Good Neighbor Podcast: TN-WNC-SWVA

EP# 281: Dr. Walter Young's Holistic Approach to Athletic Performance at Performance Ability LLC

• Skip Mauney & Dr. Walter Young • Episode 281

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What makes Dr. Walter Young with Performance Ability LLC a good neighbor?

Dr. Walter Young is changing the physical therapy landscape with his performance-based approach that serves athletes, weekend warriors, and anyone who wants to get back to their favorite activities. Performance Ability LLC goes far beyond traditional rehabilitation, offering a refreshingly holistic methodology that addresses the complete person.

"We're capable of so much more than we expect out of our bodies," Dr. Young explains, challenging common misconceptions that limit our physical potential. With inspiring examples like an 80-year-old completing a grueling 135-mile ultramarathon and a 76-year-old finishing an Ironman triathlon, he dispels myths about what's possible as we age. His practice actively fights against defeatist attitudes and restrictive medical advice that tell patients to simply "stop doing" activities they love.

What sets Performance Ability apart is its comprehensive approach summarized as "eating, thinking, and doing." Dr. Young integrates nutritional guidance and mindset coaching with physical therapy techniques, believing that addressing all three creates transformative outcomes. His journey to this unique methodology began unexpectedly – from a career in landscape architecture and golf course design, through an economic downturn that prompted self-reflection, to discovering his passion for helping others achieve physical excellence. His personal transformation through fatherhood further deepened his understanding of human potential, leading him to create a practice that treats each client as a unique individual with specific biomechanical patterns, motivations, and goals.

Whether you're preparing for surgery, recovering from injury, or simply want to improve performance in golf or other activities, Performance Ability offers personalized guidance that acknowledges there's no one-size-fits-all solution. Ready to discover what you're truly capable of? Visit performance-ability.com or follow @performance.ability on Instagram to learn how Dr. Young can help you overcome limitations and achieve your physical potential at any age.

To learn more about Performance Ability LLC go to:

https://performance-ability.com/

Performance Ability LLC

(828) 242-0136



Speaker 1:

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Skip Monty.

Speaker 2:

Well, good morning everybody and welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. So today I'm pretty stoked to have a very special guest in our studio for the first time, and I'm sure you'll be just as excited to learn all about him and his business as I am, because today I have the pleasure of introducing your good neighbor, dr Walter Young, who is the owner operator of Performance Ability LLC. Dr Walt, welcome to the show, thank you. Well, like I said, we're glad to have you and excited to learn all about you and what you do. So, if you don't mind, why don't you kick us off by telling us about your business?

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

So Performance Ability is actually a physical therapy based company, but it's a little bit more than just your normal physical therapy.

Speaker 3:

I call it a performance based physical therapy, so specializing kind of in athletics or weekend warriors, really helping to get people who want to be back to some activity back to doing that activity after injury, and it's kind of expanded over the years to be a little bit of mindset nutrition as well as the physical aspect as I've come along. Very cool, some of the things that, like I battle against in the industry is really those you know we have to stop at a certain age and I try to instill that in my clientele of, like you know, we're capable of so much more than we expect out of our bodies, and that's where that kind of performance side comes in. So as I went along in my career, I started seeing clients who just really didn't want to necessarily do it. They were told by their doctor go to physical therapy and they we have this notion that physical therapy is just necessarily for injuries or, you know, rehab, but it can be prehab as well and so you can prevent injuries by getting after things early.

Speaker 2:

Amen, amen. I agree. How did you get started in the physical therapy business?

Speaker 3:

Well, yeah, that's a uh, it's kind of a long road. Um, I uh started initially coming out of school with a landscape architecture degree, so, um, not usually what you hear for physical therapy. Usually most people are like I had an injury, I did physical therapy and I really wanted to be a physical therapist. Well, I was a golf architect, so I had a landscape architect's degree, moved to North Carolina and did golf architecture and during the kind of economic downturn in the early 2000s I realized that there was not much future for me here in the golf world.

