Art of Prevention
Our mission is to decrease the prevalence of preventable injuries and athletes therein optimizing performance by decreasing the time that our athletes spend benched due to injury. We are going to distill information and practices from experts in the field of injury prevention. High level coaches and top performing athletes. We believe this information should be accessible to everyone so that we can reduce the rates of preventable injuries.
Art of Prevention
Jake Aleck DC (Part 1): Maximizing Athletic Performance, Health Habits, and Nutrition Secrets
Unlock the secrets to reaching your highest athletic potential with Jake Alec DC, whose journey from high school underdog to acclaimed clinician is nothing short of inspiring. This episode is a treasure trove of wisdom for anyone striving to excel in sports or simply aiming to lead a healthier lifestyle. We delve into Jake's unique approach to conquering physical limitations, embracing the controllables of training, and the power of a supportive community in fostering athletic greatness.
Embrace the small, daily decisions that make a monumental difference in your well-being as we dissect the non-negotiable habits for peak health. From the transformative impact of consistent sleep patterns to the fundamentals of hydration and strategic protein intake, this conversation is packed with practical advice. We bring to light the importance of a disciplined routine, even touching on the motivational ethos of figures like Jocko Willink and David Goggins, and how such a mindset can enhance personal and professional performance.
As we wrap up this episode, we take a deep look at the nutrition strategies that can supercharge your athletic performance, debunking myths around creatine monohydrate and emphasizing the role of protein in daily diets. Join us for an educational journey as Jake Alec DC shares his expertise, and remember, while our discussions are enlightening, always seek personalized advice from a professional. Subscribe and share this episode to join a community committed to elevating their health game.
Jake's Clinical Website:
https://aleckpaintoperformance.com/about
If you have listened to this podcast for any length of time you know that strength training is crucial for runners. However a major obstacle for many runners is not know what to do once they get to the weight room. This PDF seeks to change that. It will arm you with the tools you need to effectively strength train to get the most out of your runs.
use code PODCAST for a 20% discount at checkout at artofprevention.org/runners
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Art of Prevention. And, as always, I have another amazing guest. And me and Jake Alec DC went through school together. However, we went through school at different schools.
Speaker 1:However, I always heard the legends of this rep, this MPI rep, over at National University of Health Sciences, and I tell you what when you go into a room that Jake is in, you know it Because he just always brings this amazing amount of energy and he is really a testament to being able to convert that just raw energy into consistent and measurable habits, which he used to really excel in athletics throughout high school and his collegiate career. And then he converted that prowess and all that energy and all of that effort into becoming an amazing clinician and an amazing individual and leader in his community, so that he can bring amazing care as well as amazing performance enhancement to all of the athletes in his community in Frankfurt, illinois. So, jake, I want you to take it away from there. Tell us a little bit more about your back story. I know I was always extremely inspired by your work, ethic and also your consistency, which we're going to get into during this episode.
Speaker 2:Nick, the biggest thing that people can't really tell right now, but I'm consistently five foot six tall. So that was pretty much the story of my entire athletic career, that I could not change that part. But the biggest thing growing up was you know how can you control things? That you know, essentially genetics that can give you. So my energy and passion for things, my will only to put in extra work into certain things that I really loved and cared for. And how did I communicate with others that were my teammates or my coaches.
Speaker 2:So throughout grade school my parents let me play all the sports growing up and baseball, wrestling, football, the whole deal. And then going into high school I realized that in our community the high school football team here is pretty predominant in our area and I said that's kind of where my passion is at. So outside of just playing the X's and O's of the game, I really dove into the training side of it. So my dad was kind of a workout guy. You know you own the plumbing company, so naturally just bigger than that. You really enjoyed weight training growing up.
Speaker 2:So that was kind of my look at and my mentor in that world and I have three older brothers that were likely doing the same thing. I hit in the weights, hitting the gym, early on in age. Then me being the youngest of four, Saul, all right, that panned out pretty well for them. So I have to do this times five because again, I'm the shortest one in the family and everyone around me is just dramatically taller than me. So that just kind of sparked the fire for that burning passion that I've had within the work ethic and just all things that I can replicate that energy into life and that got me going.
