Peak Performance: Unleashing the Athlete Within
August 2023 | Episode 2
Producer’s Note: The following is an AI-generated transcript of The Wellness Conversation, an OhioHealth Podcast
SPEAKERS: Amy Harrison, Missy Gleason, Marcus Thorpe, Herm Hundley
Marcus Thorpe 00:14
Welcome to the wellness conversation and OhioHealth podcast, a show dedicated to exploring health and wellness topics to inform and to educate. I'm your host Marcus Thorpe and I'm joined by my co host, Missy Gleason.
Missy Gleason 00:26
Thank you, Marcus. Before we get to our amazing guests a little bit about us, Marcus and I are teammates on OhioHealth marketing communications team and as the brand journalism lead, I work with the wellness blog and social media. I've been here almost 14 years but before OhioHealth I spent 13 years in local broadcast news. As a newscast producer for Columbus's CBS affiliate WBNS 10. TV,
Marcus Thorpe 00:48
That is something we share. We both worked in the television industry for quite a while Missy and I have known each other for a long time, much more earlier than our professional work here at OhioHealth. I am currently a Media Relations Manager at OhioHealth. And I've been in that role since about 2016. And prior to that, as I mentioned, working nearly 20 years in television as an anchor or reporter, a producer or really anything that the TV world makes you do, most recently at NBC four here in Columbus. We love the art of the interview. And we hope that you enjoy this podcast just as much as we enjoy bringing it to you each and every month.
Missy Gleason 01:22
So on today's episode, we're talking about upping your athleticism and we want to make this point before we even start. If you are active, consider yourself an athlete. That means walking pickleball, kayaking, golf, you name it, you move your body, you are athletic.
Marcus Thorpe 01:38
Alright, that's good. I was wondering if I was athletic, but that means that I am a little bit. And to help us better understand the topic. We have two very knowledgeable guests joining us today, Amy Harrison and Herm Hundley, both athletic trainers with OhioHealth athletic performance clinics, it's good to see you. Thank you so much for joining us. It's exciting to have you here. And for you to share your expertise. Before we start, let's learn a little bit about you both. Amy, let's start with you, your role at OhioHealth. What brought you to the world of athletic training?
Amy Harrison 02:07
Well, I have been at OhioHealth for about 17 years now as an athletic trainer. And I mean, I love it here. I love working with athletes. That's really how I got started in athletic training. I really like science and learning about things. And athletic training is that nice piece because it's kind of the combination of medicine and the combination of sports. So I got to combine my two loves. So it's, been great. And I've been an athletic trainer at high schools, I've been an athletic trainer with youth sports, a lot of different pieces there. I currently work at our athletic performance clinics, which is fantastic. Because I get to work with not only youth athletes and older athletes wide variety of ages. But I also get to work with both injury prevention athletes who are trying to return to play as well as people who are working to improve their performance.
Marcus Thorpe 03:00
Herm. How about you?
Herm Hundley 03:02
Yeah, so I grew up here in central Ohio, played sports, my whole life, played football, had a great athletic trainer in high school, who kind of inspired me, I guess, if you will. And so once I graduated, got into athletics, looking to try to just be as involved with sports as I could stay involved with sports, as I got older, generally transitioned out of your traditional athletics, where you will be at a high school or college setting, got more into sports performance, after my graduate degree, and got involved a little bit more in strength, conditioning, and things like that. And then from there, I actually worked for seven years in a rehab setting where I was doing rehab with pediatric athletes. And so that kind of gave me a little bit of more of a background a little bit more well rounded background in terms of injury prevention and rehab, performance enhancement, things like that. Got into baseball, and baseball mechanics, story mechanics. And from there, I'm here, and so I get a chance now to work with our throwers and our throwers clinic, work with athletes, you said all ages, through our our different clinics and our athletic performance clinic, where we work with, you know, youth athletes who are looking to kind of build some athleticism or develop kind of coordination of movement, all the way up through our older athletes who are looking for, you know, fall prevention and balance and stability and things like that.
