Ep.213: Dr. Brian Romero on Helping Clients Move Better

Welcome to Trainers Talking Truths. This is an ISSA podcast dedicated to exploring the fitness industry and then covering the wise and house of personal training. To do that, we'll talk directly to the industry experts and certified trainers. We'll dig into fitness programming, business tactics, nutrition, and more. You'll even hear from current training clients who offer insight from the other side. We've got the fitness industry covered, so turn up the volume and enjoy the drive. Hello world and welcome back for another ISSA podcast Trainers Talking Truths. It's your host Jenny Lebel here with one of my favorite people lately. My very own physical therapist. I brought you guys somebody very special, Dr. Brian Romero. Welcome B. We've got to be here. Super excited to have you on it. I don't know why like you've been working with me for what now three months, something like that maybe a little longer. I met him at F-45, you guys. I was working out with my friend and he was there and I was like, "Oh, I want to come in because I've had some issues." And he was like, "Yeah, we definitely need to look at you." And I don't know why it took me like three months to be like, "Why have I not brought you on the podcast?" Because he has so much great information to share with everybody. So I'm glad you're here. But give these guys a little background on you. Who are you? How did you get into this field physical therapy fitness, all the things? Yeah, so I got into this space. So actually by licensed you're on the chiropractor. I just use a lot of non-traditional chiropractic methods, I guess. And so I guess if we can go way back, I played baseball my entire life basically. I was an athlete growing up. And I had my fair share of injuries going through high school and college. I think at one point I had a pretty significant injury that had side-blend me and took me out of the game for a good bit. And I just felt like going through the process of trying to recover, going through rehab and going through different providers to try to get the right care. I felt like I was just mismanaged or mist-handled and took a really long time to get back. Fortunately, I finally came across a provider that kind of does essentially what we do here now at Repsworth Medicine. He built a more custom program to me and what my needs were and what my end goal and my end result was. And that was exactly what I needed to get back on the field. So, going through that essentially, I realized I was like, "Man, I love this. I love this. If I can give back to athletes or even just general population people that like to be active, and help them get the results they're looking for and help them get back to their activities, that would be one of the best things I could do. And I'd love to turn that into my career." So that's what essentially, as I'm going through school, led me into getting to chiropractic. Now, most people, when they think chiropractic, they think popping your bones, you're getting adjusted. And we get that a lot of people reach out and they're like, "How can you crack my back?" Yeah, sure, we can absolutely do that, but that's not the end-all PR. It's a tool that we like to use. And that's my background in straight-to-conditioning, my background in athletics and whatnot. It's shaped my practice and how I like to utilize all these different tools, methods from physical therapy, chiropractic, straight-to-conditioning, movement, exercise. These are all things that are incorporated into the practice so that we can get people back to things that they love doing. Absolutely. I'm going to say that's one thing that I liked about you. When I first met you, you were at a table, right? So I didn't see your setup, but I went into the space that you're currently in about to move into your new space. We'll talk about your business in a little bit here. But the current space that you're in is inside of a small group training studio. And you had, that's one thing that stood out to me immediately when I walked in. You had your own rig and all these weights and plates and cable setup. And then of course you had tables and you had your own little back office space with your little special table that I wanted to tell everybody about. But you had all these tools where I was like, oh snap, we're actually going to be working out versus I've been to people before I told you, and I think you actually know the guy that I used to go to, he's great. But it was focused more on not doing movement to help me feel better and move better. It was more relieving the pain from the issues I was having. So it was a lot of tens. It was a lot of meddling and you know, foam rolling. And here, let me show you a stretch. Nobody goes home and does these stretches. Myself included. So that was my pain point. I was like, I'm not going to do this by myself. I want you to make me do it right here in front of me. That's what I'm paying you for. So you have a very different approach to it, which is awesome. And I love how you incorporate that whole actual practical element of it. Like you're out here trying to move. What do you need to be able to do to perform? And you use a lot of corrective exercise, which is going to resonate with our audience a lot. Because that's what we do a lot of fitness professionals. You don't have to be a doctor of chiropractic care or a physical therapist or anything guys who do corrective exercise. And that's the focus of his practice. So speaking of, let's talk a little bit about what you do. And then we'll talk about how you built your business. Because that can apply to everybody. But when you're doing assessments, like my second, not my first time with you. So I need you guys to hear that. My first time with him was not spent doing assessments. It was him evaluating me. We were moving so he could see me move. So he was doing his own assessments and his brain. Right. But for me, I was like, oh, I actually feel like I moved. I feel like my shoulder is moving better, etc. Already. And then the next time we came in, oh my gosh, it was a battery of assessments, not in a boring way. But talk to us about how you use these assessments as tools and what kind of assessments do you usually do for a lot of your clients? Yeah. So the most important assessment, I think is definitely the movement screening. So a movement analysis. I kind of break things down into five pillars, essentially, when I'm looking at somebody dealing with an injury anyways. One is making sure that they have adequate range of motion. So pillar number one, range of motion. You know, our second pillar is do you have control, right? You have stability of your movement. Our third pillar is strength. So understanding, are you strong enough to do these things and handle what you're trying to do? The fourth one is a neurological assessment, which is a little more a doctor if you want to call it that right. Like we're assessing nervous system a little more. And