Fitness, Rehab, and Recovery for Older Athletes (and Regular Humans, Too)
Dr. Jerry Yoo is the Founder and CEO of Next Level Physio, which is a hybrid rehab-fitness business in Woodcliff Lake, NJ. Dr. Yoo has been in practice for over 20 years and specializes in helping active men and women over 40 and their families stay active without medication, injections, or surgery. He received his Master’s in Physical Therapy in 2001 from Columbia University and his Doctorate in Physical Therapy from Rutgers University in 2004. He also holds additional certifications in Crossfit, Dry Needling, the Mulligan Concept, SFMA-FMS. As a multisport athlete, Dr. Yoo has competed in triathlons and Spartan races for many years and is passionate about the fitness lifestyle. He resides in NC with his wife and two children.
Listen to this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement with Dr. Jerry Yoo about fitness, rehab, and recovery for older athletes.
Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:
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Episode Transcript
Steven Sashen:
Often when I talk to people about natural running, we point to like the Tarahumara Indians in Mexico or indigenous tribes in Africa, where they grow up running barefoot, and they continue running either barefoot or in super thin shoes, and they’re very successful runners. People sometimes respond, “Yeah, but they grew up that way. I can’t do that.” Is that true? Maybe. I don’t know. We’re going to take a look on today’s episode of The Movement Movement, the podcast for people who want to know the truth about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong body. Starting feet first, usually, because those things are your foundation, but there are other parts that are important too.
We also break down the propaganda, the mythology, sometimes the outright lies you’ve been told about what it takes to walk, or run, or hike, or play, or dance, or do yoga, or CrossFit, or lift, or anything you can think of, and to do that enjoyably efficiently, effectively. Did I mention enjoyably? I know I did. That’s a trick question, because the whole point is, look, if you’re not having fun, do something different so you are. Life is way too short. By the way, we call this The Movement Movement, because we’re creating a movement that involves you. I’ll explain more in a second, about natural movement, letting your body do what it’s supposed to do. The part that’s about you is really simple.
You’re spreading the word. The way you spread the word, come check out our website, www.jointhemovementmovement.com. There’s no cost to join, but you can sign up to find out when we have new episodes or anything special going on. You can find all the different places that this podcast shows up, including YouTube and Facebook and Instagram and all things like that. You can of course, you know, give us a thumbs up, and like, and share, and subscribe, and all those things you know how to do. In short, if you want to be part of the tribe, just subscribe. Let’s jump in. Jerry, it is a pleasure to have you here. It’s my favorite thing to do right now, is not introduce you, but let you do that, so you can tell people who you are and what you do.
Jerry Yoo:
Yeah, well, Steve, I want to thank you so much for letting me be a guest on your show. It’s an honor to be among many other rock stars in their respective fields, so thank you. For me, I’ve been in practice for about 20 years as a physio. I have a practice in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, and we specialize in treating active people, men and women over 40, and their families, to stay active and fit without medications, injections, or surgery. We see CrossFitters, we see runners, we see triathletes, people who are really into just fitness itself.
Steven Sashen:
What’s your background? What got you here?
Jerry Yoo:
Oh, so basically, I guess when I was younger, I had wanted to help people, of course, and I had a desire to be in the healthcare field. I found that physical therapy was a way to blend your science, your biomechanics, with helping people to avoid surgery and stay active. Through the years, as I have gotten older, I’ve been focusing more on the people over 40, because I’m kind of walking along with them as I’m also in my 40s. Hey, what better to have a coach who’s also knowing what you’re going through, the getting up and being stiff and needing more time to warm up. It’s been a great journey for me to get here. Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
The funny thing that I noticed about what’s changed as I’ve gotten older, in addition to taking more time to warm up, is as a sprinter, it takes me more time to slow down. At the end of something, I just really stretch it out, and don’t slow down, like in two steps. I’ll just keep going, which makes me want to build a track that has a giant gymnastics foam pit at the end, so you can just jump right in.
Jerry Yoo:
Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
Talk to me. Look, we have a lot of physio therapists and physical therapists, depending on which side of the ocean they’re on,-
Jerry Yoo:
Exactly.
Steven Sashen:
-who want to be on this podcast, who are not on this podcast, because they’re fundamentally not doing anything different than anybody else. When you reached out and when we reached back out or whoever the hell the reaching happened, it was clear that that was not the case here. Talk to me about what you’re doing that distinguishes you and what you do with human beings, from the average physical therapist that somebody might bump into.
Jerry Yoo:
Yeah, thanks for asking. I’m going to talk about top level approach or sort of view of our clinic and our practice. We have an amazing staff, everywhere from our business manager and our operation staff, all the way to our clinical team. Everybody just has a really good team approach to how they want to have every patient and client come in and experience that environment of sort of family feel, community feel. As you and I know, both, that when you feel you’re cared for, when you feel that somebody really has your best interests in mind, you’re going to have a much better hope of getting better.
