Latest / The Driven Athlete / Youth Athlete Development - Mastering Skills Over Size | Ep 47

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Youth Athlete Development - Mastering Skills Over Size | Ep 47 · The Driven Athlete

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: If you're a driven, active person who wants to reach and pursue a higher quality life with some ambition, then guess what this podcast is for you.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: This is the Driven Athlete Podcast.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: What's up y'all?
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: It's your man, dr Kyle.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Driven Athlete Podcast, this discussion on youth athletes and their main focus for development.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: All right, so we get a lot of youth athletes locally for local high schools, middle school.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: We see some middle school athletes.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: It's really fulfilling and I love that population to work with because we can be such a great trajectory change.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Imagine intervening with a youth athlete that is aspiring to continue their direction in sports and develop as a person and that's another thing too, I'm going to get into that in a second is like.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Sports is a platform to develop humans that are more able to juggle a lot of things, develops discipline.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: It develops self-responsibility and accountability.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: It develops grit of doing hard things over an extended period of time, even though you don't want to and even though you're tired.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: How well can you still do this thing?
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: I need to go to my workout.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: I got practice.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Did you bring your cleats?
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Did you bring your your stick, like?
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Did you bring your rack Like?
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Oh, I forgot Right, a little bit of accountability, right, and then you notice consequences for action or a lack of action, right.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: I just think it's a great platform that can develop young men and women and young kiddos to have a different trajectory.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: But imagine if somebody is hampered from injury and issues that prevents them from continuing and proliferating through their athletic career.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: That could open doors that they have no idea could open for them.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: For me, it's just great development opportunities, right, and I'm just a huge fan of that.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: The number one key for for athletes to leverage and utilize those opportunities is if they're actually healthy durability and being healthy to place.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: You have to actually play.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: That's the number one thing is can you stay healthy?
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Right, cause otherwise you're not going to play and you're not going to be in the team.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Like it is what it is, and I've seen plenty of teammates and stuff in the past that were just hampered by chronic injuries and they just never got back.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: They were athletic and they were pretty good.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: They could who knows where it could have went right, all the shoulda, couldas and wouldas.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: The number one thing is they have to stay healthy and they have to have the durability and ultimately get playing time.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: You got to get on the field and on the court right.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: You have to play long enough, through injuries sometimes, and work around injuries to actually get the doors to open later down the road, right.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: And that's why I'm passionate about this, because I have my own issues and stuff and battling injuries in middle school and high school and college and stuff and some things that I wish I would have known that now we can share with our youth athletes we work with.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm like.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Imagine the trajectory change If somebody's like oh, they could have been a good player if only they would have not been hurt right or been able to play or got their head straight right, and that's coaching too not me, but from a pain standpoint of biomechanics and orthopedics for sports and athletes, that's what we do, right.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: So imagine the trajectory change and the impact we could have on youth athletes to actually enable them to play and leverage and capitalize on a short window of opportunity for them to play organized sports and all of the character traits and benefits that come with it Teamwork, selflessness, discipline, the ability to do things that you don't want to do and do them anyway.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: The ability to ward off the temptation to do things that you shouldn't do, that you know you shouldn't and not do it those things consistently over time.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: But I just think sports is a great platform.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: That's my humble opinion and you can tell by my fervency and zeal within this conversation.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: But anyway, with all that being said, the main things that we work with with youth athletes for injuries and these are non-traumatic I'm talking about like non-traumatic.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: We can't really control everything, of course, and traumatic injuries happen, like if somebody rolls over you in your ankle and you sprain your ankle.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Or somebody rolls into your knee and you blow an ACL like you can't or dislocate your shoulder, like traumatic impact injuries like that you can't.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: You can't control that At some point.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: There is a risk involved with playing sports and that's also part of the benefit of some of the character traits developed is it's risky, but I'm going to keep doing it anyway and control my risk as much as possible and be mindful of this.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: But anyway, what I'm talking about is non-traumatic pain that develops for no reason.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: A baseball player develops shoulder pain and not really sure why.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: An athlete develops knee pain.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: They didn't fall or get rolled on, but it just starts developing, not really sure why.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Back pain started developing up in my mid back, my middle back, my low back, whatever, not really sure what happened.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: I didn't fall, there wasn't really an incident, but it just gradually gotten worse and now it's gotten to a point where, like it just hurts a lot, I can't do my thing right, I can't do my sport.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm talking about.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: So for youth athletes and youth athletes I mean like under the age of 18, 20, 20 years old and younger, 19 years old and younger the main focus that's the highest risk of injury that we're finding in literature for youth athletes to get injured for non-traumatic pain is movement control and coordination.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Athletes to get injured for non-traumatic pain is movement control and coordination, movement control and coordination being like.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Are they coordinated right?