then the fifth is movement. And so I personally think, you know, they all kind of go hand in hand, right? If we have a lack of range of motion, it's going to end a movement, which hinders your control, which hinders your strength and someone supports, right? So a movement assessment, 100% we're doing every single time, especially if you're trying to do something like running or weightlifting or volleyball, right? Like we need to see how your shoulder functions and how you achieve these things. So that is definitely one of my favorite things to do is assess somebody's movement. But after that, once we get a good idea of, you know, how they move, we also start to get a more specific reading and measurement on this person's strength. The person's range of motion and it's not just an eyeball. We use technology. We use. We use technology to assess, you know, an accurate number on the range of motion when we're taking an arm through flexion or more testing grip strength or abduction, adduction like these different, you know, different directions and strength. And you realize all of that and gather data so that we can have a baseline to track and make sure that we're progressing. Absolutely. So I want to stop and pause for a second, guys, because there's, you mentioned the technology that you use, right? You're not just eyeballing it. You're not using a go neometer, right? That's old school, like, think, you know, Christopher, not Christopher Columbus, whoever else, not just people when they navigated with maps, right? So you used a lot of cool tools. Not only have you used cameras with me where you set up a camera and then literally played it back for me so I could see myself moving and we can see me shifting or moving or compensating in some way, which is super valuable, right? Even without numbers, that's valuable right there. See, you, oh, you see that you've never seen yourself squat from behind. Nobody has, right? But there's also a tool that you used for range of motion, for example, and strength where I pressed into it. I'm doing certain movements like external rotation or internal rotation at my shoulder with my elbow bent at 90 degrees. The back of my palm or the front of my palm is pressing into something to measure my strength on one side versus the other. And we found some valuable data. Can you tell us a little bit about those types of tools that you use? Yeah, yeah. So the camera, the system that I was using that is essentially the track moving it in it, you know, pops up with all these little spots on the body and it measures different angles and all these things. But when someone is going through again, like something is, let's just call a squat assessment, right? We go through these squat assessments and you can see, you know, competitions. You can see when people fly or they're, or they're favoring one side or maybe, you know, they're hipstropping or, you know, knees are collapsing and we can slowly things down. I think using something even as simple as your phone, you know, to take a squat and look at it from every single position and slow it down, right? And you can learn a lot from looking at that and you can see these competitions that are happening. And, you know, with an naked eye, you may be able to see something and catch it in a moment, but it's always valuable to go back, slow it down, and just get a better understanding of how this person is moving and what's going on with them, right? And how they're achieving movement and how their system works. So that 100% I think is absolutely invaluable. If people should be using that, even on yourself, right? Like, as someone that does this every day, I can't see how I'm squatting every day, right? So I do that for myself too, and I pick up on things that if I feel, you know, something bothering me in my knee or my low back, like I break it down on myself, which is great. And then the device that we use for testing strength, right? Like, again, it's so hard to do that without technology. And I think that's where technology can be very valuable. And, you know, you get an exact understanding of what is the force output, what is the strength that this person is putting out for a game we can use you as an example, having a shoulder issue. We could see some of the difference inside the side and understand, like, yeah, this is probably a big reason why the shoulders are still very good when you're trying to perform something, you know, like a powerful, you know, movement like when you're hitting a volleyball, right? So those sort of things, like, it's good to have an understanding because now we know what to attack in what areas we should focus on when it comes to strengthening or stabilizing or improving mobility, right? And now we can get very specific on our plan when you're in the office. Absolutely. Will you say the name of that tool that you use for strength so that I can put it in the description for everybody if they want to check it out? Yeah, so the tool is called Bald, V-A-L-D, and then the other movement assessment tool that I use is Connecticut Sense. Cool. Guys, I will put that in the, I'm running it down. That'll, I'll put that in the description if you guys want to check those out. I also used Demo 2. We've had those guys on our podcast before. They also have a movement based app that I used very heavily with my youth sports performance group where I could do it on my phone and it used AI to write up reports for people and gave you printouts and all kinds of stuff too. So there's lots of different devices or apps out there like that, but I'll write these ones that he's using. So you guys can check them out. Start to explore these types of things because to your point, you just said strength is super important to assess for a lot of people. And in the gym, a lot of our clients want or potentially should be increasing their strength. But doing a one rep max, or even a multiple rep max assessment with most people, like the app, think of like you walk into a library and you just point at somebody. Most people are not going to want to do a true one rep max assessment, let alone a multiple rep assessment. And it's tedious. It's like, they will leave that session saying, oh my god, if this is what this is, I'm not interested. But you can get a lot of information from just this simple, it's a handheld device you guys. Super, super cool. You had a couple different face plates that you can put on it depending on what you're pushing into it. And you just go. So definitely explore these types of tools if you are utilizing assessments, which as fitness professionals, we absolutely should be. So find ways to make this easier. But speaking of Doc, tell us, if you're going to gather all this data, talk to these guys about reassessment and what you actually need to use this data slash, explain it to somebody, right? How do you do that? Yeah. So, again, if someone's coming in with an injury, right? The assessments and the things we're doing are very specific and targeted to