Missy Gleason 04:29
Wow. That's great. One of the things that I love about our athletic performance clinic is the fact that what we talked about at the start of the podcast, if you move if you're active, you're athletic, and as somebody who I was never athletic. In high school, I marched in flag court and that was about it. So I never saw myself as somebody who had athleticism. And it wasn't till late in life, probably late 30s that I started actually exercising and working out and I always fought this idea that I was Athletic at all, because I always saw myself as somebody who was clumsy. And it took my husband telling me, No, you're doing the work, you're being athletic. And so now years down the road, I'm finally realizing that I do have some athleticism. But um, I would love to know for you guys, how do you personally define like athletic potential, especially for somebody who might not feel like they have it?
Herm Hundley 05:21
I think athletic potential is your ability to do, ability to move, ability to do things, whether it's running, or whether it's football, or a specific sport, or just generally being physically active in terms of physical fitness, group classes, strength, conditioning, strength training, things like that. So your potential, your athletic potential is your ability to do those things. And that is variable across the spectrum has some some play from genetics, and it has some play from your amount of training. So, you know, they say if you can, if you try it, and you can do it, then you can do it, right. It's not one of those things where, you know, there's there's anything is off limits to anybody, there might be different levels, you have NFL players, and you have peewee league football players, right? They're still athletes, they're still doing the same sport, it's just a different level. So there's levels to it. But ultimately, it's just whether or not you're willing to try it.
Marcus Thorpe 06:18
I think you kind of hit on my next question. A little bit there. I mean, not, you know, I'm a 46, almost 47 year old man, I'd love to swing the golf club like Royer met Roy McIlroy, or Tiger Woods or those kinds of things. So can you go a little bit deeper on the different levels of potential and kind of how that fits into your overall athletic? I don't know viewpoint or what you see yourself becoming as you start to get into this journey of athleticism.
Herm Hundley 06:45
I think ultimately, your more elite athletes, right? They are they start training when they're very, very young. I think the easiest way to kind of explain athletic potential overall is like a ceiling and floor analogy. Your ceiling is your genetic ability, right? That's the cap for what you can physically do. From your genetic potential meaning like your ability to gain muscle mass, or your ability to have you know faster how much fast twitch muscle fiber, you have your cardiovascular endurance, things like that definitely has a genetic link. But the floor is kind of what we can change. And that's what we tend to focus on. So your floor is kind of where you are, and what you can do right now. That's kind of how I define it. So by training, we can kind of elevate that floor. And the harder we train, the higher that floor comes. Most people, Amy and I had this conversation the other day, most people never actually meet their genetic potential. You hear a lot about, well, I'm just I'm just not genetically gifted, like, you know, the best players in the NBA. Yeah, you're not probably, but also nobody really ever trained to the point where they can reach their genetic potential. There's always room for growth, just through like intelligent training and things like that. So being kind of aware of that understanding like, Yes, I'm probably not ever going to be Lebron James. Right. There's also an opportunity for you to grow, regardless of kind of where you are right now.
Missy Gleason 08:07
So you might even say, like, seeing the potential in yourself, will give you the ability to grow
Herm Hundley 08:14
Yeah, and being willing to work for that makes sense.
Amy Harrison 08:17
Definitely. And kind of to what you were saying about feeling clumsy. We all know, we've seen those athletes that are just gifted, they're good at everything, you know, and those are the athletes, it's like, I'm never going to be like that. But with training, you could easily be that it just may take a little more work for someone who's not as talented and genetically gifted as someone who is. But again, with that athlete that's genetically gifted, if they don't do the work, they're not going to improve either. So that's kind of that balance, for sure.
Missy Gleason 08:45
So what are some training techniques or strategies that athletes can focus on to kind of unlock that potential?