That’s been instilled in my team from day one. It’s all about, let’s have the best patient experience, best client experience for everybody coming in. They know they’re cared for. They know they’re getting expert help. A lot of people when they give us testimonials are like, “Hey, you guys, not only are you professional and you know what you’re doing, but you guys also provide that the community feel. I feel like I’m going to get better by being here.” On that top level, that’s what we do. Now, if you look at our clinical team, everyone is very focused.
Steven Sashen:
So glad you’re heading there, because I was going, “Yeah, enough of that touchy, feely crap. Let’s get into the issues.”
Jerry Yoo:
With our clinical team, everyone is very active. Al of us are either former athletes, like Dr. John is a former Division I swimmer, Dr. Dave was a wrestler, and is really integrating Division I athletes and high-performance athletes, Alex was also a former gymnast. Pam was a high level soccer player, so everybody in our clinical team just really gets it. As far as the approach goes, it’s really about, let’s just break it down for you, and we want to get you back to what you want to be.
If your goal is to, I want to get back into running, I want to get back to my CrossFit, okay, so here we are today. This is our phase one of our MEI method, which is move, educate, inspire. We’re going to get you so that we can calm that pain down, and get your brain to sort of calm down that pain as well. Then we’re going to move you into the things that you’d want to do, but we’re going to be very careful about loading it. It’s about sort of like that load and expose, but in a very intelligent dosage, if you will, because general habits, when people start feeling better, what do they do?
Yeah. We never get to our aspire phase where it’s about helping people to say, “Okay, listen, now let’s get you back into your routine and to your lifting, but instead we’re going to do it, be very careful, again, about dosing it correctly, because we want you to get back to what it is a hundred percent for sure. It’s going to take us some time, especially for us over 30 or 40, we’re going to have to get a little more gradually and intelligently.
Steven Sashen:
There are two questions that pop into my mind about that. One is, and I don’t know which one I want to do first, so I’m going to spin both out, and you can decide what to do. We might do one and then forget about the other, who the hell knows. The first question is, for people who are listening, if you can think about the most common problem somebody might come in with, and one of the things that you might be able to recommend, I’m trying to think of how to ask this, that people who are listening or watching could do, but I want to highlight how it’s different than what other people might do.
In other words, if you’re having people start somewhere slightly differently than what they might be thinking they should do, that would be really cool, but the other part is simply the age thing, is that what are you doing differently with people because of the age compared to earlier. This goes back to what I teased the opening with, is, are you too old to learn, can you really make these significant changes in movement patterns and gait patterns, et cetera at any age, and if so, how does one do that.
Jerry Yoo:
Yeah. I’ll answer the second question first. I would say that first of all, everyone has a high capacity to change no matter how old you are, for sure. It just takes us longer to get there. I think a lot of it has to do with coaching them correctly on the mental game, too, Steve, where it’s like, listen, I know you want to get here. We have these things we have to deal with. These are your impairments. These are your mobility restrictions. These are your strength episodes. Let’s work on these basic fundamentals that are related to whether it’s running CrossFit, what have you, and carefully, again, dose it correctly so that when you get back to what you want to do, you are going to go to that level very strong and very confidently.
Steven Sashen:
Well, I’m going to shorten that to, it sounds like the change in the mental game is dealing with the fact that those of us who are getting older, our brains think we’re one age, and our body thinks we’re at another.
Jerry Yoo:
Absolutely, yes, exactly. That’s exactly what it is. That’s actually what puts a lot of people in danger, Steve. It’s like, well, when I was in my twenties, I could do this, and they still think that they’re in their twenties. That’s when that friction between what your body’s going through right now and where your body was back then, have that conflict, and sometimes things just don’t go right.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah, not so much. It took me a long time to learn that when I used to train in my twenties and into my thirties, if I had the thought, “Let me just do one more,” set, rep, whatever it is, totally fine, and now when I think, “Let me do one more,” that’s my cue to stop.
Jerry Yoo:
I’m in exactly the same boat as you were. When I start feeling a little bit of something, you know what, it’s not worth that rep. Let’s just take a step back and scale it back. I think it’s that voice of reason that sometimes our older athletes need to hear, that, listen, it’s great that you ran five today, and it’s great that you were able to have the sense not to run that six, because that’s where our threshold was. It’s about having them change their game to adapting to where they might be in life to accommodate that.
Steven Sashen:
Got it. I mean, so if you can say anything more specific about just that transition into new movement patterns, new strength or whatever for older athletes, or not even athletes, just for older humans, what do you do, or what would you say about that?
