June 03, 2021
### Guest Quote [00:00:00]
My mission, essentially in a nutshell, is helping on the side of development from a holistic approach outside of just the injury. But the physical injury is like a segue in for me to help that person. In a nutshell, that's what I do. Anything that kind of allows me to tap into that is going to be things that I am open and receptive to. Then I have to kind of audit myself and question whether certain things are in line with my mission.
### Episode Intro [00:00:28]
Kevin Chang: [00:00:28]
Hello and welcome to the RaceMob podcast. This is episode number 51.
I'm Kevin entrepreneur technology and fitness nerd. And I'm joined by the head coach of RaceMob and master motivator. The incomparable Bertrand Newson.
### Guest Introduction [00:00:42]
Injury. Man, it's just such a tough part of our sport.
And according to statistics between 65 and 80% of runners are going to suffer an injury this year. That will cause them to miss time. Now imagine if that injury doesn't just cause you to miss the sport that you love. But can also hurt your career.
And that's what our next guest David Myers had to deal with as a physical therapist for the St. Louis Cardinals.
During this discussion, we're going to talk about the mental aspects of recovery and how it can be just as important as the physical action. Plus you all know how big of a baseball fan Coach B is. And he and David share much more than just the love of the sport in this conversation.
So let's dive into this really important chat about injury, recovery, and mindset.
### Start of the Interview
[00:01:30] All right. RaceMob crew. We have a very special guest for you today. Coming all the way from New York. We have Dr. David Meyer, PT, DPT . Former , rehab specialist from the St. Louis Cardinals, author of Injured to Elite, a guide to empowering yourself, to transform your life after injury.
Welcome to the RaceMob podcast. David. So happy to have you on.
David Meyer: [00:01:53]
Thanks, Kev, coach B. Glad to be here. Hopefully we can add some value to your listeners.
Kevin Chang: [00:01:57] .
We know that you have been a baseball nuts for a very long time baseball fan for yeah. For your life.
David Meyer: [00:02:03]
I think I'm nuts, you can call me nut. I mean, I'm not as crazy as runners.
I mean, talk about being nutty. Yeah. You know, there are some rules and...
Bertrand Newson: [00:02:19]
Yeah, my favorite sports, by the way, I grew up playing a baseball and, uh, uh, fell into running. So I'm, I've been looking forward to this conversation for a while, so.
David Meyer: [00:02:28] Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. Actually, I definitely run more than I play baseball these days.
### Getting into Baseball [00:02:32]
Kevin Chang: [00:02:32]
Yeah, I was just about to say that I know , coach B, that you are a baseball fan, grew up loving baseball. You know, that those were very special moments for your family, your brother, your dad, and everything.
So, I mean, I guess David talked to us a little bit about getting into the sport. Um, you know, what was sports like kind of growing up and we know that you play some college athletics as well.
David Meyer: [00:02:53]
The way I tell my story is this way, I grew up a five foot five athletes, so not very tall.
So. The Rudy mentality, that was my favorite movie. Grew up with a father that was chronically ill with kidney disease. Had his first transplant by my grandmother lasted 27 years from the seventies. Kind of, was a big deal back then. Failed when I was around 12. And, you know, as a 12 year old, I was playing all the different sports.
I grew up in long island, you had to play every sport. You'd had to do everything, which is ridiculous. But anyway, that's another story. And my two loves were baseball and hockey actually. And my father was a diehard sports sports. My father was the sports nut, and that really allowed him to get through his adversity. And really gave him a sense of purpose and a connecting link between my father and I, we were self-deprecating Mets fans.
So I don't know Coach B, who your team is or where he grew up but, uh,
Bertrand Newson: [00:03:45]
Yeah, I was a Strawberry and Doc fan and, um, you know, yep.
David Meyer: [00:03:50]
Funny this morning, I heard a story about doc good. And going into a restaurant in Jersey. And it was like a hole in the wall restaurant. And it was just, I don't know why that struck me, but, uh, I would love to meet a few of those 86 Mets one of these days.