Speaker 1:And one of the things that we talked about was maximizing controlables. So, yeah, you can't control the genetic cards that you were dealt as far as your stature and your height, but then what are some of the things that you decided to really key into as far as okay, well, I'm not the tallest person in the world, but I can train a bunch, and then I've got some other variables that I can manipulate to really maximize the genetic potential that I've been given.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's I really put the benefit of that and I think my parents for it, just because they were able to put me into environments where it was either a really good personal trainer and when I was in grade school, because they knew that once high school came, you know you're working out as a team and you're not going to have that individualized attention. So they're like, hey, let's figure out how to do it right, correctly. And then once I got into high school, we searched around and I found a performance gym all the way about an hour and five minutes north of here that I would drive to four or five days out of the week and literally train it. And that's how I've made you know lifelong connections with people, because I was always a kid that drove an hour each way to train there and but that was truly the difference maker because my speed increased my, my ability to put strength numbers together on the barbell or when it comes into the different Olympic or you know just big lifts that you can relate to the, to sport. That's just time and how much you know effort you want to put into those things that get that result.
Speaker 2:And it was truly just a testament of I just keep doing this thing. I could see myself, you know, benefiting, you know, small each way, it stays at a time in order to just optimize myself and my stature and carry it out all the way into college playing at Miami of Ohio at a division one level Again. There I had really good communications, real good networking with the strength conditioning team, their coaches there, because that's that's again, I spend all my time there and that's where you know I help them out with other teams. And that's kind of barreled me into what I do now, kind of blending that gap between clinician and coach.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you. Even when you were in college you kind of became the guy that people would go to for nutritional advice and advice on all of these other aspects of performance besides just what you do in the weight room, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, you talked to any person in the world that, if you like, knows the body well, they'll say, yeah, you know, training yourself to do hard things is one part, but fueling yourself to actually receive the benefits of the training is 80%, 90% of it. Right? So me, being the short stature I was, I actually at my peak. I was 203 pounds in college at five foot six, so my nutrition classes are there, like you know. On the BMI scale, it was like like go to the ER like you're in the back. You know what I mean? You're obese.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I was in the red zone. I was definitely in the red zone. So and then actually, you know, funny thing that says that that's why I give people we use the in body here, because it gives us a breakdown of, like, where your muscle is, where your body fat percentage is to your frame. And I give patients all the time like, hey, don't worry about your weight right now, because let's see what that's truly made of. And in college, I mean, I always probably walk around at 89% body fat because I knew that if I wasn't taking care of my me nutritionally in in the weight room, every other advantage that the players had on my team or other teams they had through how tall they were and how much, how much faster they were and how much genetically faster, twitch and better at football they were. So I was always a kid doing everything I could sleep wise, nutrition wise and training wise to maximize you know my genetic potential and now you are.
Speaker 1:you really are somebody who's bridging that gap between the medical side of things, as far as treating injuries, and then the performance and fitness side of things. I know you give a lot of talks to coaches as well as athletes at your school, right.
Speaker 2:Yes. So luckily, since I graduated from here high school wise, the head coach coaches on ours allowed me to put together the high school's strength conditioning program for the football team and since I've been back in here in practice, the district has allowed me to not only work with football teams of multiple schools but with any other sport that's working out at their three-manage training facility within the school. So with that being done, yes, we talk training with the coaches, but at the back end I say, hey, let's quarterly have a nutrition meeting with the players and ideally with their parents, because who's buying the food for high school age? You know, kids, it's two ship, typically the parents. So we try to bring them all together to say here are principles that we need you to understand about one, growing as an ideal human, but also, you know, you're an athlete, so there's some things that you want to put more attention to than the normal person. That doesn't.
Speaker 1:What's the secret recipe? Jake, I know, like Lincoln Way, east and a lot of the programs around you are very, very good programs that you know win state championships, always make it to playoffs. All those things do in no small part to a lot of the advice that you're giving them.
Speaker 2:Right, it comes to the. It's truly through the community. I mean every parent that comes in here. They want the best for their son or daughter.
