Return to play after injury, not just return to exercise

And so if you took a certain activity away from me because of an injury, I probably wouldn't care. And so the motivation of returning to play, think about that, returning to play. You know, we've been talking about it a bunch over the sports symposiums, or at least the ACBSP, how to return to play. Does anyone really return to play, or does it return to exercise? You know, I think a lot of people, when you return to exercise, exercise is not a really good driver for excitement. You're listening to the Restoring Human Movement podcast, where movement experts discuss the latest evidence-based practices to help you and your clients move with mastery.

And now, your host, Dr. Sebastian Gonzales. Hey guys, it's your host, Dr. Sebastian Zalz, with the Restoring Human Movement podcast. Thanks for joining the Movement Movement. If this is your first time on the podcast, welcome. You're going to be joining me for about an hour's journey through things related return to play today. The rough topic of today is actually, this is a solo podcast today, and I'll go into the story in a couple minutes here. But for the most part, I think we all need to find a passion for returning to play, not sport, not resistance training, not rehab, all right? And I think the thing we're going to cover today is basically the idea of that we, as humans, have lost our passion for play, you know?

And how that kind of coordinates into our patient rehab and our return to life. And so, I'll cover that at length today through a couple of my personal experiences this last weekend when I actually had the revelation of how I need to improve my return to play. So, again, this is your first time in the podcast. The intention of this podcast is to improve doctor-patient communication via storytelling, education, and just getting the lingo to be more simple. And so, if you're a clinician, you're going to hear, there's quite a few that are, I guess, we can call them a continued education on this podcast.

So, when you hear those, those are intended for you. The interviews, a lot of them are intended for you. But notice that there's ones that are formatted specifically for patients. And the intention is that you can use those as tools to send to your patients so that they can learn more about what you're going to do with them, how the communication can improve, how the knee joint's connected to the thigh bone, or whatever it might be. So, we can just make it so we can all return to, quote-unquote, play. So, use those accordingly if you can. And so, it's like we're all having a beer at the bar, and it's me, you, as a clinician, and you have somebody else, which is our friend, who is an audio technician today.

And we're drinking a high water from Port Mongo. Great. Or, sorry, from Port. So, just remember, that is the intention of the podcast. Also, too, I do believe that as the host, I want you guys to be familiar with who I am. And so, when I share these personal stories, which will come up here in a second, I share them with the intention of allowing you under the skin that is me. So, that hopefully you can like me enough to go on this journey with me. And so, there's, I don't like, they're not, it's not highlighting like, look at me. And I hope you guys see that. It's just sharing parts of my life so we can become better friends.

So, I'd love to learn more about you guys, by the way. So, hit me up on Instagram. I really love when everyone does that, at PerformanceHB. So, let's get into that personal story, and then we'll get straight into the thought-provoking podcast of the day, hopefully. So, recently, I've been on a personal journey of trying to become extremely hydrated. I call it addicted to being hydrated, all right? And so, what I've been doing is attempting to just crush water, like, all day. Like, forcing yourself to go to the bathroom, like, 10 times a day because you've drank so much water. And so, I remember back in the day when I was drinking a ton of water.

I remember to do it, like, when I got back home around, like, 5 or 6 or so. And then I wouldn't have to wake up in the morning, like, or in the middle of the night, like, twice just to go to the bathroom. And so, I called it being topped off, which I like, but at the same time, I don't really want to wake up in the middle of the night anymore. I just want to sleep through the entire night. And I found that I should sleep better when I've drank too much water, all right? Even if I had beer, I feel like I drank more water. And so, I need to make sure that I'm drinking enough water. And so, I've been crushing water recently.

In the morning, crushing water. Middle of the day, crushing water. So, if you have not been addicted to hydration before, I challenge you, for a week, you should just get fully hydrated and just see how you sleep. You might just change your life. All right, here we go into the content. So, this last weekend, I had a bit of time to myself. And I was able to go to the beach. I went a couple times. And I was kind of, I mean, I got all my chores done, I guess as you call it. You know, like, I kind of had stuff that I wanted to do or that I needed to do. And, like, I went through some pictures that my mom had given me.

And I scanned them in because I don't want to have a bunch of junk sitting around. And I just had piles and piles of these pictures. So, I ended up scanning those things in. So, I did that. I also created a lot of video content that I ended up putting on Instagram. And so, I put those all in the queue. And kind of, I was just kind of done, right? And I don't know if you guys have experienced this yet at all. But at some point, like, you kind of, your priority list is kind of done. Your to-do list is done. And then so, in those kind of quiet moments of that, I think, hmm, what do I want to do? And I know that I, I mean, I, we didn't have a baseball game this week.

