SHOP TALK - Episode 5: What Did We NOT Know?

On today's episode, Trevin and Tyler talk about a few things they personally wish they would have known when they first started training, coaching, or rehabbing injuries. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to Shop Talk. I'm Tyler. And I'm Trevor. We are here to break down the latest trends in rehabilitation, strength and conditioning, and fitness all through a lens of evidence-based practice. Our goal is simple cut through the noise in the fitness industry and talk about what actually works, why it works, and how you can apply it. On today's podcast, we will be diving into some of the lessons learned and key takeaways from our combined experiences. What do we wish we would have known when we first started training, coaching, or practicing as a physical therapist or strength and conditioning coach? So, Trevin, take it away.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Okay, so you came last time with a question for me. So I decided to bring one for myself today. Okay. So I wanted to know if you have any pre-lift rituals or superstitions.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

That's a good question. So I don't know if it's like a ritual, but man, I feel like I can't really perform very well without pre-workout. Some sort of caffeine. Yes, caffeine and um getting that little jolt of energy really does set me like into a good zone, honestly. And you know, elevated heart rate and increased body temperature, like it starts to make me feel better. So I try to not be like reliant on it, but yeah, pre-workout's a big one. Um I'm trying to think if there's anything else, like before like a heavy squat day or something. I think like my warm-up is kind of like superstitious, right? Like where I have to follow like my same sets of warming up to get up to like a 500-pound squat or whatever. It's like I I take those same jumps usually every single time. Yeah. Because it makes me feel good. Like of like, okay, I know what this should feel like on a good day. I know what this feels like on a bad day. So it's like I think that's part of it too. Um, pre-lift ritual before I get under something heavy. I think, I think the funniest one, um, and anyone who trains with me knows this that anytime I get set up for like a heavy bench, I swear my ritual changes every time on like on like how I set up my feet, how I set up my back. Um, sometimes my hand placement is like slightly like a half an inch wider. Like it's all dependent on like what I'm feeling that day. So it's really funny. Um, I would say bench is the one that like changes a lot. That's hilarious. Um, but yeah, I don't know. I feel like I could talk about all my lifts and all my weird rituals before getting under the bar, but that's a good question.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

No, that's cool. I can get on board with the caffeine. Yes. I'm more like a caffeine and I've got a certain playlist, a couple songs that are just the go-to. Nice.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

So nice. Yeah, I think it depends on the day for me with music stuff, dude. Music stuff, I gotta like, I gotta get a good vibe going, but it's never the same thing. It's never the same thing for me. Sometimes it's rap, sometimes it's rock. Like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

So yeah, my playlists get pretty crazy too. I'm the type of person that will, if I show up to the gym and I have forgotten my headphones, I don't care how far away I am from my place. I will get back in my truck, drive home, grab my headphones, and come back. It's crazy. I don't care if I'm like all the way through my warm-up, drink pre-workout, it doesn't matter. I'm going back to grab my music. Yeah, that's just part of my my ritual. So that's great. Cool. So to lighten the mood, past that, I I had a story to tell you, and it is not, it's not at all fit is related. But when it happened afterwards, I was like, yep, I definitely have to talk about this on the podcast. So I want to get your perspective on this and maybe give the listener a good laugh. So over the weekend, Haley and I we went out to dinner Saturday night, and we have this thing where we're always on the hunt for like the newest Alani energy drink. Like she's obsessed. Okay. So Fred Meyer does a pretty good job of keeping the newest one stocked up. And her favorite right now is like lemon lime or something. And she's like, I think Fred Meyer's the only place that has it. We have to go check. So we we went to Fred Meyer and checked. Well, we went in there, they didn't have it. But as we were leaving, there was this guy sitting in one of those like scooters, like the seated scooters that you shop around in. And he stops us and he's like, Hey, like, I'm really hungry. Do you think you could take me to McDonald's or something? And I was like, I don't have any cash on me, man. I'm really sorry. And we kept walking. So we got out to the truck, and Haley and I kind of looked at each other. We're like, should we just go get him some McDonald's? So I actually ended up going back in and talking to this guy. I'm like, all right, man, what do you want? Like, I'll just go grab it for you. You don't have to come with us, just stay put. We'll be right back. He's like, ah, just a Big Mac and then some a small fry or something. I'm like, all right, all right, all right. So go to McDonald's, which is pretty close by. And I'm like, you know what? Screw it. I'll take two Big Macs, make it a large, and I got this guy like a huge Coke, like a large Coke. Well, we go back to Fred Meyer and I'm bringing this food to him. And you know the breezeway that's between like the actual entrance of the of Fred Meyer's and then like the you know the outside entrance. Like breezeway where all the carts are. So I look in the corner of the room. There is two more bags of McDonald's in the corner, just like stuffed away. And I'm like seeing this as I walk in. I'm like, has this guy been doing this all night? Just racking up free McDonald's the entire night? So I hand him this McDonald's and he's like, oh man, thanks. You're so kind. This, that, and the other. And now I'm kind of bugged. I'm like, bro, you played me hard. I was like, Yeah, I'm just gonna take this inside the store and eat it while I'm shopping. I'm like, okay. I get back in the truck, Haley and I leave. We get a couple minutes down the road, Haley's like, Well, should we go back and check, see if he's eating it? And I was like, Yeah, we should go back. So we turned around. Went back to Fred Meyer. We walked through every aisle looking for this guy. He was gone. And the other bags of McDonald's that were in that little breeze weight were his because those were also gone. And then we were going up to a bunch of cashiers and we're like, Hey, did you see this guy riding around in this cart eating McDonald's? And everyone's looking at me like I'm crazy because I'm coming up with this story. And uh yeah, we left, went out to the parking lot, and that scooter that he was in was parked in a handicapped spot, like pretty close to my truck. So that guy just got in his truck, left, and had probably my guess is three or four bags of McDonald's with him.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Oh wow. Well, and here's the thing too, is that McDonald's isn't very cheap anymore either. Dude, right? Like that's what bothers people were like 20 bucks, I think. Yeah. Like, oh well, that sucks. Right. Cause like I've uh I've I've helped like homeless people or people that that ask for food and stuff, and um, it was a few years ago when McDonald's was a little bit cheaper, you know what I mean? But now a Big Mac is like 12 bucks, so it's like, oh my gosh. But man, he uh he played you.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

He played you a little bit, he wanted some some protein, dude. We still felt good about it, but I just thought it was hilarious because I'm like he knew that I was gonna go grab him McDonald's, even though he had a couple bags left. So yeah, good for him. I'm sure he ate it, I'm sure he needed it. But it's pretty funny. I'm sure his I think he said his name was Ollie. So shout out to Ollie. Shout out to Ollie. Shout out to Ollie. I doubt he's listening to this. No, I I would assume not. If you see a guy at Fred Meyer asking for McDonald's, it's probably him. So just you know, think wisely, I guess. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

Well, I mean, props to you for still doing that, right? And like having a good heart. Because, like, regardless, like, what if I mean, this is uh me, I guess not devil's advocate, but I don't know. Um, maybe he had kids that he had to go feed with the other McDonald's.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

I don't know. Yeah, he was a big guy. Okay, he was a big guy. He probably didn't need McDonald's, probably not, but but hey, it was still a good thing. He probably ate it, probably needed it. So I will I'd do it again. All right.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

It was just pretty funny, though. That is that is crazy. Oh man. Well, okay. Well, that got me in a better mood. Um, you getting scammed out of some McDonald's. So being boozled, man. All right. Well, let's uh let's start talking about what you wish you would have known um when you first started lifting or training or coaching. Okay, cool. So go for it.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

