022 - Dr. Shaun Astorga on Making Sense of Movement Models

Dr. Shaun Astorga is a board-certified physical therapist who has overcome his own chronic pain and injury from a brain and neck injury after being written off by other medical professionals. His first hand experience managing his own chronic pain gives him a unique sense of empathy and compassion to his patients, which is exemplified through the quality of treatment he provides.

Today's podcast starts with an in depth conversation about Shaun's own personal journey -- from financial guy to doctor of physical therapy to overcoming his own issues with chronic pain. Shaun is an incredible intelligent  guy I look up to when it comes to his understanding and application of contemporary movement models -- and his journey took a few interesting twists and turns along the way. 

Next, we talk about the echo chamber of social media and how the gap is growing between theory and practice for many. 

So if you're a young coach or clinician looking to build bridges of understanding, Shaun is a guy you definitely want to follow and/or reach out to. I'll be joining his AMP Performance Blueprint very soon and in the meantime, I'm excited to share this episode with you.

You can follow Shaun on instagram at @dr.shaun.astorga.

Don't forget to follow me @coachryanpatrick and rate us 5 ⭐️

#athleticperformancepodcast #athleticperformance #athlete #sportsperformance #athleticdevelopment #physicalpreparation #strengthandconditioning #speedpowerstrength #ryanpatrick #sportsperformancecoach #baseball #assessment  #basketball #football #soccer #hockey #running #sprinting #sprinttraining #speedtraining #peakfast #peakfitnessandsportstraining

Transcript

M-2-peakfast: 0:10

Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm.

Ryan Patrick: 0:25

Well, Sean, welcome to the show. Um, I really appreciate you carving the time to be here. Um, I'm a huge fan of yours. I love your content. I really love the direction you guys are going. I know we talked about this a little bit off air, so just appreciate you so much for, for carving the time to be here, but for, um, People who are not familiar with you. Why don't you start by telling us a little bit about yourself and this can be as broad or as narrow as you want. So if you want to give the origin story version, I'm here for it. If you just want to kind of bring us up to speed with what you're doing today, that's cool too.

Shaun Astorga: 0:58

Yeah. Awesome, man. Uh, first of all, yeah, Ryan, thank you for, for having me on. I really, really appreciate it. Um, so like I said, my name is, uh, Sean Astorga. I'm a. Former finance guy turned physical therapist. I founded a physical therapy practice called and performance rehab in Northern New Jersey, which I co own with my friend, Monica Moore, uh, where we helped, uh, we hope like a pretty, pretty motivated and active population of people, including athletes of all levels, a lot of gen pop, uh, just really people who just like. Doing cool, cool shit with their body and they don't want to be limited by pain. I also want to continue the education company. It's called AMP education. Our main offering is our mentorship program, which is called the AMP blueprint. This is a 12 week. It's an online program where we kind of lay out the framework that we use in our practice from the underlying principles all the way through practical implementation and application with the goal of really helping other practitioners, uh, clinicians, fitness professionals just better help their clients achieve their goals, right? Just get better at our skillset so we can better help other people. Um, yeah, I don't know what else to say, man. I mean, I guess it's important for people to understand, you know, my, some of my biases. Um, I suffered a major injury in 2017. Uh, it was a brain injury and an upper cervical injury, and that was really kind of the catalyst For a lot of the things that I do and believe today. So founding our PT practice and then starting our mentorship program. Um, you know, a lot of the continuing education that I have taken up to this point has really been me trying to figure out my own situation and understand my own situation. Cause I wasn't able to find the help that I was looking for. And while I acknowledge that I don't have all the answers I have been able to put a lot of things together in a way that's very, very pragmatic. Um, so I hope that I can just offer some valuable insights for, for your listeners, man. I'm an open book, too. So any questions you have, man, I'm all for that's an awesome.

Ryan Patrick: 2:46

If it's not too heavy, man, I'd like you to unpack that injury just a little bit more. Tell me about what happened and just kind of the recovery process. And, you know, especially for a lot of the clinicians that I look to, there seems to be in their recovery process. There was this. Kind of stopping point of just unable to to get to the other side of some issue whether you know, it's an orthopedic issue They're just not getting that the treatment that they feel is necessary or in your case the brain injury Which I know absolutely nothing about but I mean, I'd love for you to unpack this a little bit more.

Shaun Astorga: 3:19

Yeah yeah, for sure man, and there's I Agree 100 percent like that's been my experience with a lot of people that I work with Like from the mentorship side of things is they have similar, similar background injuries that weren't getting better or whatever it might be. Um, so yeah, kind of like a trial by fires, you know, you get thrown in it. Um, but yeah, essentially what happened was, uh, I was at work and, uh, there's a literally just closed the cabinet door and two pretty heavy boxes. They fell and they hit me in the back of the head while I was, was looking downward and it was an upper cervical injury. And then, uh, it was a, you know, concussion, um, and things just did not heal. Like you would typically expect it was a work related injury. So there is a lot of red tape around that going through like the workers comp system. It's very driven by people who are non medical professionals will say, and it's very, really not an efficient system from the patient's perspective, you know, but so the reason I say that is because it took some time for me to get to the people that I needed needed to get to and had to really advocate for myself in that sense. But things weren't really. Healing appropriately and a lot of the emphasis because it was a work related injury was not on me and the goals that I was trying to get back to a runner at the time. I played basketball. I'm afraid of some injuries now. I can't risk it. So I don't play anymore. But like, I was very super active. I always had been like athlete my whole life and no one cared about all that stuff. They just cared about when can you go back to work? When can you go back to work? When can you go back to work? Um, so I kind of got sent to a lot of different specialists and no one can really explain. The symptoms that I was having, I had a lot of clinically, it'd be like a lot of signs of upper cervical instability. So think of like transverse ligament in your neck is not doing what it's supposed to. So I get like cranial nerve signs in my face, a lot of like tingling, numbness in my face. These are like, you know, kind of scary signs, especially when, you know, right. Uh, tingling, loss of like, uh, not loss of function, but loss of strength in both of my arms, a lot of that kind of stuff. And it kind of persisted for a while. And, uh, one of the biggest issues that I had is that, you know, specialists, a specialist, like I said, is, you know, Everyone was kind of managing me away from, from function, from activity, from things that were meaningful for me. And I started noticing a lot of, uh, you know, it's like psychological type issues from it, like a lot of getting depressed. Of course, you're not like with your friends, you're not able to do a lot of basic stuff, a lot of anxiety, anxiousness, like a lot of basic things. And it got to the point where, like, I couldn't like walk to my mailbox without getting heart palpitations. Like, crazy shit. Like, like this is not, or like beyond the realm of like concussion at this point. Right. Um, and then one day I was just like listening to a Ben house on a podcast and he was talking about something hormone related. I forget exactly what it was, but he was talking about TBI and people who had a, a long, you know, uh, trouble getting overcoming, you know, concussion symptoms. So I just reached out to him and I was like, basically like, Hey man, here's my situation. Do you think you can help? And what was interesting is he was the first person who kind of asked me, like, Just basic shit. Like what's the least you could do? Like, I know you can't exercise. What have you, like, what's the minimal amount of exercise you can do in the gym? How much, how can we start introducing activity into your life? Like, tell me about like what you're eating and how that's affecting things. Tell me about like your sleep. Tell me about all this kind of stuff. And he got objective data from like labs, all that kind of stuff. And we started just implementing these Very basic and simple things. I started noticing a lot of symptoms starting to, to improve. Um, so that's kind of like the first 10 months of things. And then I got to a point where I could like function. I was back to work and doing a lot of those things, but I still had some, some kind of issues. Um, I don't know how, how much more in depth you want me to go on those. I'm happy to keep going, man. But

Ryan Patrick: 6:54

yeah, man, I'm, I'm honestly, I'm like, I'm kind of on the edge of my seat here, just super intriguing to me.

