Latest / The Uplift- with Luke Pollock / #26 - Solo Pod - Q&A - Quitting the 9-5 and the Importance of Prehab
Transcript
- Luke Pollock: Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Uplift Podcast with me, your host, Luke. It's great to be back with you again today, and I hope you're having a good week when this comes out on Wednesday evening. I have been a little bit late on recording the podcast and it is just me today. I'm doing a QA. I really enjoy these QA's because I get to just look at questions on my phone and answer them as if I was talking to someone in the room asking me the question. And I can just answer them off the top of my head, which I really enjoy. I find I connect with who is following me on Instagram a little bit better and who listens to the podcast a little bit more as well when I do do these QAs. So a bit of an update for you going forward in terms of the podcast and the next few weeks, what you can expect. I'm recording one more podcast with Alex Morel, hopefully next week. And then I am getting married the week after, or next week, actually, next Saturday. I should know that. I'm getting married and then going on honeymoon for a few weeks. So the podcast will be remaining stagnant for not stagnant, but there won't be any uploads for a few weeks. And that is, yeah. That's intentional. I was planning to batch load a few episodes to still put them out and schedule them when I'm away, but fortunately I'm at the stage where I don't have any sponsors. I don't have anyone relying me on relying on me to do this podcast aside from myself. So I thought I would actually take that as a bit of a luxury and enjoy being a smaller creator and enjoy the luxury of when I go, it doesn't get done, but no one's relying on me for a wedge or expecting anything from me. The other side of this. So it's actually a bit of a luxury. Because if I was working with a brand and I had to do a certain amount of episodes every every month, then suddenly the pressure starts to pile on. But this is just something I do for fun. So I have to remind myself I do it for fun and try not to take the fun out of it by trying to by putting loads of pressure on myself to get it done. So for a few weeks, you will have no podcast. But I will be back, hopefully reinvigorate it after my holiday. It's the first holiday I've had since February. So I'm really excited for it. And it is the longest holiday I've had in yeah, two years. So I'm I'm super excited for it. Phone will be away, laptop will be away, and yes, two weeks of safariing and then by the beach as well. So it's gonna be awesome. And like I said, I plan to come back, reinvigorate it, taking a few really good books with me. So I will share what those are on my Instagram story. So look out for those and I plan to read a lot while I'm away, as well as talk talk to my new wife, hopefully, when we're away. but I will just get into the questions now today. And there's I'm I'm only answering three questions today, because I want to keep it short, short enough that it's digestible. And I also want to dive deeper into each of the questions that were asked. I think that's much better than rapid fire questions. Rapid fire questions for me, I can't get my Point across Philly, it's too nuanced. So I will get into it. Question one: What would your template for pre-ACL surgery look like in terms of training? Great question. So I've got one ACL question, one like where I see online rehab and business going, and then one like life advice quitting your job question. So that's what you can expect from this podcast. First up though, we're talking ACLs. So you've just ruptured your ACL, you've got surgery in a few months. What do you do? This is exactly what I would do from a physio. This is what I advise my athletes to do. First, control the swelling. Control the pain. Okay. Those are your two most important things. So it's going to be painful, it's going to be swollen. Control those two things. And that's not just in the week after. That is continually, if it's continually swelling, try and get that under control. So use ice and anti-inflammatories to control the swelling and control the pain. Then you want to restore your normal range of movement as best as possible. Now, normally with an ACL rupture, there is a little bit of meniscus damage as well. So the range of movement, especially the extension stuff, might be a little bit trickier to regain than you thought it thought it would be originally. For some people, it's easy. They get their full flexion, full extension back quite quickly. For others, it takes a long time. And for others, you might not not get full extension or reflection back before the surgery. But you want to get that. You want as close to as possible full range of movement compared to the other side. That will make surgery on the other side a lot easier. Third step. So first step, we're controlling the swelling, we're controlling the pain. Second step, we are getting our full range of movement back. Third step, we're putting on and maintaining as much muscle bulk as possible. So what you don't want to do is avoid weight pairing, avoid using the leg, and lose a load of muscle mass before you go into the op. It's actually shown that people with six months rehab get much better results post op. Most athletes will go in straight away, like most professional