Bertrand Newson: [00:04:06]
That'd be a good podcast. I mean, you know, in a bars around the table, you know, talking about, uh, that team in particular,
David Meyer: [00:04:14]
I have not interviewed or spoken... Let me see any 86 minutes. I don't think I ever met anyone from that team. And, and I've met, you know, like Willie McGee, and I've worked with a lot of different people and met some really good ballplayers, but I never met an 86 Mets. So that anyway, that would, that would be a special thing.
But continuing on, so grew up playing baseball had to work a little harder than my peers because of my height. And I eventually got the chance to play in college baseball, actually junior college after getting my bachelor's, which is kind of strange.
The stock market crash in 2007. I was taking a lot of my pre-recs for medical school. Didn't do so hot in physics. And I went back to community college and I wanted to play baseball. I couldn't get a job after 2007, 2008. So I said, Hey, I'm going to keep playing. My father passed away just before that in 2006.
It's a little bit to kind of wrap that baseball side up. My father died in 2006. Eventually got lung cancer from the immunosuppressive therapy you take to prevent rejection of the kidney.
And it's crazy. So dies in that on Thanksgiving, 2006 tells me the Mets and the Cardinals are playing in the NLCS. So coach, I don't know how, how much you were following that, but the Cardinals beat the Mets and, you know, Yaider Molina and Adam Wainwright, you know, they struck out bell trench.
Anyway, it was a tough moment. I throw my dorm room chair across my room. And my father tells me the team's not going to be the same for awhile. He passes away a few weeks later. I'm really speeding up. Eventually get my doctorate in physical therapy. I vowed to my family. I was going to do what I could to work in sports that Thanksgiving.
And then nine years later, after the Cardinals beat the Mets, the Cardinals hire me as their medical and rehab coordinator. I don't think I ever wanted to work for them or really the Yankees I would have taken, I think before that. But the Cardinals came and knocking on the door. And, uh, the rest is really history in terms of my dream.
Because as I worked for the Cardinals, I realized my dream to work at this level, you know, when you're a player that can't act, you can't get to the next level, you want to work as. Auxiliary staff or support staff, whatever you can do to get there. And that was my way in.
And then I'm there. And I see these players struggling with this identity crisis of sorts at points of injury, which happens to runners, happens to all athletes doesn't matter. And every athlete is a runner. And so for me, I realized injury was this time capsule into their mental health, their ability to find within themselves these resources, whether they're strategies, mentally physical strategies to better their life and to continue their journey.
And it really hit me after a player of mine was on the rehab treatment table. And I picked up on his energy being down. I was a psychology major. I was, I'm an intuitive empath, but instead of me taking them into my office at the time, I just kind of made light of what he was, you know, tried to just cheerlead a little bit.
And six months later go by, after he returned from his elbow surgery. And we come in one day and we find out that player attempted suicide on successfully. Thank God it was him.
And ultimately he was physically okay. And I was very happy about that, but just kind of upset at myself because I missed this little time capsule I'm talking about, I call it time zero, and it was about a two year process after that, of re-imagining my dream and where I really want to have impact.
And since then in 2017, I've gone on a journey of integrating the mental side. Into sports rehabilitation and just athletic development.
Kevin Chang: [00:07:57]
Thank you for sharing such a deep story. I, you know, I think coach and I were talking about this just earlier about, it's probably such a different game when that injury means something to your livelihood, it means so much to how you've identified yourself.
### Dealing with the Mental Aspect of Injury [00:08:13]
So, talk to us, , about, , you've been working with these athletes, you're seeing, , ways that they are having to deal with injury, having to try to come back . And then how do you even approach that mental aspect ?
How have you done that in the past and, and I guess, what is your approach today to dealing with that mental aspect?
David Meyer: [00:08:31]
That's a great question, Kevin, and it could be a lot to take on as clinicians professionals, as coaches. We tend to really take our work home with us in terms of wanting to serve those that we help.