Shaun Astorga: 6:58

Oh, yeah, man, that was a cliffhanger I almost left you with. Yeah, yeah, so, uh, yeah, so I had a lot of, I had a lot of, uh, just like weird kind of I don't even know what to call them, but you're just like a lot of visual, visually stimulated issues. A lot of, uh, like cranial type issues that were still going on. So, for example, if I had a patient on a treadmill and I was trying to talk to them, like just the physical, like the amplitude of their body going up and down, I'd have to look away because it would, it would make me dizzy. Um, so I started working with a neuro optometrist. And I'm like the prism lenses. Uh, so the goal with the base prism lenses that I had was to help increase kind of my, uh, peripheral awareness. Like when I put them on and took them off, I couldn't really tell anything was happening, but when I was walking around moving, I could definitely tell that there was a positive change. Um, so I started noticing, okay, this is getting, getting better. Um, and then I started trying to progress my training, my English. So how much can I get away with in the gym from a strength standpoint? Can I get back to running? At this point, I was still not able to jump to any kind of plyo, any low level plyo highlight like nothing. I couldn't. I stepped off a curb weird. I'd get like a lot of pressure in the base of my skull. So a lot of my clinically, these are all very like upper cervical related, related issues. So I started working with my friend, uh, Mike Camperini. I'm not sure if you're familiar with him and he was watching. I go back a little bit. I actually went to the intensive during this time frame with Bill Hartman. And I got there a day early just to go through a session with him, get his thoughts on things at the time. And, um, that was the 1st kind of situation that I started noticing improvements in the upper cervical vertebrae. Symptoms. So we did basic stuff that I would, I would do with patients, you know, like nothing too, nothing too crazy from that sense. Um, but I was still limited. Like, I couldn't objectively look at the situation myself. So that's when I started working with my friend, Mike Camperini, and he got me back to a point where I was able to start running training, doing a lot of things, but I still needed support. So I need a support from like a literally like a broiling bite, like mouth guard type situation. Um, and I don't know if you're familiar with like concussions at all and any of that kind of stuff. But like, the reason I went that route is just because, you know, I thought about what we were focusing on and a lot of it had to do with the relationship. At my, my jaw, right. And my cranium and my upper cervical spine. So you can kind of artificially use like a mouth guard as a, almost like an orthotic to kind of help with that, with that situation. So I could basically do everything with that in, like I had no limitations. I could cut, like, I literally went one day, not being able to like, do any kind of change of direction stuff. So now I can do change of direction stuff. So like kind of, kind of crazy shit. Um, but at the same point I was like, I need to like figure this out more because I do not want to have to rely on this. mouth guard to literally go for a run down down the street. Am I allowed to drop F bombs in my bed? I don't know. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Sorry, man. I'm just like going. Yeah. So that led me to, uh, another referral. My friend, uh, I don't know if you know Rua Gilna.

Ryan Patrick: 9:55

Do not.

Shaun Astorga: 9:57

So he's like, uh, he's a, he's a strength coach. He's, uh, you know, like in the, in the PRI, in the PRI world. And he referred me to, uh, an airway dentist, uh, Howard Hinden. Who's fortunate for me, he's like only 30 minutes away. Uh, so last year I started working with him and very interesting perspective because we focused on, uh, essentially like changing the structure of my lower jaw. This is where shit gets weird. So like, I can already, that's a little weird, but I'm like, I can, I can get behind it. Changing the structure of the lower jaw a little bit. So basically expanding it a little. So I had noticed and. When you look at pictures of me, like everything started kind of like converging inward over time. So there's definitely like an airway component to this and that's kind of where we are. We did that. I have the final stages. I have Invisalign now to kind of get the teeth to support the structure. Now I have. No issues. Like you see, I'm training for half. So I'm doing everything I have to do. Um, I do not think this journey is what everyone needs to go down, but I do think that like, there was a lot of value in, you know, me, uh, trying stuff and seeing where does this fit, right? Not everything's going to fit for everyone. Uh, big rocks are always going to win kind of situation, but there are times for this kind of nuanced approach and like being as a practitioner, like I find it very useful to, to at least have some insight on when those things are, you know, you know, might be, might be valuable.

Ryan Patrick: 11:20

Sean, this is really bad ass man. Honestly, I mean, I

Shaun Astorga: 11:24

appreciate it.

Ryan Patrick: 11:25

I've only had intermittent episodes of pain, right? Um, I broke my leg. It's a six to eight week process. The B the bone fuses together. It's there's a big knot in it. Now, nothing crazy. I've had some sciatica, you know, driven by my own stupidity, trying to lift too heavy. It goes away. Something of this magnitude that takes. What are we at 7 years now is is substantial. So I think it's it's really incredible the process you've gone through to get here. I'm sure this really helps you with your empathy in terms of your own practice in dealing with patients. But I want to, I want to dial into this last piece. I have a question about the airway dentist and the restructuring of the jaw. Is this driven by just braces? Are there other strategies to accomplish this task?