Speaker 3:

Now I could have probably stuck out with it, but it just wasn't lining up with, like, my goals and my initiative. It wasn't what I thought it was going to be. And so I kind of started working for a friend who had a gym and training people and I worked for another friend who had a bar and kind of looked at both of those two things and I loved conversing with people, I loved getting to hear their stories and I liked training people and helping them reach goals that way and I've meshed them two together and it was like that's like a physical therapist and and so I went to Western Carolina University and got my doctorate in physical therapy and started there.

Speaker 2:

Wow. Well, there you go. Landscape architecture. Yeah, you don't hear that much. I bet you got a great looking yard though.

Speaker 3:

No, no, no. It's very sad. The landscape architect comes. You know, the first thing that kind of drops off when you have uh duties and responsibility is your yard work.

Speaker 2:

Yep, uh, totally get that. Well, what are some myths or misconceptions in the physical therapy industry?

Speaker 3:

Uh, yeah, so some of the biggest myths, like I said before, um is like I can't do this, or my doctor said I can't do that or I shouldn't be doing this. Like, uh, one of the biggest ones that I hear all the time is like I can't do this, or my doctor said I can't do that or I shouldn't be doing this, like, one of the biggest ones that I hear all the time is like, oh, running, you know, running is bad for your knees and I really kind of contend that it's not if you are running correctly and have good form and have good strength and have good strength. Um, and so different things like that is usually what I'm battling with is, um, we shouldn't be dead lifting or we shouldn't be squatting. We, you know, there is a, there is an ability for us all to do things. Um, you talk about surfing.

Speaker 3:

My grandfather was wind surfing into his eighties. Um, I, I just recently, like Last week, the oldest man to finish the Badlands 135 mile ultra marathon was 80 years old. I ran at Ironman in Chattanooga and had a 76 year old man finish in front of me, like right in front of me. You know that is very discouraging for myself, but I was like that's impressive for that man and I use those examples all the time, trying with my clients to say, like you know, 60 is not that old, 70 is not that old. When you look at these athletes that are doing 135 miles in the desert at 80 years old, wow, Wow, yeah, I'm sure it was discouraging, but at the same time encouraging too.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, hey, 76, man, I can still be doing this.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I want to be that guy.

Speaker 2:

Wow. Well, I know recently in the news this Indian guy from India that was the oldest marathon runner that was on record, I guess 114 years old died from getting hit by a car while he was running.

Speaker 3:

Yeah 114.

Speaker 2:

I'm like geez, anyway, yeah. Well, who are your target customers? Obviously people that have injuries, or maybe not.

Speaker 3:

Right, Well, yeah, I mean obviously the, the. The low hanging fruit is the people who are injured, have pain, have discomfort. Really, I look at it as something background in golf. I do niche a little bit in golf and work with people on their game as well as their bodies, and so some people come to me with, just like, I have some restrictions in my hips and I want to be able to do my sport a little bit better. And so I ran, I run the gambit from like prehab, which is like people who know they're going to go in for surgery and they want to get stronger so that the post surgery is better, to people who have pain, discomfort and they can't do the hike or the golf or whatever over the weekend. And so it's a big range and it's a big range of age. You know, I see anywhere from teenagers to you teenagers to 80 and even close to 90 year olds.

Speaker 2:

Wow, wow. Well, how do you attract customers? Marketing is key to any business. What do you do to market your business?

Speaker 3:

So my biggest marketing is word of mouth. So client to client, people telling each other this is what I did, and some of the best marketing I have is when you know John goes out and out drives his golfing buddies and they say, whoa, what have you been doing? And he's like, oh, I've been working with this guy, but other than that, I do workshops with local gyms and I try to post as much as I can on social media, but it's not as much as I should.

Speaker 2:

I hear you. You ever thought about having a podcast.

Speaker 3:

Um, I've, I've definitely thought about it and and the the range of topics always kind of overwhelms me, from common sense things to to just intricate detailed niche things.

Speaker 2:

Well, we'll talk later. We, we, we do podcasts outside of work. What do you like to do for fun?

