Are the rigorous demands of youth sports pushing our kids too hard? That's the pressing question Mike Bruno and I tackle head-on in our latest GFY podcast episode. We peel back the layers of youth athletics, starting with a deep-dive into the world of a high school swimmer whose story exemplifies the need for a diverse training regimen. We ponder the pitfalls of early sports specialization, advocating for a variety of exercise to keep our young athletes injury-free and at the top of their game. And let's not forget the lighter side of sports – hear why pickleball might just be the unexpected hero in the high-stakes world of competitive athletics.
The conversation takes a poignant turn as we confront the intense pressures that can lead to a mental health crisis, exemplified by the tragic story of a young athlete's struggle. We share personal anecdotes and professional insights to spark a candid discussion on the place of recovery and identity in the lives of these young competitors. As we navigate the moral quagmires of chiropractic practice and the divisive 'pay to play' model, we uncover the commercialized face of recovery that often overshadows the true spirit of athletic well-being.
Wrapping up, we grapple with the conundrum faced by athletes who must balance pushing their limits with the preservation of their health, illustrated by a bodybuilder's shoulder injury dilemma. We scrutinize the mental and physical trade-offs inherent in high-level sports, leaving listeners with a nuanced understanding of the athlete's journey. Finally, we reflect on the unexpected life lessons sports can teach us, ending on a note of personal growth and the power of self-discovery. So, gear up for an episode that tosses the playbook aside and gets real about the challenges and triumphs in the world of youth sports.
Find us on the Following!
Instagram: @gfy.podcast
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2B84NqR6XqtXWKFB0M21lA?si=00506e8ff1b34b95
Website: https://thegfypodcast.buzzsprout.com
Available on all podcast streaming sights!
Are the rigorous demands of youth sports pushing our kids too hard? That's the pressing question Mike Bruno and I tackle head-on in our latest GFY podcast episode. We peel back the layers of youth athletics, starting with a deep-dive into the world of a high school swimmer whose story exemplifies the need for a diverse training regimen. We ponder the pitfalls of early sports specialization, advocating for a variety of exercise to keep our young athletes injury-free and at the top of their game. And let's not forget the lighter side of sports – hear why pickleball might just be the unexpected hero in the high-stakes world of competitive athletics.
The conversation takes a poignant turn as we confront the intense pressures that can lead to a mental health crisis, exemplified by the tragic story of a young athlete's struggle. We share personal anecdotes and professional insights to spark a candid discussion on the place of recovery and identity in the lives of these young competitors. As we navigate the moral quagmires of chiropractic practice and the divisive 'pay to play' model, we uncover the commercialized face of recovery that often overshadows the true spirit of athletic well-being.
Wrapping up, we grapple with the conundrum faced by athletes who must balance pushing their limits with the preservation of their health, illustrated by a bodybuilder's shoulder injury dilemma. We scrutinize the mental and physical trade-offs inherent in high-level sports, leaving listeners with a nuanced understanding of the athlete's journey. Finally, we reflect on the unexpected life lessons sports can teach us, ending on a note of personal growth and the power of self-discovery. So, gear up for an episode that tosses the playbook aside and gets real about the challenges and triumphs in the world of youth sports.
Find us on the Following!
Instagram: @gfy.podcast
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2B84NqR6XqtXWKFB0M21lA?si=00506e8ff1b34b95
Website: https://thegfypodcast.buzzsprout.com
Available on all podcast streaming sights!
Welcome to the GFY podcast, a podcast by healthcare professionals providing insight on how to navigate your health so that you can go fix yourself. The GFY podcast is hosted by Mike Bruno, a chiropractor and athletic trainer. Yours truly, michael Stant, an athletic trainer and certified strength and conditioning specialist. Although we are healthcare providers, we are not your healthcare provider. We will discuss general health interventions in this podcast, but you should not take that as health advice that works in every situation. Before doing anything on your own or making any lifestyle changes, please consult with your own physician. This podcast and views from this podcast are separate from our full-time jobs and are our completely own opinions. Today, we will be discussing volume and youth athletics. Bruno has questions to ask me volume in youth athletics.
