E43 | Mickey Brueckner on Throwing Athlete Arm Care

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Mickey Brueckner is the owner and director of training at the ANNEX Sports Performance Center, a sports performance and fitness facility located in Chatham, New Jersey.

Like many high school and college student-athletes, Mickey had aspirations to pursue a career as a professional athlete. During his sophomore year in college Mickey was projected to be a top five round pick in the Major League Baseball Draft in the summer of 2003. However, a season-ending elbow injury led to two Tommy-John surgeries and months of physical therapy. Never getting back to his previous form, he had to give up his path of becoming a professional athlete. To stay connected to his passion, Mickey took up the next best thing - training. As a trainer, Mickey is able to utilize his years of experience as an athlete combined with his performance training and physical therapy experience to help other athletes become faster and stronger, while also focusing on injury prevention. Since returning from Arizona in 2006, Mickey has quickly created a reputation in his area for his work with developing amateur and professional baseball athletes. Along with working with all levels of baseball athletes, Mickey has also served as a consultant for several high school, college, and professional baseball programs in the field of program design and player development. Mickey has had the opportunity to work with some of the best high school and college athletes coming out of New Jersey as well as a host of professional athletes from the NFL and MLB, a handful of which have worked with Mickey since high school. In 2007 he trained the High School Baseball “Gatorade Player of the Year” as well as the USA Today High School Baseball “Team of the Year.”

1.   How Mickey's passion for baseball made it a seamless transition from player to coach
2.   What should arm care encompass from Mickey's point of view?
3.   The importance of an off-season training goal and what this process looks like
4.   What a 7-day throwing process looks like for a college or high school pitcher
5.   How young pitchers can get themselves into trouble in training and development by trying to get ahead of the process
6.  The glaring differences between pitcher development and competition
7.  Positional progressions for young pitchers
8.  Being more practical with how you choose methods of arm care

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•  Mickey's Instagram

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Episode Transcription: Greg: [00:00:25] All right. Welcome to the Resilient Performance Podcast. I'm today's host Greg Spatz. I'm happy to be here today with Mickey Bruckner. He is an owner, founder of the Annex Sports Performance and Fitness in Chatham, New Jersey, where we have one of our locations. So, we're lucky enough to be a tenant of his and share some space and collaborate on a lot of different clients, different athletes. So it's been fun. I'm just going to have Mickey kind of just hop in, introduce himself, give a little background about his history through either academics, athletics, and kind of just give a background on the annex and kind of what's going on with those guys. So go for it. Mickey: [00:01:01] Yeah, thanks for the time today, Greg. I was a former collegiate baseball player who had couple elbow surgeries in college that kind of discontinued my playing career baseball was my passion. Next biggest passion was training and it was something I always enjoyed. So it was a pretty seamless transition for me to go from a collegiate athlete to a strength coach and I was at Arizona State at the time and I moved back in to New Jersey in 2006 and started the Annex and just gradually built what it is today. We've got a great team of coaches, we certainly have a specialty working with overhead throwing athletes and amateur level, professional level, all different ages and skill levels, but it's something that I've kind of really devoted my life's work to in terms of trying to keep these athletes not only healthy, but performing well and optimizing their performance on the field and it was all a product of my past as a collegiate athlete, but I studied kinesiology in college. I got a bachelor's degree and then just when I graduated, started my business center that was about 15 years ago. So yeah, so that's kind of been my path to get here. Greg: [00:02:19] Yeah. It's been a long time to have that gym, that's pretty awesome. This is your third actual physical space, correct? Mickey: [00:02:26] Yeah. So when I first started in 2006, we were in a little basement gym. We had a squat rack and some dumbbells, some pulleys, not much, it was pretty bare bones, but we were there from the fall of 2006 to the summer of 2008 and then 2008, we moved into a new facility and we were there from '08 to 2014. 2014, we moved into our facility now and then we also have another facility next door at a place called the Florham Park Sports Stone and we run sprint space out of that facility and we've been there since the fall of 2019. Greg: [00:03:06] You've got your hands full for sure. That's awesome. Yeah and then, how many coaches you guys have, and I know, obviously we're here, we're going to talk a lot about the throwing athlete. We're kind of going to focus on things that you and I both do, from our sides of sort of the continuum and where our expertise lies and how we kind of coordinate things. But, I mean, besides baseball, obviously you guys are training all sorts of athletes, just so happens that you have more baseball. So how many other trainers do you have and then what are some other common sports you guys are seeing. Mickey: [00:03:34] Yeah. So there are seven full time strength coaches, including myself. We've got some part time coaches who help with our adult fitness classes. We've got an admin who's been with us for many years but for the most part we're servicing amateur and professional athletes; baseball, basketball, football, soccer, hockey, lacrosse, a lot of the big sports in this area. Greg: [00:04:09] Pretty much everything. Mickey: [00:04:10] Yeah, I mean, again, I've gotten to the point now where I've seen pretty much only acute cases and post-op in other sports, but for the most part, I'm working with overhead throwing athletes. Greg: [00:04:07] Yep. Cool. Yeah. And we're happy to be operating one of our locations out of there it's been really awesome for us and we've been there now since, I still don't even know the year. Was it 2018? The fall of 2018? Mickey: [00:04:22] I feel like it was maybe 2017. Greg: [00:04:25] Because it's been two years right? Was it two? Anyway, we've been there for a few years and it took about a year to make it happen and work it out. Then I was kind of seeing some of Mickey's throwers and they'd come into the city where we were, or maybe I'd go out out to New Jersey or whatever, but we ended up working out where we can move into that space there and it's been great collaborating with you and working with so many of your athletes and all the other trainers that are too, everybody's been great to work with. So it's been fun. Mickey: [00:04:57] Likewise, I think what's really special is the continuity amongst how we coach and how you do your work and how we do our work. There's a lot of, it works seamlessly for the athletes, which is a great resource for them. Greg: [00:05:10] Yeah, it makes it easy for me too, if I didn't have you, or we have a pitching coach, Elvis [05:33inaudible] who is now working out of the facility as of this past winter, he's kind of this sort of pandemic wasn't really good timing for him to launch the whole thing, but he's operating out of there part time and it's been great working with him too. We were just on a zoom call maybe a week ago, talking with a couple of pitching coaches about similar things and we're all on the same page. We don't necessarily have a hundred percent expertise in each area, but we kind of can talk the language and understand enough to help each other out. So it's been nice and I think we're pretty lucky. Like, I don't think a lot of places are able to do what we're doing, so it's pretty fun. Mickey: [00:05:49] Yeah, no, it's rare, but for sure, the ones who get the most out of it are the athletes, which is great. Greg: [00:05:58] Yeah, for sure. All right, cool. So let's