Latest / The Layback Podcast / Chris Matarazzo, Athletic Trainer - Vanderbilt Baseball (Ep. 72)

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Chris Matarazzo, Athletic Trainer - Vanderbilt Baseball (Ep. 72) · The Layback Podcast

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Hey everyone, welcome back to the Lay Back podcast.
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Joining us today is athletic trainer at Vanderbilt
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University, Chris Matarazzo. Chris has been with the Vandy
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boys for a bit now. He's been on some incredible
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runs with their program. I know he's a New Jersey native,
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but as you guys know, I don't want to screw anybody's bio up,
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so I'm going to punt it over to him and let him pick up the
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pieces for me. But Chris, before you get
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started, I really just want to say thank you for joining us
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today and we're really excited for this interview.
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Yeah, thanks, Adam. I appreciate you having me on.
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I'm honored that you'd consider me.
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And I've enjoyed working with you guys for the last couple
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years too, so it's a privilege to be on here with you.
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A little bit of background on me, like Adam said, I'm from
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Oakland, NJ to undergrad up in Springfield, MA at Springfield
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College for athletic training. I did my grad program at Penn
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State where I got a master's in kinesiology with a focus on
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sports medicine. During that time, I was a
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certified athletic trainer working with football, baseball,
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men and women's volleyball while I was there.
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Following Penn State, I did a brief stint at the University of
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Florida, where I worked with baseball and softball for two
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years while I was there before coming to Vanderbilt, which has
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been where I've been for the last nine years now.
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I guess the first three I spent working with track and field and
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then I've just completed my sixth season with.
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Baseball, I know you talked a little bit about this on another
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podcast, so I don't want to spend too much time on it, but
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you obviously have experience in various sports.
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What was your own athletic background in like?
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Did baseball come calling to you or is this just more the
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opportunity to work with a top tier program and it just made
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sense? I mean, growing up, I spent most
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of my time around football and for the longest time I thought
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that that's kind of what I wanted to do with my career.
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Getting into grad school, a little bit of it is just kind of
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what you get assigned to those first couple years that you're
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in, you get a lot of exposure to a bunch of different sports.
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You don't have the the longevity with your working with a full
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year, 2 years with a program. So you get to see a lot in that
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process. My exposure to baseball, I like
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the pace of baseball. I mean, it's a little bit more
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of a relaxed pace, but even off the field, I find it to be a
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little bit more like problem solving.
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I, I, I enjoy trying to work through some of the, the upper
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extremity injuries and, and the, the problem solving of putting
2:25
together a throwing program and, and maybe diagnosing some faults
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and pitching mechanics. I really enjoyed that aspect.
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Not that you don't get that in some other sports, but I just,
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it kind of, it interests me to a bigger degree in baseball.
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But now if you would ask me 12 years ago is, is baseball going
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to be where you're? I probably would have said no, I
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don't, I don't see myself doing that.
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But but here I am and and I love every minute of it.
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With that response, you dangled the carrot in front of me
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already. So this is, this is exciting.
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I definitely wanted to get into it, but now, now we can just
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jump in. You mentioned kind of the
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problem solving, looking at mechanics, looking at throwing
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program, building a development plan for a player.
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You obviously have a lot available to you at Vanderbilt.
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You have some incredible minds, especially on the pitching side,
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the medical side. But you have Brownie at your
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disposal. You have your partner in crime
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and Jacqueline Forth. I'd love to know a little bit of
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how you guys work together and collaborate because you do have
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so many people with such specific expertise that I'm sure
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everybody provides their own perspective, but it's all
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founded in study and research or in personal experience.
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Well, I'm incredibly fortunate to be at a place like Vanderbilt
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where we resource both our baseball program, but our
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Medical Center as well with everything that we need from a
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development standpoint. We have Scott Brown on our
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pitching side. We have Tyler Herb, who's been a
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new addition for us on our pitching side.
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And the two of them are phenomenal minds.
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And we've got other guys, Brandon Barrett, Zach Monash and
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some people in our player development staff as well as our
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our other athletic trainer Jack. So it, it allows us to kind of
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focus in a little bit more on, on smaller things that we work
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on versus like when we're building a throwing program,
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let's say on a return to throw program for somebody.
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I don't have to manage the totality of it.
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I mean, somebody is usually quarterbacking the whole thing,
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but I can focus on little pieces and I don't really have to worry
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too much about the pitching mechanics standpoint because
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we've got 2 incredibly gifted or talented pitching coaches on
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staff that that can work on that.
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So I can focus a little bit more on the rehab side of it or even
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the program design on on the throwing program and let Jack
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work on the day-to-day rehab with with the throwing program.
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So it's just kind of pulling all the pieces in together and then
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making it a team approach you, you get some of the best minds
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because you're not doing everything you can do a little
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bit better with a little piece that you have to work on.
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But two, it gives you another resource if, if something's not
5:01
going well that you can, you got a couple more people in the room
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that can talk about like, well, here's what I'm seeing.
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Or maybe we've tried doing this because I've done this at my
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previous place that I've worked or with a previous guy that I've
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worked with too. So just give you a couple extra
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opportunities to know that like not every program is going to go
5:21
the same, not everyone's going to respond to the same program.
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And even if you're casually talking about it, like sometimes
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those conversations happen in the morning before the people
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even get in there. And we've come up with a whole
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new plan. I really enjoy getting all those
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resources. If you're not on an island, you
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never feel like you're on an island.
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And you get more collaborative care.
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And then ultimately, the student athlete gets more collaborative
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care. So I assume.
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You just need to be aware of the minimum to an extent when it
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comes to bio mechanics or movement or like the individual
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intricacies of a pitcher or thrower.
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It's not like you need to be the expert of how they move down the
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mound, but if you notice something that looks potentially
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corrosive or could cause an issue later down the line,
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that's where you might step in and say something to a brownie
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or someone else on the crew. Yeah, correct.
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Between Jack and I, we're we're generally running the day-to-day
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of the of the at least the return to throw progressions for
6:19
these guys. And we don't need to know how to
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fix every problem that comes up mechanically.
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But as long as we have an understanding of hey, that
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doesn't look right. Maybe now it's time to go get
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Brownie. Now it's time to go get Herbie
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so that they can watch and they can hone in on exactly maybe
6:36
what's wrong with with what's going on in that situation so
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that they're not necessarily standing there watching every
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throw that that an athlete makes through their return
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progression. But yeah, we come like the
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detector to some degree. Sometimes they're standing
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there, They'll detect things that we don't see because again,
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we are, we're not experts on all of this, but as long as we can
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detect, hey, that doesn't look right.
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You want to come watch this? They'll come back, they'll give
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some feedback. And then if we're listening to
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the feedback, then we can reinforce it through maybe the
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next couple days, whether they're standing there or not
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standing there too. So it, it does help having that
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because yeah, I'm not, I'm not going to be able to diagnose
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every, every movement deficiency.
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That's not my job. And that's they don't want me
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doing that either. And, and I'm fine with admitting
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that and and letting the experts do what they're good at so that
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I can focus on what I'm good at. So now maybe more out of my own
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interest, how much would you say continuing education is there
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for you? And I don't mean this as like a
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true CU where you need to log this for clinical hours or
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whatever. I mean, how much research or
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preparation do you feel you are doing to stick with the times of
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baseball, whether it's the motor preferences that are talked
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about more than ever today, whether it's planes of rotation
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in what we're looking at from a biomechanical approach or
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different theories of velocity development.
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How in tune are you with those different things and how much
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time are you spending on that just so you can talk the talk
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with the players and the coaches?
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Yeah, I'll, I wouldn't say I focus too much on that.
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So if you're looking at the the specificity continuum, if all
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the way on the right side of the continuum is them pitching in a
8:21
game and all the way on the left is them doing, I don't know, a
8:24
basic external rotation exercise.
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I would say I do spend most of my time on the left side or if
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you went halfway on the left side of that, just because we do
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have a lot of people on the right side of that that are
8:36
already working on that. So I don't necessarily think we
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need to continue to add more expertise when we've got two
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people, I'll stick to my side of the continuum.