Speaker 2:Bruno has questions to ask me before we do that. Mikey, I just gotta say that it was so nice of you when writing that little intro that you put my name first really makes me smile you know it's funny.
Speaker 1:This is the first time I noticed that I put your name first on it it's, it's. I was just. I was thinking as I read it. I was like god why did?
Speaker 2:I do that I don't know, but hey, you can't change it now. What is this episode?
Speaker 1:16?, yeah, 16.
Speaker 2:No fun fact. I hope you didn't get that wrong yeah. That would really mess stuff up. I think people who make podcasts like 1% of people get to 20 episodes or 25, something like that. So we're on our way. Oh, for those of you watching on youtube, so probably nobody. We got merch. Check out the hats.
Speaker 1:Check them out well, we'll have to throw it up on instagram left and right and then hope that people ask us to buy them, and then we won't be able to sell them because we don't have any in stock.
Speaker 2:Yeah because our dear friend shout out pat reynolds made 15 for mikey's bachelor party in nashville. How many followers you think we got because of that?
Speaker 1:oh, at least 50 um limited edition hats. They're like gonna be like the beanie babies um the beanie babies any babies. You know you had any bini babies mike, that's what I said I said bina babies bini babies bini babies well, that's a clip right there.
Speaker 2:That's gonna be my favorite one. Oh man, what do you? What else do you say? What do you mispronounce all the time that we always gave you shit for?
Speaker 1:Brother.
Speaker 2:No, not Wawa. What was it? Anyway, let's actually talk about something useful.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:All right. So my question when it comes to the volume of youth athletes and volume meaning like these kids who so, example, I have a high school swimmer. He's been swimming six days a week, basically year round, since he like could swim competitively, right, right. And to me, when, like I get them on dry land and like in my environment, like the kid barely knows how to squat or like move his body like other than swimming. So I'm just curious on, like what your recommendations would be to someone who's like getting their kid, who has a kid, interested in athletics, and like how you would progress them with like science in mind. Yeah, I mean, I was a kid.
Speaker 1:The kid I'm talking about he's 18 yeah, that's not terrible, but like it's the six days a week thing, if they're competitive swimmer I guess it makes sense that's what they're trying to do. But dry and swimming specifically like dry land training is very important to try to stave off some injuries, especially shoulder stuff, that typically happens in swimmers, right um that's like the main thing we're doing.
Speaker 2:I was like, do you like, does your coach put you through like dry land stuff? He goes, yeah, we run and do planks. Sometimes I said what about like like, are you in the weight room ever? And he's like, oh yeah, I go to the gym with my buddies and he showed me like his bro split, and there there's no hinging variation at all in in the entire thing. It's like the most basic like high school bro split, like we all did it right. But like if I could just like teach him things and like his biggest thing was like, uh, like he's, he's like he doesn't feel as powerful in the pool as like kids he's racing against even though, like the times are similar. So I was like, if we can like going back to our other episode, like if we could like boost his power with dry land stuff and that translates into the pool, that could shave. That could be the difference of him going d1 or d2 potentially, you know yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:Um, I think you go back and you know you don't know how this kid was brought up or what I mean, like you said it's only right Like since 10, as far as I know, like surfer bro, like he serves and does all that crap. But yeah, creature of the sea.
Speaker 2:Unlike you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, creature of the land myself. But, um, yeah, the most important thing, with a lot of kids and you know, you see this, a lot of kids they start, you know, I feel like we're we've seen it so much where we know, okay, they can't only play one sport, starting too early, like they should be playing all the sports year round. A lot of times you probably clear up a lot of those dysfunctional athletes before they truly get to college setting if they're playing multiple different sports. The issue is that, for whatever reason it's a lot of anecdotal stories or a lot of people like you get, like leonel messi is like, oh yeah, he's the best soccer player of all time because he started playing soccer at six, only played soccer at six people got to realize that's like an outlier for the most part, most part, um the most.