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Do they move well?
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: What's their movement patterns look like?
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Do they look like a well-oiled machine when they run or are they flopping around a lot when they are doing agility drills?
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Do they look like an octopus falling out of a tree or a baby fawn walking on ice?
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Imagine like a baby deer learning how to walk and walking on ice Does it look sloppy or does it look pretty clean and coordinated?
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: That's what I mean.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: So if youth athletes look like an octopus falling out of a tree when they're doing it would be limbs everywhere.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Right, we would never make fun of anybody.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: I'm just trying to paint a picture for you.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: But if they're not moving well enough, with good movement control and coordination, that's the increase, that's the highest risk of injury for youth athletes movement control and coordination.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: So that's gonna be the first thing that we're gonna work on and at least investigate.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: That's the first I'm gonna investigate.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: We always have these working hypotheses.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: We, with our athletes and active people that we see for diagnoses when they come in to see us during the evaluation process, we have to figure out what's the actual underlying cause of the cause, and we have working hypotheses of what we might think might be going on.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: And our questioning and our testing ultimately hones in on one hypothesis that we're like this seems to be the problem.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: This is the problem.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: We're here, we're not going to be like yep, seen this a million times, I know exactly what it is.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: If you ever go to a practitioner, in my opinion okay, this is my opinion and I'm open to having discussions about this I'm always open to having a conversation but if you go to a healthcare practitioner and they say and they ask you a couple of questions like, yep, seen this a million times, I know exactly what it is, and they don't really seem like they've done a lot of deep diving.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: And I would ask, I would question their diagnosis?
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: All right, you can ask them questions and you can get multiple opinions.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Right, I wouldn't be super confident right away from one person's lack of enthusiasm in their evaluation process and just trust them automatically get multiple opinions.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: But anyway, with that being said, we're always trying to be super intuitive and purposeful with our working hypotheses of what the actual problem and diagnosis is.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: For a clear diagnosis that's ultimately going to lead to a clear treatment program and protocol and a lot of better outcomes of actually solving the problem, which is pain and their ability to perform at a high level and have it not come back.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: The pain right.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: That's the main thing, but anyway.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: So for youth athletes, movement control, coordination that's one of the first things we're going to investigate.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: That's the highest risk of injury for non-traumatic pain for youth athletes.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: So, with that being said, for parents and coaches of youth athletes, based on that, my humble recommendation at like the beginning of like someone in their athletic journey, when I say beginning of their athletic journey and they're trying to get better at sports.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: The first thing to focus on is just skill development of their sport and control movement, control and movement, coordination, stability and just moving well, right In a coordinated fashion and develop their skills Skills being like hitting a baseball versus working at right now.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: Working on, I'm talking about like a 12 year old, a 13 year old or 11 year old, like working on plyometrics and strength training.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: I love that stuff, but the first thing I would focus on is their skill development and some of their IQ, their sports IQ.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Right, there's their IQ in the middle of the game and why are they doing this in the first place?
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: What's the, what's the overall goal of you playing this, of this sport, during this play, or during this experience, this situational time?
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: What's the goal that you want to come out of this?
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Right, oh, I want to score, right, okay, cool, yeah, but how are you going to do that?
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: And what's the ultimate goal?
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Right, what are you looking for?
