Ep. 6 - It's Always Different When it's You

I spent years believing a lie that cost me time I'll never get back.

This episode is about that lie. And if you're a coach or clinician, especially one who's dealing with pain, injury, or a body that isn't cooperating, it's probably costing you too.

Dan is one of the smartest strength coaches I know. When he herniated a disc that debilitated him and wouldn't get better, knowing stuff wasn't enough.

Later, once we helped him recover, he told me what made the difference:

You can't be objective with yourself when it's your body, your pain, your livelihood or your identity in jeopardy. You need someone else to do that for you.

It's always different when it's you.

We get into this work because we care. We spend years learning how to help people through exactly this kind of thing. So when it happens to us, the conclusion feels logical: I should be able to handle this myself.

Nah, bruh.

If you listen to this episode and wonder "Will I ever start feeling better?" then this is your neon, flashing sign to do something about it.

I'm here. Reach out and let's party

Links:

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Wanna be more confident working with athletes in your practice? Get a free copy of the Confident Sports Clinician's Checklist: https://unbreakablestrength.kit.com/35c376acac

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

My name is Jared Maynard. I'm a physical therapist, strength coach, and in 2023 I was lying in an ICU bed on a ventilator with a 50-50 chance of making it out alive. I made it out. And what I learned on the other side of that changed everything about how I live, how I coach, and what I believe is possible for the people who keep showing up. This show is for the coaches and clinicians, the people who give their all to everybody else and don't have much left over for themselves. On this show we talk about training and rehab, as well as mental health, identity, and what it costs to be the kind of person who keeps showing up when the gun gets tough. This show is meant to be your companion on the gun. So come along. This is Unbreakable. Welcome back to episode six of Unbreakable with yours truly, Jared Maynard. Just me holding it down solo on the mic in my bald, bearded glory. I have one goal today. This might be a short, quick hitter. Here's my goal by the end of it. I want to free you of the lie that I know that I believed early in my career that cost me time that I'll never get back. Before I do that, I have a question. Why did you get into this profession? Now I'm especially talking to you if you are a clinician, especially an MSK or rehab clinician, or if you are a coach of any kind, strength coach, personal trainer. But this can hit home even if you're not those things. I became a physical therapist because I couldn't hack it as a doctor. I say that it's it's mostly true. I don't know if I could hack it or not, but in high school, I knew that I wanted to work with people in healthcare. I wanted to work with people and not be in an office by myself. Uh and medicine was very appealing, right? I liked learning about the human body. I really loved science. So doctors seemed like the natural course. And then I started to understand how much schooling and time was actually required to become a doctor. And I started thinking, I don't know if I like it that much. So the alternative paths included physical therapists or chiropractic, actually. The third option was being a high school teacher, mostly because I had a handful of high school teachers that changed my life. I'll talk more about them and why they changed my life very likely in future episodes. But why did you, listener, uh choose to get into this profession? Was it similar to my reasons? Was it because you had an experience with a physical therapist or a doctor or a chiropractor or a coach that changed your life for the better? My guess is that whatever the details were or are, you got into this field because you care about people. You want to help people. I haven't met anybody who got into this field as a rehab provider, especially, or a strength and conditioning coach or personal trainer to get rich quick. Because if that is the goal, you chose wrong. The people that I know, by and large, got into this because they give a damn and they want to help people. And you have to, by nature of the demands of the job, go through quite a bit of schooling/slash training to even qualify. You have to go through years of school, undergrad, graduate degrees, maybe more. And then there's postgrad training. There's ongoing continuing education that you need to maintain your licenses and your certifications. There's a lot of effort and time that goes into it. So you are learned. You know these things so that you can go out into the field and help people get stronger, overcome injury, get back to their lives, have hope again. Here's where the lie starts to creep in, though. It's insidious. And most of us don't see it coming until we're really neck deep and it's trap. Because since we care, since we have put so much time and effort into learning our craft, learning best evidence and best practices to help people, spending our time on the gym floor in the clinic, doing the things, when we get hurt or we have a problem, the logical conclusion that we reach is that we should be able to fix this ourselves because we have the knowledge, and this is within our purview because we do this every day. Perfectly logical conclusion. It also happens to be totally wrong. How do I know this? Firsthand experience on both sides of the ball, so to speak. I'm going to tell you about Dan first. Dan is one of the smartest