Aug 8, 2024
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Welcome to the True Sports Physical Therapy Podcast with your host, Dr. Yoni Rosenblatt. Today, we emphasize the critical importance of proper warmups for athletes with speed and performance coach, Judd Lionhard. In this episode, we explore the science, strategies, and best practices for designing effective warmup routines that prepare athletes for peak performance and reduce the risk of injury.
Join us as we discuss the physiological benefits of warm ups, including increased blood flow, improved muscle flexibility, and enhanced neural activation. We also cover practical tips for creating dynamic and sport specific warm up protocols that can be tailored to individual athletes needs.
Whether you're a coach, sports physical therapist, athlete, or coach. or fitness enthusiast. This episode offers valuable insights into why you should give a damn about your athlete's warm ups and how to optimize this crucial part of their training regimen. Let's jump right in.
This interview with Judd Leinhardt was an outstanding one. Judd is a fascinating individual. He has used his experience of 12 plus years as a speed and human performance coach, as well as his time as a football player and a U. S. Army Ranger to develop a unique approach to training. Has proven to be effective among athletes from ages nine, all the way to 79. We dissect the way he teaches warmups and how important they are.
We're gonna tell you how to get your athlete coming off of an injury to actually go through proper hypergraphy which is something that keeps me up at night. Amazing wisdom coming out of Judd during this conversation. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did while I was having it. Without further ado, here is Judd Leinhardt.
We got Judd Leinhardt here with us on the True Sports Physiotherapy Podcast. Judd, thanks for making some time even if you're in your truck. It's great to have you here.
My pleasure, brother. Always a pleasure to talk to you guys.
Yeah, it's, and I've learned so much from following so much of your content. I think you have such a well rounded approach and really a unique approach.
And one of the things that you harpoon with your athletes is preparing them for, um, high level training, high level movements. And I've heard you say that the term warm up is a misconception. So tell us, how would you categorize you preparing your athlete for a workout?
Well, like warm up, like it kind of, um, alludes to like warming up the body, right?
Um, I think that's like way over simplistic and it just misses a lot of very important categories. So, you know, it's not like our bodies are a car, right? Like we need to warm up our car, like, um, it's, it's far more complicated than that. So it's like movement prep and just prep and tissue prep is, you know, a much more accurate and specific term, but I mean, you can throw out warmup, but as long as like in your head, you know, that is far more detailed than just warming up the body.
Um, so it's, it's really goes into tissue and joint specific work and patterning. So. you know, get the athlete focused. That's number one focused on the task of hand. Um, get them mentally attuned to what they're gonna have to do. Kind of give them a little bit of a rundown of what you plan to do that day.
Um, elicit some feedback from them, see how they're feeling. Make sure they're ready for the training in case you have to do any change of planning. I mean all of that Should be done at the beginning of the session and like don't you have the athlete get in there start jogging or something? That's crazy Um, and then it's just like, you know, very joint specific, you know, I love isometrics joint specific holds Put a joint under tension to get the tissue And the tendons ready to go.
Like I'm a big fan of isometrics early in the workout. So, you know, like two things go into force, right? And one of those is acceleration or speed. And that is the one that has the biggest impact on how much stress a tissue joint experiences. So why don't we just take all of the speed out to begin with, find the joint angle that hurts, have them hold that for a while, see if it still hurts. If not, if it starts to go away, then we can increase the joint angle and then start to add some speed and load from there. Um, so just tissue prep. And then after that, it's just whatever sequence or movement you're going to do to that, that day, find something that kind of mimics that pattern so that they can get their body moving in the sequence and the pattern that they're going to have to do at a slower speed.
Well, dude, I love the attention to detail here. When you're talking about warmup, I think far too often. Athlete walks into a facility and it's like, okay, let's do some band walks and then get rolling or even worse. Let's just raise your body temperature, um, with something not so specific. Um, and that's your general warmup that it, that it sounds like, um, can be far better.
So I love the attention to detail you have in prepping your athlete. You've come up with a beautiful sequence. That you call the slow, the flow, the go, the grow, the show. Now it's a little wordy for me, Judd, but can you just walk us through what those terms mean to you? Yeah,
sure. So backing up just very briefly, like the job, like a lot of people go into a gym and jog as a warmup.
That is an impact. People forget that jogging is impact. The last thing, especially as a trainer, if you're a trainer, this is, unless it's a very young, healthy kid, even then, I don't know, If you're a trainer and you start with an impact form of warm up, that's almost unforgivable. So like no impact at the very least.
All right. And then going into what we're going to talk about, like. You know, things don't have to be complicated. You can be detail oriented, but this stuff can be very simple. It doesn't have to be very complicated or hard to understand. Right. So kind of my deal is like, I try to find the essence of things, right.
And, and try to maximize economy of time and efficiency. And so there's a lot of different ways to skin that cat. And so we just have to kind of find a way. Where we can dumb it down and make sense. And these things don't have to fit perfectly in these, you know, slow flow grow or go grow categories. But, you know, there's things that like tend to have characteristics about them that may make them more suited to one or the other, if that makes sense.
So it's not like an exercise is firmly in this category and it's firmly not, it's, it's, it's not that detailed, you know. But basically the, the slow is what we just talked about, right? And then it's just very, no movement or very slow movement, finding the pattern, finding the joint angle, getting the tissues ready, talking to them, getting their breathing up, things like that.
That's kind of the slow. Um, all of this should take not very long, five to 10 minutes, maybe, and then the flow is like you pick up speed and that's when you start focusing on those joint. I call them flows, man. Um, it's really just sequencing, right? Because limbs move in a sequence, right? And it's just getting the body to move in the appropriate sequence on the, on the planes of motion that it's going to have to experience and then building speed slowly from there.