Jerry Yoo:
Depending where that person might be, so let’s just take a runner for example. If they’re looking to transition with a minimalist shoe or ones that are running a forefoot strike, it’s really about, hey, listen, let’s just start with some static stuff. This might even apply to a lifter who wants to lift heavy weights. Let’s just start with basic, with a body squat, get your body to adapt to that particular weight or load.
From there, let’s carefully now meter out what needs to be done for the next step. It’s like taking the movement they want to do, breaking it down to body weight, calisthenics first, having their form be perfect in that position or technique, and then from there, sort of loading it as we go. Whereas, if you go to someplace that they might just say, “Well, let’s just give you pink bands or pink weights to do,” and that’s your rehab experience.
A lot of us have gone through that. They’re not really loading correctly, they’re not loading enough. I have met a lot of physios who are afraid to load, because, “Well, I don’t know if they can handle benching 200,” but that’s kind of their goal, so you have to really match up with what they’re trying to do.
I think that’s where understanding what the athlete’s mindset is of where they want to go, I think makes us different where we’re trying to really push them even into those painful areas. Listen, if this is where your threshold was, I want you to get it past that, so we’re going to have to really kind of increase the intensity. That’s where I think a lot of physios need to really take that into consideration, where they’re not.
Steven Sashen:
If we’re going to use the example that you gave, which is one that is obviously near and dear to my heart about natural running, whether it’s barefoot or minimalist, which will involve landing midfoot or forefoot, typically forefoot, so the first thing you talked about is just doing body weight squats. Can you talk about other things that you’re doing with people to get them used to, or acclimated to the kind of loading?
I mean, basically I’m looking for, from your perspective, what a sequence is from someone walking in the door, to when you and they feel confident that they can kick off their shoes, for example, and go out and run. I’m not going to say run a half marathon or a marathon, just to be able to get out on a road and run comfortably in that condition.
Jerry Yoo:
Sure. When they come in, and first of all, if we’re looking at somebody to transition to minimalist shoe, obviously, the first thing I’ll say is, “Listen, well, we got to see where you’re at right now first,” and we’ll kind of go through our evaluation.
Steven Sashen:
What are you looking for or at when you do that?
Jerry Yoo:
We’re looking at prior history, prior injuries. If you had like an existing Achilles tear, we might be a little bit more ginger about how long it’s going to take for you to transition into running more of the…
Steven Sashen:
Okay, got it. Basically just getting a baseline for where someone is.
Jerry Yoo:
Baseline, exactly. That’s exactly where we are. From there, now we can work on like, “Hey, listen, you’re used to wearing these shoes are restrictive.” Obviously shoes like Xero, for example, other minimalist shoes are going to give you that sort of like working your feet out, because you haven’t been using the feet and the toes and muscles that help to govern movement in the foot, so let’s just have you start walking around the house barefoot. Let’s have you start walking in minimalist shoes.
I know you had Irene Davis on your show a while back, and she was saying how even if you are walking in minimalist shoes, you are training the muscles of your feet to be able to adapt to the change that you need to go. Even just walking around the house, having it maybe throughout the day is like, “Well, I notice that my feet get tired as I’m trying to wear these minimalist shoes.” Okay, well, let’s just say two hours on, two hours off, let’s just start gradually going into that. That should be like a phase one kind of ordeal. Standing on one foot, very easy kinds of activities where you’re feeling the grounds. From there, you can progress into, say, standing on a foam mat to where you’re swinging your leg all around on one foot, so that your feet are, again, you’re really training those muscles in the foot to be able to adapt to the change that needs to occur later on.
From there, we’re going to start adding in drills dynamically, whether it’s stationary running drills. Just by running in place, as you know, Steve, as a coach, you’re going to be running, you’re going to be landing forefoot as it is. People are like, “Oh, I didn’t know it was this easy to really kind of think about.” From that concept, we start adding in the free fall, the fall forward. Having them understand that, listen, you can get free speed by letting gravity help you. They get that feeling, the brain starts to connect to their feet and to the demands that are required.
From there, we start adding in distance. It’s like, “Okay, listen, on your run today, I want you to go run for a minute, and then walk, and really be aware of how you feel,” because by this time they’ve been wearing the minimalist shoes, so they’re adapting their Achilles. Their calves have really adapted to that demands of running that way. As they go into that stage, adding distance over time, and I’d say the process as a whole, Steve, really takes about, I would say from your experience, maybe two, three to four months of being able to transition someone into that area.
Steven Sashen:
I mean, I think Irene’s point is, if you’re just going to start walking, you’re fine. If your feet get tired, give yourself some rest, but there’s really very little to no transition time required for walking. If you’re going to do something more high-performance, whether it’s running or lifting, then there is going to be a different transition period, because you are getting used to that.
