Ep17 Exploring Behavior Analysis in Fitness with Wes Lowery

Hello listeners, and welcome back to the atypical behavior analyst. I am your host, Kelly. Before we begin, let's get some quick housekeeping out of the way. First, we are ace approved, so listen to the episode, jot down the two keywords, buzz over to our site atypicalba.com, and purchase your CEUs. So on to the good stuff. In today's episode, I meet with Wes Lowry from Team ABA University, and we go in a new direction to talk about behavior analysis and its application in athletics and fitness. He gives some beautiful breakdowns in how he works with athletes to improve their performance through contingency management and goal setting. Now, his application and dissemination of the science is fantastic, and we hope you enjoy episode 17, exploring behavior analysis and fitness with Wes Lowry. All right, so welcome back to this episode of the atypical behavior analyst. I am Kelly Tate, your host, and today I am with Wes Lowry, who is an amazing human who I've had the privilege of seeing go through life and his career of branching out into various areas of behavior analysis and just being curious and asking questions. And I am very excited today to delve into a little bit more of what you're doing right now and where you've come from and how you got here. So if you give us just a brief introduction of yourself and we'll go. Sure. So thanks for having me. Kelly, I really appreciate it. This is an honor. Honestly, I've been waiting for this moment for a while. I appreciate you more than you ever would know. So thank you. And just like you said, we've been on each other for a while and just throughout grad school and stuff like that and really help sort of guide and shape the way that I think today, the way that I've thought and sort of came to this sort of sort of new venture and a new idea and more of a, I would honestly say more of like a conviction, I guess, within the science of ABA and behavior analysis. So just a little background about myself for those who do not know, my name is Wes Lowry. I am a BCBA where I received my master's degree from the University of North Texas. I started off in the field just like a typical BCBA working with autism care treatment, work both clinical and in-home, I still do that to this day. So I still go out and provide direct services for children and adults that are looking to improve their overall quality of life. But through that journey, right, and it started early off in my career, I recognized that there was a huge knee and there's a huge deficit with the clientele that we work with in regards to healthy behaviors, nutrition behaviors, but also physical exercise. As we all know who are BCBAs, we've all had clients that or work with individuals that have limited diet or just limited preference on what they want to eat and food choices in regards to lunchtime, dinner time, stuff like that, and a parent's struggle, it's very difficult on them, but it also affects the kid as well. Some of these effects play a role in a social, plays a role in their independent living, but also for me, you know, the way that I see it in their overall sort of healthy quality of life. So if you think about it, right, how, and I post this question, I just did a recent presentation with the Arizona SIG over Sports, Health, and Fitness, I believe, I post this question, how much more can we do for our clients if we were to consider or think about more healthier programming or more physical activity within our program, right? So if our kid had, for example, more stamina or more endurance to run, how more likely would they be to engage in Chase or other activities on the playground with their peers or potentially seek out some of those social bids? And so if we were to start exploring some of those options, exploring some of those avenues, I think there may be something there. Now we talk about measurement, stuff like that, yeah, get it, you know, how, you know, we really got to, you know, take a deep dive and really talk about, okay, what's going to be the best measures that's going to yield the best data, how we're going to ensure that what we're doing is working. But I think right now is a good time to at least start talking about it and start asking those questions. Because like I said, right, we all have those clients who are on the chicken nuggets and goldfish diet, and it just gets very tough for them. It messes up with their sleeping patterns, it messes up. It does not mess up necessarily, but interrupts sleeping patterns, it interrupts, you know, the energy output that they can exert when they're trying to socialize with their peers, whether it's doing recess or, you know, doing group activities or even sporting events, you know, how much, how much opportunity can we see if our clients were stronger, you know, whether they'd be able to join team sports, whether they'd be able to participate and be a part of that sort of, that setting. And so, wow, the long way around to explain this, sorry for going on and on, a lot of it came from just really noticing that need and trying to address it using the science of behavior, because right, we're all behavior analysts, we all look at behavior, we measure behavior, we can change behavior, exercise health and nutrition, all involves behavior. The question is how to be measured, the question is the dimensions under which are going to yield the best data, are we going to, and then lastly, how can we collaborate with some of those other professionals, right, personal trainers, nutritionists, and, you know, coaches, teams, whoever, right, gymnast, how can we collaborate with them in order to start seeing the change that we would like, not only with the clients that we work with, but just the general public and being able to generalize that as well. I'm going to answer this because I'm so excited. So one of the first things that I thought I was, we talk about, you know, building up strength and everything like that, and I know a lot of resistance that I've gotten in the past was, well, you know, if they work out, that'll make them stronger. And then they're, you know, getting more aggressive and I'm like, no, when I go to the gym and I work out, I'm tired and I don't want to get into that kind of altercation. So there's that aspect of