Guests: Dr. Todd Riddle and Rodger Fleming
Today’s episode picks up with our interview with Dr. Todd Riddle and Rodger Fleming, ATC, LMT. These two guys are absolutely incredible to chat with and our discussion covers a wide variety of interesting topics for healthcare providers interested in delving into the sports medicine field.
Highlights from this episode include the importance of athletes at all levels having access to sideline care, the critical role of assessment in making treatment decisions and what it’s like treating athletes in the field of play vs. in the office.
Both of our guests provided a sneak peek into their favorite go-to items in their treatment toolkit and we got to hear stories from their first-hand experiences in traveling internationally with the elite teams they’ve served.
From the importance of trust and collaboration to the ongoing pursuit of professional development, their experiences and expertise provide a compelling framework for success in and off the field.
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00:00:15
Yeah, I can imagine that when you get to a certain level and everywhere
00:00:19
you go everyone recognizes you, and sometimes you're even being mobbed by fans,
00:00:23
that it's nice to have a moment in time where you're just the person that
00:00:27
you've always been and someone else recognizes that. Someone else recognizes who you are
00:00:32
as a person, not just your title or your status. And I'm sure
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that probably carries over to into the elite level athletes that you guys get to
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work with, both through USA Gymnastics USA Racketball. People always wonder, and
00:00:48
that when I say people, I primarily mean healthcare providers that are still early
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on in their careers, those that are students that look to professionals like you
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guys, and they say, wow, I would love to do that one
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day. I bet he just knew somebody that knew somebody, or maybe he
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was there at the right place at the right time. But those of us
00:01:08
that know you well and those of us that have heard more about your journey
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understand that it's not as if it just fell out of the sky and into
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your lap. There was a lot of work that went into getting to a
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place in your career where you could be considered for opportunities like this. I'd
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love to hear from you guys a little bit about what that looks like early
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on in that career as a sports practitioner. How many times were you having
00:01:36
to possibly volunteer your services or check your ego at the door and realize that
00:01:41
you had a lot to learn from some other providers you were working with.
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What was the moment I note Roger you mentioned you had a few moments where
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you were served a little bit of humble pie and did really have to kind
00:01:53
of have that ego check. So I'd love, especially for our listeners that
00:01:57
are still early on in their journey, to hear from both of you some
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of the background of how you really were able to start opening doors to these
00:02:08
opportunities and what that looks like. That it wasn't an overnight success. This
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wasn't something that you guys received a phone call one day out of the blue,
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one year in practice and you were like, oh, great, I'm
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the guy. How did this all evolve? So for me, a lot
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of it was some personal growth, battling with a what I would say like
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a little bit of an imposter syndrome. I always was reactive because I was
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not confident in my skills, so I put on this where I was I
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was. I put home like I was better than what I was, and
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through different interactions with people who who actually knew what was going on, that's
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where my humility was put into play. And I tell you, once I
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became humble, there's a difference between being arrogant and confident. I was humbled
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because I was not confident. So I was portraying myself maybe a little bit
00:03:13
more on the arrogant side of trying to hide my deficiencies. Now I accept
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my deficiencies and go, let's learn about this. Let's let's be the best
00:03:24
me that I can be. And I take it one day at a time.
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But for me as far as my journey, once I developed that and
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knew that that's something I had to work on my I knew that I wanted
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to work with the elite athletes, and people were like other practitioners, you
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should look into this, X, Y, and Z, and I looked
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into it, and then I just I came in with open eyes, open
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ears and just wanted to work as a team and just let my body of
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work speak for itself. And that's again that's what I do is just I
00:04:08
usually am over humble, I guess because I don't always talk about myself or
00:04:15
rag about myself or anything like that anymore. I just do my whatever's in
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front of me, whether it's folding a towel, stretching a hamstring, massaging
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a foot, to just sometimes listening. That's that's how I practice. And
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people practitioners, athletes, administrators, they see that and they're like, that's
00:04:42
someone that we want on our team. They're confident, silent confidence. But
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for me, I went into I applied and I'm not afraid to volunteer,
00:04:53
volunteer my time. There is at some point you have to present a value
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in yourself of like we've been volunteering doing these things. There needs to be
00:05:03
some type of maybe financial discussion and such, but volunteerism is what is he
00:05:14
with some of these organizations that I've been involved with and I'm working with,
00:05:18
the Olympic Movement has been something. I mean, how greater is that Being
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able to work with elite athletes from other countries, your country in the United
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States as well as the other countries, and just seeing them success and be
00:05:38
successful. It's an amazing heartfelt experience for me, and I know that Todd
00:05:45
has a very unique and I love his story as well. I'll get in
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my story a minute, but I want to reinforce something that Rogers said there,
00:05:53
and I'll kind of interpret it in the way that I heard it is
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Roger's a team player and he knows his space within the team. I know
00:06:02
my space within the team. And because we know each other in that way,
00:06:06
we have no problem recommending each other when an opportunity comes up for us
00:06:13
to serve on a team. Last year, Roger asked me to work with
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him at a tournament for USA Racquetball because he knows what my lane is.