strength coaches I've ever met. Um, he's also handsome as a son of a gun. That's beside the point, but I had to sneak that in there. Because if you ever, if you ever meet Dan, you will agree there is no other opinion that is valid. He is a handsome dude. Dan, if you're listening to this, shout out, dude. Um has a sterling reputation, both in his community and far and wide, from his clients and the people who know him for a really good reason. He gets results. He cares about his people. He is the one who helps them train through some pretty extenuating injuries and like medical circumstances and life circumstances. I've had the pleasure of speaking to a couple of his clients who came to follow me after uh, in particular, a podcast episode that I did, the host of which is one of Dan's clients, who has a remarkable story all on his own. And it just goes to show that Dan is the guy that you go to if you want results and you want to get stronger and do it for the long haul. So he's got all the accolades, just like you do. And then he herniated a disc in his back. It was debilitating, man. It dominated his day. And I remember when he reached out, because Dan and I have been friends for a long time. We actually met at a personal training certification course back in 2012, I want to say. Uh, it was great because Dan was trying a particular supplement that made him have to use the washroom a bunch. Because if you know about bodybuildingslash performance supplements, well, one, hopefully you know about them back in like the early to mid-2000s, because that was the wild west of supplements, bro. Kids today will never understand. Anyway, uh, that's just one anecdote that comes to mind from when Dan and I met. But he reached out and he was not in a good way. He was dealing with this back pain. It was dominating his day as he sat at his computer, as he tried to go through his sessions for his in-person clients. And Dan is someone who is fully present with you. In my opinion, of the guy, when you're with him and he has or you have his attention, you feel like the only dude in the world or doet, right? You're the only person that matters for that point in time, which is amazing. You can't maintain that presence when you are in significant pain consistently, and when you're scared of whether your back is going to hurt all the more, or the pain is going to radiate when you move like this, or if you can you even demonstrate that exercise? Is any of that hitting home? Because if you've been injured, you've probably thought these thoughts. You've probably had to navigate this uncertainty through the day. Dan absolutely did. And he had tried to navigate it himself. There's a little asterisk at the end there, because he he's also somebody who, to his credit, he's not prideful. He will ask for help when he feels like he needs it. Uh, but with the help that he got from another physiotherapist and from some other folks, and then his own efforts, it wasn't really budging the pain. And it wasn't because he didn't know enough. Remember, I started the story by saying he is one of the most knowledgeable strength coaches and personal trainers that I know. The reason why I can confidently tell you is it's not a knowledge issue, is because he has the evidence in spades. He helps people, including dealing with back pain and disc herniations on the regular. He knows the place. So why didn't it work here? He told me why it didn't work, actually, as it so happens. Later, he told me that what he needed and what was previously missing was the objective perspective that you can't really give yourself when you're the one in the midst of the battle. When it's your body, when it's your pain. And really, if we peel back the layers, the onions, onion layers, just like Shrek and Ogres, uh, it's identity. Because, I mean, check this with me. You care, and what gets you up out of bed in the morning and gets you to go to the hospital to work, or go to the clinic to work, or go to the gym to work, or the studio is that you care. You have an identity and a reputation that you are building and maintaining of somebody who knows the things, somebody who cares about your people, somebody who walks the walk or cares about walking the walk, and through words and actions, making sure other people have better quality of life through training, through improving their health, all of that. Any of that sound accurate for you? If it does, and you can't suddenly do that because of pain or because of some other circumstance, that is not just a physical affront to you. That's an identity-level insult or injury. Because now who am I? If I can't train, if I can't move, if I'm scared to move, what does that mean for me? What does that mean for my patients or my clients? What does that mean for my family, especially if you're self-employed? If these are hidden for you, I just need you to know that you're not alone. Because Dan felt all of these. As did I. In 2015, just after graduating PT school, I strained my hamstring on a deadlift in the gym. It wasn't even a particularly heavy deadlift. That one deadlift has caused me grief for years. I thought, after the initial panic in the gym, when I dropped the bar and did a quick assessment on myself to see how bad is this, is this swelling, is there bruising, what movements aggravate it. When I got a baseline, I realized or I believed that okay, I know what I have to do because I am a newly minted physical therapist, and as such, I will conduct my own rehab. I don't know why that accent emerged, but we're going with it. So what I did was used all the tools and knowledge that I had, which I will say was not wrong. The issue that emerged was that