it of like, they're building up the strength, but they're also getting out untold aggression or whatever. And so there's that component of it, but there's also, you mentioned the diet side of it. And I have migraines and my migraines are tied with my intake of food. And so I have certain nutritional triggers. And like you said, it's not one of those things that we look at often enough or we don't collaborate. Sorry, I'll leave it that way. We don't collaborate enough with dietitians or nutritionists to look at that side of it of, you know, is this thing actually causing them an allergic reaction in some cases or does it cause them to feel unwell? Like when I ingest too much corn syrup, then I get a migraine from it. So looking at those kind of things, and it's through a lens. It's not necessarily the, the be all end all data. It's just another component or a variable to look at as opposed to just signifying it or putting it into a category of its behavior. So therefore we must do this thing. It's more of, it's a possibility. But if we, you know, put it through this lens first, it may be easier to treat than putting in this whole behavioral intervention. And really in theory, we're supposed to be doing a lot of least to most intrusive. So least intrusive is making sure that the diet is right and that the person feels good when they're eating certain foods. Yeah. And I, yeah, no, I think that's, that's, that's spot on and, and, and, and the sort of add on with that a lot of it just comes down to, right, the, the, the health and nutrition decisions that they're making, is it beneficial or can it be beneficial, right? And so us as behavioral analysts, I don't, like I said, this is, this is like the beginning parts of it for us, it within this industry and sort of breaking that ground. And what I'm, what I'm hoping to do and what I'm pushing to do and what I'm encouraging everyone to do is to essentially not shy away from it. Let's start asking these questions, right? What does it mean to, to engage in sort of like de-escalation type of exercise, right? So, so, so just like you said, right, if we're talking about aggression, right, we can essentially set up a potential, let's just, let's just go with a, with a, with a different term reinforcement contingency that's in place to say, okay, hey, you're more likely to engage in aggression in the classroom if we're able to work out in the morning. Like so, like a lot of people train early in the morning to either get the metabolism up and running, so to help them get in the fat burning zone for the rest of the day. But it's also a sort of stress reliever for some of those who work out midday. So you go from 8 to noon, go, go, go, go, go, and you then allow yourself that sort of workout break in the middle of the day to sort of relieve that stress. But I think also, not only exercise, but then nutrition. One thing that we do very well as behavior analysts are manipulate the environment, but also recognize environmental variables that are controlling or not necessarily controlling, but it could be setting the occasion for certain behaviors to occur. One thing that I talk about is what we're talking about nutrition is looking at some of those invisible antecedents, right? Obviously, it's not a real term yet, but I'm working on it. But if we talk about, and what I mean by that is most people, not all, but most people, they battle with staying strict to their food, to their meal plans or their diet, and they end up grabbing a snack late at night or they end up drinking the soda throughout the day. It's not all bad. I'm not saying that it's going to be in the world, however, the problem lies in is with breaking that bad habit. That's the issue. And that bad habit is only occurring, right? Because if we're behavior analysts, right, all behavior is lawful. That bad habit is occurring because there is an antecedent that's in the environment that's setting the occasion. Now, as a behavior analyst, our job is to go in and recognize those behavior patterns, recognize what's happening, recognize what's setting the occasion for certain behaviors to occur, certain patterns to occur, but then also looking at the consequences that are maintaining or increasing the likelihood of it to occur. So if we're able to then go in and work with an individual that says, "Hey, I just cannot stop late snacking. I've tried everything. I'm having a hard time, you know, as a behavior analyst," right, with the collaboration of a certified professional, right, a certified nutritionist, certified personal trainer, right? Because we want to make sure that we stay within our scope of changing behavior opposed to addressing specific nutrition goals, we then will be able to look at their behavior patterns throughout the day or throughout their weeks and say, "Aha, look, this is what's going on. This is why you end up falling into zebra cakes at 11 o'clock every night or every weekend or after certain events," right? So those would be some of those invisible antecedents that I'm sort of, that I'm kind of trying to bring into light in regards to how people can build these behavior patterns and not necessarily recognize that they're doing these things because, right, all of our behavior, just like we're all set up just to do routine things. That's where our comfort is. That's where we succeed and that's where discipline comes from, right, is this patterns, patterns, patterns. So if we can build those patterns, we can identify those patterns and then find that sort of weak link to allow our clients to easily break those bad habits, but then also maintain and sustain over time to where there's less effects of distractors or if that same antecedent comes up again, they're able to recognize it in the future. I think it's cool because so often when you go through diet plans, nutrition plans, meal plans, whatever, we often want to look at the caloric intake. We want to look at these very finite measurements and really it is about building these new patterns of behavior, but also understanding the contingencies around the behavior in itself. So I know I am very guilty of waking up in the morning surrounded by cookie crumbs because it was a bad day or I was tired or I didn't feel good or whatever. And so the cookies made me happy at that moment and it