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He knows I'll stay in my lane and we can work together well. And
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when I have opportunities to get Roger involved in things such as with USAG because
00:06:30
I know who he is and I know he's willing to serve, and like
00:06:33
he said, if there's something in front of him, he'll pick it up
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and do it. There's no talk about what am I going to get out
00:06:41
of this. It's just he puts his nose to the grindstone and he gets
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to work. So I think that's an incredibly important lesson for people that are
00:06:47
looking to get into This is one the volunteerism that Roger talked about. We
00:06:53
don't get paid for some of this stuff when I first got started, and
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I know Roger was the same way. We don't get paid for the work
00:06:59
that we do field of play in some instances, the number of marathons I
00:07:02
worked, the bicycle events that I worked, didn't get paid for those.
00:07:06
It was just accumulating experience and letting people see that I do know what I'm
00:07:12
talking about, that I am different with my skill set and trying to get
00:07:16
people to understand what I'm bringing to the table. But yeah, I wanted
00:07:20
to reinforce that part. As far as my portion of the story goes,
00:07:25
it's a little bit circuitous. When I went into college, my full intention
00:07:30
was to be a physical therapist because of the time that I had spent in
00:07:33
and out of physical therapy. I discussed my brief time with working with an
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athletic trainer for my injury, but there are plenty of other injuries that I
00:07:42
had to work through with both ats and pts. So my intention was to
00:07:46
go into physical therapy because I wanted to go into private practice afterwards and found
00:07:50
out pretty quickly when I got to Toledo that you can't do football and physical
00:07:55
therapy at the same time. So I elected to go the kinesio therapy route
00:07:59
because it was still in trenched in rehabilitation, and I'm glad I did it.
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I got a good background in rehabilitation, in a bit in diagnosis,
00:08:09
also in assessment and testing, so I laid a bit of a foundation there
00:08:11
that eventually transitioned me into owning my Sports Performance JIM in Charlotte, North Carolina.
00:08:20
And this is where I get to have a little bit of fun because
00:08:22
I was able to pull in some of my old Toledo friends and resources.
00:08:26
So that was kind of my foray into elite level sports. When I opened
00:08:30
up my gym in North Carolina, one of my former high school and college
00:08:35
teammates, Brot Kreutzberg, was on the hunt for an NFL career and then
00:08:39
quickly transitioned into elite level. Bob's led for Team USA, ending up in
00:08:46
a couple of Olympics, which I was able to participate with him in.
00:08:50
At that time, another friend of ours came down and trained. He's a
00:08:54
very accomplished CFL athlete, Mace Freeman. Roger, I know, you know
00:09:00
all these names. They came down and we're training with me there, so
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they were kind of my first foray into elite level training for athletes. Got
00:09:09
to work with several NFL athletes, so it kind of allowed me, as
00:09:13
Rogers said, to cut my teeth in that place to learn the strength and
00:09:18
conditioning and the training side of it. And then I realized that I wanted
00:09:20
to add a bit more back into that gym by adding a sports medicine component
00:09:30
to that. So that led me into chiropractic school. But very long story
00:09:33
shorts. My time with Brock when he made it to the Olympics gave me
00:09:39
a lot of invaluable experience that served me after I got out of chiropractic school.
00:09:43
And it's kind of strange that a couple of guys from Flat Ohio were
00:09:48
working on getting him to slide faster down an icy mountain, which we were
00:09:52
totally unfamiliar with. But that turned into something great when I got to Texas
00:09:58
Chiropractic College and one of the students there doctor she's now a chiropractor, doctor,
00:10:03
Sean Adagun. She was the pilot for the Nigerian Bob sled team,
00:10:09
of which I was able to attend the twenty eighteen Games with and also met
00:10:15
mister Anthony Watson, who was the first Jamaican skeleton athlete to compete at the
00:10:20
Olympics as well. So I've right place, right time, And I think
00:10:22
that's the point I'm trying to make here is like you said, Jess,
00:10:26
it didn't fall into my lap. I had to work for the opportunities and
00:10:31
also be in the right place. I was fortunate enough to work with Roger
00:10:35
at the World Games last year, where I met Tarn Moore, who was
00:10:39
the medical director for USAG, and she graciously brought an athlete or to over
00:10:45
to me and networked with her and said, hey, look, if you
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ever need anything, I would love to participate in any way that I can
00:10:52
with USAG and got a phone call a couple of months later. So it
00:10:56
literally is about putting your time in, doing the work and networking with people
00:11:03
to show one who you are, but also to show your value. So
00:11:07
I think it's incredibly important for the people that are listening to this that just
00:11:11
because you have the degree, just because you have the knowledge, doesn't necessarily
00:11:16
mean that people are going to come to you, you've got to put that
00:11:18
stuff out there and make yourself available for free work, to volunteer, but
00:11:24
also to be willing to have conversations about what you provide. So that was
00:11:28
kind of a long winded answer there, but yeah, that's my story.