Shaun Astorga: 12:24

So I'm admittedly, uh, well, first I appreciate you saying all that cause it's definitely been a, it's been a journey and I don't want to paint the picture that it was straightforward and easy. So, um, but yeah, so I, this is not an area where I'm an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I can tell you what we. We focused on, um, so there's imaging is actually like, if you're nerdy, like it's really cool because you can see a lot of the, uh, Like the bony adaptations over time. So the differences in like the structure of the jaw, like the shape of the airway, um, if you're in my world, like you'll hear people talk about like concentric muscle orientation and compression. You can literally see it in my, uh, like the older photos, like the, the tongue concentrically oriented above the highway. So keeping the airway open, like these things are very real. And then like, but you know, like I can also see how people are like, this is that shit crazy. Um, so it's just interesting to see that. And, you know, uh, Clinical signs you would see are people like they need to like gasp for air while they're talking. So they're like catching their breath as they're speaking. That's like airways having a hard time staying open kind of stuff. But so anyway, what we focused on was 1st aid in an appliance, like an orthotic, uh, Transcript The goal of it, as I understand things, was to one, make sure I had molar, molar contacts. So molar contacts, and this is again, I appreciate that there's like a little out there is like getting heel contacts on the ground kind of situation. Um, so getting molar contacts, uh, but also changing the relationship between the mandible and the cranium. So for example, like a lot of people, when they have. Especially upper cervical injuries like they're going to create a lot of tension to provide like a sense of stability to that area is the easiest way I could think of it and I think about my friend when I started like getting back into training and I was dead lifting at the gym. Mike Baker. Like yelled across the gym. He was like, how hard is that set for you? And I'm like, I don't know. It's like a six out of 10, like nothing crazy. And he's like, why are you looking like it's a one rep max? I was literally clenching everything down, but that was kind of my resting position, right? Like I was trying to create a lot of tension through, through, through like top down. Um, so it's really to change that relationship. So to protrude the mandible a little bit to like, quote unquote, expand the posterior, like the. Cranium like all that kind of kind of stuff. Um, and then once that that was a period of time, I forget how long six, six months, nine months, something like that. Uh, we transitioned to what I have now or, or, uh, basically like an invisible line is progressive. So get the teeth to change, to support the structure. And that's where I'm at now. I'm like the last phase of, of that, where we're going to start taking these to, uh, Part time situation where I just wear them at night and then see what happens kind of thing.

Ryan Patrick: 14:57

That's really exciting and interesting. I think I'm going to have some questions after the show for you about this, but I hope I can answer it.

Shaun Astorga: 15:03

Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off. It's been a learning process. This has been a very big learning process for me because I didn't have a hard time getting around it. Like I met the dentist. I'm like, I get what he's saying. He's like a down to earth person. He kind of like gets it big picture too. You know, like what my goals are and everything was geared towards my goal of running and the symptoms I had with running and all that kind of stuff. So I was very comfortable with the Processing, even though I didn't fully understand it. And I saw the images, I'm like, Oh, this is just fucking cool. I'm going to, I'm going to ride this out for a little bit and see what happens. You know? So, yeah,

Ryan Patrick: 15:31

absolutely. So if you're, you're deep in the industry, like we are, I think it's easy to get pegged as the advocate of the model, this compression expansion ideology. We're talking about bones moving. We're talking about shifting, you know, the relationship of the mandible to the cranium. And for many people, especially coaches. like myself who aren't trained clinically, this is, this can be a real challenge. Um, however, I think from the, the fit, the, the perspective of the physics can compression and expansion are core concepts. They're, they're irrefutable. But I think this bridging this gap into, into practice and seeing real changes on imaging, like you're talking about is, is really where most people get stuck. So I want to be very clear. I'm not here to draw lines in the sand. I know people can get pretty hot about this from soundbites on social media, but I would love for you to start with this concept, um, in terms of some of the big rocks that play into your assessment process or how you're approaching treatment with your clients.

Shaun Astorga: 16:45

Yeah, for sure, man. Um, and I do agree that there's like, uh, there's such a massive gap between like the theory and practice side of things, which I, I definitely have thoughts on. And I do think that, like, it's, it's challenging, like, like, no joke. So you're working with humans and you're learning new stuff. And like, there's a lot of things that kind of go, go into that. Um, it might be helpful. I'm happy to give my big rock, like, kind of how I view things. Um, but, um, Something I tell everyone who joins our mentorship program might be helpful to hear, because this has been kind of a guiding thing for me after going through it. Take this where you want it, man. This is your show. Yeah, alright, let's go, man. Yeah, well, the reason I say that is because, you know, I don't think that it's fair for a person to, um, try to be someone else. And I don't think you're setting yourself up for failure when you do that. I've been guilty of that, right? Like, when I start learning stuff, I'm like, oh, my God, I gotta learn, like, the The exact algorithm and blah, blah, blah, blah, and all that kind of stuff. It's like, no, like we're, we're all doing stuff now that helps people. Right. So like, we've already, and this is like literally what I've asked people in the first week of the mentorship program. It's like, who here's ever helped somebody get out of pain that someone else couldn't help them with? Who here's helped somebody lose weight? Who couldn't lose weight? Who here's helped put muscle mass, whatever, all these things. And everyone raises their hand because we've already done it. Done the stuff. Right? So we're not here to like learn how Sean treats and emulate Sean. We're here to like, I'll share with you whatever you want to know, but I'm here to make your process better. Right? Like how can we take information and bring it into what you're already doing and understand things from, from that, that perspective, um, versus like try to emulate what you see on social media or emulate what I talk about, or, you know, Greg Hawthorne, who helps with the mentorship or Encore, like we all do things a little differently, but from the same, the same principles. So, yeah, I know we talked about being overwhelmed. So when I think about my process, it's going to be like kind of underwhelming, uh, I think of just like a general. Assessment is really to understand the limiters for the person. And I spend a lot of time understanding the person's story, like their motivations, their fears, their concerns, their goals, why they came to AMP versus somewhere else, uh, history, like basically showing, yes, showing an interest that's above and beyond what you get in the medical system. But also it really helps me understand the things that like, I'm going to be able to, the rocks that we're going to do, the levers we're going to be able to pull, I should say. That are going to help them kind of move in the in the right direction. Um, we spend a lot of time up front before someone even steps in, in our, in our doors. Uh, from there, it's like, what are the buckets that I care about? You know, I think about education. So, uh, Overcoming maladaptive beliefs, maybe, right? So for example, someone's been told their whole life, don't bend your spine, don't bend your spine. And now they're coming to me with 10 years of extension based low back pain because they've never bent their spine. So like, that's a belief that we have to overcome. I can do all the cool breathing shit. I can do the cool plyos, all that stuff. But if we can't get the mental hurdle out of the way, like we're, we're probably going to be, you know, two steps forward, one step back on that kind of situation. Um, this also helps. The education side is setting expectations for the, for the plan of care, right? So making sure they understand what we talked about, like, Ryan, when you go home, what are you going to tell your wife? You're, we're going to be working on a PT, like something as simple as that, just to get a good idea of like where their heads at and what they're taking away from the session. Uh, the second bucket that we have is, uh, it's kind of related, but it's a behavior change, right? So an example, especially in my world, like the running world is. Like, sometimes people just like don't help themselves, like they're just like consistently overdoing it. Right. And that's very kind. I just told you about my running. Like, I thought I was doing my slow, easy runs at an easy pace. And my coach was like, no, bro, you got to slow it down more. Like, that's a very real thing. So it's like understanding that. Why, why do you feel the need to keep pushing when things are easy? Like, maybe they just don't understand the goal, or maybe there's some other underlying, you know, motivator for that. So like, that's the behavior change component that is like a central tenant for what we've done. We kind of care about, uh, the next bucket would be range of motion. This is a kind of group it in two different ways. One is kind of your relative motion. People talk about on, you know, like social media, like literally you're in isolation. Can I, what is your joint motion? Tell me, uh, that is really, can they get into. The positions they need to. Yes. But it also gives me an idea of center of mass. So like how they're managing all of the stuff they've told me about in their story, like the life stressors, physical stress, all that kind of stuff. Uh, the next bucket would be like more of a, I guess you can call this coordination, but I put it in the active range of motion section. Like what does it look like when you do a. Bodyweight squat, a split squat, a lunge. When we get more dynamic, what does it look like? Can you show, can you demonstrate like a, I'll use this word loosely, like competency in a bodyweight squat, but then we start adding a more dynamic component and it just like goes to shit. Like, okay, maybe that's something we need to work on. Um, next bucket would be like force production that's relevant for the person, uh, capacity. Um, and I'm saying these things like buckets. They're not like, We do one and then go to the next, they're kind of like always happening. It's like, what's the biggest, biggest driver here. Um, that's kind of like the way I think about things from like a straightforward standpoint, overarching theme is always going to be a graded exposure. Like literally what's the entry point where we can challenge this person enough that motor learning happens, motor learning takes place, but it's not too much where it's like, they're going to go home and not be able to replicate it in a meaningful way. Or it's not too much where it's like going too far away from the goal. You know, if I have to cue a person a hundred times. Probably a shitty exercise for them at the moment. Right. But if one cue, like they focus on one thing and we get good at that. Cool. Like, you know, that kind of thing. Um, yeah, those are like the general way I think about about things. And then how I presented to a patient is going to be like, where the nuance comes in. It kind of depends on the person a little bit.