So, on Sunday, we didn't have a baseball game. And so, I reached out to a friend and I said, hey, do you want to go to the Batting Kids? He's like, no, I'm busy. And I said, oh, okay. Well, what do I do now? And so, fortunately, it was the weekend of the U.S. Open in Huntington. It was the U.S. Open in Surfing. And so, down at the U.S. Open, just to paint a picture, is basically, it's down by the pier. They set up these big old, like, vertical ramps or half pipes and skate parks and for BMX as well as skateboarding. And then there's surfing. And there's a bunch of stuff going on. And so, I mean, I've had the, I've had the past of skateboarding and BMXing.

And I liked it, you know. I've also spent time in the water, doing a little surfing and bodyboarding. And I just, kind of, sharks freak me out now. So, I just haven't done it in a long time. And so, I was watching this vert ramp and, or the half pipe, rather. And so, these guys are just having the best damn time. And, like, so, one of the guys is Bucky Lasek, or Bucky Lasek. And he's been, I mean, he's been around since I was a kid. And so, he's still just having a good time up there, just like, and he's in good shape, you know. He looks young. He probably feels young. And I was thinking, man, like, he's doing, like, his exercise is having fun.

His job is having fun. And not that my job isn't having fun as well. But I was thinking about the exercise portion because it's a funny thing when, just observationally, when you get older, I guess. And I guess observation, I did go to Costco this weekend. So, I was looking around. I was actually looking for a volleyball. And so, I went through the recreational section, and I saw lounge chairs, and I saw floating devices, and I saw, what else was there? There was, I mean, there was ice chests. There was a lot of relaxing things, I guess. And right next to that was a bunch of books. And so, I started thinking about that a little bit in just regards to, like, marketing is kind of agencies and things that create products.

So, they're pretty smart about this kind of stuff. And my general observation with that was that people like to relax. You know, people are just relaxing. And so, I didn't find a volleyball in the whole darn place. I actually didn't find an implement, like a ball, a Frisbee. I didn't find any of that stuff in the whole darn place. And I was thinking, Costco is no dummy about this. You know, they're selling people what they want. And in that moment, I thought, I've done enough relaxing things. Like, I enjoy relaxing things. I like reading books. I like doing research. I like hanging out, having a beer, just chilling, barbecuing.

But at the same time, I kind of want to have my exercise be fun. And so, I've done half marathons over the years, half triathlons, or half Ironmans. I've done 5Ks, 10Ks, things like that. And although they're nice to do and there's a good motivation to hit a certain time, there's a goal at the end and you meet good people. I, this is just me, I know everyone's a little different. I wouldn't personally call an endurance sport really that fun. And currently on Saturdays, I swim. And I actually have a good time swimming, mainly because I don't really have any objective. There is no time. There is no lapse.

There is no pressure. There's, I mean, I can stop when I want. I would do freestyle, backstroke, side strokes, breaststroke. I'd just change it up. And I find that freestyle, I could do it. I could do it for a little bit of time. But I just don't like it, you know. And running, like, I like it, but I don't really love it. And baseball, I love it, but it's only, you can only play with, like, you got 18 people. And you have to have a field and it's really coordinated and all of a sudden you can't do it all the time. And so when I saw Bucky on the ramp, I thought, man, what can I, how can I really change, how can I change what I'm doing for exercise to make it a non-exercise, to make it fun, to make it play?

And I thought, well, that's when I thought the batting cages the next day and throwing baseball around and that was a no-go. I could have gone in the batting cages by myself. I got a little busy in the day, so I didn't. But I like reactional sports, I guess, is kind of what I'm getting, I guess, into today. And the reactional aspect of hitting a baseball is just hitting a baseball, you know, like you go where the baseball goes. You know, same thing with throwing and fielding a baseball, it's just different, you know, you're reacting to a thing versus weight training and running and swimming and biking, you're reacting to yourself.

And so there's a, I mean, although you got to pay attention to what's going on with the road and everything else, but it's not necessarily, I'd say, that exciting moment. Like, if you're watching a baseball game, like, a lot of baseball is boring, I'm not going to lie. Like, I've watched a lot of baseball. And so when you see the pitch come up and someone hits it and you can tell it's going down the line, it's a moment of excitement, you know. It's a spike. And I'm looking for the spike, I guess. And not to say I won't do those endurance sports as well, but I'm looking for the spike. And so what I did was I went out and bought a volleyball.

