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293 | The Comparison Trap Every ACL Athlete Falls Into · The ACL Athlete Podcast

• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome everyone to the ACL Athlete Podcast.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is the podcast where we talk about everything related to the ACL, whether that's the injury itself, the rehab process, return to sport, and more.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Dr.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Robbie Patel, performance physical therapist and coach.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Between myself and fellow guests and experts, you'll learn through the lens of the patient, the healthcare professional, and the coach.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: The goal of this podcast is to equip you, the athlete, with the education to make the best informed decision about your care and your ACL journey.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's dive into today's episode.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: What is up, team, and welcome back to another episode on the ACL Athlete Podcast.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: So today we're diving into a topic around what is likely influencing a lot of your thought process in this ACL rehab process.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: So this is something I've been thinking about for quite some time.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I even did an episode related to this, which was episode 223, The Rehab Realities versus the Real.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it was talking about social media and the perception of ACL rehab.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: And today I want to zoom out a little bit and talk about this a little bit more because I'm starting to notice more and more just this trend of people going to these certain resources and using them as sometimes God's truth, right?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like as in it is the end all be all, and it is influencing a lot of what is going on between the ears, their mental process, their just overall attitude towards this.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's something that I think needs to be broken down a little bit more.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that really cued this this week was just kind of thinking about some of these conversations I've been having with people and some of my ACLers.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I was talking with one of my athletes a few weeks ago.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't start working together until later in the process.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: So things were already a little fuzzy for them.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: The timeline was definitely off or a little different based on their overall case.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Expectations were off, but overall they were doing fairly well with the current phase that they were in.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Really well, actually.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Then they'd go on a forum, fall down some type of rabbit hole reading some things, and come out second guessing everything they'd been told.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Then they'd go on social media, watch a bunch of you know success stories, or you know, people who are really kind of flaunting this stuff around, especially on social media with especially a lot of these ACL-specific focused professionals.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but it's just a part of marketing.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And they'd feel behind, not good enough, not doing the right things, wanting to do more, not moving fast enough.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: And many of you are probably feeling these same things.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same person, same week, sometimes the same day.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: High on one platform, can be low on the next one, and neither one had anything to do with how their knee was actually doing in those moments.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: They were just looking to consume information, and especially maybe historically, that is someone who is used to doing that, or had been doing that leading up to a certain point in time.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: And especially the research-heavy people or wanting to be comprehensive and all-knowing, some of these people are kind of like an all or nothing, or really trying to just see what other people are doing out there.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so that could really take a lot of brain space.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so what we ended up talking about was this idea of guarding your gates.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: And this is something that my wife had shared with me a while back in terms of just being able to guard your gates with letting in any type of information that might be perceived, especially as negative, but also maybe something that's ultra positive of comparison, for example.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: As much as we'd love to say, yeah, the success stories are awesome and very inspiring, it could be really hard when they hit you at the wrong time in this process.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I think sometimes people are like, okay, yeah, that's motivating, that's great, like I'm gonna get there.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, it can happen.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: But oftentimes in a process that is so long and very up and down, sometimes seeing these success stories can almost just give you perspective of how far you still have to go.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it gives you comparison.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: And as much as we want to say, don't compare yourself, run your own race, and it's a big theme for us, and it's very important to recalculate and kind of redirect that way, it still sneaks in.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: We're still gonna compare.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: We are human beings, and it is going to be that classic phrase of comparison is the thief of joy.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it's very true in these instances, whenever ACL rehab is nothing that you can say is joy, and it's something that's keeping you away from the thing that does bring you joy, right?
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: So guarding your gates is a very good way of kind of thinking about being protective of what you let into your ACL rehab world, your thoughts, your perceptions.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you don't, you stop responding to your own process and you start responding more so to everyone else's process.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that is what this episode is about.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to just unpack this today because I think many of you need this.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're listening to this podcast, taking in information, right?
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: And while I really value that, there's also a note of things that I share in this podcast that might hit you at the right time, might not hit you at the right time.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's the thing that we just have to be very protective of in terms of this process.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: And just the big thing about today is to make sure you walk away with today is most of what you believe about ACL rehab right now didn't come from necessarily your surgeon or your physical therapist.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: It came from more than that, right?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it depends on how much influence those entities have on you, but it came from a mix of places that you didn't necessarily choose on purpose.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: It could be your own experience, sure, but also your friend's cousin who tore their ACL, a headline about a pro athlete, a news article that is talking about, you know, female reinjury rates, a Reddit thread you found at 11 at night, an Instagram account showing someone six months out looking like they're about to go return to sport in the next week.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: None of that is inherently bad, y'all.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: I use some of these platforms for our company, right?