that, right? So as we, as you're going through your program, right? Or for the trainers or anyone, as you're going through, you know, working with your clients, you, you know, let's just call it a benchmark halfway through the program, halfway through whatever it is that you guys are doing, we reach, we check, right? We got to see that there's progress being made in that, you know, we're moving the right direction. And if not, then we got to pivot, right? We have to, we got to change the program. We got to change either volume and density, all these different things, but it's good to know. And if, you know, if you're on the right track, great, keep going, right? You can at least know that you have something to lean back on to make sure that you are moving the right direction. It's just nice to have that understanding right? And go back through, through your movement assessment again and see how this person is improving. And it's really cool to see, honestly. And sometimes I think even for a client, you know, and this probably goes for so many where they're going through a program and it's two, three months in and they're like, you know, I don't know if I see that much change or I don't know if I see that much of a difference. And then you take them back to their assessment and you check their strength and they're up, you know, however much, you know, let's call it 10, 15 pounds or there, or their movement is significantly better than before. You go, well, there's improvement being made. It's maybe just not as apparent to you, you know, and then meet it whether it's in the mirror, whether, you know, you're trying to change physique or, you know, whatever. But, you know, you can go back to that and say, there's progress being made here. It's, you know, these other factors will start to come in and improve as well, just take time. You know, obviously with fitness and training, with rehab, all these things, it does take time to progress and improve. So absolutely. And yeah, speaking of it, taking time and people being consistent to see those results, I know I see you once a week, but I started twice a week. I'm sure you have people that you see more often, right? Sometimes three times a week, four times a week, depending on their schedule, availability and what they're dealing with. I'm sure listeners a little bit about what your thoughts are on helping people be consistent. Like I talked about in the beginning, most people say, oh, just go do this, right? Trainers do it to you. Oh, just go do this, Brian. And they come back two weeks later and they haven't done it not once. And you're like, why not? What's the value in helping people be consistent? IE comes see me and I'll help you do it. Yeah. I think one, it definitely helps with accountability. But I think even before that, like having the conversation with somebody about, you know, what do you want out of this? Like how can I make this the best experience for you? And like at the end of this, you know, what would make you happy that you did it, right? And, you know, for most people in the fitness industry, anyways, like they either want to, you know, get stronger or they want to, you know, lose weight or, you know, there's many different things, many reasons why they're coming out to fitness professional or even for myself, right? The biggest thing is like, you know, to get that result, to get that, to hit that goal, we have to do these things. And if we're not consistent, we won't do it. And it'll be a waste of time, right? We wasted your time by time. And then at the end of the day, it starts to rust, you know, professionals. It starts to look bad on us because we didn't get them the result that they looked for. Right? And then they say, well, this isn't working. And the content, it didn't work. Right? And it's just that we were off the plan, right? And so sticking to a plan, having that communication with a client is so important. And I think that's a standard, right? That's something I absolutely like to have, you know, a conversation about it. And what are we working for? And we're working towards and how can we get there? And setting up the plan, right? And being like, hey, we're the professionals. This is how this is going to give you the best result. So that's the biggest thing I think is communicating that. And then second, you know, being the person that I know holds somebody accountable. And that helps them stay consistent, right? And like continuing to be there, you know, they're, they're, they're, they're truly or so to speak, right? Like showing them their progress and, you know, staying in their corner and making sure that they know that they're doing a good job, right? And lifting them up during the process, because it's not easy. And for some people, it's an entirely new experience that they're probably very overwhelmed with. And I think, you know, making sure that they know they're, they're doing a good job and that you're on their team to help them out. And I think that helps the consistency in general. Absolutely. And one thing I will give you some kudos here. I will call out for you is that I had shoulder pain when I came to see you and it related to my hip, right? It's all connected. And more bodies make big X's all over the place. So my left hip and my right shoulder were my issue. And when after two, I think set two, three sessions with you, I didn't have pain sleeping, which means I actually slept through the night and didn't wake up noticing my shoulder hurt. That alone, I was like, oh my gosh, it's so good. So like, and that goes with not just you, but like anybody guys, if you help somebody move better, feel better, get out of chronic pain. Even if you'd really reduce it by 30% and they notice a difference, that alone is often enough to keep people going and coming back and doing what they're supposed to do because nobody wants to be in pain. I think a lot of people, and I'm sure that relates to my next question for you to be is, I think a lot of people live in chronic pain. And they think that's just the way it's supposed to be. Like I live without chronic pain. So when I had it, I was like, what is this madness? Is this how the other half lives? This is terrible. And there's people out there that think this is normal. Everybody feels this. Everybody has low back pain. Everybody has neck pain. No, that's not normal, right? And you can help them get out of that or feel what it's like to not. I have that old, my goodness, game changer, game changer. So speaking of, what do you think most fitness professionals, I mean, you work in a gym, you see fitness professionals working all the time. What do you think most fitness professionals are missing in gym settings when they're coaching, training, showing people exercises, coaching form that ends up sending them to you? - Like, are there clients? - Yeah. - Yeah, that's definitely loaded. (laughing) - Tell us everything you're doing wrong. - Yeah. No, I think so many, I mean, in general, the fitness professionals