00:11:33
Well, and it's interesting. In the business trainings that I do, we
00:11:37
always talk about this principle and I heard this phrase once and I love talking
00:11:41
about it. It's the learn it or earn it principle, right, So
00:11:45
you have the learned component, where you use education, whether that's through degrees,
00:11:50
certification, continuing education to learn new skills and improve professionally. But then
00:11:56
you also have the earn it component, right, which is where you do
00:12:00
the time, you do the work, you gain the experience. And this
00:12:03
translates across professions, across healthcare specifically in a huge way because the care that
00:12:09
you provide has to involve both of those components in order for you to continue
00:12:15
progressing professionally. If we were to look at a pie chart, and I'm
00:12:18
going to ask this for each of you to answer, If you were looking
00:12:22
at a pie chart and you could, from a thirty thousand foot perspective,
00:12:26
give a percentage in terms of what percentage is your earn it and what percentage
00:12:31
is your learn it that you've utilized to get to the level that you currently
00:12:37
have achieved professionally. So are you an eighty percent earn it, twenty percent
00:12:43
learn it or sixty forty fifty to fifty. What would you say has been
00:12:48
kind of your spread from the learned side and the earn it side as you've
00:12:54
progressed through your career. That is such a tough question because we're making the
00:13:01
assumption that those two are mutually exclusive. And I'll use this example. I
00:13:07
think you have to have the foundational learn it part where you demonstrate that you
00:13:13
have a proficiency that allows you to at least be in the room right.
00:13:16
But then there's the earn it part. So I'll say, let me call
00:13:22
it twenty percent learn it, even though it probably is higher, because I
00:13:26
want to give the value to the earn it parts. When I'm out and
00:13:31
earning it, I'm still learning. So this last competition that I was able
00:13:37
to work with both Roger and France and then carry over to England for World
00:13:43
Championships, I learned so much working with Roger and another one of the athletic
00:13:50
trainers that was there, and then popping over to England to work with one
00:13:56
of our medical doctors, a doctor of osteopathy, as well as one of
00:14:01
our mental health specialists and another ATPT. Actually had two AT's there. So
00:14:07
the reason I'm kind of saying I can't give a direct distribution is because I'm
00:14:13
still learning while I'm earning. But you have to have that foundational level of
00:14:18
learning to be in the room so that you can continue that education. Again,
00:14:22
I tell my pagent or my students this all the time. They think
00:14:24
that once they get out of out of school at a chiropractic school that their
00:14:28
education is over, and I say, oh, contraire, that's where it
00:14:31
begins. Your education begins, because now you've got to get out there and
00:14:35
learn while you earn. That's a great that's a great point there, Roger,
00:14:39
would you agree. I don't know how to follow up with that,
00:14:43
because Todd, that's he nailed it. I mean, you have that foundation.
00:14:50
Let me reiterate, you have a foundation to get your foot in the
00:14:54
door. But then you've got to keep your You got to keep your foot
00:14:58
in the door. You've got to be able to earn your way to stay
00:15:01
in the room if you will, and if you never stop learning. I
00:15:07
mean, you never stop learning. There's always something to be learned. Every
00:15:13
opportunity, every exposure, every experience, every conversation, you're learning. And
00:15:20
the way you I think maybe you interpret that learning opportunity is the way you
00:15:26
also helps earn your place at the table or stay at the room. Yeah,
00:15:33
so it's very hard to say eighty twenty or whatever. There's phases.
00:15:39
Initial, you got to learn it, and then you get a midway from
00:15:43
there, you're learning it all the way through. So yeah, great job,
00:15:46
Todd, great explanation. Yeah, I would agree with that too,
00:15:50
And I've heard that from several practitioners I've spoken with over the years. It's
00:15:54
really hard to separate the learn and the earn, especially as you continue to
00:15:58
progress throughout your career. How important is it for both of you to continue
00:16:04
on the education side and to continue taking courses, investing in yourself and in
00:16:11
your clinical skills professionally in that way, and how beneficial has that been in
00:16:18
helping you treat athletes better and improving your clinical skill sets so that not only
00:16:23
are you out there doing the work, but then you're also bringing something new
00:16:27
to the table at each event, that you're continuing to focus on, as
00:16:34
Todd you mentioned earlier, really looking at the research and what's coming out now,
00:16:38
but then also taking courses, getting certifications like Progressing, and taking that
00:16:45
time to prioritize your education so that when you do come back to treat athletes
00:16:49
again, that when you do have that next event, you're coming to the
00:16:53
table with a continual focus on being innovative with the treatments that you're providing.
00:17:00
Oh, for me, that's an easy one. And this is where I
00:17:02
got to give Roger some credit because that's kind of how he and I reconnected
00:17:06
after college. So I graduated in nineteen ninety eight, which seems like centuries
00:17:11
ago probably for some people that are listening. And Roger, I think you
00:17:15
were ninety six if I remember correctly. Yes, yes, But Roger and
00:17:19
I stayed in contact afterwards for a long time. But he came to learn
00:17:26
from me at one of our Factor courses in Atlanta in twenty fifteen. So
00:17:30
one, it speaks to the importance of continuing education, but also back to
00:17:36
what Roger was saying, his humility in allowing somebody that's younger than him.