works for a second, but then I have to look at the entire picture behind it of what was going on previously in my day that led me to make these kind of choices. And that's where I really think like I love the unknown antecedent or the unnamed antecedent yet. Like it's, yeah, I dig that concept because I think that's where a lot of behavior change can happen and we don't really necessarily have a word for it yet. But there's so much to explore in that because as persons, we ruminate on things and we think about things and we can hold on to them throughout our day. And so that may affect the choices I make later on a night. Being able to extrapolate a little bit more that nonlinear side of things of, you know, this thing happened early on in the day and then it affected my behavior later on. I chose to go to the gym or not. I chose to do things. I ate this or not. Like I like that a lot. Yeah. Another really good example that I thought about just now is, right, we talk about the ABCs, right, identifying what the trigger is and sometimes we can even get into what the MO is, right? But what if the antecedent for this behavior change happens the day before, right? So would in that case, would the individual be able to recognize it? Maybe maybe so. Right. So here's the example. Let's say the night before I stay up late, either watching a movie, watching the game, whatever the case is, right? Well, me staying up late results in me waking up late the next morning to go to work. So if that's the case, I'm rushing to get out the house. I don't eat a okay breakfast. Let's just say okay breakfast, decent breakfast, right? Or I grab something from Starbucks or whatever the case is. And then the last time comes around, I am less likely to want to go work out because I don't have the energy from the night before or from the morning of to then allow my body to replenish its macros, replenish their proteins, you know, and replenish the carbohydrates. So the likelihood of me working out decreases, right? But then also there's another contingency that's in place. The likelihood of me overeating comes into play because I'm still hungry from early that morning. So then I then decide, okay, hey, let's let's just get a big cheeseburger because I deserve it. You know, I feel a certain way. I feel tired. I did a good job at work. Fantastic. I deserve, you know, a whole whatever. I eat that later on that night, right? I'm still full. I don't really eat a lot of dinner when it's dinner time. I'm up again late night snacking and I'm up snacking late again. I'm staying up even later and then it builds that sort of cycle. Those are some of the, those are some of the invisible, excuse me, and to see this that may be occurring with some individuals and there's, I mean, there's, I'm sure there's plenty of other examples, but that's what's kind of going on when people fall into these routines and these, and these, and these sort of unwanted habits of, oh man, I just, I just, I just can't seem to make it to the gym. I just don't have time to make it to the gym. Well, yeah, you, if, if, if that was your day, yeah, there was no time for you to go to the gym because you're up all night trying to make up for lunch earlier than that day. Or sorry, not make up, but make up for dinner that you skip because you had a pretty large lunch. Um, so looking at, looking at behavior change or behavior sequence in that way, right? And, and I think looking at it from that perspective allows us to expand beyond your discrete three term contingency to where we're getting into more behavior streams and looking at how, um, that stream of behaviors or that contingency plays a role. But then if you, you know, notice, right, when I gave my example about you're less likely to go to the gym, but you're more likely to eat a whole pizza or, you know, a, a, a big fact, cheeseburger, right? We see that main behavior stream, but then we also see layers over and under of contingencies that are in place. Um, and, and I think that's something worth exploring. And I think that's something that as behavior analysts, right? We are the experts at looking at, um, how those contingencies, um, line up also across time. Um, but then what are the sort of like I said, those, those, those other layers that could potentially kind of Avenue and other directions, uh, based on, um, what our goals are or what our, um, deficits are or where we're trying to go, if that makes any sense. For sure. I mean, look at like, um, response cost. So it is a much shorter response cost for me to be like, I can drive to McDonald's or I can even just Uber eats it or I can door dash it and have food put in front of my door, which makes all the happy chemicals go off and I feel good for a hot second as opposed to let me go get changed. Now I have to go to the gym or go out to, you know, go run or do something like that. It's, um, yeah, when it comes to my, my response cost, like, shh, like I love food, I would like to have that. So that makes sense. And it makes sense across the board. Um, I know you've done a lot with athletes as well. So can you go some more into that because my, uh, volleyball prowess would like some assistance here. Yeah. Um, so much to unfold here. So when we're talking about sports, athletic training, let me pull up, I just had something up right here. I was, I wanted to get to, and I'm glad we started talking about this now. Uh, we're talking about sports and, um, athletic training and how we can, in, uh, incorporate behavior analysis within that, we first have to recognize that the, the work that we currently do within the school systems, within our ABA clinics, within our in-home settings, they don't necessarily overlap with the one-to-one, um, sort of frame, right? And the reason why they don't is because with athletic performance, you, you, you, you, you have competition and, and, and you have that competitive edge. So the same way that you would teach an individual to tie their shoes, you're not teaching them to tie it as fast as they can. And they're not, and, and, and you're also not teaching them to tie their shoes better than their peers. You're just teaching them, Hey, can you get it done or you can, you get it done to where your parents don't have to do it for you. Right. We were talking about athletic