Speaker 2:That's an exception, not the rule you're saying yeah, that's the exception, not the rule.
Speaker 1:Um, you know, generally it's play as many different sports and be as physically active in many different ways as possible up until you're the age of 14 at the very least. Now I'm not saying that you should special, automatically, specialize at 14. I'm just saying to, like for most growing individuals, that's what you should do, just to try to stave off any sport adaptation that could be bad. Like for swimming, where if all you do is spend your time in the pool six days a week or whatever it is, training as a kid that's, you get the bad posture, you get the rounded shoulders, the forward neck. They start getting neck pain, shoulder pain, much sooner than you'd want them to. I always talk about this. You know I worked with baseball. I always said swimmers were the worst shoulders I've ever seen, and it's whatever reason. It's like there's no prevention, injury risk reduction strategies that really go into swimming.
Speaker 2:Like it's for whatever reason.
Speaker 1:They all just swim and then they do whatever their dry land training is, which usually doesn't target much of anything, it's usually just a day to get out of the pool. You know, I worked rowing too and it's fine. We didn't even they didn't even train that much on the erg during the winter. They would only work out on the erg three times a week and then cross-train the rest of the week, just because they knew how bad doing that one repetitive movement over and over and over again were for all of them. So really the easiest way to kind of stay above something like that is don't specialize in one sport, do multiple different sports probably make sure like right also, I was actually thinking about this the other day.
Speaker 1:It's like what sport would you want to pair with swimming? It probably shouldn't be rowing, where you get the same exact pathologies happening. Right, you would hope that it's like a soccer or it's a. It's a more classic field sport type of thing. Maybe not wrestling, because that's once again just going to be hanging out on a lot of shoulders and labrums. So maybe some like there. There's probably some thought process that can go into which sports specialize in, as long as the kids having fun in them, obviously I was gonna, that was gonna be my first thing.
Speaker 2:Like if me, as a kid, like all my friends, were playing soccer and you were like, all right, you're gonna go swim, I'd be like, no, like, I like I would throw. You know what I mean? Like yeah that, like normalizing it to like a population, is, I feel like such an important step, like a whole school. So you're saying how old are you when you're 14? Is that high school?
Speaker 1:yeah, once you go into high school, like it, I would say the recommendations. I am not up to date on this literature whatsoever but I would say generally, like 16 would be like all right, you can now get a one sport and you should be in a pretty good spot developmentally to like not lose the range, like important range of motion for everyday living yeah, the guys that I talk to who are very like good movers as adults, a lot of them have a gymnastics background background as like as kids and then wait real quick.
Speaker 2:But then, like the people who go from gymnastics as kids and stay in gymnastics to be either high school or college gymnasts, those are the ones who have like a lot of problems. So, like the there's, it's somewhere along the line it flips. It goes from being like hey, this is really good for you as a little kid and then you overdo it as an adult and then it becomes detrimental to your health it's me and courtney, my wife, always talk about oh, is that the first time you said it on the?
Speaker 1:podcast. Yes, uh, we always talk about we want to expose our kids to gymnastics and that's it like we don't want to act like right, because there's a lot of great overall body strength and balance, appropriate deception, coordination that all goes into gymnastics. That you want a kid to learn and you know they're going to be pretty strong and pretty athletic just from learning that. Where that flip happens is maybe they're going to gymnastics once, maybe twice a week it's. Then you start going five to six times a week at the ages of eight to twelve, when people are really kind of developing, especially young females.
Speaker 2:They're hitting puberty and things like that and stuff is haywire so the the, I guess the lifestyle around gymnastics in like the high school and like middle school settings. Parents will homeschool their kids and drive them hours each way to go to like the best gymnast facilities you know, ice skating is the same exact thing, and that's why courtney talks.
Speaker 1:Courtney talks about it.
Speaker 2:Who's?
Speaker 1:Courtney, my wife.
Speaker 2:There it is. Look at him blushing. Look how red he is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Natural tone in my face, Okay. So that's how crazy and this is sorry I don't want to point out all these parents, especially Courtney's mom.