00:17:40
He had far more experience than me in training rooms, so to speak,
00:17:45
but it demonstrates his willingness to learn and want to learn something unique, and
00:17:51
I was eternally grateful that he felt like I had something that he could learn
00:17:56
from me. But yeah, I think it's incredibly important. That's why I
00:17:59
placed such a high emphasis on continuing education. That's also why I decided to
00:18:03
work within chiropractic education and actually teach at a chiropractic school. I think that
00:18:08
the learning part is so incredibly important, and personally, I'm incredibly grateful that
00:18:15
Texas Chiropractic College allows me to travel the way I do so that I can
00:18:18
go gain that learning experience while I'm earning to kind of round that back out
00:18:23
so I can pass that on to the next generation of providers. So I
00:18:29
think it is important to continue our education. There's a couple of things that
00:18:33
Roger's getting into. I hopefully he'll talk about his reflex technique that he likes
00:18:37
to use. But yeah, I'm constantly on the hunt for the I don't
00:18:41
want to say the shiny thing because I think those are fads, but the
00:18:45
evidence based, guideline approved treatments that we can use to help improve the performance
00:18:52
of athletes. So I'm forever looking for ways to improve myself so that I
00:18:59
can improve both the education of my athletes, but also the education of the
00:19:03
students that I work with too. For me, I just I want to
00:19:07
be the best version of me and provide the best care that I possibly can
00:19:15
for the person that's in front of me. And one of my I think
00:19:18
it was Theodore Roosevelt. People don't care how much you know until they know
00:19:22
how much you care. But knowledge is power, and just because you have
00:19:30
a hammer, not everything's a nail. I know that's a lot of analogies,
00:19:33
but staying on the cutting edge and trying to stay abreast of what's going
00:19:40
on, I think Todd maybe is more of a really a research oriented I
00:19:48
read research, but not to the extent that Todd does, which settings and
00:19:55
personal time frames and things that come into play and come into factor with that.
00:20:00
But I wanted to find how I can help the person the fastest and
00:20:07
safest way possible, And he briefly mentioned one of my game changers for my
00:20:15
career was being introduced to PERT, which is primal reflex release technique. It
00:20:22
is a version of neuromuscular manual therapy. It's all science based, evidence based,
00:20:30
but it's hands on approach and it unlocked from me how amazing and how
00:20:41
strong the nervous system was, and it's basically it's unyielded and control over everything.
00:20:48
So find little rabbit holes and pathways that you just gravitate towards. And
00:20:53
mine is neuro related. So I have all of these different neurological approaches,
00:21:02
neurodynamics, pri DNS hurt. And what Todd didnety lead to elude to was
00:21:11
not only have I gone with one factor course, I've gone to two because
00:21:15
as I learn new techniques, new modalities. I also there's no shame in
00:21:23
revisiting and making sure that you are staying the course with what you're wanting to
00:21:30
do. And what Factor really helped me do was put all of these tools
00:21:37
together so that I can have a system for progression and with that that has
00:21:42
been my game changer. And I'm forever grateful for thanks. Roger. Oh
00:21:51
absolutely, you deserve every bit of it. Thank you, So go ahead,
00:21:56
No, I appreciate you saying that about Factor, and clearly I can
00:22:02
take no credit for the education side of things. Just I run the business
00:22:06
piece, the clinical knowledge that is imparted in each of the classes. The
00:22:11
mad scientists, if you will, behind the FACTOR rehab system are an amazing
00:22:17
group of healthcare providers and sports chiropractors that really kind of put that system together
00:22:23
in such a way. And that's what we try to encourage and really communicate
00:22:29
both to providers that have been in practice for many years or for students that
00:22:33
are just trying to figure out still what type of provider they want to be
00:22:37
and what they want their patient treatment to look like. We try to really
00:22:41
emphasize that FACTOR is a true system and it as you mentioned before, every
00:22:45
just because you have nails doesn't mean the hammer is always going to be the
00:22:48
tool that you're going to use for that that every patient is an individual and
00:22:55
you need to have a variety of different tools in your clinical tool belt that
00:22:59
you can utilize is for the specific patient that's in front of you at that
00:23:03
time. But being able to do a great assessment, being able to really
00:23:08
zero in on specifically what's going on with them and the best course of action
00:23:12
to move forward with is critical. Now. I know that many of you
00:23:18
are that both of you have worked with many athletes at the pro and the
00:23:22
elite level talk to me a little bit about how important it has been to
00:23:26
have ap of assessment, to have a really great grasp of being able to
00:23:33
have a high level of clinical decision making when it comes to treating these athletes
00:23:38
with USA Gymnastics, with US racketball. How important is it that you can
00:23:44
really think quickly on your feet and then be able to have an assessment that
00:23:51
you feel confident in when you go into those treatment situations with these athletes at
00:23:56
such a high level. Yeah, I think that's a time based question,
00:23:59
because early on, when you're a newer practitioner or newly minted, assessment is
00:24:06
your greatest resource because that's what gives you the majority of the information you need
00:24:11
to make decisions. And that's not to disqualify that the older practitioners don't need
00:24:15
to use assessment. But as you gain experience, you start to recognize patterns
00:24:22
and injuries. You know that the way an athlete fell or the way that
00:24:26
they got hit what you're likely looking at. But as a newer practitioner,
00:24:30
you may not be able to interpret that real time information as quickly, and
00:24:34
therefore the assessment component is absolutely vital. The data suggests that your assessment gives
00:24:41
you about seventy to eighty percent of the diagnostic criteria you need to make decisions.