That's kind of the flow. Um, and then, you know, after that, we go into the go. So the go is just athletic type movements that are, if possible, ground based in nature that involve joint sequencing and core involvement, but have an emphasis on the body part or muscle group that you're working that day. So it's basically the athletic move.
And there is some, like, growth stimulus there too. like a single arm pushup or something I put in the go category or like a kettlebell upright row or high pull I put in the go category, you know, hang cleans, medicine ball throws all go category. And then within that go category, like I flow them through that as well.
Like it starts out faster and lighter and it'll progress heavier, more towards the grow category as we go along. If that makes sense.
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.
Yeah, I mean, they have power and strength and hypertrophy elements to them. It's not completely isolated. It's just focused more on athletic performance, type of movements, things like that, that, that, that would go.
I mean, I think, I think that makes a lot of sense. Sorry to cut you off there. I love the way you look at it really, um, holistically or systemically, right? Like long gone, at least from this are the days of let's prepare an athlete to bench by moving one joint at a time. You're incorporating the entire body.
And I love that with a lot of your movements, because I think as sports PTs, we get so isolated on here's the pathology, here's the joint that is at an issue. Here's what I'm going to attack. Whereas as I'm learning this strategy that you're kind of putting forward, we got to prepare the entire system, nervous system included, to make sure that we get the maximal effect, I guess, of whatever our intervention is going to be.
So. Um, and I also totally understand the gradients you're talking about where there's a lot of gray area where things don't just live in one category, but you're, you're accomplishing multiple things with a given movement. So I love that. So then walk me through the grow in the show. Yeah. So as trainers, like we don't train muscles to be stronger and more powerful.
That is not the be all end all of what we do. Right. We train our athletes to move like athletes and then prep their tissues within that system, right? So, you know, somebody can look at that. Well, this isn't the optimal exercise for chest or pectoral strength or size. Okay? Yes, it's not. Okay. Gotcha. that that time will come in that workout.
Don't worry. Um, but it teaches the body and it gives the trainer me an opportunity to see the athlete move and make sure that their body, their core, their hips are working to support that peck muscle to elicit the athletic effect on the field that we want. So just because it's optimal for the muscle group does not mean it's always optimal for that athlete.
I don't need the athlete to have the strongest pecks possible. I need them to be able to use their pecs in the best way possible. And that requires more than just the pectoral muscle. So, so, and then moving on. And then, you know, we, we flow, we flow through that, that go, um, spectrum. That too takes 10, 15 minutes to work out.
Right. Then we get into the grow. Now by grow, I maybe mean muscle size, but mainly I mean strength. These are the heavy, more conventional strength building exercises. Like. you know, as far as like the athlete can do it anyway, so like if they can do a back squat, if they can do, you know, a conventional deadlift or a conventional bench press, it's that kind of thing in that strength spectrum.
So the traditional, you know, one to six rep range, probably, um, north of 80 percent of the one rep max. It's like, I'm not inventing the wheel here, you know, and, but here's the thing with strength, man. And as people don't get, It's about like minimal effective dose and not taking time doing extra that has diminishing returns.
So why would I spend two hours working on pec strength, chest strength, pressing strength, when 80 percent of that benefit after the warm up comes in the first 10 minutes? So the flow, the flow, the flow and the go all get that pec muscle ready to go. Um, for the growth. So I don't, at that point in time, I don't need to spend a lot of time warming this athlete up for like, let's say a bench press.
Um, I can do one, maybe moderate working set to make sure they're the patterns, right? And then I can just do two good, solid working sets of bench press in, in the 80, 85 percent one rep max range. And that is the stimulus I need for chest train. I don't need an hour for chest train. Right. And I think, I think that's, that's, that's really unique.
And then, and then as they get into the show, that looks like what show is just like more hypertrophy, so little bit of strength, but it now just shifts more towards hypertrophy. This is just like for the general athletes. So some athletes, honestly, the show is like joint specific stuff. Like, you know, if it's a sprinter, the show would actually be like a Nordic hamstring curl.
which is not really show it's still go, but it's, we're kind of giving it away from the compound lifts, giving the central nervous system a break and really focused on like really targeting load on that hamstring muscle glued a little bit of the hamstring muscle. So the show doesn't really fit there, but for the general population is like, all right, man, you worked your athletic abilities, you know, you got your muscle strength and now it's time.
You can do a little bit of bodybuilding at the end. Once again, an optimal doses, you know?
Yeah. And so your optimal doses there when you're attacking hypertrophy is?
Well, I mean, you can spend a little bit more time in the hypertrophy range because we kind of need it more than strength and power.
Honestly, the body needs to be a little bit higher and the frequency, right? Um, but, and it also doesn't tear down your central nervous system as bad. So, you know, you can spend as like 15 20 minutes in this if you want. Because a lot of it too is going to be like single joint movements and stuff. And you can superset those.
So, you know, okay. So that's awesome, dude. I wish, I wish more of this was seeping out into the sports PT ether. Um, it's so different than, than your textbook approach. And, and I also love that. You're applying sound athletic and performance principles to general population to the general population and treating them like athletes.
And I think that is a huge pitfall for sports PTs where we get either some joint specific or so demographic specific. We're not teaching these cats how to move efficiently and appropriately. And I think this, this form really speaks to all of them.
So that was my whole intent is to dumb this down to the bare essentials that's understandable for people, right?