Speaker 1:But like that's some of the things that you have to weave through too. It's like all of a sudden they'll go all right, you're getting homeschooled because you could be the next simone biles gymnastic. Why so? We're gonna put our effort into that. And then you go to these coaches very sport specific coaches that might not. They don't really. It's all about performance. There's no, there's no injury risk reductions either.
Speaker 1:You can do it you compete at the top or you get hurt and you're just throwing the back, especially in gymnastics and figure skating, where their time windows to like be competitive or like tiny right.
Speaker 2:No, this actually sparks a really interesting argument with the whole um like compression, expansion model type people. So like your bill hartman, zach couples, pat davidson, all those guys, they're like I've heard them say multiple times in like some sort of iteration where, like all linemen, all nba basketball players, all baseball pitchers, for the most part their body shape and structure look a certain way for a reason, and it's not because they grew up playing baseball, football, whatever their whole life, it's because their natural body structure kind of gave them superpowers in that one specific thing that allowed them to achieve that like super high one percent of like pro college sports or whatever. So going all the way back to like being a kid and seeing them develop and having that knowledge and being able to like dictate, you're going to be a better lineman than point guard and go from there, which is insane. I think they do that in Russia, where they're like you're a power lifter.
Speaker 1:They do that in Russia. I don't think they measure the size of your hand and be like you can power lift.
Speaker 2:You get people who and fighters are a great example. So there's so many different like sizes and shapes of fighters heavyweights, lightweights, right, so them being able to be at that top 1%, but all different body shapes like you don't really see that too often same. Most nba players look the same. Hockey players tend to look the same. There are outliers, of course, but is it that that person is so good at what they do because of their structure and then all the added years of skill on top of that, or is and that got them there? Or can you be built to do to be a swimmer, but put enough effort in and become a shot putter? You know what I mean what would you?
Speaker 2:what would you say?
Speaker 1:do it at a young enough age and get them to to get the range of motion necessary. But there's definitely a huge genetic component. Like, right, there are some people kind of what you're saying that are just built a certain way and they can, just they can go throw 100 miles per hour without ever training. They can be the bo jackson that can squat 400 pounds without ever actually squatting.
Speaker 2:Um, I I tell people that all the time when, like we're doing the movement assessments and stuff, like looking at the way they move, it's like you're built to squat and like which one feels more natural like versus squat or a deadlift and a lot of the times, what they you're built to squat and like which one feels more natural like versus squat or a deadlift and a lot of the times, what they're like built to do quote unquote is what they bias towards, like oh, I love squats, I hate deadlifts or something along those lines and that kind of like confirms yeah, I think that's a good lay person way of like going like hey, you're built for squat, you're built for this exercise.
Speaker 2:Like right up down verse back and forth me personally.
Speaker 1:I'm built for running. For what reason I don't know, but I can naturally run at a quick pace, even when I wasn't really running relative, relatively that much.
Speaker 2:That's probably more of a physiology thing with me as opposed to biomechanics, because I'm 5'8 and no long length to really propel me but, I think that's a good way to think about it yeah, and you're a unique case too, because at your heaviest, when you were lifting really heavy, how much heavier were you?
Speaker 1:I mean, I was like 200 pounds yeah, so what are you now?
Speaker 2:like 160 yeah you had 40 pounds of muscle, maybe some fat on there, like that's. Yeah, that's crazy. That's crazy that you could and you were strong as shit from like a numbers perspective there, and now you're like fast endurance, like you have that capacity so you can train and adapt. Your body is very adaptable. Yeah, the point of I guess for everyone listening, the point of what we're saying is you are built to have certain superpowers, so it's do you choose to use them or not? Because you can train in either way, but there's not a lot of five, five centers in in the NBA, you know, and that's intentional, that's natural selection. So it's super interesting, super interesting argument. But it comes down, especially with kids, it comes down to desire.