00:24:47
So I cannot overstate the importance of that good assessment. And as you
00:24:52
gain experience, and I know Roger can absolutely speak to this, I've watched
00:24:56
him do it. As you gain experience, you start to expedite that process
00:25:00
of decision making, but still have a very pointed and directed assessment that doesn't
00:25:07
necessarily take as much time because your experience helps you recognize how that injury happens,
00:25:15
so that you can do a much more directed and individualized assessment. Assessment
00:25:21
is key, And like Todd said, the exposure to different experiences, different
00:25:26
injuries as they happen in real time, you develop an approach and you don't
00:25:36
just discard anything. But you're listening with your hand. You learn to the
00:25:41
more you can assess, the more you learn to trust your hands, your
00:25:45
eyes, and your ears. So what you listening with your hands, you're
00:25:52
feeling something, but the athlete may be saying something or not saying something.
00:25:57
And then obviously what you're seeing, you're seeing gas grimaces. And I like
00:26:04
to tell a lot of clients. I watch their eyes because, in my
00:26:08
opinion, the eyes don't lie. They will tell me when someone's trying to
00:26:14
supplant light that didn't hurt that I'm okay with that. Their eyes reflexibly won't
00:26:21
They will not lie. So developing a process for the assessment is critical and
00:26:29
I can't express that enough well. And it's interesting too thinking about the time
00:26:36
frame that you all have to work with these athletes when they're at an event,
00:26:40
and how quickly you need to assess and how quickly you need to zero
00:26:44
in on what's going on. Do you find that treating athletes at this level
00:26:49
is very different than in your private practice treating amateur athletes, And if so,
00:26:56
how how are they different patients from that aspect. Well, there's two
00:27:00
different scenarios that we alluded to earlier. One is, if you're working in
00:27:03
the field of play, you have to make split second decisions. Now,
00:27:08
for me, as a sports Cairo, I have only been in a few
00:27:11
situations where I had to be the one to make the call. Generally,
00:27:15
in most situations because again that team role, there's usually someone else that is
00:27:21
superior to me from the pecking order standpoint. That has to make that decision.
00:27:26
That doesn't mean that I didn't necessarily make the assessment, but somebody else
00:27:29
has to make the decision. So at the elite level, there's probably someone
00:27:34
else, a medical doctor, a doctor of osteopoti, someone that's going to
00:27:38
make that overall decision to have that athlete return to play. But again,
00:27:45
it's a bit of a mixed bag because you may be the one that is
00:27:49
doing the assessment, but you have to communicate clearly about what you found so
00:27:55
that they can make their own assessment and then make their own decision based upon
00:28:00
that. So it's a little bit different in every single situation, and that's
00:28:03
just field of play. When it's in your office, now you have more
00:28:07
time to dissect what's actually going on. As Roger said, you get a
00:28:11
chance to feel the athlete out a little bit more. You can make some
00:28:15
slower paced decisions. You can do a better assessment that doesn't necessarily impact them
00:28:21
right there on the spot as to whether or not they're going to go in
00:28:23
when your field of play. In certain sports, if you pull that athlete,
00:28:27
they can't go back in. So there are a lot of decisions that
00:28:32
do have to be made. Split second, and again I think that comes
00:28:34
with a lot of experience. And yeah, so there's two different scenarios there.
00:28:38
If it's field of play, it's one set of rules and one set
00:28:41
of scenarios. And then if it's in your office, you may still end
00:28:45
up pulling an athlete, but now you have more time to look it over
00:28:48
and to really kick out the details. Yes, the field of play is
00:28:53
a kind of a snapshot. You have to make sure that it's not an
00:28:56
emergency, and you have to make sure can they continue, can they perform
00:29:03
from the activity or do they need to be removed from the activity, And
00:29:08
like Todd said, some at some sports, once you remove them, they're
00:29:15
done. There's no going back into the activity. So you have to have
00:29:19
at the beginning you have to know is this a spine injury or is this
00:29:25
You have to know your medical team that at which you have surrounding you to
00:29:30
know to learn about their strengths, and like Todd said, the pecking work
00:29:33
working with elite athletes in the field of play or in the treatment room or
00:29:41
the clinic setting. Oftentimes because they travel so many different venues and different they're
00:29:51
they're working with so many different clinicians and such that sometimes you have maybe one
00:29:57
or two chances with them or they don't know you. So you have to
00:30:02
be very unbiased. You have to show empathy and emotion, but at the
00:30:07
same time be very spot on with your assessments and treatments and decision making with
00:30:12
them, because sometimes with these the elite level athletes, you make an unpopular
00:30:18
decision and you lose some trust. And what I'm saying, my unpopular decision
00:30:26
is being ends up being say the wrong decision in the sense. So you
00:30:32
have to you better know your stuff. You have to know your assessment skills
00:30:38
and be confident with it. And if you don't, again, this is
00:30:42
where humility comes in. If Todd and I are working together and I'm like
00:30:47
unsure of something, I'm like, Todd, this is what I'm seeing,
00:30:51
this is what I'm interpreting, this is what I'm assessing. Can I get
00:30:55
another set of eyes and ears on this? And I'm telling compleachs will trust
00:31:00
that and appreciate that more than you can imagine as well, well, And
00:31:03
that's key. I think that collaborative care aspect, and I know, having
00:31:08
known about Todd's experience both now working with USA Gymnastics where you do have a
00:31:15
strong clinical team that's supporting these athletes, and as he mentioned earlier, from
00:31:18
every aspect, you have the clinicians that are treating them from a physical health
00:31:23
and performance aspect, you also have mental health staff members that are helping to
00:31:29
make sure that mentally and emotionally they're in a great place for competition. But
00:31:33
I know Todd, you've also had experiences with other elite level athletes that just
00:31:37
didn't have that circle of support. Typically it's a funding issue, sometimes it's
00:31:41
an infrastructure issue, depending upon the specific organization that is managing the athletes.
