UNC Football Strength Coach / DPT Coach Q Willey Barbell Medicine

Ever wondered what it's like to be a Division 1 strength coach? Coach Q from North Carolina joins us to share his unique perspective on the evolving landscape of college athletics. Learn how NIL deals and recent NCAA legislation are transforming college sports into a professional arena. Coach Q provides an unfiltered look at the demanding schedules, unique pressures, and immense rewards of mentoring high-level athletes, shedding light on the realities behind the scenes.

Parallel strength training with professional growth as we unpack the critical role of dedication and consistent effort in achieving long-term goals. Coach Q dives into the nuances of the strength and conditioning industry, discussing the politics of training philosophies, monetary frustrations, and the importance of maintaining a positive attitude. He emphasizes the value of being present, seizing current opportunities, and building strong relationships within the industry.

We tackle complex topics like critical thinking in the age of social media and debunk common myths around manual therapy. Coach Q shares valuable insights into scientifically validated practices versus popular trends, highlighting examples like LeBron James' exercise routines. From the pitfalls of social media influence to the financial realities of a career in strength and conditioning, this episode offers a wealth of practical advice and inspiring stories for anyone involved in or curious about the world of athletic training.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

The purpose of today would be to talk about your life, not only as a strength coach, but also. You're a unique little hybrid, because you have that therapy background and you're doing some great stuff with Barbell and really just you're a talking, walking big old hunk and you really need to hear more about the successes that are out there. Welcome to the Show Up Fitness Podcast, where great personal trainers are made. We are changing the fitness industry, one qualified trainer at a time, with our in-person and online personal training certification. If you want to become an elite personal trainer, head on over to showupfitnesscom. Also, make sure to check out my book, how to Become a Successful Personal Trainer. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. Have a great day and keep showing up. Howdy everybody, and welcome back to the Show Up Fitness podcast. Today we are here with Coach Q, who is single-handedly responsible for Drake May getting picked third in the draft. Way to go, coach right.

Speaker 2: 1:04

I can take very, very, very little responsibility for any of his success, but thank you Appreciate that.

Speaker 1: 1:11

Yeah, I think that it's funny how people will you know, give themselves credit. But I'm just giving you a shit there. But I appreciate you taking time to talk to us today. We have a lot of people who are curious about the life of a strength coach. But you are a hybrid because you have the doctorate of physical therapy also a strength coach and so, like just um, talk a little bit more about the life of a strength coach at a D1 level in a great school like North Carolina.

Speaker 2: 1:38

Yeah, oh, it's awesome. I mean, working with the athletes is is phenomenal. Um, there is an ever-changing environment now with the nil and the recent legislature about ncaa being able to universities being able to directly pay the athletes. So we're in, I think, moving towards what may have previously felt a little bit more like a professional league, like the nfl or nba. It's becoming a little bit more and more like that, with younger and younger kids with less experience, and so they're coming into a very strange world right now where there's a lot of pressure and a lot of expectation on them, and a lot of pressure and expectation on us because there is a little bit more money involved from them individually, as well as moving through these programs where the dynamics are changing and the transfer portal is changing. But, uh, either. That being said, um, working with these, these young athletes who have these amazing aspirations and talents and abilities, is extremely fun.

Speaker 2: 2:39

Uh, being a strength coach at this level the day in, day out, fairly long hours, but you're kind of on call. We were chatting just before we officially started recording about how there's kind of a military mentality when it comes to strength and conditioning on the football side of things, and that is something that I don't think I fully appreciated until being on this side of the fence with this level of football, is that this is really very much a full-time job with these types of guys. They are doing something that many, many students at the university level are not doing, and it is very challenging. The amount of hours that they are asked to be at the facility and doing film and study, as well as training, lifting and practice times, is wild. And we went straight from winter training after the bowl game and they had maybe about two and a half to three weeks of downtime, and we are right back into summer training, and that goes the same for the coaches.

Speaker 2: 3:40

They work very, very hard to keep this ship afloat and moving in the right direction, and the athletes do the same, and so you get to know them very well. I'd say the strength and conditioning staff probably spends the most time one-on-one with the athletes and we get to know them at a very deep personal level and we become a big part of the type of culture and the environment that the students undertake as they move through the program, and that is really really enjoyable to have some level of influence on these young men and young athletes' lives as they are at a very pivotal point in their life and doing something that is unique to their family situations pretty often. So a lot of fun, a little bit of pressure, obviously on all sides, but I would say that the amount of enjoyment and fun you get from working with these levels of athletes it takes over and outweighs a lot of the negatives or pressures that may be happening here.

Speaker 1: 4:36

I can just see the new aspiring strength coach in their dorm or maybe at work as a trainer, typing in salary of a strength coach and they see the Alabama guy making 1.1 or so you can look up because it's public records UNC strength coach making over half a mil. But it doesn't happen like that, does it? You don't just show up, knock on the door and say, hey, I want to start working with.

Speaker 1: 5:01

QBs and all this stuff. So what is that process like, and can you talk a little bit more about the compensation aspect?

Speaker 2: 5:08

Yeah, absolutely. It is tempting and I know that when I was looking at doing strength and conditioning, I was seeing some of these same numbers. And it's very confusing because you look online and you'll see wild gaps. You'll see every job opening and entry-level strength and conditioning position. Oftentimes it's a $5,000 or a $2,000 stipend as a GA internship-type opportunity.

Speaker 2: 5:35

And you start talking to strength coaches whether it's football or the Olympic side, baseball, basketball, you name it and a lot of them spent several years bouncing from school to school to school doing internships, either for free or for very little money. And I think, as I was early in my career, I almost had this idea that like they were very just unsuccessful strength coaches, that they didn't know what they were doing and that's why they had to bounce around so much. And then, the more that you get your feet wet, you realize, oh, that's actually just the norm and the idea of paying your dues is very much alive and well in the strength and conditioning community and people don't really care what degrees you have, even though that is important. It's important to still be educated and get those degrees, as that will kind of qualify you for an area, but they also want to see that you have poured a lot of your heart and soul into developing your coaching voice, into developing your coaching um. You know philosophies, that you have been around a host of different coaches and environments and teams and different types of athletes in a way that you can work in an efficient manner. But also, and when certain things don't work, you have to be a great problem solver, and to be a great problem solver in an athletic environment and be able to think very quickly on your feet.