dive into the topic here. We're going to talk about arm care and that's sort of like a pretty big catch all term for us. A lot of times it's kind of thought of only as exercises or things you do for your shoulder or your elbow and that's really it. So that's something that I know you and I have spoken and spoken about and it definitely a myopic view to think only in that small range of just the arm that we're taking care of and I think our focus is more on the athlete as a whole and first making them human before making them an athlete and then turning them into a pitcher after that. So we want to have athletes before pitchers. And then obviously as a thrower there are a lot of different things that factor into how you're going to program for them on the strength conditioning side, how I'm going to care for them in the rehab or recovery setting. So I just wanted to talk a little bit about that and just generally speaking and sort of like 300,000 foot view coming down, what is your thought process? What do you think arm care should sort of encompass? Mickey: [00:07:08] Well, to me, arm care is obviously you're looking at cuff scap, the ability to move the scap around the rib cage but it's just so much more than that because if you have an athlete who doesn't move well, functionally speaking, and has limited movement capability, I think that's more of an important thing to address rather than just doing your throwers 10 or other different types of quote unquote arm care work. I think they need to do it all really well. If an athlete comes in and presents to me that on a functional standpoint they move well, but they're lacking some aspects that they need to address in terms of arm care, whether it's dynamic stability or just general cuff strength, then that's something I would address. Whereas if it's something where they generally, if they don't move well functionally, I don't even look in terms of building a super specific arm care program. It would be something where I would address them on a functional standpoint, like pushing, pulling, rotation bilaterally or unilaterally be able to do all those things really well. But if they don't possess those traits, then those are things that need to happen first before we even look into the more specific things. Greg: [00:08:20] For sure. Yeah. It's almost like you're not going to not do that stuff, throwers 10 type of program. You're just not going to care about it as much if they have all these other issues that are bigger problems to have as a human and an athlete first. So that's sort of like what you're thinking. Mickey: [00:08:35] Absolutely. Obviously I do my assessments from specific to general, but generally speaking, when I look at the needs of an athlete, I go from general system specific. So, I would say all of my throwers they're doing some level of specific arm care work. However, I would say how much they need that is predicated upon how well they move as a an athlete. Greg: [00:09:01] And then what we're going to talk about later too is time of year, if it's in season where they are in their recruiting process, that stuff is all taken into consideration for sure. So we'll dive into that a little bit and then like you had mentioned just these bigger rocks, I'll have it in quotes here in my notes, pieces build the pattern. Obviously pitching is a very dynamic, moving pattern. So it's not just the shoulder of the elbow that's working. Everybody talks about how everything is connected and that's where your lunging patterns that you're looking into are going to be part of arm care, just like anything else. Then dissecting out the delivery and the mechanics of the delivery and what's important and if certain movements aren't there. So for example, if somebody doesn't have the appropriate trunk rotation or the appropriate hip rotation, there's probably going to be things that we'll see in their delivery that they either can't do, or they compensate for and those are like low hanging fruit that we're trying to address and that too is arm care. That's sort of like the point that we're trying to get across, fixing somebody hip is going to be helpful for their arm, because I don't want those little rotator cuff muscles being the stabilizer, the sole stabilizer for your arm if you're throwing 90 miles an hour, it's not going to go well. Mickey: [00:10:11] Yeah, so often if an athlete comes into our facility, if they see me or see you, they might come in with elbow issues but very rarely is it an issue at the elbow. It's something that's breaking down before anything gets to the elbow that's often causing that greater dysfunction and that's where my job is to find that if they're missing range of motion, give them what they need. If they're missing some type of stability or if they don't have the necessary patterns to get into positions that allows them to be in a better delivery then I need to give them that. That comes through the assessments we're putting them through a it's also a lot of times I can generally understand what an athlete's going to look like on a mound just by looking how they move in an assessment before you even see any video. So really, the video just kind of confirms what I would expect to see, so to speak. Greg: [00:11:00] Right. And then I liked how you just said, if they don't have something you can try and give it to them. That's something that we, Doug, Trevor, and I sort of keep going back to, with a lot of these talks and all of these questions we get. It's like, what do I do if somebody doesn't have a certain thing, it's like just find a way to get it for them. I don't care how you do it, there are a million different content courses that anyone can take and everything can work. It's just a matter of how it's applied and if it's for the right person at the right time. I like that phrase of just give people what they don't have so that they can do what they want to do. Mickey: [00:11:33] Absolutely and I think that's where the ability of somebody like myself and yourself to work together is there might be some scenarios where I can't give an athlete what they need. So that's when I send them over to you because on a clinical standpoint, I can't be touching athletes, there are a lot of things I can't do and then quite frankly, the way in which we train, unless I'm working with somebody post-op in a one-on-one setting, I can make those necessary changes from session to session but because of the model we work in, we work in a semi-private model where I might have three other athletes and with an athlete, I can generally give that athlete what he needs, but for the most part, if it's something super clinical, I don't have the bandwidth to do that. So it makes it so much easier to just send them over to you or your guys to enable that. Greg: [00:12:22] Yeah, definitely and then it's easy for us because we can see people less if we know that they're going back to somebody like you and where we can give them a couple of things to do that becomes part of their program and it's going to be coached the same way as we would coach it and everything. We could talk all the time about different things that we do, but it's been fun. So that's awesome. Something I want to talk about just generally speaking, from training in general, what are your goals with an athlete training? We talk about, you and I'm talking about their goal is to play their sport, their goal is not training. So they're not power-lifting, they're not bodybuilding, just talk about generally speaking, what are some things that might be; what does that program look like for an athlete who is like, all right, I'm ready to go, I'm ready to do this season and I'm feeling great. What does that last program in their laid off seasons sort of look like? What are some of the focuses that you have there? Because that end goal is sort of, to me really important because everything else is going to lead up to that. But if you have that end goal in mind throughout the process, it's like, that's what's most important because that's, what's going to be likely helping them the most in their sports. So what are some things you are focusing on in that last month or so? Mickey: [00:13:34] So last month leading up to season. So for example, New Jersey starts March. You're looking at what are these kids doing February? Greg: [00:13:43] Yeah, February, April. Mickey: [00:13:44] Okay. So generally speaking at that