Speaker 2:Every coach in here is typically maybe a parent at a young age but now you know they're at the high school setting trying to help out the grade schools sports that are underneath them, that are feeding into the high school. So I can say specifically in the Lincoln Way community, from the grade school level to the high school level, it's truly the journey from first grade all the way to senior year where everyone is given their attention, time, money to making sure that every young adult is just flourished to their maximum capacity, just because you know they're getting the training that they can. They're getting the time and attention into good clinical work when an injury comes down. And then we have, you know, these assets in town that if it's me speaking for a nutrition hour to tell them this is what we're doing, this is what we're seeing in today's world, and then the parents apply it and it truly takes a team for that to happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I totally agree, and there are so many things that a parent or an individual can invest in, whether it be you know cars, houses, you know Bitcoin, etc. But truly, truly, one of the best investments that you can make is in your own help, because you can. If your house burns down, you can be living in a different one next month. If your car crashes for whatever reason or gets stolen, then you can get a new car the next day. But you really I mean, we can replace some parts on the body decently well, other parts not so well, but really you're not really getting another body right, no well.
Speaker 2:I mean you see it, all the time that people have the most money in the world, you know it may come to them having a failing hard or a new knee or something where they can't do now and they'll put every dollar they can into it when it's at that last mark versus now. Zoom back to when someone's in their you know, 20s, 30s, 40s and you're just saying, hey, man, that $100 gym membership may be worth it because you can, you know, benefit your heart, your joints, all of these things now. And you know they'll just blame it 60 years down the road and say, oh no, I just got a hand and a bad few knees. And you know my heart, just, my family genetics aren't great, that's like no, you know it was just as it was small investments back then that maybe it was time in, you know, monetary value. But that's what the you know the changes are that we can portray to people because we see them.
Speaker 2:You know, 67 year old man, I really wish I met you 40 years ago, right Versus now. You know I have a lot of buddies that are transitioning from that collegiate athlete to now. They're working from nine to five, maybe nine to 10. And they're like All right one. I got to learn how to train now because I was told how to work out for for years. Right, you know I was told what to do Now?
Speaker 2:I got to figure out how to do that myself. And two, how the heck do I eat as a someone that gets 4,000 steps a day, compared to my 22,000 when I was an athlete, you know all those change.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then maybe getting that dodgy knee looked at in your 30s is going to pay dividends in your 60s and in your 70s, et cetera, because we can let these issues compound over time or we can let the dividends from consistent mobility work and getting a good plan like I know you give to all of your patients, you know you can give people a plan to consistently improve upon whatever issues that you've got going on, right?
Speaker 2:I mean, you see it in R and again I call it a modern day good chiropractor, modern day good physical therapist. However you want to call it, we shouldn't have to take someone to come in here with this hurts in order for us to make a plan. It should say hey, how do you use your body on a daily basis, what's your goals and what you're trying to do? And then give me some previous histories of you know possible injuries that you've had in the past. Great, let me write all that down, let me digest that. Now let's do a full body assessment and let me tell you what the biggest elephant in the room is that you can do right now to start paving that way forward to accomplish your goals, to feel really good and do what you're supposed to do. It doesn't take you to come in here with a nine out of 10 painful shoulder for me to give you that plan and you to feel amazing. You know weeks, months, years down the road.
Speaker 1:I totally agree and, having that comprehensive approach, I think a lot of more people are becoming more proactive. I mean, we've got these really awesome like kind of influencers in the sphere, like Peter Atea, especially with his book Outlived kind of that shift towards medicine 3.0 of how do we make sure that our health span not just our lifespan but our healthy years we're able to do the things that we want our expanded to be as long as possible. And these are things that can start in grade school and in high school and in the collegiate career of not allowing things to become really big issues. And one part of that is those daily habits, those controllables. So what are those four to five main topics that you go over with those athletes in high school and in college and some of your athletes that are at the professional level that come and see you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, and that's just how. What are the things that you know we need to have in order to thrive as a human right? Because in the end, people talk about the high end athletes that come in here or you know, even a high end eighth grade or shoot, it could just be normal Joe person. There's still four or five things that everyone's got to do really well in order just for us to feel our best on a daily basis. And one we got to talk about the sleep equation. Right, when you're younger, you had to sleep way more hours than what you got to do when you're older. But you know, right now I'm in the midst of a marathon prep and my wife actually hates it every time that I do this, because I dial in on everything in order to feel really good and be able to repeat training day after day out. So and I think to her enjoyment, to like we just aren't in bed anytime after 9pm and a week later or weekend basis, it's just like what we do, and she's a morning riser, I'm a morning riser. We're both up at around 430 in the morning, but that's truly how that 430 could actually happen, because, you know, anyone can wake up early and be like, oh, I'm just a morning riser, but can you sustain it? And you can never sustain it if you're not getting to bed early. So maximizing time slept for. So for high school or, I always suggest at the basement eight, but ideally nine hours, which is wildly hard for them to get because everyone has screens and phones and technology that keep them up. So I always talk about that.