Ryan Patrick: 22:19

Okay. So 1 of the biggest accusations for this, This model, this perspective, and I don't mean you're specifically people on the outside looking in at this compression expansion is not that something is too challenging for people, but that maybe we're not driving enough intensity. They think that this, the end result is going to be these sideline drills, where, where we're trying to like woosah our way back to performance and movement competency. Can you riff on that a little bit? Because I think it, it deserves to be unpacked. One, I, I, I know you're not just having everybody just stretch, reach, do all these things, but I also know you're not going too far on the other end where, you know, we just disregard this. To me, it's a big pendulum that swings back and forth and, uh, coaches, clinicians, we get exposure to this information, whether it's PRI and we go so far one direction that we lose a training effect. And then. We become frustrated with it because it's not working the way we want, or, uh, we're executing it poorly, or maybe we're just, there's a gap in our understanding. And so we swing back to the other side and now it's like, whatever, just move, you know, it's fine. So, I mean, I'd love for you to just kind of walk me through the, this oscillation and, and making sure that things are actually, you know, working. Appropriate for the client in front of you.

Shaun Astorga: 23:43

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. You know, I put the, I put a lot of the breeding stuff and I don't know if this is accurate or not, but I think about it very much on the like recovery side of things. So the goal isn't for me ever. Like if I'm doing that with someone that has literally nothing to do with. hypertrophy strength or like nothing, right? I literally, I, once people start saying that I'm like, all right, we're talking about different things at this point. So the reason I'm going to do something like on the, the breathing drill side of thing is to restore, I don't know what terms people are comfortable with, like adaptability to the system, give them more movement options, um, Relative motion between joints, uh, reduce the influence of like superficial muscle activity on the skeleton, like all of these things, like, and it comes to a movement principle. This is like straight from Bill Hartman is like, he talks about, you need it. We need a gradient for movement to happen. Meaning we need to be able to shift pressure from side to side. So think of athletic movement. We need to load to propel. We need to like go into the cut to get out of the cut, like all that, that kind of stuff. So it's like, I don't think there's like an optimal way for a person to do that. And I don't think that like more emotion is necessarily better, but like you need enough where the person can feel good. And there's like a little bit of a gray to that, um, with those, like the KPI that I'm usually using is something that is relevant to the patient. We call it an asterisk sign in the PT world. So it's like when I squat, my knee hurts like, okay, we can use that as like, okay, like Ryan, we just did a squat. Your knee hurt. We did some stuff. How does your knee feel when you squat now? It feels better or worse. Cool. I can make decisions based off of those things. And then, you know, kind of go from there. So I very much think of the breathing stuff on that, that side of the spectrum. Um, I, I think that there's a place for it in early rehab. Yes. But I also think about it from someone who comes in and works with you like an athlete and they train and they have a hard session. My expectation is that it's driving fatigue, which is good. Like no shit, right? That's what we're doing. So there's going to be acute changes to the body. So if we're thinking about how can I set this person up for success, like on a Rick, from a recovery standpoint, like I would include that stuff in that, in that realm of things, because now it's like, okay, there's some certain orientations that happened to this person's body. Or they lost some motion on their right side, whatever, like we can. We can do stuff to help mitigate any negative secondary consequences of that, set them up for success. Yes. Still please sleep eight hours a night, eat all the food, like all that kind of stuff. I'm not saying don't do big rock stuff, but like it fits in more on that side of things for me versus like, we're going to start developing force production qualities. We're going to start retraining how you put force into the ground, like all that kind of stuff. So I think that distinction is like very important when we start talking about these things. Um, and I do think some of the criticisms people have are very valid. On the social media, just to the way things are presented, like, I don't think the goal is to really turn every exercise into a breathing drill. I think that's missing the point, you know, but what happens with the breathing drill is like, you're restoring some kind of dynamics internally. Right? So ability for pelvic floor, anterior pelvic floor to like, contract and relax. I don't know what everyone would call it. That's very related to like, uh, I don't know, like a plyo, right? Where you're like jumping up and you're getting, right. It's just a higher force production, you know, aspect of things. So there's definitely like relationship from the principal standpoint, but I do think that they're separate goals. And I always try to think of things from the goal perspective.

Ryan Patrick: 27:01

So from a collaboration process, cause. I mean, obviously Monica is a business partner. Justin is a performance coach, her husband. I know you guys have done some collaboration. I'm sure there are other coaches that your clients work with. So I want to speak from the perspective of an athlete whose primary goals are speed, power, strength, stamina. Like we want really high outputs. Obviously you and I know that with these high outputs. A lot of concentric tone, right? We're trying to put force in the ground. We're trying to contract, squeeze, propel, just everything go. All gas, no brakes. On the other side, we know you do this a lot and you start to drop off relative motion. Athletes get tight. Old school thinking, you know, a lot of extensor tone kind of standing like Batman just yoked up. How are you working to, especially with these coaches, how are you collaborating to make sure that they're maintaining enough movement quality while also not minimizing, uh, the speed, power, strength, higher outputs that you're looking for?