What you just did actually is, in a way, answering my first question that I totally forgot from five minutes ago, which is good. because I totally forgot it. Are there any other things that you can think of that when people come in, they have certain ideas about what the process will be like to learn some new way of moving, that’s going to be healthier, et cetera, that you have to rid them of in some way?
Jerry Yoo:
Oh sure. For example, we have people who want to learn how to squat properly. They’ll come in, and we’ll evaluate their squat, again, look at their history, get that baseline of their movement. From there it was, say, “Okay, let’s see what that looks like.” We’ll film them and videotape them to have them see the feedback right away. It’s like, “This is what you look like,” and then we’ll say, “This is what I want you to look like,” and we’ll demonstrate the movement ourselves so they can get that sort of visual cue.
We’ll have them retest over and over again of repetitions, and then show them, “Okay, now you’ve improved. This is what you need to work on now, so just to fine tune the movements.” Then from there it’s, “Okay, let’s add a kettlebell.” As a few hundred feet, we’re going to do weight distribution and start working through that. “Okay, now let’s add in the barbell. How does that feel on your back? How does it feel if you’re doing a front squat on their shoulders and the mobility that you need to get there?”
From there we start building them up. For them, they’re often like, “Well, I didn’t realize it was going to take this long to understand this movement.” Well, it’s like everyone wants it instant fixed, instant results, and that’s where we’re trying to, I guess, change their mind saying, “Listen, it’s going to take a little bit longer than you think, but you’re getting there. Here’s a progress that we see objectively.”
Steven Sashen:
It’s interesting. I love that you’re videotaping people. One of the things that I’ve noticed is many people, most of us, I would argue all of us at a certain level, have a mismatch between what we think we’re doing and what we’re actually doing. Our proprioceptive skills are not what we think they are. Even if we have good proprioceptive skills, there’s going to be subtle things. The better you get, the more subtle the things are, where what you’re doing and what you think you’re doing are out of line. I got videotaped last week. Do you know Nicholas Romanov? The guy who came up with the pose method?
Jerry Yoo:
Yes, of course.
Steven Sashen:
Nick was here. He and his son, came and spent a couple of days here, and they said, “Let’s go out and videotape you.” I was like, “Awesome. I can’t wait for you to find out what’s wrong,” because I know there’s going to be something that I can improve. What they identified was something that’s super, super subtle.
Again, I mean, I’m a masters, All-American sprinter. I’m pretty good at what I do, but what they found was something that I would have never known if I hadn’t seen it on video. That’s the only way that I’m going to be able to correct it, is by continuing, or at least for now, is by continuing to get that feedback about what I’m … because now I know what I need to do. I didn’t need to see someone doing it perfectly. Although, we did watch slow-mo video of Usain Bolt. Believe it or not. I am no Usain Bolt.
Jerry Yoo:
No way.
Steven Sashen:
I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m a short, white Jew, and not a tall, black Jamaican, not the Jew in Jamaican or anyway, you get the point. I don’t eat yams. Let’s say that, I don’t like yams. Anyway, it was very, very, very helpful to be able to … because him saying, “Here’s what you need to do, and here’s what you’re doing,” I didn’t need to see a video of someone doing what I needed to do, because I could tell, that one. That’s super, super helpful. The slowing people down is also helpful, because what people don’t realize is that the only way you adopt a new movement pattern is by doing it slowly, correctly.
Once you can do it correctly, then you can pick the speed a little bit, and then you’re going to get it wrong every now and then. Then you back it up until eventually, the speed and accuracy improve until you can’t do it wrong. I just remembered, I had one sprinting coach who said that to me, when we were learning a new way of doing sprinting drills. He said, “At first, you’re going to try and figure out how to do it right. You need to get to the point where you can’t do it wrong.”
Jerry Yoo:
Exactly. That’s true. It’s funny, because we’ve done the 2D analysis, we’re now doing the 3D analysis for gait, and if you ever want to come by to check it out, it’s amazing. In real time, you’re seeing, minus the clothes and minus your muscles, you are seeing real time footage of yourself running in space. You can actually auto-correct in real time, watching yourself on the screen, which is wild.
Steven Sashen:
Well, the whole thing of instant feedback is super, super important. Hey, there you go. Now you’re back. It’s something that Irene Davis does in her lab, where there’s, like you said, there’s strengthening and exercises she’s doing in advance, but then for some of the gait retraining is you need that real time feedback, I mean, ideally. You don’t need it, need it, but it certainly helps. One of the things that she does, I don’t think we talk about it on her podcast so I’ll tell you now, and I don’t know if you’ve ever done this, she’ll have people run on a treadmill, and there’s a mirror in front of the treadmill.