The first one that I have is finding a good coach or mentor in all aspects of health, fitness qualities, specific skills, and most importantly for me is psychological skills and mental health awareness. So I with when it comes to performance, I've always struggled the most with being inside my own head with confidence and low self-esteem, negative self-talk. My desire to crush it in the gym initially actually came from more of the self-doubt and criticism side of things than it was about becoming better. It was about like, I gotta look better, I look bad with my shirt off, those kind of things, right? Even my performance in sport and my in, especially my current profession of being a SWAT officer, sometimes my performance is negatively affected just because of self-talk. Like I've never questioned my ability to work hard or learn new skills. It's just always been the negativity that's held me back from making progress. So the last couple years, I've actually spent a lot of time doing some deep work in this area. And although there's still a lot of progress to go, um, it's made a huge difference. So when I look back being a college athlete or even in the high school level, and even now, having a mentor or coach in terms of mental health and the psychology behind things would have been so useful. Cause I think it is a pretty normal thing for people to feel that way. And for the longest time, I felt like I was the only one that lacked confidence or didn't necessarily trust myself to make the good decisions on the football field or whatever it was. And I know for sure if I could go back, I would have gotten a coach a lot sooner.

SPEAKER_02 9:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

Like I've talked to you about Royce a little bit and how much of an impact that's made on my life now. Gosh, I wish I would have had that the last 10 years of my life for sure.

SPEAKER_03 9:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

What do you think that would have looked like in your like performance era, let's say, like when you were getting ready to play college football, right? What do you think that would have looked like? What do you think would have been helpful, um, I guess, mentally to help guide you in the right way? Because as an athlete, right, like you gotta oftentimes trust your instinct that you're gonna make the play, that you're gonna be in the right spot, and like you know all of these things. So it's like off the field, do you oftentimes think back to like, oh man, I wish I would have done this different, I would have done this different, and he would have coached you through that, or would it have been more so in preparation for the game?

SPEAKER_01 10:31

I don't know if it had anything to do with preparation necessarily. I feel like I was the best practice player in the entire world when I played college ball. And I think what held me back was more game time scenarios and me just being in my head.

SPEAKER_02 10:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

I think it would have had more to do with auto-regulation than anything else, basically talking myself down into the like, you know, when you get those feelings of like, ah shoot, I can't do this or whatever the negative thoughts were, right? Learning how to almost suppress those in a way. I don't think you can make them go away completely, but learning how to suppress those and work on more positive self-talk. Because when I was in college, you heard about sports psychology, but it wasn't something that was pushed on us at all as athletes. And it doesn't help when you have coaches that aren't individualizing their coaching style to how you respond to coaching the best. So I had a lot of coaches that were pretty hardcore. It wasn't a forgiving environment, if that makes sense. So for somebody like myself who already dealt with a lot of negative self-talk, I expected a lot of myself. So when I didn't perform my absolute best, like I was a shit show. Um, I could have had 15 tackles a game and watched film and had one really bad play, and I could care less about anything good I did that game. I was only focused on the one bad thing that I did. Gotcha. So having a coach or mentor that could have pointed those out as unhealthy habits, I think alone would have been great. Cause at the time, I don't think I was viewing it as that. I was just so hard on myself and, like, nope, this is what I have to do if I want to make to the next level or play better next week. I have to be harder on myself, or it's not gonna happen. Okay. So maybe teaching me how to be more forgiving to myself. Yeah. Maybe a little bit more grace when I wasn't performing to my absolute best.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

Yeah. And I I feel like so many athletes are that way, right? Like so many athletes just continue to focus on on the bad stuff. But I guess my question from that is is that always a bad thing, right? Like I get like long term, that can be really detrimental for your mental health when you're just focused on the bad stuff or that you messed up. Or yeah, when you're watching film and you look back and you're like, wow, I completely missed that, right? Um but do you think it would have positively or negatively affected your your game? Honestly, like if you if you think because athletes are hard on themselves, but that's what makes them sometimes excel, right? And be really, really good. It's not necessary all the time, but I'm I'm curious to you like, do you think it would have had a positive or or negative impact? I would assume a positive one because you're bringing it up. But like performance-wise, that's something for me where I'm like, I liked that, that high, high spot for me where it's not so cerebral, where it was just like I'm gonna perform as quick and as fast and as strong as possible. And like if I screw up, I'm gonna be mad at myself, right? I don't know. I thrived off of that, but to you, it seems like you were like, no, I was missing that for sure, like being able to come back down and stay in a in a better space.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Yeah, I think there's pros and cons to both sides of this. I think there was an aspect of the negative self-talk that was like, uh shoot, you screwed up. Well, time to go back to the film room or the gym or back to the field and work on it.

SPEAKER_02 13:45

Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

And I think I love that part of me. I love the fact that I I don't give up, I'll go back and work on the things that I need to work on. But it was almost too an extreme where I could have had the best game of my entire career and I still would have found the smallest thing that I did wrong and I would have just critiqued the hell out of it.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

Gotcha. So it would have been more of it like a buffer a little bit. Like you would have would have been like, hey, like let's back up and see the bigger picture here of like how you played as a whole and and your performance. But you were just very nitpicky.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

Very, very nitpicky. And I think I I took a lot of enjoyment away from myself through high school and in college because I was so hard on myself. For sure. I I would have enjoyed the process a lot more if I would have been more forgiving on the mistakes that I made and been more focused on the good things that I was doing. That's so interesting.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

Yeah. I mean, I I love that take. Um, I feel like a lot of athletes can't come out and say that because all they're worried about is performance and being the best. And I work harder than you and everything like that. So it's interesting talking to you now. Um, you played in college, you were a very high-level athlete in high school as well. You're still an athlete now doing high rocks and and long distance cycling and everything like that. So it's just very interesting.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

I'd say, even as a tactical athlete now, one thing I preach a lot of is like we're professional athletes. Any law enforcement officer, you're a professional athlete. You're just getting paid a little bit less with a little bit more responsibility, right? We've got lives on the line. Right. Um, but yeah, even now, like I'm so grateful that I have a coach, you know, to help me kind of guide myself through my current job when I get those, you know, feelings of self-doubt or overly criticizing myself because I had a bad day at the range or whatever it is.

SPEAKER_00 15:30

So that's crazy. Yeah, I like it. I like it. I think it could be helpful for a lot of people. I hope people listen to this and say, like, oh wow, I've never really thought of that because they're worried about losing performance. If they aren't nitpicky, right? If they, if they see something on film and they're like, oh, I need to do better, I miss this block, I miss this tackle, whatever. And they think that's what's pushing them to be better. It's like, no, you want to minimize mistakes for sure, but it's about like a healthy relationship with that and not not just digging yourself into the ground just saying, do better, do better, do better nonstop.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

So that's I actually think I played worse because I was scared to make mistakes instead of having more of a like, you know what, screw it, like full send. If I screw this up, not a big deal, we'll just get up and do it again. I think I had some coaches that probably didn't help this situation, but I think I left a lot of plays out on the field because I was scared to take that jump or go make a play. Cause I'm like, well, shoot, if I screw this up, then I know the mental repercussions of this later on tonight when I'm laying in bed and I can't stop thinking about it. Right, it replays in your head. Yeah. And so I think it held me back a ton on the field. That's so interesting. So and it's funny now because the amount of times I have been told I come across as like an arrogant asshole and super cocky, it is like the furthest thing from the truth. I understand I work extremely hard. I have a little bit of RBF and I'm very introverted. I don't really come out of my shell all that often. I promise you, it's not me being a prick. Because yeah, like I struggle with that hard. And that's something you know, I would love every athlete to understand is you can talk about it, and just talking about it helps a ton. So when you're getting those negative emotions and you think that you're the only one that feels that way, I promise you you're not. Yeah, you just gotta find somebody that can help coach you through those and keep you grounded when those feelings do come up. Because they're gonna come up regardless if you want them there or not. Yeah. But finding the tools to regulate those go a long ways.