Speaker 1:I feel like, for the most part, yeah, I mean like you you hear the well, I see it all the time in college athletics. Like you get a kid who's a freshman that's there and they're like I don't even want to play this sport anymore and like, right, they probably lost to play that sport years ago. They were just like, oh well, parent, pressure slash, maybe I can get a scholarship. Pressure slash, I got the scholarship. Now I to just like hang around and try to hold on to it as long as I can should we just turn this into a roasting?
Speaker 2:the crazy parents, the crazy sport parents, episode that kind of seems like where it's going. I know. I mean everyone knows that. Everyone knows that person. When you think crazy sport parent, everyone's got someone in mind yeah it's.
Speaker 1:You know it's funny. We only talk about. We talk about all these people make professional sports and like it's because you know, I'm sure it's a little bit of both. Like right, they're probably genetically gifted, built a certain way, then you add all the skill on it as well.
Speaker 1:Like probably helps a lot. But then you know we also you miss all the stories that happen in youth sports and high school sports where there are kids that try to do all that and they all got broken and hurt and things didn't work out. And you know you look at the schedules. I always talk about the baseball schedule. I will work showcases. You know random high school prospect camps essentially june, july, you know it's whatever.
Speaker 1:By the time august rolls around, that amount of kids that I start seeing with shoulder and elbow pain and things like that and they'll be talking about oh yeah, I just finished, so right. They're typically coming off their high school season that started march 1st. They do all this. It's august. So how many months is that? March, april, may, june, july, august? We're at six months. That's already. That's. That's a college baseball. That's almost like a pro season six months.
Speaker 2:And then they're going yeah.
Speaker 1:I still got a. I still plan on playing fall ball and pitching and fall ball as well. And it's just like dude, you got to take a break Like this isn't the time. The research for baseball, specifically, is you're supposed to take two months off, two consecutive months off before.
Speaker 2:Is it rest or off of pitching?
Speaker 1:off from pitching throwing right, so I feel like that's another thing.
Speaker 2:When people say rest, it's like, oh, I can't lose progress like, just take some time away from your sport, like that.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of times, if you get people to do that especially you know those chronic you know like you're still going to have the acute injuries, the injuries at the sprain, ankles, things. But in swim swimming, baseball, tennis, you just take two months off and like just train and do other stuff for two months consecutively and then get back to the sport yeah, like, go have, go have some fun play pickleball.
Speaker 2:It's great. I just picked it up. It's fantastic yeah can't say enough good things about it I really want to pick up pickleball.
Speaker 1:Actually I'll have to dude.
Speaker 2:Go get a paddle. You and your wife can go play. It's phenomenal. It's not as much skill required as tennis, but you still get a good sweat super fun, but yeah, that's you hear.
Speaker 1:All these kids get broken essentially in the summer, offseason stuff. But the problem for college athletics is summer is like the heaviest recruiting time. So there's times where I evaluate a kid at a random camp and it's like having to tell them you need to take time off, like that's the only way this thing most likely gets better. It's better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I also think the broken thing is twofold, not only physical but especially to a developing kid, how much mental strain that puts on them, especially because when you're a kid like identifying as a baseball player or whatever and then not being able to do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Or, like you said, hating baseball and feeling forced and pressured to do it. Like there are some very sad I went to when I was in high school. There was a girl. She was a really, really good cross country runner, like super smart, like the whole nine Right and and she committed suicide because of. I mean, the alleged story is like she committed suicide because of the, like, the pressures that got to her between school and running.
Speaker 1:so like the mental aspect is one that's talked about way less, but equally, if not more, important yeah, yeah, I think it's funny, even me and you talking about I, I would say I miss it sometimes, honestly, a lot of times. I don't work in that population, but yeah, it's a huge.
Speaker 1:That's a huge thing to take into account. Um, especially, yeah, especially in that college world, like and you hear this, I feel like I haven't heard one of those stories recently, but like I think it just it's just because we haven't heard it of a big name athlete happened recently so but.
Speaker 1:I hear it all the time in that high school like because those are huge ages, a lot of different thoughts going on, really it's you know a lot of people. Uh, it's big growing mentally for a lot of kids at that age. So it's especially kind of what you said. They identify with that sport, like I am this person of this sport.