Amy Harrison 08:52
Really, it's going to be a little bit different for every athlete on what they need to work on. But really, overall strength, flexibility movement, our best athletes are going to be strong and flexible, they're going to be able to move through a full range of motion, but they're going to be strong enough to be stable, and support that motion. And that's going to help them move efficiently. So that they can perform in their sport, because it all kind of builds from the base. You know, from the time we learn to walk to the time we learn to run, it's a progression. So making sure that we have the strength to support the movements we're doing, whether that's playing basketball, or golf, or just taking your dog for a walk and having the balance met to step over the curb. It's all relative to what you want to do and what those goals are.
Herm Hundley 09:38
Yeah, I think that's kind of the base to what we call our performance pyramid. So movement is your base, that is kind of the foundation for everything that gets built. And it starts from the day that you're born. You develop that flexibility, develop that mobility, those motor coordination patterns, things like that. And then from there, there's a performance component to that. So that next tier up up in that pyramid is your performance. So that's your strength training, your speed and agility, your balance your, you know, your overall like physical coordination. And then you have your you know, the peak of that pyramid is your sport performance. So that's your actual sport, training your basketball, shooting, your hockey, skating those specific skills to that sport. In order to get, you know, to maximize those skills, you have to have that foundation. If not, you end up with injuries and things like
Marcus Thorpe 10:24
that. Amy Harrison and Herb Hundley, our guests, the athletic trainers with the OhioHealth, athletic performance clinics, let's talk about mental capacity and preparation and those kinds of things. It's amazing to see athletes these days, and how seriously they take the mental aspect of things even along with all of the physical tools that they put together. Can you talk about mindset and preparing mentally to perform in athletics and how critically important that is and how to get better at it,
Herm Hundley 10:56
Your mental mindset and kind of how you prepare from from a mental standpoint, for your sport for your athletics, super important. You need to be able to block out distractions in real life, you need to turn off you know, daily life, you know, Johnny and turn into football, Johnny or basketball Johnny in that moment, you have to have that ability to turn that off. And you also have to be able to visualize yourself performing well. You have to put in the mental repetitions, through film study or through coaching, right, because being coachable is super important. If you want to get better, you need to be coachable. Because if you can't learn from your mistakes or from other people's mistakes, then you're going to continue to make those same mistakes. When you're in competition and things like that. From there, you're going to be as you get those more reps, you're gonna get physical reps in practice, you're gonna get mental reps, and that's going to help you gain confidence in your skills and understand that, hey, I can, I can do that. Because I know I need to be here. When I see this or when this happens, I need to do this. So again, you gain that confidence in your skills, and then you also gain that confidence. And I've seen this before I know what to do here. So that's super important as well.
Amy Harrison 12:04
I think just learning the ability to adapt and recover from adversity, when you're playing sports, or whether you're just learning a new skill, you're not going to do it perfectly the first time, you're going to make mistakes, you're going to fall down, you're going to lose games, and you have to learn how to accept that, you know, go back and look at the game field film, see what you did wrong, and learn to do it better. And to make improvements. We only learn by making mistakes, we don't learn from doing it perfectly. So sometimes those mistakes are how we get better. So we need to be willing to make those mistakes and learn how to overcome that. With our especially our youth athletes, there's a lot of anxiety and just pressure to perform out there. So sometimes just learning how to reduce stress, whether that's, you know, meditation, or you know, just having some quiet time or having some really loud music time, whatever works for you to just kind of de stress and, you know, every individual is different, but you need that just time to relax and find what works for you from that relaxation.
Marcus Thorpe 13:08
Yeah, I see this, the sports and the way that youth sports are set up, sometimes it's you lost a tough game, or you made a mistake in a game. And in the tournament settings, you play another game in two hours. So having the ability to kind of turn that part of it off, and then turn on to the next one. Like that's tough, especially for some of these young kids that may have had a rough game or four at bats where they didn't touch the ball. And now they've got to go back and do it all again. So the mental reps have to be there too. And being able to turn some of that off, to regroup and mentally prepare for the next challenge.
Amy Harrison 13:41
Oh, definitely, you gotta be able to turn off the noise and refocus.