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But you're right, like being able to have those conversations
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with the right side of the continuum is important.
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So as I hear Brown and Herb start talking about some of
8:54
these things, or they'll come down to, and they'll be like,
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Hey, I listen to this podcast or hey, we're, we're starting to
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work on this with, with this guy.
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And this is the route we're going.
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Like, I'll try to get familiar with the vocabulary and see how
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I can blend the left side of the continuum to the right side, but
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I don't, I try not to drift too far to the to write again, just
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because I do have a lane that I'm supposed to be in and I try
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to stay in that lane. But as long as we're
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communicating it with the same terms and it does, it does
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require learning. I mean, there are times where
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like they'll come down and they'll be like, Hey, what do
9:25
you know about this? I'm like, I never heard of that
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before. And so then I have to go and
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read up on it. And a lot of times it's a
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repackage terminology on something that somebody's
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already been doing. So just trying to like, I guess
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relearn some of it the way that I initially did is, is how, but
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I mean, I'm a huge continuing Ed fan, whether it's baseball
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specific or sports medicine specific stuff.
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I've been working a lot with the, the SFMA is, is one of the
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recent like tools that we're, we're playing around with.
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We've done some stuff with some PRI.
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So usually this time of year, now that baseball is, is ended,
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is, is kind of the, the time we tackle all that.
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So if you hear good things and you want, you want to send them
10:03
my way, I'm, I'm almost always willing to listen to.
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So I love learning. You might now regret telling me
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that because I always get deep in the weeds.
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I'm always trying to figure out what's going on because
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obviously with Flex Pro Grip, we don't really discriminate on who
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we work with. We, with us being a tool, we
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view ourselves as a compliment to what's going on anywhere.
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So it's not. Like if you throw weighted balls
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it means you can't use flex pro grip.
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If you're a long toss guy it means you can't use flex pro
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grip. Or.
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Whatever, like all these different sects that usually
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eliminate something from somewhere else.
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Like that's obviously not how we operate.
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Like if any, if you throw a ball at a high level, there's a
10:48
chance that something negative can happen to your forearm.
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And we want to sure, we want to prevent that.
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We want to support the athlete. So as a result, every time I
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talk to somebody, I'm always trying to figure out what
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they're doing. And then, like you said, more
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often than not, it's something I've never heard of or somebody
11:05
I've never heard of. And then I go down the rabbit
11:07
hole now every time I hear something new.
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You might be hearing of something new.
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It's out of my way. I'm always open to it.
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Perfect. No, no, just bad knowledge.
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I agree, if it just means that my eyes are open to more things,
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whether I use it or not, I feel better about it.
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At least I know that I can relate to the athlete that I'm
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working with now. Kind of along these lines, you
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spend just as much time in the dugout as anybody in the
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program. It's weird to think how many
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hours athletic trainers are really spending in the trenches.
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That was so. Crazy to me the first time I
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stepped foot into a college baseball program and I realized
11:48
that I probably saw my athletic trainer more than I saw my head
11:51
coach. Not that not that the head coach
11:54
wasn't doing something, but literally the athletic trainer
11:57
and athletic training department are with you every step of the
12:00
way. I guess the reason I bring this
12:04
up is there is so much that can come up at any given moment,
12:07
whether it's spot treatment or long term care, and you're there
12:11
for every single piece of it. How much?
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We'll start with the basics. How much of your day or your
12:19
day-to-day is spent kind of doing spot treatment or just
12:23
trying to help an athlete feel better for a given practice
12:27
versus long term? Athlete care, yeah, I guess it
12:30
really depends on the time of the year and then I guess the
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type of the year. Thankfully this past year we
12:36
were we were incredibly healthy. So we didn't have a ton of long
12:40
term rehabs. I'd say in season we try to
12:43
handle a lot of our long term rehabs.
12:45
In the morning, you can have anywhere from one surgical case
12:48
to four to five in a rough year. So those are typically the ones
12:52
that take up those, those surgical cases are the one that
12:54
take up a lot of time individually.
12:56
But I'd say we spend probably about two hours most days
13:00
between the hours of 12 and two of just trying to get, get
13:03
people feel better, get them ready for the training session,
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get them ready for the game. And we might spend an hour
13:08
before that with our, with our rehab cases.
13:11
We, we do try to teach, especially in season, we try to
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teach as many of our guys to be as self-sufficient as they can
13:19
with their rehab. So if you walk into our training
13:21
room, we have a big dry erase board.
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I don't know if you remember seeing it, but we've got a big
13:26
dry erase board where we'll write up a lot of the rehabs for
13:29
the day. Then we'll generally if somebody
13:31
comes in and walks in, we can run through them with the guys
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and say, here are these exercises.
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Do you know what they all are? Certain exercises require us to
13:38
watch or we want to watch them do that.
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And then we try to space them out accordingly so that we can.
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So there are times where we're going back and forth with a
13:46
rehab. Now we're doing some soft tissue
13:48
treatment on a guy that is playing and back and forth.
13:51
So I'd say in season more of the feel good, get them going, get
13:54
them ready to play type treatments and then out of
13:57
season like now this is one of my in terms of like working with
13:59
guys is one of my favorite times of the year.
14:01
I feel like every year, just because we've got some post
14:04
surgical guys that I can spend an hour with just solely with
14:08
them and they get one-on-one attention and I can really try
14:12
to attack in on some of those, some of those deficiencies and a
14:15
little bit more total body versus like if we're working
14:19
with an elbow, we can work elbow shoulder, then we can start
14:21
working some T spine mobility and some core and lower body
14:24
stuff with the rehab versus in the middle of like game season,
14:27
we probably leave a lot of that up to the the strength and
14:29
conditioning coach and we really just attack the elbow and
14:32
shoulder. But being able to give
14:33
one-on-one attention as an athletic trainer is not
14:35
something that comes very frequently, especially with a 40
14:40
man roster or 34, whatever it ends up being.
14:43
Again, just trying to balance it too.
14:45
But out of season a lot more is that long term rehab.
14:48
And then in season we spend a little bit more time kind of
14:51
like feel good treatment, short term treatments.
14:53
So I hope I answered that. I guess I started to.
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It's OK because even if you didn't answer it specifically,
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my follow up questions are all related to the exact same thing.
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So don't. Worry.
15:03
We're going to we're going to peel back the onion one way or
15:05
the other. So now, now the next like
15:08
breakdown in this is kind of like manual therapy and I don't
15:13
know what the proper term would be.
15:15
But. Kind of like how often do you
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have your hands actually on a player or using like soft tissue
15:22
ask tools versus prescribing therapeutic exercise and who
15:29
fits where on that continuum? Yeah, I'd say at least from,
15:33
from our philosophy standpoint in our program, but then Jack
15:37
and myself, I'd say anybody that comes in on any given day, 95%
15:41
of the time they're going to be given some type of therapeutic
15:44
or corrective exercise. That is the foundation of
15:46
everything that we do. Even if it's they just want a
15:49
soft tissue treatment, we'll give them a soft tissue
15:50
treatment. We'll probably give them two or
15:52
three, neither mobility or activation things to do post
15:55
treatment. We do quite a bit of cupping.
15:57
They're doing movement with the cups on too.
15:59
So, so we don't, we don't do a ton of just lay on the table,
16:02
get some work done. Like we, we want them moving
16:04
around with it. As far as soft tissue goes, in
16:06
general, most of the guys come in two to three times a week to
16:10
do it. It's not something we're doing
16:12
every day with the guys. We try to space it out and then
16:14
we leave a lot of it up to them in terms of how they want to
16:19
incorporate it into their program.
16:20
There are guys that love coming in and getting soft tissue work
16:23
the day before they throw. There's a lot of guys that want
16:25
to save it until the day after they throw.
16:27
So we give them the latitude to pick when they do it.