athletes, just because they already have so much muscle bulk on their leg. If you're a non-trained athlete, you might want to develop some more muscle bulk. If you're a trained athlete, it won't matter as much because you should have muscle bulk already there. So you just want to hold on to as much as that's possible. That will make the other side of the rehab much easier because you'll have more muscle bulk. Even if you lose a little bit, you'll still have a good bit to hold on to, and you can become functional a lot more quickly. It's less of an uphill battle. So three steps there, really quickly for you. Control swelling, control pain, restore your range of movement, get as much muscle bulk on your quad, your hamstrings, your calves, your glutes as possible, because those will waste away quickly post-op. And you want you want the surgeon to have plenty of muscle bulk to play around with. So if he's taking a hamstring graft, for example, or he's taking a quad tender graft, that those muscle groups are going to waste after the surgery. And you want them to be in a health as healthy a place as possible pre-op. So they're in as healthy a place as possible post-op, if that makes sense. It should be quite self-explanatory. That will look like doing your normal gym movements. It's not too different. You can still do most things with without an ACL. So you can still squat You can do your single leg squats to a box if th if that feels more comfortable. You can still do quad extensions. If you've torn your meniscus, maybe not. This is why you should see someone before you before you go for ACL surgery. See a physio, see what your prehab plan should look like. You can still do most movements. I know people who can still run without an ACL. It's just the change of direction and pain levels and swelling you really wanna avoid during this period. And I wouldn't say like get back to running. That's not a priority. Muscle bulk and range of movement is the priority. And yeah, you wanna know as well what you're doing post op. So you want a a post op plan, pre-alp, if that makes sense. Before you go in for the surgery, you want to know what to expect. You want to know what you're doing in the days that follow. And that's something that I give to my athletes and it's very important to me, that they know exactly what they're doing day one, day two after their up. Okay. And we don't have to get on a call. Two days after they're up when they're in a lot of pain. They know what they're doing. It takes that that mental worry out out of it. There's loads of other stuff we could talk about in terms of the importance of getting ice in for post op, but this is this question was around the pre-op process. So that's what I would focus on. It's quite simple, pretty much just hold on to as much of your muscle mass as possible, and that will put you in a really good spot post-op. Question two then. Where do you predict online coaches slash rehab will be in five years' time? Great question. And it's not something that I've thought about loads. So this might not be as detailed an answer as questions one and three. I see it changing quite a lot over the next few years. And yes, a lot of that is to do with AI. Like I use AI all the time already, and I've used AI to create a website in this last week, which has been crazy, Claude. Design has designed me a new website and I've just polished that up, which is only positive, right? Before it would have cost me a lot of money. It's obviously not positive for website designers, but it's positive for me because it would have cost me a lot of money. So it's becoming easier and easier to create your own brand and your own business. So in the next five years, I see a lot more big physio businesses actually becoming smaller into personal physio businesses. So like I run, I see a lot more people. going off and doing their own personal business pretty much because it's a lot easier to do now and it just makes a lot more sense. You you take all the the the profit and it doesn't have to go through this big middleman of a of a massive business machine and they don't they pay for all the rent and they pay for everything else and you just get your your salary no matter what you do. So I see a lot more people going down that route. I also see a lot more of it being automated. So Through AI, who knows? We will probably have rehab assistants, rehab coaches, where you just log on and you pay for a subscription to an app. And people like me find it tougher to compete because now you've got a robot that can reply to you 24 7, that can solve your problems all the time, that know every bit of information that that could just be like me, but never sleeps and gives you the best advice possible. You know, we just don't know what's possible. So I do see there being a shelf life to maybe online coaching due to AI, but I'm gonna I'm I'm here to ride the wave. And that's one of the big reasons why I believe in building my personal brand and not just my physio business. It's important and it's something I'm gonna focus on for the second half really of twenty twenty six when I come back. is trying to put more of my personal opinions out there to build my personal brand and not just have this as solely a rehab focused platform because You know, there will be apps, there will be robots that do our jobs better than us, no matter