And I went to the beach by myself because I couldn't find other people to go play volleyball at that time. And so I just sat out in the middle of the sand and just hit the ball up. And as I did about, like, I would say about a minute, two minutes of volleying the ball, I realized that my legs were burning. And I was having a sprint because I wasn't hitting the ball straight up anymore. I was having to turn around. I was having to look up. I was having to do a lot of things which I typically don't do, especially in your endurance-based sports and weight training. And I thought, man, this is so cool.

Like, this is so cool to have something that's fun. Like, that plus Smashball. Like, that's a good day, you know. And so the reason I bring up this topic today is because I know the conversation I have with a lot of my patients about what they should be doing for activity in life. I like to take them through, obviously, a reduction of symptoms and also be the middleman between resistance training and fear of moving. Because I think everybody has a little bit of that fear that it's going to come back a little bit. And they're just enjoying feeling good at the moment. And so that middle interim right there is where you can weigh risk reward as a health care provider.

And I've done this with myself. I've done this with many people. And it kind of looks like a strength training session. Now, when you get into the point where these people are really feeling pretty good, when you keep adding more resistance training, to what end are you doing it? Like, what is the overall point? Like, why does it keep going? How much weight is appropriate for this person for what they're trying to get out of life? And I think there's a range in there that's the sweet spot. And at that point, it's like, okay, that person developed that skill set. What else is needed? And I think the next part of what people need is they need play or movement variabilities, I guess we call as the technical aspect of it.

And so I've had a guy come in before, and he was really good with weight training, right? Like, he implemented it at home, he wasn't doing it prior to, he felt a lot better, but he's like, what else do I do? And I was like, you have kids, right? Go play with them. You know, like, go run around the sand, you live by the beach, go do that. And he's like, you know, but he was like a formatted guy. And I've had other guys like this too, like, what exactly do I do? I'm like, go have fun. Go do things that kids do. Go throw a ball around. Go play kickball. I don't know. And so as I would explain it to people, I would use the baseball analogy.

And so I'm like, look, when I go into the batting cages and I'm looking to swing a baseball bat as, you know, part of my movement variability or my play, the thing about a ball or at least a batting cage is that it's not dialed in to be the exact same pitch every time it moves, you know? And we get a little annoyed or I get a little annoyed when it's moving and it's all of them are high and I got to let them go. But at the same time, that movement to approach the ball to maybe hit it back off is a different one than actually swinging the bat or actually taking a pitch slower because you're reacting to the object.

And I'm like, look, baseball and going to the batting cage is just one of my examples of what I like to do. But also, too, it's not cardiovascularly challenging too much at all. And so I'm like, I think it's a it's something I can use, but I need to build on mine as well. And so when they say, what do I do? I'm like, go have fun. And it's a really hard thing for people, I think, to understand and how to implement because I think a lot of us have forgotten how to have fun, you know? And this is why I brought up that running and resistance training and not to say that people don't have fun doing it.

But I think a reason why a lot of the the patients that we have or the the populations that we see in people in general, I guess people in general. I think they want to have fun, you know, but exercise or running is not fun for everybody. Like my girlfriend hates running. Right. She doesn't really love weightlifting either. She loves dancing. And so that's OK, I think. But I think it's I think it's important as we coach people into, you know, getting back into their life that we actually have to maybe patchwork part of that life back in together. And not to say we're going to be therapists about this or anything, but I think finding that lost fun that they that they need not only to stimulate movement, but also, you know, decrease stress, improve creativity.

You know, they'll they'll be better workers at their work. But I mean, currently, I don't think we're not on this this this this planet to work. You know, I think we should be exploring life. And so I think movement exploration or having fun, I think, is part of that. But it's it's hard for people to to think about, I think. And so when I was down there at the US Open watching the half pipe, I saw that not that I want to skateboard anymore, but I saw that he was truly having fun doing that. You know, in any given moment, if he had that moment that I had where I had all my to do list done and all of my quote unquote priorities, like he probably would have picked it with skateboarding.

And and I think that's a cool thing, like a really cool thing, you know, like someone who's that passionate about an activity that is just fun. I think it's great. You know, like I'm not saying it's the end all, but I think it's as we graduate people out of our care, I think we need to find that thing with them. Or challenge them to find it for themselves. And so when I was down at the US Open, here's the things I considered, because it was really hard to think about, actually. And I'm like, what do I really what I really, really love and enjoy doing? And my first one is baseball. I'm like, well, I don't it's going to be hard to do that all the time.