00:31:51
How important and how beneficial has it been for the athletes that you've worked with
00:31:56
that have that support team versus the times where you've worked with athletes who did
00:32:02
not have a strong clinical support system that they could look to for care physically,
00:32:09
mentally, and otherwise. I think it comes down to how it extends
00:32:15
that athletes ability to reach their i'll call it their baseline level of performance and
00:32:22
then improve performance beyond that. So to speak to your question, the athletes
00:32:28
that do get access, and by access, that could be full access,
00:32:32
meaning they're in residence at an Olympic training center, or they have access because
00:32:38
they have the means to pay for private physical therapy, chiropractic athletics, or
00:32:45
whatever the case may be. The athletes that have access generally have the guidance
00:32:49
to allow them to accelerate a bit faster. The athletes that don't get access,
00:32:53
again this is just my experience, generally tend to kind of have to
00:32:58
put it together themselves, which extends the amount of time it takes for them
00:33:02
to get back to baseline. There are a couple of athletes, as you've
00:33:07
mentioned, that I've worked with that, prior to working with me or I
00:33:13
gain access to them, had to rely a lot on the Internet, and
00:33:16
usually that is just an absolute hole to go down for information. They're trusting
00:33:24
people that they don't know, giving information on the Internet that may not be
00:33:30
valid at all, or even if it is valid, they don't know how
00:33:32
to interpret the information to make it applicable to themselves. A lot of times
00:33:37
athletes that don't have access will go to YouTube or Instagram or some influencer about
00:33:44
specific exercises or treatment modalities that they have found useful, and then they try
00:33:50
to overlay that on their own injuries and end up making themselves worse because they
00:33:53
didn't know how to interpret that information. Maybe that modality wasn't at all what
00:33:58
they needed and set themselves back, or they tried to do an exercise that
00:34:02
made them worse. So it's a very hard thing to answer because the athletes
00:34:07
that have access are definitely at an advantage, and it's a very hard thing
00:34:13
to sort out for the athletes that don't have access because there's usually some mitigating
00:34:20
circumstances. Many times it's financial as to why they can't get that access.
00:34:24
So I have really tried to make it one of my goals and kind of
00:34:29
my missions as a provider that even if they don't have the financial resources that
00:34:36
if I can provide some value to them from a rehabilitation or performance standpoint,
00:34:42
as long as they're willing to do the work, I try to give that
00:34:45
information to them. So, but there is definitely a disparity that goes back
00:34:50
to what we were talking about earlier with access for athletes to field of play
00:34:55
healthcare. It's just not there in many places, and it's an absolute travesty.
00:35:00
As much as America and the world loves their sports, it's just not
00:35:06
emphasized enough. The care that the athletes need to perform. Yes, And
00:35:09
I would say that that carries over into as you mentioned, hometown USA or
00:35:15
small town USA, where you may have a team that just doesn't have access
00:35:22
to even an athletic trainer at their local hospital system that could possibly come over
00:35:27
and assist them. That a lot of times you end up having a coach
00:35:30
or a parent that runs out on the field when someone gets injured and without
00:35:35
any type of clinical background, tries to assess whether or not that player can
00:35:37
continue on Roger, I know that's something that is also near and dear to
00:35:43
your heart, and that's something that I've from my workings with in ATA,
00:35:47
I know that is a big mission of that national organization as well as to
00:35:52
make sure that every athlete has access to care. Have you also kind of
00:35:57
experienced that in your clinical practice in that sometimes there are patients that come to
00:36:04
you and had they had care on the field, had they had someone when
00:36:08
the injury first occurred, it could have made a huge difference in how their
00:36:14
career progressed. Absolutely not even how their career has progressed, but quite honestly,
00:36:20
had they had someone there that's qualified to assess and evaluate and treat they
00:36:29
Honestly, they may not have had to have come to see me. They
00:36:32
could continue, they could have continued with activity, or their return would have
00:36:40
been much faster. We've I've seen too many athletes that have they got detailed
00:36:49
and they tried to ut do so forth and or better. Yet, here's
00:36:57
an example for you. They don't don't have immediate care. So they go
00:37:01
in the next day or the following day, and they go to an urgent
00:37:07
care and they get put into a boot or an ankle sprain or whatever.
00:37:13
And based on what they tell me in when they come to see me,
00:37:17
based on what they tell me in my evaluation, and I'm working with them,
00:37:22
they don't need the boot. But many times they get put in the
00:37:28
boot because they can't see someone day in and day out. And it's not
00:37:34
I mean, it's not a neglect on anyone's on and any healthcare providers plate
00:37:40
on their part. But they don't need to be in a boot, and
00:37:44
we get them out of the boot and they're able to return to activity much
00:37:49
faster. So there, I don't have the answer to how this is.