Jerry Yoo:
Oh, yeah.
Steven Sashen:
She has a drape that she can drop over the mirror so you can see yourself or not see yourself. Mostly she’s using this for people where if they’re running, their knees are coming inwards. They have asked vastus valgus, and that’s usually because their glute isn’t firing properly to externally rotate their femur, to get their knees pointing straight. What she does, she comes and she pokes them in the butt and says, “Tense that up so I can’t poke in as far.”
Often for people for the first time they’re going, “Oh, that’s my glutes.” They had no idea. That’ll straighten out their knees, or she’ll just say, “Straighten out your knees, and now we want you to run and look in the mirror and keep your knees straight, and just get used to doing that.” Then what she’ll do is put the drape down so they can’t see themselves for 30 seconds at a time, so they have to internalize that process.
Jerry Yoo:
Yeah. The intermittent sort of feedback is to learn. Yeah. We also have a mirror in our clinic where we have people run towards the mirror to see themselves, and they can also see if they do have a collapsing sort of valgus, they’ll see that, “Oh, I didn’t realize my knees actually collapsed like that.” “Yeah, now let’s try to work on that.” Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
It’s amazing that people don’t avail themselves of getting that kind of video feedback. Man, I was driving down the street the other day, and I saw a woman running, clearly an accomplished runner. I mean, there was so much about her that was right on point, except for the fact that her knees were banging into each other with every stride, and her feet were pointing out. I mean, it looked like clown running in a way. I’m thinking, “If you haven’t been injured, you’re about to.” That’s something, again, that’s one that’s relatively straightforward to correct. It just does take time. As you were saying earlier, the older we get, it doesn’t stop us from doing it, it just takes a little more time, frankly because our brain just isn’t as neuroplastic as it used to be.
Jerry Yoo:
Exactly, yeah. It’s a funny thing, that we’ve been getting on the topic of form, how much of strength training can really help you get those muscles to fire the right way, just by bringing the awareness of your brain to those areas to start working right, because you haven’t been using them right, just like we talked about the feet, needing time to adapt to using those intrinsics again.
For example, we have runners who are like, “Well, I’ve been running my whole life and whatnot, and I’ve been dealing with this knee issue.” “Well, let’s take a look at your movement.” When we see that collapse, obviously we’re going to test out the glute medius, and we’ll test out, well, this is pretty weak. No wonder you’re collapsing, no wonder you have the IT band issue that you’ve been dealing with for years and years.
Looking at those components and for them, they start becoming believers when they see the result of working on those areas. Again, it’s like, it’s coaching them and convincing them that, yes, running’s important. It’s great. I want you to do that forever, but let’s work on these couple of things to make you even better at running.
Steven Sashen:
There’s a lot of, let’s call it, conversation for the sake of being polite, which is odd, because I never do that, but what the hell is, we’re taping this on a Friday, I’m in a crazy mood. I’m being polite. Let’s say politely, there are conversations about lifting and running, or strength and running, or strength training and running. What thoughts do you have about that or what have you discovered that is either things people need to know or things people need to un-know?
Jerry Yoo:
Oh, that’s funny. First of all, there’s still this friction with some runners and with lifting, and happens to be lot of our female clients will say, “Well, I don’t want to put on a bulk.”
Steven Sashen:
I don’t want to get big, right.
Jerry Yoo:
I don’t know how to tell you this. You’re probably not going to put on the kind of bulk that you think, for many different reasons.
Steven Sashen:
You can take the word probably out of that.
Jerry Yoo:
Exactly, you’re not going to, exactly. Then from there they say, “Well, I don’t know how this is going to help my running,” but well, if you are stronger, if your glutes, for example, on your hamstrings, because a lot of runners don’t access those muscles, and your core muscles that you’re using as well, if they’re in better shape, you’re going to be able to run longer, first of all. Your ability to dampen the forces on your body and your joints, is going to be that much better and that much more necessary as you and I get older.
Obviously as we get older too, there’s sort of sarcopenia where we’re decreasing muscle mass as we get older as it is, so you want to maintain what you have on your skeleton, so that you are running, you’re doing things in life, you will have the power to be able to get through and perform like you want to perform.
Steven Sashen:
Am I the only person who thinks the word sarcopenia should refer to something else that’s kind of perverted? Is it just me? Just saying. I just had a thought, what you said that, I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I found it interesting when it popped into my brain, and that is, it’s maybe one of the advantages of strength training is not even necessarily that you’re getting stronger, because especially, if you’re a distance runner, you can’t just keep applying force all day every day.