Speaker 3:

So yeah, outside of working, and a lot of people are always like, oh, you play a lot of golf, don't you? And I say no, I rarely ever play golf, because I have a four year old son and most of my time is spent with him and my wife and at the lake or hiking, or just playing trucks or cars or walking the dog.

Speaker 2:

Very cool, great, best answer Time with family, especially if your wife listens to the podcast. Just kidding, let's switch gears for just a second. Can you describe a hardship or a life challenge that you've overcome and how it made you stronger in the end?

Speaker 3:

part of it, and and and I do have some hardships in my life, but I think the challenges is the biggest thing that I found the change from and and, like I said, I have a four-year-old son. So, um, I got married seven years ago and then he's four, and so I think with those two life events, um, it spurred the biggest change in my life. So, with the coming of a son and becoming a father, I kind of dove deep and I didn't even realize I was doing it, but I started diving deep into self-improvement and reading, adding listening to books and self-help so-called self-help books and really changed the way that I approached life and the way that I approached who I was, whether it be communication or, you know, mindset or health and all of those things. And that's probably the biggest challenge that I saw was being a father, and then the change that it's made in myself.

Speaker 2:

Awesome, dr Walt. If you could think of one thing that you would like our listeners to remember about performance ability LLC, what would that be?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so I think one of the things I haven't mentioned yet is, I mean, I touched on it a little bit, but it is kind of more a complete side of physical therapy that a lot of people don't think of. So I do a little bit of coaching when it comes to. You can call it life coaching or mindset coaching or anything like that, but it is different from your normal physical therapy. It involves a lot of what you're eating, what you're thinking and then what you're doing, and all of that is getting at the root cause of the issue that you're having or why you're coming to see me, and so all of that combined it's kind of like a complete coaching session for physical therapy.

Speaker 2:

Eating, thinking and doing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, mind, body and in soul kind of yeah, mind, body and spirit, yeah, absolutely very good. Well, if, um, somebody like me that's. You know, I stopped doing squats and leg extensions about 10 years ago when my doctor told me to, because I think for years I used way too much weight and wasn't doing it properly, so I've injured my knees and shoulders and everything else. But for somebody like me who wants to get back in the swing of golf or, you know, running or whatever, and and we want to learn more, how can we do that?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so it's. It's finding somebody that you trust and you align with. Like you know, for me, for example, myself and and getting a getting an assessment, and that's kind of the first. The first aspect is talking with somebody who's going to go a little bit beyond your physical and really get down to why you want to do something and then start working with you on how you can do it. What is, what are your barriers, and then what are your pluses that you can to move into it, because everything has, everything has, everybody has a biomechanical barrier. We're not all one and there's not one. You know one answer one pill or one, anything for all of us. We're all going to be different, we're all going to be aligned a little bit differently.

Speaker 2:

Very true. What if somebody in the, you know, western North Carolina region would like to learn more about you and potentially make an appointment? How can they do that?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so all my information is on my website. North Carolina region would like to to learn more about you and, potentially, make an appointment. How can they do that? Yeah, so all my information is on my website. So that is performance dash abilitycom, as well as social media. Performance dot ability on Instagram. Or built for golf on Instagram, with the four being F O R E. So built for golf on Instagram, with the four being F O R E. So built for golf.

Speaker 2:

Gotcha On Instagram, awesome, all right. Well, dr Walt, it's been fascinating. I think you're the first physical therapist I've talked to who actually does coaching too, so that's, that's unique, but I really appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to talk with us and tell us all about what you do and what makes you different, and wish you and your family and your practice all the best moving forward.

Speaker 3:

All right. Well, thank you very much for having me, and you do, and you the same.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much. Maybe we can have you back sometime.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that'd be great.

Speaker 2:

All right.

Speaker 1:

Thanks a lot. Back sometime? Yeah, that'd be great, all right, thanks a lot. Thank you for listening to the good neighbor podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNP try dash citiescom. That's GNP, try dash citiescom. Or call 4, 2, 3, 7, 1, 9, 5, 8, 7, 3. 719-5873.