performance, right? Um, we have to have that competitive edge in the sense that, right, if you're working with youth athletes, they have to do it better than the opponent. Um, sometimes they have to even do it better than their teammates. Um, because, right, better than your opponent, opponent, you're trying to win the game better than your teammates. You may be trying to earn a scholarship, right? So that's something that we have to keep in mind when we are developing programs developed and then, uh, determining our treatment recommendations, uh, for athletic performance, because we can't just say, Hey, I'm going to teach you how to shoot the ball. We need to teach you how to shoot the ball the best way possible to where no defender is going to block it, but then also your teammates can rely on you to, to do that. So the way that we would kind of dive into that would be, um, I'm just going to use basketball as a, as, as my example, right? If we're talking about shooting a jump shot, depending on your position, right? Let's just say point guard, shooting guard, as the behavior analyst, um, I want to determine what professional has the, the expert model for this, uh, behavior or for this skill, right? Cause like I said, but then for me to be able to still practice ethically within the scope, it's not up to me on what the best is as a behavior analyst. It's up to the coach. It's up to the shooting coach, right? Um, to then provide what that task analysis would look like or that model will look like. And then it's up to me as a behavior analyst to introduce those procedures and conditions under which these specific, um, behaviors should occur, but also how fast can we train them to accelerate performance? And that's where we get into a lot of the persistent teaching methods that we use. Um, and then your typical, you know, reinforcement procedures, um, uh, difference reinforcement, you know, what, you know, you name it, shaping, uh, moving from, uh, uh, practice to game time, right? For generalization, make sure that they're able to perform at a high level without what all the distractions going on. So it's very important for us to, you know, like I said, first and foremost, stay within our lane as behavior analysts. Now I would make the argument that if you are certified coach or certified nutritionist, uh, certified personal trainer that you may not necessarily need to collaborate with someone because you have the licensure and you have a certification and you have that, um, professional background to then recommend what the best shooting, what the best form is, uh, for your athlete. And then, right, as a behavior analyst, you didn't implement those procedures. Um, but it's, it's, it's, it's, it's very important, um, for us to really understand that the work that we do with athletes or, right, youth athletes, professional athletes is we have to have that collaboration across professionals, but then we also need to make sure that we're training and providing recommendations, um, with that competitive edge behind it. I got really excited, um, when you were talking about that side of it of it's not just looking at the behavior in and of itself, but it's looking at the purpose behind it and why people want to go forward a little bit more. And oftentimes when I look at programming, I feel like there's a missing component with when it comes to like generalization and maintenance, like we want it to be across, you know, classrooms or across subjects, but then there's that, huh, the invisible antecedent side of it where it's, it's potentially for a scholarship or it's your own pride. Like I just really want to get this particular shot down or, um, for me, I want to be a better outside hitter kind of deal. Like it's, there's this internal motivation that I don't know if as behavior analysts, we can quite, we, we can't tact it because it's so individualized, um, and I love the fact that you guys are using that and capitalizing on it and incorporating your learner inside of that as well. So yes, it's easy data, whether or not you like make a shot or not. So what are some of the, you mentioned precision teaching and it's a good skill to have and I do not have it. And so can you elaborate more on what that looks like in this kind of application? Because my mind is very discreet child training or, um, in a classroom setting. And so in this kind of environment, like, yes, tell me more. Sure. So technically I use, I use the word precision teaching because that's what we're all familiar with, but to be completely honest, what we do is actually called precision athletics or precision sport or precision nutrition or nutrition or precision wellness, right? So, um, the benefit of adopting the methods of precision teaching is, it's the standardization of, of the visual analysis that we're able to, um, essentially read or analyze, right? So if we are collecting data and we all are looking at the same standardized chart, right? What I'm looking at can be passed on to the coach, can be passed on to another BCBA, can be passed on to another individual, right? And the benefits of using an SEC chart is everyone knows if you've been trained on it, right? Everyone knows exactly what's going on. There's no explanations. There's no extra summaries or whatever that they, the X and the Y axis always stay consistent. Um, so that's one benefit of it, right? Another benefit of it is, um, the SEC chart looks at behaviors within, uh, multiples, right? So what it, what it, what it allows you to do is, um, accurately determine the, the celebration of growth, right, or, or progress over time. Um, and so with that, you're able to, in my opinion, right, make better predictions. Um, because if you can determine what the celebration rate is based on previous performance, that line is going to say consistent. If everything else is consistent, right? Like to say, you know, you, you still stick to your three days a week for practice. You still stick to this mail plan. You still pretty much what all serious athletes, um, or clients should be doing. If you still stick into the same regiment, um, you should be able to, we, we, we, we are more than likely should be able to, um, predict your performance, whether it's on the court or whether it's in the kitchen. Now, another thing we can look at with the, with