passion was dwindling for it. I was like this isn't really, like something was missing. And so I was on Instagram one day and I stumbled across a calisthenics page and so I started. I was like wait, this looks like a lot of fun. This is what I'm missing. Like people actually train like this. I didn't see that in person or anything like that.

Speaker 2:

So I started including some more calisthenics training again. I started some hand balancing. I eventually started like doing ninja warrior type stuff too, and the passion came back. So I was like, okay, I like if I could change one person's life, the way that this one account changed mine, like that would be a win. So like if I could inspire someone to work out, be healthier, things like that. So I started the page back in 2017 as an anonymous Instagram account because I didn't want to show my face or anything like that. So.

Speaker 1:

And would. Did you kind of begin with not liking social media, like you're saying right there? Do you want to show your face? Were you embarrassed or what was? If you can recall going through your mind then.

Speaker 2:

So I think I was more concerned about people that I know like finding it, because I basically, being a recovering perfectionist and things like that, I wanted to share that side of myself that I couldn't, or I felt like I couldn't, share in person. So the anonymous aspect of it there we go basically allowed me to grow into myself more and it's actually allowed me to become more of my authentic self in person as well over the years.

Speaker 1:

And anonymity. I think that's what we're doing. Yes, thank you how far I love to quote, though. No one is perfect, and that in itself is perfect. And so, for those that are trying to grow their page, what would you say is one of the successful things that you would give them? I would probably guess consistency is big, but what else would you say?

Speaker 2:

Consistency is definitely big and doing and posting things that you're passionate about, because if you're not enjoying the process of it, then you're gonna burn out. So finding a balance that works for you, finding the content that makes you happy and allows you to express your creativity I think it's gonna be the most important thing, because if you don't have that, then you can't be consistent, and the consistency is super important.

Speaker 1:

All about showing up right. Exactly. I think it's so relatable with training, physical therapy. You go into a profession and a lot of people are probably like I don't know who I wanna work with, and people will tell you find your niche. But you're like well, how do you do it? You just gotta start kind of playing around, and you had that passion from four years young into 21 plus, and so that must have been almost frustrating because you had that fire and you go to a gym and you see some dipshit muscle heads curling and doing, grunting and everything and you're like, well, that's not what I wanna do.

Speaker 1:

And so then you came across social media. That's just, that's the beauty of it. You can look at social media and say it's toxic. You can say all this negative stuff, but if you know how to funnel through it in a positive way, you can reach the right people. And then you can find your little successful past your own, because there's people out there on social media who are really vocal. I'm a character I'll I scream into the mic and I have fun with it, but then you don't have to be that type of person. You can find another way and so you've really found your quote unquote voice on social media and you're crushing it and you're doing really, really well, and so that's definitely an area I think correctly from Ron, but a lot of therapists don't have that second, third, four stream of revenue and you've been able to really foster that with your online.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the online has definitely been helpful from reaching more people, making more of an impact, like helping people transition from the physical therapy to the more training side of things, getting skills and then also creating more of a community that you can't really find in person, because especially calisthenics isn't as common, hand balancing isn't as common things like that. You just find a community of people with similar passions and then meeting up with them in person has been really fun too with some of them.

Speaker 1:

At a client of ours in Los Angeles. She's a neuro professor some crazy shit at USC, and she'd come in for a training and then afterwards we found out that she was gifted in all the rings and everything and the body stuff and she would we'd almost spend like five, 10 minutes, since she would teach us handstands and because down in the Venice Beach area had a whole entire area that people will go down there and practice calisthenics stuff. And so I saw that you were talking about community. You were out in LA and something similar to that. Right, there was a group that you were out here with.

Speaker 2:

So I actually went out to LA for a ad for a company, and so I was able to kind of spend a little bit of extra time that I had in both Santa Monica and Venice Beach, and that has been something that I've been dreaming of since I actually started the page and found out that that existed, and it was so much fun to be able to do that and that's how it was in social media right. Yeah, yeah, I was able to get that job through social media.

Speaker 1:

That's one of the cool things about it. If you look, I'm sure in 2017, when you started that page, you weren't thinking how can I get sponsorship, how can I get these third party agreements Right?

Speaker 2:

No, definitely not. I was literally just doing it because I wanted to hold myself accountable, to share with others that it was okay to move in different ways and to share that, because online you see a ton of people being perfect and not sharing that side of things. I also wanted to show the struggles and the wins and kind of that side of things.