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like that is something that we do.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not here to tell you to throw your phone into the lake, but almost nobody is talking about the fact that these sources aren't always neutral.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: They're not always in the middle, they lean somewhere, whether it's positive or negative.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't know which way they lean or think about that, you'll think their extreme is just kind of the normal of what you're exposing yourself to.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then what you'll do is you'll measure yourself against something that was never real in that first place.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to talk through two biggest ones here: the forums and social media.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Then I want to give you something you actually do about it starting today.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: So let's just name where this actually comes from, because I think seeing the full list at once is useful on its own.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: So there's, of course, the personal side, the personal circle, your own experience if you've been through this before, a close family friend or a member, maybe a parent who's walked through this with their kid, your sport or activity group, whether that's a soccer team or maybe ski buddies, your ultimate frisbee league, trading stories about who tore what and how the process went.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: People are going to reference people close to them in terms of their exposure and experience to this.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Then there's public information.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: There's news, which usually means a pro-athlete headline, but sometimes, you know, some articles as well, as I reference the female reinjury risk that is much higher than that we see in the headlines, and some of it being, you know, more gender specific, which, you know, there's a lot of things we're blaming on with female athletes in terms of their bodies versus actually being things that we can actually control, things that we can actually do about this, as opposed to just pointing the finger at menstruation, for example.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: There are some actual cultural things and things that we can do to actually move the needle that can be meaningful, but I'm gonna digress here.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: But there are articles and research studies that exist where people actually go looking.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: You got websites, everything from you know the typical hospital pages that show up first in a search to a dedicated resource built specifically for this, like what we do with our own blog at the ACL Athlete, right?
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's people who are dedicating specific things and resources to that.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's direct care, your surgeon, your ortho, your physical therapist, athletic trainer, your performance coach, your sports coach, the people looking at your knee, your case, and whether it's your activity or sport you're getting back to.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's kind of your direct care circle, right?
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Your team.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: And hopefully they are the ones who are having the most influence on you, especially if they are a positive influence and a helpful influence.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: But these people will inevitably have influence, especially your physical therapist, because they will be the person that you will talk to and see the most out of this entire process.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: And they will have the most significant impact on it as well, because they're gonna be your guide.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: They're your Sherpa, they're your GPS through this entire process from start to finish.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's the internet feed, social media and forums.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: These two are where I want to spend the most of our time today because out of everything on this list, these are the two that sh are shaping people's headspace the most right now.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: And the two that are the least neutral, I will say.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: The last one and this one becoming a bigger piece of the puzzle every year, which is just the searchability, you're talking about being able to look things up, right?
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then also AI, as we know that is playing such a massive role in education and people getting more answers from that versus, you know, the typical Google.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: But when you type a question into Google or ask an AI tool about your rehab, you're usually getting some blend of everything I just listed, pulled together and handed to you as one, often without knowing which bucket it actually came from.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, you can look through the sources of that, but especially if you are looking at AI responses, it'll have those sources kind of listed beside it, or maybe in the bottom in the footnotes.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: The thing is that it's gonna be so important to tease through these things.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because y'all, I have used it so much and researched so many things, and there's so many things that are actually inaccurate in terms of the details it's providing, or the resources are not really validated.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: And the one thing, just as a side note to think about, is that as AI is producing more AI material, and then as it continues to learn, it's gonna be building itself off of AI material, but that it could also not be true.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: So it's almost just this like constant compounding of like information that might not be 100% accurate.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's just something to just kind of food for thought of the future, which will be very interesting.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we'll see.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: But with that said, I think it's important to also recognize these sources and make sure the credibility is there and not just okay, this is what AI spit out or Google spit out, and I'm just gonna go with this, right?
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: But that's generally kind of the full map.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: That is where you can see most of the information that is being taken in as you, the person listening to this, is going to be pulling from, right?