the chart is comparing, um, practice versus game time data. So is what we're doing in practice really effective or is it really working? Right? So that's another thing that we can, we can, we can look at those correlations because practice, uh, charts will be the standard and the same as game charts, right? Um, uh, and the last thing I want to kind of touch on with using the charts, um, is it allows you to do, uh, fluency timings and, um, training drills. So if you're doing the methods of physical and athletics, um, correctly, and you have your fluency timing and you're training up to that level, right? You're 60 training to master your, your, your training a skill to be second nature to where you don't have to think about it. All the best athletes perform in that way when they, when they're approaching a defender, and, uh, the person is no, is it's not thinking, what should I do now? They're thinking, what do I need to do after they're already thinking beyond that first defender because it's, it's, it's sort of fluid in a second nature. And that's where we get into a lot of those, like I said, some of those, um, incidents, um, or those setting events to then allow the athlete to recognize, okay, their foot placement is like this. I need to make this move. The foot places, it's like that. I need to make that move. Right. Now we're getting into discrimination training, right? So then we get into, so then we're looking at, so now we're looking at different sets. Right. So we're talking about just, uh, discrimination training, right? Two antecedents. Yeah. Right. Two antecedents, one behavior, um, and two different consequences, right? So teaching our athlete to recognize when the, when, when he or she sees, um, right, setting a, I need to do this when they see setting B, I need to do that and do that effectively and quickly and accurately to where not only are they able to beat a defender, they're not even thinking about the first person. They're worried about the help that's coming up or what to do next. Right. Um, so we can bring us some, um, a little bit of that discrimination training in that way. But then again, right? If we're looking at, okay, not when to do something, now we're talking about how to do something. Now we're getting into shaping differential reinforcement, right? The same, right? One antecedent, two different behaviors, two different consequences, right? Which one is going to gain access to reinforcement? Which one is going to gain access to extinction? So we talk about athletic performance. Where is, is, is, is really exploring this idea of, and I haven't talked about this anywhere else, um, before, but we're talking about where we're really looking at is a, I'm gonna try to bring this all together here and please don't ridicule me for, for, for, for, um, for if, if I misspeak, but we're, we're, we're really looking at here is a go, no go type of situation. Right. And so if we can teach that athlete a series of combos, a sequence of combos of when your defender looks like this, not obviously personally, but when they're in this defensive position, this sequence of combos has a higher percentage of being executed opposed to this other series of combos, uh, sorry, uh, other sequence of combos, those, those sequence of combos essentially we would talk about earlier or just sequence of behavior change that kind of, when I was kind of addressing with nutrition, right? Um, so we're looking at combo A versus combo B. We know that if the athlete is positioned this way, combo A is going to be more effective, but then, but then that a sequence, right? There's still layers to that because then the defender is going to recover or they're going to react to your first, um, behavior. So, so for then the athlete then needs to, without thinking, it needs to be fluent, be able to then respond within those layers within that sequence. And I think that, um, that's what, that's what makes athletes, that's what makes elite athletes great because they're able to recognize those different antecedent conditions or those different, um, setting events to where they're able to recognize this combo sequence, this, this combo sequence A is going to be, has a higher probability of being executed opposed to sequence B. Um, and then being able to execute that fluently and successfully, um, to where we can get the outcomes that we, that we need, um, whether it's to score a basket, get seven yards, um, get the spike, I don't know, volleyball terms, um, I'm trying it, I'm trying, um, but, um, it, using the methods of precision teaching for precision athletics, um, allows you that flexibility to train and to confidently train, uh, athletic performance to where you can, you, you can start seeing some of those successes. All right. If you are listening for CEs, here is the first of your two key words. The first word is speed. S P E E D athletes want to improve on their speed. I have watched, um, like LeBron James and, um, discuss when they're watching their own tapes and you pause at a certain instance and they go, Oh yeah. In this time, I was thinking about if this guy moved here, if this guy moved here, I could pass it here and it's all in it. It's all in an instant and it's so cool because, like you said, you can eventually teach that skill of, okay, when you're in this particular instance, what does it look like? What are you thinking? How do you respond? Um, this response leads to this consequence. This response is this one. And then you can break it down. Okay. So in this next time, more elaboration and they start tacting it and they start visually, visualizing a little bit more, a little bit fluffy there, but, um, it's fascinating though. And it's, it's so cool because yeah, we have this ability as behavior analysts to be able to go, haha, I can, I can turn this lever a little bit more and, and potentially you'll do, you'll do big, like better things with it. Like you can start to read the blocks or, um, I love the fact that you're able to take what looks like a nuanced behavior and extrapolate so much more out of it. Um, so I got one more thing. I wanted to add with that really quick. Sorry. Um, so the, the goal, right, the ultimate goal with athletic training using precision athletics, um, is it, is to think about it in this way. We've all been in a