Speaker 2:If I don't have that sport, I am nothing yeah, and when it gets to that kind of level like the risk to reward ratio is just so out of whack I hate to say it like I'm, like I want to guide my kid away from.
Speaker 1:I don't want to say competitive yeah, yeah competitive, competitive sports, like I want them to go have. Go read a bunch of books, go learn musical instruments, go learn computer programming, probably make more money doing that than they ever will playing sports.
Speaker 1:So like, go, go, go, do that stuff and have fun in that and don't let a sport make identify yourself in that. And, like you know, even even me me growing up I think that's how we get into athletic training a lot of times, right, you kind of identify with a specific sport and then you know, I think, us, a lot of us in it. We realize, oh wow, we're really not good at that sport and that, but we still want to be around it and we still identify, you know, as athletic trainers. I don't know how it is in the chiropractic world, but, like you know, people will start identifying with the profession as well. And then there's a whole like I can't be who I am if I'm not an athletic trainer.
Speaker 2:Dude, there's a lot of kids who I went to school with, who whose dads, uncles, moms, aunts, like the whole family was chiropractors. It's like a weird. I was the weirdo for not not knowing anyone who was a chiropractor and not liking it before I went to school. Did I ever tell you that story? I went to like I just had non-specific low back pain like just started really lifting consistently in high school and I went to the chiropractor and I shit you not. He came out with a big pvc pipe and a bowling ball in the end and he was like every inch you lean forward puts this much more stress on your spine and blah like the most gimmicky thing you could possibly imagine.
Speaker 2:And as a kid I was like still skeptical. I was like what is this guy talking about? And then I was like, okay, I'll give him another, I'll give him another shot. Um, I said when, like how long is this going to take until I feel better? Like when should I come? Like when should I come back? Next? He goes oh, you're going to come back three times a week until your insurance runs out literally what he said. Yeah, and even like as a kid, not even knowing what insurance like really was. So I was like all right I guess that's how it works.
Speaker 2:I either get better or I don't. So, like being where I am now, I like that's out there. I can't imagine having someone who is in pain and like in my office and being like you can only come in until, like, your money runs out and then you're screwed like I don't really care if you get better or not.
Speaker 1:That's why he didn't give you anything to do on your own either. He was just a crackety poppity. Look at that, your, your bowling ball head isn't leading us far forward.
Speaker 2:Your spine was here, and now it's here it's. I mean, we don't have to go down that tangent hole again, but I think we already did that once.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, the youth sport thing is. It's interesting, like we even need to like I don't have the money behind it. Like you know, there's a piece I think espn did it, um, which is kind of surprising, I'm thinking about it where they were calling it like pay to play, like right, if you want to get your kid to the top level and stuff like that, like the athletes that actually make it, a lot of times it's more of a, you've got to be able to afford, to be able to like be in these tournaments and these projects yeah things like that.
Speaker 1:Um, which is funny to think, when I was in high school I was like, oh yeah, I want to play college sport, but I never did any of that.
Speaker 2:I was just playing high school sports and there's there's also that barrier, that pay barrier, to actually get into those camps, to actually get recruited, to then possibly play in college and on the other side of that too, that's the word recovery has totally lost meaning, in my opinion, because it means anything and everything to sell you something to keep you going like, just like that.
Speaker 1:So you'll get me on this tangent, like I get it if I'm working collegiate baseball in season. We're trying to get you through a season.
Speaker 1:All right, I'll chuck all the modalities at you like right I want you to feel good, but is feeling good actually good for you? Like, is it or are you gonna? Are you gonna push through something that you're not supposed to be pushing through? So, even when the recovery modalities now your STEM units, the ice baths you know ice baths might retard muscle hypertrophy, so don't do it. After lifting, what else? Massage guns, things like that, that stuff that makes you better Are they actually physiologically recovering you or are you just feeling better and you might push through something that you shouldn't?