Speaker 2:Number two hydration. I mean as many drinks that you see out here with all these crazy labels and you know that does this, does that like just good old fancy water can really do us benefit and I always recommend that, at least as a, as a, as a micro. Yeah, there you go, as a, as a minimum half your body weight ounces per day, and then we give the equation to the athlete of how active they are, how much more of a multiplier they need to have on top of that. Number three, we talk about protein intake. So right now I love using the basis of one gram per pound body weight, because one, if you're a growing adult like you're just body weights not going to be crazy high that we're worried about, you know, kidney problems or things like, such like.
Speaker 2:There's plenty of world renowned leaders and research that are very clear that the kidneys aren't a problem if we're getting one gram per pound of body weight, of protein per day. But once we get into those 40s and 50s and 60s like we need more than that one gram per pound body weight. And if someone is trying to lose weight you know someone that may be 240 pounds and looking to be 190, we may give them one gram per pound of ideal weight versus you know their current weight, just so they can have some other food choices there too. But realistically, between sleep, water, protein, those are the three harps that I have every day on a clinic, clinical time or I'm speaking as a coach or just speaking to a parent. Needs want to know what are the three factors that they can start with, like literally right now.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Uh me, this is something that I kind of struggle with. Are you kind of a morning lark, like we've got? So we've got the chronotypes right. There are morning larks and night owls. I'm definitely a night owl, which really hindered my performance and you know, like really hurt me literally when I was in cross country, cause it's like boy, like my HPA access was thrown off because of over training and stuff like that. So I'd just be laying in bed midnight, one AM rolls around and I'm just staring at the ceiling and then, of course, they got to get up at five, 45 AM to go for a morning run.
Speaker 1:Um, what is your secret? Whether it be for the consistently going to bed before nine or at nine, is that just something that your body naturally does? Or are there habits that you've instilled with you and your wife that she keeps up with as well, to ensure that you guys are settled down and ready for sleep at 9 PM? And then, what do you do when that natural dozing off and drifting off to sleep doesn't happen? Cause I know that's a big issue for a lot of people too, myself included.
Speaker 2:And this is just from what I've heard from many people that are are are mentors in the space is one is have a consistent part of waking up every time at the the due time that you need to. So, um, you hear often, you know, do you focus on the amount of hours as your most important part? You focus on when you go to bed? It's most important part or is at the time you start your day? And it's helped me and I've helped many people that I've talked to, is just narrow in and whatever your start time is, to keep that consistent. And even when it comes into the weekends, a lot of people will say, oh, you know, weekends opportunity to sleep in is trying not to make it that much more than what you're doing during the week. So, even on the weekend, you know we're. We were up and moving by six AM in the morning, one cause we got dogs that are on our time as well, but also just because it's pretty close enough or, you know, it's not crazy early at that 430, but it's enough. Where we're still, we'll still close. And, um, when you are trying to make that shift again, I really feel like this is a huge thing with, with with it is just eliminating the screen an hour before you're trying to go to bed, like I can't. Every time I talk with kids in here, whether it's about video games or, you know, snapchat or texting their friends, watching videos everyone's on their phone all the way until 12 or one. And then they're like, okay, now I'm going to go to bed, and then they're they're missing breakfast in the next morning. They're, they're racing out of the, racing out of their house, and then now they're not eating lunch because they didn't pack any lunch and they got to buy a school lunch and just creates a cascade of problems that they're like, yeah, I got all these problems, but I can go back to. You just didn't get the bed on time and you wouldn't allow you to wake up on time, you know. So, um, just pulling back on to saying, all right, if I know, I need around seven or eight hours and I am waking up at 415, 430, what's that math? What do I got to do an hour before that to just truly like harp on that?
Speaker 2:And it goes all the way back to me in high school, obviously, I played football.
Speaker 2:So right after school we had practice, we'd come home and we'd eat dinner and it would be seven, eight, 30 at night.