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: That's the IQ component.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: So, with that being said, strength and building on size and muscle growth has there's a timeframe with that and unfortunately, it doesn't really happen until puberty, right, when some, when athletes, start to mature.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: They don't even have the capacity to develop muscle size and a lot of muscle strength.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Yet it's not going to happen yet.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: The reason why I'm passionate about this too is because I was in that boat when I was in high school.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: I was a late bloomer, so I didn't even really start to mature until I was like a late sophomore in high school.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: So when I was a freshman I looked like a kid.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: I looked like a baby.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: I was an early sophomore year.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Same thing, I looked like a baby.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: And I'm seeing my peers and some of my other teammates and stuff getting bigger and getting musculature and they're developing and I'm still like getting surpassed height and size.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: So I was doing everything I could eat crushing protein shakes, peanut butter and jelly, having big shake, big meals, more protein shakes, extra lifting weights, trying to work on sprints and speed and agility and I really wasn't able.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: I wasn't making a lot of gains on that.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: I just my body wasn't ready yet.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: So I'm not going to focus or really neurotically prioritize at a high level of anxiety and neuroticism on like I didn't eat my protein, I didn't have my protein, I didn't do it, I didn't work out, I didn't have my four peanut butter and jellies last night.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: Don't worry about that.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: I love the enthusiasm, right, and motivation and hard work and enthusiasm isn't your problem, right.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: What we need to work on is your skills first, like your soccer skills, your hand-eye coordination, your foot-eye coordination, your movement control and coordination, hitting a baseball skills, soccer dribbling skills, golf shot skills, some of the IQ involved with that basketball ball handling, hand-eye coordination, jump shots, shot curriculum and your quiver, all the shots that you can make.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: That's within your scope.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: Improve that.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Free throws, crush that.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Don't concern yourself too much yet with plyometric strength training and putting on muscle size and mass and size.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: You're just not ready yet.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: The first thing to focus on is skill development, followed by IQ.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: I'm not on the list, I'm just saying in general first things to focus on is skill development, followed by IQ.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: I'm not on the list, I'm just saying in general first things to focus on, not in any particular order, because everyone's different.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Skill development, sport, iq and movement, control and movement coordination, coordinated movements, hand-eye coordination, foot, all that stuff, that dexterity that's the things I would work on first and then, once a person has that, then we can imagine adding strength on top of that.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: When their body is ready, we can introduce the exercises totally.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Exercise, for sure it's going to help with movement control, coordination, muscle and musculotendinous junction and tendon tensile strength for lack of less risk of injury and overuse injuries.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Tendonitis, right, which is another whole topic that we've talked about before at length, about tendonitis.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: But lowering the risk of that comes from not compensating movement control and coordination and, for sure, tensile strength.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: I love that stuff.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Plyometrics can be utilized as an exercise form to create movement control and coordination, for sure, and some power development.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: But just the power development isn't the focus when you're a youth athlete like that, and that's what I'm suggesting.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: So, with that being said, that's the first focus.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: Let's say you have a stellar athlete that's in middle school, a middle school athlete that still looks like a bait, like they're still a young kid.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: They're not.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: They haven't hit puberty yet and they're a good athlete.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: They're a, they're a really good player.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: That's what the goal would be first.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: And then imagine when that player continues to develop, gains IQ, continues to work on his skills of his sport and continues to be a good player.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: And when they reach 16 years old, 17, then start putting muscle size on top of that skill that already exists.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: That's when you have a really stellar athlete, um over time.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: Um, and, like I said, the key is to not get hurt at.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Being healthy is their own priority and durability.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: But that seems to be the recipe that I'm trying to.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Um, and I want to instill my kids right, like my own kiddos.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: But some of the youth athletes we work with that's the first thing I try to instill the values for those youth athletes at the beginning and some of the parents is work on that stuff.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: First crush that you can still be a really good player and be undersized right.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: I, that was me right, I was still a good player.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: I just was undersized right.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: And confidence is a huge component too.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: I'll talk about, I'll touch on that in a second um for sure.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: But imagine helping confidence, being a good player and good skills.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Would that improve confidence and self-awareness, self-appreciation of the ability, or would that not Okay?
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Can we control skill development at a young age?
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Would being undersized help with confidence?
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: No, can we control that at a young age?
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: No.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: So why are we focused on the first place?