what sector we're in. So we have to bring some personality. The beautiful thing about our job is we come with a lot of trust. So if I'm hiring someone to build my website, I don't really care how they are as a person. But if I'm looking to work with someone over a nine month period who's gonna take care of my health and well-being, I wanna know that our values are aligned. And robots' values are unlikely to be aligned to yourself and they're unlikely to manage your emotions as well as humans can. So that is a really, really positive thing about my job. And that's why I really like it. Cause we develop a human connection. We're there for the struggle. We're there to talk through. We're there to listen. And that human connection won't be replicated. So yeah, to answer your question, I'm not sure. I could talk about AI and that sort of thing quite a lot, but we just don't know where it's gonna go, where it's been where it's gone in the last year has been crazy. So in five years time, like who knows? I'm fully, fully believing that there's gonna be household robots to do our our chores in the next five to ten years and that's already happening. So yeah, who knows where the healthcare sector will go. My belief is in the next few years more and more people are gonna be doing these personal businesses and personal brands and running their own online business. And it kind of makes sense like I kind of believe in it well, I do believe in a world where there's a lot of online coaches because it's more specific. We don't have to go into a big business and just hope we get a physio that we like or someone we align with. We can actually find someone we like and align with through our social media where we live most of the time, whether you like it or not. Most people live on social media. the algorithm knows their interests and their likes. So if I do my ACL and I'm interested in I don't know. Jiu Jitsu and women's football as well. Maybe I'll have a physio who who works with women's footballers and people who like jiu-jitsu. And those were just two random things that came to my head. But you know, we can be really specific and hone people and match people up a lot better through social media and through the algorithm. And the algorithm is not a negative thing, that can be a really positive thing. So I actually see that being quite positive in the future where we have like specific match, we're matched to specific people. a lot better and a lot easier. So the physio gets to work with our dream client time and time again. And the client gets to work with our dream physio. And they don't have to go through this big massive business and just hope that they get someone that they're aligned to. But who knows? Who knows? That's my best guess. My best guess. Sorry. Okay, so the final question is a bit of a meatier one. And I'm just pulling it up. I feel like I'm in the wrong job and I'm scared to quit. And follow my dreams. What's your advice? So I feel like I'm in the wrong job. I'm I'm scared to quit and follow my dreams. What's your advice? Okay, so if we break that down, we start from the back, bring the the end of the question to the front. Want to follow my dreams. Okay, so we that's quite a broad statement. We might think we know what our dreams are, but they they often change, right? So my dream. quote unquote, I'm not too sure what that is, but I knew I wanted to work for myself. So I tried lots of different ways of how to do that. And then it to be honest, it became obvious to me. Well, why don't I just do physio, the thing I already do for my job? And that seems like the quickest path to work for myself. And it was, and I'm really glad I took that path. So hold the dream thing loosely and try and break it down. What is your dream? Is your dream to work for yourself? Is your dream to work for Nike? Is your dream to own a farm? And then build that and then break that down into manageable chunks to see is that still your dream? So if your dream is to work with Nike, try and do an on-ped internship. If your dream is to own a farm, try and work on a farm for a summer and see how much you like it. If you like it. And yeah, break that down into something that's realistic. And if you get validation from that thing, so if you think actually I could do this, so for me, I first got paid by someone to fulfill a writing agreement. it sounds crazy because I'm a physio now, but I used to write online and someone paid for me to do their online writing, so their Twitter, et cetera. And that was the first taste of working for myself. And I was like, yeah, I could a hundred percent do this. And that is what sort of kept the fuel and the fire going. So try it out any way you can, whether it's for free or for someone else, just try it out any way you can. And then if you still enjoy it, then keep following the dream. Don't just quit your job. Okay. Then we'll get to the start of question. I want to quit my job. There's a cost to everything. So there's a cost to staying in your job. There's a cost to quitting your job. And you just need to weigh those costs up and see which one you're happier with. Okay. The cost to staying in your job is you will be in the same job, nothing will change. you will probably follow the trajectory that your boss is in. So if you look at your boss's life or your colleagues who are a few steps ahead of