Speaker 2:I wasn't too efficient at getting homework done at that time, so what I would always do is set my alarm at 4.56, so 4.56 purposely, because I'd give me enough time to go downstairs and make my breakfast, turn on the TV and watch the 5am Sports Center for like the first 10 minutes when everything really good is on, because it's like this game happened, this highlight, all this stuff was all really good, and then I would finish eating breakfast, stay down there, do my homework for like that last night that I didn't do, but like got me prepared for that day that I was going to school that day.
Speaker 2:So I was kind of like fresh into what I was learning and then it was just in time for the last bit of uh, like the top 10 plays, and then I watched top 10 plays, go, get ready for school and then go to school. But then I was mentally was in keen, ready to go, and I think that really carried on for me in college and now today's world. Because whatever I prioritize is my most important thing, I do it first thing in the morning because there's no interruptions.
Speaker 1:So sprinkling in a little bit of reward with that getting up early is kind of a key to that success there, huh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, right. James Clear would say how do you make your good habits easier? Right. And he would say you know, give a reward after it or just make it playily easy to do it. You know. So when I wake up in the morning, I was at my, my, my, my, my clothes ready to roll. My wife does the same thing. She got her towel or key for car right there. You got her her bottle ready to go, and so as soon as she's out of there, she grabs and goes. You just make it that least resistance possible. So then there's just no reason not to do it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I love the that you mentioned. James Clear, I know you're a big fan, I'm pretty sure. Isn't it like painted on one of the walls in your clinic, like his big quotes?
Speaker 2:My entry. My entry level wall is actually a gift from one of my mentors and it's got our August 2020 starting date on it, and it was about in order to make I don't want to butcher the quote, but essentially to to make it your normal join a group where your ideal normal is what they're already doing and it's, it's, it's, it's awesome. So when people come in here and I give Winchester Spine Sport a big, a big shout out to this too, like you go in there and suddenly you become gluten-free, dairy-free at the same time and you leave with a coffee in your hand Like everyone's doing it Right. So here again, maybe everyone's leaving with a protein bar and you know, after doing a couple reps of dumbbell curls, you know something like that.
Speaker 1:Now I also I think one of your big factors in your successes have been your consistency. And let's talk about the differentiation between motivation and consistency, cause one thing that you know happened to me a bunch is, you know, I'd get really motivated right and I'd get amped up. I'd, you know, read Born to Run or some shit like that, and then I'd be like, let's go, like I'm going to be so consistent with all the stuff I'm going to do, and then after two or three days at Peter and I'd be right back to like doing whatever previous habits got me in the place that I was in. So how do we take that drive and those big boosts and motivation and convert that into small, consistent things, those quote, unquote atomic habits that James Clear talks about, those small differences that make huge differences when we consistently apply them? How?
Speaker 2:does that?
Speaker 1:conversion work for you, cause I know you probably have the same thing where you get super motivated for something, but then I feel like the major key that you've kind of used to unlock the secrets of performance or success is just taking that motivation and distilling it into daily habits that you can do every single day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the biggest thing is one have a purpose for what you're trying to instill. Right, and James Clear's new app. He literally has in the app I'm doing this habit at this time to become blank. Like have a reason for it. Right, cause so many times people are just like oh, you know, I'm going to go to the gym every day and it's like okay, for what? Like, what's your goal? Like to have a six pack? Well, why is that your goal? Right? Like you keep digging deeper for why? Why? Why I love that thing I do in here because once you get back to your sole purpose, then you can really decipher is like is this going to stick or not? Right, so you know, one of the things is just like if it's a huge, huge life changing thing that you're trying to work on and that is the your why of it, I can bet that you're going to stick onto that. Because if you marry that into your habit now, it's like well, this is the result I'm trying to change and this impacts me every single day, right? So now, if you marry that to that, it makes it a little bit easier. But I've actually attained all of my habit.
Speaker 2:Training like, determination, you know motivation all that world from pretty much two people. And that's Jocko Willick, which is that US you know, the Navy SEAL who is just incredible in all simplicity words that he uses into getting people going and doing the simple things. And David Goggins, who is another guy that I started reading when I was in Cairo school and obviously we were able to see him, see him live at Parker seminars and his thing is just by like doing the hard thing. And when it comes into both of Jocko, where he's like you just got to make it happen, no matter what, and then Dave Goggins was about doing the hard thing, if you marry those two things together it's like make it happen no matter what, but make sure it's hard enough that you're getting better as you do it more often, right?