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it's going to be the information, yeah, from podcasts and from social media, and from being able to look at forums and articles and research studies and your personal anecdotes, people surrounding you, just all these things together are going to be influencing your general perception of this process.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: But let's start with the forums.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Facebook groups, Reddit threads are probably the two big ones that when you think about this process where people are living in terms of forums.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Wherever people are typing out their ACL story in real time is essentially what you can look at.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: First, I just want to say I get it.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: I get why people go there.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: And this is also someone who has gone through this process, gone through other medical processes, and also is just trying to research other things that exist in life.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: It could be something about my home, it could be something about some other medical side of things that I want details on, like my hip procedure.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: I was trying to research a little bit more anecdote on those things.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Also relying on the professionals who do it, but I get it.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not going to sit here and fault anyone.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Our healthcare system is messy.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Visits are short.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: You don't get your questions answered all the time.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: You feel rushed.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of nuances that go on in this process.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so you can leave an appointment with more questions than you really walked in with, and you go looking for someone, anyone who has been through what you're going through.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: So you want that connection, that ability to have someone to help answer that question, that instinct is completely reasonable.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not going to sit here and tell you that's, you know, something that's wrong because I get it.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing you have to understand is who's actually posting in those spaces.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: Think about the last time you left a review for something a hotel, a restaurant, a service.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: Just think about this for a second.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: When are you most likely to actually sit down and write one?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: When something went wrong, when you're frustrated and you want someone to know about it, if everything went fine, you probably just moved on with your day.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't feel the pull to document it or share it.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is just something that when people have a bit more of a stronger feeling or emotional response to something, they're more willing to move towards it.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: ACL forums work the same way.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: The people most motivated to post are the people who are struggling, they're dealing with setback, confused about their rehab, scared about their timeline.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, the person who's doing well, who's hitting the criteria, the benchmarks, who has a little bit more control of the process or guidance, if you will, who feels good, they're not the ones who are sitting at home writing a thread about it in most cases.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: They're living their life, they want this whole chapter in their rear view mirror, not something they're actively narrating along with being on these forums.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: So the math tips one direction for this.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: Not because rehab is actually that bad most of the time.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that's really important to state here.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's just more so that these people are having a harder time and they're the ones who are showing up to talk about it, and the people doing well have likely just been a bit more quiet or a bit more chill, or if they're having even a neutral experience, they're not showing up.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: They're not having enough passion and meaning to be able to post into these forums.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the part that really gets a lot of people is that someone will share their one experience, their one graft, their surgeon, their outcome, and it gets repeated like it's a fact.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Someone reads that analog graft, has the lowest re-injury rate for a young athlete, probably someone named Karen.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: And now that's just true in someone's head.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's not though.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually not.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's actually the worst graph type for a young athlete.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: But if someone was like, man, I swear my kid got this and they're doing great, then that one person's story can kind of feel like it's data, essentially.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: And while we don't want to discredit it, we do have to look at the totality of the research and the data because that has led us astray in a lot of different ways.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I've seen people make some bad decisions off of just some anecdote.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm not here to say that forums are evil.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: There's real value in feeling less alone.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: And this process is really lonely.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: In hearing someone else say the thing that you've been afraid to say out loud, right?
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: You're looking for it.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's what you're doing at 2 a.m.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: at night when you can't sleep.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: You're kind of scrolling through things and you're like, okay, well, can I find someone who actually understands this?
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: And you see it, you feel heard, you feel seen, and then therefore you want to dig deeper, you want to talk, you want to ask questions, and I get that.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so the thing that you have to walk in knowing that the room is just tilted a little bit, and you have to hold everything you read there with a grain of salt very loosely until you've actually talked through it with someone who is medically trained, who is a qualified professional to tell you if it applies to you.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: If you feel like you're not being heard, find someone else.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean that it just isn't working or you just have to kind of pivot and do a DIY, do it yourself.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: It might just be finding the right professionals to help you because I promise they exist.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: I promise.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing is you have to seek those out.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: And if the person that you're working with is not willing to hear you or work with you on it or give you the time of day, then you need to find someone else.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's the thing that's most important here is to just really work with someone who knows they're what they're doing and also to be able to recognize the kind of skew, if you will, of what forums might present with.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now flip it completely.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: We're going a social media route.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: If forums are the you know, complaint department, if you will, or the people who want to go commiserate, social media is a bit more that highlight reel.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: And this one tilts just as hard in the other direction.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's just the opposite way.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it's something that I'm just gonna say plainly because it applies to me too.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna sit here and sugarcoat it.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: Showing outcomes is a part of how anyone in this space builds trust.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I've shared with you guys our outcomes and the things that we are very proud to represent as a company.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: I will say that we have had a lot of really challenging hard cases.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean that we're not showing up to be able to help each person alongside them, get them there, and any of the help that they need, but we have had a lot of really, really, really, really hard cases over the years that we have existed.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, it is something that as I've been thinking about this more, I want to highlight some of these more.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: I tried to do that in some of the cases of a recent episode that I did to just kind of show the spectrum to help you also feel normal a little bit.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: But it's also something that I hope that we can do a little bit more to be transparent of like, yeah, this is what this person's going through, and it's not a simple, easy process.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: We have a plan in place, but we're not 1000% sure that this is going to be the course for the rest of this, and we might have to pivot, right?