It doesn't have to be perfectly correct, right? In order to work. So, you know, a lot of this stuff, uh, people do it in different ways. So I'm not saying my way is the only way to do it. But it's like this like French contrast and things like that that just normal people just don't understand that and they also don't have the the facilities and the wherewithal to be able to do that on their own.
So it's just not accessible to normal people. So just take all this complex kind of obtuse and kind of, you know, a lot of it like it helps maybe a little bit, but for the general population, it's not the be all end all. And just taking what really matters and like giving it to people so they can see benefit.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I love that. And I mean, you make the, you make the point that the athlete or the client might not have access to these things, or they may not understand those things. I would argue the same thing to the clinician. I think a lot of PTs are missing a lot of these nuts and bolts to look at the athlete so systemically.
And to get them moving appropriately and really great bang for your buck. So one of the big issues that we have, and you can kind of speak on this from many different angles, one is. You're a giant. Two is you recently had a quad issue. Um, I don't think that's a HIPAA violation cause you were pretty public about it.
So what, one of the big issues we have is coming out of a knee surgery is packing on size onto this lip, whether they're not in weight for a while and they're in a brace for a while, the quad just shrinks up to a toothpick. What is your best advice as to how to lay on or increase hypertrophy in the injured athlete?
So sometimes we have to forget what we know and go back to basics and go back to what works. Right. So as sports professionals, we fall in love with ground based compound exercises and we demonize certain exercises that have been viewed as more bodybuilding exercises. Well, bodybuilders are experts in one field, and that is hypertrophy.
So maybe you swallow our pride a little bit, not think we're so much better than bodybuilders and understand what they've learned over time. that has resulted in hypertrophy, right? And a lot of that is joint specific stuff at lighter loads for higher reps, focusing on movement quality and large ranges of motion.
So, however you want to skin that cat. So, you know, like, there is stuff like, you know, um, uh, blood flow occlusion training and stuff that's really, I mean, it works, you know? You don't need heavy loads. You don't need compound movements. How can the muscle doesn't know how much weight you're using? It only knows tension, right?
So how do we use that to manipulate tension, to, to do things that will cause the muscle to grow. And, you know, a lot of times it's these like really like complex movements where there's a time when you need to focus on athletic patterns and movements. And there's a time when you need to simplify stuff so the athlete can just focus on getting the pump in that muscle, you know, and so I don't hate leg extensions, I don't hate leg presses.
I don't like sissy squats are great. Like, you know, like line leg curls have done right seating leg curls like the body building stuff actually works really well for muscle crew.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think what we fall into and I'm certainly guilty of this, you know, an athlete comes in, they're paying us whatever they're giving us this amount of time.
I want to do things that are new that they don't know. I want to prove my value. And I think that can be dangerous if you're not spending enough time under tension, right? Like you said, the muscle only knows the stress you're putting it under. So what I'll do is, um, I'll program these things for my patient.
Um, on off days, Hey, make sure that you're on a knee extension because there's no, there's no skill that I'm not going to coach you to do a better knee extension. That's awesome, man. Yeah. I mean, that's spot on. And so just make sure you're doing it on your own, or I'm going to watch you do it in clinic and then, okay, you're not going to screw it up.
Go do it on your own, or you're going to do it here with blood flow. You're going to do it here with STEM, something that you're proving your value, but once they got it, let them own it on their own and just load that muscle independently. Okay.
A lot of these athletes, man, they only have two times a week scheduled with their physical therapist, right?
And on a lot of weeks, they're only really seen them once. Let's be honest. And like everybody knows to optimize muscle hypertrophy, you need more frequency than one hour, twice a week, honestly, especially when you can't go really heavy and you've got to rely on time under tension. Yeah, that's exactly right.
It has to be something simple they could do on their own. Like. At first, it's like every day, you know, when you have an atrophy quad and you can't, you know, I always say like, if you can't do intensity, um, like do volume and frequency. And so like, if they have an injured quad that's atrophy from like ACL surgery or something, and I can't go heavy, they need to be doing like sled back pedals like every day, you know?
So yeah, that's exactly right.
And I think that's where, um, our dear friend knees over toes guy. Gets it right with his reverse sled poles, right? Because that's exactly what it is. It is a huge amount of value. I mean, think about how many terminal knee extensions that is when you're pulling a sled backwards and it's super safe, right?
So it's going to force the muscle to respond. Another thing that I think goes. Unmentioned or not focused on in my field is the nutritional aspect. We'll get the, you know, who tears their ACL. A huge majority of those athletes are young females. And so they are at a nutritional deficit. So walk me through how I should be telling them to get their nutrition right to support hypertrophy.
Well, a lot of times you're fighting culture, right? So these girls are torn on the inside. They want to be good athletes and safe athletes, but they're just petrified of getting fat. And so it means that we need to hammer down on, listen, you're an athlete. You're not going to get fat. You know what I mean?
And, and just encourage them to just not listen to the things they're hearing where they get their value from their appearance. Um, and just try to instill value in their capabilities more, you know? Um, so, and a lot of times you're, it's a constant battle and, you know, big thing like that is like protein and all this stuff we're hearing about, like protein, like you don't need as much protein anymore, or they're on these weird cleanses all the time.
Well, I mean, it's fine for an adult, but as a young growing female athlete. You know, not eating for 24 hours isn't good for you. Like, you're an athlete. It's a different demographic. You know, fasting is very good for a certain portion of the population. And that's another thing to address. Like, a diet that's healthy, and I see this all the time, a diet that's healthy for the parents is not necessarily healthy for the kids.