I would improve in terms of symptoms, but as I went back to train, as I tried to return to training as quote unquote normal, the symptoms would flare up. And I spent a year in this place of stuckness. And at the end of that year, I really was not any better than I was after the initial pain started to settle to baseline. I still had the variability where as I walked to the gym, I didn't know whether it was going to be a good day or a bad day. I couldn't trust my body. That lack of safety really screwed with my head. I couldn't train or lift as heavy or with as much volume as I wanted to. So I felt like I was falling behind and I was losing progress while everybody else was making it. And this is early into my focus on powerlifting, where I wanted to compete. So then that desire to step on the platform, which was already being gatekeeped by my belief that I needed to be strong enough to compete, seemed all the further away because now I couldn't train to get stronger the way I wanted to. Even with my coach at the time, my powerlifting coach at the time. He did his best, credit to him, where it's due. And we still had the same issue. And the most distressing part was the thing I didn't really say out loud, but it was that I felt like a total fraud. Because not only was I a new grad, not only was I freshly gaining experience out of school working with people and navigating the nihilistic valley, which comes from thinking that I knew a lot and I was hot shit coming out of PT school. And then finding out that based on the research, oh, maybe the mechanisms of manual therapy aren't so straightforward. Maybe pain is not so neat and tidy. That was a whole lot to navigate. Plus the pressures of having real people coming in to see me every day of the week at the clinic, expecting me to have the answers. And now I did not feel strong. I did not feel safe. I was frustrated because it wasn't through a lack of caring. Um, and yet I was still no further. I was still not where I wanted to be. I actually want to change one element here or update one thing I'm saying. Earlier I said that for Dan, and maybe for you, if any of this is hitting home, whether you're dealing with an injury or you've got some other circumstance that are that's keeping you held back, I said it's not a knowledge problem. I will stand by that 85% of the time if I'm pulling a stat out of the air. For me and my hamstring, at the beginning, there was an element of needing to learn how to better navigate those situations. And by those situations, I mean a hamstring strain or an injury for a lifter, and how to use training itself as the vehicle for rehab. As I experienced that by working with Dr. Quinn Henneck, the co-founder of Clinical Athlete, a good friend of mine. That first consult appointment, that single session, it's about an hour, hour 15, changed my life, changed the trajectory of my life as a clinician and coach. And certainly the rest of the experience that followed changed it. It's why I do what I do now and work entirely digitally with people. So I will acknowledge, certainly, that sometimes there is an element of you don't know what you don't know, and you need to learn because your tools are great. And what about having other tools? I almost cringe saying it, other tools to put in your toolbox. Because we hear that a lot in the rehab world, right? There's some merit to it. But I'll also say this. If you've been practicing for more than a couple of years, and more importantly, if you have a track record of the people who come to see you wherever you work, typically getting better, getting closer to their goals, having less pain, having more function, having more freedom, returning back to their lives either fully or in large part how they want to. You probably don't have a knowledge problem. Or at least knowledge is not necessarily your biggest rate limiter. I would argue that your biggest rate limiter is the same one that I had and that Dan had. And that is that it is always different when it's you. You can't be objective with yourself. When you are working with a patient and they're dealing with even the same exact injury or pain or problem as you are, you have the ability to be higher up. You can take the 10,000-foot view, you can hear what they're saying, you can see the patterns in speech, in actions, in timelines, you can start to form a hypothesis. Most importantly, I think you can stay emotionally grounded. Because it's not you. You clearly care. Like that's how I open this conversation. That's a given. Let's also be real. Whatever happens to that patient, it will have an effect on you because you care. Because you are not a cold callus machine. T100, T1000, sorry, uh, from Terminator. But it also won't have massive bearing on your life. Probably. Right? That's not true when it's you. That's not true when your whole day is marked by pain and fear of the pain and wrestling with who you are. And can you actually hold it down for your family? Can you work the way you need to? Can you pick up your kids? Can you be present and fun? Can you be you? It is again an attack, an assault on your identity. Which hurts all the worse because you are telling yourself, probably, that you should know better. You know all this stuff, and you help other people do this, so why the hell can't you do it for yourself? What an imposter. What right do you have to rehab or guide other people or train them? You can't even do it for yourself. That's how I was thinking. Again, it seems logical. From an emotional standpoint, it makes a shit ton of sense. It's also wrong. And it will keep you stuck. It will make you burn time like I did. And you will never get that time