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: We can't even control that.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: We have to focus on what we can control and what we can't control.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: What we can control is hand-eye coordination, skill development.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: We can't control your body's physiology and rushing into puberty and growing and developing, so we can't focus on it right now anyway.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: So that's not the focus, not a priority.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: But imagine getting somebody who's very skilled.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: They're still undersized, can't control that anyway, but they're a good player, they're a starter, right, they're a good contributor to the team.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Right, that's going to help confidence.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: But imagine maintaining that and fostering and developing that skill development over the next several years to where then they can start developing strength, agility, speed, power and size.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: And you stack that power, size, strength, all that stuff on top of the skill that already exists.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: That's when you get really good athletes.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: And I have a lot of examples of that.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Right, like, you've seen a lot of undersized athletes that weren't huge and they don't look like specimens units, but they're still really good.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: Right, there was plenty of guys in high school that I remember that, that they were undersized but they were like starters and they were good.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Right, you can still be really effective player with great skills.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: I think.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: An example I would like imagine the pros like Steph Curry right, he's not huge but he's got skills.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: That's the priority.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Right, then if you develop a lot of physical attributes, that we can't really control a lot anyway, but if you develop physical attributes on top of that skill that already exists, that's when you get guys like Russell Westbrook or LeBron James right.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: They're units as physical units muscle strength, size but they also have the skills underneath that.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: That began with right.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: That's what I would focus on first.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Let's look at this in a contrast.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: I'm sure for all the athletes in the past or athletes currently, there's the weight room heroes that don't play and they suck.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Muscle size and development doesn't guarantee you're going to be a good athlete or a good player.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Being a game player and being a good player is different than just physical attributes.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: That's why not everybody in the NFL combine who crushes the numbers ends up being a stellar NFL player and athlete.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: It's because those physical attributes don't always translate and it doesn't really matter unless you have the skills for underneath that.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: All right, and as an example too, like personally there was, we had plenty of teammates in football in college and I played D2 ball.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: All right, let's get this straight I was a D2 player, didn't play high level D1.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: It was just D2 ball.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: It was a fun experience, it was cool.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: It grew and learned a lot, right?
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: Anyway, there was a lot of players that were weight room heroes.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: They were beasts in the weight room and they were strong, they looked like units, they looked solid, they looked good, they were big and they were strong and musculature.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: But then they got in the field and they sucked right, they didn't play, they didn't get any playing time and they're like having big muscles and being a physical unit doesn't guarantee you're going to be a good player.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: And I'm sure y'all'm sure some of the people listening to this are going to be like yes, I know exactly what you're talking about.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: So, that being said, let's apply that to our youth athletes.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: What are we going to focus on first?
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: What's the most important priority for being a good player, contributor to the team and a good player that's going to get good playing time.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: That's the main thing is getting playing time, because we've got to develop the skills and skill development first for their sport, and that comes a lot with movement control and coordination and, from a pain standpoint of lowering the risk of pain developing, the number one thing is movement control and coordination and that's what we're going to focus on first as clinicians or at least check out, and that's what I recommend for you all to check out and investigate.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: So it's just a really interesting thing that I wanted to chat about.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: And the last thing touching on briefly is confidence.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: I think, in my opinion, mindset is the number one influencing factor for success is mindset, and a lot of that is confidence of like.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Part of that is confidence.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: Right, that's what it is.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: Do you believe you can do it or not?
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: If somebody already has the insight underlying thought, they're like well, I don't think I really can.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: I'm not really sure.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: I really don't see myself being there.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Ultimately, I'm kind of just a fraud.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Like, I'm kind of I don't really don't belong here.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: I don't know, this is kind of a fake success.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: It's kind of a uh, it's a fluke.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: It's a fluke that underlying imposter it's imposter syndrome, from my understanding of like, ultimately, at some point I'm going to be exposed as a fraud.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Ultimately, at some point people are going to realize that I don't belong here and this everything might.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: If I've had perceived success at this point and excelled.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: It's just a fluke, it was an accident.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: It perceived success at this point and excelled.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: It's just a fluke, it was an accident.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: It's not going to last and I'm going to get exposed.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: That's the internal dialogue, that's the internal talk that I battled a lot.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: I didn't even know what it was and it's a huge bummer and I wish that we could have had interventions and awareness of that to begin with.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: The imposter syndrome is massive but anyway, in my opinion, for someone's success and development, proliferation and continual ascension in their career, in their sports or whatever goals they're trying to get after, it's the mindset that's the number one influencing factor.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: A lot of professionals and mental health professionals, coaches, pro athletes at a lot here, a lot the very rhetoric, a ton.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: It's always like you know, the mind man, the mental game, is so influential man, it's got to be 70.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: I'm like I disagree.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: I think it's 90 because that ultimately does change how someone trains and their, their self-belief that they can develop the skills or maybe limiting that they aren't going to try to improve their skills because they already think that they're an imposter to begin with and it's like I'll never be that good In my opinion.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: I think the mental game, the confidence and the mindset is the number one determining factor for someone's success and ascension and just the underlying belief that I could do that.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: I could do that, yeah.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: So there's a difference between arrogance and confidence.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: We're not going to be arrogant, right?