Rarely. Rarely is. Um, and so, like, for me, a big thing is, like, understanding where the, teaching them where to get their protein, how important that is, where to stay hydrated, how important certain nutrients are, just the basic bare bones stuff. Um, and then always ask them about them. What'd you eat? How's your diet going?
And, you know, don't judge them. I'd be understanding when they're, they're not getting it right, but you know, you may be encouraging them to bring a protein shake with them next time or something so they can drink it right after, um, because a lot of it, like some of these girls, when they tell me what they eat, they're getting like 40 grams of protein in for the day.
And I'm not one of these people that believes we need 500 grams of protein a day. But if you're 150 pound female athlete. And you're going to need 40 grams of protein in not enough
judge. So tell me how much protein does this 150 pound athlete need if they're training with Judd line?
Well, okay. So I don't believe they need one gram per pound of body weight necessarily, but I know that's not dangerous.
And I know if they shoot for that goal, they're likely to fall short. So I'll tell them that one gram per pound of body weight, knowing that they're likely to fall, fall short of that. And knowing that if they do get that much, it's not dangerous. Yeah. So, you know, studies, you know, I think it's like 1. 7 per kilogram or something is upper limit, something like that.
Um, but you know, and, and they've done cases too, when you're, when you're in a calorie deficit or certain times in your life, like more than one gram is potentially beneficial. So. I just, the one gram per pound, it's just an easy reference and it gives us a lot to shoot for.
Okay. So that makes a lot of sense.
And your words hit home as a, as a father of three girls. Um, all the, all the factors that come into play with body image and how much that goes into that. I think you're spot on. We as sports BTS and to all the sports BTS listening to this pod, that is a piece of our therapeutic intervention. Because if not, you're not going to see that hypertrophy and you're going to be shooting yourself In the foot, uh, for lack of a better term.
And so you have to know those ratios. You have to educate appropriately. You got to just like with anything, you got to read the room, know who you're talking to and make it really clear that that is a piece of their job to upkeep that nutrition. You can't do that for them. So I think that is, that's awesome.
Advice through sports. Physical therapy is growing like wildfire. We have 14 locations soon to be more. We are throughout the state of Maryland. We're in Pennsylvania, in Lebanon, in New York, Pennsylvania, as well as in Delaware, in Newark and Wilmington, Delaware, like I said, so many more practices to come and we always need outstanding sports physical therapists.
Our treatment style is unique. We are one on one with your athlete for 45 minutes. Every single session, you do the entire treatment. You do the entire evaluation. And they are in state of the art facilities where you have room to run, throw and jump and really get your athlete all the way back to on the field and better and stronger than they were.
We also have outstanding salaries. Comp structures, bonus abilities, 401ks, as well as a very strong continuing education offering, including in house continuing education. And we're looking for you now is the time as we are growing like crazy. Just shoot your resume over to Yoni Y O N I at TrueSportsPT or shoot us a DM and we will hit you back.
We will get you in for our unique tried and true interview process and really make a determination that this is the right place for you to grow your career and get your athletes better than ever. We can't wait to hear from you. Let me ask about your personal experience, Judd, with sports physical therapists.
What are we missing? How do we get better? What do you wish we knew?
Um, So, you know, that's a there's a wide array of quality in the physical therapy role, like, just like there's a trainers.
Sure.
You know what I mean? Um, the worst physical therapists are the ones that diagnose with way too little information.
So if an athlete says they have knee pain, and I'll see this all the time, that physical therapist will say it's like a weak hamstring without even doing an evaluation on the athlete. I'm like, how could you possibly know that? You know, they have this like list, like there's a short list, right? Of like the known ailments.
And then they, so it's like, you know, your shoulders are rounded for you. You have a muscular imbalance. Uh, you have tight hamstrings. Uh, you know, you know what I mean? Like you're turned out your, and there's like a laundry list of things. And it's like, those may be true. But do your evaluation first. Yeah.
How do you know, how do you know that that's the problem? And, and by the way, I think like we will do assessments and tests in the clinic. How good are your assessments and tests? Like, how are you testing someone's hamstring strength? Are you doing it by trying to push their knee into extension posteriorly and Oh, they couldn't hold it as long.
That's just not. quantitative enough. Um, and so how do we use that? What kills me more is that your low back hurts because you have tight hamstrings. That kills me, dude. So rarely the hamstring, it's very rarely the hamstring. That's true. But, but if, if you think it is the hamstring, you got to make a really compelling case.
So athlete walks into my clinic, as I walk them through their evaluation, every test I do is geared towards what is my spiel after the assessment going to be, and how am I going to support it? That goes from. Questions I ask them that goes from tests. I run that goes from stuff I pick up with the way they move, how they walk from the waiting room to my table to the gym, how they get under the bar, all this crap.
Then we walk over to the skeleton. It's like, Hey, I noticed you did X, Y, Z. You tested X, Y, Z. This gives me some solid basis to say this is what's wrong with you. And why, by the way, here's how we're going to fix it. Um, another thing is like, so a lot of times they will see a tight hamstring and they're like, well, we need to mobilize the hamstring.
But it's like, hold on a window. Like the body normally creates tightness to protect something. Why is that hamstring tight? What is that tight hamstring? Because it's normally a tonal signal, right? It's normally not a tissue thing. And yes, you can manipulate the tonal signal to get more mobility out of the hamstring.
But what is the brain trying to do by creating a tight hamstring? What is it trying to protect? Because we over mobilize this hamstring and that tight hamstring is trying to protect something like a knee joint or, or it's compensating for like, you know, you know, pelvic instability and we mobilize it.