Like I can go to an adult softball league, but I really don't have a passion for softball. Like, in my opinion, softball to someone like me is kind of like playing it's like playing pickup basketball when you're probably an NBA player. It's just not the same. You know, the intensity is different and so on. And I just I don't feel like I would really enjoy it. And so I don't want baseball to be the hindrance or the lack of baseball to be the hindrance for me. So I need to find something different, maybe. You know, and I think of all the the play tools I have in my garage. I have I have a bike, I have a road bike in there, I have a basketball, I have a football, and I acquired a volleyball the other day.

I have a surfboard, I have a paddleboard. And so I have a lot of stuff that I could play with, but it's really down to which one do I enjoy and perhaps the other ones I just throw away. And I considered, well, what's the barrier to me going out in the water again is number one, don't be afraid about don't be afraid of sharks. There's not a lot of shark attacks happen, but be okay that if a shark attack does happen, that you could have easily died in a car accident. So I guess you're all going to go somehow. And I don't want fear to be the reason why I'm not enjoying something. And I figure, I mean, for all you don't know, I live about two miles from the beach.

So you ride your bike down there and put your board on your little bike rack thing, ride down there in the morning, get an hour of surfing done before you go to the office. That'd be sick. That'd be really sick. And at least with surfing, I don't need other people to be there with me. And I'm reacting to a wave, you know, in the water. And so with volleyball, which is the one that I did end up selecting for now, which I'll probably change my mind at some point, is I can still go hit the ball around by myself. And here's what I'm hoping is that I get good enough, at least confident enough, to just go jump in somebody else's game.

And so I think that the aspect of having a reaction-based sport is fun, but also, too, the cool thing if you go into the group setting is you get new friends. And so when I realized that day that I was having trouble finding people who are wanting to be, maybe they were as busy, but, I mean, some of them had kids. The other one was visiting his parent, and the other one, he had something else going on. And I realized, maybe I need a broader net of friends that are active. And so in that case, like, I'm not going to say I'm a loner or anything, but I think when you get stuck in doing things like, let's say, this podcast and patient care and so on, you just kind of get out of the realm of just hanging out with people.

Or at least hanging out with people in an active way, because usually people want to go hang out and have dinner and drinks. And although that's fun, I think there's more to it than that. And so I'm thinking maybe I'll get a little bit better at volleyball and go and jump into somebody else's game and then develop some friends. As a secondary approach with that, or a secondary bonus anyways, is if we're talking about patients or business management, business development, I could acquire patients there. And so you never know where your next referral is coming from, so you might as well just be friendly and just meet a bunch of people.

And so I think volleyball is a really cool way. I used to do a meetup.com where I would just go to a volleyball group and just play for a couple hours. It was so sick. Just Saturday morning, someone would go there and grab the net. So it was already there. It was already taken care of, which won't be the same if I'm doing it. But at the same time, I think the fear of going through this, I guess the things that I would like to do to add as an adjunct to my baseball as the play aspect of my fitness would be, I'd love to go out and go surfing again. And I'd love to play something like volleyball.

But I guess there's the fears in those. Number one is there's the fear of sharks. Second is the fear of going and meeting new people. And I think everybody has similar fears like this and one or the other. And so when you think about the psychology of what's going on, yeah, just go do it. Well, I don't know. I can't, like, I don't know. I can't do this. I can't do that. And so I would maybe make up all these excuses, you know. And so your patients might do the same. And so I think you dig down a little bit and you figure out what's the one that they can do. And maybe they jump into a different one later or the real one they want to do later.

But I think the stepping stones and the enjoyment that they're going to find when they actually explore play I think is going to be astronomical. Like, I went and I was volleying the ball to myself again for a while. And I look like a loner out there, I'll be honest with you. I mean, people are just hanging out on the beach, you know, reading their books and stuff. And I went, like, to the sand in Huntington. It's kind of like, I would say it's a good 100 yards over the sand for a eighth of water. So in the middle, there's a section that's, like, super hot because the wind doesn't really hit it as much because it's not over the berm.

The sand's hot and just no one hangs out there. Everyone goes towards the water. And so I was in the middle of this area just volleying the ball to myself a little bit. And I would do, like, 30 seconds of volleying. I would run. I would lose the ball. And I would stop and break and just go hands and knees kind of thing. Or, sorry, shortstop position. Because it was tiring. And I did it for probably no more than, like, 10 minutes. And I would just walk right back, read a book, jump in the water, chill for a second, go back out again. So I kind of looked like this loner dude who was hanging out there just waiting for someone to go hang out with him.