Herm Hundley 13:45
Sometimes even within the same game too or in that same moment, right, you make a mistake right there. Now that that next rep is coming out, you're coming at you 20 seconds later. So being ready to kind of brush it off and be like, alright, you know what happens, right? Understanding that happens. Here, that's what I did wrong. Okay, boom, in my head, I know I did that wrong, I can visualize it. Alright, let's move on.
Marcus Thorpe 14:04
Instead of saying I don't want the ball to come to me, because I just made a mistake, it's okay, I'm going to do better the next time it's going to come to me and I want that challenge again. So that's a big part of it.
Missy Gleason 14:12
I think that goes to what you were saying to her about repetition, and being you know, present and paying attention to what you're doing. Because when something does go wrong, realizing that like, it doesn't always go wrong, or I can get over this and I can try again, like almost immediately sometimes, or maybe it's the next race or the next game. So having that mental fortitude to get back up and try again is so so important.
Amy Harrison 14:36
Well, and that's where it's really important to have the training and the practice because, you know, if you're a runner and you're going to have a bulk and a race it's going to be you're going to have those same moments those same difficult things during training. But if in training, you can mentally recover and continue and finish your training. It's gonna be easier to do it during the race. Same thing whether you're a hockey player or basketball player, the more you can mess up at practice and move on and correct it, the more it's going to happen in a game,
Missy Gleason 15:03
You're going to know I've been here before, and I can get over this absolutely.
Herm Hundley 15:08
Then like, it's important to, to be a good teammate, and have good teammates. Because when you make a mistake having somebody else to kind of pick you up when your buddies or something like that to pick you up. But then obviously, when your teammate makes mistake, you can kind of pick them up a little bit too. And, and then you understand like, Hey, we're in this it's not, you know, it's not one person's fault. Like we get it, we all make mistakes. So being a good teammate, super important, for sure.
Missy Gleason 15:31
So we talked a little bit about mental toughness, and athleticism. How about we turn a little bit to the things that can help us with both of those. So nutrition recovery, what kind of roles do those play in unlocking your potential?
Herm Hundley 15:45
A major role, um, I think a lot of times we see recovery, and those are the two areas I feel like that get overlooked the most in terms of our training programs were so dialed in on the strength conditioning aspects and the coaching and the extra coaching and you know, the pitch, you go into your pitching coach or hitting coach, you know, the specialty equipment, things like that. And then a lot of times we just overlook recovery, we overlook rest, we overlook our just general nutrition, you know, we eat, like we're a six year old, you know, we're eating macaroni and cheese and chicken nuggets and expecting to be able to perform in the same level as somebody who's eating a healthy, full balanced diet.
Marcus Thorpe 16:20
And notice you looked right at me when you said that.
Herm Hundley 16:25
But it's super important. Like, if you don't, you know, if you're the way we train, we are progressively overloading our body. So we progressively overload the tissue. So we do more than what we can handle, you know, by small margins. But that causes tissue breakdown. If we don't get the proper nutrients, we don't get the proper rest, our body cannot fully recover from that can't rebuild that tissue stronger, the whole point of going over a little bit over what we can, or we're overtraining or overreaching, we're looking for that adapted response from our body. And from there, the body will get better for next time. And then we can push it a little bit harder and a little bit harder. And that's how we make those advancements. That's how we bring that training floor up closer to our potential, if you will. And so we don't take those rest days, you know, it may not be a you know, you're gonna see performance deficits, probably. But the more that becomes a chronic issue, the more you're going to see breakdown over time and injuries and things like that. That's where we're gonna see most of those overuse injuries and stuff.
Marcus Thorpe 17:23
I know for some nutrition can feel a little overwhelming, you know, trying to deal with what should I be putting in my body? What am I burning all of those things? What do you suggest? For someone that needs to kind of just a starter? Like, what do I need to do to make sure I get this right, maybe from the beginning, instead of just trying to guess because I think a lot of us do that. Like, I think I'm doing the right thing here. What are some basics to start?