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: That's just an underlying belief that I'm the best at everything and I don't need help.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: But if there's confidence through humility and that mindset, I could do that.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: I just got to work on it.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: I think I could do that.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: I just got to improve.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: And I'm okay with sucking at the beginning, because I know who's going to be good at the first time to do anything.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Of course not.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: No, it is right.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: Like the first time you were kicked a soccer ball with your opposite foot.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Are you great at it?
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: No, first time you were trying to like, do the piano?
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: Do you can just play Mozart day one.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Of course not, you're going to suck.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Are you willing and okay with looking at yourself and being like I suck at this right now?
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: But if it would be a but, if I put enough work in and I consistently practice a little bit over a long period of time, I know I'll get better.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: And then at the end, I know I can do that.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: It's just going to take time and that's okay.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: And I'm okay with sucking right now, which is a humility standpoint of being humble and being okay, is being perceived as a novice and not looking great at the beginning.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: There's just a lot of people that are unwilling to do that at the expense at the risk of being looked upon as a fool, are you like?
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Does it look foolish?
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: He's looking at him trying so hard and he's so bad at it.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Why do you keep trying and you're so bad?
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Well, what do you expect?
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: I just, I just began this journey.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Of course it's going to be bad.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: They expect it to be bad and if you implement the right um, just practice and working on some stuff and that ultimately comes to the willingness.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: So that comes from the mindset that you can, over time it'll develop.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: It would be unreasonable to think that if you continue to practice purposefully with this amount of time over several months, it'd be unreasonable to think that you wouldn't get better.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: And actually some studies that I've heard is if you practice whatever your skill or developer goal that you're trying to do, 18 minutes a day over the period of a year, you'll be better than 90% of the people that do that thing or have tried that thing.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: That's what I've heard.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: It's not that much, it's chewable.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: So it's like man, I could do that.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: Like I said, it's just a matter of having the underlying confidence, through humility, that I'm willing and okay with sucking at this at the beginning, right, just unwilling to try.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: That's not my thing.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: I'm not good at it.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: That's usually a mindset confidence problem.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: But anyway, the imposter syndrome is super interesting.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: I just really it strikes a chord on me because that's something I battled a lot that I wish I would have known about.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: A lot of these things I wish I would have known about and it would have been a lot more beneficial for my development and just confidence.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: And then going through stuff and developing as an athlete but also as a student and my career and then, yeah, all that stuff.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: I think it's just very influential.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: And one little story for career-wise on imposter syndrome when I graduated, when I got my doctorate in physical therapy, I took the boards passed and on a leap of faith, I moved to Houston with all right with my then girlfriend, now my wife.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: We weren't even married, we weren't engaged yet.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: She got into the orthopedic residency program at Houston Methodist and then we ultimately both did an orthopedic sports fellowship program in Houston.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: But I went out there and I didn't even know anybody.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: We just went there on a 24 hour, a 48 hour trip to find apartments and for her to get checked in for HR for her job.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: That was starting in a couple of weeks and I had just decided that I was going to move with her, which was the best decision I could have made, because now we're married, we have a great marriage, we have two beautiful children.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: She's pregnant.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: We're expecting a child in November.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: But had I not taken that leap of faith, that we wouldn't have we would have, we would have separated, but we wouldn't have content Like we're not going to date long distance.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: I'm going to stay in Florida and you go to Houston and then just date long distance and it might cross paths again, you know, um, but anyways, on a leap of faith, we didn't know anybody, we just found this random apart, like we were looking at apartments online and then went there and visited in person and said sure, we'll sign a lease and I didn't even have a job.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: I had no job and on that trip I uh I don't know how to say this I faked an interview pretty much.