Shaun Astorga: 28:11

Yeah, that's a great question. Um, and I think a lot of this Can be done through like the programming side of things. And again, I think of things from like always just like, what's the, what's the goal? Why do I have this block? Like, what am I doing in the power block? What am I doing in the strength block, the accessory, like all that kind of stuff. So I think that we can make a lot of. Headway from, from that perspective. Um, so for, for me, it's actually Justin, more of you, such a great person to have this, this, uh, this conversation because he does it so well. Um, but a lot of it is like knowing, like, so take a, take a breathing drill. Right. One of the goals for me is like, do they have their, can we get their foot contacts, like within their, their base of support? So like the foot contacts are important because that's like. It's how you're shifting pressure in your body. It's like when you're more heel heavy, your center of mass is a little further back. And then as it like slightly translates forward, right? Whereas now we're turning to the other side, like all that kind of stuff. So it's like getting someone comfortable with that. And then how do we translate that to like multi directional speed? Like it's the same cues, right? Like we need to find a inside edge of your foot or whatever, whatever it might be. Um, keep the goal the same with, from the intensity side. Like if you're like, you have like a, like, I don't know, like the strength block, like it's got to drive that. That adaptation. Um, but then we have our accessory stuff like this is where we can maybe, you know, reduce some of the intensity a little bit and focus on the position. So, like, an example would be this is how I do in my own training. It's literally like a safety squat bar, split squat, front foot elevated. And my goal is capacity. In this position, like, so I'm going to leave like three reps in reserve, like, you know, all that kind of stuff. So I'm not driving too much from an intensity standpoint. And my goal is not that I'm going to get like crazy jacked with this exercise, but like, I'm going to get better at doing this so I can keep my pump handle open longer. And my hope is that when I go and run that it's going to translate to that in some capacity, right? Like that's literally how I think think about things. Um, so the way that we work with athletes, you know, is going to kind of depend a little bit, uh, when we have this collaboration aspect of things. So depending on the person, we might take more of a, like a leadership role in the beginning of rehab. And then the strength coach, like the, the, the pendulum is going to swing more in their direction as we kind of move along a little bit. Um, we also have athletes that we work with where it's like, like, Hey, we're prepping for the season. And he's got this me thing that popped up, like, Like, let's just literally like, what do you guys think from the medical standpoint? Is this, is he safe? How can we like change his movement prep? Are there things we should be doing in their programming that we can add in? And then we just literally just do it and see what happens.

Ryan Patrick: 30:42

Nice. Yeah. We see some young athletes come in who have quite significant ER orientation, right? Just butt clench, shoulders back, you know, they're going through some of their tests and like, Ooh, like they're, they're moving tough, but great athletes always seem to solve these movement problems. Right. I think a sports just like you got a, uh, a problem and it needs a movement solution and regardless of what we test them on the table, like they're figuring it out, they're going to score goals. They're going to, they're going to hit nukes. Like they're going to steal bags. It's just. Just the way it goes. But I also find that there, because they're young, they're active, they take care of themselves, they're hydrating. Well, they're pretty malleable. You can get them in and out of positions pretty rapidly. Has that been, has that been your experience in, in a lot of cases with some of these athletes?

Shaun Astorga: 31:31

Yeah. A hundred, a hundred percent. Yeah. And one of the things that we try to determine, you know, uh, clinically, but I'd be the same situation is that like, how, how quick can we get. Change in the person, like how adaptable are they? Right. That's going to be part of their story and all that stuff. But like when we do an intervention, like how quickly do they change some of these athletes, you get them to like cough a couple of times and they feel their abs and then it's just like, shit just moves better and you're like, all right, cool. Like we probably don't have to spend too much time doing this kind of thing. Yeah. A hundred percent.

Ryan Patrick: 32:01

Yeah. So Sean, I do want to shift gears a little bit, um, and kind of talk about some of the content. That's online, right? There's always critics. And you've already mentioned that the criticism is fair in my mind, like the, where we are in this conversation already, I'm thinking the more things change, the more they stay the same, the model, the perspective, the lens that you're using. Is really allowing you to just be precise with whatever interventions you're using. But at the end of the day, you're understanding this balance of how to get people in a place where they can do the activities they love and move not perfectly, but well enough. Right. And I think back, gosh, I don't know how long, you know, we're just a simple programming tactic from, you know, the strength world is like, Hey, we're going to do these bilateral lifts. To drive more output, to drive more force, but we're going to do split squats and unilateral stuff to maintain some element of movement competency. At a very simplified level, that's still this balance that we're, that we're trying to have right now. You've I've already addressed this too. You've been through, you've been through a lot. So I know you're super open minded. You're, you're willing to have a conversation and chat with anybody. And I think dissent is really valuable for helping us come to, to some common ground, you know, as a sidebar. I think there's a lot of people who find it a lot easier to start a smear campaign rather than a conversation. Which I don't totally understand, but I think what's happening is there's some friction for these people, right? So if you're listening and you're like this compression, expansion, relative motion, it's all bullshit. This is for you, but either one, I think their beliefs are being challenged. Or they're in stark disagreement and the industry favorite, the writing reflex, you know, they're shaking their fist at us is just activated. So, would you care to talk a little bit about your own evolution with this, right? The first time you kind of took in this Bill Hartman or this expansion compression, these thoughts, they're, they're obviously different than what you were clinically trained on. Um, However, you're still implementing a lot of, you know, foundational practices that you probably learned early on. So just, I would love to hear just how you kind of, you know, work these thoughts and just kind of came to the place where you are now, where you have a, not a full, but a much more holistic understanding of how you're applying them.

Shaun Astorga: 34:37

Yeah. Yeah, for sure, man. Yeah. It's a. Yeah, this is an interesting topic. Um, so I mentioned the head injury before. So, but there's actually another injury that got me into this, this, this world, uh, which is relevant. So when I first started practicing as a PT, I was playing in a charity flag football tournament. I had hurt my back going into it.

Ryan Patrick: 34:57

So I like the story already.

Shaun Astorga: 34:58

Yeah, this is great. This is like when you realize you're getting a little old, maybe kind of thing. Uh, so, so we're playing in this charity flag football tournament and I'm like, I mean, you see, I'm like pretty like the laid back person, but when I play sports, I get a little fucking crazy. Uh, like the, some of the, the, the switch turns on. Right. Um, so I'm lined up against the dude. And like I smoke them and I was just under thrown. So I'm like, dude, this guy can't cover me. So like, we're going to do the same exact play, just throw it farther. And right when I pushed off, I hurt my back pain down my leg, like crazy. Just like, it was brutal. Like I couldn't straighten my leg, like, like scary, nervy type stuff. Um, but anyway, so like I, uh, went to the on staff person there and they're like, yeah, go see a neurosurgeon. I did not do that. Um, but I went back to work, uh, and I was basically getting treated. Right? And nothing was making me better. Uh, and if you want, like, uh, good imagery, I was literally treating patients with a hot pack strapped to my back. So imagine you come in with back pain, and I'm the guy who's gonna treat you. Like, that is a sight right there. You're like, okay. Confidence in this guy. Um, so anyway, I feel like It's like the skinny

Ryan Patrick: 36:01

cook, you know?