SPEAKER_02 17:40

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

So that's cool. Something that popped into my head, and this might seem kind of off topic, um, but you said that like it would start to hinder your performance because you were scared of making a mistake, right? So I think it is uh super interesting that for football, I was the same way, right? I I not that I was like worried about holding back or anything like that, but making a mistake, right? Because then, oh, coach is gonna be mad. I'll I'll be mad. Oh, what if a scout's watching, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. But what what popped in my head, it's funny, um, is golf. Actually, I don't know if you've if you've golfed, but but the reason why is because every single stroke is a completely new game, is kind of the way I approach it, right? You have a terrible shot off the T-box, right? Like absolute garbage. Doesn't matter. You have to step up to the ball and do a better shot the next time, if that makes sense. Like rather than football, it's like this big game, right? And some plays you'll play good, some plays you'll play bad. And I get that it's like, oh, well, next play, next play, next play, right? But it's hard to dig yourself out of that rut sometimes when you messed up on a previous play and it was a touchdown. Cause then you see that scoreboard, right? But with golf, it's just you out there. There's no team, there's no support. It's like it's all mental. And it's it's just funny because that's what immediately popped into my head is like you can't be thinking about anything like that about past mistakes. You just have to move on to the next shot and try to be better than your last one. So anyway, I thought I would bring that up because it popped into my head when you're like, yeah, it it hindered your performance. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

I think people that play sports like golf or even baseball, like going up to you know, into the box to hit, taking that approach of like, how this is a different game. Those are some like mentally strong people. Yeah. Like to fail over and over and over again and just keep getting back up and going back up to the plate or back to the T-box or whatever, that's tough. It takes a mentally strong person. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

Right. I love it. I love it. Seriously, I'm baseball's a great example too, because imagine how many times you're gonna strike out in your career, right? It's like there is not a high success rate um with hitting. So it's like it's crazy. But um, is there anything else that that we missed on your first point here? Um with um, you know, trying to not be in your head and uh not really, man.

SPEAKER_01 20:07

I just I wanted to bring it up. I think it'd be a little bit deeper than I wanted to, but yeah, I just wanted the listener to know like for me, if I could go back as much as crap as people talk about getting a mental health coach or a sports psychologist to help you out, that would have been critical. And I think I would have enjoyed the process of playing sports a lot more if I would have had that sooner. And I have it now, and it's made a world of difference. Yeah. So in the profession that I'm choosing and even just in my day-to-day life, um, super, super helpful, way more grounded than I used to be. Good, good. I love that. Um, on a similar note, just to bring this back to exercise, yeah. Another thing I I wish I would have had access to in terms of a mentor was somebody in the field of strength and conditioning. Now I have a small group of people that I can gain a lot of wealth and knowledge from. Usually it's through social media, right? But I wish I would have had a group or somebody close by that I could have asked questions about when I was coming up because I didn't really have that. Okay. And I know I was limited based off of my community and and where I went to school and I didn't know who to ask. But I wish I would have at least on my own got into textbooks a little bit earlier or tried to understand the mechanism of what I was doing before I just started doing it or asking myself more questions. Um, I will say though, when I didn't have a mentor, I did learn a lot on my own. And I don't think I would know as much now if I wasn't almost forced to figure this shit out solo.

unknown 21:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

So I think there's like some pros and cons there of hey, having a mentor is nice and they can lead you in a good direction. It's almost like a catalyst for your education and performance. But again, when it's just you and you have to figure it out on your own, you figure it out.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

It's a different type of learning. Yes, one hundred percent. Yep. Yep. I I'll say this right now. Um opening this this clinic and it's like I've I've had help from friends and family and everything like that. But just for an example, like the amount of mistakes that I have made just opening this clinic and still being very new, what, three months in now, right? Um but those little areas of where I have made mistakes or maybe big areas where I've made some failures, that will stick with me much longer than if someone were to just tell me what to do, right? And like avoid those mistakes, right? It's helpful to have that in your life. Um, I actually talked to my dad a lot about this. He's a very success, successful business guy and he's done a lot of shit on his own, right? Um, so he tries to make me avoid these certain mistakes because he's seen it himself, right? But I'm like, I have to learn this too, right? If I want to be successful and I want to have like a very successful clinic, and um yeah, I just I have to make those mistakes because it sticks a lot more in my brain. So I feel like it's to me, that's a stronger positive. Even though it's harder to learn that stuff on your own and keep picking yourself back up after failure and mistake and everything like that. I think in the long run, like look at you now, right? Like book-wise, textbook wise, and all the stuff you know because you have to figure it out on your own. Oh, absolutely. So that's cool.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

Thank you. No, and that's that's all I got for that topic. So cool. Yeah, let's move on to yours.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Okay. Um, let me get here. So uh my very first one less skill work. So I'm I'm excited to dive into this a little bit, but I was so focused. Um, this is high school Tyler talking a little bit on getting faster, quicker feet, change of direction, catching skills, like having the hands, like the best hands possible whenever a ball came by me. Like I wanted to make sure I would never drop anything. Like that was a huge, huge focus, right? And don't get me wrong, I still pushed really hard in the gym, right? Whether it was in football weights or going to the gym on my own time. But what was crazy is that I would show up to the gym and do like bodybuilding workouts, right? Not really tied to my sport or anything, nothing focused on like strength foundation or like power output, stuff like that, like quick explosive movements. It was more so like, how big of a chest can I get, right? Like weird stuff, right? Doing the pec deck for 30 minutes, right? Um, but then I would go do more skill work. In uh Gold Gym used to have a turf area, and I would I would go do skill work in there for like another hour. And it's like, that is so not necessary. What should have been my focus? And if I had a mentor and I had people around me that could guide me, this is just something I've learned over time. Um, and we've talked about it before. But building a foundation of strength with like traditional like barbell work, so like deadlift, bench press, squat, things like that, and just getting stronger and stronger and stronger will actually catapult your skill work to a completely different level. If you're stronger and more well diverse in your lifting, I think that helps your skill work more than just, oh, let's go do ladders. Oh, let's go do cone drills. Like you can hammer that stuff as much as you want, but your capacity is limited by what your strength foundation is, like, period. So I really wish I would have taken more time to really dive into like what exercises and what kind of volume should I have been hitting for football, right? In off-season versus preseason versus in season, right? And like that would have helped my performance so much more. So that's something I wish I knew really early on.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

It's kind of funny that we both had experience in high school similar and nobody taught us anything about linear periodization. No. And I know that's a scary word, but it is so simple.