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: I walked into, uh, I had been researching open potential, open positions, um, some local places and I found online that these, some of these spots were looking for them and I applied online a week before we left for this trip and keep in mind this trip was only a 24, it was less than 48 hours, it was a 36 hour trip just to sleep and travel right, like it was literally so fast.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: And so, like a week before this, I had been looking and applying online for certain positions and jobs that looked like they were open online.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: I heard nothing.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: I didn't hear anything for a whole week.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: So, going into this exploration trip for her to get signed in for HR and for us to find an apartment they were going to move to this city that we had never been to and knew nobody, and I had no job I was going to physically drive and walk up at any of these clinics and see if I can talk to somebody.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Okay, and I walked into this one clinic that looked pretty good and I walked in and the manager happened to be there.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: I tried to.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: I tried to time it around lunchtime, thinking that they would be more available, like at the top of the hour, last patient's about to leave, hopefully around lunchtime.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: That was my thought and it worked and this manager was walking around kind of getting things settled in to get lunch and whatever, and he was busy walking around the clinic.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: I was like, hey, I'm so-and-so and I applied online and I was supposed to come in to talk with you guys.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: And that wasn't a lie, but it wasn't completely.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I was purposely deceiving this guy, but anyway he was like oh man, I wish that these, the upper management, would tell me when we have interviews.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: I'm totally not prepared.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Let me do this.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Let's talk real quick and then I'll grab lunch, cause I got patients coming in next the next hour.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: We only have an hour off for lunch, so we'll talk.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: And then uh, and we'll go from there and maybe get the regional manager in to have a conversation too.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: And I was like, uh, sounds good, yep, sounds good, perfect, let's do that.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: So then we started talking and uh ended up being a good conversation and he was like, yeah, sounds good, let's get you in front of this regional manager.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: I think she's available today.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Let's, she'll do a three-way text right now and see if y'all can meet for lunch.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: And I was like, sounds good, I'll meet for lunch, yep.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: So I uh got a three-way text.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: And she's like yeah, I'm available, let's meet for lunch at this place in 30 minutes.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: And I was like I'm there, let's go.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: So I called my girlfriend, now my wife, nicole.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: I was like so I have this.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: I went in and met this guy.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: This manager Worked out great.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: They want me to meet the regional manager for lunch right now.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: So you go and look at this apartment and visit them for the office to maybe sign a lease, and I'm going to go visit these people.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Let's pivot and we're going to, you know, go separate ways real quick.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: But we've got to change plans because I got to meet these, I got to get this going.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: So she's like sounds good.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: So she went to go look at apartments and then I uh more without me.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: And then I went to visit these regional manager and another manager for lunch.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: And that was the second interview of that day.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: Kind of just man, if I could just came out and know I just made it out, I just faked it, right?
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: Um, and they ended up being like liking it and the good conversation.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: And they're like let's, we'll reach out and they meet like, uh, in a couple of days, let's put the paperwork through and then we'll get a third interview for the spot you maybe want to be at.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: And I was like, sounds good.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: So then we came home, uh, back to Florida, right after we, uh, brad, after we passed our, we had our board exam that next week and we've that's why I just get prepared more for that Took the board exam past, um, and then we were moving.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: That was stipulated upon her getting the job, that she passed the board exam.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: Then we moved.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: Three weeks, two weeks later, we moved for good, all of our stuff in the car, we caravan, together with all of our stuff in this apartment that um, she ended up finding when I was in this other interview and I still hadn't heard back yet, I still hadn't heard back of like a confirmation that I got the job.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: So I still had no job and I'm just moved out there and she's starting work like the next day.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: It was a crazy time.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: We moved in and it was nuts.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: She started the next day.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: The next day she started her job and then, I think the day after that, I got a phone call from the HR department that I got hired and I was.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: I was like a job offer.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: We send you the email and we're going to extend this position to you, and I was like, sounds good, where do I sign?