Speaker 1:

That's the other couple of things I wanted to chat on, because social media can be so black and white sometimes. One of your recent posts that you're doing with some Bulgarians I did a post on I used to write for stackcom and I did a what I called a windmill deadlift, where in a strength position, barbell is parallel to you to the side and then you lift it and you rotate and, holy shit, everyone lost their you can't rotate with load, You're going to hurt yourself.

Speaker 1:

That's how you athletes blow out their back. You have a physical therapist who is doing a Bulgarian with rotation under load and you didn't die right.

Speaker 2:

Nope, no movement. I always say no movement is inherently good or bad. It's your ability to prepare your body for that. So you can prepare your body for a ton of different things and it may place more or less stress on certain areas of the body, but as long as you are prepared for that load, it's not inherently dangerous. You just have to weigh the risk or reward ratio, basically.

Speaker 1:

And that's one exercise I like to. I like to stir the bees nest. On social media I always like to make fun of bench dips because for the general pop you're taking the glenohumeral joint to sometimes 110, 120 degrees of range of motion. But then you look at your world in gymnastics and you live in that pain free and you're doing crazy stuff on the rings and so, like you're saying, it's not inherently bad, it's just what is the intent of the movement and why you're trying to do it Exactly. Did you experience any injuries in gymnastics or anything like that?

Speaker 2:

I had a couple of bourbon bones, but nothing super crazy. I was actually really lucky compared to a ton of my other peers who did gymnastics. My more. I guess serious injury happened after, but gymnastics potentially could have contributed, as it was like more of an acute on chronic injury and I ended up having to have shoulder surgery back in 2020 because of that.

Speaker 1:

You say you're back to normal now or I would say stronger than before. Yeah, I saw you doing some insane. They weren't. It was like better than a muscle-up because of how controlled and everything you were rotating into, I was just like I want to try that, but I'm not even close there needs to be like your progression, regression, and then you didn't even have like a third one to crisp, because I'm not even to the regress version yet.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there are always different variations that you can do of anything, so it's always fun to kind of play around with what specifically someone needs to.

Speaker 1:

So a lot of people will reach out to me, even though I'm not a therapist. I don't have that capabilities for getting through physics and all that stuff, but, like you, were engineering mindless physics so I couldn't get into physical therapy. But a lot of people ask me Chris, I've been a trainer for a year now. I want to go to physical therapy school. What do you think? And I always say it depends. There's so many different options. If you're looking at, you know saddling up some good amount of debt. That could be a negative, but it's always depends. So what would your advice be for some trainers or maybe students getting their degree in kinesiology and thinking about going into physical therapy? What would be your pieces of advice?

Speaker 2:

It's definitely a different world from, like, the training side of things to the physical therapy side of things. It definitely depends on your goals and your area of in your areas of interest, and I would definitely recommend going to a clinic and shadowing a physical therapist and talking with them. Depending on the setting that you want to be in as well, it can vary significantly. I always joked that my backup plan was to do animal therapy because you can do like it's just an additional certification that you can get and you can work with dogs and horses and all of that stuff, so the options are really endless.

Speaker 2:

A lot of people want to go into working with athletes and that's actually very competitive and very hard to get into. So people think that they're going to do that and then never really get there. So that's also something to consider. You have to be passionate about the process of getting there or going above and beyond to be able to do that type of thing, but it's definitely hard but it's definitely worth it if that is something that you're interested in. So it really just depends, because there are pros and there are cons, and so it's really an individual decision, I guess.

Speaker 1:

If you don't mind me asking, what do you leave, like University of Florida, with with your student debt?

Speaker 2:

Over 100 easily.

Speaker 1:

Over 100. So a lot of people will then go into an insurance-based practice and at least in California you're looking at like a starting salary maybe like 65, 69,000. And that's probably pretty similar or more or less in Florida.

Speaker 2:

So I'm actually in Georgia now so I can't speak to what Florida is. I interviewed with some places in California and they were offering a lot more because the cost of living was more, but that was when I graduated more. So I guess the average starting salary in the area I can speak to the fact that it has increased now, at least where I am, but it's still not like it's still low compared to the student loans that you're having.

Speaker 1:

And do they amortize those loans over like 30 years? So is like a monthly payment like a grand? Is it a little more, a little less? So you have no idea. I didn't know what those monthly payments would be.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it obviously depends. I ended up refinancing during COVID so I was able to get a pretty good interest rate there, so it makes a huge impact. And my husband is also a physical therapist so we have two of the student loans, so it definitely changes the way that you are able to live.