situation where we've bumped into something or we always, uh, you know, kicked our foot into something and then without even thinking, right, our arm automatically goes out and catches ourselves or our foot automatically sort of readjust to where, yeah, we stumble a little bit, but we don't go all the way down. But then our, our thought process, we realized we didn't, we necessarily didn't plan to think that fast. Our body just responded, right? It is, it responded to save us from whatever, right? You name it, right? Tripping over the couch. Um, you know, getting our hands stuck in something or whatever it is, right? Um, so our body moves for us a lot of times while it's even recognizing it. Um, and so the goal is to be able to train in a, train in a manner to where the athlete can, can recognize, but then, uh, and, and, and then perform that way. But then when it's time to adjust their body just moves instead of having to say, Oh, wait a minute, what do I do now? It's one of those things where it's like, I'm in the motion already and I ain't even recognized. And I'm sure a lot of us who've, who've played sports, we've done something like that on the, on the court or on the field where it was like, whoa, I think I even feel that one comment type of thing, right? Um, like I said, if you're an athlete, you felt that before to where you've beat a defender or you've made a basket and you're just like, I had no idea why my body did that, but I'm glad I did. And you, you know, you, you take credit for it and you know, you brag and all that sort of stuff, but you, you really, everyone knows you didn't mean to do that. The way that our, our goal is to train to where we do mean to do that, but it's still mindless. Our body is just moving based on, right? Cause if we're talking about behavior, right? Based on the environmental arrangements that are set placed in front of us to where even if we don't recognize some of those invisible antecedents or just some of those, um, setting events, our body's still going to respond. Um, and certain movements based on the previous history of reinforcement that we've been training with to train to fluency, um, in those similar conditions. Thoughts? I have so many thoughts all the time. Um, and no, this is intriguing because a lot of my world has revolved around, um, disabilities for so long, but then I have my, my personal life where I am invested in fitness, um, just for my own mental health sake. Like I try to have my yoga practice. I have my volleyball and I run, you know, obstacle course races because it makes me feel better. And there's something to be said there as well. And then there's, like you said, this, this improvement side of, you know, I can always get a little bit better. I can always just tweak myself a little bit more to be better on the court or, um, be more functional as a person who's clumsy, um, and who walks into doors and trips on themselves. And I've, I've learned that having that grounding, um, and understanding of my own person is very functional. Um, and I've been reading a little bit through, uh, Bissell, Vander Colks, The Body Keeps the Score. And he talks about that visceral response when it comes to, um, just experiencing life and understanding your place in space. And I feel like that's super important. And it's not something that we directly touch on. And you talked about collaboration. And that's where, you know, talking to an OT or a PT comes in really handy because they get how, um, like that your inner ear works. And if your vestibular is off a little bit, then how that affects things. And I feel like that's so important for us across the board to also understand. So when it comes to collaboration, you mentioned it briefly, like, um, collaborating with like personal trainers and dietitians and everything. But what does that process look like? Like, how do you establish those kind of relations? Yeah. Um, well, how do we establish those relations is, uh, primarily looking at, um, how to say your question correctly, right? How do we connect with them? How do we sort of get them to buy into what we're doing? Is that what you're asking? So if you have an athlete who's needing some additional skill sets, where do you, I want to say draw the line, but yeah, like, where do you talk about scope? Like, so where does your scope end and where do you realize like I need to bring somebody else into this? Yeah. So my, my scope ends when it comes to determining which skill is going to better the athlete for whatever condition, setting or environment. My scope begins when we've identified what the thing need and how to do it. And then how can we get them to do this as quickly as possible? Um, but, and also at the highest level as possible. That's what behavior change to me is about. Right? We're talking about changing the rate of performance. We are, we, we get the, the task analysis from our, uh, peers, right? Who we're collaborating with, we get those ideas and then we say, okay, hey, their knees need to be this high. Got it. Their feet needs to be this wide. Perfect. They need to go this low on their squat. Sounds good. Okay, cool. That's where I come in. And we start talking about, okay, this is the criteria where you need to be based on what the expert is recommending based on their video model, based on their actual presence, being there modeling, um, and their feedback. Um, let's now work on shaping. Let's now work on shaping to get the, the form correctly, right? To our, to where we can do it, um, at a level to where we're able to execute it with either a little to, to no weight. And then now we're working on building the strength in the muscle. So the kind of go back to the, to the initial question, right? How do we get started with that collaboration process? Um, with some of these, um, experts, um, it's just, uh, I think the first thing would be to, um, you have to be able to explain and know the science, uh, be able to talk about it, um, conceptually to where they can understand it in lamest terms, um, related to what their specific specialty is. Um, and then bring in outside examples to where you can prove and show like, yes, this is stuff is a fact of, right? Uh, the next bit would be, and I think another part of this collaboration phase would be, um, developing the scope of sequence of