SPEAKER_02 25:48

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

If you just opened a textbook, you could figure out linear periodization pretty quick. And if we would have spent four years in high school on a linear periodization and just repeated that year after year after year, gosh dang, dude.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

Yep. Would have been legit. Would have completely changed probably what schools looked at me for like football and stuff for sure, right? Um, not that like my numbers weren't impressive or anything, but like I would have seriously just been bigger, stronger, more explosive. Like my vertical would have been even better than it was already if I just focused on those things and had proper periodization.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

So yeah, we were doing that kitchen sink model that we talked about last week. Yep. Where and you're just trying to get better, you're doing everything you can to be better at your sport, and you're doing the best with what you know at the time. So you were like, I have some free time instead of messing around with my friends, I'm gonna go to Gold's gym and do some ladder drills. That's great. That's awesome. It's just hard work misplaced sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

Absolutely. That's a perfect way to put it, honestly. It's like, because I was showing up and I was dedicated and I was working hard. I was spending hours there on my own, sometimes with friends or whatever that wanted to like work on like speed stuff or whatever. But it's like, was that actually beneficial or would it have been more beneficial to hit like a 45-minute workout with like squats and stuff and then just move on? Right. Like, don't worry about skill stuff because we were already doing skill shit after practice, you know what I mean? Or before practice, like the more early morning AM at uh at Hillcrest. So yeah, I don't know. That's it's just a it's a wild thing to think about that you're like, man, I I wish I could have seen what that would have been like in high school, but so this is I knew we were gonna do this.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

So this you what you said brought up a thought. So what is your opinion on conditioning after football practice? Like, like how coaches are just like, Ken, we're gonna we're gonna hit gassers like after practice. You just talked about like, oh, why am I doing this extra skill work because I'm already hitting it at practice? I would argue, and this may not be popular opinion, that it is a complete waste of time to add extra conditioning work to a football practice to an already overly fatigued and stressed teenager.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

Between school and practice and everything else going on. Right. And at the very end, you tack on these sprint drills or whatever. Yeah, two, three days before game time, right? And the I the thought that you're gonna get proper adaptation and improvements in cardiovascular fitness through doing that, you're wrong. Yeah, we're now overtraining these athletes because they're already conditioning throughout practice, and nothing's just more specific to the game that you're gonna play on Friday night than what you're doing at practice. Those additional gassers, I would say, is junk volume, and it's a waste of time. I also think you're creating really bad relationships with conditioning for these kids. Yeah. Like I remember this is like being this is like really young. I would be dreading conditioning at the beginning of practice. I wasn't even focused on what I was doing skill work-wise or running through plays because I'm like, dude, like I'm an overweight fat kid, and this homeboy is gonna have me run gas or still I puke after practice, and that wasn't fun to me. I kind of took some joy out of practice. So I think there's multiple things there that I have an issue with. But when you brought that up, I was like, hmm. It's just like a coach thinking it's now their job to get these guys into shape when they should have done that in the offseason before they even showed up. For sure. And I think they're getting plenty of conditioning through high quality repetitions throughout practice rather than gassing them out at the end of practice doing gassers or burpees or whatever the heck coaches are doing these days.

SPEAKER_00 29:34

I so I completely agree with that. My junior year, um, I got shin splints from from that sort of layout of practicing for a couple hours after school or whatever, right? We already had AM workouts, right? Don't get me wrong. So AM workouts, school, then practice for two hours, and then at the end, they tack on this conditioning crap, right? You are you are tanked by the end of the day, right? Like even before conditioning, your system is as banged up and as low as it could possibly be at this point. And then you try to demand something that actually requires quite a bit of central nervous system, like I don't know, preparation, um, at least to get good adaptations, not just these crappy gassers or whatever. But anyway, I got shin splints from that. So anyone who's, I guess I should um just really quick, this is PT side of things. Shin splints 99% of the time is an overuse injury. Um, for most for people that might not know. Um, it is not your shin bone actually cracking or anything like that. Um, they're called shin splints, but it's actually this muscle that runs back behind the tibia. And it's from your foot basically being so fatigued or running on really hard surfaces for so long that impact starts kind of shearing that muscle away from the fibrosis tissue on the backside of the tibia, and it becomes very, very irritated. So oftentimes it's just a it's an overuse injury that, you know, basically you need better load management, better fatigue management, better recovery. Um, but then there's these coaches that are just like run, run, run, run, run. We got to get your conditioning up. We got to make sure that you can last through the fourth quarter, blah, blah, blah. Right. And you're burned, dude. You are burned. And it's not like we're practicing on the most cushing, cushion-y field or anything. So yeah, I had I had shin splints my entire junior year, and that sucked. So, not fun to play through that. But that's my little side note there.

SPEAKER_01 31:32

Yeah, no, sorry to go off topic. You had that just what you had said about doing extra skill work on top of what you already doing, it just brought that thought to my head of the unnecessary junk volume that coaches are putting on these kids after practice. Yep. When it's completely, in my opinion, unnecessary. Yeah. If you're a kid playing football and you're not conditioned to the level of what is required of you at the beginning of the season, you probably shouldn't play. Right. So I think your starters are coming prepared anyways.

SPEAKER_00 32:05

So that's true. Very true. They they've been putting in work, right? So it's like that makes sense. Um, and then the last thing, um, because I was guilty of this, this ties into my first one where I was like, yeah, less skill work, more strength work, but not signing up for every skill session or speed clinic in town. This is no slight to any coach or trainer here in the Idol Falls area. Like, much respect to you because it's not like you guys are getting paid millions of dollars to help these young athletes. You guys are doing the best that you can. But sometimes there's this overload issue, right? Where there's too many chefs in the kitchen, right? There's too many chefs in the kitchen. So it's like these kids need a solid, like one trainer or one coach that can train them through like a year, two years, three years. Do you know what I mean? And track their progress and track their fatigue and recovery, everything like that, rather than, oh, there's this speed clinic, oh, there's a there's a hitting clinic, oh, a footwork drill, like from all these different people. Cause then, like I said, there's just too many people involved. It gets messy really quick. So that that ties into the less skill work because I was I was guilty of that. Like I wanted to sign up for anything that could help me get quicker.

SPEAKER_01 33:16

So when you say that, so I just did a lot of work on residual training effects for class, right? And that makes me think of residuals. So you go do a footwork, speed drill, whatever the heck you're doing. If it's speed and agility work, the residual of that's like five days. So you go to this like three-day clinic on speed and agility work, and then what you go back to not doing speed and agility work for a couple months, bro. You just wasted your time. And a lot of money. And a lot of money, right? So a lot of these little clinics that you're doing, I think there's some good technical things that you can take from these for sure. But in terms of getting long-term chronic adaptation that's going to enhance performance, I think you're wasting your time. Right. Unless you implement those things into your training long term. Yeah, long term, right? So we talked about linear periodization, and you can really only do that with one coach that is programming your training throughout the entire off-season, preseason, in-season, and post-season. Yep. I mean, you're gonna get that at the college and professional levels. It's not really seen at the high school level. It's a lot of kitchen sink stuff, and it is a lot of sign up for this clinic and sign up for that clinic, and you're learning a lot of technical skills, and you are gonna get some newbie gains. Doing something is better than doing nothing. But when we discuss residual training effects and proper introduction and progression of exercise, it's not the best move. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, and like you said, no offense to anybody. Like I think it's great when people are, you know, the man in the arena trying to make people better doing their thing. You just have to realize that sometimes, again, hard work's being misplaced. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 34:59

So I think that's really important. Um, truly, because I I love when trainers want to help young athletes or help any population, it doesn't matter what they look like or what they play or what they do, whatever. It's just like that's something we have to keep in mind is that there's a lot of coaches, there's a lot of trainers, there's a lot of skilled professionals in this area, especially, right? It's like if any parents are listening and they want their kid to really kind of take off a little bit and and be more successful, like find one person that like your kid really enjoys and enjoys that type of training and everything like that, and stick with it for long term. Don't just go from this camp to this camp to this clinic to this whatever. You know what I mean? It just yeah, gets messy. So anyway, um, I guess that's back to you now for your second.