Speaker 1:

Hmm, so here's my. I'm always thinking bigger. If you're listening to this, maybe Doc can give some pointers too. But if you were a college student and you start tackling your social media with that fervor or issues, I might you find that passion and you start getting after it. Grow your following into a couple hundred thousand. You could potentially have your online be paying for your PT school. If you're doing it in a way that is, you know, aggressive. What do you think about that?

Speaker 2:

Very, very, very difficult. I'm not gonna say it's impossible, but I do not think it would be the norm for the majority of people, especially with how long it takes to build a good following that trusts you, because you also have to provide a lot of value as well, and so I think it would be very hard.

Speaker 1:

And do you think that most of your followers are prehab rehab specific, or is it more in the gymnastic world there?

Speaker 2:

It's definitely a mix of a lot of different things, just general movement, more of the like. You have other therapists that follow you, other trainers that follow you. You have just general population that thinks it's cool. It's really a wide spectrum of different people with different interests and things like that.

Speaker 1:

I'm gonna edit this part right here because I always like throw random curveballs at you, but I literally had a client right before. A student text me and they're like my clients hip pops out and they send me a video and I'm like I don't fucking know, I'm not there. Could I show you this video and maybe give us your background or what you think could be? I'll show it to you first. Her hip pops out.

Speaker 2:

And she's able to relocate it. I would think it would be more of like some instability, and so, basically, the ligaments aren't necessarily contributing to that stability and so you need to strengthen up around it. But if it's causing her like first, don't continue to do it as a party trick, because that can increase the laxity. Second, do you wanna strengthen up the area? And if it's causing pain, obviously that's gonna be a different story too.

Speaker 1:

And we typically will live on these sayings that have been around for so long Like you have something that's tight, you should flex it or stretch it. If you have an injury, you should ice it. We still go off of these things. But what would potentially stretching in that scenario do if you had that laxity where you need more stability?

Speaker 2:

I mean it depends on the type of stretching that you're doing, because if you are strengthening up end range as your mood of stretching, then it's a different story, as, like for passive flexibility that you think of typically. But if you are stretching the tissues around it and if you are additionally, especially if you don't have that stability, then you are passively stretching on, like the ligaments and things like that. That can further increase the laxity and then can cause additional issues down the line potentially.

Speaker 1:

And I remember I was working with a therapist and they were going over hyper laxity. There's a Hyper mobility. Yeah, what's that screen? There's like seven of them.

Speaker 2:

Oh, Ehlers-Danlos or not, you know, there's Bighton's, Bighton's score. Yeah, yeah, Bighton's score.

Speaker 1:

Because I remember I thought I was special because I could do this and like, come on, you gotta have that mobility and then, but there's certain areas that if you have too much it could be problematic, kind of like what we're talking about right now. Right, correct.

Speaker 2:

And that's where, like Ehlers-Danlos and things like that, can this is the hyper oh, sorry, I cannot talk today Hyper mobility disorder. Those things can create additional problems as well, depending on the severity of.

Speaker 1:

So if you have someone who's like we say like double-jointed I don't really even understand what the fuck double-jointed means. You don't actually have two joints there.

Speaker 2:

It's like no, it's just typically a colloquial. Colloquial, I'm sorry. It is a saying that people commonly use. That it just to describe the hypermobility, essentially Like you have more motion in the elbow that what you're supposed to have, type thing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and that is within the scope of a trainer. We talked about this area. Unfortunately, you were talking earlier on. If you want to become a therapist, you should go intern at a couple of physical therapy clinics. But you know, our rep today with trainers were a bunch of idiots.

Speaker 1:

Because you want to become a trainer and you go read a textbook and then you go out there anecdotally and you train people how you thought you were doing it and then you hurt people. It's like you're not going to learn how to work with people who have hyper you know Sensitive tissue like that and you're gonna have to trial and error, which is so unfortunate because You're gonna be like I did it this way. Let's just try it out on you. But if you had a physical therapist on your team how simple was that text right there from one of my trainers and You're able to relay that to the professional, you get the feedback and then you could say, hey, chris, I think you should probably do a, b, c and d. Don't do f, because you're gonna fuck them up and then you can do it in a safe and proper way.