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing is, is that showing outcomes is really important to build trust, and that is something that we do have.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: And anyone who is legitimate in this space needs to have volume and they need to have the outcomes produced.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: That is ultimately what's going to build trust, especially in a space right now where trust is very limited and everyone's skeptical, especially with AI.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: It would be strange for us to not share when someone crushes their return to sport and performance process, right?
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: They're doing well, right?
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's real.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm proud of it when it happens.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm proud of our team for leading these people to get there.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm not going to pretend that marketing doesn't exist or that I'm above it, right?
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: But here's what you're not seeing as often the athlete who's eight months out and still not back, the cases that is messy that I had shared earlier and slow and doesn't have a clean before and after, right?
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: Those stories exist just as much as the highlight reels do, but that doesn't get the same camera time, especially across social media, because nobody's built to market the hard middle of this ACL recovery, right?
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's just one of those things where you're kind of showing this arc, if you will.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's going to be one of those things that are highlighted less.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: So you scroll, whether it's Instagram, TikTok, whatever it may be that you're scrolling, you could be even on YouTube, and you see win after win after when.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're the person still working through week 14 feeling stuck, that's a brutal comparison to be making.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: You're comparing your unedited day to someone's highlight reel, especially if they are trying to continue to build their company and also be able to get more people on their roster, right?
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's a business at the end of the day.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: So part of that.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: Is to highlight those things and to also show, hey, we get outcomes, and that's what happened with this person.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so then therefore you want to work with us, right?
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that comparison was never just kind of fair to begin with.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I see this constantly with the athletes we work with.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: They're doing genuinely well by every measure we're tracking.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times they still feel behind because their feed is full of people who, you know, look further along.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that they're not, it's that they're not seeing the whole picture because nobody's showing the whole picture.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: They're only showing the highlight reel, they're showing the wins, right?
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: So here's where this leaves a lot of people.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: Two extremes and not a ton as much in the middle.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now, sure, there's the accounts out there that show that and are able to be able to make it more representative of the process.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: And those are so valued, and I think it's awesome because it gives a true reality of this process, but those are far and few between.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: Forums hand you a little bit more of the negative, kind of worst-case scenario side of things and tells you it can be a little common, especially if you find yourself in there reading a bunch of different threads and whatnot.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Social media hands you more of those best case scenarios and tells you it's normal, right?
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: And you're stuck somewhere in the middle in the completely maybe ordinary, unremarkable, like kind of day-to-day process of this.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, getting better slowly, nudging forward, but feeling like you're failing on both accounts.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's not because your rehab is going badly, though.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that's something that's really, really important here.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's because you're being shown essentially two edited versions of the reality and being asked to measure yourself against both of them at the same time.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you're at both extremes, it's hard to kind of find the middle because both extremes are going to make you feel those are the normal, right?
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: So, what I want to do is actually talk about what to do with this because I don't want you to just feel seen for a minute and then go right back to the same scrolling, reading.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: I want this to change something.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: And if one person just changes something from this, I will feel like this is successful.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it's something that I just think is so needed in the current space where people are just inundated with information overload and just all these highlight reels and these forums that are easy to access.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: So there are three things I want you to take with you.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: The first is anchoring.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: You have to know where you actually are based on your own criteria and not using someone else's timeline.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: What are you being measured against right now?