16:30
We do do a ton of it. We use the instrument assisted
16:33
soft tissue mobilization and we'll dig our hands in there
16:35
when we need to or when we can. We do a lot of cupping and we've
16:39
done dry needling in the past and then that's that some we'll
16:41
be allowed to do again in the in the spring thanks to some new
16:45
legislation in Tennessee. But we do do a lot of soft
16:48
tissue more on the more on the the pitchers.
16:49
They seemingly are just the ones that that come in and and want
16:52
it versus the position players. But we will do it on the
16:54
position players when they come in as well.
16:56
But I'd say we're very movement based.
16:58
It's not a lot of like lay on the table, get worked on and go
17:00
out. There's going to be an exercise
17:02
component to come in and see us. Along these lines, how much do
17:06
you think your identity in the program has even shifted?
17:11
Whether it's the six years you've been with the Vanderbilt
17:14
baseball program or just how athletic trainers have been
17:19
viewed throughout your entire career of being the bad news
17:23
guy, You only go see that individual if you're hurt, if
17:27
you literally cannot take another step to now being a true
17:31
support person in the career of an athlete.
17:34
That's some I remember learning early in my career was that my
17:37
first year or two, I remember I'd only go to talk to the
17:40
coaching staff. So when I had bad news, I'd only
17:42
go talk to the players when they were hurt and and I real quickly
17:46
became the negative news guy. So just trying to incorporate
17:50
myself any way that I can. That's both a positive impact,
17:53
not just the negative side. I think one, it makes it a
17:55
little bit more enjoyable for me that people aren't running away
17:58
from me when I'm coming down the hallway.
17:59
But two like, but we do we welcome, we welcome anybody
18:02
because if we can keep, if we can keep guys out onto the
18:05
field. I mean it's become well
18:07
established in all sports that one of the best attributes to
18:12
successful teams is just availability.
18:15
So if we can keep guys on the field by seeing them more on the
18:19
front end, one, you're more likely to be successful and two,
18:23
it's going to save us a lot of work on the back end in terms of
18:25
now they're coming in broken now we're still having to work with
18:28
them, but now they can't play. So I've always welcomed them in.
18:31
I enjoy being around the guys too.
18:33
When they come in for 10 minutes of treatment, it's not I don't
18:36
approach it as I they're giving me more work to do.
18:38
I get to spend 10 minutes talking to somebody and learning
18:41
a little bit about them and, and helping them with their career
18:44
as well. So, and again at Vanderbilt,
18:47
it's never been like, nobody's ever been like, no, you can't go
18:49
see the athletic trainer. Like they're like, go see him
18:52
get what you need, stay on the field if you can.
18:55
So I do enjoy that piece. I mean, I was talking to one of
18:57
the guys. It's always the, the recruits
18:59
come in and the parents always like, Oh, well, hopefully you
19:02
don't see my son too much when they come here.
19:05
And we're like, no, I mean, if, if your son's here, there's a
19:08
good chance we're going to get at least a couple touches over
19:10
the course of the year. I mean, we, we, we track all
19:13
the, the treatments and stuff that we do and we get, I think a
19:15
touch on just about every, every student and athlete every year.
19:19
So they, they end up in the training room.
19:20
Hopefully it's more for preventative work or some, some
19:23
some maintenance work rather than long term care.
19:26
But yeah, that's I appreciate that that's grown.
19:28
It helps them keep them on the field, but it's also that added
19:31
value to us as as athletic trainers.
19:34
So you are seeing preventative work or maintenance work
19:37
becoming more commonplace and accepted across the sport I'm
19:42
assuming? Absolutely.
19:44
And I think, I think a lot of that too is 1, as you see, I
19:48
guess 20-30 years ago, a lot of coaches that were, I guess
19:54
former athletes weren't maybe not used to having athletic
19:56
trainers around too. So especially as you see some of
19:59
these newer coaches that played with athletic trainers very
20:02
present, there's just more of an understanding of what we do as
20:05
professionals and, and that again, it's not all bad seeing
20:08
us. And if you can get something
20:10
taken care of before it keeps you off the field, take
20:12
advantage of that resource and and then again.
20:16
Being an athletic trainer that isn't just holding everybody out
20:19
for every little thing that comes in because that it's going
20:21
to be viewed negatively. And then you'll stop getting
20:23
people to come in, but kind of giving them some freedom to play
20:26
through some things without holding them out or trying to
20:28
take care of it so that they can continue to play.
20:30
You're going to get more welcome.
20:31
But yeah, yeah, I think, I think more of the work now that I see
20:36
is on guys that are playing then guys that aren't playing.
20:40
I I think that last sentence was kind of like the perfect take
20:45
home message from that response. Like that, that is so valuable.
20:48
Like understanding that as an athlete that you have a support
20:52
team and these people are trying to keep you on the field, not
20:56
prevent you from stepping on it is it's weird that that isn't
21:01
more well known or widespread. I, I love that it is becoming
21:06
more commonplace. And hopefully we can get to a
21:08
point where athletic trainers truly are good news people.
21:12
Of course, I, I know you have to occasionally say something that
21:16
might not be received the best. Yeah, it comes with the
21:19
territory, right? But yeah, if, if you guys as a
21:23
whole can be seen as support, not prevention.
21:27
I, I think we're, we're on the right track.
21:30
Speaking of the support and prevention, I do want to go that
21:33
route a little bit. Of course, you don't need to say
21:36
specific names or anything, but what do bad news conversations
21:39
look like for you? Like how often, hopefully very
21:43
seldom you're having those. But like, yeah, I know you're,
21:48
you're often the person that's first on the scene.
21:51
You are the first responder in many of these situations, which
21:55
does put you in the position of offering bad news.
21:58
So I know you need not just to be clinically strong in what you
22:03
do, but you need to have a strong human element to your
22:08
profession. So I'd love if you could just
22:10
kind of break that down, share your experiences, what it's like
22:14
to be the man who has to deliver tough news occasionally.
22:18
Yeah, it's it's not fun. I mean, that's that's without a
22:21
doubt the worst part of the job. It sucks having to tell somebody
22:24
that their season is likely over based on an injury or we think
22:27
that this is going to need surgery.
22:30
I mean, that's not fun. And then the ultimate bad news
22:33
is this, this might be career ending for you.
22:36
And it it's happened a couple times in my career, not very
22:40
often, but when it does it, it hurts just as bad every time.
22:43
The way I approach it is, is they need to know.
22:46
I mean, it's if it were me sitting there in any situation,
22:49
whether it's me going to the doctor about my own personal
22:51
health, I wouldn't want somebody to skate around what's going on.
22:55
The best way to do it is just be honest, be direct with them.
22:58
You don't need to have all the answers, but get as much of a
23:01
complete picture as you can. You don't want to start
23:03
delivering bad news and then when questions come up, then you
23:06
got to go back and now they're waiting to see what the answer
23:09
to the question is while they're panicking a little bit.
23:11
And I just use my resources around me too.
23:14
I, our team physicians are phenomenal in terms of if they
23:17
need to be present for whatever conversation.
23:20
There's been a bigger growth in sports psychology through the
23:23
last couple years and I think that that's a phenomenal
23:25
resource as well. I know there's sometimes a
23:27
little bit of a stigma around it, but I don't think there
23:30
should be because sometimes it's just helpful to have somebody to
23:33
talk to. It's probably one of the worst
23:34
parts about the job is it's just having to tell somebody that
23:37
that this is not going the way that they wanted to.
23:39
And I think everybody knows eventually their baseball career
23:42
is going to end at some point. We never want it to be this
23:45
early when they're working with me.
23:47
We hope that they all go on and have professional careers and
23:49
especially when it's injury related.
23:51
But you got to be direct, you got to be there for them.
23:53
You support them on the back end because even if their careers
23:56
over, you're going to continue to work with them just to get
23:58
them back to a place that they can continued going on about
24:02
their life. So being direct, being there for
24:04
them and being available if they have questions or if they just
24:07
want to talk, that's kind of the best way to approach that.
24:11
Yeah, well, I appreciate you sharing that.
24:13
I know it's not the easiest thing.