That is creating more problems than that tight hamstring. And then also like, I don't need a special test. Like I can see athlete movement strategies to kind of see normally what's weak. Like even a lunge, if they're like. You know, if they can't pull themselves forward in a lunge and they have to stand up to step forward, well, that's something with the gluten hamstring right there.
And I already know to narrow down and I don't need to do a test for that, you know, you
are, yeah, or, or I would say you are doing a test. You just have to explain it appropriately. Um, and it's really amazing to see patients when, when you're able to back up your claims with more than just, Hey, your MRI showed this.
But it's based upon something you noticed or something you tested, and then you can really make the case. Compliance goes through the roof. It's really amazing. So you buy in.
Right. Yeah. And you got to get that buy in. I think that's imperative. Um, Judd, I want to shift course just a little bit here. And I apologize that I did not open the conversation with this.
Thank you for your service. This country does not exist. If you didn't do what you did, so I really appreciate it. That's on behalf of our entire audience.
I appreciate it, bro. Thank you.
Yeah. Um, thank you. So, okay, so just walk me through your military career, um, and then I want you to tie it into what it taught you about fitness and what it taught you about training athletes or the tactical athlete.
So I went to the military a little bit late. So I was in like, uh, mid twenties, uh, when as, as an officer. So I already had like a degree and some experience in the fitness world, um, a little bit older. So I had, you know, been used to viewing athleticism and fitness from that lens, right? The optimal performance lens.
Okay. But when I was in the military, I started to learn that fitness, fitness, isn't like an exercise term. Fitness is, is actually just your ability to thrive in your environment. So to, to make somebody fit. I can't give you a laundry list of physical abilities and say, yes, this person is fit or unfit.
Right. Um, well, how do those abilities make you help you perform in your environment? So if I have a strong, fast, powerful, mobile, fluid, athletic guy. But he has no work capacity and is not robust. He is not fit to be in the military. He is unfit. And that's something we can't wrap our heads around. And so when I'm training tactical athletes, and this is the biggest block I got when I work with strength and conditioning coaches used to like training, like do you want athletes for football when they transition to tactical athletes, it's like, you're focusing way too much on strength and power.
And not enough on like work capacity and you're making sure he's optimally fueled before every workout. Well, guess what? Overseas, what I saw, we weren't optimally fueled. We were dehydrated. We didn't get food in for a couple of days. We still had to perform and think. And if we're not used to exercising in the heat without enough hydration, without enough food, without enough sleep, we, we won't be able to perform in that environment when called on it.
So, a lot of it is just, it's training the athlete for the demand. It's like specificity, right? This seems stupid simple, right? I don't need my tactical athlete to have a 35 inch vertical. Now, there's a minimal amount of power that they're gonna need, a minimal amount of strength. I don't need them to deadlift 500 pounds.
I just don't you know, so I need the bill walk 15 miles with a 60 pound pack Mobile enough to go over obstacles and climb and be healthy enough to not feel it in their joints And then capable enough have enough metabolic flexibility when they get on target even if their glycogen levels are completely Depleted they can still think and act and sprint and lead And if guess what guess what that if that mission moves on another 12 miles put that fucking rock on and go Like and d1 athlete can't do that.
Yep You Yep. I think I think you're exactly right. Okay. So that is an awesome lens to look through. Um, a great way to define what is fitness. How do you actually train an athlete to function ideally when they are, um, calorically deprived or dehydrated?
So you know, safety first, right? Like it can't be dehydrated to the point where there's an electrolyte imbalance, but you know, maybe just don't worry about having the athlete stop every 10 minutes to rehydrate and all that stuff.
So, um, You know, first of all, you pay attention to like cognition and I make sure they're not getting loopy or weird and you know, or losing motor skills like pay attention to all the signs of the environmental stressors, creating a dangerous environment like risk mitigation, first of all. But, you know, a lot of it is like, you cannot relegate, you can't be there with the athlete all the time, but you cannot relegate their training sessions to one to two hour blocks.
It just doesn't work. There's nothing you're going to do in that one to two hours. That's going to mimic a 12 hour foot movement. So you have to get outside your mind where a workout is this one or two hour thing. No, a training session, like in buds, they train 12 hours a day minimum, you know, that, and that, that is not optimal for optimal performance, but that's what a seal has to do.
So that's what seals do.
Yeah. I think it's getting really task specific. That's a, that's an awesome way to look at it. What, what is the purpose of training and then how do you construct your training around that purpose? Um, I think, I think that's really well said. What was it like when, when you got to the military, you had all this fitness background.
What was the training that you faced?
So, you know, a lot of it was muscular endurance. And just endurance in general, so you have to have that capacity, just working hour after hour, um, from a depleted state and still being able to function. So that's the first thing I had to learn, like slow is smooth, smooth is fast, right?
Like, you can't sprint everywhere. You have to conserve energy, you have to think, you have to take your breaks, and still be ready to go when you need to go without like a warm up. You know, if you're taking a knee for four hours, and all of a sudden they're like, Hey, Okay, like provide, you know, providing overwatch and then all of a sudden you have to cross a linear danger area.
You're not going to have time to like warm up your hamstrings before you do the sprint. Like the athlete has to be adaptable enough to sprint without like a major warmup.
Yeah, that's, that's really interesting. So, so I had, um, the captain of Israel lacrosse on a couple of weeks ago. He serves in the IDF currently.
Um, Yeah. Yeah. Has a great training background. Um, I asked him about what training was like there and what he would have done better as an IDF soldier. I would ask you the same question. What do you think the United States military does well from a training perspective? What would you tweak? Oh, man. Um, for the basic entry military training, physical fitness, it's horrid.