Amy Harrison 17:49
Well, I would say because nutrition is very overwhelming. And we tend to see lots of athletes that will do, you know, follow trends and do crash diets and things like that. And those aren't going to work long term because you can't stick with those type of things over the lifetime. So you may lose weight right away. But then you're gonna go back to your old habits. So I suggest usually making small changes something that's doable, okay. Mixing in as many fruits and vegetables as you can start with your five a day if you can add more great that that's the kind of beginning stages, if you get your at least your five go from there. I always tell athletes to have lots of variety, everything in moderation. So we don't we want to make sure we're getting all of our five food groups. A lot of people are afraid of carbs. Carbs are good. Athletes need carbs. It's the easiest form of energy when you're exercising. So we don't want to cut out a whole food group. We just want to make healthier choices in that department, your fruits and vegetables, your whole grains instead of your donuts and your cake and your cookies. And then I usually try to tell our athletes to taste the rainbow when it comes to variety. And I'm not talking Skittles here. We want to have as much color in your food as we can. So making sure you're getting as many colors in throughout the day. Mixing in our carbs and proteins within our workouts making sure you're getting that car protein blend before after. The other thing that we see a lot with athletes is they want to do lots of supplements. Supplements is not food, food, it should always be first and supplements come when maybe you can't get everything you need from your diet, you know whether that's because of food allergies, you know, religious or cultural changes, things like that can all affect that or, you know, you may be a vegan or vegetarian that struggles with getting enough protein. Those are all athletes rather than just reach out to supplements. Those athletes should really be looking at a sport meeting with a sports dietitian and getting a good plan so that they can get all those things from their food. And then water lots and lots of water. Okay, we all need to hydrate and a lot of times when we're even feeling thirsty or getting cravings. It's not that our body needs food. It's that we need our Getting a little dehydrated, and we need more water. So make sure you're taking your jug and drinking it all day long,
Herm Hundley 20:04
I think for our athletes is it's important, like she said, making sure they're getting the proper amount of carbohydrates for energy, but also protein, because that's the source for where we build all of our tissues. So making sure that you're getting about one gram of protein for per pound of body weight, give or take, doesn't have to be quite that high. It can be a little below that, but that's kind of like that rough, kind of feel goal area. But I just told my kids like eat like a grown up, eat like an adult, eat your vegetables, get some protein, drink lots of water and stay away from junk food. Biggest, that's the biggest thing is you, you see kids, they'll go out and they'll eat healthy meals. And then in between, they're eating doughnuts or pop tarts or they're eating, you know, candy and things like that. And while it's okay in moderation, when you're doing every day, and it's like, well, I can't I don't know why I'm having these issues. The other thing is making sure you're actually eating. So many of our athletes will come in to train. And like I don't know why I'm so tired. I'm like, What did you eat breakfast, they're like, No, I'm like, well, it's 1130. And you haven't eaten anything all day. That's why you're wiped. So making sure you're actually eating. And then you know, in between meals, making sure you're getting a kind of a healthy snack in there as well. That's going to help bring you up, keep your levels high for training or for practice, or whatever you have during that day, whether it's a test in school, or, you know, a football game that night, something like that.
Amy Harrison 21:26
And it's funny, he tells his athletes to eat like an adult, I generally tell my athletes to eat like a kid. And then we need to be eating a little bit every couple of hours like we did when we were little, you know, you when your kids are toddlers, you're always packing healthy snacks. So they have something that's one of the big things I encourage people is to snack and make sure they're eating every two, three hours. So they're not getting hungry. And then they're not grabbing a bag of chips. And you know, making sure that you have those healthy, easy things to grab, you know, it's easy to grab a bag of carrot sticks. But if you have to, like shred the carrot and cut it up and do all that, then it's a lot of work. And it's easier to grab a bag of chips. So making sure you're snacking and having healthy stuff to snack on.
Marcus Thorpe 22:05
I know injury prevention and longevity for athletes is super important. I mean, our bodies are going to break down over time, there's no doubt about that, whether you're a youth athlete, who's pushing yourself to the limits each and every day or you start to get up into an older athlete who still wants to keep doing what you're doing. When it comes to injury prevention, how do you break down some common injuries in sports that you focus on at the athletic performance clinics?