what that full training program would look like. So the same way that we use, um, uh, whatever curriculum that you use, one of my personal favorites are a work in progress, uh, crafting connections, right? Those, those, those books are guys for us, right? To allow us to, um, you know, work through fine motor skills, work through social skills, work on communication skills, whatever it is, right? Um, we, we, we use those curriculums or those books and those depending on, you know, evidence based stuff like that. Um, we use those books or those resources as guides to, um, teach our clients, Hey, this is how we go from point A to point B to eventually make it to point C. Um, when we're collaborating, right, we need to also do the same things with, with those type of resources. Right? So we're talking about getting a middle school level athlete up to varsity level performance, right? We need to then collaborate with the coach, collaborate with a trainer and say, okay, Hey, what should they be doing at the eighth grade level, ninth grade level? And then how do we build on these skills to make these more complex, but also they're safe, right? They're healthy so that it allows for what we're doing, what we're trying to do, um, to build behavior, build better behavior patterns, um, to build confident behavior patterns, but then like I said, at the very beginning, uh, to build very competitive behavior patterns, because that's what it all boils down to. Can we teach a skill or a, um, yeah, can we teach a skill that's going to separate our clients or our athlete from their teammates, but also from their opponents? I really dig the, the big projection of things. So it's not just this tiny minutia behavior, but really it's, what is it going to look like in the long term? What is it going to look like, um, in this situation? And being able to put it through, like you said, it's a different lens. It doesn't always have to look like this, but it's just a different way to look at it. I think it's so, um, imperative for our field. It, we don't have, and we shouldn't go into automatically, uh, a quick diagnostic or a quick protocol. It should be more of a collaborative effort where we're able to talk to other people, talk to the individual, see what the goals are, and then build it up piece by piece. Because when we take more time on the forefront, I feel like we get a lot better results on the, on the long term. Like we're able to actually see this maintenance of behavior for a period of time versus just, oh, it occurred in one or two games as opposed to, I don't know, a couple of years down the road, you see them in a college game or you see them, I don't know if you want to get really fancy in a pro bowl, you know, whatever. But that part's, that part's really cool. And I don't know how often we think that far in advance. Okay, here's the second of your two key words. Your second word is habits. H A B I T S. What kind of habits are you building? As a summary, I mean, I don't know if I can quickly sum this up because I feel like we've touched on a variety of topics. But for this one, um, for this particular quick chat, if you will, we've looked a lot at how to take individuals who are wanting to improve their performance, regardless of its, you know, athletic or their own dietary intake and nutritional intake. And you can break it down into some easier steps. And what I also like is you guys are building in this support group as well. So it's not just the individual and a BCBA or a dietitian. It's, it's a whole group of people that are that are building this behavior. And then as the individual becomes more successful, those other pieces kind of can fall away naturally. And they fade out. And so that way, you know, the individual is able to go on and do it on their own. And so therefore becomes much more naturally reinforcing. And I like how that's, it seems like you guys are embedding that within it, which is super cool, which I'm assuming is your intent. Yeah, no, and that, and, and, and that is, right? Because so we have to think about it, right? The same way that we collaborate with speech OT PTs, right? When we write communication goals, we write gross motor skills, we write fun, you know, the, some of those fine motor skills, whatever it is, right? We're doing the same, we're using that same structure. Um, but instead of using a speech language pathologist, we're working with the strength coach, or we're working with a shooting coach, and we're using that collaboration, and we're learning from each other. And we're, um, you know, getting that feedback and trying to understand what is the best way to teach this skill. And, uh, just like the same way, right, we're working with our clients in the school setting or in the home setting, right? Our ultimate goal is to fade ourselves out. Um, so if we're able to train these skills, build up the prerequisites for it, get them up to this, uh, to those comp, to those complex elite level performance, right? And they're able to execute it and do it well. Our job is then to fade, fade out, right? Cause every, every, that's, that's part of our ethical code. So to where they're able to train and keep with their regular coach or regular strength coach, regular speed coach, whatever they're doing, um, to where they've learned how to then manage your own environment, manipulate their own environment, um, identify what these antecedents are that's in front of them. Um, but also, um, for them to put in place or have someone else mediate some of those other, uh, consequences, right? Reinforcers, um, would have you, um, to help either accelerate performance or maintain in, uh, sustain over time and generalize as well. So with the individuals you work with, um, for a lot of them, are you working with individuals that are going for like just college athletes or would you take a, you know, individual off the street? If you will, uh, we work with everyone. So currently we, um, we have a gym fully, fully operating functional, um, athletic ABA gym. Uh, the best way to put it, um, where we do basketball, volleyball training. Um, we do some strength and conditioning as well there. And within those leagues, um, we have youth athletes. Um, and then sometimes, um, we bring in some of the college or high school, um, athletes as well. So