My hunch is that what’s going on from strength training, maybe it has to do with as much about awareness as anything else. You’re becoming aware of certain muscles, certain muscle groups, certain patterns that you weren’t aware of before, and aware of in the same way, and that as you’re running, that awareness will translate into different kinds of movement, because now you have information at your disposal that you didn’t have previously.
Jerry Yoo:
Absolutely. Yeah. It’s funny you say that, because let’s say the example of the genu valgum, where people collapse at the knees, if I’m having to do lunges with weight and load, and you’re watching yourself in the mirror, and you’re able to control your knee in a much better position, you’re going to see the result of that. That’s going to translate into activities that you’re doing with running as well, for sure. You’re also strengthening those muscles too.
Steven Sashen:
Well, because I’m thinking about the whole idea of getting stronger. I did something the other day as part of a workout where it was doing single leg, was it single leg, yeah, single leg calf raises, and basically as many as I could do in five minutes. I would do a set until I couldn’t do another rep, switch feet and repeat. I ended up doing 72 per foot,-
Jerry Yoo:
That’s impressive.
Steven Sashen:
-and that was two days ago, and I think I’ll be able to walk by tomorrow. Now, I have no problem running where I’m doing way more than 72 strides per foot. I’m doing many, many, many times that, so clearly, getting a little bit stronger is not going to be the thing that changes my running. I don’t know that I need more awareness about my calves, but that’s partly what made me think about the whole awareness component, rather than just the getting stronger, because if it’s just about getting stronger, then some giant Olympic lifter should be faster, but they’re not.
Jerry Yoo:
That’s absolutely true. Yeah. I would say that I would agree with you, where that I would say the awareness supersedes the strength of the runner, because they’re doing it repetitively, but for sure, the strengthening will benefit for them, for the awareness part and also for their running self.
Steven Sashen:
Well, and also, it’s a different thing. I think about distance runners versus sprinters, and this applying force idea over time. One of my best friends is a world champion cross-country runner. He can do like a 200 meter run and then rest for 30 seconds, and then do another 200 meters and rest for 30 seconds. He can do that all day long. He never gets any faster or slower for that matter, but conversely, I can do two of those at full speed.
I mean, his full speed, he can just keep doing it over and over and over. His full speed is significantly slower than mine, and I can only do a couple of them until I’m done for the day. There is that difference in how your body processes energy and creates energy, that is different for people who are fast-twitch people, sprinter, powerlifter people, versus slower, takes longer distance people.
Jerry Yoo:
Yeah, absolutely. I know that a lot of our strength coaches and our physios that we work with also say that on top of the awareness benefits from lifting heavy for long distance runners, you also get that hormonal input from growth hormone and testosterone that gets secreted when you lift heavily. Even for our true athletes, and we’ve seen big performance changes in our athletes, where once a week in season, they’ll lift heavy. They’ll deadlift, they’ll squat heavy, and on those recovery days, “I feel I can run stronger now,” “I can swim faster,” or whatever it’s going to be. They’re getting this great input from the brain and from the hormones to be able to recover faster as well.
Steven Sashen:
Allyson Felix’s coach, and Allyson, if you don’t know, is one of the most successful sprinters in history, before she set a personal best in the 200 meters, the day before she set a personal best dead lifting.
Jerry Yoo:
Wow. There you go. That says a lot.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah. I want to highlight that point, because most people, when they think about lifting, don’t think about how to train for maximum strength, how to lift heavy. Can you give people any comments about that or any suggestions about how to do that, in a way that will not terrify them? Because I know, look, big numbers are scary. I remember the first time I deadlifted 300, it was like, “Whoa, that was crazy,” and the first time I dead lifted 400, it took me a while to psych up, and then I did it.
Then of course my next thought was, “Crap, now I got to go for 500.” Luckily, I was smart enough to not do that. As you start adding those numbers, some of them are psychological barriers, just like-
Jerry Yoo:
Yeah, they are.
Steven Sashen:
-birthdays that end in zero are psychological numbers, but talk about what it takes to train safely for lifting heavy.
Jerry Yoo:
Yeah. I think the first thing is, making sure that if you don’t know the movement itself, you definitely got to get a coach to help you out, or a physio who’s trained in doing that, starting off with the basic movement patterns and making sure that you have the right amount of movement to be able to even do these motions. For example, if you had a back issue and you want to do dead lifts, let’s make sure that that’s not going to become a problem as you increase that load.
From there, I’d say gradual increase over time where you’re increasing the load, you’re decreasing the reps and sets, and testing things out as you go along. Working on strength, we’re looking at anywhere from four to six sets. Being careful about how you dose that over time will definitely help you to do it safely.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah, both of those are really good points and making adjustments if you do have something. I mean, I have a compromised spine, and as much as I love to pull heavy and squat heavy, I have, with great reluctance, stopped doing that. I’m doing other things instead, sometimes just single leg stuff, so I can use half the weight. Actually, I mean, crazy, if it’s single leg, it’s not half the weight. It’s usually like three quarters of the weight, which is very weird.