So they tried to change it and they made great strides in the right direction. And from what I've heard, for whatever reasons, it got too expensive. And they nixed a lot of it and went back to that horrible P. T. Test, which was push up sit ups of tomorrow. Now, I understand that's field expedient and you can tell a little bit from those things, but the test they went to was so much better and more comprehensive and designed by exercise scientists.
And I guess it was just too expensive and they nixed it.
What did they include? Yeah. Well, what could be, Oh my God. It was like a body drag test, like a trap bar deadlift, a medicine ball throw balance test, like a, a hang for time, uh, 300 yards shuttle or something like that. It was like great stuff, man.
Yeah. That sounds way more functional.
Yeah, and then, um, yeah, if you look back at like the World War II physical fitness test, it was way better, dude. Um, and I just don't know where they, I think they were going for something that was very easy and field expedient that almost anybody can do with minimal equipment, and just would test basic muscular endurance and, and, and cardiovascular endurance.
But it just leaves so much to be desired, and it doesn't, it doesn't really give you a good idea of what your soldier's capable of. Now, if you go to really good conventional muscular units, process. And here's another thing. The P. T. Test was so hyper focused on because that's how people got promoted. And that's how N.C. O. S. Got judged. Instead of training your soldier to be a better soldier, these N. C. O. S. And officers were training their soldiers to pass this P. T. Test. And that's where like the danger comes in, you know? Um, but you know, when you get the regiment, it is like night and day. So you go there, they send their N.C. O. S. To these special courses. Yeah. where they learn kind of what we know, at least at a basic level. And the training is just night and day different. You know, you still got to do your runs and your sit ups, but that's like an afterthought, man. They train you to be a warrior. And it's like sprints and power and long marches and how they teach you how to, you know, do, um, you know, mobility and tissue maintenance and things like that.
It's just on another level, man.
Love that. That that's really cool. That sounds like where Kelly's direct, like entered the fray, like talking about, like, um, just, just, uh, tissue robustness and how to overcome those things. That's, that's really cool. Um, we work with Baltimore city SWAT, um, over here. And so we revamped their PT test.
And so we put in the drag, you know, we put in, um, a terrain run. As opposed to just running on a track. We also, I thought it was important to include, um, what's fine motor skill, fine motor skill while fatigued. So we had them, we had them put on, um, a gas mask after they did their outdoor run. We had them put on a gas mask and had them assemble and disassemble their firearm.
As, as a piece of what they were doing. Does any of that show up currently in the military? Yeah,
man, there's all kinds of stress tests and stress shooting. Absolutely. So like, you know, you get a guy out of breath and fatigued and then have them, you know, shoot an object on the move, you know, that's part of fine motor skills to, or like you said, um, um, do like first aid, you know, for, uh, on a guy when you're out of breath.
And you're confused and you're tired. Yeah, man, you have to create this stressful situation and then get the guy practicing what he actually needs to do in that situation.
Yep. Um, I mean, that's like, that's spot on, dude. That's exactly what you should be doing.
So, so that's really cool. And by the way, it's, it's not lost on me that That's exactly what we should be doing when we start to clear athletes to return to sport.
How closely have you mimicked the athlete's demand or need, right? They like rehab should be harder than playing a full 60 minute game or whatever it is you're trying to do. And so, you know, More importantly, the athlete knows. Yeah, I'm definitely ready to do this because I did that. So I think there's, there's, there's a lot of value there.
Um, and I think there's, there's a lot you can learn from that. So, all right, we're gonna, we're gonna shift focus even a little bit differently. I saw Judd on your website that if I sign up for the Judd app, what's it actually called? It's not the Judd app. What's it called? It's, uh, it's under playbook.
Playbook. They run the app for me. How many programs do you have on that thing?
Okay, so I read that on that thing you sent me. So, if you sign up under me, you get access to I think hundreds and hundreds of different, you know, fitness people. And all of their programs as well. So I think they added up to 6, 000.
I don't know. I think I have right now I have like seven different programs out on that thing. Okay. That makes more sense. Yeah, I read that. I kind of laughed. I was like, yeah, so it's like, you just go, it's like one of their selling points, like you get access to other people if you sign up.
Okay. Super cool.
So that makes me want to sign up. Um, one, one of the things you, you do, um, promote is that we should be sprinting late into life. So as you're right, correct me if I'm wrong. Okay. Ideally. Ideally. Sure. So if you're programming to this vast audience, I signed up for your app. How do you ensure that the athletes signing up for this or the clients signing up for this are able to sprint without hurting themselves?
So it's like anything else, like lifting, right? You progress into it with speed and load. Okay. So if you never get to an actual sprint, you can do things that are sprint like they carry a ton of benefits as well. So it'd be great if we could all sprint full speed. And I understand that's just not possible for most of us, but getting them to do like first, you know, start with like, um, the things that we train sprinters for.
So posture work, holding positions. Learning the patterns and then practicing the patterns at increasing speed and then doing the hops and the bounces and then doing the speed drills at increasing intensities. So, I mean, that's what my program does. It's just it increases the intensities of the drills to the point where, you know, eventually they start doing some 10 yard accelerations because you don't get the top speed or you do high knees adding speed.
So you start to high knee and then you just add speed to that. It's the same thing I do with my athletes during the warm up before they sprint, but with a lot of adults, I just never get to the sprint. You know, not not in the first eight weeks, probably at least because they're still getting a ton of volume value from all of that other stuff without the risk.
Sure. And then, you know, when it's time to sprint, they'll have done so much stuff like flying twenties and things like that to where I can be fairly certain that this person can just open it up and go and not pull a hamstring. Um, you know, it's just like getting the hamstrings and the rectus femoris and the abs ready to handle that strain, which is very unique from weightlifting.