point. So generally speaking at that point, most of the kids we're working with, they've been with us for pretty long period of time. So anywhere from starting between September to October, maybe November, if they're playing fall baseball, but they've got a lot of strength built up. They've got a lot of capacity built up. At that point we're kind of shifting our focus to a program that's going to work in concert with their throwing program. So at that point, they're throwing volumes starting to go up. They're starting to throw off the mound. Generally, most guys that we're working with on a high school level, they're starting bullpens off the mountain in beginning of February, or maybe middle of February. So we have to accommodate our strength and conditioning program around that. We start transitioning them into what would be considered a seven day rotation or we're still kind of working some strength conditioning, but we take a lot of the lifts that are heavy and eccentric nature. So anything that's going to get them really sore or crush their nervous system right before they throw a hard, high intensity throw day, whether it's if they're doing long tossing or if they're doing weighted balls, many of our guys don't do that, but some do some capacity of that, but if they're throwing off a mound generally speaking, their lifts are heaviest and most intense the days after those, just because we like to compartmentalize the stressors and things like that. So they're still working strength because they still have a ways to go. We don't want to just cut that off too soon because generally we start to really make that transition once they get into tryouts because that's when the throwing volume really goes up. But for the most part we'll usually do; we tend to stay away from squatting once they start throwing a ton, shift to more unilateral movements, more concentrically driven, whether it's a safety squat or safety split-squat from pins or a dead lift where we're not getting a lot of eccentric stress. We're still really focusing now too, a lot of stuff that's higher on the strength velocity curve. So we're sprinting with our med ball throws or with much lighter med balls, way more dynamic, way more sports specific. Whereas in the beginning of the off season, we're throwing heavy med balls and they're very general. Then for the most part, we have days mixed in there where we're trying to focus on recovery they're doing because again, they're throwing volume has gone up quite a bit. They're working with you a little bit more to kind of offset some of that stress that they get in their high intensity days. But for the most part, we're still stressing strength a little bit, but our volume's lower, our intensity is still high. We're focusing more concentrically movements and then really just trying to take away some of the stress that they're getting. Greg: [00:16:35] For sure. Yeah. And you said you want to, you sort of like to take away some bilateral movements later in the program there and something that people will talk about and debate all the time and there's probably no real answer, but like for you, how strong, and it depends on the kid, because if you've got a freshman versus a senior, you're going to care about this stuff a little bit differently, but how strong is strong enough in a bilateral movements for, let's say a trap bar dead last, or a safety bar squat. What kind of numbers are you looking for where you're like, okay, we can sort of shift our focus a little bit maybe with this type of athlete. Mickey: [00:17:11] I think, well, this year was really unique because we started to use a lot more metrics, with gym wear and things like that. So we're looking at more bars speed and at certain parts of the off season, we were looking to maintain a certain level of bar speeds. So we were kind of capping loads based on that. It was really up to the, and obviously our more advanced athletes could definitely move more weight based upon the parameters we were giving them. But for the most part, for like a young high school athlete, we've got kids who can dead lift in the four hundreds and for me any more than that, like now we're shifting more of a focus. They're not power lifters so they just need to be strong enough to be able to produce force. Then to be honest, for most part of the off season, it depends; if we've got a kid, let's say we've had a kid, this is our first year of training with us. My goal for them is to just learn the movement so that they could build some competency so that they're a sophomore. So then their junior year, they can start really focusing on building more force production there. But if it's a senior who's been with us and they've had time under the bar, they've put some reps in, they also understand mentally what it takes to execute a lift like that properly. So they've got the reps built up, so they they're capable of doing that. But for the most part, if we're months away from the season, I'll allow kids to push themselves and be a little more aggressive, but everything at risk is a risk reward basis. So as we get closer to throwing, we need to prioritize that if we're in October, November, it's not as important. We can be a little more aggressive there. but for me, I think when it becomes a point where kids all they want to do is lift more weights. I think you kind of know when it gets to the point where, okay, enough is enough, you're strong enough now. Clearly strength is not your deficit. Greg: [00:19:14] And then let's move on to; so for pitchers, specifically, let's talk a little bit about year round considerations. For you, you've actually already sort of brought up a little bit about early off season versus late off season, but maybe let's talk about, let's just talk about in season first. We kind of spoke about recently a seven day plan for a high school or a college pitcher just because they usually throw once a week for the starters. Let's just talk a little bit about that specifically and just kind of walk through what a normal seven day plan would look Mickey: [00:19:52] Sure. So we kind of, this is something that you and I have kind of developed over, our back and forth. But generally kind of going back and forth between a high, low. So if you look at their start day, that's their high output day. Next day is really just kind of a general low intensity, if they want to throw they can, if not it's all very athlete specific. We'll do some low intensity aerobic work and that's a great day for the athletes to get with you. So any type of a recovery soft tissue work to mitigate some of the stress through the tissue that they get from throwing. That's a good day for them to see you. Then the next day is more of a high day, day two. They can long toss that day, that's a day they'll do their lower body lift. If I'm going to squat an athlete, I'll generally squad them early on and then say like stuff like dead lifting towards their bullpen day. Then from there, we could do some tempo runs max speed, again, that's their high intensity day. Something that's going to stress their nervous system, but they've got plenty of time to rest before their next time they get off the mountain, then we'll go another low day, light catch, no catch really up to them. Flexibility, mobility, circuits, core work. Greg: [00:21:06] Usually at this age, high school, college it's different than the pros. Most pros are throwing every single day of the week, whereas high school, I'd probably say high school kids should not be throwing every day of the week. College will get a little bit different and it'll probably, I'd still say they should probably have a day off, but I don't really have any sort of basis for that. I don't have any sort of research on that. But what do you think, just talking about that quickly. Mickey: [00:21:28] Well, I mean, if he had the opportunity to give your arm arrests, I mean, you might as well do it. The big league starters they have to throw every five days. So they're throwing on day zero and panning on day three, usually. But that's just because they've got two less days to recover, but for the most part obviously if you're a starter in college or high school take a day off, I would say probably the best day to take off is right after your start but again everybody's different. Some guys they feel like if they don't, I mean even if it's just playing catch, they feel like