And so that, I'll be honest with you, when I went down and I brought the ball, I had full intention of doing this. And then when I started to do that, I thought, man, I'm going to look like a tool out there. And I'm like, screw it. You know, I'm not that important where people are going to judge me about this. I'm just going to go do it. And so, again, I'm sharing all these things with you because, number one, I think the inception of dropping all the things that you really don't love doing for things that you love doing. Again, you might not hate the things. You just don't love doing them. Dropping those things and acquiring the ones that you love doing, I think, it was an epiphany for me, at least in regards to exercise.

I do a lot of things I like to do casually. But with exercise, I do things that I think are needed, but I don't always love them. Like, corrective exercise, like, when I use them for people, I know they suck. Like, I know the exercises suck, you know, so I try to get them out into something they love really quickly. But I guess the second note of this is just the takeaway. I'm revealing the fear points on this is because although I would like to, so after work today, this is a Monday morning when I'm recording this, I'm going to be off early today. I'm going to be off around 530 or so, and so I can hop right down to the beach and hopefully grab some people and play volleyball.

But I've already texted some people this morning, and they're not open to it. And so I'm going to be that homeboy down there again, hitting the ball around by myself, or I can buck up and go hang out by the pier and just say, hey, man, can I jump in there? You know, but there's always the fear of rejection. And so when you have people you're attempting to coach through life, these are the fear points they might have. And so I think when you put yourself in these situations, if you haven't already, you're going to realize what they are. Because I think a lot of people are very, they're very accustomed to doing things that are comfortable to them.

And so, but again, I think getting a fastball, like down the pipe in a baseball game, that's not always comfortable either, but exciting things happen from it. And so I'd really challenge everybody to take a little bit of a step out of their comfort zone this week and try something maybe that they've suggested to their patients. And just see maybe what those fear points are. And don't pick something that you are really good at, like you've asked someone to go for maybe a walk or you've asked somebody to, you know, do a little exercise in the morning. Don't ask them to do that stuff. Ask them to do something where when you suggest it, you thought, I don't want to do that either.

Because this is how you're going to get in tune with what your people are experiencing. This is how you're going to become a better coach. And so I don't know if everybody's already heard the, I did some patient interviews, or sorry, some listener interviews. I've been doing one a month or so for the past four months here. And the second one was Hannah Venus. And Hannah provided a really interesting point that I've really taken to heart at least over the last couple months. Because I never thought she would have said something like this. So she was talking about the book that I wrote. And she did the audio version.

So she got the bonus parts. And the bonus parts are audio clips of me during that point when I was recovering from back pain. And so the book doesn't have those audio parts because it won't really reflect the same kind of thing. And so she was, when I was asking what she's gotten from this podcast, because I want to make sure that I'm sharing things that are helpful to everybody to treat their patients better, for patients to understand better about what's expected of them and how to live a very, you know, happy life. And not about being fit or anything like that. It's just living a happy, healthy life.

And so Hannah revealed that the thing that she took away the most from the podcast so far was actually the audio version of the book. And so there's a sneak peek, by the way, if everyone wants to look back, I want to say it's episode 123, 121, something like that. So it's probably going to be about two, three months back of what you're going to listen to here. It's called I Will Be Back Pain. And so she had heard that and she was on a trip. And so she said, since she hasn't really had an experience with back pain yet, although she's had experiences with different types of things, she didn't realize what it was and what kind of mental anguish somebody can go through.

And not that my condition was really that bad, but there's an identity crisis that happened, I think, with people who have aches and pains that are just seemingly unresolved. And so she had mentioned that the audio portion, and I remember taking it. I remember taking this audio portion. I was down on Sunset Beach. I had just jumped off a paddleboard. And so I was paddling. I mean, I don't mind paddling, but also, too, I don't love paddleboarding because it's just very slow. And so I like things like baseball. I like reactional sports, like I mentioned earlier. And so I was kind of saying in that just as a self-reflection of, like, the identity thing.

It's like, who are you if you're not, you know, who you thought you were? And so, like, for my whole life, I've been somebody who's been athletic. I've been good at baseball. I've been good at a bunch of things, like, physically capable. And so the identity crisis that happened there was, well, if your back hurts, how can you be the same person or identify as the same person that you were? And so people go through that. You know, people go through that all the time. And they might not talk about it, but maybe they really did enjoy something in life. Maybe they enjoyed volleyball and they just thought when this shoulder thing came up, although you helped them through it, they realized that when they overcame it, the lesson they learned was they were too old.