that I have had the experience of working with do a fantastic job. I think something that we can all improve on is just giving somebody a better foundation and understanding. Obviously, coaching is communication, right? The better we communicate, the better this person gets the message and understand what we want them to do. So in certain settings, like a group setting, right? Where something is maybe more faster-paced, it's hard to obviously jump in the middle, not in coach them up, right? More one-on-one personal training type stuff is definitely, that's where you can slow it out. - Yeah. - There's, again, there's many things that we can always improve on and we should always be improving on, but I think if there's one thing that I find most people have the hardest time understanding and maybe also hard time coaching is proper bracing mechanics. And it sounds super, super, like not exciting and super simple, but I think it's the simple thing is that it makes such a big difference. So many people that come in, I would say 90% of the clients that we help have a little back pain. - Yeah. - And usually it's, I pick something up wrong, right, dead left and wrong, I squatted, did something wrong, and then when we break it down and we assess them, I can, again, I'd probably say majority of them have the inaccurate bracing mechanics. So breathing properly, you know, locking everything down into our belly in our core, creating more pressure in our abdomen to then perform the movement and keep ourselves in a safer position, give ourselves the best chance. It's probably the number one thing from a coaching side of things. I review that with almost every single client and almost every single one does have, like, a lot of coaching I can do with them. Again, I know it's not exciting, but I think if in general everyone can improve on bracing and teaching someone how to do that properly during movement and having that become more natural experience, like without a doubt, people will have a better, a better experience with exercise and will limit some of their injuries for sure. I would say that's probably the biggest one. Nice. Well, you worked with me from day one on my breathing. You saw me breathing. You're like, what is happening here? Like my ribs don't expand. It was all in my diaphragm. And you taught me how to breathe. I call it my food baby, right? When I push out lower in my abs, I can make a food baby all day, but I don't breathe that way. And you've taught me a lot about that. And as a bodybuilder and somebody who gets on stage where core control is a big part of what we do to control your midsection, it's been a game changer for me. It's something to work on in my yoga classes three or four days a week. You taught me how to do my child's pose slightly differently with my legs underneath me. So it forces me to expand the backside of my body and my back ribs. Like little things like that, you guys that if you teach somebody to do it and then every time you get a chance, do it with them. So like you said, it becomes easier, more consistent and then they don't have to think about it. They just do it that way. Again, game changer because most of us turns out, I don't know how to breathe. (laughs) - Yeah, yeah. And in cautionary breathing, you can go down and grab all the breathing rest of those so many things, you know, nervous system regulation. And, you know, again, breathing and being able to stay by the body, just so many things. But, you know, I think that's, that's hands down such an important factor. And, you know, that can just help set the foundation for somebody to progress them, you know, onto the next thing. But like you said, coaching someone on that and continuing to nail it. And especially for bodybuilders, honestly, I would say the bodybuilders I worked with have the hardest time because bodybuilders vacuum, right? And you guys are top-of-the-op, you guys, it's like you pull in and you want to get big up top. And again, that's part of the sport. But when it comes to the training aspect, it's like, all right, now we have to make sure that our body is actually on the right spot, stabilize strong to move some weight, right? Especially, you know, some of the bigger guys are moving through real weight around it. You have to protect your spine, you know, so you can stay healthy and continue to perform. - For sure, yeah. So check into it, look into it if you're interested, guys, but yeah, core bracing is super, super important. No, let's-- - Oh, go ahead. - I'll give one more thing on that. If you guys are interested in a program that is nails and basically all around breathing, DNS, amazing, amazing program. They have a DNS fitness section and also for, you know, obviously, any like, you know, doctors out there, Cairo, PT's, you know, any other docs that do help with movement. Obviously, there is a clinical aspect of it too. There's the DNS for docs and there's DNS for fitness professionals. So I know for a fact it would give you guys a lot of, a lot of good insight in just coaching and understanding how to also walk them up through that. So I think without a doubt, you guys should check that out. Perfect. I will add that to the description and the notes for everybody to check out as well. Thank you for that. We love a good recommendation. No, that's actually a great segue. Oh my gosh, that's like we've done this before. So you love continuing education. In a couple of months that I've been working with you, you've been gone like two or three times, which I will give you a pass because you were like, oh, I'm going to a conference or I'm going to a seminar or something and like you would travel for these, you would travel all over the country for these, which is awesome. And sometimes you get to take your family with you. But I know you're big on continuing education and continuing to learn more, find things that you're interested in and dig into it. What do you feel the value is for you, attending and traveling for such events and gathering information? Yeah. Man, I mean, the best investment you can make is in yourself and in your knowledge. You're going to be as good as you want to be by putting yourselves in those positions and in rooms with other people that know a ton of things and you can gain knowledge from. So I think continued education, one, it's required for us anyways to continue with our license. But even without the requirement, I love to learn. I love to figure out new ways on how I can help an individual because I think if you're not learning, then you're just staying stagnant really, because things are always evolving. And so I've tried to, within the year, I try to learn as much as I can and do these new seminars and try new techniques and take as much as I can from those things and again, put another tool in my toolbox and use that whenever I need to, whether it's with a certain client, a hard case maybe or a urd, something maybe just a little different. I have these different tools to utilize that