back. One of my strengths as a coach and clinician is that I have done a lot of the stupid shit. And I want to save you and others from doing the same. So, in service of that, especially if this is hitting home on any level, here's what I would suggest to you. How can you break out of this place where you feel stuck, you're not making progress, you are hurting physically and also mentally and emotionally because of the identity attack, because it's not a lack of caring. It's probably not a lack of knowledge, although that can factor in to some degree. Again, I would still argue it's probably not your biggest gatekeeper. There are three or four things I'd suggest to you and offer here. And these things I was not open to immediately. I wish I had been, because Would have saved me a lot of time and a lot of grief. But if I couldn't do it, maybe you can. So there's still that silver lining. When I did come around to accepting these, they changed my life. Without a word of a lie. Number one is you have to stop blaming yourself. You have to let go of the guilt and shame that's there. It's the inner dialogue of why can't I do this myself? I should be able to. Let me make more progress first before I open, I go ask for help. It's it really does come down to guilt, shame, a lot of I should type statements. If you notice those, it's probably part of the picture for you. And I'm here to tell you that this is not your fault. I mean, sure, if you did something stupid, I mean, I I kind of did with the deadlift. It wasn't that bad. The technique wasn't great. Again, lots of things I recognize in hindsight that I would have done differently. But regardless, you probably didn't try to hurt yourself. You probably didn't try to have this illness or injury come up. Alright? It's not your fault. It is, however, your responsibility to decide what happens next. Because nobody can do that for you. The client's waiting for you tomorrow or on Monday. They need you. Your family. Your spouse or your partner. I know you care about them. They know you care about them. You and they deserve to have the version of you back or the next version of you that can show up as well as possible. And life is hard enough as it is. Don't make it harder by piling on the blame and the narratives that keep you stuck and burn more time than have already has already been lost. I needed somebody to tell me that. So I'm offering it here. Because maybe it'll help you. The second step that you need to take is stop trying to do it all your damn self. Perfectionist. High achiever. I'm talking to myself as well as you, because that's another trend. Most of us who get into the healthcare and rehab spaces, we are type A personalities. We have to be high achievers because by nature of graduate programs for PT and Cairo, by the nature of the competitive, the competitive nature of the industry in personal training and coaching, you gotta be at the top of the of your game. That can be a double-edged sword. Because in cases like this, if any of what we're talking about resonates, then you are probably in a spot where you have tried to outwork the problem or tried to work and apply effort to the point where you are free and it's not working. You want to talk about another identity crisis for an overachiever, someone who lives and dies by their own effort? There you go. I encourage you to put down the belief that you need to do it all yourself and allow yourself to accept the same kind of help that you offer to everybody else every day. If you want examples, if you're in the power lifting powerlifting space like I am, the best power lifters in the world who also coach others have their own coaches. Why? Because it's always different when it's you. You can look in almost any sector, any industry, people who are at the top of their game, people who are crushing it, people who succeed, they go and receive coaching. They receive help from others to help solve problems because one, it's always different when it's you. And sometimes, sometimes there is a knowledge gap and you don't know what you don't know. But others who have been through it, who have screwed up and made the mistakes, they do have that knowledge. And they can guide you forward, or they can at least help steer you around the potholes that they hit. I'd say the third thing is changing the metrics that you're measuring. We want to track weight lifted. We want to have pain-free days. We want to see our PRs and our total volume go up or our total mileage go up when you're dealing with an injury, when you're in a place where you are trying to get steady, trying to get back to a place where you feel okay, and then when you feel strong, you're not going to be able to track those metrics and feel happy. Because again, high achiever, perfectionists over here. So when you're when your loads, when the weights on the bar are at 60% of what you usually use, it doesn't feel good. I'm not saying don't track the weight on the bar. I'm not saying don't track your mileage. I'm not saying don't track or be mindful of your pain levels. I would actually argue you probably need to be. But track metrics like, did I show up this week? If you're like me, you hear that a lot, and you're like, what does even what does show up even mean? It means if you had four workouts planned, did you hit all four? Or at least three? Were you physically in the gym? Or were you physically out on the run? Even if you didn't finish them exactly as written, did you at least do two or three of those exercises? On the days where you feel crappy and you really don't want to show up, and believe me, I still have my fair share, probably more than my fair share. Did you not count