Jerry Yoo:
Awesome.
Steven Sashen:
I’m not the only one. I mean, that’s a very common phenomenon, that you can do a single leg deadlift, for example, with almost two-thirds, three-quarters of the weight you do for both legs. What the hell is going on? What am I using my other leg for at all?
Jerry Yoo:
Exactly.
Steven Sashen:
Also, again, yeah, not just going for the numbers, but going for the numbers safely. Like you said before, every now and then kind of push yourself past that level of familiarity.
Jerry Yoo:
Exactly.
Steven Sashen:
That does. I got to be honest, I’m a little dubious about some of the hormonal stuff or more accurately, is that what I’ve seen is that it wears off pretty quickly, so it’s not like a systemic thing where you’re increasing your free testosterone, but it does have an impact during your workout, undeniably, and helps you in certain ways. There are some people who are selling the idea that, “Hey, you want to get more testosterone? Just squat.” It’s like, nah,
Jerry Yoo:
Yeah, that’s true. Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
Yes. Sadly, that one’s not true, or that’d be a piece of cake. Now, they go, “Well, look, look, these guys are huge and they’ve got high testosterone.” Yeah, it’s because they’re taking testosterone. It’s a slightly different thing. You can do that too, if you want. Anything else that you can think of for sharing about, especially for older people? I was going to say athletes, but everyone’s an athlete at a certain level. If you’re walking, you’re an athlete, you’re just a Walker. You can do that. Just for people who are, whether they’re rehabbing or just trying to improve, anything else that you want to toss in, that you’ve discovered that would be helpful for them to know or stop knowing?
Jerry Yoo:
Yeah. I think what I found, especially as we get older, having yourself surrounded by people who are also like-minded really matters. That’s why I think why CrossFit has gotten so big and why these running clubs are so big too. You have that supportive network. Again, when you have the support, you feel confident as someone who’s getting older as well. Having a training partner is really important as well too, because-
Steven Sashen:
Huge.
Jerry Yoo:
Yeah, because as you and I know, there are days where it’s like, “I don’t know if I want to do a distance,” but just by having somebody with you, you can really get to where you want to hit those marks. I would say as with everything, just to make sure that you don’t ignore the signs of injury or pain. It’s easy to do that as an athlete who is active, especially as we get older, making sure that you are being mindful of it. Listen, maybe this isn’t the day where I’m going to run my max today. Maybe this isn’t the day that I’m going to try to PR on that 5K, because I’m feeling a little off, but being mindful and aware of those things will really kind of help you to remain longevity in your activity.
Steven Sashen:
You remind me of another point, which is, there’s days where you feel like crap, and then you put it to the test, and you’re actually doing fine. Then there’s days that you feel good, and you put it to the test, and you really need to take today off. There’s days that are sort of where it all lines up and you feel pretty good, and you put it to the test, it’s like, “Wow, I can really increase,” but of course the joke is, you have to remember that that’s not your new baseline.
Jerry Yoo:
Exactly. Yeah. That’s very true.
Steven Sashen:
You might’ve bumped it up a little, but just the fact that that day you crushed it, doesn’t mean the next day you’re going to crush it.
Jerry Yoo:
Exactly. We’ve got to be careful about as well, maybe that success isn’t what you want to base your next goal on.
Steven Sashen:
Keep that in your back pocket.
Jerry Yoo:
Exactly.
Steven Sashen:
Back off a little bit and see.
Jerry Yoo:
Exactly. Backing off a little. I think that’s where it comes from. It was like, we need to understand, need something to tell us or help us to say, “Oh, let’s not use that as the gauge. Let’s back up a little bit.”
Steven Sashen:
Well, since I brought up Usain Bolt a few times, he ran 9.58 in Berlin, never ran anything like it afterwards. That wasn’t his new baseline.
Jerry Yoo:
There you go.
Steven Sashen:
The world record didn’t become the next thing for him to break.
Jerry Yoo:
Yeah, exactly.
Steven Sashen:
I mean, that was just, the stars lined up, and there it was. By the way, I was at the 70 meter mark, like five rows off the track when he did that in Berlin, just totally coincidentally, and I have to tell you, when you watch somebody run by you at almost 30 miles an hour, fast enough to get a ticket in my neighborhood, your brain just goes like this. It goes, what? It just doesn’t seem real.
Jerry Yoo:
That’s amazing. It’s so exciting to see that too.