Speaker 2: 6:59

That's something that just takes time, you know. It just takes time to interact with and develop, and you're not going to get that overnight. There's not some book that you're going to read and just all of a sudden be able to do it. And so I think there is a level and an art that strength and conditioning wants to see that you've you've really challenged yourself, and I would. I would see that the same way that if you seek post, uh, graduate education and you go and get a master's degree or you know a doctoral degree, you know these things take two, three, maybe up to five years after you've already graduated from an undergraduate position, let's say and I think strength and conditioning is looking for that same thing but more inexperienced, and that is frustrating and it is challenging to see how much some individuals are making in this field and you see this thing way off in the distance and it like man, I really want to be there now.

Speaker 2: 7:48

And there's this pressure and this rat race to get to the top as quickly as possible. And then you start looking around and you start having chats with other people and you realize you know what. We're kind of all just as frustrated at different levels, um, early in our careers, hoping that we make it. And you really just have to stick it out and fall in love with the craft and fall in love with your own processes and learning along the way and taking as much as you can from others in a positive way and creating positive connections and positive relationships with people, and good things will happen and come to you if you're just working hard and putting your head down and doing the best you can in whatever environment you find yourself in and they're not always going to be ideal.

Speaker 2: 8:26

You're going to spend maybe six months to a whole season in an area, or maybe you're working in a gym with private clients that has nothing to do with sports, and yet you went into this industry hoping you would work with athletes and here you are working with, you know, susan, who's 52 and you know, is barely lifting weights for her first time, and you have to find a way to make that just as valuable and fun and great of a learning environment and experience as you would if you were working with an NFL prospect, like you mentioned, drake May at the beginning.

Speaker 2: 8:58

They both have the same unique challenges. They're still people and you still have to coach, and I think I have a lot more respect for the types of coaches who are able to, you know, diversify and and train across the spectrum, versus the people who only work with pro athletes. I think there's a massive value in just doing your time working with a host of different people. So do not be discouraged if you're listening to this, thinking oh man, like well, you know, here's this Q guy who's a physical therapist, strength coach at, you know, university of North Carolina with football. You know that's that's a little bit of a bigger gap between where I am, but understand that. You know I didn't start there and I also still see so much value in everywhere other than football. I don't think that what I'm doing is uniquely special to a skill set that no one else could attain at some other level. So it's just about playing that long game and loving what you do and pulling the best out of people around you.

Speaker 1: 9:57

It's so awesome because you can tell us about your mindset. I interviewed a strength coach for the Jayhawks basketball and coach Ram said dominate the opportunity. And I think that the mindset really plays a huge role. And I'm going to butcher this one, but there's a famous analogy where you have the two brick layers and one guy's bitching and complaining about it's. You know this work sucks and you know toxic mindset and other guys like dude, we are creating, you know the Sistine Chapel or whatever, but there's something more meaningful behind it and that mindset where I see a lot of strength coaches and that could be this toxicity of social media where they just bitch and complain about oh, you're going to be a strength coach, you're going to make no money and you know you're just going to be working for pennies and I love what you're saying about you got to earn those stripes and then you get to be.

Speaker 1: 10:43

You know where you're at and you're doing great things, which kind of brings me to the next question when do you see yourself in the future? Where? Where does Q want to be?

Speaker 2: 10:51

Yeah, no, I think that's a great question and just to even hit on some of what you're talking about, I think there's a lot of parallels between training and this is maybe a little bit more attainable for the interested fitness professional or strength and conditioning coach, where, if somebody said they want to get to a certain level of strength or be able to lift a certain way or run a certain way, perform at a certain level, we all know that the hours and hours and years that go behind attaining some of these goals, years that go behind attaining some of these goals, are full of monotonous, small hours of just dedicated work, of waking up in the morning, doing the mundane training program, following your block, trying to do the best you can in the moment, and then, you know, hanging the cleats up and trying to recover and doing it all again the next day. It, you know, no, no, uh, professional athlete began as a professional athlete. There was years, years and years and years and years of just absolute mundane brick laying right, just brick by brick by brick. You just keep putting and and and I think the difference is, like you know, the in that story, that analogy, yeah, you know one guy's bitching and moaning and having the toxic, you know mindset, whereas the other God, if you're just focused on how can I lay this brick just a little bit better than the one previous man, that actually becomes a pretty fulfilling job. All of a sudden you know and you realize the value of what you do.

Speaker 2: 12:19

And I think in the strength and conditioning world, why you see so many people get on social media or whatever else and have this toxic mindset is they feel that they are delivering a high degree of value for the athletes that they work with, but not getting monetarily rewarded from that. And I am not immune to that, trust me, I have my own frustrations that happen in that realm. But at the end of the day, when you step back and consider why it was that you did this and the relationships that you get to develop with people along the way and the types of things you get to do with individuals who thank you for what you're doing, and you see that result that has to be enough for you. If it's not enough for you, it's like that old adage of like if you're not enough without it, you'll never be enough for you.

Speaker 2: 13:04

If it's, if it's not enough for you, it's like that old adage of like if you're never, if you're not enough, without it, you'll never be enough with it and and and I think that's true you could get paid at 1.1, $1.2 million for being a strength and conditioning coach, and you will not enjoy your job if you haven't learned to really enjoy it and you just chase that money. And so, for me, you asked where I see myself, and I would say that is a difficult question. Only in that, right now, my primary focus is doing the best job that I can for the people in front of me, and I'm trying not to think too long or too far down the road or the grass is greener somewhere else, because I don't think it is, and I think that I get to decide how green the grass is where I stand and I can be as happy as I choose to be in the in the place that I stand. And so I think right now I'm in a place in my career where it's like look man, I just want to do the very best that I can for the people in front of me, with hopes that, sure, if I provide enough value and people see that value, good things will happen down the road. But I'm not trying to to look to the next thing. I'm trying to make the thing that that I'm, that I'm at as good as I can possibly get, and I think that's just the mentality that you have to to really really buy into man, cause this, this industry, will will sour your taste in a lot of things.