help me give back to this person in front of me. So continued education, I think, hands down. Like if you're not doing it, you gotta be doing it. And not only from the clinical aspect, I would actually, some of these seminars are also for the business side of things. So as a Cairo, we go through school and you're taught how to be a Cairo factor, you're taught how to obviously not interrupt people, you're taught how to help somebody, right? And then you graduate and they go, all right, good luck. Right? And now you definitely can go be an associate, which is absolutely great. But there's also some people like myself that were a little more hungry and I wanted to start my business. I just didn't know what to do or where to go. So fortunately, I had some colleagues of mine that were involved with some business like mine did, I guess like a mastermind. And so I joined that and learned millions of things and we do seminars and we learn a bunch of things there. And then even in that space, there's a bunch of other PT's, Cairo's and trainers there that I talk to and go, hey, what are you guys doing? What are you guys learning? What's the next big thing for you? And I look into that and then I go find the course and I go take it and I learn and I evolve myself and the more that I can grow myself, the more that I can get back to the person in front of me. Absolutely, I love that. And so when you started your business, actually this is something I don't know about you. When you first started your business, what did it look like compared to what it looks like now? So walk us through that progression. - Yeah, so when I first moved out to Arizona, technically I was kind of doing a part-time associate shift to get myself going and I was doing part-time just as an independent contract or as a public clinic. And so when I first started, it definitely wasn't exactly how I. envisioned it. I was working in somebody's clinic, so kind of within the compines of their practice. So as a little more traditional, a little more, you know, soft tissue, adjust type of stuff, which was okay, but I just felt like there was so much being left on the table. You know, someone that I was like, "Man, I really think you would benefit from exercise, from movement, from like me challenging you a little bit more, and I know you would get the results you're looking for, but within that space I was a little bit limited." So sometimes you know, within that time frame I was also an opportunity to work with some professional teams, which I also thought I wanted to do. You know, I was working with the SONS, I worked with, you know, the PGA, a little bit, and I got to be in the sports world, which originally I was like, "That's where I want to go." It was great experience a lot of fun. I just didn't feel the, I guess I didn't feel like I was giving back enough. I kind of felt like a like a, a cog in the wheel, you know, it was part of their system. Which again, it was a great experience, but I got out and in 2023 was when I made the transition over to the space that I'm at now. And again, more of a gym setting, you know, I'm in this space where there's all this fitness equipment, and I was like, "Okay, now I can actually start to make this transition into having somebody go through, you know, not only get them out of pain, but now push them and exercise, push them in a program, help them with training, conditioning, types of stuff." And so that's where I'm at now with my practice and in, you know, the progression and how it's gone through. So I went through more of a traditional type of practice into now a, you know, more customized care type of clinic. And I mean, I couldn't see it any other way at all. You know, I'm glad that it's set up that way because I know that that's what gives somebody the best result. Yeah. And like, talk to us about the equipment that you have. Because like as I said, in the beginning, you have quite a bit of your own equipment and you have to tell us about this little table that you have. So you've acquired, even though you're in a gym space where yeah, you can go borrow plates and dumbbells and stuff if you need to or dine of balls or something, which I have some in the garage for you. But you've acquired some of your own equipment along the way. Talk to us about that. Yeah. So with the equipment, you know, it's definitely slow, right? When I first started out, I had one table and I was in one room and I just kind of made it work. As we started to grow and develop, I got to invest back into, you know, the business and buy some tools and some gadgets and things like that that can help with the healing process. So we've got a couple of tables that are a little more what's considered to be a specialty table. They help to essentially remove load or decompress the lower back, which is like moves. Like he puts the on it and like it turns it on and it kind of like swings your hips and like moves your hips around and then he can manually move. It's so cool. I've never seen anything like it. Yeah. No, it's it's it feels incredible to like to take some pressure off of someone's low back, especially when they're coming in. They're in a lot of low back pain. It's a tool that I'll use to essentially, you know, take stress off the lower back in the moment, right? And and sometimes that can be enough to help somebody, you know, really find some relief. And once we can tap into that, once we get someone to go, okay, I can, I feel the relief. I can I can move a little better now. That's the time to now hit the floor. You know, we've got a squat rack. We've got weights and got dumbbells, elbows, all the things, right? And now we can push this person. Now we can make some change, right? So we go from passive treatment, which can help to alleviate pain, right? And help to move someone, maybe move a joint a little better or prevent your motion. And then we go into active care, which is where personally I think that's where all the change happens, right? So, you know, we start to challenge muscles. We start to challenge joints. We go through mobility drills that are not just like passive stretching, right? Someone is actively growing through this so that their body can adapt and their body can change. And when we make those changes, you know, obviously they start to improve, but, you know, we'll use those tools, those tables and all these other little gadgets to help with some utility process. Yeah, you mean you've got guns, you've got the scrapers, you've got, you know, the table, you have the stem unit, you have a big one, like you know, cart, we use it the other day. Oh my god. You've got like all these, yeah, like all these tools that you can use again, to your point, to get somebody out of pain and feel a little relief. But every time I with you will start with those, but then we always end up moving and doing something, something. And also don't undersell your squat rack air quotes. And then joint is not a squat rack. I need you to explain it to everybody. Yeah, so, you