Herm Hundley 22:28
So obviously, I work mostly with throwers or a lot of throwers, and, you know, runners and athletes that are going to be doing a lot of change directions, things like that. The biggest thing is understanding movement patterns. And Seth, going back to that kind of that pyramid, is that foundation, that movement? You know, do they have the flexibility that they need? Do they have the baseline strength and stability that they need? You know, do they have good control, those kinds of things, that's all going to play into how they move on the field. And so if they're not moving well in a clinical setting with me during, you know, functional movement screening or door during, you know, some basic, you know, rehab exercises or injury prevention exercises, that we have to address that in that setting, so that they can then learn how to control it when they're out on the field. You know, I tell my baseball players are good example of this something like if you can't do a great lunge, how do you expect to be able to be stable and strong when you're pitching really, really high velocities, you have to be able to stop your body momentum with your lower half. If you can't do a basic lunge or like a falling lunge, for instance, in the clinic, that's obviously going to have a breakdown. So when you have that breakdown on the field in your lower half, you're gonna see some upper half breakdown, and see those injuries, whether it be your elbow, your shoulders, same thing with like our shoulder or elbow injuries, for instance, it's mostly, almost always an injury is related to something else. So we kind of talked about this earlier with like the biomechanical component is that if you aren't able to do something somewhere in your body, it's going to your body's going to compensate and make up for that. So with our with our baseball players, it's almost always related back to the core. And for pretty, really all of our athletes is going to go back to that we go back to the core, you know, if they're not able to stabilize their core, or their shoulder or their hip, then you're going to start to see compensations at the elbow or the knee or, you know, the ankle. Those compensations allow us to move and do what we want to do, but it puts too much stress on those joints. And then you see that tissue breakdown at the elbow or the shoulder, the shoulder, things like that.
Missy Gleason 24:29
So how can an athlete work to lower that risk of injuries? Is it going to be like sports specific or dependent upon where their weaknesses are?
Amy Harrison 24:37
There's a little bit of both. I mean, definitely as an individual, that's one of the things we do at our performance clinics is we do some video analysis. We do some individualized biomechanics screening and so that we can find where their weakness or where their tightness is, and then we correct that because it's not it is full body. You know, you may have someone come in with shin splints, for example. And we can do all we can to reduce that pain and things like that. But it's going to come back unless we correct the issue that's causing it. And that may be some weakness in the hips, it may be some flexibility issues, until we really look at that person, we don't know what it is. So that's why that individual approach is important. I would say though, overall, your athletes need to be strong, and they need to be flexible. So not to use too many analogies while we talk today. But our muscles are like rubber bands, if we have that rubber band that's both strong and flexible, I can stretch it, it's going to remote and go back into that shape that it should be in. But if I have a rubberband that's either really weak, when I pull on it and stretch it, it's going to snap, or if it's brittle, because it doesn't have the flexibility to snap, or to stretch, it's going to snap and break. So that's where if we have that muscle that's strong, and it's flexible, it can read form. Once we have that deformity, and we put that muscle load on it, it's going to go back to its resting position, and you're not going to have that injury. So it's really what you do off the field that's going to help prevent your injuries on the field.
Marcus Thorpe 26:07
It's so interesting to hear you all talk because literally from segment to segment like the one of the the themes that I keep hearing is like balance and balance and balance and not overdoing it, doing it all within reason. So let's talk about those athletes that are pushing their limits for peak performance, but prioritizing kind of longevity? How do you balance those things? Because athletes want to be their very best, but sometimes they don't always think how do I make myself the best over a long period of time? That can be short sighted sometimes. How do you balance that from a visionary perspective?