Shaun Astorga: 36:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I'm trusting this guy. I'm gonna go to the bald, uh, bald barber kind of thing. So it's like It's like, uh, on a Saturday, uh, I was seeing a different, a different PT. He was newer at the, at the, at our, the company I was at, his name's Joe Myron. And we were basically talking and I'm like, yeah, nothing I'm doing is working. And he's like, I've been taking these PRI courses. I don't know if I fully understand it. Nothing you're doing is working. You just told me that. Can we try some stuff? I'm like, yeah, dude, I'm open, man. Like whatever you think, like, let's just see. And we were on the table and he started doing some like the manual therapy stuff to the rib cage. And I was like, dude, you know what? Like, I actually don't feel the pain in my, my leg anymore. My back still hurt. Like all that kind of stuff. I don't want to paint the wrong picture, but I'm like, the pain's actually not in my leg more. So this is kind of interesting that we went through that. The typical algorithm, everyone who learns PRI does 90, 90 hip lift, left adductor pullback, right glute max, and I'm like, dude, actually, like I feel a lot better. Like my back's still a little stiff, but I can like move like this. There's something here. And then we kind of just like progressively got, got me better. And like that all went away, but that, that we'll say like lit a curiosity in my brain. I'm like, I got to understand this a little bit better. Cause I don't really know if I fully understand what the hell just happened over the past, however many sessions and things got better. I took a lot of their courses. Uh, I started taking a lot of DNS courses too. I like, I really like a lot of their stuff. They're from an exercise standpoint. I, you know, The other stuff I'm not so sure on, but, um, there's a lot of value in like all of these different things. So I just went full send taking continuing education

Ryan Patrick: 37:30

and

Shaun Astorga: 37:31

it got to a point where it was a little overwhelming. I'm like, okay, I'm learning a lot, but I'm also not sure I'm confident in how I'm applying some of this information. So like there had to be like a little self awareness there, right? Like where I had to sit back and it's like, it's not this continuing education company's fault. It's like, I kind of take it on a lot and I got to really spend some time with this stuff and figure shit out.

Ryan Patrick: 37:52

Uh, so

Shaun Astorga: 37:52

I did that. I just kind of sat down like, what are like some of the core concepts that these people are all talking about? Like I can get behind it, like everyone's extended. Okay, cool. What does that mean? So then I start to like, you know, wrap, unwrap this a little bit. Like, I have a hard time getting behind the, Everything is neurology aspect. It's like when people's like everything at the cellular level. It's like, yeah, dude, everything happens at the cellular level. Like, what does that mean? Right? So it's like that. This is like a little woo for me, but it's like, what does this mean from like a biomechanics standpoint? Okay. I can understand this now. Like there's, there's, there's actually makes a lot of sense. We need to be able to pronate and supinate. We need to be able to flex and extend like from the most basic level. And then you can start seeing some of the similarities and a lot of things. Uh, and then what really got me into Bill Hartman's work, I actually met him at a PRI course in like 2015 or 16, but what got me into his, his work was really, for whatever reason, some of the stuff he said early on helped me bridge a lot of gaps between what I was learning, learn from other continuing education and like what, even what I learned in PT school, like manual therapy application, like what am I actually doing with that? Because it doesn't make sense to me like, Oh, this area hurts. Let me rub it. It's like there's got to be an underlying reason behind why when I do manual therapy, sometimes it helps and sometimes it doesn't like relieving posterior lower compression. That actually makes a lot of sense to me because that's maybe a driver for why someone doesn't have, you know, as experiencing what they're experiencing or whatever it might be. Um, so he's kind of the, the, the person who helped me like connect a lot of dots, I would say. Yeah, I don't know. I can keep going on this subject. So, like, I think there's essentially what I was going to say is, like, there's, there's a lot of value in, like, you know, sitting down. Like, I'm someone who very much thinks that, like, everything that I, I perceive in this world is, is me, right? So, if someone triggers me, it's, like, really my response to what they're saying. So, I have to understand, understand that. They might be an asshole and that could be true, but it's also probably some belief I have where I'm, like, All right, maybe I gotta work through that a little bit. So when I think of continuing education, it's very much the same. It's the same for me. It's like, how does this now fit? How can I keep building on the model that I, that I have in a way that I think about things? I think that clarity and definitions is important, like all that kind of stuff, but I think a lot of things gets lost in, in translation, and people interpret things to mean, like, they interpret compression a certain way, right? They interpret uh, relative motion or orientation a certain way. Uh, and like, those aren't, they're just terms that mean something like, that's it. That's all I, how I think about them. It's not like a bad or good thing, you know? So, you know, I think that that's where a lot of some of this, this kind of confusion stems from.

Ryan Patrick: 40:09

Absolutely. I mean, one of the concepts, you know, if I coach an athlete, what I say isn't always what they hear, but this happens clinician to clinician or coach to coach as well. Where I think it drives a lot of confusion, dissent, discomfort, maybe. So I totally appreciate what you're saying. Does that, is that making sense?

Shaun Astorga: 40:30

Yeah, a hundred percent. I was going to ask if what I made said it made sense. Like I got, I just started going, I forgot the original question. Uh,

Ryan Patrick: 40:38

who knows? I mean, no, I think you, you offer a lot of good insight there because, you know, we take these courses. We learn the algorithm, we try to apply it, it doesn't work, but very few people I think are willing to step back and try to unpack it because at one point, you know, we all went to the PRI course. That's, that seems to be everybody's entry point for this. So a lot of credit to PRI for, for their influence. We go to the course, you know, we see James. Do some amazing stuff. We're like, dang, how'd he do that? I go home and try it. It's, it's bullshit though. The only, you know, the only benefit anyone got from it was whoever I bought balloons from on Amazon made a sale, you know, so instead of saying, okay, well, like what's, what's the difference between what he did and where I'm at and what's that gap in knowledge and how do I start to peel this back and find the fundamental principles behind this. Can I actually go forward? And instead, I think where most people tend to gravitate is I'm just going to find the next thing, right? Uh, PRI didn't work. Now I'm going to do range of strength or, uh, FRC, or what's the one that does the cars, rails, pales.

Shaun Astorga: 41:53

It's FRC could be wrong though.

Ryan Patrick: 41:55

I'm not training that no, no disrespect to them. That's not what I'm, not where I'm going with it. It's just, you know, we kind of jump from thing to thing. And there's probably some universal truths across all of these. A lot of these systems get results for various reasons. One of the things I found with this, like, compression and expansion model is, to me, it casts the biggest umbrella in terms of accounting for, um, things that we see, right? Like, there's certain things within PRI where it's like, ah, this doesn't fit in the algorithm. There's certain things maybe within You know, FRC where it's like, ah, this one's kind of, we can't really account for this nuance. This model seems to just cover more things, not all things. Just more, um, but I think getting to that level requires a lot of, a ton of work that I think many people are unwilling to do or to put, put the effort in.