And so now they sit back and chill and they become the relaxers that Costco is selling to. So maybe exploring that idea, I think I'll explore that idea a little bit more aggressively with my patients now, because this is, I guess, a self-reflection version of the podcast, is I think exploring that and asking them, like, you know, what would you do for play if you could play? You know, because I think in today's world we think of play as kind of like a childish thing to do or like it's very trivial, but I think it's more than that, you know? And so I think it's a defense mechanism and, you know, dismissing, you know, the need to play.

I think we need to play. We need time to ourself. We need to be creative. And so when you're always bombarded with work or you're doing things that you don't want to do or don't really care about doing or don't love, it really runs you down. And so I think exploring that with somebody, and so I guess if Hannah was my clinician in that, she'd say, what would you want to do if you could play again? And I'd say, well, I would, you know, I'd play baseball. I'd play winter league. And since I only play spring, I'd play winter league too. And so, you know, verbalizing it, I think, is an important part.

And so currently, although I still would play baseball more frequently throughout the week if I could, it's hard to gather people. And so, again, I need to find something that's a little bit more controlled where I can do it with less people or I can do it alone and still react to something. And so I guess the reason I'm sharing this again is so you can get a glimpse inside maybe what your patients are dealing with. And in that book, I do cover what I was dealing with when I was recovering from back pain. And, again, if you have not experienced an injury that took you out of the play that you love or the sport that you love, not the one that you like, the one that you love, then it might be an eye-opener to you.

So please go back in the podcast series and check that one out. Now, that brings up another point here is that when someone's injury or ache and pain takes them out of things they don't really love but things that they do, there's not a big drive to really return, I think. I mean, it kind of reminds me of, like, a couple of shows that I've watched and I've fallen asleep, not purposefully, but I just did not care. And every once in a while, we'll watch an hour of TV prior to bed. And so one of them is, like, The Handmaid's Tale. Like, I get it. Like, it's okay. It passes the time, but I really don't care.

You know, and if I never saw one again, I wouldn't care either. Reruns, I would not care. For me, because of an injury, I probably wouldn't care. And so the motivation of returning to play, think about that, returning to play. You know, we've been talking about it a bunch over the sports symposiums or at least the ACBSP, how to return to play. Does anyone really return to play or does it return to exercise? You know, I think a lot of people, when you return to exercise, exercise is not a really good driver for excitement. Again, some of you are going to be different because you're going to love exercise.

You're going to love bodybuilding. You're going to love Olympic lifting. You love your CrossFit. Or do you just love the people? I think it's an important division thing in there is, if you were to have CrossFit or people, which one would you pick? And I asked this to a patient recently, and she said, I would pick CrossFit. I'm like, then you're a true, you truly have a love and passion for CrossFit. But if you pick the people, you can play volleyball, right? So I think finding that play is going to be an important driver for getting your patients better and getting them back into life. And when I say life, I don't mean pain-free.

I mean actually enjoying life. Because, again, if you were to return me just to biking, that wouldn't be life, man. You've got to return me to baseball. Or you've got to return me to something similar to baseball or an aspect of baseball that I still really like. And so maybe you return me at batting cages, switch hitting, and just throwing a ball and not running the bases. And that's still success. But if you don't return me to something that I love, then it's going to be really hard to get me to stick to that. And I think when I've interviewed strength coaches, I've thought in the back of my head that, man, I'm jealous of these people.

Like they get to be with their clients more often than we do as rehab movement people for the most part. And they get to make a better dent in their life. They get to help them install habits. They can kind of work them through the weeds. Maybe somebody has, maybe if they want to surf again, and they're afraid of sharks, like that's okay. You don't have to push it upon them because you have like months and years with this person where you can start to maybe nurture that and push them into something that they want to do, that they love to do. But they're too scared. And the fear is kind of overbearing, and they're not able to get into the water even metaphorically there.

So I'm jealous of them. But I think at least when we have our patients, the ones that kind of come and go and, you know, they're still around for years with random things. They're like checking in. And like these ones are really good opportunities to make changes in people's habits. And I know that like my goal with seeing people, it's like I hate seeing people just one time. And it doesn't happen very often, but I know that people have contacted me, some out-of-towners. They said, look, I want to fly in and do a session with you. And most of the time when I talk to them on the phone, I say, look, like, let me send you somewhere else because I think they can have a better long-term dent.