Speaker 2: 14:21

You know whether it's working with athletic trainers who don't understand training and they're they're pulling guys out and saying you don't know what you're talking about. You just have to shrug your shoulders and say okay, you know, and keep moving on in a positive way and trying to build positive relationships. And, um, you know whether it's a sport coach who doesn't like the way you're programming and you're going to have to change some things or work around some, some personalities there. You're going to have to do that and that's just part of being a human and working in an organization, in a system where there's a lot of voices, a lot of opinions, and not all of those voices and opinions are going to agree with each other all the time. So you're just trying to make as much progress without making as little friction as possible. I guess you could say and so, yeah, when you ask me where I'm going, boy, I don't know, I hope somewhere good, but right now I'm just trying to look where I stand.

Speaker 1: 15:07

I love that and that's great. It got me thinking of almost the politics of it, because to a certain degree at least on the high school level, I see a lot where you know coaches, they have their, their mindset, they have their old schools training that they still stick to. And if you're a young buck who comes in and starts oh this was wrong, you got to be doing undulating periodization, blah, blah, blah, how do you navigate that landscape? Because you know there's probably coaches out there that still have this old school mentality and they're not adapting the newer stuff. And so if you're a newer strength coach and and you tell someone, hey, this may be a better option, that's the whole thing. You could cause some friction right there and they might kick you out the door. So how do you navigate that space?

Speaker 2: 15:48

That's a fantastic question, because you see that across healthcare, you see that across training, you see it in any industry. I think there's going to always be conflicts between, you could say, the old guard or the status quo and, uh, the new person coming in with fresh ideas. Um, there's always going to be some, some degree of friction in one of those two people's minds. Um, I think, first and foremost, the thing that that grounds and centers me and allows me to let go of a lot of the frustration, is that you just mentioned, um, undulating periodization, or you could talk about any number of training type methods, and the truth is they all work to some level. I mean, you think about what people were doing in the fifties and sixties and seventies and they were still making people better. There's so many examples of athletes who do really terrible training programs and they survive it anyways and improve anyways. I think you know you could see high school athletes that are, you know, number one recruits in the country who have just been doing purely bodybuilding all through high school and they're freaks. And so sometimes I think about that. And then I also think about in physical therapy world. We know that about 70% of folks with pain and injury. If they did absolutely nothing, we'll get better anyways, they'll regress to the mean of probably being okay. So if somebody's inputting some kind of a program or some kind of a rehabilitation protocol that I don't necessarily agree with, I have to also step back and say well, listen, q, this is a pretty young field and science has taught us that we need to embrace a pretty high degree of uncertainty when it comes to these things, and we're not at a level where this is not like a recipe right, you're not baking cakes here. If it was as simple as an algorithm or a recipe to prevent injury or to get stronger and faster, we would all just be doing the same damn thing. But we're not. And yet there's nuance in that and beauty in that that we're all not doing the same thing and still getting results with different people at different levels. And so sometimes I have to take a step back and say hold on a second Q, like you definitely don't have all the answers, and good things can happen in spite of not ideal or optimal training environments or optimal rehab environments. Like good things will still happen to people. And so maybe don't get, you know, your feathers too ruffled when things aren't perfect. So there's. There's my number.

Speaker 2: 18:20

One piece of advice is, as long as you're going in with that mindset that, like, no matter how bad it is, it's probably not as bad as you think, um, and then the second piece is that if you are aiming to challenge somebody or aiming to change an environment, it will always suit you better to come in with curiosity and ask lots of questions early on than it will to provide advice. No one likes someone stirring their pot, and that's in any field. No matter how far along you get, no matter how humble you are, there's always going to be some level of friction or some level of discomfort that comes with someone coming in and questioning or trying to give you unsolicited advice. But if you're coming in, you see things that maybe don't make sense to you or that you know from the research is not a good way to do it. Maybe just ask the person who's implementing it to walk you through some of the thought process of why they do it, because I've learned that in this environment there's so many things that we do that are not ideal in order to satisfy three or four or five other different pressures that are a result of the environment, whether that's from the sport coach, whether that's from class schedules, whether that's from the athlete mentality of of these young kids and what they look for, cause if you don't get buy-in then they don't really care to do any of your training.

Speaker 2: 19:42

And if you don't get any of the training intensity or intent or buy-in from the athletes, like there's so many moving pieces and parts to this whole like thing that we just or it's an organism, it's a moving amoeba, growing, ever-changing, moving target organism that there's probably some reason why a healthcare professional or coach does what they do. And it might not just be that it fits the environment better, it might just simply be that that's all they know. And if that's all that you're questioning gets you to, is that this is just what the coach believes and that's the extent of their knowledge. Okay, at least you know now, versus maybe some terrible assumptions you may have come in with it, like, oh, this person's an idiot, they don't know what they're doing. Well, find out first how willing they are to explain, you know, kind of, what they know, and then you can decide what kind of an idiot they are. But then, even after that, it's like everyone, everyone can change and grow, but how you do that, and maybe it's just a matter of you asking questions.

Speaker 2: 20:49

Enough to the point where I follow, like, um, a lot of epistemology. Have you ever heard that term? You know. So it's just the study of how you know, what you know. It's getting to the very root.

Speaker 2: 20:59

And oftentimes epistemology is applied to things like politics and religion, because when you get to the very root of it, most people don't exactly know why they do it, because it feels good and they're always going to be in the religious circles. It's like you get backed into a corner of faith eventually Right, that's what everybody at some point you just have to say like I don't know, I believe it, I don't really prove it, I can't prove it, I can't prove it. And I think sometimes in in uh training as well, like, if you can back people into their corner of like I don't know, I just believe this, that will then often open a door for more conversation, for you to, um, you know, maybe start sneaking in some of the ideas that you'd like, because oftentimes when people get backed into a corner, they're like I don't know, like I just believe it. What, why do? What do you believe you know?

Speaker 2: 21:45

And and uh, you could even ask, like, how willing would you be to experiment in this other area? I see you've been doing this linear block periodization for a really long time. What do you think of undulating periodization, like, do you have any strong beliefs in that area? And just hear them out. And even you just asking questions will probably change their mind more than you think. You may not even have to tell them something or advise them on something, or provide a paper or a podcast on something. You just asking them questions and then having to try to sit there and fidget and explain it may be enough to help them question it.