The physical side is almost enough to burn you out. And then you think about the mental and the emotional side, and you realize why a lot of our healthcare practitioners kind of shy away from it. They don't lean into it.
For me, the way I coach early career professionals and everybody is actually to just bring your own awareness into your own reaction to it.
So. When you hear a story, like even I shared the story about the player, there's a visceral response. You feel it it's a little bit provoking. You feel it may be in your midsection. And I practice mindfulness. That's a big piece of my entire work now research-based, not just the Eastern side of it, but really the westernized understanding of what it is. So I teach people to first go inside.
My last podcast guest actually talked about it as a medical student. He was taught to armor up as a psychiatrist, meaning develop that thick skin. Almost separate yourself, a little bit from him. You're going to see death. You're going to see bad things. Like you have to develop thick skin.
Actually, what I realized was, yes, you do need some level of resilience. But you also have to be in touch with your own emotional state. So when you're talking to the individual, you're feeling the energy I felt in that room, take a runner. And maybe they're David Goggins-ing themself to a point of maybe damage, right?
We'll use that as an example, cause that's going to be readily understood at what point maybe you're feeling, Hmm. This person told me that they're going through some, some tough times in their home. How do I step in here?
So a lot of people might just say, eh, I'm not going to go there. But you're feeling that, right? You feel that open window, that time capsule of, should I explore this? What you want to do there is gently lean into that a little bit.
And the two ways you can do that is. You can first identify the tension. The second thing you want to do is ask those open-ended or reflective-based statements. So ask an open-ended question or reflective based statement.
So just reflect back what they said. So if there, somebody talking about scheduling a ton of different races in the next few months, and you're saying yourself, you're not thinking the long-term here.
And you know that maybe they they're trying to prove something within their, their own life, because they're going through some other tough times, which we all know is usually behind a lot of this in a good way. So you stress, it's a good motivator. Not saying it's not.
But when you, you're looking at the big picture as the coach, and you're saying I got to lean into this a little bit, the way you can start that is you can say, so you got a lot of races you're scheduling out. What led you to schedule, you know, intrinsic motivation one-on-one, self-determination theory for the listeners that might know something about that. Lean into that a little bit.
They're going to guide you. They're going to tell you what the elephant in their room is so to speak or what their major stress is. And then you're not making the decisions for them as coaches. We want to coach, but the really good coaches don't tend to coach very much.
And I always notice that and you're helping them. Come to these realizations in their truth, building their self-awareness. But it starts with your own. It starts with how you feel about what you heard or where you want to go with that individual, what you want to tell them and why you want to do that.
Are you trying to overly fix or to overly correct something? What is the, what's the reason for that? Are you feeling like the client's going to look for somebody else that has better answers for them? Where is your own internal tension coming from? Sit with that first, and then when you're talking to that individual, go into theirs. So that's where I start that conversation to answer your question.
Bertrand Newson: [00:12:16]
That's a very powerful, and you know, as we're talking about being a, being a coach and, and athletes, certainly they can be task-driven were there to help them on their journey, but ultimately life is happening around the athletes. You know, it is more than just that race. It is more than just that series of workouts for a week, a month or a training block. Work, family.
And when the athlete elects to open up and to share some of those life challenges, and again, what is your role? And, um, you're not looking to make decisions for someone, but you do want to help them do self reflection to keep making progress towards those goals and have balance where you can ignore one party of your life pie, because it will impact another part of it.
So, um, but you're right. Um, knowing when to lean in is, is key, especially, um, with the coach athlete relationship.
Kevin Chang: [00:13:03]
I think we've realized this from the athletes that you're coaching Coach B, there's a portion of this that is around training plans or getting the right training plans in front of people.
But so much of this is the mental aspect of, you know, getting people in the right mindset to go after attack the training plans or pull back when they are attacking too much. And so much of that is just having an outside perspective, having that other person that can, can be there to help guide you in that, in that training to motivate you when you need motivation and see you. Again, pull you back from, from injuring yourself or, or doing more harm than good.