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: Strength benchmark, mobility benchmarks, movement quality, your mental confidence, things related to your sport and activity and the goals you have set, the criteria set up for this, whatever it is, it needs to be specific to you and it needs to come from someone qualified to set it.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: When you know your own targets and benchmarks and markers, someone else's post has nothing to attach to it.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: You can disconnect the two more.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: You're not wondering if you should be further along, you already know exactly where you stand, and what is that next step and then the longer term vision and plan.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're tracking it, there's objective data, you're able to check in on that and not guessing at it from a feed.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is where I really do think an audit of your plan and your process, who you're working with is so, so important.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because we do find that when people are going through this, if they're working with someone that they trust, they're able to remove the noise.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: They're able to find a bit more signal with this.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, it doesn't mean they can't fall back into the trap, especially if they've had a little bit more of a history or a personality to dig into things.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: They could still find themselves reading, curious, wanting to know, but if you can anchor this to something more tangible, objective, and real, then it makes it less feel connected to you or extremes on both ends.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: The second is exposure.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: This is the practical one, and I want you to actually do it.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: Not just nod along.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: If a forum is spiking your anxiety, mute it.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: Leave it.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: Set a hard limit on when you open it.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: Same with social media accounts.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: You do not owe every ACL page a follow just because it's in your area, right?
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: You're going through ACL rehab, so you're like, hit follow, they're documenting their journey.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is an ACL expert, more education, the better.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if an account consistently leaves you comparing instead of feeling encouraged, unfollow it or mute it.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: The beauty is that you can always mute it.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then guess what?
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to unmute it later, then go for it.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: If it's something that you feel is not being productive from a platform standpoint, then there are plenty of apps to be able to block your amount of time, your exposure, time of day.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: And there's things like obviously the Apple blocking app, but then you have screens in.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: There are certain things that are just helpful to be able to remind you hey, we don't need to spend too much time here.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: You can have a periodic reminder throughout the day if you find yourself in a habit or if you break your habit.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: Many ways to do this, but the exposure and how much you're getting exposure to this is very, very key.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: The thing here is just knowing that this is not weakness.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like, oh, I'm not disciplined enough, I don't have the willpower.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's gate guarding, it's guarding the gates, it's being able to be selective about what you allow to get into your perception, your head during a season where your head is already carrying a lot.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing I'm gonna connect here is that right now the world is challenging, it's a very challenging place to be alive.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: You feel like if you listen to anything news related or read, it's just mayhem.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's just not a lot of like positivity and fluff.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a very good example of like if you turn on the news, if you guys wade in on looking at the news, I guarantee you they are not talking about firefighters saving a cat from a tree all the time.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: They're talking about politics, they're talking about the socioeconomic status of what's going on, they're talking about warfare, they're talking about all the things that create a little bit of angst, a little bit of anxiety, a little bit of fear, the state of the world, the state of the economy.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so the thing is that if you're also not in a good place and you continue to feed yourself news and all these things from what's going on in the world, well, I'm not saying don't be attuned to what's going on.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: The thing is that it's naturally going to feed into those feelings.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because the the leaning of news is naturally always going to be to create a little bit of that fear, a little bit of like worry, a little bit of panic because they want it to be interesting.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that's how they do that.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so that parallels to this because if you're not in a good place from a rehab standpoint or feel like it's really messing with you, then letting in this exposure is going to be so important.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: The forums, the social media, or whatever it might be.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you feel like you listen to this podcast and it's giving you negative vibes, turn it off.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want the listens, I don't want you listening to this.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to walk away from this feeling like, hell yes, I got this.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm advocating for myself.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I can find better help.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I know exactly what I'm dealing with, finding answers that are helpful to move you forward.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: If you feel like anything you listen to moves you backwards, you need to turn it off, no matter what it is.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing is, is that you're allowed to be selective and you can guard those gates and what you allow in.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that is by far the biggest thing is the exposure and how much exposure you give yourself.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: The third one is this one, and it's the one that I really want you to hear.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: A huge amount of the searching, the scrolling, the late night forum spirals from unanswered questions.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: People go looking because they don't have someone to ask.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a provider, a coach, a physical therapist who you trust and who's actually answering your questions in real time, most of that searching quiets down on its own.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: You stop needing Reddit to tell you if your timeline is normal or if this acre sensation is normal because you have someone who actually knows your case telling you directly.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: They have the experience, they know exactly what they're dealing with.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: Good care doesn't just fix your knee, it resolves the uncertainty that sends people looking for answers in the wrong places to begin with.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is the thing that is so hard for us to communicate what we provide from the ACL athlete.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's one of these things that it isn't just exercises, it's guidance, it's support, it's the ability to just exhale and know someone else has got me.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: I've got my team, they're in my corner, they're leading me every step of the way.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: Anytime I have concerns or uncertainty, I have that support.