There's nothing we can do in the gym that's going to mimic that strain. So that's, that's where the drills come in. The fast, rapid eccentric loading, the loading at long tissue lengths, things like that, that is really hard to mimic in the gym at a certain level. Yeah. Um, And then just enough of those and enough volume to where the body adapts to like, all right, let's, let's get 90 percent speed.
All right. You know, like fast, but you're still working on these techniques while you do it. So you can't go all out because you're having to focus. So like have them think about something and that alone will limit their speed. You know, so with my athletes, I say run two and I run two to four sprints at the end.
It's like run two clean and one dirty. So run two really as fast as you can, while you think about what I'm telling you to think about. And then at the end, just grip it and rip it, bro. And go. And whatever stick sticks, because that's what you're gonna have to do on the field anyway, right? You're just gonna grip and rip it, right?
You're just gonna go. So, two clean and one dirty is what I always tell them, you know, like, today, that's like And then also, like, volume, right? Like, sprinting is very intense. It is maybe the most intense thing we can do per second, right? So, you don't need a lot of volume to that. So, if you're having this person go out and run 40 40s, they're not really running 40 40s, that's just conditioning, you know?
Yep. No, I think, I think that makes a lot of sense. It reminds me of a conversation I just had on the pod, um, with the strength coach at UNC football. He was talking about, there is nothing we can do in the weight room that mimics the force through a hamstring as much as sprinting, right? So you're never going to get there unless you're sprinting and then being intelligent about how you ramp up sprinting.
It sounds like that's exactly what your program does. Um, so that's really great to know. Um, okay. I got one quote that I want to see what. What it means to you and how you, uh, I guess, uh, expand upon it, expand or expound it's one of those, one of those ready span in this case. Yeah. Okay. We don't get tight from what we do.
It's from what we failed to do. Of course you like it, because you said it. But tell me what it means to
you. I don't remember saying that. Um, so, you know, people like, let's take, I can take a specific case, right? I don't believe bench pressing helps pitchers throw a baseball faster. But I'm not necessarily against bench pressing for pitchers.
Because bench pressing isn't going to make them tight. But if they, bench pressing won't help them, really. But if you're going to bench press, you have to do the things that counter the bench press In order to keep your mobility, right? So I was telling my pitchers if they make you bench presses in school, have a band with you because rows are not the opposite of bench press.
I'm sorry. It has to have some kind of external rotation there and do your external rotations in between your sets of bench press because the bench press is not going to make you tight. It's the lack of the opposing muscle of the posing movement, rather, that's going to make you tight. So, you know, people say, don't do this.
It'll hurt your knees or something like that. No, not doing this movement. Is what's going to get you tight and hurt your knees and it's doing it in a, you know, appropriate, responsible, progressive overload because nothing is dangerous. You see gymnasts do stuff all the time that if you or I did that, it would be dangerous.
It's just in that context, it's dangerous. So the movement isn't bad. You're just not ready for this movement. So it's just a lack of doing that's more dangerous than the doing,
you know? No, I think that makes total sense. And just get specific with that, um, bench press row example, because I think you're spot on.
But just, um, explain it to me in terms of what the lat is doing, in terms of what your pecs are doing. And then you said external rotators.
Yeah. So, you know, people, physical therapists are the worst about this, man, I'm sorry, worse because they're the worst. We're the worst.
The we're the worst. They're the ones that you know better, right?
So, you know, people are like, well, you have an imbalance. You do a lot of pressing, you need to do more rowing. Well, you, you may need to do more rowing, but that is not gonna fix that imbalance. The main, like, let's say the main thing here is like, let's say you're lat and you're pec. People view those as opposing muscle groups, and in some aspects they are, but. You know, they both internally rotate the humerus. So how are you going to correct an imbalance by working two primary muscles that both internally rotate your humerus? And especially if you're doing like a lat dominated pole movement. Um, so you can do like a scapular retraction, but you have to include external rotation with that, because that's what you really want to fix, right?
You want to fix like, you know, a forward rotated shoulder, maybe, um, and then an internally rotated humerus. So you have to do something that does the opposite. And that is not a lat pull and is not a seated row. That's forgivable for trainers. I got it. That is unforgivable for physical therapists.
I would say both, but I, I, but I would definitely agree that that PT swing and missile net, and I have definitely been definitely early in my career.
I was definitely guilty of that, right? Where it's like, Oh, you're doing too much push. Let's add in a pool. I think you're spot on. It's not just the pool. It's a pool with an external rotation. There better be an external rotation there. It's just knowing your anatomy cards. That's what we had in grad school.
Right? It's like, yeah, right. Yeah, like what is the function of the muscle and understanding that in training accordingly? That's what we freaking do for a living. Okay, so a lot of the internal rotation to like tight neck and traps like it's pulling up and forward. So, you know, you got to work your straightest interior, you know, you got to like, you got to work the things that bring it down.
You know what I mean? Like it's not just this. No, I think it's basic anatomy, but I think you're spot on with that. Okay, Judd, I want to close with a lightning round. Quick answers to quick questions. You ready? Yeah, shoot. What the hell is a sports medicine trainer?
That's a good question. So, uh, I saw that other thing that I did not coin that term That was like my boss and he loves it.
I was like, so I was like, whatever man Like I do not know man. I do not know what a sports medicine trainer is. I don't really call myself that okay He just hated the term trainer because he thought it was beneath us Which I kind of get it, but my, I call myself a coach, you know what I mean? Okay,
okay. I, I like that better.