24:15
Obviously I asked the question that doesn't feel good to
24:19
answer, but it's the reality of the situation that you're in and
24:21
the job that you're in. And I was just super curious to
24:24
hear it because I mean, I I dealt with a few injuries.
24:27
Injuries ultimately took me out of the game.
24:30
Just having someone there just means so much.
24:34
And as you said, the, the honesty piece, the directness is
24:38
really essential in my opinion. Like nobody wants the, the beat
24:42
around the Bush. Like just tell it straight.
24:44
We'll be OK. We're, we're all grown here.
24:46
We'll be fine. So with this, I do want to get
24:49
now into a little bit more specifics.
24:51
I feel like we, we covered a good bit about the industry as a
24:54
whole. What you've seen some changes?
24:57
Now I want to talk about your own practice and kind of how
25:01
you've developed or maybe how things have changed over the
25:03
years for you specifically. Now let's say an athlete
25:08
approaches you with forearm or medial elbow discomfort.
25:13
I want to know, like, First things first, what are you
25:16
doing? How are you assessing it?
25:18
What are those conversations look like?
25:20
So, so the first thing we're doing is we're grabbing a
25:22
history. And sometimes if we're
25:24
fortunate, we've seen, sometimes we've seen the lead up so that
25:28
like we can turn around and we can catch them and say, hey,
25:31
this doesn't look right. Tell us a little bit more.
25:34
But more often than not, it's them coming in and saying, hey,
25:36
my elbow hurts. So just trying to get a history
25:38
of, of what they were doing when it happened, what kind of
25:41
sensations they feel like? Did they feel some popping?
25:44
Did they feel some tingling down their fingers or was it a
25:48
graduate? Was it 1 throw?
25:50
Was it a gradual throw? If it was one throw, what was
25:53
the pitch? What was your distance?
25:55
What were you like? What was your intent level?
25:57
What did the couple weeks before lead up?
25:59
So even when you were feeling healthy, what did that look
26:01
like? Did you ramp up correctly or was
26:03
all of a sudden it was completely aggressive?
26:06
Were you changing? Were you working on anything
26:08
new? For the most part, if you take a
26:10
good history, you can get a good idea of what the injury you're
26:13
expecting to see is before you've even put hands on the
26:16
patient. Because because we can get a lot
26:18
from where you start to see patterns, especially the longer
26:20
you do this on what's going to result from certain things that
26:24
people are doing and then you put your hands on them.
26:26
The first thing we want to do when somebody comes in with an
26:28
arm injury is rule out any type of UCL pain.
26:30
So, so we do our valgus tests, we do in a bunch of different
26:34
positions to see what's provocative.
26:36
We do look at the shoulder and see if range of motion has
26:38
changed, looking for any type of swelling, any type of sore
26:41
spots. And usually if somebody comes in
26:44
with arm pain for us, we shut it down immediately.
26:47
We're not. We don't throw through arm pain
26:49
very often, if at all, just because it's, if your elbow
26:53
hurts today when you're throwing, it's probably going to
26:55
hurt when you throw tomorrow. And the more you throw, the more
26:57
it's going to hurt. So we don't, we don't generally
27:00
see that pushing through. That is a good thing.
27:03
So we shot him down, everyone in our programs on board with that,
27:06
our coaching Staffs on board with that, our strength and
27:08
conditioning Staffs on board with that.
27:09
So it's, it's an easy conversation.
27:11
And even our older guys will sometimes send in our younger
27:15
guys when they're like, no, I'm trying to hide the, they're not
27:17
trying to hide this, but they're I'm just going to see if it goes
27:19
away. The older guys be like, no, go
27:21
get that looked at. So that's kind of the process we
27:23
go, we'll evaluate whether or not we feel like it's something
27:26
that that needs to see a doc. Our doctors are super available
27:29
and, and a lot of times, even if it's just me calling them and
27:33
bouncing some ideas off of them before we physically take them
27:35
over to see it, we'll treat a lot of stuff in house for a
27:38
couple of days before we send them out there just to see kind
27:41
of if it goes away, I've got a good idea of what our doctors
27:44
treatment progression is going to be.
27:45
So if I can knockout step one and two before we even get
27:47
there, they're OK with that. Usually our student athletes are
27:50
OK with that. Our coaches are OK with that.
27:53
Obviously if anyone wants to go see a doc at any point, we're
27:56
willing to take them up there and our doctors are willing to
27:58
see them too. So we'll take them to the doc
28:00
then, and then we'll determine whether or not this is something
28:02
that needs imaging or anti-inflammatory or what the
28:05
course of action is going to be from there.
28:07
You already started down the decision tree, which is where I
28:10
was going to ask you to go. Just how do these things unfold?
28:13
Where do we go? So let's say it's kind of like
28:17
run-of-the-mill stuff. It sucks to say this is
28:20
run-of-the-mill, but for instance, you guys have new guys
28:24
showing up. Let's say one of these young
28:26
guys is ramping up in a throwing program comes into you in two or
28:30
three weeks and just say like I like just doesn't feel right.
28:34
And let's say you guys rule out, rule out for now the need to go
28:38
see a doctor. What are what are those next few
28:41
steps? Yeah, you'd be.
28:44
You'd be. Really surprised that if you
28:46
catch something early enough and This is why we don't want these
28:49
guys throwing through a lot of discomfort, especially given the
28:52
time of the year where we've got all the time in the world before
28:54
the season starts. You'd be surprised how much of
28:57
these like even like minor pains, discomforts can clear
29:01
themselves up in about a week in a week of no throwing, whether
29:04
we will start them on an anti-inflammatory usually and we
29:07
start just if they're losing range of motion.
29:09
Usually if they're losing range of motion, we're probably going
29:11
to see if it's a drastic loss in range of motion, we're going to
29:14
go see a doctor. But if they're if they've got
29:16
some small decreases, we'll work on getting that back.
29:19
Our valgus stress tests. We wait until that becomes non
29:22
painful before we start throwing.
29:24
If it's painful, if a valgus test is painful while you're
29:26
doing it, it's gonna be painful when they throw.
29:28
So we'll wait for that to go away.
29:29
And usually if that doesn't go away in seven days, we're going
29:31
to see a doc anyway. But just just a range of motion
29:35
program will always start incorporating some scapular
29:39
work, some T spine mobility and core control with any elbow
29:43
rehab program. And that's kind of how we attack
29:45
that first week. That'll be the time where we can
29:47
really focus in on like some movement deficiencies that maybe
29:50
we missed in our initial screening or maybe they've
29:52
changed in the process of them throwing over a course of a
29:55
couple weeks. When they can't throw, they get
29:58
to spend more time with us. So we get to spend more time
30:01
seeing where their their deficiencies are.
30:04
Then again, you'd be surprised how much of that doesn't clear
30:06
up in about a week too. And not everything's not going
30:09
to clear up in a week. And I don't, I don't want
30:11
everyone to take this as as gospel and self diagnosing at
30:14
home, but a lot of this stuff, as long as you stop throwing
30:18
early enough with pain, you can clean up a lot of stuff pretty
30:21
quickly. I'm glad you mentioned it
30:23
specifically there. You said initial assessment and
30:26
you mentioned already a couple times in the episode if a guy's
30:30
range of motion changes. So I was going to ask now, what
30:33
does an initial intake assessment look like for you
30:36
guys? When they come in.
30:38
Start of the year like opening. Physicals, yeah.
30:41
So we are strength and conditioning coaches do some
30:45
some performance assessments. We do some counter movement
30:48
jump. I think they do a I'm trying to
30:50
remember what the name is. It's like a barbell ISO dipole.
30:54
Yeah, mid dipole. There you go.
30:56
So they're doing stuff like that.
30:58
We'll do a movement assessment. Last year again, we tried pop
31:00
tier SFMA just to try to get an idea of of maybe some joints
31:05
that were a little bit limited before we went in and and
31:07
focused on them. But then from an arm standpoint,
31:10
we typically do a lot of dynamometry assessments.