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that is something that is so, so important.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: And if you feel like you can't have those questions answered, you have uncertainty, you have the inability to know what the plan is, you don't know what where you're at, what your next step is, how is this related to your goals, or you're dealing with chronic issues that are just not being addressed, you need to find someone else, someone who knows this process because you don't realize how much you will exhale whenever you are able to just find the right people to guide you.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it's going to massively help you in so many different ways than just your physical ability to move forward, but you don't realize how much of an offload it will be to the people around you, but yourself mentally, because you no longer have to go to these places that are not necessarily legit to be able to find answers.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now you get to pivot towards a legitimate resource who is educated in this and being able to answer your questions.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I tell everyone if we are not able to answer your questions, we will find the answer.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're going to Reddit or Facebook or social media to look for your answers, we have failed you.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: And you do not need to be working with us.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: We have failed you.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that is does not make sense for someone who really knows this process because they should be able to help you in every way to be able to guide that.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that is very important with who you work with because you deserve that.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: You deserve good care.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: So when you put those three things together, being able to anchor it to where you are, being able to guard your gates through exposure, and being able to also have someone in your corner who knows this process that will help to kind of put all these kind of concerns and anxieties at bay because you're anchored in a good place.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: When you put those three things together, something changes.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: The fear goes down, the anxiety goes down.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: Not because the process got easier.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's very important right now.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's not because it got easier, but because you stopped carrying, you know, two extra stories on top of your own.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: You're just running your own race now, actually, not someone's worst case or someone else's best case at the same time, and constantly filtering through that.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now, going back to the athlete I opened with, once we anchored them to their own criteria, and once we started talking through guarding what they let in, the whole tone of our conversation changed.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: And also just how they were feeling.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: Not because anything about their knee actually changed that week or within that session, because they stopped fighting, you know, these three different timelines they were looking at, all this information coming in, and they started only working on their own.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it was feeling like it was anchored to something important.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: They were able to really guard what they were letting in.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, sure, we're human and we're at fault, and sometimes that can happen, especially with previous habits.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: But this is where we revisit and feedback loop this and make sure that we're not letting it in, right?
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: Or being able to guard that very specifically.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: And if you read something or you know, you see a video, whatever it is, I would encourage you to stop after and say, Did that leave me in a better place or worse place?
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then from there you can make some decisions.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if you start to see a consistent theme of it making you feel a little worse about yourself or your situation, then we need to make some changes.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: Mute, block, you know, reduce the time exposure, maybe delete the app, whatever it might be, to just help and just try to do it for a week.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: Just do it for a week and just see how you will feel mentally by being able to offload that and remove those inputs and find a bit more signal within the noise that's existing.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: So this is something that really helped that athlete as I shared.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the invitation I have for you guys today.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: Take a look at what you're actually building your perception of this ACEL rehab process.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: Guard your gates a little more closely.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't have someone answering your real questions right this second, the ones that are weighing on you, the ones that keep you up at night, that's the first thing to go fix because that's usually the fastest way to quiet all of this down.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: When we're having consults with athletes and they're talking through all their concerns and everything, and the biggest thing for me is to make sure that they no longer have to go other places to find answers.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: We are there all in one resource to be able to get there.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: And if we don't have the answer, we'll go find it.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: But we are alongside you in this, and you're not to be doing this alone.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: And we want this to just be able to put a lot of your fears and anxieties at bay.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: And that is what's so important with a good PT and guide in this process.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: And hopefully, as you listen to this, if you have any feedback, please share that with us.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you are someone who's like, man, this really hit home.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: I've been really taking in a lot of information and not even really noticing it.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: You've just kind of made it a little bit more of a normal.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then you're starting to realize, wow, I'm taking in a lot, and I'm starting to realize it's from these certain places that might be feeding into these negative loops that I'm in, especially if you're in a hard place in this rehab process, which is most people, it's not going to be more positive in this process.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna have probably a little bit more of a harder time than an easier time as you go through ACL rehab.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's just the way that this is, it's long, it's hard, it's not for everyone.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I know no one chooses this, but it is very challenging.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing is that we have to make sure if we are mentally in a better place or in a more controlled place, if you will, then therefore we can make sure that that also feeds into our physical, emotional, and all the things we're able to work through as well.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so I hope that this is helpful, y'all.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: And if you have felt compelled at all by this episode and are needing any help, please reach out to us.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: The information is in the show notes.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_00: We want to help anyone who is looking for a little bit more guidance or is just kind of feeling the pull from this episode.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: But if anything, just please make those changes if you're noticing the influence of these things and let us know if it helps.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, I will catch you guys in the next episode.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: This is your host, Robbie Patel, signing off.