Shaun Astorga: 42:55

Yeah, there's definitely, I think, a component of that, or maybe just not, you know, appreciating that the level of, you know, like what it entails, right? So, like, continuously just send it trying to understand stuff and it's something you said made me think about, uh, It's a conversation I have had recently with someone who got mad at something I said, but they basically were like, they were like, uh, how to, how to phrase basically like they were talking about like 90, 90, like the breathing drill and how it's like, like the end all be all. And I'm like, no, you're thinking about the times that it does work. What about the times that it didn't work for you? Cause those are probably more useful for you to learn from than saying that I'm just going to do this with everyone and ignore all the shit that didn't work. Cause that's where your learning is going to happen. And it's like, dude, that's like, I screwed up so many times. And like, what did I do? I just, I didn't just blame the exercise or PRI. I'm like, all right, there's some knowledge gap that I don't have. And like, let me just figure that out. Or maybe. Maybe this shit's just not for me right now. I don't know. But like, I think having that, that component of things and just accepting that, like, there's, there's gray in what we do, we're not going to always hit a home run, you know, is, is part of the process.

Ryan Patrick: 44:00

The easy thing would, would be for everyone to just arrive at like the Mount Rushmore of exercises, 90, 90, hip lift, right side line, pull back. And. Instead, I think, to your point, it's, you know, we're not looking for an absolute truth like there's not going to be an exercise that works every time in every scenario for every person saying it out loud is, is kind of fairly obvious yet. I think in application, sometimes we just really look to these. To kind of save us because we're not willing to, you know, do some work in and really figure out what the, what the nuances here.

Shaun Astorga: 44:34

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And it's just like, it's just funny. Like it's making me think about, uh, just stuff like that's happened. So for example, like I've had people reach out to me and they're like, I wish I reached out sooner. But I'm like, okay, well, why didn't you? Oh, well, so and so told me you're a PRI person. I'm like, all right, cool. What does that mean? Like, what is a PRI person? Please let me know. Cause I want to know if that is what I am. Uh, and then like they give like, oh, actually, I don't really know. Like you're going to focus on things that don't matter. I was like, oh, that's not really like a fair, fair thing. Right? Like this is someone's projection and now it's like affecting. Me and affecting you, right? So like, it's just like having that awareness, like you need like a little bit of a, you know, a bullshit detector, right? Because you've got to like, kind of know where the information is coming from and what people are saying. So when people throw stuff like out that, like that out into the world, like it does become. Problematic. Cause people have an idea in their mind of what a PRI person does, what a bill person does. I've been called a bill disciple. That's another one. I'm like, Oh, tell me more. What is a, tell me more about myself. What is a bill? This is like, let me hear this one. Yeah. I'm like, what is this? I'm like, no, like, this is not, this is not a thing, right? It's just like, I'm someone who's curious. I'm going to learn from a lot of people and I'm just trying to figure shit out so I can help the people I work with. That's literally how I approach things. You know, I'm not married to, you know, to anything. So.

Ryan Patrick: 45:46

Yeah, Bill has more disciples than Jesus. I think that's crazy. Well, man, we've been going a while here. So I want to, I do want to ask you 1 final question. It's kind of off the beaten track from a lot of the conversation we've had today cover some great graphs. I've really enjoyed this conversation, but, um, obviously you run a clinic, which. With that comes building a team. And when I watch you, especially you and Mo, uh, I consider you guys like you're like the Nick Fury of, you know, building a PT clinics. Cause you have to find really awesome clinicians to fit into what you guys do. And, you know, I told you about my struggles. Off air pride or this of hiring a coach who's competent, effective, willing to learn. I mean, these are, these are some of the intangibles. They have nothing to do with their actual coaching skillset because you can teach people knowledge. But, um, anyway, one question will never ever do this justice, but I'd love for you, uh, just some insight on building, developing, And cultivating a powerhouse team.

Shaun Astorga: 46:50

I really, first of all, I appreciate, I appreciate that. Uh, cause Monica and I work very hard on that aspect of, of things. Uh, and I, I think we may have said this, I don't know if it was off air or on here, but like, I really think a lot of like the leadership side of things comes top down. And we have to be good at, you know, essentially managing ourselves before we can start managing others and leading by example, right? It's like, if I'm telling people, you got to be on time to this meeting and I'm coming five minutes late, like I'm kind of a jerk and I can't really get mad at them for coming late kind of thing, you know? Um, and it's like our core values, right? Like what are our core values as a, as a company that kind of helps guide the process for us. So when we're interviewing people and we're, you know, like potential talent and all that kind of stuff. Uh, like it helps us make, make, make it. Decent decision, whether they're the right, the right fit for what we're, we're doing in our, in our culture and what we're trying to put out. Um, and I think from like a leadership standpoint, like, I don't think it's different than like any coach I've had growing up or like, right. You're the athletes you work with, like, you're like a leader to them and they're going to listen to you when they, They trust you. So making sure that we have an environment where our team feels comfortable saying, speaking up on a team meeting, like something they don't maybe agree with or like, they don't have clarity on, like, let us know. Like literally just tell us so that we can make sure we're all on the same page, you know, kind of thing. Uh, so that's something that we focus, focus heavily on. And you know, a skill that I'm trying to kind of like hone and figure out if I even have it or not, but it's like really like recognizing. Talent in people and helping to pull it out of them a little bit, you know, and I have someone who helps me with the mentorship. I don't think he'll mind me saying this like encore. He is someone who I met. He was very green in the industry. Like he, I don't, I don't, I don't even know. He was very new to it. And he would just ask me a lot of questions in the DMs. And then he's like, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to join your mentorship program, but like, can we work something out? Because I live in India and literally third world currency versus us dollar. Like it's, I just literally can't pay for that. So we worked something out and now he's an employee for the mentorship program. And he has a lot of these traits, right? Where he's just. He was doing it for the right reasons. Like, he's like, I want to be the best in a country that has billions of people, uh, because there's this problem and I want to be able to solve it for people. I'm like, that's, you can't train that, right. That's a quality that a person has, right. It's just like the athlete who's willing to listen to what you say. And like, they're going to do whatever the fuck you tell them because they want to, they want to be the best. Like you, those are just qualities. Some people just. You need to get pulled out of them, but you don't train it right there. They're there. So it's like finding that in people, you know, we've been very fortunate. I think Monica and I tend to attract, you know, people like I don't want to like downplay like, you know, what the work we put into things. I think there's a component of that as well, you know, and then it's just putting the plan in action and then. You know, hoping people are, uh, one of our core values, right, is, you know, learning grow daily. So we tend to attract people who are very comfortable with that mindset and knowing that when we have a problem with the business, we're going to put something in, address it and then move forward. Like that's it. You know? So I think it's like a combination of a lot of those, those types of things is, is kind of where my head goes with that, with that question now.

Ryan Patrick: 49:54

Super valuable, man. I think. One of the biggest insights and perhaps reminders from the entirety of our conversation is to just remember the human element of what we do and to be open to curiosity and just continuing to ask questions. I think most people are are willing. You know, once you sit down and talk to somebody face to face or even through DMS, right, you're sending stuff back and forth. You can just, there's just a level that human element to ask honest questions and be curious instead of, you know, just, uh, positioning yourself with some kind of default stance that maybe shuts off lines of communication.