you, if you look at your their life, that's a really good place to start. Do I want my life to look like theirs? And that's a key question. Even if you're a different person, your life might look very similar to their life because you do the same job or will be doing the same job as nine to five, which takes up the most of your week. So look ahead, see do I want to be that person? If the answer is no, then look elsewhere. Guys, so what's the cost to quitting? And there will be costs for for my example where I'm starting a page, there's a cost of embarrassment, there's a cost of being cringe, there's a cost of it not working, there's a cost of it taking up a lot of my time. So there's a cost of these things, and it's just what cost you're happier choosing. So I was happy choosing my some of my friends and colleagues being like What are you doing? Make an Instagram page, mate, that's not gonna go anywhere, or like sniggering behind my back. I was happier taking that cost, knowing that I wouldn't be in my boss's position in five to ten years' time because I really I knew I really didn't want to do that. So I was happy with that payoff. There is a payoff. There is no like golden dream life where everything is easy. There's always a cost and it's just which one are you happier choosing? And for me, that is really freeing. To you, that might be that might sound depressing because we're used to hearing, it's all easy, just just do this and you'll make your double your income in thirty thirty days. But that's not reality. Reality is there is a cost to doing these things. Yes, I'm so, so happy that I chose to go down this path now because my life is much more enjoyable than I feel it would have been in my my old nine to five job. But there was a cost to it. It took time and it still does take time and it still takes effort. And I had to learn a lot of new skills, which is very frustrating, because you're bad at stuff at the start, and people see that you're bad at stuff because you're online. So that was the cost to me. And I'm still bad at things. I'm still not the best public speaker. I'm still not the best content creator. But I feel that I've got over the hardest bit now and it's getting so much easier than it was. And yeah. Ultimately. That is that's how I would look at it. It's really hard when you're like, I'm in this prison and my dreams are on the other side of this prison. They might be, but try and break that down into practical steps. So what is my dream? Can I experience that dream for free first? Can I take some man you leave? Go experience that lifestyle. If it's you want to start your own business, can you take some annual leave, go on a holiday and learn about business on your laptop and see how you find that actually being by yourself for a while. being in a cafe on your computer for days on end, because that's what a one person solo business kind of looks like. If you love it, then you can keep going. I wouldn't just jump to the conclusion of let me quit my job straight away. Go down that path a little bit, see if you like it, talk to people in the in the space, see how they find it, and you'll get some validation. You'll know then if if it's something you really want to pursue pursue. But yeah, remember there's a cost everything. It's just what costs your happier way now. For me, It was so much more exciting to think, okay, I can start down this new content journey and there's way more variables. Yes, it's embarrassing, but there's way more variables. Like what what's the potential upside is so much more than the potential downside, which is it just doesn't work and it's a bit embarrassing. Whereas the cost to stand in my job was I I knew the cost, like it was so much more sure and concrete, and that scared me. It wasn't really comforting to me because I knew where I was going and I didn't necessarily want to go there. That is not to say, and I hate the way I have to caveat this, but I feel like I still do because I know so many people in those jobs very well and I'm friends with them. And that's not to say that their life is bad or their job is bad. They love it. And that was one of the reasons I knew I should quit because I saw how much they loved it compared to how much I was loving it. And it didn't weigh up. So that was one of the things that drove me to start this page. Two years ago now, I was looking through some old posts recently or earlier today with Josh. And it's funny, like how you thought at the time you're doing such a good job. And you look back and you're like, whoa, those were really, really bad. But I'm sure in two years' time I will look back at this and think you were all over the place in that podcast. But hey-ho, that is that is the game. That's what we're here for. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I will catch you next week with Alex Morale. If you have any other questions, message me at LookPullock Online. and if you would like to see anything else from the upload uplift podcast, any other guests. you have in mind, just shoot me a DM. I'm really open to that type of thing. Like I said, the podcast is super small, so we can change things on the fly all the time, which is the beauty of it. Otherwise, have a really good week, have a good evening, enjoy the England game. That's what I'm about to tune into. And I will catch you next week. Thanks so much.