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: That's how it happened, which is crazy to me, right, which is insane, but anyway, so, on the imposter syndrome talk, which I going to talk about, that's how I got this job to begin with.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Okay, I went there, I didn't know, it was just crazy.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: Um, it's just a leap of faith, you know, which I think is a really cool thing, just to like just pull the trigger and ride the bullet.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you gotta be prepared and make, you know, make informed decisions and educated decisions, but at some point too, you just gotta sometimes gotta pull the trigger and ride the bullet, you know.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: But but anyway, so, um, I met uh with Nicole's uh faculty for her residency program and they were also doing a fellowship program in orthopedics and sports and I was like I don't know if I can I mean man, fellowship trained like this is the most prestigious, credential and training program, uh, pathway, that of sports physical therapists can go through.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: Am I out of my league?
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: I felt like I was out of my league.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: That's how I felt.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: That's imposter syndrome.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: I felt like I couldn't handle it.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: So I was like I'll meet with them and see what they think.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: And they were like look, we think you'd be in a good fit, we go through this application process and let's meet again.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: And they ended up extending a position within that fellowship program.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: Meet again, and they ended up extending a position within that fellowship program.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: And when I got accepted I was kind of in disbelief and I almost declined.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: I was probably 50%, half in half, out on the fence that I was going to decline the offer for fellowship training and not do it because I had this self, this self doubt that I wouldn't be able to handle it, the self doubt, disbelief that I was not able to to I was out of my league, that I wasn't qualified enough, I wasn't smart enough.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: I was gonna be in this room of very smart individuals Some are doing dual or residency fellowship simultaneously and then these mentors that are teaching us of like they're the gurus in the profession working with pro athletes, like on the side.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: They don't work for teams, they work on the side because these pro athletes come see them in secret because they don't want to go to their own team.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: Right, it's for contract negotiation too.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: I didn't realize that, but anyway, I'm like man, I'm out of my league, I'm over, I'm in, over my head, like I can't handle this.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I should do it.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: That was part of my, that was it.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: That was part for a career, right, like I almost declined the offer because I didn't think I could handle it.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: Thank goodness I did, cause it was the best decision I could have made and got a great learning experience.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: And then they asked, uh, I think two or three people over the past several cohorts to stay on as faculty and help teach, and I was one of them Nicole was one of them too, which is pretty crazy.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: So now I'm faculty for this thing.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: I'm that person that I thought I was.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: I'm that mentor and faculty member that I looked up so well, so highly, to thinking that I was out of my league, you know.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: But I'm so glad that I just took the leap of faith.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: And when one thing I believe in is just do it scared, then just do it scared.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: That's the bottom.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Like, just do it.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: That's okay to be scared, it's okay to be concerned and nervous and apprehensive.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Courage is not taking action without fear.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Courage is taking action despite the presence of fear.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: So just do it.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: Just do it scared and it's just a really cool, you know, reflection story that I think can help encourage other people.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: But the self-doubt, the imposter syndrome is a big thing that I battled with and I have other stories in college football and volleyball, like playing sports that I, looking back, was definitely battling imposter syndrome that I wish I would have been exposed to, just interesting Right, or had a mentor, a coach of some capacity that would have coached me through that.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: I wish I would have had that.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: But anyway, that's why I'm passionate about it now and we can help youth athletes that I see myself in and we see ourselves in vicariously through those athletes.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: But anyway, that's just a cool little quip on self-doubt and confidence and imposter syndrome that a lot of youth athletes, every youth athlete, battles.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: You know if they're not, it's usually over compensation because of underlying insecurity At least that's my opinion, but anyway.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: So if you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: We'd love to help um fix pain problems for people, active athletes and athletic individuals and active adults and uh, we really live vicariously through our patients so we can help them and we see ourselves.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: So if you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out, the best way to reach us is probably our phone number at 561-899-8725 or our administrative email, which is team at athlete rccom.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: And feel free to share this with somebody right?
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: We don't really do any marketing or like super crazy advertising.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: We're just a local service business practice sports physical therapy practice and feel free to share this with somebody that and maybe it could be cool information for them that they maybe take action and elsewhere and other professionals.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: Like I said, I'm just a sports physical therapist.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: I'm not a mental health professional, but I just see a lot of this translations and, uh, a lot of links to some of these things.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: But anyway, so thanks for checking in and we'll catch y'all next time.