Speaker 1:like that's that's you know I, I personally, right now don't use any of that stuff and for for running and training, and that's it's for that reason, because I don't want to push my self through something that I shouldn't be pushing it through interesting perspective yeah, so I've had that I've had that talk with people so like right, college baseball, fall ball.
Speaker 1:I am less apt to let people kind of use that stuff on a regular basis, you know, if it's like hey, and they probably get a little bit more benefit when they do use it. But I don't want them feeling good, push through something that might actually be actual pathology, might be an actual injury.
Speaker 2:Gotcha. So not feeling good in the sense of no injury, you mean using modalities to mask a potential underlying something, or other yeah. Gotcha.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's something I always have to. You know, a lot of times for me as a clinician, I am like, hey, I want, can I get an ice bag? And then I absolutely destroy them with questions on why they want an ice bag.
Speaker 1:And then, typically, we end up getting an ice bag and they come in for exercises the next day um right, that's typically what the process would be, but it's because I yeah, I think early on in my career it would just especially like in the football world, where it really is like they push through everything and anything and you're just trying to get them through. He feels bad because he plays football, so ice stim, ice stim massage gun. Norm Tech, boots, whatever, and I think a lot of times we might forget that there might be something brewing.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So that's actually something I mean. I run into it in Gen Pop. You probably run into it at a much higher scale when you have such a high volume of activity. So, x amount of hours of practice every day, five, six times a week, right. And then all they want to do is get some sort of relief and chill, right. And then they come into you and they're like, hey, like can I just get some ice for my elbow? And then you're like, no, you have to do more exercises. Like do you think that? Like how do you think that is like perceived? And how do you, how do you make them understand that you're just like not just trying to give them extra work and you're actually trying to help them in the long run, like the longevity?
Speaker 1:aspect me giving all I always give all the research around loosely, what elbow soreness technically leads to, even if it's not in a problematic area. But then, it's also like, hey, if you're doing all this activity, you got to have the strength to tolerate all this activity so and you got to be able to have the endurance so that your scapula doesn't fail, the your muscles around your scapula don't fail.
Speaker 1:So you're putting more stress on your rotator cuff or you're putting more stress on your elbow while you're throwing um. So that's typically how I run through it. It's we gotta do a little bit more, and a lot of times I I make sure that it's more part of a warm-up as it's changing up a warm-up or anything for them, as opposed to really layering, layering a lot of rehab, especially if they're in season. When we're out of season, I crush people like it's hey, we are loading you to the t, especially post-coach school too. It's you know, hey, I gotta get your volume up before you even come close to touching a baseball. So they end up doing a lot of volume. Shoulder work wise.
Speaker 2:Hip work wise, you know, in the college you're working with strength coach too, to get the entire body down yeah, I totally, totally vibe with that because you can't out rehab interference. So if someone's has a high volume of like junky movement every single day, right, you doing exercises, like a couple exercises, either beginning or the end, how much is that going to move the needle? But if you can modify and kind of like change everything up, like the way that you're explaining and being able to be like, hey, like this is what you have to do to play your sport, I get that right. I'm not baseball coach. But when it's time to turn that off and it's time to help you fix yourself from all the damage that you've done, right, because they can.
Speaker 2:I've heard the argument even like is playing sports and being active quote unquote healthy for the reason of like it's intentionally repetitive stress damage, all this kind of stuff, right. So being able to kind of counterbalance the demand of sport and the demand of exercise with intentional programming call it rehab right is a huge balance on the scale, because if you have way too much of one, the other isn't really it's not enough weight to kind of like get you back to feeling good and performing good in my opinion, any strength fishing person you can go back to like the periodization idea or like you know it's like if you're in high training mode that means like your volume elsewhere needs to be less things like that.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I think the important thing there is just realizing make sure you're taking time away from whatever. If something comes in, it's like all right, we'll deal with it. Now the long-term solution should not be all those modalities and things to try to feel right you'll sort. A long-term solution is ultimately going to be how about we get something stronger? How about we get something stronger? How about we get you moving better, so that when you go back to your sport again, you don't have the same issue?