they lose stuff. But I mean, it's something that you got to understand your arm and what works best for you. Greg: [00:22:10] Which is hard for a lot of these athletes to figure. Mickey: [00:22:13] It's tough, but like anything you gotta learn by doing, and it's something that kids have to kind of mess around with. So maybe after one start, try not throwing and then see how you feel. I would base how do you feel on the day of your bullpen. Does it help you to move your arm the day after or does it help for recovery? Again, it's case by case. I think also, if you're a kid who's kind of working through something with your arm, I would probably be less aggressive for somebody who's maybe trying to build velocity and your arms good and you're checking all the boxes with all the other stuff that you're doing, yeah, maybe be a little bit more aggressive. Again, everything we do is case by case. So I think that's something where the interface and the interaction with us and the athletes is important because that's stuff that we can help advise these kids. So that ultimately; our job is just giving them resources. So hopefully they can make those decisions. Greg: [00:23:06] Definitely. So then back to day four is another high day. That's the bullpen day. Mickey: [00:23:10] Yeah, usually athletes will throw their bullpen that day, do their arm care, they'll do more of a full body lift. I like to dead lift on that day and do some, usually like a dead lift with not too high in terms of intensity, but with that, you're again, working on rate of force production. You're not getting too much eccentric stress there and then you're doing your arm care. You can do a push, pull variation, some core work and I would do some sprinting that day or the following day, day five or six. But usually for every guy days five and six are really; it's up to you guys, what you want to do. If you want to play catch, play catch, if you want to throw a flat ground, that's an opportunity for you to; if you're still working on something from your bullpen, maybe if you're working on a pitch. Maybe just get a couple of reps at it but keep your volume low on days five and six, if you're going to throw. Then we've recently been kind of toying with really short, 10, 15 yards sprints the day before the starts for athletes to kind of really just maintain central nervous system. Unfortunately, because nobody's really competing at this point we're basing it off of how kids are feeling off of like just throwing bullpens and stuff. But I think it's something that we're starting to do a little bit more of because I think sprinting is a really great way of maintaining that neural drive. Greg: [00:24:39] For sure. Yeah. That's going to be something that we've spoken about that too when you had that zoom, there were like 30 athletes on from your gym and talking about just like things that they should probably be doing throughout the pandemic. It's always, you see stuff on social media where it's like people just kind of doing push-ups and air squats and stuff, but that stuff is probably the least important compared to doing things sprinting and change of direction work, that's going to be fast and keep you fired up and being able to move fast. That's going to be the stuff that's going to leave sooner than your strength, so to speak. But, yeah and then for me, I know like when I pitched in. I was not at any level that you knew you were at or a lot of our athletes are pitching at these days, but I just remember that day five and six was, I really liked to just do something short. I like to do, we called it spin work in college. It was just sort of a low intensity, feel your pitches out, short distance, maybe you work through like a one hitter or something like that, and then focus on hitting spots and just feeling your curve ball and change up and things like that. So that was something that I liked, again, I don't know how many people would like that, but that's just an option where on that day six might be something good to do where you can fill it out before your start day, the next day. So you don't feel like you're just kind of getting up there and it's like, I haven't been here in a few days and I feel lost. So that sort of thing. Mickey: [00:25:55] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like I said, it's all very personal, case-by-case some guys like to do it, some guys want to give their arm the rest. Greg: [00:26:07] Definitely. Yeah. So then, that was great and going back to some other considerations for the year. We've spoken a lot about recruiting, the whole recruiting process, showcases playing in the different seasons. Can you just kind of talk about some things you think about with showcases and seasons and recruiting. Mickey: [00:26:26] For some athletes, it's a necessary evil. I think the challenge that we have is when these... Greg: [00:26:33] I'm sorry, are you talking about showcases? Mickey: [00:26:34] Yeah. I think for some kids, call it what you want... Greg: [00:26:37] Probably for most really, it's something they might have to do at this point. Mickey: [00:26:42] Yeah, not many kids are getting signed or verbally committing as a sophomore and look, those are special, talented kids and not to say the kids that sign later aren't any less talented, but they're just, maybe they're developmental processes is happening later. So they need extra time to figure out and coaches need the extra time to figure out how to project them. Sometimes the showcases are necessary. The challenge that I have is when they're sprung upon us really late. So if an athlete comes to me and they say, okay, let's say it's September, kids come home from summer break. They start in September. They say, hey, Mickey, we want to train, but we have a showcase in middle of November, fine. So we're going to make sure we're doing what we need to do. If he's a pitcher, when's the showcase. Make sure we're working back from that date, making sure they're ramping up enough if they've shut down at the end of summer and as long as we can create a plan around these showcases and the kids are healthy and they're diligent about doing the work in between all the other things that they're doing. I understand, we can work around it. The challenge becomes when we've set a plan and we've done all the things that we need to do. We've checked all the boxes. We've made sure we're doing everything we can and then an athlete comes in on a Monday and says, oh, by the way, I pitched in a showcase on Saturday. My arms are really sore today. So can we not do any upper body work? And that athlete hasn't done any ramp up throwing, they maybe have done a flat ground or they're not even close to being ready to throw off a mountain. That's generally where kids get themselves in trouble. I understand that it's part of the developmental curve of an amateur athlete in the sport of baseball now. So if we can understand when those things are happening, maybe we can create a plan behind it, but unless we know, the strength coaches or physical therapists, we can't help the athlete. So, I mean, the communication is really important factor when it comes to scheduling and planning around those things. Because I mean, let's face it if I know an athletes has to compete in a showcase in the fall compared to one who doesn't, those two programs are drastically different and so I need to know that information. So hopefully the athletes are able to communicate that with you, but sometimes unfortunately that's not the case. Greg: [00:29:26] Yeah, definitely. Especially, it's the worst when you hear about it after the fact, and it's an athlete who's coming off of an injury. So that's just like, I just want to cringe and again you can't blame them. Everything's being dangled in front of them as the athletes, this college scholarship, it's this draft that's coming up in June or whatever it is, but, it's unfortunate, but it is a necessary evil and it's something that we're going to deal with, but yeah, I totally agree if we can plan for it, it makes our life a lot easier and then we're able to just communicate better and be able to talk with, even if their pitching coach isn't in house, we can somehow maybe coordinate with them and make sure that they're doing what they need to be doing. Mickey: [00:30:05] I also think one thing to add there is that we advise athletes based upon their goals. So if you're a young kid