31:13
So when all the guys come in with the pitchers, we'll check
31:16
range of motion, internal external rotation of the
31:18
shoulder with a inclinometer that will do internal external
31:23
isometric strength, will do an ISO I into the ground and ISO
31:28
why we do the ash test essentially.
31:30
And then we'll do a grip test with them all on the dynamometer
31:33
too. So that kind of gives us a
31:34
baseline strength and range of motion for the shoulder and
31:38
elbow as well as the SFMA top tier.
31:41
We did that. We're still deciding whether or
31:43
not we want to do that again this year or if that we can come
31:45
up with something a little bit newer.
31:46
We tweak it every year, but it's kind of a global joint range of
31:50
motion. Anything glaring, we'll give
31:51
them some quick things to fix or we'll incorporate it into their
31:55
strength and conditioning. But we do a lot with the
31:57
dynamometer and then we do some weekly monitoring with the
32:00
dynamometer too, because we do see some things that that change
32:04
in two months, it'll look completely different than it did
32:07
in August. And sometimes it's good,
32:09
sometimes it's not good. So we try to check in relatively
32:14
frequently. Weekly might be a little
32:16
aggressive, but at least at least once a month, we're trying
32:19
to get dynamometry measurements of the arm so that there's not
32:22
all of a sudden this huge drop in external rotation range of
32:25
motion or internal rotation range of motion, or their grip
32:27
strength has gone from, they're pulling 800 Newtons on the thing
32:30
to 600. And you're like, holy hell, what
32:33
where did this, where did this strength go?
32:34
And if you can catch some of that stuff on the front end,
32:37
we'll intervene on it sometimes and then hopefully it it
32:39
prevents injury. One of the big themes that I've
32:42
heard consistently now is just the earlier you can catch
32:46
something, the better off you're going to be.
32:48
So we're we're just encouraging athletes to speak up anytime
32:52
they see something, feel something, whatever.
32:55
We try to tell the guys this and, and let, let us be the
32:58
determinant if this is something to be significantly worried
33:01
about or no, you know what, this is going to be OK.
33:04
Like don't, don't keep it to yourself.
33:05
Communicate with the coach and, and not every ache and pain is
33:08
going to come in and be like, hey, no, we got to shut you down
33:11
for, for two weeks here. Sometimes we'll monitor it for a
33:14
couple days if we feel like it's appropriate.
33:16
But let let us make that decision or let us make the
33:18
decision as a group rather than like hiding something or just
33:22
trying to see to see if it'll if it'll go away on its own because
33:27
we try to tell them to. You've got all these resources
33:29
here. Why not use them?
33:31
Don't, don't try to do this on your own.
33:32
Use what you have available to us.
33:34
Let us be the experts. And what were the experts in?
33:38
This This might be the toughest question I've asked you so far,
33:42
so feel free to take some time on it.
33:44
Again, you don't need to name any names.
33:46
I don't expect you to because that would probably get into
33:49
some legality discussions, but I'm curious if there is a
33:53
specific rehab that you can recall that has really stuck
33:58
with you over the years. One that change your decision
34:02
making processes, One that really forced you to think
34:05
creatively or draw from a bunch of different experiences, or
34:09
just mix up the way that you normally work on a day-to-day
34:13
basis. We obviously try to self
34:17
evaluate after every rehab that we have, but you end up always
34:21
doing more when they don't go well.
34:23
We did have a case a couple years ago where we had a UCL
34:27
reconstruction re injured during the throwing program.
34:31
That was probably the hardest point in my career in terms of
34:33
watching that happen and, and, and playing a role in that
34:36
happening. So it was not a, it was not a
34:39
fun time, but it, it, it forced me to, to revamp everything that
34:43
I did. I mean, I, I sat there and
34:45
reevaluated everything from start to finish with my UCL
34:48
reconstruction programs in terms of I started pulling in
34:52
resources and, and maybe a little bit might have been me
34:55
being egotistical at the time and saying I can manage this on
34:58
my own, my own way. And I, I started pulling in some
35:00
additional resources, some people that had better knowledge
35:03
than I did and trying to incorporate stuff.
35:06
I mean, we, we revamped our throwing program.
35:09
That's when we started incorporating radar.
35:11
We started incorporating Velo into the throwing progression
35:15
and monitoring that a little bit more.
35:16
We started to be a little bit more conservative with the
35:18
throwing program and I think just young athletic trainers in
35:22
general, they come out of school and they want to beat all these
35:25
rehab timelines and that the athletes certainly want to do
35:28
that too. They want to be the quickest to
35:29
come back because that means they can play and then they can
35:31
brag a little bit about it. But even the athletic trainers
35:34
want to be, I want to be able to say that I got my guy back in
35:36
eight months instead of nine. And it's usually not necessary.
35:40
And if it's if it's safer to take time, especially when you
35:43
have time available. I mean, I was telling somebody
35:45
this, this morning that if we're going to be ultra aggressive and
35:48
get you back in November versus being a little bit more
35:51
conservative and getting you back in December, getting you
35:53
back that extra month early at that time of the year really
35:56
doesn't do anything for us. Let's take the time and be safe
35:59
with it. You there's still plenty that
36:00
you can do to get better in that time, but just be smart with the
36:03
timing of the rehab plans. I mean that one, that one
36:07
overhauled my entire approach to all of my rehabs.
36:10
I completely reconstructed our, you see, all returns following
36:14
that one. And then I'm willing to pull
36:16
anybody in that wants to like, if we've got physical therapists
36:19
here, I'll run ideas by them all the time.
36:21
I'll run our ideas by our strength and conditioning
36:23
coaches or by our, our pitching coaches about like, what do you
36:26
think about this? What do you think about this?
36:28
And, and sometimes I'll give some feedback or they'll be
36:30
like, no, that looks great. Anytime a rehab doesn't go well,
36:33
it causes you to sit there and wonder what went wrong, What
36:35
could I have done better? You mentioned from there making
36:38
some changes to the throwing program, the addition of the
36:43
radar gun. So obviously that helps
36:46
significantly with workload management.
36:48
I'm curious if you also made any changes.
36:52
In the training room or with exercise prescription.
36:56
That's when we initially incorporated the inclinometer
36:59
and dynamometer. So we were just trying to get as
37:01
many objective measures on the front end.
37:04
We bought this, we bought this dynamometer.
37:06
We started taking measurements I'd say around somewhere between
37:10
8 to 10 weeks depending on what movement we were looking at.
37:14
And then it gave us a better idea of like as they were
37:18
progressing to make sure that both he had or whoever we're
37:22
working with has the strength to begin a throwing program rather
37:25
than just waiting to at the time it was everyone was kind of
37:28
thrown between 16 to 20 weeks and whether it was just, OK,
37:31
they've hit the 16 week mark, let's get them out there versus
37:34
their internal rotation strength looks like this.
37:36
Their external rotation strength looks like this.
37:39
Their grip strength looks like this.
37:40
So we feel comfortable that like it's time to progress and then
37:44
we would make tweaks from there in terms of like, hey,
37:46
somebody's grip strength is lagging.
37:48
Now we have baseline measurements, which is is even
37:51
bigger. So that was a big piece of it as
37:53
well as we grabbed all these baseline measurements when these
37:56
guys come in. So we at least have a target
37:58
that we're not just kind of shooting for a random number and
38:01
and comparing right to left. And in unilateral athletes is,
38:05
is, I don't want to call it useless, but it's not helpful
38:09
with these guys. So having a baseline measurement
38:11
and now it just gives us a little bit more information to
38:15
tweak the rehab, the strength progression before we start
38:18
throwing with a little bit more guidance than just kind of
38:21
shooting blind and saying, hey, we need to collectively work on
38:23
all these things. So what it sounds like any point
38:26
in the process that you can get objective feedback is going to
38:30
be huge for the way that you monitor and structure
38:33
progression. Absolutely.
38:34
And we've that's probably been the biggest change over the last
38:37
three to four years for us. I think, I mean, baseball has
38:40
always been good at doing that, but trying to incorporate that
38:42
in a, in a sports medicine as much as we we can.