Herm Hundley 26:40
I know with my baseball players, especially my pitchers, a lot of times I go back to the, you know, they're like, Well, I've been doing it and I throw hard and I'm, I'm good. I have had good results on the mound. And I'm like, yeah, but you're hurt, you're not available, your best ability is your availability, if you're hurt if you're nicked up, if you're you know, you're constantly going through these rehab cycles, where you're, you're able to play for half a season, and then you're out or you're able to play for a month. And then now you have to take a couple of weeks off, and then you're back and it's wishy washy, you're not your best self for one. And for two, you could always be better. So it's always looking at kind of where can we gain that extra inch. And that's what all athletes are looking for. So being able to relate back to them is like, hey, you're great. There's some things that you can be better at. And it's small little details that change. And you can kind of that's what's the great part about video analysis, so we can show them those. So we can say, hey, you know, you're not moving great. And they're going like, well, you know, I throw hard. So I'm moving fine. And it's like, alright, well, let's look at this. And now look at this, you're not getting rotation here. So you're not able to get XYZ, if you can get that you're going to be a little bit more consistent. And then a lot of times we can predict kind of how they move or how they perform like, hey, when you miss you're gonna miss high and arm side most often. Right? And they're like, yeah, how you know, I'm like, this is why it's super cool. And so it gives us the ability to kind of relate it back to here's how it's going to help with your sport, and making that connection and being able to push them into that. From a longevity standpoint, obviously, just making sure that they're taking care of their body. Because most you know, most of our athletes that come in, you know, or a lot of them the younger athletes who say, Oh, you know, I want to play college, I want to play in the NFL or that you know, and play Major League Baseball. And while that's probably not realistic for a lot of kids, that's that's their goal. And that's what they want to work towards. And at the very least we can help them improve. So giving them the tools to do that is super, super important. It's awesome.
Amy Harrison 28:23
I would say to you from a longevity perspective, I work with a lot of adult athletes, runners, triathletes, cyclists, and most of them that come in, they say, you know, I don't care if I get faster, but I want to still be running when I'm 80. I agree. That's what I want to so you know, I get it. And I would I tell all of them to just train smarter, not harder. Listen to your body. You know, when your body's saying it needs a rest day, it probably needs a rest day. So mixing in the rest and the recovery. And just making small changes. So when you are increasing mileage, or you're increasing speed, small percentages, you don't want to jump up and double your training, mileage, those are the things that cause breakdown. And it's better to live to run another day. So when you do have pain back off a little bit, get that recovery, get the ice on it, do the things you need to do and then live to run another day and come back stronger the next day. And that's why we see the older athletes that are playing pro sports now that probably weren't a long time ago, they're doing a lot of the right training and doing a lot of the recovery things that we didn't do 50 years ago.
Herm Hundley 29:29
Load management and the MBA is a big thing. It's been one of the things recently that everyone talks about. And it's like, those guys need longer time to recover because they're not as young anymore. They're older, their bodies are older their tissues take longer to recover. And I think yeah, kind of bounced off Amy's point is like listen to your body. If it's hurting your that's your body's way of telling you like something's gotta give right? Even if it's pain, it's not quite injury yet where I can't play it. You know, some of my player, my baseball guys come in and they're like, with elbow injuries. And, you know, I get to talk until my well, how long was your shoulder hurting before that? No, like, how do you know my shoulder was hurting, I'm like, I can tell from my exam that your shoulder was hurting. And that's why your elbow now hurts because you ignored the shoulder and now the elbow became an issue. And now it's the point where you can't play. Whereas if you would have listened to your body, when it's first started getting a little sore, a little achy, maybe taking a day or two to kind of, you know, nip it in the bud, start some rehab kind of thing, you could have continued playing. But now we've got to shut you down for a long period of time and kind of restart. So just listen to your body. If it's if it's painful, and it's hurting, it's your body's way of telling you it doesn't want to do that, you know, soreness is one thing, but pain is completely different
Marcus Thorpe 30:37
To be predictive in that way, for sure.
Missy Gleason 30:39
So, Amy, you mentioned looking at a video analysis of some of your athletes, and I know that's something we do at the athletic performance clinic at OhioHealth. Can you both kind of walk us through what that athletic performance clinic is for in the types of things that you guys look at while you're there?