who's really weak and needs to get stronger and your goal is to throw harder, greater velocity. Well, I would probably say, well, maybe competing and trying to go out and do these showcases might not be the best for your development. If the biggest thing you need is to get stronger and sleep better and eat better and do all these other things that are going to help drive you closer to that goal and actually serve you to get to that goal rather than that athlete, if he wants to gain velocity, probably just throwing more and more as it might not be the answer. So again, that goes into the whole process of our intake and evaluation of our athletes is okay well, why are you here? What is your goal? Based upon what you're telling me, here's what I think is the best point of action. So, I mean, again, athletes might listen to that and they might not, but it only helps us do our job better if we understand what's happening outside of our facility. So if we can control more of the variables, I feel like we can do a better job of keeping athletes. Obviously they're going to perform better, but again, what's most important to me is making sure we're keeping them safe and healthy. Greg: [00:31:20] It's funny you brought up if somebody is looking to get stronger and build muscle, not going to showcases or not throwing for whatever a fall season. That was something that I was trying, I forgot about talking in a different zoom with you and Elvis, but you'll hear that too, if you're a high school athlete and you go to a showcase and you're a freshmen or sophomore, a lot of the feedback that you get is, oh, you just need to get stronger and you need to get faster and you need to get bigger and those are all things that you're not going to get on the baseball field. Those are the things that you have to do with someone like Mickey and his team. So it's very interesting because then those same kids are being pushed to play fall sports or fall baseball, and then they're being pushed to play at 10 months of baseball or 10 months of baseball every year. But it doesn't align with where they need to be developing or physically developing to get to there pitching development, a goal. Mickey: [00:32:15] Yeah, absolutely. Greg: [00:32:16] Interesting, cool. So some other things, let's see, what do we want to talk about here? So yeah, I brought up a little bit about the seasons. I know we have said previously that we generally, for pretty much anyone who's not a junior, we are not huge fans of pitching in the fall, but again, it does go back to specific cases and taking it all case by case. You want to just talk a little bit about that for us. Mickey: [00:32:40] Yeah. I mean, for a junior in high school, Going into their fall that's a critical time if they don't have an option for baseball for playing in college. Greg: [00:32:52] And it will be a bit different with hitters too. So I think where you asked to be asked specifically to people who are throwing more like pitchers, but could be relevant. Mickey: [00:32:59] Yeah. So again, what their strength conditioning program is going to look like in the beginning of September and October is going to be a lot different from somebody who's coming and saying, oh, I'm going to take fall off and I'm strictly getting ready for the spring. There's a lot more we can do with that athlete simply because as soon as they start throwing we have to make considerations for that strength conditioning program. Again, for juniors, that's a critical time for them if they don't already know where they're going. So that just means that we're essentially saying again, making a plan saying, okay, if you're going to take time off from the summer and here's when you have to compete, let's work back based on your throwing program, your ramp up period. When you have to; you're not going to be throwing your first bullpen, when you go down to this showcase, you want to get maybe one, two or three bullpens in. If you're a guy who takes a little bit longer to get up to speed, then you're going to have to accommodate for that. But then we also have to accommodate for that and their strength conditioning program. So, I mean, I think that's something that I'm really looking at, but if you're a junior who's maybe committed as a sophomore, then I'd be like, there's no point in risking going out and competing now. There's is a caveat to that. I mean, if you're in some of like the 1% of ballplayers... Greg: [00:34:20] Yeah, you're going to get drafted in the summer. Mickey: [00:34:21] Who need the fall, who kind of use that as like set up for the area code games as an opportunity for draft status, that's different. So those things, those I would say, yes, that's a critical thing. Again, we continue to say case by case basis. Greg: [00:34:38] Those are usually the athletes, they have more control of what they're actually doing too. They can say no to showcases. They can say no to coaches and tournament's and teams because they don't really, they don't have to. They're not being forced to do it, so they have more control over what they're doing anyway, which is an ideal situation. Mickey: [00:34:55] Yeah. I think that the challenges is people they try to get a little too far ahead of themselves and look, I'm all for people trying to improve their situation and try to play at the best school possible. But I think people also have to be realistic with their expectations and make sure you're playing at a place that you're going to excel and that might not, unfortunately might not be at some of the places you want to play. So I think for every athlete, try to stick to what works best for you. Again, we're in an area where there's a lot of social comparison, athletes as juniors, see a lot of kids in their sophomore year commit. So that's like, well, why am I not committing? Then they start to push harder and then that's when kids, they try to go do everything and then they get into trouble because they're throwing volumes too high, there's no downtime. Kids aren't used to, and then when they go to these tournaments and these showcases their max effort and it's tough to sustain that and go out and throw max effort for an extended period of time. Because all these kids, they're going out and they're throwing into a radar gun, they're not, I mean, yeah, I'm sure they're assessing pitchability and some of those other things, but for the most part they're looking at one metric and that's velocity. So I think that's where kids can get themselves into trouble where you might not be at their developmentally as a junior or sophomore or junior or whatever. So just do the steps, do the right things, get there the right way so that as you start increasing velocity, you're capable of maintaining that in a safe and healthy way. Greg: [00:36:39] I think we're finding, and you can probably speak to this better than I could, where a lot of the college athletes that are coming home often they're skipping summer ball and I'm finding it's happening maybe more, probably earlier on after freshmen or sophomore year maybe as opposed to junior year but I'm thinking that's probably again, case by case situation, but that's a point when you can develop, you can still throw pens, you can still see hitters if you want but then the focus is a little different. Do you like that? Do you enjoy seeing that athletes are sort of focusing on more so the development side of things physically? Do you think these college kids need to be throwing more in the summer or fall? What do you think? Mickey: [00:37:23] I think if kids aren't getting into some of the more prestigious summer ball leagues, they're probably more likely to opt out. Let's face it the collegiate summer ball program is not really conducive to long-term development for some of these guys. They're traveling accommodations are not great, they don't have access to good strength conditioning facilities if at all. They're not eating as well as they could, so there's a lot of variables that aren't working in their favor. Not to mention there's no continuity with what maybe their college coach is giving them and asking them to do and what they're collegiate's summer coach is asking them to do. Whereas if they come and work with a strength coach like you and I, we can control all those variables and they'll get to throw to live hitters. They'll get to do like, they'll still be able to throw, but it's in a fashion where it's