### Finding Balance In Your Own Training [00:13:37]
I guess David, one question I have is how do you do that for yourself? You know, I think you talked a little bit about having the empathy, making sure that you can put yourself in somebody else's shoes, having that outside perspective. I guess if you're looking internally at your own training plan, what are some of the techniques or tools?
Um, and especially if you're coming back from injury, what are maybe some of the techniques and tools to be looking at doing that the right way?
David Meyer: [00:14:03]
So the question is along the lines of how do you find your own. Balanced in terms of setting your own goals on goal setting and an overall big picture kind of development.
Kevin Chang: [00:14:13]
Yeah.
David Meyer: [00:14:14]
I'm more of an existential type of person. So I just generally reflect a lot. So I'm a thinker. I'm cerebral. For myself during my meditations, during my, my long walks or runs, it happens organically.
I think the interesting question is when we find ourselves, because when you think about thinking, right, we have organic thoughts where we're able to kind of think about something consciously, right?
Bring a thought to life. But then there's a lot of things that are happening just on their own, right. Thoughts are just coming and going. That's how our brain operates, which is a really interesting thing to think about.
What I'm fascinated by with your, where your question kind of meets my interests is motivation and how I kind of steer the ship, I guess you can say.
We tend to look to find the pain, right? We tend to find, to look the look and see where the negative is. For instance, you know, what part of my body parts do I need to optimize to be able to run further, right? We tend to see it through that lens. And then there's parts where we're like overall, we want to be running more and more races.
We want to run faster and faster, but we hone in on these. We, we slap our wrists and we figure out where we're messing up.
For me, I have my mission. My mission, essentially in a nutshell, is helping on the side of development from a holistic approach outside of just the injury. But the physical injury is like a segue in for me to help that person in a nutshell, that's what I do. Anything that kind of allows me to tap into that is going to be things that I am open and receptive to.
Then I have to kind of audit myself and question whether certain things are in line with my mission, for instance, whether it's coming onto a podcast, whether it's a potential business venture, the book idea that pops into my head without me thinking about it. Right?
So the audit system is, is a gentle kind of just reflection awareness. It's not a Brendan Bouchard or a Tony Robbins-esque type of approach anymore. It was earlier on where I needed to apply the steps, apply the steps, apply the steps.
Now, and this is based on neuroscience. Using awareness can really help, and curiosity. These things can help us to come to those realizations that we need to come to. And find the more rewarding things that are best for us.
So if you're talking about an athlete and you're talking about them, figuring out the right return for themselves. Sure. As a physical therapist, I can lay out a program.
But if you really search inward and you start to just curiously use your awareness, they're thinking about the process for yourself and seeing your emotion: "I have to return quick. I have to. Run this race coming up in June" and then go a little deeper and start really letting your mind go there without acting on it.
I'm not saying to think your way out of it. Just think your way into it. Let your body experience it and keep sitting with it.
And then if you don't just turn to the clinician quickly and say, Dave, what do I do? Or even yourself, what do I do, eventually, what happens?
As human beings we're highly intelligent. We're able to come to good decisions a lot of times, but the problem is when we shut off these other systems, our ability to kind of awareness in particular.
So it starts with self-awareness. It starts with really exploring that without feeling the need. Solving this fixing this, sorry, I know it's esoteric, but this is really the starting point for me.
Kevin Chang: [00:17:52]
I love the fact that you are so mindful that you're taking the time to do the meditation that you're looking inwards and figuring out I have this goal. Why do I have this goal? What am I actually working towards?
Is this helping me in the, in the long run? And I think that is something that a lot of athletes don't take the time to do. Don't take the time to actually. You know, think about the goal and maybe that's what may lead to injury. At some point you put something in front of you, you put something out there, um, and you haven't really given the time or, or thought to like, why am I doing this?
Am I pushing myself too hard? Am I pushing my body too hard to reach this goal? , and you haven't really taken the time to dive deeply into that.