know, I know you're mentioning the select tools. I'll touch on those just real briefly, but that that stem unit that we use is called the arpe waves, or I think they might have changed their name now, but or arpe neuro. But it's a it is a direct current. So it actually does help with muscle contraction. It's not just a like like normal 10 unit, normal 10 is going to be a more superficial and does help with pain, getting right and we'll help with that. But the arpe I love it because some people that let's just say, for example, are like, have a hard time feeling a certain muscle or or let's say post op, someone is, you know, trying to recover and they can't go through knee extension because they're, you know, they have an ACL surgery or something. We'll use that device to help their muscles contract without them having to actually contract them. And that can help with some of the healing process. Great tool, super powerful. I love to use that thing a lot. But yeah, so the squat rack, you know, definitely got to, fortunately came across that, that the rack from rep. I know it's kind of funny. So I know, or my business name is rap, there's also a you know company named rap that builds great equipment. So I use a lot of their stuff. But it's great. It's like an old one, right? It's a big squat rack. It's got all the cables and the pulleys on it. It's super efficient with space. I don't have to like, I don't need a whole separate cable machine for it. But it's great because it's, I mean, it covers all of my bases, right? I do, I can do almost anything in this, you know, in my squat rack. And we push people in there, right? It's, I think sometimes with rehab, some people think it's like just very generic or rehab in general is like kind of easy or kind of basic. But I mean, gosh, I feel like I pride myself in making some of the sweat in there a little bit, you know, and people come in there like, this is, this is a lot different than what I've done before. Which when I hear that, I'm like, ah, thank God. Like I'm glad you understand. You know, we do get a lot of clients that had seen tyros before seen PT's. And it's not, you know, what they're doing is not necessarily wrong. It just, maybe then maybe wasn't the best option for that person to what they're, what they're needing, right? So, you know, when someone goes from doing, you know, just basic again, like, you know, clams or, you know, banded extra rotations for a shoulder injury, right? Like we know that that's it may possibly help. But we know that there are so many other factors to the system to help someone get better. And so we just, you know, we use some equipment to help, right? Because we can challenge them with more weight. We can challenge them with different movements. And so really, I think the rehab process should look like you're training. It should look like you're, you know, like, again, it should look like what you're trying to get back to. And you should be pushed. And that's the only way that your body is going to heal and get better and adapt. I agree. And that's a great way to state it. The true training should look your PT or rehab, your training should look like what you want to do in real life. And I said all the time, what does this person need to be able to perform? What movements? And then do those movements. It can be that simple. So I'll put the art wave. I'll go find it and put the link in the notes for everybody. And then the rep combos squat rack, guys, legit plate loaded. It's got the pulleys. Like you said, you can use barbells in it. It's got place where you could anchor bands to it. Like if you're looking for one, like one size fits all, everything you need is included here. Kind of piece of equipment. This might be your jam. You just need space for it because it's not huge, but it takes up some score, some some floor space. But I'll put it in the chat or in the notes so you guys can check it out to you, always looking for options for equipment. Now one thing I want to finish off with too, before we share where they can find you, is you have really done a great job of developing a really good social media presence. So regardless of what you do, if you want to get your name out there, like right now, you get, guys, my first visit, I'm wearing it. You can't see me right now. I'm wearing the same t-shirt as he is. It says rep sports, medicine, and recovery on it. But he gave that to me the first time he met me. It's just a t-shirt with a giant brand on the chest. Doesn't everybody love a free t-shirt? I wear t-shirts all the time, but to wear this to yoga later, right? And it's free advertising for him. So genius, right? And so simple, and it's a nice soft cotton tea that probably didn't cost him too many dollars. So, but your social media is very, very consistent and very well developed. Any tips for things that you guys would, that you would have for somebody who wants to potentially, I actually got this asked a couple days ago, how do you build that presence and potentially maintain it? How do you create content that you feel is engaging and people actually engage with? Yeah, social media, I tell people at the time, in hand, you have to be on it. You got to, you know, it's, I know it's like a second job, although it's a maintenance. It's a lot, but fortunately, I do have some help with it now, anyways, but you just, you got to post, you know, you got to post whatever's on your mind, you know, whatever ideas that you have, just post, right? Because there's an audience out there that is looking for your information or looking for your help. And I mean, if you want to look at it from, I'm most looking at it from like an ethical side of things, right? Like, if my job to make sure that whoever needs help is getting the best information possible. And so I feel the need to put things out there because someone might need my help. And if I'm not doing that, then I'm doing them or doing the community or cool, you know, for us, Arizona, it is service. And so I just, you know, I take ideas from all over, I might come across an idea on social media, might see someone else's post and like, "Oh, that's a great idea. "I'm going to post that same thing "and just kind of put a spin on it "and make it our own thing, right?" But definitely, you know, I try to make things educational, I try to make things informative, I try to make things fun, you know, it's, it's, I try to just make it a fun thing versus like this, "Oh, man, I got to do so, I got to post there, "I got to, you know, put something up on there." But the more you do it, the more people see you, the more people trust you, right? When you put yourself in that space to be the professional and you communicate on the platform in a way where, you know, people resonate with you and you're just authentic and you're just, you know, again, just showing people what you can do and how you can help them out. You know, they come around and they go, "Hey, I need some help." Like, can I, can we talk? And so