truly geared towards development and not just competition. I think for some kids that's real important. They need all those things in place in order to get better. Baseball is a unique sport where a lot of guys, there are some guys who can just roll out of bed and make it happen and I think strength conditioning for those individuals are more important in terms of creating health and longevity within their career. But at the end of the day they're going to be able to go out and they've got crazy arm speed and they can just spin the ball and all those things just work for them. But, again, case by case basis. Greg: [00:38:58] Totally. cool. So, let's talk a little bit about some specifics if you can, if you can just talk about, let's go back to arm care. So, focusing more on the actual X's and O's, what are some ways that you might start out, let's even say with a younger high school athlete pitcher who obviously isn't as physically developed as somebody who's a little bit older, what are some of the key starting point arm care type of exercises for the scap, for the shoulder, elbow that you might be programming for people, maybe like how would their program start that first month and then how is it going to end? Specifically from an arm care standpoint, considering that everything else is taken out of the picture, everything else is taken care of just sort of briefly, what are some specific exercises you might use and then progress to in that off season? Mickey: [00:39:54] Yeah. So usually I start with very basic sideline, external rotation, cable, internal rotation and if we're talking specifically like cuff strength, so sidelined external, cable internal 90/90, external and scalp plane, I generally start guys with a half kneeling position there. Half kneeling, 90/90 internal rotation in scap playing, I might do flushing and scaption type of stuff. If an athlete doesn't have the strength to execute it, like a good 90/90 external rotation, I might do ER holds just to give them in range cuff strength. So that's what I'm generally doing for like quote unquote, rotator cuff strength. Greg: [00:40:32] And what are some loads you might use and set some reps, just dumb it down as much as we can. Mickey: [00:40:38] Well, usually I'll do like two sets of 15 on the sideline, external and cable internal. Generally always going to do a little more on your internal rotations, usually with a younger underdeveloped athlete, Again, you might have to start with just ISO holds at end range, just for them to build some, I mean, very low level cuff strength and the goal on that is as long as they can keep the head of the femur centered in the socket, while they're going through the range of motion, then we're kind of progressing them based on how they feel, making sure they're generally not feeling it in the wrong places and things like that because that's a big, big key. Then usually I'll progress those in terms of I'm not too aggressive with progressing and load. I generally progress with like adding perturbations or challenging their base of support, whether it's going from half kneeling position to a split stance position. I'll go from using my younger kids, I don't get too complex with a lot of their arm care work. I'd rather build complexity in their strength conditioning program. A more developed collegiate or professional athlete, I'll build complexity in their arm care work. So then going into... Greg: [00:41:53] What do you mean specifically with complexity, is that like the perturbations and ISOs? Mickey: [00:41:56] Yeah. Yeah. So then I might take a sideline, extra rotation. I might add perturbations, with end range perturbations with that. Then I might go like eccentric loaded, manual resist with perturbations. I might do sideline, open can, things like that, where; it also depends with professional athletes and collegiate athletes, I have more time with them. With the high school athletes I get maybe 90 minutes with them. So I have to basically get the biggest bang for your buck type of movements, where I'm going to get as much as I need and so that's generally how I progress our throwers with their cuff strength. Greg: [00:42:37] More like positional based is the progression and then adding in things like eccentrics, ISOs and perturbations. Mickey: [00:42:46] Yeah, absolutely. So whether it's on doing a couple of reps of eccentric, then followed up with a perturbation and doing two to three sets of that within a set. With a 90/90 I'll finish with after they're like 10th or 12th wrap, I'll finish with perturbations. That's generally how I would progress, a lot of it would be progressions through adding manual resistance or perturbations within their program. So as far as our older, more developed athletes. Again, I don't get too complex with a freshmen or sophomore. Unless they've established and show me that they can maintain good positions. Then I might increase the stability and other aspects and make it a little bit more complex. Again, it's if the athlete... Greg: [00:43:33] That's all like a subjective assessment, just from touching so many kids arms it's going to be based on how you feel they feel. Mickey: [00:43:41] Yes. Yeah. If they can can keep the head of the humerus centered and they can maintain good joint stability, based on all of the perturbations in manual resistance type rhythmic stabilization movements, I can generally tell when a kid has pretty good reflexive stability there, whereas somebody who's not. So I'm trying to dumb that down. So again, trying to maintain position as best as possible, and building some fatigue resistance there so that there, I mean, making sure they can execute the movement properly. Feeling it in the right places and not fatigue after five to six reps. Greg: [00:44:16] So you mentioned half kneeling going up to a split stance position. What are some other positional progressions you might make for kids? Mickey: [00:44:26] So if you look at some of the scap work we do, moving scap on ribcage, we'll start kids with a prone position just on a stretching table. Once they've mastered that and shown the competency there, I like to put kids on a quadruple position. So now you're getting opposite arm seretas, you're getting abs you're getting other stuff that's basically working on the reciprocal patterns that are associated with joint loading and throwing and kind of like gait patterns that you'd look with with opposite hips and shoulders and all that stuff. By them putting them in an all fours position, you're feeding them into a better position and you're just making the movement a little bit more challenging, and then from there... Greg: [00:45:09] Do you do sideline up into a side plank type of thing or trunk lift position? Mickey: [00:45:15] Yeah. That would be another progression you could do with guys. Greg: [00:45:19] Yeah, because I would think that that's hard enough to begin with, with a lot of the athletes that I'm coming across. I might give that to somebody, as sort of a home exercise or warm-up thing to do before the program with you. But I would imagine a lot of the vast majority of athletes are probably not being ready for adding in the additional load in the shoulder or anything like that. But would you agree with that? And then, yeah. Mickey: [00:45:44] I think the key is the key is like you want to give these kids, especially the young athletes you want to give these kids the time to kind of marinate in these things. I'd much rather hammer the basics for a longer period of time and making sure that their movement patterns are pristine. Once they've established that, then I'll add complexity. Again, complexity comes from their basis support, whether it's hap healing, split stance, then I add perturbations but I don't do that unless they've shown the mastery of the basics. I think that's the most important part is and also one thing to note is that like some of these kids, it's also dependent upon if they're taking it seriously enough. If they're a kid who comes in and they attack everything with focus. I'm going to give them more than a kid who kind of comes in and treats arm care like it's a waste of 10 minutes of my workout. And it's like no, this is important. You say you want to throw harder and you want to sustain it and be safe, but yet you just gloss over this stuff and that's also a maturity thing. I'll give the athletes who are more mature and can handle