38:45
And a lot of the, a lot of the objective measurements in sports
38:48
medicine rehab come from like lower body stuff.
38:52
So there's all these like ACL return progressions and an
38:55
Achilles return measurements and tests and stuff.
38:57
But there hasn't been too many upper extremity test batteries
39:01
that people are doing or you need to hit this strength
39:03
measurement to be able to start a return throw to throw.
39:07
And you've started to see that more over the last two years.
39:10
Not a lot of research like everyone kind of comes up with
39:13
theirs and then the research search lags a little bit to see
39:15
this one's definitely good versus this one.
39:17
So we, we came up with our own and we're definitely continually
39:21
reading research on saying like, hey, how do we incorporate more
39:24
objective numbers? Because otherwise you're just
39:26
guessing and then guessing you're leaving a lot of room for
39:29
error. And then even if it wasn't going
39:32
to cause an issue, when an issue happens, you're, you're
39:35
wondering if you could have done more.
39:36
Sometimes issues happen and there's nothing you could have
39:39
done to prevent it, but if you haven't done everything that you
39:43
can to prevent it then then you're at fault to.
39:46
You're preaching in the choir here when it comes to anything
39:49
objective. That's obviously another thing
39:52
that we're we're trying to knock down the wall of just spread the
39:55
information, give people more. We know with Flexpro Grip that
39:59
we are tracking data that a few years ago didn't exist.
40:03
And with that means we don't always know what every single
40:07
number means right now. But we're well on our way and
40:12
it's certainly exciting in that regard.
40:14
It feels good to know like how much that stuff means to you and
40:18
how it can be utilized in the program.
40:21
The objective numbers, they, they serve 2 purposes in the
40:24
sense that like they give athletic trainers or sports
40:27
medicine professionals confidence in that a student
40:30
athlete is ready to hit the next phase of their protocol.
40:33
But also it gives the athletes confidence because we see that a
40:36
lot in any type of return progression for any type of
40:39
injury. The first couple weeks, we tell
40:41
somebody to do something, especially aggressively throw a
40:44
baseball jump on a torn ACL or a yeah and a reconstructed ACL,
40:49
like they're tentative. But if you can give them numbers
40:52
that show them that they're strong, hey, you're strong.
40:55
You are at 90% where you were before you got injured or you
40:59
are twice as strong as you were eight weeks ago.
41:03
They get the confidence to go in and attack that next phase of
41:06
their their progression too. So it's confidence for us as a
41:09
professional to progress, but it's confidence for them to go
41:12
out and do the task as well. Definitely.
41:14
I appreciate you going kind of deep on this stuff.
41:18
Like I said, that was probably going to be the tougher stretch
41:21
of questions. Now we can lighten up a little
41:24
bit, but trust me, it's applies. I want to get into that
41:28
discussion that we were having off air that wonderfully started
41:33
coincidentally for us discussing the coffee, or what I thought
41:37
was coffee in your cup and happened to be tea.
41:39
We went down the road of discussing caffeine and the
41:42
impact it has on athletes. I know you are not a
41:45
nutritionist. I don't claim to know all your
41:47
licenses and letters after your name, but you obviously have to
41:52
be very tapped into what athletes are putting in their
41:55
bodies on a regular basis. And in the nature of baseball,
42:00
we see energy drink after energy drink.
42:03
So I would love to hear just a bit of what you're seeing and
42:08
then how it impacts athletes. And so specifically on caffeine,
42:13
I want to, I guess I'll echo your point.
42:15
I am not a dietitian. So this is this is not my
42:18
complete area of expertise, but I am an avid caffeine consumer.
42:22
I think caffeine is great. I think caffeine and I mean two
42:25
of the two of the most well studied, I guess supplements
42:29
that have positive effects on performance are caffeine and
42:33
creatine. But sticking with caffeine, I
42:35
think caffeine is a great performance enhancer from a
42:39
standpoint of if you're taking the correct dose.
42:42
And we have we've seen the rise in energy drinks, both the the
42:46
number that our student athletes are consuming and then the
42:50
different types. I mean, there's going to you
42:52
going to a gas station or a convenience store and there's
42:55
there's dozens of energy drinks out there with, with different
42:59
colors and different caffeine levels.
43:01
And the energy drinks are a little bit concerning.
43:04
I don't want to sound like, like an old man yelling at the kids,
43:07
but there is an excessive amount of caffeine in these energy
43:11
drinks. And I mean, they're regularly
43:14
over 200 milligrams versus I think a cup of coffee has
43:17
somewhere between 60 to 80. Sometimes these athletes are
43:19
drinking two of them in a day. I hope not more than two of
43:22
them. But they're also combining them
43:24
with things like coffee, with things like pre workout, which a
43:27
lot of pre work, if you look at the label, have also an
43:31
exorbitant amount of caffeine in them as well too.
43:33
So the NCAA does test for caffeine as a banned substance
43:37
after a certain quantity. It's somewhere between, I want
43:39
to say 6600 to 800 milligrams, which is a lot like we would if
43:43
we're drinking coffee is it's very challenging to get up there
43:46
when drinking coffee. But when you start like
43:49
factoring in multiple energy drinks in a day, a pre workout a
43:53
day, you may have a tall coffee in the morning or with lunchtime
43:57
too. It starts to seem a little bit
43:59
more possible that you start to encroach a little bit on that.
44:03
Like this might be problematic if the NCAA comes and does a
44:06
drug test at the right time of the day that you might get a
44:09
positive caffeine test. Again, I haven't seen it, but
44:13
it's certainly possible with with these energy drinks.
44:17
And then we were talking about too like you taking large doses
44:20
of caffeine before a game. And if you take a large dose, it
44:24
hits you pretty quickly and you feel good.
44:26
But then that crash comes pretty quickly too.
44:29
It's causing you to almost rely a little bit more on it.
44:32
We've got a lot of 6:00 games and you'll see you guys drinking
44:35
on 536 o'clock 630 through through a game.
44:38
And then you're wondering how is this individual going to get to
44:42
bed tonight when we got to play again at one O clock the next
44:45
afternoon. And then they're probably up a
44:46
little bit earlier. How are they going to get to
44:48
bed? Because the, the half life of
44:50
caffeine is, is significantly longer than four hours.
44:54
So it it starts to challenge your your ability to get to
44:57
sleep and get a get a good night's sleep following into the
45:01
next day. Right.
45:02
So then we're seeing potential issues when it comes to
45:05
recovery, which then again, like people I'm sure have their own
45:10
wheels turning. So if we consume the caffeine to
45:13
help us get up for this game, great, that's awesome.
45:16
But then how do we shut down and actually recover?
45:19
You might be able to shut your eyes and go to sleep, but it
45:23
doesn't mean your heart is beating any slower or your body
45:26
is working the way that it normally would when you're
45:29
supposed to be resting. Again, I'm not a dietitian or
45:33
nutritionist either. I can just read things online,
45:37
and there's certainly enough available research to show that
45:41
even if you fall asleep and you think you're like, oh, yeah,
45:45
like, I can have a cup of coffee right before bed and, like, be
45:48
perfectly fine. You might feel OK, but your
45:51
heart is still working. Like it's running a marathon.
45:54
And that's not ideal for you to be at peak performance levels
46:00
the next day. And then compound that in the
46:03
baseball season and you have to do that.
46:05
Four days a week. For a four month stretch that
46:10
cannot be good for long term health and avoidance of injury.
46:16
I agree. I agree.
46:17
And again, you're get your body's going to adjust to the
46:19
caffeine you're taking. So if you're, you're drinking
46:22
that high quantity, you're not going to get the up as much as
46:25
as you hope to. And then it's going to require a
46:27
little bit more and it's going to require a little bit more.
46:29
And you're almost, I don't think it's a good situation to be in
46:32
again, and I'm not anti caffeine at all.