Speaker 2: 22:25

And I don't think that any of this needs to be confrontational. Your goal is never to win. Your goal is never to be the right one in a conversation. It's more just being curious and trying to put all the ideas out on the table and then allow people to kind of self-organize those ideas in a way that makes the most sense given the constraints of what they have. But if you come in and think like, oh, I know better and I could do this better, like that's going to be a very frustrating path for for everybody involved and so, uh, I would not recommend that.

Speaker 2: 22:55

I've done that many times I've, I've, I've felt my blood pressure rise. You know, uh, behind my teeth almost just you know, swimming in this, like frustration of like, oh my gosh, I can't believe this is. You know what's being said right now and you know, I don't know my one of my mentors from barbell medicine, uh, derek miles he's the lead physical therapist with Barbo medicine, has been with them for many years, was at Florida and Stanford children's uh, you know he's very, very high level clinician, um, and then something that he said to me a while back has always stuck with me. He's like, have you ever just thought of like caring less? And I think in some, some environments, like caring less about, you know, changing a situation or caring less about making someone think the way you think is extremely, extremely empowering and can help you move forward in a positive way. So hopefully that rant answers that question of how to navigate that environment. No, that's amazing.

Speaker 1: 23:50

Where did you grow up?

Speaker 2: 23:52

I grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah, originally.

Speaker 1: 23:54

I can just tell you got a great head on your shoulders. We have a book club and right now we're reading the book deep work. And I was listening to a podcast from Dr Cal Newport and he was talking about how there should be a book out there for how to think. And with you talking about right there, I was just thinking there should be a book on how to communicate within your profession. Because you know, if I have a coach that tells me, hey, we got to do some BOSU ball squats, I'm like why the fuck are we doing that? You idiot, he's not going to take that very lightly versus ask him great questions Awesome coach. So what's the rationale behind this and what am I really trying to take from this? And if you take that optimistic mindset, you're just going to get so much further in life.

Speaker 1: 24:32

And then you mentioned stirring the pot, and I grew up with three other brothers and so I just I love to stir the pot. I like to fuck with people and have fun with it. And social media to me is just like a fake world and people are so tied to their emotions with it where it's like. I can't believe this recent post I did on making fun of a couple exercises that Bron James was doing and people just lost their shit and they were just like you don't know what the hell you're doing, I'm just observing it from. You know, my dad's a shrink, so I take that psychosocial approach and I'm just like observing people. It's like we would do so much better as a society If you just opened your mind a little bit. Take it like a sport, like you know I could be a Duke fan and you know we could be having a couple of beers and say you know, north Carolina sucks and you can say Duke sucks and it's like it's just have gross and thick skin a little bit right.

Speaker 2: 25:18

Yeah, absolutely. And social media is certainly a place where it it, it. It just lends itself to being somebody that you're really not, you know. I mean, I think some people get on there and and they would never say some of these things to your face, like they would never be throwing around the insults. And then I think the other thing is too it's pretty easy to hide behind criticism. That's the other thing, and that goes back to the very first point I made.

Speaker 2: 25:47

If you disagree with a coach, like you just mentioned the BOSU balls you sure as shit better be smart enough to really back up your own. And I think I just have so much knowledge that I feel like I need to know, and there's so much uncertainty that exists even in the research world Like I said, this is a young field that we don't have all the answers yet that I'm like, okay, how confident am I in some of my beliefs? And there's going to be some wiggle room of, like I believe some things and I have some pretty good data behind some of these beliefs, but when push comes to shove, I think there's probably some other things that I'm missing here, that we don't fully have all the information. I think if you come in with that humility and just recognize well, you probably don't have all the answers either. It makes that a lot easier to navigate conflicting arguments when you come in with that humility, mm-hmm.

Speaker 1: 26:37

And so, with that kind of segue into the social media world and and not to get too much into it, but you were mentioning some stuff that increases your blood pressure Are there certain things that may you're like ah, you guys are bringing out the fucking ladder Like what's, what are some things that maybe you are a little bit more like eh, not over there, maybe a little more focused on this.

Speaker 2: 27:08

Yeah, I think the most frustration that comes with social media it comes from a lot of it stems from a lot of other areas in life and it's really just the lack of critical thinking and a lack of ability to understand truth and how we attain truth and what is true. And I think life and our human experience is one of those things where truth is an asymptotic line, where we are approaching truth but never quite touching it, and our goal is just to simply be a little bit less wrong. I don't think you can ever be right, I just think you're a little bit less wrong. I don't think you can ever be right, I just think you're a little bit less wrong. And so, when you get on social media and there's people that have very strong opinions and very strong beliefs like, for instance, you mentioned the exercises LeBron James was doing and there's people who come out of the woodworks who are likely not very experienced in strength and conditioning, there are people that are observing these things from afar. It's not their profession. They don't have, you know, they don't have 20 years of coaching experience under their belt with a variety of different teams and they they say that, like you know, they understand training and that this is good. And well, there's also the um.

Speaker 2: 28:16

I posted a little while back about post hoc fallacies that you know, we just think that if we do something and it gives us a positive result, well, that's truth. And it's like no, no, no, no, no, no, no, because you could have done 10, 20 other things that could have landed on the same result. And now what you know I think that's where you know, think about like cold remedies, right? I mean, there's all these old grandmas and wives tales of you got to have this eucalyptus and this honey and everything that goes into making this particular bacteria proliferate. And we understand the medications that are needed to make that bacteria die without killing all the other bacteria in a certain system, and it's because of this reason. But to tell someone that, no, I drank warm honey with a shot of apple cider vinegar and it made me feel better, that's their truth. Now, well, that doesn't make it physiologically plausible and doesn't necessarily make it truth, even if it worked for you. And we just talked about at the beginning of this podcast that there's plenty of great athletes doing bodybuilding all through high school, that, um, maybe our training not very ideal and not doing a very good program, but yet they succeed anyways. Does that make that program great? I don't think very many strength and conditioning or fitness professionals would say that.