00:37:54
I'm still scratching my head after almost thirty years in this profession as to why
00:38:00
schools and organizations there are still so many that undervalue having the appropriate healthcare available
00:38:12
for these athletes. It's just I'm just scratching my head with it. They'll
00:38:17
spend the thousands to new uniforms, get them into travel two hours away,
00:38:25
but then it says healthcare and they're like, uh, what would deal with
00:38:30
that if it happens. And then there's the ones that I have my hats
00:38:35
off to them because they are progressive with it. They are like, wait
00:38:38
a minute, if we're doing this, we're going to do this right and
00:38:42
we're going to make sure that our athletes are taken care of and it's not
00:38:46
a after thought. So my hat's off to them. I applaud them.
00:38:52
The other ones we got work to do, absolutely, and that's incredible,
00:38:55
and I think that, as you guys both mentioned, that can make all
00:38:58
of the difference when it comes to progressing through your athletic career. And clearly
00:39:06
in your recent experience that both of you had with working with USA Gymnastics,
00:39:10
you typically are dealing with athletes who from a very early age have really had
00:39:15
a very strong connection with their body. They've had a strong connection with the
00:39:20
way that they move, the way that they perform, because gymnastics is a
00:39:24
very precise sport in that way, and typically to get to the levels that
00:39:29
these athletes are when you guys encounter them, they've had a very long road
00:39:34
with support from parents, from trainers, from coaches, from sports medicine staff
00:39:39
in some way. I also know that from what my understanding is of these
00:39:45
organizations that they're very protective of their athletes, and they're very what's the best
00:39:49
way to say it, they're very selective about who they invite into work with
00:39:53
athletes. They're very selective about who they invite to the table from a sports
00:39:59
medicine stanf point Todd. You mentioned earlier that a lot of the relationship with
00:40:04
USA Gymnastics was started by meeting one of their sports med staff members at the
00:40:10
World Games and then kind of continuing the conversations from there. Tell us a
00:40:15
little bit about how that opportunity came about and then what it took to get
00:40:22
to the place where they invited you to be a member of the sports med
00:40:25
team. I know that was not something to where it was a one time
00:40:30
encounter. She met you said you seem like a nice guy, and like,
00:40:32
you know what you're doing, come on to our team. There was
00:40:35
certainly a journey to get there. Tell our listeners a little bit about that.
00:40:38
Well, as you mentioned, it started with World Games. I was
00:40:42
there as part of a sports chiropractic delegation to treat any and all athletes that
00:40:46
were needing care. I know Roger was there working with USA Racquetball, so
00:40:52
in a roundabout way, he and I got to work together in that we
00:40:55
were both there providing sports medicine care. But yeah, I was a matter
00:41:00
of me kind of walking around during a downtime trying to identify coaches or athletes
00:41:07
or even administrators that were associated with teams to kind of let them know who
00:41:10
we were and where we were located, because we were unfortunately at the venue
00:41:15
I was at and placed in kind of a hard to find area. So
00:41:19
I was walking around and happened to bump into the medical coordinator for the USA
00:41:24
Gymnastics Trampoline and Tumbling and just struck up a conversation and she brought one of
00:41:31
her athletes over again. It just turned in kind of a longer term conversation
00:41:36
over the course of that couple of days that she was there, but I
00:41:40
offered myself as someone that would be really interested in working with the athletes,
00:41:45
and as I said, a couple of months later she called me back and
00:41:50
said, hey, you want to come to a tryout if you will.
00:41:53
It really involved me coming out to one of the team camps and seeing how
00:41:59
well I fit with them, and I was able to gauge whether or not
00:42:02
it was a good fit for me, and I fell in love with it.
00:42:05
It was really a great experience. But as you were mentioning it kind
00:42:08
of alluded to, it wasn't just a one and done. I had to
00:42:12
go out and show my chops. I had to work with the athletes.
00:42:15
I had to engage with the athletes. It is incredibly important that the athletes.