Shaun Astorga: 50:35

Yeah, a hundred percent. And you know, it's like. I, I, I use this in my marketing all the time. It's like the troll comments I get just cause I'm like, they're so ridiculous, but they're that right. It's like, what, what is your goal with this comment? It's to make yourself feel better for five seconds. You're not trying to have a conversation. You're not trying to learn. You're not trying to understand my perspective at all. Like this is just like you being a dick, cause it's going to make you laugh for five seconds and you can share it with your friends. That's all it is. Right. So like, I, I use it for marketing because I think it's, you know, whatever it gets my points across, but it's very true, right? Like if you just have a conversation with most people, like. There's probably a lot of commonalities and what we think, and our goals are usually pretty similar. Like we're in a pretty niche area of the fitness industry. We're not in the like I don't want to say like names, but there are a lot of big accounts that are like, right, like booty blaster, like six minute ad, like all that kind of stuff is very real. Like, I don't even see that, but that is that exists and that's what people have exposure to. So we're in a group of people who like really give a shit about what they do. Right. So it's like, that's the baseline. Like, what are we arguing about? Like, we all have the same goal ultimately. Right. So just open up the dialogue and, you know, see what we can learn.

Ryan Patrick: 51:37

Well, what's, what's next for Sean? And your multiple businesses training, like what's next for you, man.

Shaun Astorga: 51:44

That's great. The training is an easy one. I got a half coming up in, uh, end of September that we're going, we're going for lifetime PR on, so we'll see how that goes. Um, what's the

Ryan Patrick: 51:52

target?

Shaun Astorga: 51:53

Uh, one, one 40 is the target. So we'll, we'll see.

Ryan Patrick: 51:57

Okay. Wow.

Shaun Astorga: 51:57

We'll see, man. Yeah, we'll see. Yeah. I'm pulling out all the stops, man. I even got the super shoes lined up. I'm ready to go, man. I'm, uh, any, anything I can put in my favor. I'm, I'm, I'm bringing it in. Just get some pacers, man. You know, like I should do that, but

Ryan Patrick: 52:11

so you're locked in.

Shaun Astorga: 52:13

Locked in, man. Yeah. Yeah. I love training though. I love, I love having a goal and, uh, being able to push myself physically. Like it's something I took for granted. Growing up and we talked about the injury. So it's something that I'm very grateful that I'm able to to do now. So I, I, I don't take that lightly. Um, and trial and error with it to me. I learned a lot about what our clients experience from just doing shit myself, you know, so I'm very useful. Uh, what's next in the business we're hiring a full time. Performance Physical Therapist. So if anyone's listening who is curious about what we do at AMP, I would love to sit down and have a conversation with you. Um, because, yeah, it might be a great, it might be a great fit and you could join our team. Uh, we have the mentorship, we have a A webinar that we are hosting next Friday, August 23rd. Not sure when this is going to post on. That's usually how we launch our next actual mentorship program and blueprint. That's going to be starting September September 9th, so happy to have conversations around that as well.

Ryan Patrick: 53:06

Wait, I think I'm going to be a part of this cohort. So I'm looking forward to it.

Shaun Astorga: 53:11

Yeah. Yeah. I actually bought in, uh, uh, sorry, man. Yeah. I say we bought on a strength and conditioning coach to, uh, to join our, our team for this next one here. Um, yeah, it should be a great asset, uh, to, you know, kind of what we talked about a little briefly, like bridging that I hate saying bridging the gap, it's kind of like a buzzword, but like, but like bringing it up from the rehab to the, the training side of things, cause there's like, like that scalability is very valuable. And a lot of PTs. Don't have it right. And a lot of strength coaches don't have the other way, you know, so I'm not saying they have to be able to do both, but like being able to take a person further in one direction, I think has a lot of, a lot of value. So I'm pretty excited. It's like the USA

Ryan Patrick: 53:49

track team, like you got to practice handing off the baton, you know, there's some, there's some middle ground there.

Shaun Astorga: 53:54

Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. The goal is not to make a strength coach a PT, so I don't want to paint the wrong picture or to make a PT a strength coach, but it's like, I need to have common language and I need to understand these principles and how they apply so that I can have a conversation with someone else who's working with the same client, you know, where we can ultimately end goal is them, right. And their goals. So we can better that process than where we're doing pretty good.

Ryan Patrick: 54:15

Yeah, we usually live in our little silos. I mean, some of the, uh, Most of the PTs in our area are the part of these big networks, right? So they're, they're kind of handcuffed to the system and there's one, one out of, I don't know how many that we can actually have communication and a conversation with. We can go back and forth and the quality of care is just that much better because of communication.

Shaun Astorga: 54:39

Yeah, dude. It's tough, man. And I, like, I take for granted our relationship that we have with the coaches at Bolt because we're, we're right there, but it's like, dude, if I'm a strength coach, like, and I see, no offense, but like, I see the shit that's out there from like the rehab standpoint. Like, it's brutal. How am I going to have confidence referring an athlete to a person who's going to tell them to, Oh, well, you know what? That deadlift, yeah. Probably why the reason your back hurts like, okay, sick, like I'm going to really send to this person, you know, like that doesn't help. But if we can have these conversations and have, uh, I say like minded in the sense that like, not that we think the exact same way, but that we at least appreciate the end goal and we are trying to bridge the gap to get the person from point A to point B. Like, that's, that's the only way we can, we can move forward and really help people to the best of our capability.

Ryan Patrick: 55:24

It's a real pain point for me because a lot of these. Larger, like hospital oriented, uh, physical therapy clinics, they just have a, it's formulaic, right? If you have a knee problem, you get the knee program. Doesn't matter what the knee problem is. You just get the knee program. And so I kind of am facetious with some of the athletes, but you know, they'll bring in their paper print out and I'm like, they're like, well, we need to do these things. And I'm like, oh, so. You know, the quads are tight and the hamstrings are tight, but they're also weak and weak. So we're just stretching and training everything.

Shaun Astorga: 56:02

You're asking

Ryan Patrick: 56:02

too many questions. I'm like, wow, like we're just, we're just going to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. I'm like, it just, you know, it's a

Shaun Astorga: 56:14

real thing. This, this is another topic I could go in on, but I know we're wrapping up. So

Ryan Patrick: 56:19

another, another time, man, we'll have you back on. It's been a huge honor. Thank you again. Uh, for carving time. I appreciate this. This is a really fun conversation and I will get this out before your webinar. So hopefully we can Um, get people listening to this and signed up for that. But, um, is there anything else, uh, final thoughts you want to leave with? Just sign up for the webinar. Where can we find, find you on social media?

Shaun Astorga: 56:39

Yeah, first of all, thank you for, for having me. I really appreciate it, man. Um, yeah, so social media is the best place. Instagram, uh, let me see if I know my handle. It's, it's Dr. Sean Astorga. I think it's Dr. period Sean period Astorga. S H A U N A S T O R G A. I don't know. Good luck remembering all that. But yeah, that's the best way to find it. I'll put it in the show notes. You can fact check me on that too. I probably got it all wrong.

Ryan Patrick: 57:02

All right, man. We'll take care. All right, man. I'll talk to you soon.