Speaker 2: 29:49

The same way that if somebody was talking about diet, you know, somebody could do ketogenic diet, someone could do intermittent fasting, someone could go on a juice diet people could just starve themselves. Some people, you know, carnivore, you name it. Any any method of dieting could be your own truth. Well, hey, I lost weight, therefore it must work. And it's like well, no, but do you understand the physiology and the, the biothermics behind why you lost weight?

Speaker 2: 30:17

And and so I think, when you get into social media, so many people come out against these ideas with such strong opinions that are all formulated on just something that they've observed in their own little world, whereas science doesn't operate like that. That's not research. Like if you wanted to say that all swans are white, you know it's a, it's a common analogy that we use in research about the swan, the black swan, uh, and it's like well, sure, I think most people would agree oh yeah, you know all swans are white, but that all it would take is finding a single black swan to disprove that theory, right, just one time. So, so science operates under this falsifiability and, even though it seems like heuristics, are these common things that we fall into, um, these common beliefs, these things that we just assume are true, just because our, our environment is, um, maybe indicating that that's true? But you have to understand you're always going to be looking through your own biased lens and when you really back up and try to ascertain why these things are happening and I think you could look at LeBron James it's like, well, hey, you know, is the guy probably strong enough in this point in his career?

Speaker 2: 31:28

Maybe, and you know, was that? Was that one video clip you saw, like immediately post game, which is sometimes you know what they do in the NBA because game frequencies are so high? Sure, you know, was it just literally something that the trainer decided to do to try to mix things up? And sure, he's all involved and and really getting you know, making this seem like it's a great training stimulus, is he doing that just to just to help LeBron buy into his own mental process and have some confidence? Sure, there's, there's so many things that could be going on in that one video that doesn't make that exercise a great exercise. That doesn't make that training stimulus a great training stimulus, but yet that's the. That's the very little tiny snapshot you see on social media. And so it goes. It goes wild.

Speaker 2: 32:10

It's the same thing with in the therapy world, you know, uh, olympic athletes have these um big circle hickey marks all over their neck and shoulders and cupping, and all of a sudden, all the athletes and the gen pop and people who are just generally recreationally active think they need cupping now because they saw Michael Phelps have you know octopus suction cup marks left on him. And he's Michael Phelps. So therefore, my experience is telling me well, uh, mr Best in the world, at the event that I like to watch and things that I want to be good at, he does it. Therefore, because he does it, I must do it. I mean, isn't that like the whole idea behind Wheaties, having athletes on their on their boxes all through the nineties and early two thousands? Do you really think that like Barry Bonds, because he ate Wheaties? Was Barry Bonds? Absolutely not, but he's on the cover of a Wheaties box.

Speaker 2: 33:05

This is commercial, this is advertising. This is a tale as old as time, but I think I see so much of that on social media that gets really frustrating in people who do not know how to read research papers, who do not know how to critically think, how to critically reason, how to take in all possible things. I mean even there's there's this so many ideas where they claim that something is proven. All statistical analysis can say is we have eliminated as much noise as possible and gotten to the most likely outcome. Will there always be outliers where this is not true A thousand percent? Because that's living in the reality that we live in. That's the world, man, that's humans. We're crazy adaptable and different things can happen. So, even at the highest level of research, we're not saying proven.

Speaker 2: 34:07

And yet you have people coming out here on social media and these gurus and, oh my proven method, da-da-da-da-da-da-da, and it's like, isn't that just so sad that you have 20 years? We have decades of clinical research that still isn't to a level of claiming the audacity of proven something. You know, how is it that we know that smoking is generally bad? Right? Here's a good example Smoking a pack of cigarettes every day for the rest of your life probably isn't the best idea if you want to avoid cancer, okay. Well, I've had multiple patients and people that I've known in my life who are 80, 90 years old, who have been smoking Marlboros for as long as since they were in high school and they lived a ripe old age without lung cancer. Does that make smoking a great idea? Probably not.

Speaker 2: 34:58

And so I think you have these people who are taking these wild outliers, um, and making generalizations towards the masses, just because it's in that that is what a post-hack, post-hoc fallacy is essentially, um, you know, adrian Peterson, see a Khaleesi? Uh, aaron Rogers, you know the the two previous were ACL injuries that came back, and then Aaron Rodgers, I get a lot now of Achilles ruptures and it's like, well, aaron Rodgers was back at practice in this amount of time and it's like, yeah. But you know, what's funny is we don't hear about the 13 plus other NFL athletes that tore their Achilles in the same season. You don't hear about them, you know, and they all probably had just as good of rehab as Aaron Rodgers and just as much money to dump into their ankle as Aaron Rodgers did, and you don't even know how, what, at what level Aaron Rodgers was actually practicing it. Just, you know, it's all a social media thing and it's all for show and it's all this uh, glitz and glam and it's not reality man. So, um, once you're in it, you know you'll, you'll see some of that.

Speaker 2: 35:56

But I think it's just very frustrating when you're battling with people on the internet that have really no concept or stake in the game and they don't have the ability to critically think. To me, it's the same as a Hindu and a Christian arguing whose religion is better. There's no end to that. You have this bickering on social media and it's like well, the Christian is doing things that betters their life and they feel that their belief system makes them the person they are and gives them purpose. Well, so does the Hindu. They believe that their belief system is giving them just as much value and purpose and meaning in life. But they can't both simultaneously be correct because both of their belief systems are wildly different. Both simultaneously be correct because both of their belief systems are wildly different.

Speaker 2: 36:43

So, when it comes down to it, there's got to be some higher level of where we're finding some truth, plane, that there's an agreeance, and I think on social media it's just a lot of well, I'm right because I say so, and look at the evidence. Look at all the people who believe like me and it's like, well, yeah, but look at all the people who believe different than you and also have good. So it just goes back and forth. And that's, I think, where I get the most heated and frustrated with the social media stuff is. There's just not very many people who are willing to account for all the nuance and the research and get down to that higher plane of truth. They just want to spit what they think is true and leave it there, and so, anyways, they just want to spit what they think is true and leave it there, and so, anyways. Sorry for the ramble, but that's a that's a topic that is a near and dear to my, to my little epistemological thinking brain.

Speaker 1: 37:26

I love it, I love everything there. I will disagree with you on one part, because I was sick a couple of weeks ago and I had some whiskey and warm water and I got better.