Steven Sashen:
It was really fun. I’ve since gotten to train with some people who’ve gotten second place to him, a number of times, who were almost as fast, and same thing. In real life, when you watch it on TV, it’s like, “Okay, whatever.” In real life, it just doesn’t even look physically possible. It’s like, I don’t think your feet hit the ground.
Jerry Yoo:
Oh, my goodness.
Steven Sashen:
How does that happen? It’s really wild. Anyway, anything else that you can think of before I dive into the simple thing of where people can track you down? Anything else that’s left in your brain?
Jerry Yoo:
I would say that in general, just making sure that if you’re going to work with a physio in the future, if you need somebody, just making sure that you are aligned with what you need to get out of it. What I mean by that is, if you’re a runner or if you’re somebody who’s very active in a particular area, making sure that your physio has actually worked with people in that realm, because if they’re not active themselves and you’re going in as a runner or as a lifter, but they don’t have any background on that, they’re not going to be able to get you to where you want to be. It’s really important for patients and clients to investigate who they’re working with first.
Steven Sashen:
I would add or argue that there are people who they can’t do, but can coach, and there are people who can do, but can’t coach. Finding someone who can coach well, first and foremost, finding someone who can do well, it comes in handy also just because they’ve been through it personally, it’s a slightly different thing to have that relationship. I’ve also found that a lot of people who can do it, who then become coaches, they often still have some baggage from the way they learn things. They give cues that aren’t really effective for someone else, but that’s the one that they learned, but to your point, I mean, I guess I would phrase that, I’m going to take what you said and reframe it as, feel free to shop around.
Jerry Yoo:
Yes, exactly. You know what else I’ll see is like, there are a lot of places out there where you go in and it’s like, maybe you’ll spend five minutes with the therapist and then the rest of the hour, you’re on your own. If you’re in that kind of place, that’s not the place for you. You’re not going to get the best care, because you’re not able to have somebody who’s attending to you specifically for your individual needs.
Steven Sashen:
That’s a great thing. The other thing is, I would also suggest to people, to do something that they rarely do with physical therapists or physios, is be honest about what you’re actually going to do on your own, which is typically nothing. Most people, they get homework from the physical therapist and they nod their head and they never do it. If that’s where you are, so be it. That’s cool. Just tell someone that, because that way we’ll work with that. Have you seen the show, Ted Lasso?
Jerry Yoo:
I have not seen the show, no.
Steven Sashen:
I think it’s on Netflix, no, it’s on Apple TV. Oh my god, it’s so, so good. That’s a bit of a tangent from, he had this one line, I wish I could remember it, where he jokes about having to go home and pretend he’s going to floss. My thing is I always set my dental cleanings roughly two months after my birthday, because then I use my birthday as a reminder, I better start flossing before I go to the dentist, because I don’t do it every day. There’s times where I’m reminded to, and it kind of forces me to. Same thing, know thyself.
If you’re not going to do it when you’re on your own, let somebody know, and they’ll work with you on that.
Jerry Yoo:
Yeah. I’ve also told patients, over the years I’ve reduced my homework for clients. I’d say, “Listen, just do these one or two things. That’s all I’m asking you to do. It’ll take about 10 minutes,” but just trying to figure out what’s going to have the most effect and the least amount of time for that person.
Steven Sashen:
That’s a great idea. Even for therapists who are going to give you an encyclopedia of homework, just ask them, “Pick the one thing that if I did that one thing, it would make you happy.”
Jerry Yoo:
Exactly.
Steven Sashen:
I think that’s a brilliant idea. Cool. If people would like to get in touch with you and find out more about what you’re up to, how would they do that?
Jerry Yoo:
They can email us at info@gonextlevelphysio.com, or they can actually find us on Facebook or Instagram. Our handle is Next Level Physio. My email is jerry@gonextlevelphysio.com, so they can reach me there as well.
Steven Sashen:
Awesome. Well, Jerry, it’s been, again, a total, total pleasure. I hope people do avail you of getting in touch to find out more about how you can be helpful for them, near and far away. For anybody else, thanks for being part of this. Again, go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com, to get previous episodes, to subscribe, to find out about upcoming episodes, to see all the places you can interact with us on all the social media channels, et cetera. If you have any questions or comments or someone who you think should be on the Movement Movement Podcast, drop me an email. I’m at move@jointhemovementmovement.com.
Of course, checkout Xero Shoes. I’m crazily not wearing a Xero Shoes t-shirt right now, simply because my wife and I just moved into a new house that’s being renovated, and I didn’t bring enough laundry or enough clean stuff. We don’t have a laundry room set up. Go to xeroshoes.com, if you want to check out our shoes, and most importantly, whatever you’re doing, go out, have fun and live life, feet first.
Jerry Yoo:
Thank you very much, Steve.
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