Speaker 2:yeah, I have a patient who's a bodybuilder and like the whole nine um, enormous human being and he was talking about.
Speaker 2:He like my shoulders like so jacked up, blah, blah, blah, and I had that conversation with him. I was like we, if you're training at like such a high load intensity daily, yada, yada, we can't out rehab, all of this stress you're putting through your shoulder. So he, we, we came to the conclusion where he's like I need to do this to get to my end goal. Like have a coach like this is like what I have to do and that's not my area of expertise. So like is there a better way to load the shoulder while he's training? Probably, but at the same time, like he's completely willing. So he's like once, once I get, once I compete, and then we circle back, I'm down to like actually go through rehab and like fix it for good so that next time he competes like maybe a year from now or whatever that he doesn't have those problems because he has increased range of motion and more like competency and capacity to load all those types of fun things, which kind of sounds like a parallel to what you were saying with the baseball.
Speaker 1:No, no, it's the exact same exact thing. Right, get him through whatever, whatever his competition is, modify his activity, maybe stick away from anything overhead. You start doing a floor press too or things like that, just so he doesn't completely yeah lose everything or he does whatever. Exercise is pain-free, but then it gives you time to actually try to correct some movements and dysfunction that he has a hundred percent.
Speaker 2:You can't ignore the competition level and like all the things like going back to why people are so we're playing around at such a high volume, like you can't ignore. You can't ignore that because if you do that and their performance suffers on the field, right, if you like, kind of take, ignore. You can't ignore that, because if you do that and their performance suffers on the field, right, if you like kind of take, if you really heavily restrict them, change all this stuff up and it's they suffer in performance like they're gonna be pissed yeah you know what I mean, even though is it the best thing to help them avoid potential injury?
Speaker 2:Maybe, but like it's a really really fine line Once you start, the more and more we talk about it, I'm like Ooh, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's funny. You're getting into the performance side, so it's it's funny. Sorry to keep going back to baseball, but this is probably across all sports the the faster you throw the ball, the more likely you're gonna get hurt. That is easily across sports, or across all baseball literature, yada, yada, but it's gonna be the same across sports. The faster you run, the more stress you're putting on yourself. So you, like you, start teetering this line of like oh, I think we even had it at ud with our, with our force plates. It's like you realize that. Like, oh, why is this person at risk of injury? They're the best player on our team. Well, probably because they're outputting the most force out of any out of everyone else like.
Speaker 1:That's why they're like there's. Sometimes there is compensations that occur that are very sport specific, that are very good performance reasons. It's going to get someone far, but then you're worrying about that injury risk wow, this is good stuff, man.
Speaker 2:This is good stuff, I would say. I would say the biggest thing that we talked about from like not only the volume of the athletic sorry, the physical component, also the don't discredit or ignore the volume that that places on the mental component and and teetering that fine line between performance and health right, Because putting yourself in a better position to perform could put your health at more risk. So, going into that with eyes wide open, I feel like people don't necessarily fully comprehend that when they're in it, but when you can take a step back and appreciate the big picture it's and have a conversation right when you're not in the heat picture it's and have a conversation right when you're not in the heat of it, I think is a very valuable thing for athletes to take home yeah, I think a lot of times.
Speaker 1:So, right, you talk about the mental side of the performance versus the risk of performance. Um, it's, I think, what you said. Take a step back. What are your goals? If that's your goal, you can get there. Just realize the risk that can potentially come along here's how we're going to mitigate those risks throughout the program and how we kind of set you self. So set yourself up for that year cycle.
Speaker 2:However, not everything's foolproof right, yeah, 100 man good episode.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that actually ended up being a lot a decent amount to take away from that. He just started talking about sports and got us all riled up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, who would have thought, man, who would have thought yeah?
Speaker 1:So what are you going to do tomorrow? What are you going to teach someone to do what?
Speaker 2:do you mean? What were you going to teach someone to do? What do you mean? What were you setting me up for?
Speaker 1:Go fix yourself, god damn it.
Speaker 2:Go fix yourself.