And they're like, well, I just want to eval. I just want to see what's going on. And I want to make sure that, you know, like I have the right diagnosis. And like I get it. And so if they really are pressed to do it, I say, yeah, go ahead. But what I really want for them is I want them to make a change, an adaptive change to reverse engineer the process. And that doesn't happen after one time. And even the ideas that you go through for one time doesn't always stick. You know, I think the saying is the faintest pen is better than the strongest memory. And so sometimes writing things down or just going through repetitions.

And so it's not memory. It's doing. And having people come one time, you don't always get that opportunity. You don't get that opportunity. And so when I'm going, what my goal is for most people with or time frame for patient care anyways is I would like to see them through their acute, subacute or be able to moderate pain stage very quickly. Like I would love, I'd love a week, you know, two weeks, I think a little bit more reasonable. We're seeing them like two, three times. But after that, there's that middle ground, like I mentioned earlier, where it's like, I feel good. But doc, do you think it's okay if I do this?

Yes. You know, like it's, I don't want people to become fearful of movement and ditch things that they think they're getting too old for. You know, I think it's okay to say I don't like something. I don't enjoy that. But if you love something and you think you're too old for it, I think that's a little, I think it's unacceptable. You know, there's ways to get people back into aspects of that sport or let's say play. Let's, I should stop saying sport. I should just say play. All right. Because, because play is, is a little less defined and it's not organized like a sport. You don't need to have a sport.

You just need to be able to play. And so I think getting them into that part, there's stepping, stepping stools or there's stepping stones along the way. And so usually here's my rough stepping stones is number one, I need to see that they're in control. All right. Do they have a safety net? Can they decrease their own symptoms at will if they trigger themselves? That way they're not fearful about doing some movements. Second is, is can they build those support systems to decrease the triggering potential? I'll do this via corrective exercise or loading in a very specific way. By the way, if you don't know already how to do this and you're only doing passive care, I'm telling you you're missing the boat.

Like, like only doing passive care or manual therapy is missing the boat. Only doing corrective exercise or loading is missing the boat. You got to, you got to in, you got to weave these things in. If you don't know how to do that, reach out to me. I, I, again, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not a, I'm not an aggressive seller, but if you think you could do better, message me. I would love to have a seminar series start, but I got a lot of irons in the fire. And if I don't see people actually interested in it, then, then I, then I won't suggest, then I won't do it. There are other workshops out there via other people.

I can, I can say that some of them are really good, but the other ones, they're just kind of like, blah, you know, like, like, like, like, I, like it, once I've gone to them, I thought I wouldn't go again. And so my effort with putting mine on was, was to mitigate that problem and just get to the brass tacks of things. But again, if you guys are interested, just message me on Instagram. It's at performance HB. So anyways, back to the thing is that I think the next building blocks beyond corrective is, is, is loading them and getting them into a, just a solid resistance training program. And to be clear, I don't think this means that we need to get them into become bodybuilders or Arnold's or, or, or spend time at the gym five days a week.

I don't think it's needed. I think two days a week, you know, 30, 30 to 40 minutes at a time is well enough. And, but then what's beyond that? And this is where we get into those, those couple patients that I mentioned that like that structured program. What is beyond that? For them, I gave them a bunch of options, but they didn't like them because they didn't love them. I think, you know, and they just want to know what they have to do so they could feel better. I'm like, well, why don't you do what you have to do to do something you love? Go find something you love, right? I would love for everybody to have a movement-based love.

They should be able to, to get out there and have a good time. And I've mentioned this to my girlfriend a couple of times is that the reason why I lift is because I want to play baseball. I want to play baseball pain-free. I want to play it well. And I want to play it without even a thought in my mind about hurting myself. I want to be reckless. I want to have fun. And so if you're only lifting to lift because you want to feel good, I think that is, and we've all, we've all learned through some of our communications with other clinicians that pain is the first thing to go and the last thing to come.

And so if you're only working out to decrease pain, I think you're missing the boat. And so as healthcare, if you are a healthcare or a trainer or whatever, if you don't really love working out, if you don't love your cardio, if you don't love your weight training, and you don't wake up in the morning thinking, damn, like I can't wait. Like I want to do that, right? Like I would do that all day if I could. If you don't think that, then I challenge you to find something that you do feel that way about. And I'm doing the same thing right now, okay? And I think it's an adventure for a lot of people.

I don't know. I wish it was baseball, but it's hard to find. Like I would. I would play. I played baseball for eight hours a day multiple times. It's that. But I can't do that unless I can scale back and play over the line or just hit balls in a park or, you know, whatever it is, just being on the field. And so I got to evaluate that, and I'm challenging you guys to do the same. So a couple recaps on that stuff, again, is number one, make it so your end game is to play. Return to play. Or for your patients, it's return to play. Or let's say return to love. And if they don't know what that is, ask them.