That makes a lot of sense. That's not what Google said, but that a lot of sense. I laughed
so hard when I saw that. Yeah, I dunno. Either, bro.
Okay, good. I'm glad we're together on that. Um, okay. Who is a must follow on Instagram for outstanding SNC information?
Oh my God, man, there's so many. Gimme one. I mean, um, so there's so many that I like.
And this is like a basic one that everybody knows about. I love squat university because they just take stuff and the guy is not negative about it. And he really simplifies his advice to make it accessible to people. And I just like him so much just because he like really makes his advice mainstream and understandable.
And he's, but he, but he doesn't rag on people either. You know what I mean?
Yeah. And I think you do a good job of that too. I got some issues with, with some of the stuff squat university puts out. I got to get that guy on the pod. Um, because, because I think, because I think he's open about it. So I would love to talk to him about some of those specifics.
Hey guys, quick pause and a quick shout out to this new master class that we just launched here at true sports physical therapy, myself and Dr. Tim stone put together a masterclass of ACL rehab, and we call it from table. To turf. And the reason we call it that is because it's going to teach you exactly how to get your athlete all the way from post op day one with the nitty gritty of regaining all of that range of motion with the tips and the tricks that we use here at True Sports Physiotherapy that gets our athletes.
Better, faster and stronger. And that's early. And then how do you progress that athlete all the way onto the field with a ball in their foot or stick in their hand or whatever their sport is and teach them how to accelerate, how to de cell, how to change direction, all the mechanics that go in there, what drills do we use to.
To get our athletes exactly where they need to be back on the field and even better than before injury. And I want you to sign up for that class. Now you can find it on our website. You can shoot us a direct message and just say, Hey, send me the course. It's right now on sale. So make sure you sign up now.
It is fully accredited to get you all of your continuing education hours. Sign up for the true sports masterclass ACL from table to turf. Thanks guys. Okay. What's, what was the hardest part of rehabbing your own quad?
Uh, doing things that I knew better than and being patient, just like everybody else, you know, wanting to rush it.
Um, and just being honest with myself that, you know, I'm going to have to do some other things. And, and also at first. First, I was a little bummed about it for a couple hours because I thought it would mess with, I have to put out content, right? And I'm thinking of all the things I can't do. And then just like I tell people what, what opportunity did this provide for me?
It provided an opportunity to show people how I rehab muscle. It was actually a good thing because I got to teach people how to rehab where normally I probably wouldn't have done that. So, you know, the challenging thing was not to be negative about it, to view it as a positive and view it as an opportunity.
Love that a lesson for life. Um, when did you start wearing very short shorts?
I, I think it started, uh, in the military because you really like ranger panties. Yeah. So it's called major panties and it's just really comfortable, man. And then after that, I just hated the feeling of like shorts halfway down my legs.
And if you look at people back in the day before it became a trend, They all wore either, well, Greeks wore no shorts, or very short things that stayed off their thighs, where you could see the anatomy better, it didn't limit, like, extension flexion, it didn't rub and wear, and it's just like, I was comfortable in it, and then, at that point in time, like, I didn't really care what people thought about me, so.
Yeah, and now it's on trend. Yeah, you know, whatever. I gotta figure out, I don't have quads, so what the hell am I supposed to do? I'm like left in the middle of nowhere.
Bro, look, go back and look at ol like Magnum P. I. With like, what's his face on there? Tom Selleck. And he didn't have quads, man. Didn't stop him, dude. He rocked that stuff. Okay, he also had a giant mustache. I don't have one of those either. You can grow that bro. I can't
grow that. I can't grow what he had on his head, but I could grow that Um, that's totally that's totally fair. Um, okay closing thoughts, um jud tell me Um, first of all where to find you.
What's the best way to get a hold of you? So Instagram is my most popular forum. It's at Judd Leinhardt. Um, it says Justin on there. That's where I go by Judd. So, don't get confused. Um, and then, uh, at JuddLeinhardt. com. Um, it's really simple right now. We have YouTube coming out. We have a few out. A lot more coming out shortly.
But right now, Instagram's my primary. And then there's, uh, you know, links in my bio for all my stuff. I got like a sub stack and, um, you know, my app is on there and stuff like that.
Hell yeah. Awesome. And, and what are you doing in five years?
So, you know, I want to transition away from the day to day fitness content. I want to still be training people cause I love it. So I gotta, I gotta find time to not let that completely fall off. It's already been a really hard transition for me. Um, I want to transition more to podcasts where I can talk to people, um, more to writing because like, I love to write. Um, and less day to day fitness content as far as like me having to do the exercise on camera.
Yeah, for sure. Well, well, you're great at it and, and I appreciate your flexibility. You've been awesome conversation. I think you've taught sports PTs a ton. I think you, your outlook on, uh, warmups. Your outlook on, um, hypertrophy, your outlook in terms of the way nutrition falls into it and reading the room, there's so much sports PTs can learn from you.
So I, I appreciate all the knowledge, all the wisdom. I appreciate the humility with which you deliver that information. Um, so thanks for being a great resource, man. You've been awesome.
Hey, my pleasure, man. And you know, I understand the PTs have a hard job. And, uh, you know, from the outside looking in, sometimes we make it seem a lot simpler, but I love what, when you guys are good at what you do, I love what you do.
And you guys are a crucial aspect to the sports performance realm. So hell yeah. Well,
well, yep. You're teaching sports PTs a ton. So Judd, thanks for joining true sports PT pod. We'll talk soon, man. All right, brother. Bye bye.
Bye bye.
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