Speaker 2:So recently I've gotten into the whole cold plunge thing and I really love the benefit of what it makes me feel like brain-wise during the day that allows me to be a way better person clinically in here and coach-wise during the day and then like my third reason why I like it is because it makes my body feel good for workouts. Like that's not my number one deal Like. So when I, when I talk to people about it like, oh man, you do that thing every day and I'm like, yeah, it's miserable for the first 10 seconds every single day. I do it bright and early in the morning. But my benefit that I've allowed other people to have and interactions with me way out performs the misery that I go through for that 10 seconds. But then now, as an athlete, it's like man.
Speaker 2:It's really helped with my, my Boston Marathon training because you know, last week I ran 70 miles in a week and it's like you're just not going to be able to do that unless you're hitting certain things on a repeat basis. And yeah, it's some days. I throw a picture up online and that's an easy way to say, hey, I did it today because everyone else has eyes on it. But nine times out of 10, all the training that I've been doing, especially these last 18 weeks, is being just all me and myself in the mirrors downstairs and people ask like, what would you do today?
Speaker 2:It's just like they say it. They're like Jesus. That's miserable. But the end all result is, hey, did you get your marathon time? That's all people ask for. So it's in life I've seen some people that succeeded really well in what they do as an occupation and so many people do things under the eyes of just themselves, like it's a really accomplished things that people see at the end you have to do things on a small basis. That requires those good habits to get there.
Speaker 1:Man gosh this running. I'm really excited we're going to do a part two where we talk all about you converting from a football player to a marathon runner and it's going to bring back a lot of weird emotional stuff for me. Probably have you ever read Once a Runner?
Speaker 2:I have not run one. I haven't dove big into the running books yet I feel like I want to. The only one I've really read has been Born to Run, and that was one of my first books handed to me by my mentor and he was just I was like the intro into barefoot running. That was. I got the Vibram Five Fingers the week after reading that book and then I got my Achilles' Pain the week after that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was going to say Without the intro of like hey, wear yourself into this the correct way. So yeah, all good clinicians always have hey, learn from my misery. Like let me tell you the right way to do with this.
Speaker 1:Oh man, Well, we're going to table that discussion for part two, because I'm going to give you some running books you got to read for when you have those lapses and motivation and you're like, oh, now I want to go do like 60 quarters in a row or something stupid like that. So now you're also. We talked a little bit about some of the basics for nutrition getting your hydration, getting the adequate amount of protein, the building blocks of connective tissues, et cetera. What are some of the supplements that you also recommend a lot of your high school athletes and coaches to tell athletes to take?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the biggest controversy but benefit that is in studies all across the board here is creatine monohydrate. We actually have a page on my website. It's a blog that just sits there. It's just all about creatine monohydrate and why people should be taking it, not only as an athlete but as just an everyday. You try to be a healthy person as we age on, but the big harp on that is again. I was a victim to this. It's like there's a billion different brands that try to sell their matrix of this and that and this type of configuration of our proteolytine blend and it's like no creatine monohydrate, five grams a day. Just take it like it's your multivitamin and just continue to go with it and it just allows you to have that maximal value of a supplement that you know is not only going to give you brain benefits but body benefits that we can feel on a daily basis.
Speaker 1:I completely agree, and it's one of the things that I get asked about the most and it's one of the things that I, weirdly enough, get pushed back from regular people who just associate creatine monohydrate with body building or with high schoolers that are trying to get yoked in the gym or people that do steroids. They're like is that bad, isn't that just for people that do steroids and stuff like that? And it's like no, that's completely the opposite. Your body naturally synthesizes this. Your brain naturally synthesizes this and utilizes it as a substrate for energy and energy storage. So, as far as like bang for your buck goes, this is a really inexpensive supplement. This is a really effective supplement. I mean, creatine is the most studied supplement and I don't know why this has become such a weird hill for me to die on. But I'm just like yeah, there's really no risk involved and there's only reward to be had with creatine supplementation. And the simpler the better. Just be consistent Five grams a day.