Amy Harrison 30:56
Yeah, with our clinics, we have a few sports specific clinics. So we have sports specific clinics for golf, throwing, running and cycling or by clinic. And we really do video analysis. So for example, the runners clinic, we would have someone run on the treadmill, we're recording camera or video from the back the side close ups of the feet, so we can see how the body moves while they're running. Then we're going to do about biomechanical screening, looking at strength, flexibility, side to side differences, anything that's going to set them up for injury or impede their performance. I always tell people, that kind of the video gives us what they're doing the biomechanical screening and gives us why they're doing it. We compare those two pieces and then put together a corrective exercise program to basically correct anything that we find to help reduce the risk of injury. And to improve their performance.
Missy Gleason 31:48
Any other aspects of the clinic like do, when my kids went through it, it was like nutrition talk to and all those other.
Amy Harrison 31:55
Yes, we do have a lot of other services they are, we have a sports dietitian that can see athletes, when we definitely recommend that in most cases. But especially those athletes that are struggling with injuries, a lot of times that can be due to under fueling and nutrition. We work with a sports psychologist that can see them and work on the mental side of things. And sometimes we'll be working with an athlete and we may kind of pull them aside like you need this other piece. Once we kind of look at the whole picture, we actually do a lot of different things there as well. We do group classes, individualize training programs, personal training, we kind of do some host PT rehab, we see a lot of people that you know, go have an injury, and they go through physical therapy, and they have a certain amount of visits, they get back to functioning in their daily lives, going to work all those things, but it may not be right where they want to be, they may want to train for a 5k. Or they may want to get back to regular exercise program. And they're not quite there yet, but they're not how sure how to get there, we can kind of bridge that gap with our athletic training background, that's more medical, and our performance background that can get them progress them from that medical needs to now more of a performance standpoint. So that's one of the things that we commonly do.
Herm Hundley 33:12
Yeah, we were able to where we to bridge the gap, everything from you know, your rehab, your traditional type of rehab, where you have an injury or hurt all the way out through, I just want to get faster, or I just want to get stronger, I want to put on muscle everywhere in between. So whether it's a performance goal, whether it's, you know, I want to feel better goal, I want to move better. I want to golf better in my old age goal. Or sometimes we just get kids and they're like, Yeah, I'm just I've lost some velocity or I don't know what's going on. Like something's going on. I'm not hurt. I'm not having a ton of pain, but something's not right. We'll get them in there and kind of and work through that with them and be able to say, hey, this is, you know, it's a you've got some stuff going on here physically, but also, you know, from a psych standpoint, you maybe you're struggling with XYZ, that's it, we can kind of refer them out to Dr. K's as well. I think it's important to say that we cover every type of athlete but every sport as well. So everything from your pickleball players and your runners to your 78 year old grandma golfers to you know, you're more elite athletes that are looking to be in sport, you know, trying to be in college, we have college athletes with high school, we have, you know, eight year olds that come through and do stuff with our program that's specifically designed for them.
Marcus Thorpe 34:25
It's amazing. It's a great setup. It's very smart. And again, we're all athletes, right? If you're out you're moving that body no matter what you are an athlete. So we would like to thank Amy Harrison and Herb Hundley, athletic trainers with OhioHealth athletic performance clinics for being our guests. Thank you so much for your great information, great knowledge. And hopefully it is something that people kind of take on their journey and really use because I think it's important for people to keep doing that keep moving that body and it's how we all you know, have longevity for the rest of our lives. And we appreciate your expertise.
Amy Harrison 34:56
Yeah, thanks for having us. Thanks.
Missy Gleason 34:59
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Marcus Thorpe 35:13
The information in this episode will also be available in written form. On the OhioHealth wellness blog you can find that @blog.ohiohealth.com
Missy Gleason 35:21
Thank you for tuning into the wellness conversation. We hope you found this episode informative and valuable. Be sure to join us next time as we continue our exploration of important health and wellness topics with OhioHealth experts