SPEAKER_01 35:50

Did you experience any burnout when you were doing that?

SPEAKER_00 35:53

Um no, I I really didn't. Um and that sounds crazy, but I felt like at that time, it's funny. I could keep pushing through. I could keep going. I could keep going. I wanted to do more. I want, right? Because I was like this young, um, I guess, like energized kid. I felt like I could go all day, all night, right? Um, but my body couldn't, right? So I think it wasn't like mental burnout or anything like that, or of like where I was sick of football or sick of training or anything, but it was like my body was telling me that, right? Little injuries here and there, fractured knee, like stuff like that, right? Like that just overtraining purely, that my body was just like, hey, these are some signals that we're trying to send to you to be like, hey, back off a little bit, right? Like just coast for a second. Doesn't mean you have to completely um hit the brakes, right? But like let's coast instead of just slamming on the gas for however many months or years or whatever. Um, I think that was the only version that I truly had of like burnout, but it wasn't mental at all.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

Yeah. I want to bring it back to your less skill work. We've talked about this off podcast a little bit of there needs to be a clear separation between true skill work and strength and conditioning. So, in my world, what I would refer to as skill work would be plymetrics, change of direction, repeat sprint ability, things like that. When I hear the word skill, I'm thinking of an athlete's ability to run routes efficiently or to like as a DB doing one-on-one coverage drills or quarterback doing whatever quarterbacks do. Not a quarterback. I wouldn't know. I wouldn't know. Yeah. Um, I think you need to stay in your lane as either a strength and conditioning coach or as a skill coach. Right. And as a parent or as a kid, and this is something that I would have changed, is having a coach in both. Yeah. And having a really close connection between those two coaches to where there's a high level of communication to make sure we're not overtraining or mixing training qualities. Yeah. So having more of a linear periodization approach where, yeah, early in the off-season, I'm not really doing a ton of skill work because I don't really need it right now. I just got off of school. I'm kind of off-season right now. There's no sense in burning myself out. I'm just going to build a high level of strength. And then the closer we get to the season, I'm going to start slowly incorporating more skill work, more skill work, more skill work. And then as a strength coach, you can kind of just hand your athlete off to the skill coach the rest of the year and then pick it back up in the offseason again or the postseason, right?

SPEAKER_02 38:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:41

I think having a clear separation of the two would go a long ways because I think skill coaches know a lot about positions. They know a lot about techniques of a specific sport. It doesn't have to be football, it can be softball, baseball, volleyball. That is a skill of its within itself. For sure. Right. Strength and conditioning is also a skill within itself. And they're both just tools to improve performance on the field.

SPEAKER_03 39:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 39:06

So if you separate those and get the best of both worlds, I think that's your best approach to improving performance rather than as a strength and conditioning coach trying to be some like tight end or linebacker coach on top of being a strength and conditioning coach and top of being a speed coach or whatever you want to call yourself. I just think there needs to be some clear separation there. You're going to get the best by separating them. I think you nailed it.

SPEAKER_00 39:29

I mean, truly. I don't think I could say that any better, but I fully agree, right? I am not going to teach a volleyball player how to spike the ball. I am not going to teach them serving skills. I am not going to teach them setting skills, right? This is just an example of like volleyball, right? Um, however, when it comes to strengthening and some cardiovascular benefits and then also just improving power output and things like that, it's like, that's where I'll be. That's where I am. But I will not cross that line into, oh, now, hey, let's work on your, your, your jump pass a little bit or something. Like that's not, that's not in my scope at all, right? It is so important that people stay in their lane with that because truly, like strength and conditioning, as you know, that's that's its own realm. That's its own science behind all of that. So when you get these skill coaches helping in the strength and conditioning realm, it's usually kind of half-assed. It doesn't, it doesn't really correlate well with this because they're a skill coach and props to them, they can handle that. I I don't know anything about specific drills for a DB. My goodness. But guess what? I can get them a lot stronger. That's what I'll say. So I don't know. I think you said it perfectly. I have truly nothing else to change with that because keeping them separate is important. But once again, not too many. Like you need two. You how about two people?

SPEAKER_01 40:53

Yeah, sure. Yeah, just keep, yeah, less is more when it comes to coaches. The less feedback, the better. Because you're gonna start getting conflicting values as well between different coaches and different philosophies, and you're gonna start getting mixed adaptations and overtraining and burnout. Yeah. Right? Just stay in your lane. Yeah. And why not uplift each other instead of pushing each other apart? So, like as a strength and conditioning coach, it would be more beneficial to me to go find somebody that's a really good skill coach, whether that's volleyball, basketball, baseball, soccer, you name it. And I say, hey, let's work together. I'm gonna make this guy fast as shit, and you're gonna like make him better at this sport of implement it.

SPEAKER_00 41:38

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 41:39

You're gonna make sure that what I developed here in the gym transfers into the sport. I don't want to touch it, I don't want to teach these kids how to play soccer. I don't know anything about soccer. Yep. Or volleyball or baseball. And I played college football and I still wouldn't want to touch that because I haven't spent a ton of time diving into the best skill work for these athletes. I'm not the best X's and O's guy. Yep. Like I maybe I used to be, but I'm not gonna pretend to be anymore.

SPEAKER_00 42:04

You know what I mean? I love it. So I love it. Um, yeah, man. That's the same thing with like physical therapy. Stay in your scope. Stay in your scope. We're really good at rehab, right? Yeah. But then as soon as people start trying to diagnose these other things that we are not well versed in, like the endocrine system or whatever, it's like, hey, it's like, let's stay in our scope and how about we refer, right? Like having a so I love that. Yeah, I would I've I just like the fact that that you're on the same page too, with like, yeah, no, it should be separate. That's how you're gonna get the best benefit, truly. Um, not these these skill coaches trying to all of a sudden be strength and conditioning coaches too. It's like, what the hell? Like, I've seen some of the stuff online. I'm like, what are you doing? What are you doing? This is it's like a mix of skill work and like strength work that they try to put together, right? And it's okay to do it in the same session, that's not what I'm saying. But some of the exercises themselves, I'm like, what is that doing, right? Is this more skill-based or is it more like actual performance-based? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 43:01

So, and to me, it it's for somebody that's going to school for it and understanding how much depth there is to the field, and you'll probably relate to this, it's almost like a form of disrespect because you're like, Man, I know so much depth on this, and somebody's claiming to be that because they're a really good skill coach. But then you see all these things wrong with what they're doing, and you can't really say much because people are following them, anyways. Just like you with PT. If I was doing, if I had a personal training client and they were coming to me about shin splints, and I was like, Oh, I'm gonna do blah, blah, blah, blah. I don't know anything about pre-habbing shin splints, bro. When I tell them to rest, ice compress, elevate. I don't know. I don't know, man. I'd refer them to you. Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 43:44

Exactly. So um, I that's a very fair comparison for sure. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 43:50

We definitely need more skill position coaches in this area. With how popular a lot of these field sports are getting in our area, I think somebody can make a lot of. Money by stepping out of the strength and conditioning world and just focusing on the sport and the skill within.