Speaker 2: 37:36

Exactly there you go, drink some alcohol which we know to be, you know, somewhat poisonous for the body, and you should be, you should be totally better it's a perfect carcinogen right there.

Speaker 1: 37:46

there's one question I do have for you, before we we call it a day, is it was referencing your, your post on adhesions. I want to give a little educational part of that, because adam is a great therapist and I really, you know, align with him because he likes to stir the bee's nest and a good thinker, I believe. But unfortunately today there are a lot of outdated textbooks that are, quote unquote, current within, you know, a new trainer's mentality, and so you read like a NASM or an ACE and they're going to be talking about you got a foam roll to break up these adhesions and if you don't do that, you're pretty much going to die. You know, go right there. But could you give us a breakdown on that post and also talk a little bit more about adhesions and what that phenomenon is?

Speaker 2: 38:29

Yeah, absolutely. And I would also reference people to John Hodges, nev PT, nevada PT. Uh, john Hodges, nev PT, nevada PT, and just look up Nev PT, n E V P T. Adhesions he wrote a paper, uh several years back now probably close to five years that that goes and talks about this adhesions and what people mean when they when they're talking about adhesions. But that'd be a great reference for folks who really want to read into that. Um, but you're right, Um, for folks who really want to read into that, but you're right.

Speaker 2: 39:01

Manual therapists there's a really great manual therapist just down the road here who's at Duke and he talks about and I think him and his name's Chad him and Adam Meekins. They did a good podcast debate over manual therapy not too long ago and it's interesting because even this gentleman who's a massive proponent of manual therapy in the field of and when I say manual therapy I'm talking about like hands-on care, like pushing a thumb or foam rolling, could maybe kind of fit into that. Usually, manual therapy is something that's a clinician or provider is putting their hands on an individual and performing some kind of a therapeutic thing, whether that's chiropractic, like backcracky type stuff, whether that's a massage gun, a Graston tool, a cupping, a dry needling or just hands on different forms or methods of massage, right, that's all embodying kind of this manual therapy idea. But even he understood that, listen, manual therapy is likely valuable, but we have great evidence to show that it does not cause tissue change. We create sham studies where we literally are rubbing ultrasound on people with the machine turned off right, just literally rubbing a piece of metal over their ouchy spots with the machine totally turned off, and they will report that things feel better. So there's way more going on than tissue change and when people do manual therapy, I have no issue with it.

Speaker 2: 40:40

The two biggest issues with manual therapy that I have and I think Adam Meekins would likely agree with some of this and that is that there oftentimes becomes this relationship where you need me to fix you, you need me to do something to you, you need me to fix you, you need me to do something to you. That I have a significant problem with. When we are in an era where we are trying to promote self-efficacy and autonomy among patients and people to take care of themselves, and when I change that relationship to no, no, no, I'm the master, you need me to fix you. That takes a lot of the onus and responsibility out of the hands of the people who may be able to fix themselves essentially and have more control over their lives. And when you keep taking control out of people's lives whether that's financially, whether that's stress, whether that's over their own health, that's a very fast road for a negative mental environment for that individual. And when they constantly feel that they are the victim of their problem and they're also the need, the needer of a risk or their, they become the recipient of a fix versus having control over that themselves. I think that's probably not a great situation in relationship to create between a provider and a patient. I want to empower people to feel better about taking care of themselves, and if I'm not doing that at some level, that's a problem for me, and so I think that alone is an issue.

Speaker 2: 42:10

And then the other idea is that, like kind of along the same lines, that people think that they need it. They need it to be healthy, they need this massage or they need this foam roller in order to perform, and you could even take that further they need some massive, extensive warmup in order to be able to move and lift weights or to run, and I think that's also just as kind of, can be just as harmful. It's almost like a movement screen, like with the FMS and other stuff, and maybe I'll get some just as harmful. Um, it's almost like a movement screen, like with the FMS and other stuff, and maybe I'll get some flack for this. But it's like we keep creating so many barriers of entry, whether that's oh, you know, your muscle is tight. Yeah, like you need me to fix that for you. Oh, you got knots here. Whoa man, you're messed up. Like here, come here, let me, let me try to fix you. Or, oh, geez, like you can't do a, a squat, like, well, we're not going to, we're going to going to put a bar on your back. Like you're going to fold and go into snap city. Or, oh God, like, don't, don't do that exercise until you you've done, you know, a really proper warmup.

Speaker 2: 43:20

You just keep making this thing sound like it's this like crazy, scary thing, and we already know from uh, hours of participation in even maybe, something that is typically considered less safe, like CrossFit in the weightlifting community or in the, the exercise and fitness community. I know CrossFit sometimes gets a really bad rap because people you know, bag on how dangerous it is and it's like, well, actually like going and playing pickup soccer with your mates after school, or or going and playing pickup basketball with some friends on the court is like five or six times more likely to cause an injury than doing something like CrossFit. So, like this, all this stuff really isn't all that dangerous, and I think when you add manual therapy into the mix of like you need me to fix you, you need this thing to be fixed in order to do this, like that's just continuing to add barriers to something that people don't need to have barriers in order to do and that I have a problem with. I have no issue if somebody is hurting me, putting my hands on you to let you know I care, I'm feeling the thing that that you're saying it hurts here and I'm putting my hand there to feel around for anything that might, um, make you confident that I give a shit about your knee right now, as well as me being confident in you know the severity of this issue that there's nothing that's a red flag, or you know I'm doing my diligence.

Speaker 2: 44:35

Sure, I'll put my hands on you or like, hey, man, your back is just flaring up on you right now, like you're just kind of in spasm, sure, I'll throw an elbow in it and just let you keep lifting today, or to get through like the run, or to get through practice. Sure, like, throw an elbow in and I just say, look, I'm not changing your back, buddy, like what I'm doing right here and all the foam rollers going to do all of the dry needling, all this stuff, it's just changing your sensitivity to this area. I, you know, I'll tell them, like, look, I'll do this, it's going to feel better, but this ain't a fix and it's not changing the tissue of your back. But if it helps you move better, man, like I'm down, like let's do it, but this is temporary, this is not something you need, this is not something that you know we want to keep coming back to again and again and again as a solution. Like, at some point we need to have a conversation of load management.