yourself out? And did you show up, start warming up, and not pre-decide that this is going to be a shitty day? But rather give yourself the chance to do what you have or to do what you can and give what you have. And did you also make realistic decisions? If your pain shot up or your fatigue skyrocketed, did you decide to stop or move on? Those should be counted as wins. The more ways that you have to track and see progress, to derive some level of knowledge that you are doing the things, the better. And you need more options when the ones you usually lean on aren't available to you, at least not in the same way. The fourth one is giving yourself fewer decisions to make. By the nature of the job that you do, and even if you're not a coach or clinician, if you care for people, if you're a parent, if you've got other people in your life that you're taking care of, decision fatigue and compassion fatigue are real documented phenomena. They deplete your resources and your energy. When you are exhausted, when you are building your business and you're going through a slow month, relatable, uh, there's less in the tank. When your kids need you and you have an unexpectedly difficult night because your kid's sick or not sleeping, or because there's an emotional situation you got to deal with or a crisis, there's less in the tank that's left for you. If you are trying to figure out what do I need to change about my training and rehab program, how do I need to modify it today and in this exercise and for this particular set and rep. And especially if you're figuring it out on the fly without any previously established plan. And let's be real. You and I are both knowledgeable enough to be dangerous. We're knowledgeable enough to rationalize why that one hurts, or I don't think I want to do that. I'm going to do this thing instead. And this thing is probably not what you need to be doing. What you need to be doing is stay consistent with the movements, the challenges, the loads, the dosages that create the adaptations you really need. And that stuff is hard, dude. It's especially hard if you are making it up as you go, which let's be real, you probably are. And if you are, I again need you to not blame yourself or feel guilty or ashamed of this. You are not alone. This is not, however, the path that's going to serve you. This is something that you do get to change. And I would say is your responsibility to change if for yourself you want to be in a better place, and certainly if you want to be in a better place to serve the people around you. Those four things again are one, release yourself of the lie that you need to do it all yourself. Stop guilting and shaming yourself for not being there. Two, stop trying to do it all by yourself and allow yourself to receive the same help you give to everybody else. Three, reduce the number of things that you need to make decisions on. Actually, that was number four. Number three was change the metrics that you measure success by. When Dan and I worked together, we applied all of those. And it was not a quick and easy process. However, he is now back to lifting how he wants, playing golf, being fully present for his clients and for his family. For me, my hamstring is still something that I manage. The reason I'm talking about this now is because I had several days in the last couple of weeks where I, myself, yes, the guy who's banging on about, oh, you know, it's always different when it's you, and stop guilting yourself. I was in my head, like, holy shit, dude, is this ever going to get better? I can't believe I'm here again. Will I feel strong again? These thoughts keep coming, which is why I'm firmly rooted in the belief that it is always different when it's you. And when I opened myself up to that help, back working with Quinn, still working with my coach John, that allowed me to find a version of myself that felt strong and safe again. Which in turn bought me time in the ICU. And it allowed me to give my family back the strong husband and father that they had lost, and that I had lost too. When you open yourself up to receiving help, I'm willing to say and to bet that your life will change for the better, too. And so will the lives of everybody around you that you care about. If any of this hit home. You are who we help. If you're looking for help, if you want help getting out of this place of stuckness, links are in the show notes. Reach out. I'll be honest about if Unbreakable Strength can help you. And if I'm not, or we're not the people for you, I happen to know some really amazing folks who are pretty great. And I'd be happy to point you in their direction or the direction of any resources that are a better fit for you. My friend, keep going. Every day won't be easy. Every day won't be fun. But all you need to do is take one step at a time. You're in this for the right reasons. And I believe that you are not done yet. Thanks so much for listening to another episode of Unbreakable with me, your host, Jared Maynard. If you found what we talked about today to be useful, if it served you, please consider leaving a five-star review wherever you get your podcasts. Hit that follow or subscribe button to keep up with the show. And if you are a coach or clinician, if you're running on MT, you're giving everything to everybody else, you are exactly who I built Unbreakable Strength to serve. The link to Book A Call with Me is in the show notes. I'd love to hear where you are and see how we can help you get where you want to go. Go check that link out in the show notes, as well as the links to a few other goodies. You can follow me on socials. And until next time, my friend, you're not done yet.