Speaker 2:That's right, and I feel like anytime you have a conversation with someone where they almost start the conversation as if they already know that they're going to talk about the negatives of it, I just always let them finish and I go all right, so tell me, where have you gotten your information, where have you heard that from? And then they always peel back some brother or some cousin or some bro that they talk to, and then that's what their basis of information is. And so that's why we're like, hey, I'm going to send you my link that we have on our website. Go ahead and read through it. It's got a couple other links paying to the ones that we suggest and the reasons why. And then, typically, when you give someone just a little bit better education of the common things that people say is wrong, but they're actually just wrongly told, they suddenly like oh OK, I get it now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've done two entire episodes on just creatine, but you'll have to send me that link and we'll put it in the show notes for everybody to go and check out your blog post on that as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't say it's just simple, because what I've just figured out over the years is what are the main questions that parents ask me? And I'm like I'm done, all right, let me, I'll send you this thing. It's just like just go on the website, it's there. I get asked that all the time and I feel like the more common questions people give you, that's even for you. When you have a platform like this for education, those are the ones that you want to make content on, because everyone's asking it.
Speaker 1:Let's dive into protein supplementation. I know you probably do a little bit of protein supplementation. Why do you do it? How do you do it? Give me the secret recipe.
Speaker 2:So I truly think with that one gram per pound of body weight, it's almost whether it's a protein bar or protein like pre-made shake or a whey or just some sort of powdered base shake that people can have. It's the easiest way to say. I always take one of those artificial protein supplements every day to get you to that number. Because you look at someone so I weigh right now 167 pounds. In order to get 167 grams of protein in, you have to be eating a lot of animal products. That butter be pretty lean too, because if you're eating just fattier animal products that get you that protein amount now you're paired with the calories that get married with that and then a lot of these protein-based supplements. If you get some good ones, I'll tell you the ones that I recommend we have at our office here. It's just simple it's low calorie.
Speaker 2:I actually have a formula that is if you just put a zero at the end of the amount of protein in the nutritional value of the deal and if that's more in number than the calories on the bar, it's actually a high protein bar. So an example is like our premier protein shakes that we have in there are 180 calories and they're 23 grams of protein per shake. So 230 is bigger than 180, that's actually high protein, because you go to the grocery store and you see granola bars high protein, peanut butter high protein. It's like no, they're not high protein compared to the calories. So in a calorie-rich world, truly giving people like this is a high protein option that you can have and this is what's gonna allow you to get to that number.
Speaker 2:Those are the suggestions that I'm giving people. And I had a guy in here. He's a busy corporate dude that runs a huge company and he's like there's days that I have three protein bars and a protein shake and just my wife's dinner at nighttime and he hit like his PR and body fat percentage because that just allowed him to stay dialed in to get through his goals. And yeah, is that not the best diet in the world? Probably not when it comes into the global spectrum of things, but his mini goal was the shave body fat percentage off and staying on point like that allowed him to make it easier.
Speaker 1:I love the Jake Alec high protein equation. We're gonna have to make like a little like Canva thing or something like that. It's great.
Speaker 2:It's literally a bulletproof thing Like go through home and you'll see it marketed everywhere, because protein is known to be like the buzzword that people are looking at and, again, marketing agencies know that, so they just grabs me nuts. To seeing a high protein peanut butter, like, yes, it's got protein in it, but it's also 380 calories and there's eight grams of protein in there. 80 is not bigger than 380.
Speaker 1:People always are like oh yeah, don't worry, I hate my peanut butter. I'm like peanut butter is gonna have like three grams of protein and then like 10 grams of fat, so you're really getting a ton of calories and not very many of those from protein.
Speaker 2:Right, and I know, and I know you and Taylor talked a bunch about like the collagen protein, which I feel like is a huge, huge other world that is like there's so many benefits to that. The only thing that I've found with like the and this is just me, you know, reaching out to other people that are big in the space, I don't know if that's 100% pairing to that one gram per pound body weight of the actual like because of the amino acid profile. So I know like there's other benefits that the skeleton muscle system gets with that. So what I've been telling people is just double the dose. So if someone has 20 grams of collagen protein, we're either gonna divide that by two and just say that's only 10 grams, or if you really want that to count as 20, I'm gonna have you take two servings of that and then we can count that as 20.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's been the. The collagen's been a pretty controversial topic, especially with some of the recent literature from Luck Van Loon's lab showing that it doesn't. It's tricky because they were able to measure and look at through muscle biopsies muscle connective tissue, but they weren't able to directly look at tendon connective tissue, and that's where a lot of the big benefit is supposed to be is with tendons. So they said, oh, it doesn't benefit connective tissue in a way that is superior to way or a regular protein supplement. So then a lot of people will just literally just like through their collagen just in the trash because of that one study and it's like well, first, they're not directly measuring like what they're what we're trying to measure.