the stuff. Maybe a little bit more, a little bit sooner than athletes who generally are just kind of glossing over this stuff. Greg: [00:47:07] Yeah and if they're glossing over that, they might be glossing over their accessory work, they might be glossing over their warm ups and then it's just not the right situation maybe for some kids just aren't the same as other stuff. It's just a matter of having the right focus with everything really, which is bringing it back to the very beginning. That's arm cares and I'd rather you're able to dead-lift heavy than be able, I'd rather be able to dead-lift heavy or do some sort of heavy carry then be able to do this really well. Obviously it's a piece of the puzzle, but you have to take everything seriously. So that's important. Mickey: [00:47:41] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's one of those variables we put in there. If kids want to come in and really truly build velocity it's something where you can say like, okay, these are the things that are going to get you there. It's not just one thing. It's all of them. But know that if you're not serious about what you're doing and you're not approaching everything with a level of professionalism, you're missing an opportunity to get better. So fortunately, we don't have many of those kids. I think a lot of kids who come into our facility, they understand we expect a lot of out of our athletes and for the most part, most kids are willing to do that. Every now and then you get somebody who's not really ready to do more complex training. So unless you've proven to me that you can handle it, then I won't give you some of these more complex variations. Greg: [00:48:34] Then in terms of, I like to use other things like kettlebell, like bar screwdrivers, things like that. Are there other ways that you might do something like sneak in some arm care work like an arm bar screwdriver, as a filler in people's workouts where maybe they'll take it more seriously if they feel it's harder or that they're doing something more, are there other things that you use commonly that might sort or fall under that umbrella a little bit? Mickey: [00:49:01] Yeah. We'll mix them in their workouts as fillers, whether it's carries or like you said, armbars we do some supine stuff where they're holding kettlebells, whether it's like half get-ups, quarter get-ups, armbar rotations, anything where they need to create proximal stability for distal stability. So a lot of that stuff you can do it with, I mean you just sneak, like you can sneak it in there through different workouts. Greg: [00:49:28] Even doing supine rings versus hardcore. Mickey: [00:49:28] Yeah, absolutely. If somebody has mastered a push-up, progress them to rings, now you're creating more stability in the joint. Not to mention core stability as well. So I think there's ways that you can be creative, if you're giving kids conditioning days, you can build some novelty in there and some variability there, but for the most part it's pushing, pulling patterns. Can you master those? Can you move your scaffold and your rib cage? Can you move your scap with your humerus? Can you stabilize the head of the humerus and the joint? That's the arm care stuff that we're looking at along with the throwers 10 type of stuff. Greg: [00:50:04] For sure, yeah. And that's something too, like we're not; whenever I talk about this stuff, I feel like I'm almost trashing the throwers 10 so to speak, but it's definitely a lot of the similar exercises from it or things that you're using just in different positions maybe and if you had no resources and you have to do something that's great. You should be doing it throwers 10 and you should be doing something. You should be checking that box a few days a week. So it's definitely a good resource for people to have it, at the very least for sure. Then that goes back to if you're not able to be part of a strength and conditioning program, then there are a lot of other things you can find on the internet and there are different options that you can choose and throwers ten might be one way to introduce arm care to people that might get them interested in going further with it and getting more serious with it. So, yeah, I think in terms of X's and O's with arm care stuff, is there anything else that you'd want to talk about before we move on? Mickey: [00:51:02] I mean, there are certain parts of the year where you have to understand that throwing is a bit of a component of arm care. So when you're at a high part of the year where your volume of throwing is really high, we're making sure we're mitigating some of the volume with some of their arm care, being more practical with what you choose as arm care. At that point, when athletes throwing programs are really high with volume, I take a lot of the eccentric manual stuff out, it's more, because that's really tiring to the cuff and so that's something I don't generally do when they're throwing program is pretty high in terms of intensity and volume. So that's one variable you can fix, but otherwise again, your true arm care work is really just your barrier to entry. It has to be done, but it's a tip of the iceberg with what's really important on a developmental standpoint and on a health and longevity standpoint. Greg: [00:52:05] For sure. Cool. Yeah. So I wanted to talk a little bit, you've owned a gym for so many years. You've never seen a pandemic I'm assuming, I don't know maybe you have. But, I wanted to talk; no, you haven't. Okay. Wanted to talk a little bit about that because it's almost something that I feel like it has to be spoken about or someone like you where you own a gym, you have a huge facility, you've got a full staff. You guys are helping a lot of athletes every day, every week throughout the year. What are some things that first, what are some things you've been doing in the last two months and then of those things you've been doing, are you thinking that some of them you'll continue to do from the training standpoint, as a gym owner for your business to survive and sort of continue to push forward and then after that, we'll talk more about what are some things you're going to do going forward that you otherwise didn't do before for health safety, just sort of go for it, go for it, take it. Mickey: [00:53:01] Yeah. A lot of the stuff we're doing now is essentially taking the resources we have and the situation we have and still trying to provide what we would otherwise be providing in the gym. So with some athletes that's writing remote programming. So basically if they have a weight room or weights at home, they tell us what they've got and we send them out a program based on what they have. Some athletes who need a little bit more time and consideration we've been doing one-on-one zoom calls so much like this interface here, we've been coaching a ton of athletes that way. Some of our adult fitness classes, we're doing online with big classes, but for the most part on the athletic standpoint, we're doing some spina Jolie classes with some of our younger athletes who just want to go out and move around and have some type of direction as to what they're doing, we're providing that. Again. It's all based on what at the athlete's resources and it's our job to say, okay, based on what you have and what you're willing to do, we can help you out and those are the resources we're giving right now. So we're just trying to optimize our interaction with our athletes as much as we can communicating with them on a regular basis via texts and emails. But I think it's a situation that we're going into this, that we've never operated in this capacity before. I think there's going to be a period of time where we're going to have to continue to offer these types of services. At least for those individuals who are not quite comfortable coming back to the gym and I'm sure there's going to be a point in time where we're not going to do that open-ended there's going to be a point I'm sure we're going to be like, okay, at this point, we're going to start limiting our availability for zoom calls and things of that nature. But on just the service base we're doing what we can given our resources. So it's not optimal but based on again, based on what we've got, these are what athletes have, and this is what we were able to do with them. Greg: [00:55:05] Even without the pandemic. There's never an ideal situation, maybe