00:42:21
It sounds a little strange that the athletes like you, because if they
00:42:22
don't like the person or people they're the team that they're working with. From
00:42:27
a healthcare standpoint, they're not going to engage you. They're not going to
00:42:30
use the service. So that's incredibly important. That's part of the protective thing
00:42:35
that you were mentioning is it's a try out for healthcare providers. In some
00:42:39
instances, you have to go volunteer your time for two weeks at Olympic training
00:42:45
centers. I had to volunteer my time at a couple of events in order
00:42:51
to show what I was capable of, but also for USAG in this instance,
00:42:55
to determine whether or not I was going to be a good fit for
00:42:59
the athletes. Unfortunately, so far, I've demonstrated I'm capable of that and
00:43:06
have also been blessed with the opportunity when asked to bring some of my other
00:43:10
friends and colleagues along with us, and that's where Roger and I were again
00:43:15
able to reconnect on the field of play to work with USA Gymnastics. And
00:43:20
again I want to really reinforce this point here. I'm blessed to work with
00:43:24
them. I do not represent USA Gymnastics in that form, so I don't
00:43:30
want to make it sound like I am speaking on their behalf. I'm only
00:43:32
speaking for my experience with them well, and I think what was interesting that
00:43:37
you mentioned there was that after spending time with them, after volunteering your time
00:43:44
at some of their events, then that opened the door for an opportunity for
00:43:49
you to officially become a member of the sports medicine team. And then they
00:43:52
look to you to recommend others. So the importance of developing relationships with colleagues,
00:43:58
the importance of working well as a member of a team, I know
00:44:01
is a huge component of professional growth for sports practitioners. So when they were
00:44:07
asking you about other providers that you may recommend or ones that might be beneficial
00:44:14
to bring to specific events, what made you think of Roger? And I
00:44:20
know you've brought some other colleagues to events as well, What were those big
00:44:22
determining factors for you about this is someone I absolutely would recommend to bring into
00:44:28
this opportunity. It's always what they're looking for at that time in what the
00:44:34
event requires. So the first one that Roger and I were able to work
00:44:37
was last year at National Championships National Gym Championships, in which I believe there
00:44:44
were about three thousand athletes that were participating at that particular event, so we
00:44:49
needed all hands on deck. We needed someone that could work in the athletic
00:44:52
training arena, so to speak. But then when that wasn't needed, someone
00:44:59
else that can provide care to the athletes in between their competitions. So Roger
00:45:05
was the easiest fit for me because I knew that he was able to provide
00:45:08
both the rehabilitative side in between, but then also work on the field of
00:45:14
play as an acute care provider. So that was an easy choice. So
00:45:17
for me, it's always what that particular event requires, and then I kind
00:45:22
of go into my rolodex so to speak of people that I want to work
00:45:27
with, and I think that's an incredibly important part there. If I want
00:45:30
to work with them, I think they're going to be a good fit for
00:45:31
the team. And Roger, as I've mentioned before, has always been a
00:45:36
good fit because he's easy to work with. He understands what his job is
00:45:39
when he gets there and has no complaints about it. He just sets himself
00:45:44
to work and you wind him up and he's gone. That's incredible. And
00:45:47
Roger, I know that you've had opportunities as well where you invited Todd in
00:45:52
to work the event with you, such as the opportunity that you guys had
00:45:55
at the USA Racketball Open last year. Tell me a little bit about that
00:46:00
for you, Like when you've had opportunities to have other colleagues come in and
00:46:06
work with teams that you are also treating. What are some of those factors
00:46:12
that you look at to help you make that decision knowing the person, the
00:46:16
clinicians, whether they're a good fit with that particular group of the athletic population
00:46:23
in that sport that we're with the US Open. That was both amateurs and
00:46:31
professionals that were participating in this event, and there was I want to say
00:46:38
close to not quite three thousand like that, but it was four hundred athletes.
00:46:45
And I was the healthcare provider or that, and I don't I'm not
00:46:52
a chiropractor, and I know that that is an opportunity. Well, first,
00:47:00
the athletes are looking for something. They're not always looking for massage or
00:47:04
re practic medicine, chiropractical care. Sometimes it's these spinal adjustments. Majority of
00:47:13
them all right, let's face the majority of them are looking spinal adjustments.
00:47:16
But I said, I've got the person that is perfect for that that I
00:47:23
come in and provide so much more than just a spinal adjustment. And it
00:47:30
was his knowledge with rehabilitation and the dynamic tape and his ability to relate with
00:47:38
these high level athletes was critical for me. I just knew that he knew
00:47:45
how to flow in and out of his lane in an appropriate manner, and
00:47:51
I trusted him, and I knew that he was going to take care of
00:47:55
the athletes the way that I felt like they needed to be and I didn't
00:48:00
even hesitate with it, and the it was just a good fit with that.
00:48:06
I wanted to like touch on something here though. My start was with
00:48:12
actually with USA Track and Field, and I volunteered to do the Atlanta Marathon
00:48:19
and then I got the Then COVID hit and I had the opportunity to go
00:48:22
out to the Track and Field Olympic Trials and I worked that and then shortly
00:48:29
after that, USA Racketball was looking for a dual credential and they they reached
00:48:35
out the USOPC reached out to someone and they were like, we'll contact Roger,
00:48:40
and they contacted me and I my first trip with USA Racketball was down
00:48:46
to Guatemala for the World Championships and we won. We took home gold with
00:48:52
that. Shortly thereafter, they they reached back out to me and they said,
00:48:58
we don't know exactly what you did, but every single athlete was like,
00:49:06
whenever we go on a trip again, we want Roger with us.
00:49:08
And that started my relationship with racquetball and they trusted me in the athletes,
00:49:17
I said, transitioning into bringing Todd into the US Open in USA racquetball.
00:49:23
When I said go to Todd, let him work with you on this,
00:49:29
they didn't matter any They knew that what I said then they could trust Todd.
00:49:35
So that was kind of like credibility. And then Todd just what his
00:49:39
actions and his professionalism spoke volumes for himself and the rest is history. Hey
00:49:49
guys, if you like what you heard today, I encourage you to visit
00:49:51
our website at Factor hyphenstore dot com that's spelled fa k t r hyphenstore dot
00:49:59
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