46:34
I'm I'm somebody that has probably 2:00 to 3:00 cups of
46:37
coffee a day, but spread out in smaller doses rather than having
46:41
just a whole shot of 200 milligrams of caffeine at one
46:44
instance every day too. Granted, you're not playing
46:49
right now, you're a little bit older, so you can make your own
46:52
decisions. You don't necessarily need to be
46:55
ready to throw 92 miles an hour every single day.
46:58
But you also mentioned off air that you're kind of in your down
47:03
cycle to an extent right now. You substituted the second cup
47:07
of coffee for a cup of tea or maybe something a little bit
47:09
lighter. Again, I know you're not a
47:11
dietitian. I'm sure you guys have
47:13
dietitians or nutritional professionals on staff at
47:17
Vanderbilt. But from what you are seeing or
47:22
what you have read. Or have heard.
47:25
Is there merit in cycling? In cycling caffeine, I mean,
47:30
with anything, I think like especially any type of
47:32
stimulant, as you continue to take it, your body's going to be
47:35
adjusted to it. So eventually if you're, I guess
47:38
if you're maintaining the same level of caffeine intake from
47:42
the end of season to the start of the next season, in theory,
47:45
you're going to need a little bit more and more if you're
47:47
still trying to feel that effect.
47:48
Yeah, I would say that it would probably be beneficial to to
47:52
down cycle. I guess at some point at the end
47:54
of the year. If you're, if you're drinking
47:55
energy drinks every day, if you want to feel that caffeine kick
47:59
from caffeine, it makes sense to stop taking it at some point
48:04
throughout the year just so that you, your body kind of I guess
48:08
resets from a standpoint. I guess I've never really
48:11
thought about it that way. I know that I don't need 3 to 4
48:14
cups of coffee today to get me through a 6:00 game tonight
48:17
because I can be in bed by 9/30, 10:00 if I want to be.
48:20
So I do, I, I do understand why they do it and, and and why they
48:24
feel the need to get through it, to get through like some of
48:27
these late games of caffeine, because I do the same thing too,
48:29
but I'm just not taking, I guess the same quantity.
48:32
But yeah, I would, I would down cycle if if I don't feel like I
48:34
need caffeine in the afternoon, I'm not going to take it.
48:38
Aside from caffeine, I know baseball does have a little bit
48:42
of a nicotine problem, to an extent.
48:45
Of course, no NCAA athlete would ever consume that.
48:50
It's obvious, right? Everybody follows every single
48:53
rule. But even besides caffeine and I
48:57
guess the rumored nicotine use, are there other, I, I'm not
49:01
trying to say like PDS or anything like that, but are
49:04
there other supplements that you're seeing more common now
49:08
than maybe you did in earlier years in the sport?
49:10
I mean, just in society, nicotine has kind of really
49:14
exploded, especially with the pouches versus smoking.
49:17
So that's kind of a big one you see a lot.
49:20
Thankfully you do. We talked a little bit about it
49:22
before. There is an acceptance that
49:24
creatine is is not this dangerous supplement anymore.
49:28
So you're Steiners see a lot of creatine and then that's up one.
49:30
I'm a big fan of it. Again, if you're dosing it
49:32
correctly, creatine's got a lot of research that shows that it
49:35
helps both physically but cognitively.
49:38
Those are the 2. The pre workouts, again, this is
49:41
where I'm not a dietitian and but the pre workouts just evolve
49:45
at such a rapid pace that it's nearly impossible to keep up
49:49
with what the new, the newest ones are.
49:51
And there was a while where I was in charge of or drug testing
49:54
for Vanderbilt student athletes. So I try a little bit harder to
49:57
keep up, but it evolves so quickly in a way that like 1 I
50:01
just can't keep up with them. But two, it's, it's, it's a
50:04
little concerning in terms of trying to keep up with the
50:08
ingredients that are in them. It's not a well regulated
50:11
industry. So 9 times out of 10, we have no
50:14
idea like if the ingredients in the supplement are actually
50:18
what's in the supplement. I mean, there's certain agencies
50:20
that regulate them. So you're always going to be
50:22
better with some of those. I think it's NSF and I think
50:25
there's another, there's another regulating agency that that's
50:28
helpful if you're getting those supplements, but it does it, it
50:31
evolved so quickly. The supplements that the guys
50:34
are taking now will be completely different than the
50:36
ones that they're taking in two years.
50:39
I mean, they again, they all seemingly have caffeine in them.
50:42
But no, unless there's something specifically that you were you
50:44
were alluding to. I mean caffeine, energy drinks
50:47
and nicotine are probably the two biggest ones that we see see
50:51
on a day-to-day basis and then whatever pre workout guys are
50:54
taking. Yeah, no, I wasn't alluding to
50:57
anything else. I don't know what was the drug
51:00
in 21 or 22 Jump St. I think they did Wi-Fi, I
51:04
believe it was called. Yeah, I, I, I don't know too
51:07
much of what's going on in that regard.
51:09
But yeah, seeing how you're in the dugout, I, I don't know, I,
51:12
I assume you're seeing cans of something or little tins of
51:16
something pop up here and there, but never, never at Vanderbilt.
51:19
That would never happen in any any dugout that you are a part
51:23
of, I'm sure. It is.
51:24
It is. The one thing too, like
51:26
especially a lot of these are stimulants.
51:27
So like even caffeine by itself is, is OK.
51:30
And, and I mean nicotine, if you're taking it, it is having
51:34
an elevation on your heart rate too.
51:36
So that's just something you need to be aware of.
51:37
But then when you start stacking some of these these stimulants,
51:41
I mean that, that's when I think you really start to run into
51:43
trouble and guys will feel it. I mean, like if you have, if you
51:46
have an energy drink and a nicotine pouch and that's more
51:49
than you normally do on a certain day, you can feel how
51:51
quickly you'll get anxious or your hands will start to shake
51:54
or you start sweating a little bit more.
51:55
And, and a lot of times these, these effects act their
52:01
inhibitory to performance like they, they are what the opposite
52:04
of what you, you don't want to have an elevated heart rate when
52:06
you're out there performing, you want your heart rate to be a
52:08
little bit lower. So to so to do things to stack
52:11
it and in that way is is kind of counterproductive.
52:14
Yeah, well, I appreciate the insight on that.
52:16
And it's not that I'm trying to get you to act like a dietitian.
52:19
I felt like this was just a great conversation stemming from
52:23
our little off air chat when I saw a nice steaming hot cup of
52:27
something right before we started talking and middle of
52:31
the day I was like Oh my gosh how is Chris going to get to
52:33
sleep? But you, you graciously shared
52:36
it was tea and not coffee, I mean.
52:38
There's caffeine in it, but. Less one more more serious
52:43
question. Then we'll get to the fun stuff
52:45
right at the end. The last serious question is a
52:48
guy you mentioned earlier. I mentioned him as well,
52:52
assistant partner. I don't know what his official
52:54
title is, but Jacqueline Forth, I would love for you to talk a
52:58
little bit about your relationship and then how your
53:01
roles differ and you guys support each other in what you
53:04
do for the program. Yeah, that's so that's a new
53:07
position for us. We for a long time had a had a
53:10
certified intern with us and they were one year and then out
53:13
onto something and we've recently rolled that over into
53:16
another full time position. Now there's two full time
53:19
certified athletic trainers with with Vanderbilt baseball, which
53:22
is is huge. That's when I was talking a
53:24
little bit earlier. Just I'm incredibly fortunate
53:27
that that Vanderbilt has invested in us in that way, both
53:31
baseball and and medically we've got a great relationship.
53:34
It's, it's awesome that he's coming back for, for now, it'll
53:37
be his third year with us. He manages a lot of our, our
53:40
day-to-day arm care stuff. So I know he does a lot of work
53:43
with you guys and the, he does a lot of work with the pitchers on
53:46
a day-to-day stuff. He'll go down to the, the
53:48
pitching lab with them and kind of watch a lot of their bullpens
53:51
and they seemingly are incredibly comfortable with with
53:54
going back to him. He, he's a little bit younger
53:56
than me. So he's, he kind of relates to
53:58
the guys. It's been interesting as I start
54:00
to get older, transition away from that age group and but it's
54:04
nice having him around. So they'll have some
54:06
conversations with him and he does a great job about kind of
54:08
picking what, what I need to, what needs to be related to me
54:11
from an injury standpoint or a concerning standpoint and what
54:15
is maybe just the guys talking. So, so that's a, it's a great
54:18
resource to have and he connects to the guy.