Speaker 2: 45:19

At some point we need to have a conversation of why does this keep occurring? How are you sleeping? How are you eating? What's your life like? What's your stress? Like those things I want to have conversations about. Versus. Hey, let me just continue to tell you what a genius I am and make myself look awesome because I can just make your pain go away with my magic voodoo hands. And now you need me and you can pay me for the rest of your career to put my magic voodoo hands on you and make you feel better. And it's like way bigger, bigger fish to fry in your you know pan of of uh athletic development than me just throwing an elbow in your QL. You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1: 45:54

That's great. I'll put this in the article because or the podcast, because there's a good one on physio network and it talks about you're mentioning john hodges from nevada pt and it gets into all how to use it and stuff. So that's, that's great stuff, right there yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 46:09

And, and you can even look um, I can't remember who hosted that podcast. It might have actually been on adam meekins podcast with chad cook is who I was referencing, who's at Duke, and just a couple of great, you know good thinkers, good clinicians, who I think, even though they stand atop what may seem like different mountains, um, there's a lot more in common across that conversation, uh, and and I think they do a good job discussing, like, where manual therapy and where these things have have place. And it's interesting because you're listening to someone who's literally one of the leaders in manual therapy who's saying like no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, this, this stuff isn't necessary, it doesn't, it doesn't change the tissue, it's just we are working with humans. And because you're working with complicated emotional beings, like sometimes, like some of this manual therapy stuff hammers some of these like complex emotional side of people, and there's not too much wrong with that. Where we get into troubles is the narratives behind it, like you said, and, oh, this is doing something for you. I mean that that's where the danger falls. So, anyways, hopefully that helps people listening If, if you know, especially for the strength coaches that think that, uh, you know, maybe they hear someone in a, in a white coat, or someone that has these you know chiropractic degrees or has a physical therapy degree that are saying these types of massages and oh, you need to get this muscle released.

Speaker 2: 47:30

No, no wonder why this athlete is hurt. This thing is tight. It's like whoa. It is so much more complicated than that. It's not as simple as just like yeah, I can pinpoint this thing that needs fixing. And listen to me because I'm a genius. Research can't do it. I doubt the guru down the street can do it.

Speaker 1: 47:48

But Nassim says knee valgus is why their squats messed up.

Speaker 2: 47:52

Yeah, right. And then we look at literally every successful Olympic weightlifter and watch them go into dynamic knee valgus on just about every lift, and yet they got gold medals hanging around their neck. So I want to do that.

Speaker 1: 48:02

Three times your body weight.

Speaker 2: 48:03

Yeah, yeah, exactly so, oh good, groups of people that you've been involved with. It is an ever growing field. It's young. With it is an ever growing field, it's young. And you know, unfortunately we're we're working against some of the more ingrained cultural things that are in this profession and as new information comes out and as we get better at sharing that information, I think you know it's improving, but it's a slow moving ship.

Speaker 1: 48:30

Absolutely, and so you're. You're the assistant strength coach at UNC. Now does that entail working with all of the teams, or is it more football specific?

Speaker 2: 48:39

It's really just football Um. So there's at universities like that where it's like an FBS level kind of that top tier level in the NCAA division one football Um. If you are a football strength coach, even if you're an assistant football strength coach, that's really the only team you're going to be working with. Then there's like, if you're the basketball um at the university of North Carolina or Duke, these like very storied programs that is your only team as well as just the basketball team. Outside of that, once you get into the Olympic sports track and field, swimming, lacrosse, soccer, baseball, wrestling, you name it anything that's really not football or basketball those coaches typically will have two, three, maybe even up to like four teams at a division one level Um, or maybe even more sometimes depending on the size of the team, like we have at the university of North Carolina.

Speaker 2: 49:38

There are a lot more sports available that are sanctioned sports by the school Um. We have like gymnastics, fencing, cheerleading um, and then multiple categories of swim. So there there's just a lot more sports. So the Olympic coaches have to take on a few extra teams, even though those teams are very small. You still have to take on more teams, but with me just football. So about 120 to 130 guys give or take throughout the year, so it ends up still being a pretty full group of people, especially because football is a rough sport and injuries are going to happen. So there's plenty of operations, plenty of injuries, whether that's chronic things popping up or just acute little things that happen just as the nature of the sport goes, and the rigorous of training, training or maybe even guys come in from the transfer portal fresh off of surgeries and and and we're really their first touch point of rehabilitation in hopes that they'll get back to the level they were previously. So it keeps us pretty busy, even with just football.

Speaker 1: 50:42

I just did an interview with a kinesiology student at Oregon state and a lot of the people who follow us we have pretty good following online and they'll they'll be reaching out their newer strength coaches. So a very common question is like you know, everyone asks how much can you make? And so I don't know if we can talk about like the ranges from, because there's you know, the famous not famous, but you know it's well known in the coaching world. The guy from you know alabama, he makes like 1.2, and so people come in thinking like, oh great, I'm gonna make a million my first couple years and it's like, yeah, not so fast there right, yeah, that is uh extremely, extremely rare, absolutely but I also think it would be interesting to hear from, because you're like an entrepreneur in the sense that you have your online and you have other streams of revenue other than just your your coaching, so that would be fascinating to talk about.

Speaker 2: 51:33

Yeah, yeah, we can dive into that and, and I would say strength and conditioning is not something that you will be making a lot of money at at first, and and it's so cliche and and I think that, um, you could say the same about this same principle in so many other professions, but you do have to love it. The same about this same principle in so many other professions, but you do have to love it. And I don't think that's necessarily to say that in order to stay in it or to keep your sanity, you have to love it, but I do think that your life will be significantly more enjoyable if you love what you're doing, that you can dump your passion to this versus chasing the money side of it. Because I think most strength and conditioning coaches even the example you use, the gentleman at Alabama or some of these larger schools I mean even our head strength and conditioning coach he's sitting just under $600,000 a year as the head at UNC, which is great. I mean, that's a very handsome salary to do strength and conditioning. But every one of these people will tell you that they spent many, many years doing things completely for free or spending many hours without receiving a whole lot of compensation. And getting into football especially is very military-esque, where you are required to be on call, essentially and most of us do not know our schedules 24 to 48 hours ahead of time. It can change in the blink of the eye and that can be really challenging when it comes to having family, when it comes to trying to plan vacation time off, when you're looking to plan even your next time you get to take a trip to the grocery store. You know like little things can get very challenging in this industry and you don't necessarily go in thinking that you're going to be wildly successful from a financial perspective. But if you love what you do and you're passionate about working with athletes, it really does pay for itself in a lot of ways, and I think as you chase value athletes, it really does pay for itself in a lot of ways and I think as you chase value, money will follow.