we always, what we, you know, and our social media, all the information we put out, obviously it's to try to attract people, right? And to come into our space. But that didn't turn into so many clients, you know, and I know a lot of trainers that I worked with personally, they're like, "Man, I'm trying to, you know, "I'm trying to get new clients and I don't know how, "or I'm trying to do X-Fighted, you know, I don't know how, right?" You know, without talking about running ads and all those things, like social media, the one thing that's free advertisement and every single person on there that's following you is, and absolutely should be, someone you should be reaching out to about potentially needing help, right? So we try to engage with our followers on there as much as we can. We try to reach out to every single person that follows us and just ask a question, like, "Hey, you know, "thanks from being here, like, how can we help?" Whether it's even some people are just like, "Hey, I want to learn more about like this thing. "You post more about that?" And great, now that's another idea for me to go post about, right? - Yeah. - I don't know if the thing's too much about it. So I try to like ask our audience on those two. It's like, "Hey, what are you guys doing? "What are you looking for?" And, you know, give me some ideas and then I just go out and roll it out. And then some people go, "Hey, I've been dealing "with this back issue for years and I need help." And great, now we've just got a client because we made a post on Instagram. So we've made it a non-negotiable. We have to post every single day. And it's just gotta happen. Not only again for the business, but for our community and to make sure that we're being there and like the forefront to people's mind for us to help them out. - Yeah, I love what you just said too about reaching out to your followers and asking them what they want to see. You can like do it individually, what you do. You send messages to all of us or posting the surveys, or the ask me anything, things where people can fill in what they want to know. And then you post those, but then now, like you said, now you have a list of things. I have 30 days worth of content here 'cause I got 30 responses of questions that people want answered. That's a key. I never even thought about it like that. That's awesome way to figure out what do I post, ask them what they want to see and then post as somebody else that day of the day. How do I know what to post? Great idea. I like that. - Yeah, and there is no bad thing to post. You know, it's not posting is worse than posting something that maybe is like, that doesn't sound good or, or I've done that a million times. I'm my own worst critic, but I'll record myself and I'm like, wow, that sounds terrible. And fortunately, I have help with the Instagram. So I just pass the video over and they post that. I don't have a choice. Whether it sounds, whether I think it sounds good or bad, they'll post it and all of a sudden it blows up or gets a lot of engagement. I'm like, okay, well, I'm glad it's posted that. Right? (laughing) Just put your ideas out there. At the end of the day, someone's gonna receive it well and you may be helping somebody out. So just get it all out there. - Absolutely. And one other thing I'll say about social media too, I love the variety in your posts 'cause you share a lot of videos or clips from with permission 'cause you've shared some of me before. With permission, you ask, can I share the social media of your clients actually doing their work with you, which is really cool to see, hey, this person's dealing with a knee problem, this person's dealing with a shoulder problem. Because it's really easy for our clients to be out there in the world thinking they are the only person experiencing what they're experiencing. We all do that. I'm the only one on the planet who has this issue. No, you're not. And then when they see that, they can resonate with it and be like, oh, you can help me with this too. So great idea. But then the other day, you actually posted something where you were walking with your wife and your daughter through your neighborhood and she was recording you. And it was like the musings of bread. And you were just talking about something that was on your mind, a client asked a question and you were like, yeah, somebody asked me this and I was telling him and this is what I told him. And you're just sharing information. And I thought that one was super cool. That was one of the most difficult ones in the last couple of weeks. - Yeah, that actually got a ton of engagement. And again, we switched it up and that's something else too. We definitely spent some time looking at the Instagram and making sure that what we're posting is doing what we wanted to do, right? If we're getting a broly out certain post and it's just not catching it, it's not, okay, we gotta pivot, we gotta try something different. And so that day, I remember, we were just, yeah, we were just on a walk and I was like, hey, why don't you just ask me a question and I'm just gonna answer something. And I can't say that was the first take. (laughing) Again, back to my stumbling and my like, oh, I like get my own head. But yeah, just answering a simple question and everyone loved it. And I was like, this is great, we're doing this more. Because again, it's just back to like, it's just not done tick. It's just like we're on a walk and I'm just gonna answer this question because I don't know, maybe someone resonated with it. And it was great. And yeah, I think we got a lot of good feedback from that post. - See, sometimes you never know, try something new but it might stick. (laughing) - Exactly, exactly. - I love it. So speaking of, where can our listeners find you, your website, your social media, give us all your handles? - Yeah, so primarily on Instagram, that is definitely our biggest platform. You know, we obviously have a website, but we primarily run everything through Instagram. So on Instagram, it is Rep_SportsMed. You know, I think our biggest thing that, for like, I mean, anyone that is listening and looking to, maybe just gather some information from what we're doing on our page, like the biggest thing that we pride ourselves on is taking the time to understand an individual and what they want, right? And really like listening to them, giving them the time of day, and so many times I've heard from our clients that they had seen somebody prior, they just felt like another number there, or like they just were listening to. And so back to the comment you made earlier, people saying that they might only have, they feel like they're the only ones that have this issue, right? Like, they just were mishandled, right? And or they weren't listening to the right way. So a big thing that, you know, we preach on our Instagram is figuring out the root of somebody's problem and taking the time with this person to dive into that and figure it all out. So, you know, I hope that