we, we do have experience with what we have worked with, um, high school basketball teams, work with some, uh, collegiate athletes as well. Um, but then also youth sports. And so, um, depending on, like I said, just, just depending on the athlete, it just will determine, um, kind of their, their programming, uh, their training recommendations, um, how many times we train a week, how often we train a week and I guess in the type of skills that we work on. So for the, uh, curious behavior analyst who's either coming out of grad school or looking to get into personal training or, um, coaching, what would be your recommendations? Um, do you have particular books that you turn people on to or? Yes. So I think, I think the one thing that I would recommend is so, so far we've, we've at, here at team ABA, we've been creating a lot of just resources and, and, and, and sort of guides and content for people to start exploring and start looking at, um, behavior in a different way, right? And a more athletic, competitive sort of, um, uh, way to sort of intervene or train the invisible innocence. Yeah. So I would, I would, I would, I would, I would recommend, um, you know, if you, if you want to sort of learn more, um, and kind of start, start, start getting exposed to some of it, you can check out, um, go, go to team ABA university.com. Um, we have several workshops, a couple of, uh, webinars, stuff like that. We have classes that we teach as well, just to start introducing, um, what the science looked like, um, when we embedded within athletic performance and training. The good thing about it, um, is, um, is that our, um, webinars I see in our, uh, workshops are for CEU. So if you are BCBA, you can get, um, hours for those, um, as well, they'll just be general type twos. Um, and then our classes, our live classes or our, um, online self-paced classes, um, they're for CEUs as well. So, um, that'll, that would be my best recommendation in regards to kind of learning more, wanting to get, um, involved more. Um, but then you can also reach out to me, um, and, uh, and other, uh, colleagues here at Team ABA, um, to where we can, you know, just help guide and, um, kind of be that mentor, um, in a push you in direction that you want to go in. Dude, I, one, I thank you for putting up with all the technical difficulties we had. Um, because it's, yeah, this is my superpower. Um, so thank you for sharing all of this and we will need to do another, um, check in to see how things are going. But I absolutely adore the fact that you've been able to take, um, behavior analysis as, I don't want to say basic skill development, but like learning to learn skills and then expanding upon it and being able to coach individuals and work on those kind of finite movements and looking at their, but like all of the layers, like, um, like you said, these invisible antecedents, like I love that I can capture all of that. And that's important. And it's so cool. Um, I will gladly turn people on. We will have the links on the website and everything so people can reach out to you. Um, but I love the fact that you've been able to disseminate behavior in such a way. Um, that's not the norm. Um, and the way that you've articulated it and been able to bring about a lot of things that I'm sure most people are familiar with just like early intervention and autism and like, nope, it's applicable to athletes. It's applicable to this situation. It's, it's just a science and it's really how you incorporate that person's goals, like who your client is and their motivation and their reinforcers. And you put the pieces together and when it works, cool. And if it doesn't work, you change it up a little bit and then you go forward. And honestly, I think, sorry, last a bit, I was thinking about it, um, about, um, the resources that we have. I believe we have over 30 CEOs, um, available. So if you, cause we have a 15 hour, no, we have a couple of 10 hour courses, um, a couple of one hour courses. Um, and I mean, in our self-paced course in our, in our class that we teach is I'm sure as well over, is I know it's well over 20 hours of CEOs. So I mean, it's, it, we're kind of like that. I want to stop shop if you want to, um, start collecting some of those CEOs. Um, and just, and just kind of hear about and learn something different. Our, like I said, my main goal is to, um, just start getting more people to ask questions and start talking about this more. Um, and not be afraid to explore different avenues outside. Um, cause just, cause, you know, everything that, that I'm doing is, is just to create more opportunities for the newer BCBAs that are, that are coming up that may, um, want to explore outside of the classroom or at home, uh, therapy services. Absolutely solid. Absolutely. But yeah, we, we had such an opportunity where we went where it wasn't explicitly, you know, it has to look like this. Like it was, what questions do you have? What do you want to learn? What do you need? What do you want to know? And being able to explore that is really freeing. And so I love the fact that you've been able to go and, and play and just have an adventure and that you want to bring other people into the adventure. So, um, I thank you so much for joining me on this, um, as much as a wild ride as it is. So, all right. Um, on that note, uh, this is Kelly. I'm signing off. It's been a weird recording, but we may do. So thank you, Wes. You are an amazing human. And I look forward to, um, what else you're going to do and your further disseminations. Thank you. I appreciate you having me. This was a blast. Um, I'd love to be back and talk about what's going on in the future. So there's a lot of things unfolding. All right. With all of that, I love you all. Be good humans. We'll see you later. Thank you for listening to this adventure of the atypical behavior analyst. Check out the website atypicalba.com for more episodes, references, and to purchase CEUs. To stay up to date, like and follow us on social media. Just search atypical behavior analyst. If you like the show, please rate and leave us a review. And if you want to support the show, but don't need CEUs, you can help by clicking the buy us a coffee link in the show notes. So until next time listeners, grab your towel, keep exploring, and we'll see you in the fringes.