Speaker 2: 53:41

For me, talking to a lot of other physical therapists that are in college football and do not work primarily in the training room, and that is kind of a unique place for me, where a lot of college football or even just college athletics rely on athletic trainers for rehabilitation or if the university is tied to a hospital system, like it is at the University of North Carolina or Duke. Nc State has a similar system and many other universities across the country will have that. Where there's a college of medicine or a hospital that's also attached to that university, a lot of the medical care is outsourced to physical therapists or chiropractors or orthopedic surgeons that are an extension of the football team or the university via the hospital system that's associated with it and that gets a little messy. When it comes to the continuity of care, it's hard to coordinate with someone that may only be seeing your athletes once every two months, or maybe they have no idea who they are and they're just seeing them on a one-off consultation and will not be responsible for the care of that athlete when they go back to the facility. So much it's difficult to pass along the medical documentation in a timely manner to where there's a good continuity of care and everyone's on the same team. So it does easily become siloed in that kind of an environment and where I come in and others like me is trying to keep more of the healthcare in-house or at least have a little bit better continuity of care between all the players that are, you know, between the sport coaches, the athletic trainers, the strength coaches and the athletes. Having people in that mix with these licenses to do rehabilitation keeps it a little closer. And so my role with UNC is as a strength coach primarily. But they hired me on knowing that I was also a physical therapist, in hopes that I could help to kind of bridge the gap, if you will, in some way where there's a little bit more streamlined continuity of care and a little bit better thought process going into athletes that are hurt, injured and being able to manage things as they pop up in the moment with the weight room or on the field and so um, so just a cog in the wheel that keeps the the, the whole thing turning.

Speaker 2: 55:57

But people that work in this space, you know um, probably somewhere between like 70 and 90 K is is to be expected as like a, uh, even like entry point um at this level. Now if you go down to division two or you know FCS or like a lower tier, even in division one with football, you could expect lower pay and strengthening conditioning even at the college level, you know. I mean I've seen salaries like you know, 40 K is is pretty standard for like an Olympic strength coach coming in and you can climb the ladder and get you know as you move from school to school to school. You can kind of continue arguing for a little bit higher pay raise the longer and more experience that you get, the more teams you've worked at when improving that value, but certainly not glamorous early on, and that's just a part of it and that's why I say you do have to love it, you do have to enjoy it, you have to be a student of the game and dump your passions into it because it will not pay you as quickly as some other professions.

Speaker 2: 57:01

But you watch people that chase money and try to get real flashy and fancy and sell things and sometimes they'll lose sight of why they ended up doing it in the first place and where the passion really comes from. And so for me, like on the side, those side hustles and things like that I ran my own physical therapy clinic prior to taking the job at UNC and that's kind of where some of that comes from, and working with Barbell Medicine allowed me to still see clients that were not football players. I like to diversify my clinical experience beyond just the athletes. I think it gives you a fresh perspective. And then I think the people that come to see me that are not, you know, football athletes appreciate some of my perspective, in that I work with athletes so they enjoy some of the training and some of the exercise selections or they want to jump higher, run faster and I'm able to program some of that um, versus maybe typical uh, standard, just gym, you know, or barbell work alone.

Speaker 1: 58:03

So do you do some of the seminars for them?

Speaker 2: 58:08

No, I do not. Um, that was in conversation when I initially came on with Barbo Medicine. But boy, football is very demanding, to say the least, medicine, and so that is no chance that I'm even leaving the facility for longer than maybe 10 hours at a time, just to come home and try to sleep and then I'm right back to the facility.

Speaker 1: 58:39

During the season is pretty intense, so, uh, haven't been able to present with them at the seminars in a while a podcast talking about the seminars that I think newer coaches should go to, and that was one of them, so that's why I was referencing that, but absolutely they're.

Speaker 2: 58:53

They're awesome, they're great. I mean great people to go and chat with and learn, and even if you only listen to their podcasts or listen to recordings of some of these seminars, um, you know that that's a big piece of just interacting with that type of information, Um, but yeah, great, great, great resource for sure.

Speaker 1: 59:10

Well, this was a pleasure, doc. I appreciate you taking your time. I know you're busy, and where can people find you?

Speaker 2: 59:15

Yeah, if you're. If you're looking to find me, instagram is a great place. It's coach underscore Q underscore physio. If you just look up Q Willie, you'll probably find me there on Instagram. I'm pretty active there and put out a lot of content and other than that, you know you can always book a consult through Barbell Medicine and request me as a coach, if you're you know, looking for help in that realm.

Speaker 1: 59:37

I don't know if you ever get this doppelganger. Who do people say you look like?

Speaker 2: 59:41

Oh boy, I'm really curious to hear who you say I look like. So the one that's probably the most striking to me was old Jim McMahon, back in the day when he was a young football player, because I started yeah, yeah you know that that everybody says I look like him, who you got.

Speaker 1: 59:57

I'm going with Christian McCaffrey oh see, I knew it.

Speaker 2: 1:00:01

Every see, I get that one too. I thought about, um, when I was here before in North Carolina, I'd wear like Carolina Panthers gear and I'd get that Christian McCaffrey thing when he was out here. But he's that's, that's's a pleasure. He's one of my all time favorite players. Currently in San Francisco 49ers is my team anyways.

Speaker 1: 1:00:17

So I'll take that I get, I get Woody Harrelson, so that's that's awesome.

Speaker 2: 1:00:23

That's so good. I love that.

Speaker 1: 1:00:25

All right, Doc. Enjoy the rest of your Saturday and have a great day.

Speaker 2: 1:00:28

Awesome, thank you.