54:20
The guys love him. Our coaching staff loves him.
54:23
He's a fun dude to be around. He's he's always teasing the
54:25
guys too, and they're teasing him back and he keeps it pretty
54:28
light. We're incredibly fortunate to
54:30
have the the two of us. Great.
54:32
Yeah, I guess that was pretty simple.
54:34
I just wanted to hear a little bit more of how you guys work
54:36
together and I think you outlined that perfectly for the
54:40
wrap it up fun questions. Just being connected with you.
54:44
Naturally, I see a little bit of what you do on Instagram.
54:47
I've now discovered that you are quite a bit of a foodie.
54:52
Or I don't. Know if you would.
54:53
Describe yourself as a foodie, but at least a lover of good
54:57
food. At a minimum.
54:58
Your Instagram sure looks like it.
55:00
So I want to know. A little bit about your favorite
55:03
restaurants, how you got deep in this food scene, favorite places
55:08
in Nashville and maybe favorite places around the world that
55:11
you've been. Yeah, I mean, growing up, I grew
55:14
up in a Italian American household.
55:16
So it's never no food is always kind of like the the center
55:23
staple. I feel like of of a lot of our
55:26
traditions in terms of just whether was eating Sunday dinner
55:29
together or our holiday meals. So it's just always something
55:32
that that I've enjoyed having good food because it usually
55:35
means you're enjoying the company of other people.
55:37
And then just kind of moving. I moved away from an area where
55:41
Italian food was, was incredibly prevalent.
55:43
Not that you can't find it, especially in Nashville.
55:45
It's, it's grown a lot over the last couple years, but I've
55:47
lived in some areas where I couldn't find it.
55:49
And it just kind of forced me to learn how to cook it a little
55:52
bit. And then in that process, I
55:54
actually find cooking to be somewhat meditative.
55:57
So even when I come home and it's late, late at night and not
56:01
super late, but like if I get home at like 8:00, I'll still
56:03
cook myself dinner just because that's a good way for me to shut
56:06
off at the end of the day. I got super focused in on just
56:09
the process of cooking. And again, it's another another
56:11
problem solving exercise in terms of what is this need added
56:15
or what, what did I do wrong here?
56:17
Cooking's a hobby for me in terms of relaxing from whatever
56:21
was going on in the day. And then then I get to enjoy
56:23
eating whatever it is that I've made and hopefully it came out
56:25
well. But then too, in Nashville,
56:27
we've got a great food scene. So I'll try to bounce around and
56:30
we try to try a new restaurant almost on a weekly basis.
56:33
So I'll kind of see what's opened and thankfully they open
56:36
restaurants quicker than we can keep up with them.
56:38
So we're, we're always trying something new and it, it keeps
56:41
it fresh. We don't frequently go back to
56:43
the same places. So I, I enjoy a lot and that's
56:46
mostly, I think a lot of people follow me on Instagram hoping to
56:49
see baseball stuff. And it mostly is is food and
56:51
coffee. Yeah, in travel here in travel,
56:55
just the offseason is the travel.
56:57
So yeah, no free ads, of course, but where where's your favorite
57:02
restaurant? Doesn't have to be the best food
57:04
you've ever had. Or maybe it's like moms home
57:07
cooking is your is your favorite restaurant.
57:09
But yeah. What's what's your top spot that
57:12
you've been to? Mom's home cooking is always
57:15
ranks up there, but I think my favorite restaurant in
57:18
Nashville, if you're in the area is Pilato.
57:20
It's Italian. Again, most of my favorite food
57:22
is, is Italian. I, I don't know if you're
57:24
familiar with Belly, which is a new app that came up and again,
57:28
not doing an infomercial here, but they let you rank food
57:30
places. So I've started using that in
57:32
almost all of my top 10 or Italian restaurants.
57:35
I do like good BBQ. My family lives in Austin, so I
57:39
seemingly the BBQ place that we go down there is Terry Black's a
57:41
lot. Big fan of that one.
57:43
When I go back and see my friends in New York City, it's
57:46
there's a lot of restaurants in there.
57:47
It's hard to keep track of there, too.
57:49
Yeah, I think Pilato is my favorite restaurant in
57:52
Nashville. I love a good burger, too.
57:54
We have Jack Brown's. I think they're starting to
57:55
expand other cities now, but there's there's a ton of good
57:58
food here. There's some good drops and I'm
58:01
excited to check out this belly app Free ads.
58:04
But Belly if you want to sponsor, I'm in.
58:07
So you're telling me most of most of the food that I see on
58:10
your Instagram is homemade by you?
58:13
Yeah, I do. I do cook quite a bit of it and
58:16
then sharing it on Instagrams away for me to kind of document
58:19
it and go back and look at some things that I've cooked.
58:21
But I do, like I said, I do. I find it meditative.
58:24
Sometimes it looks better than it tastes.
58:26
But I think, I think I've I've gotten a lot better at it the
58:28
last couple years. You're now in the plating too.
58:31
It's not just like you're making it and throwing it on there that
58:34
I mean, that's what I do. If I make anything like I'm done
58:37
after I've made it, I'm not trying to plate that thing, but
58:39
you're going all the way. I think that that's, that's been
58:42
just as I try to improve my craft, that's kind of been
58:45
something I've been focusing on the last like 2 to three years
58:48
because I think I got a lot of the techniques down.
58:50
And then just trying to to plate it correctly.
58:52
And then and then actually be surprised how much lighting and
58:56
stuff like taking the actual photo is, is a bit of a
58:59
challenge, which it's something I'm working on too.
59:01
But yeah, it's an ever evolving hobby.
59:05
And are you doing this off of recipe or are you just going on
59:09
taste? Try to go on taste.
59:11
What I'll do is especially if I'm trying to find something
59:13
new. I mean, I have a couple I have a
59:16
couple recipes that I've done enough that I know like I know
59:18
what I like and how to make it. And then a lot of times what
59:22
I'll do is I'll flip on like Instagram or TikTok and I'll
59:25
find how like 8 or nine people have cooked it and then pull a
59:28
little bit from here and there and, and try to combine it and
59:31
see what I do. And I mess up a lot Like my mess
59:34
ups don't make it on Instagram, but I mess up a lot.
59:37
Like I might make something like two or three times before it
59:39
ends up on Instagram. But even if I I make a mistake,
59:42
I like to I enjoy the process of being like, OK, what did I do
59:45
wrong here and and how can I fix it for the next time?
59:47
And I might make the same thing like two or three days later to
59:50
see if I can correct it. Well, we might need to just have
59:54
a Chris's cooking corner a little bit more often.
59:56
This is, this has been so interesting to me.
1:00:00
I I feel like I just want to run an entire new podcast now just
1:00:03
specifically asking you questions.
1:00:05
About your chef skills. But yeah, I can.
1:00:08
I can talk about food for days. Chris, this really has been
1:00:11
awesome. Is.
1:00:12
Do you think there's anything that we missed that you need to
1:00:14
add before I let you go? No, I think, I think we covered
1:00:18
a a pretty good range of those stuff here.
1:00:21
Good stuff, man. Well, I really appreciate once
1:00:25
again you joining us today. This has been awesome to get to
1:00:29
poke your brain in this setting rather than just the occasional
1:00:32
phone call here and there. We're trying to problem solve on
1:00:35
the fly. Actually got to sit you down and
1:00:38
berate you a question for a little bit.
1:00:40
So you've been incredible guest and looking forward to continued
1:00:44
conversations with you. Thanks Adam, I appreciate you
1:00:47
having me on and I enjoyed talking to.
1:00:49
Of course, man. Well, to everyone out there,
1:00:52
thanks for laying back with us.