SPEAKER_02 44:06

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 44:06

Run routes, get quarterbacks in, again, do whatever quarterbacks do. Same thing with soccer, volleyball, baseball. Specify in the sport and then get in contact with a strength and conditioning coach that can work with you rather than against you. Yeah. Um, just to finish off, I think a good example of this, and I don't know anybody that's over at this gym, but the T-Box is what comes to my head. Because they have a gym in there, right? And then they have people helping you golf. Yeah. They're probably not touching the strength and conditioning stuff. So in my head, I'm like, dang, how cool would it be? And this is coming from a tactical side of things. How sick would it be to have a strength and conditioning coach for exercise? And then I go over here, two steps to the left, and I have a range instructor running me through like shooting drills. Yeah. Like, how sick would that be? Or for football or for baseball? Like, man, you could get so much more done if you just if you have a team. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:57

If you have a team. Absolutely. And and the guys at T-Box, I actually I actually know them and they're they're great. But you're right. In terms of like their gym setup, what I know at least is that it's like membership. So you can go use the gym and do what you need to do or whatever, but it's not like you're getting training or strength and conditioning or anything like that. It's more so like, oh yeah, hit the gym for a little while and then you go swing, right? Yeah. So it's like a it's a cool membership. I love the idea, but you're totally right. Like people would would get a lot of benefit out of that if there was like a coach or a trainer there for that specifically.

SPEAKER_01 45:28

They're keeping the main thing, the main thing, which is getting good at golf. And but they're recognizing that there is room for strength and conditioning within the sport of golf. Yeah. And they recognize that. And I just love it.

SPEAKER_00 45:39

Which is really cool. So shout out to the T-Box because I know you guys over there, and um, I know you guys are putting in the work too. So it's awesome. That's dope, dude. Yeah. Back to you, dude. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 45:49

Let's uh get back on track here. Okay, so my next one is spending more time dialing in my nutrition and focusing on eating to perform rather than chasing a number on a scale or an aesthetic goal. When I focus on fueling my body for performance, typically the scale and the aesthetic goals usually follow, anyways. When I focus on how my body feels based on what I'm eating, I tend to start making way better decisions in the kitchen. When I focus on how to perform, when I focus on how I perform when I'm well fed, I also don't restrict myself. But once I start trying, once I start tying what I eat to superficial goals, like my body fat percentage for for instance, I tend to perform worse because I'm overly restrictive. I also start creating a terrible relationship with food where I'm almost too scared to enjoy a nice meal with my friends or family. And I think food is a huge, huge part of our culture and it should be enjoyed in appropriate doses. I don't want to be that guy that has to tell Haley no when she's really craving some Domino's pizza after a hard day. I value my relationship so much more than a couple percentages of body fat.

SPEAKER_00 47:05

Yeah. Yeah, I like that. That's a really good one. Um dialing in nutrition, like right there, just those words right there, is huge for performance in athletes, in just daily people too. Um, I see that you wrote something here that like um with like rehab and stuff like that too. Um ask Tyler about how we feeled as athletes. Yeah, yeah, dude. I was eating everything possible. So um I get that. Um, I was never super restrictive in in high school. Um, not trying to shift this onto me because this is your talking point. But um, yeah, in high school, dude, I would have like I think five bowls of cereal in the morning. Like fruity pebbles or what? Oh, dude, like cinnamon toast crunch kind of stuff, right? Because I loved it and it was like, man, this is gonna get me through my day, right? But yeah, there definitely wasn't any protein or anything in there.

SPEAKER_01 47:59

So um basically just got that from the butt and I don't want to go too far into the nutrition stuff because I do want to stay within my scope of practice. It was more just common mistakes that I think I was making, and it was more of a lack of eating than more so than eating too much. I definitely ate way too much crap, too many late night trips to Birdo's and Taco Bell, right? You're in high school, you do whatever. Same thing in college, you make stupid mistakes around food. Right. Who cares? Enjoy life a little bit, right? You don't have to be super restrictive that way. I think learn to have some fun.

SPEAKER_02 48:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:29

Mine was more around performance. For example, I know for like in fact in high school, our last period of school, so was an hour and a half. Our classes are about an hour and a half, hour and 45 minutes. We had weights and conditioning our last hour of the day. And then you'd have an hour break and then go to football practice, which was another two hours. And then you add that extra trash volume of conditioning at the end. I've now spent three to four hours of exercise and I haven't eaten a damn thing. And yeah, is that my responsibility? Sure. I'm sure my parents assumed that I was eating food. Probably. Coaches maybe were assuming that I was eating food, yeah, but there also wasn't a lot of time to eat. And I'm not blaming it on anybody else. It was more my responsibility. But I was so underfueled when I was going to practices and even playing in games. I think it affected my performance.

SPEAKER_02 49:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:23

I wish, and I don't know for a fact, but I wish I wish I could go back and refuel and see how much of a difference that would have actually made.

SPEAKER_02 49:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:30

With good fuel. Yeah. And like properly timed as well. Properly timing is huge. And going back to that, so when I transitioning from high school to college, they they like they overreached here, meaning they took car bloating to the max. Okay. Like they heard the word carbon and they're like, yep, we're gonna go Olive Garden two minutes before kickoff, like Alfredo sauce, like go hard, garlic bread, eat as much as you want. Oh my goodness. And you buy into it because you're just a stupid kid. You don't like, you're just listening to your coaches again. As a coach, like, don't say stuff you're not a hundred percent confident in, right? Like telling your starting linebacker, like it's okay to eat two pounds of pasta before a game. And then I go out to warm-ups and I'm we're listening to the national anthem, and I'm like, damn, bro, I need a nap right now. I'm not even ready to play football. Right, you know, I'm yawning before the game even starts because now I'm parasympathetic, bro, because I just went hard, hard on some complex carbohydrates and a ton of fat. Super un you know. Yeah. That's so man.

SPEAKER_00 50:38

I'm sorry, man.

SPEAKER_01 50:39

Like I never had that experience, but uh it's so funny, man. Wow, misunderstanding, even at the second level when coaches aren't on the same page and there's no communication, you get things like that where people are deciding your pregame meals for you. And as an innocent player that doesn't know any better, you're just listening. You're like, oh, like one, I'm a broke college student, so I'm gonna eat whatever somebody throws in front of my face, and they're telling me, like, hey, this is good for you, carbload, carb load, carb load, and then you overdo it, and then you're tired before the game. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:10

So wow, that's so wild. That's so wild. I mean, like you said, they hear these things, right? Carb load, right? You hear these things, dude. Before a football game, it's like, I don't know about that. Like, yeah, you need electrolytes, you need carbs and everything like that. But like, man, you do not need to load 300 grams of carbohydrates right before kickoff or whatever. It's like, no, have some carbs during the the halftime and everything like that, refuel a little bit, right? And I think people have gotten better at that. I don't know about the high school level, but college level, it's gotten a little bit better. Yeah, from what I've seen.

SPEAKER_01 51:43

Obviously, the D1 level, high D1 level, they're well taken care of. Right. I was not fortunate enough to play at that level, right? But no, I I just the nutrition thing was one thing I wish I would have changed or just known more about.

unknown 51:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:59

I think I could have improved my performance that much better by by pre-planning my meals before games or at halftime or during quarters, just to make sure I'm staying fueled and uh my fuel storage is topped off. Like, for example, during games, high school and in college, I don't think I was drinking or eating anything that had sugar in it or any kind of carbohydrates. And college football games are long, bro. Like we're three hours probably.

SPEAKER_02 52:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:28

Like three hours over, maybe. Um, and I look back, I'm like, dang, man, if I would have just had like just a little bit of Gatorade between quarters, and I know Gatorade's a pretty popular like intra-workout thing, but at that time I just viewed it as some sugary drink that was putting body fat on me. Right. Nobody was telling me, yeah, nobody was telling me, like, dude, no, like drink this, drink this. I guess some good sodium, potassium, the things you need for actual like muscle contraction, right? So and that's my bad, right? I wish I would have self-educated myself a little bit more in terms of nutrition.