one athlete has an ideal situation, but it's never ideal. So it's just a matter of it's less ideal now than it usually is. So you just got to try and maximize it and then what are some things that you plan to do that maybe some other gym owners can do to freshen up the gym, things like that going forward. Mickey: [00:55:27] Yeah. So, I mean, fortunately for us, we've always kept a pretty tight ship when it comes to like cleanliness at the facility. So we're just going to take that and increase it. We've had the whole facility painted. We're going to have everything deep cleaned before everybody comes back just making sure that we're checking all of our boxes and making sure we're doing what we need to do to keep everybody safe. Not only from our staff and our team, but to our clients and athletes. We've always been in a semi-private model and usually we've always scheduled on a one to five coach to athlete ratio and generally we scheduled our athletes every hour. So most likely what we're planning on doing is when we come back is we'll probably switch it to a one to three coach to athlete ratio and schedule everybody on 90 minute blocks. So that that way coaches in between sessions have a chance to wipe things down, making sure like everything from the previous group of athletes and clients, making sure everything's clean, so there's going to be a lot more work in between sessions for myself and the staff, but we need to make sure that we're doing everything we can to keep people safe. We've already started to switch the gym around in terms of the layout, making sure that we're adhering to social distancing and things like that. So spreading out squat racks and deadlift areas and giving each deadlift area devoted weight stacks and just making sure, we're mitigating the cross contamination and the interaction and stuff. So another thing just on a simple programming standpoint is we do a lot of super sets within our training. So we talked earlier about how we mix in fillers within our workouts. Well, we might have to be a little bit more practical with how we're doing those. So for example, I might do a unilateral safety bar, split squat with a cable pole, a single arm cable row. Well, I might not be able to do that if there's other athletes just jumping in and out. Because if I'm an athlete, I use a piece of machine, I have to wipe it down before I use it and after I use it, but if we're doing all these different sets, it's something that us as coaches on a programming standpoint, we have to take into consideration too. Fortunately, we have the two facilities. So, we certainly see a higher volume of athletes in our big location, but I think what we'll have to do again, spread out our scheduling throughout the day, and then also disperse coaches amongst each facility, we're just trying to avoid bottlenecks and making sure that first and foremost athletes come in only when they're healthy, coaches and staff only come in when they're healthy and obviously every day there's more information, things change on a rapid basis and just taking that information and utilizing it as best we can to keep everybody safe and still be able to provide our training product. Greg: [00:58:42] How about gloves and masks? Have you guys invested in some masks or anything? Mickey: [00:58:46] Yeah. So I've got 200 annex branded masks for kids to wear and then also giving them out to the staff. They're not medical grade, but it's something that it's going to keep them safe and they can wash it and reuse it every day. So it's not like they're disposable, but, we'll have gloves. We're putting in more and more hand sanitizer stations, wipe stations, making things readily available. So, I mean, literally at any point in the gym you can look and you can find something that if you need to disinfect your hands or grab a wipe, we'd be able to utilize it. Greg: [00:59:20] Definitely, and that's huge for, I mean, gyms in general are just notorious for being like dirty and it's now more than ever going to be the most important thing that you have to clean this gym around, that there there's nobody walking around finding something that doesn't look clean essentially, and getting rid of clutter and things like that. So it's huge. Mickey: [00:59:39] Yeah. I mean we've, again, we've already started to change the format of the gym a little bit and then I'll still throw out any stuff that's kind of sitting in corners, collecting dust that we haven't used in awhile. I mean, now more than ever space is valuable. So we're trying to make sure that we're utilizing our space as best as we can, so that coaches and the athletes and the clients all stay safe and that's the most important thing. Greg: [01:00:06] Yeah. Good thing you guys you have a huge facility and you have another one right down the block, so that works well for you. Awesome. Anything else in that realm you want to talk about? We're about an hour right now. Mickey: [01:00:20] No, I think, I mean, again, it'll be interesting to see what happens when we can open and then the first 90 days, I think it's fortunate that summertime, we have a lot more flexibility with how we can schedule athletes. Greg: [01:03:28] That's true. Mickey: [01:03:29] So I think it'll certainly work in our favor whereas during the school year we have a narrow window when the athletes can come in and train. So I think that the challenge will be more so then than over the summer. But again, as we learn more and go through this more, and I think us in the fitness community between you and I, and like other trained coaches and facility owners I know, we're constantly, they say rising tide raise all ships. So this is a point where we can all uplift each other, make sure this is how we're trying to get people to understand that for the most part there are a lot of collective gyms out there that are doing the right thing, that are prioritizing the health and safety of their staff and their clients and we're doing everything in our power to keep our people safe. That comes with a certain level of responsibility, a social responsibility of me as an owner but it also takes a lot of social responsibility for the people coming in our facility to understand and respect that you coming in, yes, you are at risk, but you're also a risk to other people. So you need to act accordingly. You need to be respectful of that, of the space that you're in and the people that are around you, because really like that's what's going to keep everybody safe. Is if everybody's socially responsible and doing what they need to do. I think we can certainly mitigate risk which is most important. I don't think you can take off, unfortunately, I wish I could say can take all risk out of it, but I think the more we can do our part to mitigate risk, I think the better off we'll be. Greg: [01:02:19] Definitely awesome. I don't want to take any more of your time. I'm sure we'll do this again at some point probably get somebody else, I'll get Elvis on here, get some other people on here and do some sort of round table thing. But that's plenty of time for now. Where can our listeners find out more about you and your business and just kind of learn about you guys? Mickey: [01:02:38] Yeah. So I do most of my stuff on Instagram. It's just Mick Bruckner and we've got @annexsports, for our annex sports performance page and then we have @annexperformanceandfitness for our general fitness. So we've got a couple of different things to take a look at, but it's dependent upon where you're looking to gain more information. But for me personally, it's @mickbruckner. Greg: [01:03:00] Awesome. Great. Well, yeah, thank you very much for your time and hopefully this is something that will generate some questions. We're always looking for questions. So if anybody reaches out, definitely you're in the same building as me five days a week, so I'll bring it up and we'll... Mickey: [01:03:16] Not yet, hopefully soon. Greg: [01:03:18] Yeah, that's right. Not yet, definitely not there yet, but yeah, thankfully we've been able to start seeing people, people are a little bit more comfortable and we're considered an essential business, thankfully, so we can bring in some revenue and also pay our rent to you. Excellent. Thank you, Mickey. And we'll talk soon, probably today or tomorrow. Mickey: [01:03:42] Yeah, you're welcome, Greg. I appreciate your time. Greg: [01:06:47] Absolutely. Take care.