Speaker 2:

I think there's definitely value of physical therapists and trainers working together. Um, because there are, there's a knowledge base of the physical therapists, but there's also, like the time aspect and the insurance aspect that you always have to consider as well. So a personal trainer oftentimes not always is going to be Like seeing them probably more frequently for longer periods of time where physical therapy you might be seeing them three times a week, you might be seeing them twice a week, but it's only for a short period of time and when they're done, they're done and they don't necessarily get additional feedback. If you are in the traditional model, obviously there are like physical therapists now that do that continuation of that online type thing. But, um, it definitely helps to have trainers and physical therapists work together locally. That way you can kind of hand off the person and they can always ask and so it's like both of you guys are aware of their medical history and things like that. It's very helpful.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so for like that case, right there you have a client who has a hypermobile hip Would there be some exercises that you can, you know, throw out there? That might be again, we're just going off of a video, so we're not diagnosed and we don't know for a fact that actually is going on, but there isn't pain. Maybe there'd be some exercises. What if they're isolating or compound with slowly, centric? What would be some of your suggestions that you go towards?

Speaker 2:

Um, I would just generally strengthen the hip, especially focusing on, like glute, mac or the hip hip Extensors, and then also the lateral hip and probably rotators as well. Um, so things like, um, like a single leg, rdl, for example, um, glute bridges, variations of that, um, some like curtsy lunges it would be more compound, but you can also do some more isolation exercises, depending on the level of the person too.

Speaker 1:

So then my last little question is I love picking the brains of stuff that I have no competency of getting into. But none of competency. I'm so lacking that range of motion, the splits, and I see some of the drills that you were doing. You know I was like holy shit, that's impressive. Where would you even start to get into To the splits?

Speaker 2:

um, I mean, start where you are. Obviously, um, you can work on the different aspects of the flexibility. So there's the passive flexibility, there's the joint mobility, there's the active flexibility and the end range strength as well. So, um, even doing Like, including some of that stuff into your training can be helpful. And including it in like your warm up and your cool down and maybe like as a superset or something like that can be helpful.

Speaker 2:

And then biasing your training to make sure, making sure you're using the full range of motion throughout. So like, instead of doing a Lunge like a walking lunge to get the quads, for example, maybe doing like a Mus over to lunge and you're then strengthening in more of a range of motion, getting the back hip into more extension, getting the front hip into more hip flexion and that kind of mimics, the split, but also your strengthening too. And then also working on like the end range strength for, like, maybe doing like some leg lifts, like seated leg lifts in a pike position, so that's going to work the end range quad strength, and then also being more active in that split hold, but you do at whatever level you are. So like there's a ton of different things that you can do to progress, but it's always starting where you are.

Speaker 1:

I'm always curious because you look at like a textbook, like you're. I have one from USC and it has like the range of emotion right. So you should have 90 degrees of external rotation of the shoulder, you know, 45 internal, but then at the hip you're going to have roughly 45 ABduction, but you're going to 90 degrees out there. So how is the tissue just adapt to the new stimulus that you're giving it and you're creating like a new norm or how does that? How does that work?

Speaker 2:

You have to consider the combined emotions as well. So with like astral, for example, you're also externally rotating while you're abducting for like a dip, like you mentioned earlier, it's not just pure glenohumeral extension, you're also protracting the scapula. So it's combining the joints to get the range of motion. If I remember correctly, there's a study on like circus artists and their normal spine ranges of motion. I think like in the segments was like within normal limits. But it's using the combined motions across multiple different joints Don't quote me on this, this was a really long time ago that I read this. But they're the average, I guess, of them because obviously some of them have hypermobility disorders. But those specific joint, when you look at one joint, it was within normal limits but because of their training, because of the combined motion, they can do all these cool things.

Speaker 1:

That's fascinating. The movement is so fascinating, especially when you take a positive approach and you're doing great things like you are. You're helping so many people, so I'm proud of everything you're doing and I'm thankful for the opportunity to chat with you. And where can people find you? On social media.

Speaker 2:

Paradigm of perfection across the board, also paradigm of perfection on my website, and then I also have my app in the App Store, which is Paradigm of Perfection Post Train.

Speaker 1:

And you had a couple of secrets, if you don't mind sharing. I was looking at a couple of your posts and I'm like what the hell? How is she in two places at one time? What is she doing here? You're a magician right there. What is the app that you're using?

Speaker 2:

Oh, premiere Pro, it just allows you to overlay things. I'm pretty sure CapCut allows you to do that too, okay.

Speaker 1:

All right, so get out there, be consistent with your social media, focus on your market and always be helping people the right way, and thank you for your time, doc.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much for having me have a good one. Thank you.