on our page that that's kind of what comes across. And, you know, we want people to resonate with that and just understand that like, you know, there are people, there are doctors out there that want to take the time with you that want to help you and get you back to, you know, the things that you enjoy doing, no matter what the circumstances, whether you've been in pain for, you know, five months or five years, there are ways to get around it. And so hopefully that's kind of, you know, the message that we're putting out on our Instagram. So that's on Instagram and then our website, rapsportthemedestand.com. Again, most of our stuff is on Instagram, but that is where you guys can find us. We're here in the Valley in Phoenix. And we're about to move into a new space. - It is shout out. - Yeah, that's something I think when I first started, you know, when I first started, that was like, the thing I wanted to do, right? It sounds so funny, but I'm like, I want to front desk. I want someone that like, that's like the one exciting thing about this new space, you know, is having a place to call our own and to be able to just offer this amazing experience to people in the Valley and just continue to help and provide the highest level of care possible. You know, something we've been working on now for the past few years, since I've like, brain start onto my own, but super excited for that and you know excited to get back and and we'll rewind a little bit. If there's something else for fitness professionals, trainers, you know, I know we've talked a lot about it because it's in continued education and all that. Go out and like shadow other fitness professionals and people that maybe are a little bit, you know, haven't been there before you are. I've been doing it for a long time. I've actually had trainers do that with me before. They've come out and they've shadowed me. I'm not saying I know everything, but like go shadow everybody. Go learn as much as you can and just get involved with, you know, more and more people and just learn more and more. So, you know, I think that's the big thing that we did and that's why we're in the position to go into our own space though. Absolutely. Guys, that's just unfamiliar because we talk about that all the time. So, Brian, I do want to give you again massive kudos. I'm super excited that I was able to bring you on because you have so much information to share. You're a great example of what growing something from the ground up looks like. It doesn't happen overnight. And even little things guys like he was so excited a couple of weeks ago. He found flooring for his new space like rubber flooring. He found it like at a great discount just by looking around and searching around some guy tore out some floor out of a EOS and he was able to get it for like pennies on the dollar basically and like get flooring for his entire new space minus his turf. So, like there's ways to go about this that makes sense that you just slowly build in a way that fits your budget, fits your timeline, fits the resources that you have, even gathering equipment. I did the same thing. It took me four or five years to get all the equipment that I have just slowly getting at peace by peace, finding the best pricing, et cetera. So, lots of cool things to share. I can't wait till you start sharing more posts about your new space and in your new space so people can see the difference, right? Look at his older posts where he shows the current space. Look at the new one. It's a completely different space, but it is to his point all his. So, and now you're hiring somebody else. Have you actually hired the other practitioner? Um, yes, when the process of getting that started, you know, our goal is to have him hired by the end of the first quarter, this coming year. And growing the team, you know, one day at a time. And again, like the vision has always been the same. It's so funny. Like, you know, I know people talk about manifesting things and whether I have done that intentionally or not, I'm not really sure. I've just always thought about these things, right? I've always thought about like what my future practice was going to look like one day or I always thought about, you know, where I was just where I was going to be in the direction I wanted to take this. And I've always just put energy towards that. And so I feel like, you know, the more and more, I thought about that, the more and more things are happening and positioning themselves for me to do that. You know, and I've got a family and wife and a little kiddo. And I want to be able to spend more time with them and, and, you know, doing that, growing the practice will allow me to do that. And that's, you know, that's why I'm doing it. This is why, you know, I mean, I started my business so that I can build something greater and, you know, be able to, you know, enjoy everything that comes along with it. Yeah, absolutely. So many lessons here, higher slow, fire, quick, right? Take your time firing somebody, manifesting, thinking ahead because I've never moved that you make moves you closer to where you want to be. But guys, if you don't know where you want to be or what you want this to look like in a perfect world, you're never going to take steps towards it. Sounds a lot like goal setting, just saying, right? So yeah, social media presence, continuing education, asking the client what do they want out of this? Guys, that's an underrated step that Brian was talking about. Ask them, what do you want to get out of this? What do you want this to look like so we can get you there? So that you're delivering what they want. I say that all the time, ask them what they need and be specific. So you can deliver that. Otherwise, you might deliver something that you think is great, but it's not what they want it because you didn't ask what do they want. So this is a phenomenal episode, guys. I hope you go back and re-listen to this one. Take some notes. I'm going to be adding a lot of notes in the show description for you guys some things to check out and explore. But thank you so much for being with me, Brian. Thank you for having me. This is awesome. I loved it. Hopefully you guys take a lot of information from it and I'm an open book. Ask away if you guys find me on social media, like ask me questions. I'd love to help you. Anyway, that I can and hopefully I'll be back and share some more knowledge with you guys. Love it. And guys, just so you know, we're working our corrective exercise course in enhancing it. And he's one of the people that I hope to get into my videos because we're here in Phoenix too. So hopefully you guys will be seeing a lot more of this guy. So super excited. Thank you again for being here. Thank you guys for listening. But this sounds like a lot of the stuff that we talk about all the time, guys. It's not just us, right? This is how you actually make it happen. So go out there, do all the things. But above all, make good choices. We'll be talking to you soon.