SPEAKER_00 52:58

But you don't know the things that you don't know.

SPEAKER_02 53:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:01

Right. If you if you don't know it, then how are you gonna learn it? If like like that sounds so simple, but if you have no idea, because you thought, oh, Gatorade, there's sugar in that, that's gonna make me, I don't know, fat, bloated, whatever, I don't know. Um, but if you don't know that, then you have no idea. You're just kind of in the dark about it until somebody turns you to the light and says, actually, this is really good for like intra workout and like, you know, replenishing some carbohydrates, sodium, things like that, especially when you sweat a lot.

SPEAKER_01 53:28

So the hardest thing for me was when I went from high school to junior college, I was told, homeboy, you're too small. I need you to eat as much as you can and eat whatever the hell you want. And I was right across the street from a McDonald's. So of course I listened, right? And I was super pumped to be 220 pounds, 230 pounds, but it was all fat mass. None of it was some of it was muscle mass, right? But I was pretty chunky, dude. Wow. Um, played fine, like played at all American level, right? But felt sloppy as hell. And then I go to my not, and the first day they're like, you know, they they bur you up before they get you on campus, you know. You sign your scholarship papers, and then day one, they're like, all right, fat ass, like time to lose some weight. And it's like, bro, I just got told I was too skinny, like, and I need to put on this weight. And now I'm like, they're like, dude, you're like 30 pounds overweight. We need you to lose it. Wow. And so I think I showed up to mine, I was like 240, like the heaviest I've ever been. Like I was a chunk, dude. Like, makes me sick thinking about it. And yeah, they they brought me down to like 200 pounds. And they're like, dude, we don't care if you play linebacker 200 pounds, we're just gonna put you on the edge anyways. And so I played like I was an animal, dude. Like I had never been that light and strong and fast my entire life and just felt so much better. Yeah, which I just think is the funny the transition, right? But it's like, oh, you're too fat, oh, you're too skinny, this, that, and the other. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:56

I bet that's a hard, hard thing to deal with as a somewhat young athlete and then going to college and then just trying to, well, now, now you can't eat as much, right? So I'm sure that that instilled some pretty bad eating habits, to be honest with you, right? Like, just because you've been told, eat, eat, eat, you need to be bigger, need to be bigger for college, blah, blah, blah. And then all of a sudden you're like, okay, I'm big. Yeah. You're like getting told by these coaches, no, no, we need you slender, we need you quick, like whatever. Yeah. I think that's crazy. And that's really hard. Um, so shout out to all the athletes because I hear that all the time that they get really big in the offseason, like what coaches want, and then they show up to to camp the first day and it's like, okay, we gotta cut down. And it's like, well, what did you spend all that time eating for? Right. So I hear that a lot from from my athletes here too. So um try to have that healthy relationship with food, but it's hard when people are telling you what to do. That's so true.

SPEAKER_01 55:48

So no, I wanted to bring it back to just the general population, recreational athletes. It's still important to eat for performance. You see a lot of restriction due to the desire to look better naked, basically. Um, which there's nothing wrong with that. But when we start talking about um performance in terms of like, let's say you want to go do a high rocks race or cycling race, or you just want to have the energy to keep up with your kids. I think this restrictive idea of I can't eat that is almost worse for you than better.

SPEAKER_03 56:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:22

And again, trying to stay within scope of practice, I'm just basing this off of my own experience. I just know when I'm fueling my body with things that make me feel better and give me the energy to perform, the aesthetics usually follow. I usually get what I want, anyways. Maybe I could lose a couple more percentage of you know, one or two percent of body fat, but what is that costing me? What's the what's the time cost of that? A couple more hours in the gym, eating less. I don't get to go on a date night, I have to sit and watch everybody else eat popcorn and ice cream at the movies while I'm just sitting there miserable and not enjoying myself. Right. That doesn't seem very fun to me. But so that to each their own.

SPEAKER_00 57:03

Yeah, that ties in truly. I wasn't even like ready for this transition or anything, but my next point actually talks about this. Um because you're right, like there's there's a balance, right? And I'm not trying to sound like a broken record because I'm sure we've talked about this already. Um but truly I am I'm with you on that because so much with the performance and being an athlete, I mean, you think that you have to dedicate your your whole life to it, right? What you eat, what you uh train like, um, the amount of hours you should be putting in the gym, stuff like that. So my last point actually, and I have a couple more, but this one is like the one that really stood out to me is having a healthy relationship with the gym, which I truly wish someone would have talked to me about it before I even started working out in the gym, doing stuff on my own. Once again, I was just learning as I went, right? Like just showing up to the gym, being consistent, whatever. But I wrote a little blip here. So lifting is one of my favorite things in the world, and I could spend hours and hours in the gym every day, like no issue. I love it, right? But when I was younger, I traded time with friends and family to spend more hours at the gym doing pointless things, right? Like I was putting in the effort, but like what you said earlier, that effort was just misplaced. So I sacrificed a lot of my own time and it was selfish, but I loved the gym. I cared about my health, I loved being strong. And I was like, well, I got to do this to be a better football player and I got to do this to, I don't know, perform better in whatever aspect of life. Um, but I will forever encourage every patient or client um to have a healthy balance of exercise and life, just like what you brought up with nutrition, where it's like, dude, go enjoy a dessert with your significant other, right? Like have a little bit of grace for yourself. It's not gonna kill you. It's not gonna put on five pounds of like body fat just having one bad meal or one cheat day, whatever. Like, have some grace. So mine truly is. I wish before I started, people talked to me about having a healthy balance because it caused a lot of issues in personal relationships, family. Um basically because I was spending hours at the gym, hours and hours, and it got worse when I started competing in powerlifting. I was at the gym three or four hours a night. So it's like it was it was a lot. Um not a bad thing. I loved it. It got me where I am today. But it is a hard thing to like look back on that time and be like, wow, I actually skipped some high school parties because I was at the gym, right? And it's not like I'm a party animal or or that I cared about that truly. It's just like crazy that I was in this headspace that I would rather be alone at the gym lifting because I was so worried about my performance in like football, um, than being like with my friends for a Friday night. Like that's crazy to me, especially now being an adult and looking back on that. So um anyone listening, if you're young, please like just try to have a decent balance, right? It is it is so important. It will actually take you further in life with building connections, having strong friendships, um, healthy family life, all of that stuff, rather than spending hours and hours and hours in the gym. Um, props to you for spending any amount of time in the gym and being dedicated to your craft, but it comes at a cost. You have to you have to weigh those things out. So that that was my biggest point for this whole conversation, truly.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:47

I love that. And I didn't even notice that you had that written down. But that is me to a T. High school, college, even after college, even now. Yep. You can't really get that time back. You can't. And when you look back at the time missed, it kind of makes you sad. And the last thing you're thinking about is how good you looked or how well you performed during that time. Yeah. I don't remember. I don't remember. I remember the the parties or the get-togethers or the date nights or whatever that I missed out on because I had to go work out. I didn't have to go work out. Yeah. Um, I wrote this down when you were talking. We discussed earlier about getting mentor mentor mentorship, getting help uh through like a psychologist, right? So I go to a therapist, um, and this is something that we unpacked a while ago, right? Um, but I used to tie my value as a person to my performance and how I looked. So it wasn't just I have to go to the gym. I like it was a need. It was like I no one's gonna love me if I don't perform well in sports. No one's gonna love me if I don't look good. If I don't have anything to provide superficially for somebody, I'm I'm not enough. So I was doing things because I was scared to not be enough. I wasn't doing any of that for myself. Wow. Like it was selfish, but it was it was so fear-based. That's so crazy. So when I go back to going to the gym or extra time on the football field or skipping out on date nights, or missing, you know, not enjoying Christmas dinner or Thanksgiving because I'm just trying to get more ripped. I just wanted to be accepted for superficial things. And it's so sad looking back at it. Whereas now I base a lot, I base my value on my purpose and how I treat other people and my relationships and how healthy those are. And now it's so much easier to make those decisions when it's you know, I had a workout plan, but Haley's like, like, or we could just sit here and watch Netflix and be lazy for the night. Obviously, I'm not gonna do that all the time, right? And she's not lazy either, but when she asked for that, like I value that so much, and I can toss those superficial, you know, values aside. Yeah, so that's just I mean, I had to go a little bit deep there, but that's just what came up for me when you brought that up. It's because it was almost uh, I was almost tied to the gym in a super, super unhealthy way. Had nothing to do with being a better football player, had nothing to do with anything positive. It was, I was just scared that I wasn't gonna be enough unless I did it.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:41