### The Mind's Influence Over Healing [00:18:34]
Bertrand Newson: [00:18:34]
As we're talking about mindfulness and athletes. Blue collar or elite coming back from injury. We know the role as a physical therapist and a doctor and a plan structured way for someone to safely get back.
But can you elaborate more on: can the mind, will the body from a healing perspective, there are different schools when I'd like to get your perspective on that. Can the mind help you with the positive mindset get healthier quicker, or with the pessimistic doubt, worst case scenario impede healing?
David Meyer: [00:19:08] That's the question. That's my favorite question. I had the hypothesis that, and the evidence that the answer is, yes. Your state of mind, the neurochemistry going on, whatever you want to, what are your nervous system we'll call it. Yes. It impacts your ability to heal. So let's talk about a little bit of the science first, right?
I'll give people the very one-on-one course of inflammation. Inflammation is actually a very necessary part of healing. We all learn that in any kind of medical program, that inflammation is basically the way of vessel heals.
What happens is the by-product of inflammation or the inflammatory process is swelling edema. Because of the biochemistry of what occurs at the cellular level and the different fluids leak out.
So it becomes a negative feedback loop where it can get out of control and it can impede joint mobility. It can increase pain. It can limit you from a, evolutionary wise protective mechanism. So we already know what's modulating inflammation. Your nervous system is absolutely at play there. So we already know that the brain is certainly very heavily involved with healing.
Now you take it further and you talk about the different parts of the brain. Let's talk about the more evolved human brain, the prefrontal cortex, the forebrain, does that have an impact on it? Well, so there's the whole adage, the 10% of our brain... that was from the seventies, it was the 10% of our brain that's made up of neurons.
I don't know if you're familiar with this study, the other 90% of our brain. And actually a lot of medical practitioners don't even realize this because the research is so new is our Gloria. Our Gloria are the supportive structures that support the neurons and the other brain matter.
Our Gloria is insanely. Important in the perception of pain. And there are these specific things called these pattern recognition molecules. I know this not from my own work, but from the people I speak with and interview.
A really smart researcher out of university of Adelaide in Australia, Mark Hutchinson, he's done some great work where he discovered that these pattern recognition molecules are a conduit and a segue between any kind of thinking or thought, different parts of our brain, the prefrontal cortex with biomarkers, such as biomarkers of immunity or inflammation.
So the studies that they did more so non-human, I think they're starting to do more. Human-based where they are finding a different immune response based on different patterns of thinking and things of that nature.
So the most direct answer is that there is evidence that our internal state of mind is 1000% correlated to our ability to heal. So I had this question to myself, well, can we manipulate that consciously?
And we always like to jump the gun in science and things, and we can't make a generalization that if I tell you every day to say to yourself, I'm healing, I'm healing, that I'm going to speed up your ACL recovery by. A month. I can't say that to you.
What I can say to you is that it is going to impact your healing and your negative thoughts can negatively impact your healing. So if you ask yourself, should I be paying attention to my thoughts? The answer is much more than you probably are. And that's the most simple way I can put it.
Now, the question I have is, is it more important than the exercise or is the exercise even manipulating your thoughts? Like this whole idea behind graded exposure therapy, which it's not so much graded, progressive resistance exercise.
So I'm not doing more and more straight leg raises with a heavier ankle weight, or that's a real fundamental, basic exercise. Hopefully not. Everyone's just doing those, but is it just doing the leg raise is giving you a signal to your brain saying it's okay to lift my leg up with my knees straight after your knee injury, I'm safe. And now your brain is a little less sensitive to that load.
So I look at it as not just physical load, mental load. What's the ability for you to tolerate the mental load after injury. And I'm not the only one talking about these things. I'm not the invent, the discover of any of this.
But where I am really putting my foot down is leaning into Kevin, your question into the emotional experience of this athlete into the mental state internal state of this athlete, because those are the roadblocks. Those are the bottlenecks. That I feel compelled to hopefully help that individual be aware of.
Kevin Chang: [00:23:41]
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Bertrand Newson: [00:23:52] Great answer. Thank you for that.