Speaker 1:And two, there are a lot of other studies that just say, okay, we've got people with tendon pain or joint pain. We had them start taking collagen and then they felt better, superiorly to placebo. So is it a getting daily protein requirement or is it like the specific amino acid profile that's good? We don't really know.
Speaker 2:Right, and mostly what people do is they put it in their morning coffee and they're on there with their day and I'm like, if you have the availability to buy that in your house, the best part is you're not doing yourself a negative Whether it's an extra $40 that you're spending every two months and then we're gonna have those servings, like, yeah, you're not doing yourself a negative and it's more than more than how you're doing yourself a positive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I totally agree, and we're coming up on almost 35 minutes it's just flew by and we've talked about a lot of things. We talked about maximizing your controllables so that you can maximize your genetic potential. Maybe you weren't dealt the best cards, but you've got cards that you can change yourself. We talked about consistency. We talked about drive. You gave us a couple of your secrets as far as how to maximize those controllables as well. So, jake, at the end of this part one, if we had to distill this whole conversation into an ounce of prevention, what are some of the things that you would tell high school athletes, high school coaches, some of your pro athletes, as far as how do we maximize your performance and also prevent injuries from occurring?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say zoom out, look at yourself from a true top down lens and say what are the biggest mini goals that I can accomplish through something that I can do daily, from today in the next 30 days, repeatedly, in order to chip away at that goal.
Speaker 2:And it may not be to actually accomplish that goal, it may be to be a little bit better in the goal. That's going to be four months, four years down the road, but what can I do? That is important enough for me to work on, but I can self digest that into one thing that I can do today and repeat that in a sustainable way, cause anything done in life to actually sustain change has to be sustainably done right. So what can I do on a repeatable basis that actually allows me to stay in 30 days? I can get to that point, and the best way I have to describe that is whether you're trying to bench press 300 pounds, you're trying to run a three hour marathon, you're trying to study blank for trying to get A on a test, it's. You take that end result and then you chip it down to okay, 30 days from that beginning. What do I have to do right now to get to that end result and just make it sustainable. That's the biggest thing.
Speaker 1:Oh man. So not necessarily what do I do today, but what do I do for the next 30 days to accomplish, and you've done all the things that you just said, huh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I mean and that's why I like programming is such a fun thing for me We'll talk about it in your next podcast, because I mean programming from a really good clinician. Yeah, I know Taylor talked about it. I know Beau talks about it at Rich. I mean all the really good clinical people that just can take someone who, whether they want to achieve, you know, a weekend tournament and pickleball, to I want to accomplish this amazing athletic goal or I just want to live in my seventies feeling really good. It takes a well zoomed out program that you can just sustain and we do on a daily basis that gets you to that end result and it's up to you and it's up to that relationship with you and the person to say do you want me to be with you along this journey?
Speaker 2:I've been hand in hand programming for people all the way since my first year of Cairo school, which was, I can even say that, three, five, almost 10 years now, and there's still my client to this day. And Mike Boyle I'm gonna just throw these random names on but, like Mike Boyle would always say, you can find these, like you know trainers online and say, great, like I understand you what you're trying to say here, but that will crash and burn. If you try to actually train that person for more than three months in that way, he goes now, try to do that for years and try to be a trainer of years, not just, you know, one month, and say, oh, you know, I worked with this guy for one month and he attained the Super Bowl. You know, it's like you gotta have that zoomed out mentality.
Speaker 1:Gosh such wiser. I wish I had had Jake Alec in my corner when I was in undergrad and also high school, because we're all together now, though, my friend.
Speaker 2:We're all together now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm glad to have you now, but all right, well, we're gonna hold right here and then everybody be on the lookout for part two.
Speaker 2:Great, nice day.
Speaker 1:I hope that you enjoyed this episode of the Art of Prevention podcast. If you did enjoy and or benefit from some of the information in this podcast, please be sure to like, subscribe and share this podcast, or please give us a five star review on any platform that you find podcasts. One thing to note that this podcast is for education and entertainment purposes only. No patient is formed and if you are having any difficulty, pain, discomfort, et cetera, with any of the movements or ideas described within this podcast, please seek the help of a qualified and board certified medical professional, such as your medical doctor or a sports chiropractor, physical therapist, et cetera.