Figure it out. And hopefully if you've had enough, if you develop enough rapport and trust with them, you'll be able to figure it out with them, and you're a guide with them. Okay? You're not fixing anything. Like you're guiding them to a solution. And so I think that's the biggest takeaway there is just find something. And if you don't find it right away, no big deal. All right? But just think about it. And don't get so busy with your life that you can't sit there and think about it. Because I think this is how a lot of people have that same old story where they're like, I was in corporate America, and I was doing this, and I was in all these meetings, and blah, blah, blah.

You know, and they end up having an epiphany in life. I think we've got to chill a little bit. By the way, clinicians, this is just a thought that I had the other day. And so although I do a lot of these podcasts and Instagram videos and so on, like I'm very efficient with them. And so I've been asked by a few people, like, how do you get all this information out? And how do you write all these articles? And how do you develop all your content? And I like doing it. You know, I like doing it. And so I don't see it. I guess it really is work. And so I went to the bank the other day, and it was on a Friday.

It was in the afternoon to the banker. This is when I realized that, damn, I got it pretty good. You know, and if you guys don't feel the same way, I challenge you to make it so your work schedule is like this. Because, like, yeah, I think we've got to think, why are we here? Are you here to work or are you here to have a good time? Or are you here to play or are you here to make a difference? You know, but most people won't say work or work hard. So I was at the bank, and I was there on a Friday around 5 o'clock or so. And so I was depositing some checks. And so the teller's like, long day? You know, like end of your day?

And I said, well, it never really started. She's like, oh, okay, you don't work Fridays? I'm like, no, I don't work Fridays. She's like, oh, that's nice to have Friday and Saturday and Sunday off. I'm like, yeah. And she says, so you only work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday? I'm like, well, I don't work Wednesday either. And so she was kind of dumbfounded there. And the look on her face made me think, damn, like this person probably works five, six days a week. You know, I got it pretty damn good. And so I really only work three days a week, but I'm here from about nine to six on those days.

And I mean, today I'm in an hour early to do a podcast recording for all of you. And I'll edit this thing and be done in about a half hour after with post-production because all I got to do is clip in the stuff at the beginning and I'm good to go. You know, but when I wake up in the morning on like a Wednesday or actually in the morning on all the other days, like I'll go to the beach and I'll take a run or I'll go dig a hole at the beach or I will come in the office, do a little weight training or I'll spend, when I was writing, I will be back pain, by the way, available on Amazon. If you have not gotten it, please do.

The e-book, by the way, is really cheap, really cheap. It was intended to be that way. The audio is the best one though. I spent two hours every morning just writing. You know, I'll wake up before everybody else and I'll write and I really enjoyed it. I don't like proofreading, but I really enjoyed it. And so I think finding the things that you enjoy or things that you release in regards to business and practice, if you enjoy them, they're really not work. And so although on Wednesdays and Fridays I do a lot of this web-based podcasting and Instagramming, YouTubing, blah, blah, blah, I don't really see a lot of it as work.

And I know once I get through a big old chunk of it, then I'm pretty darn set. And so I really challenge you guys to improve your work schedule. Enjoy your work schedule if you don't already. Okay. So thanks for joining me on this podcast today. Just a couple of call to actions is number one. If you have a fellow student and they're in need of this information, please share it with them. Like just send them the little link that goes with iTunes or Overcast or Spotify. Just send it to them. And if you've been on this journey with me for the past 150, 60 episodes now, I bet you learned a couple of things because I know I have.

And so if you have, drag your friend down that same road. I would love for everybody to learn with me. Second is, is please buy that I will beat back pain book. I realized I've had way too many irons in the fire this year. Creation of that book was, it was fun. It was great. I had a good time. There's still a couple of spelling errors in there, by the way, if you find them, let me know. But I don't enjoy promoting it. And so that's probably why I've laxed a little bit on the promotional aspect of it. And so because of that, the book sales are not amazing. But I do think it's a message a lot of people need to hear.

And honestly, if I was going to do another addition to that, I'd probably have to do a part two of Return to Play because that's something that I realized along the way in maladaption and movement. And so I should have been, I should have included that in there. But I think that's another one coming soon. So if you support the first one, then I'll write the other ones. All right. And I'll keep doing these podcasts as well. Lastly, leave people about it on how you found them. If you're dating, date an Eagle Scout. I'll talk to you guys soon.