Yeah. So I'll tell you that, yeah, and this this is sad. I'm not gonna lie to you. Like looking back on this, like both of us right now, like, man, um the things that I did in high school, yeah, I can't get that time back, right? But I chose where I wanted to spend my time and I thought that that was important right now. And looking back, I'm like, man, I remember my friends calling me and I was in the gym, like in the middle of a set, and I would be pissed at them for calling me. And they're just trying to get me to hang out, come out and have fun, like, hey, let's go do this, whatever. And I'd be like, Are you kidding me right now? I'm in the middle of a workout, right? And I would actually get like pissed at them. But like looking back, I realize how selfish that is. And um I I love training, I love the gym and everything like that. But man, that balance is so, so important. And I I've worked on a lot, I've worked a lot on that recently. Um, because it got pretty bad with powerlifting too. So I was the same way where if I wasn't strong, like who am I? Like, and that's a crazy thing to say, but my whole life, people are always like, Oh, come get the strong kid over here to lift that, right? Or hey, will you come pick this up? You look strong, right? Like, and I tied that to my personality. And if I wasn't strong, then I'm like, well, who am I? It was a super weird time. So kind of pulling back off of powerlifting was actually really helpful for that because it made me realize, like, I can still be strong, I can still look good, I can still enjoy the gym, but I don't need to be the biggest, strongest dude everywhere I go. There's a lot stronger people than me out in the world. Even if I tried five hours in the gym every day, all day, trained powerlifting, it's like there's still gonna be people stronger than me. And like that was a realization I had to come to where it was like, what do I value? You know what I mean? Like who who really am I, even outside of powerlifting or outside the gym? Because that's what's important, truly, because the gym is part of my life, but that's not who I am. So yeah, very unhealthy relationship can start to develop when you are chasing, like, no, this is me, this is who I am. It's like, wow, that I was wrong about that for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:52

Yeah, it's almost like an identity crisis. Like it sucks because the grit and hard work for For both of us, it is part of our personality. We can't escape that. We enjoy the hard work, we enjoy the suck. It's almost like a sick form of like fun. Like we like putting ourselves through hard things. And I think it's healthy. You just have to find the balance for it, right?

unknown 1:06:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:17

But it is hard to transition and start asking yourself the questions like, why did I start this in the first place? Was this all superficial, or was this actually because I enjoyed it and it filled my cup? It kind of throws you through a loop a little bit. It does. And I think both of us now are in really great head spaces when it comes to the gym, is like I'm only in here for me. It is absolutely for nobody else. Right. Like it makes me feel good. I feel better coming here. I feel better when I leave. Yeah, there's benefits to my health. Like, sure, there's some aesthetic goals. I'm sure Haley loves the fact that I'm in the gym and working hard, but I don't really care about that.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:54

Like it is truly for me and it feels so good, almost liberating that way, where it used to be completely opposite.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:03

And like I go back and with how hard I was on myself with sports, how hard I am on myself with school and with work, I think it hurt so much and it was so hard to let go because it was a reflection of who I was. So if I failed at a football game, or I failed on a test, or I failed like with how I wanted to look, it was like I was the failure because I was tying my worth as a person to all of these superficial values. Yeah. I didn't care how nice I was, I didn't care about how my relationships were. It was like, oh no, I played like crap on Saturday, so I'm a piece of crap. And I'm I'm worthless. It was a huge hit on my like on me. And it was so unhealthy where a lot of people I are better at me in that way is like, oh, it's just a bad game. I'm still a good person. I can still be happy. I can still go out this weekend and have fun with my friends and family. Not me, dude. I wasn't, I wasn't, I didn't deserve to go have fun with my friends or family after a football game on Saturday because I played like trash. Oh my gosh. So yeah, we don't need to go. It kills me. No, it's it kills me.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:11

It really is. Um and I think a lot of high performing athletes are this way that they they tie their own personality and their identity to how they perform. Because that's what it turned into with me in powerlifting. So I get it, I really do. And it's it sucks. It's a hard place to be, especially trying to pull yourself away from that too. Cause then you're like, whoa, who am I? Like, what am I doing? So um, yeah. I yeah, we don't have to get any deeper, but man, it's uh it's quite the conversation. So I that's why I'm excited to have like mental health specialists on here because they're probably gonna come in here and be like, oh my gosh, these guys need some help. Yeah. Oh man. Oh, that's hilarious. But no, I think that's that's great. Um, man, I don't think I have anything else on that topic, at least. I don't know if you're missing anything, but no, I think I'm good.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:02

I I love ending on that. Okay. I hope us talking about this. I I we probably make fun of ourselves a lot, and I don't know who's listening to this, but I I find it important to be vulnerable like we are being, because I don't think it's talked about enough. We we've done it a couple times, and I do it with Royce. There are very few places that I feel like people open up and actually talk about their worth or their value or their purpose the way that you and I have, and similar to what we talked about today, yeah. Um, I would just suggest that you don't be shy and talk about those things. It doesn't have to be with a mental health professional, it can just be with your with your homies, but uh not to go too deep and emotional, but yeah, like you you are way more like your worth isn't determined by like how much weight you lift or how good you look, or how much money you make, or how much money you make or how well you perform. Yeah, find your purpose, let that drive you, have good relationships, surround yourself with uplifting people, be a good person. Yep, you know, you deserve to be happy. Yeah, even if you have a crappy day in the gym or a bad football game or or whatever, yes, you're still a great person, you enjoy to be happy, irregardless.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:15

So I love it. Um, last thing I'll say, and then we can end it. Um, starting next week, um, Monday nights. So um, I think you'll probably relate to this. I think I'm I'm really excited for it. Um Monday nights, 7:30 to 9.30 p.m. completely free lifting for any man that wants to come in and lift. So it's men's mental health awareness lifting club. So um, like I said, starting next week, I don't know if five people will show up or zero people or ten. I don't know, but I don't care because I'll be here anyways working out. But I'm inviting anyone, um, whether they're listening to this or they see it on the Physio Shop Instagram, that it is completely free. You show up, we're gonna have loud music, we're gonna lift, you can join me in on my programming and stuff like that. Like I'll make sure that you're safe and not gonna be hurting yourself, just jumping in with random workouts, of course. But you can be guided a little bit, or if you want to come in and do your own thing, fine by me. That's great. So, um, because this stuff is really important to me, um, and mental health is important. So, anyway, wanted to end with that every Monday night, 7 30 to 9 30 p.m., completely free. So stop into the physio shop. But that's it for me. That's it for me. Cool. All right, adios, everyone. See you next Monday.