E74 | Derek Hansen: Hamstring Rehab and Preparation

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On today's episode, Doug is joined by Derek Hansen to discuss hamstring rehab and preparation.

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Episode Transcription: Welcome to the Resilient Performance Podcast. I'm your host, Doug . And today I'm joined by Derek Hansen. Derek is an international sport performance consultant. Ben has been working with athletes of all ages and abilities and speed, strength and power sports since 1988 as coaching career started in track and field providing instruction to sprinters of all ages, eventually working with collegiate sprinters, hurdlers, and jumpers. He worked as the head strength and conditioning coach for Simon Fraser university for 14 years, the first non U S member of the NCAA. He also serves as a performance consultant to numerous professional teams. And the NFL NBA, MLS and NHL, as well as major NCA division one programs throughout North America. He specializes in speed development, strategic performance planning, return to competition protocols and neuromuscular electrical stimulation. Programming medical providers typically dominate the rehabilitation and return to sport conversation. And my conversation with KB Tobar on a recent episode. Maybe want to dig deeper into the contribution that technical coaches are and should be making when it comes to injured athlete preparation, like Kayla, Derek comes from a track and field background where the mindset tends to be more aggressive than that of the medical world rehabilitation is about managing, not avoiding risk as too little risk during the rehab process increases the potential for harm during competitive scenarios. The process of rehabilitation, shouldn't be defined by medical providers alone. And Derek's insight is a good reminder that physios don't need to reinvent sport preparation. When working with injured athletes, a template already exists and it just needs to respect pain and injury as a constraint, not as a variable that warrants a complete system over Derek. Thank you so much for coming on. This is the second time you've been on this. Podcasts. And so we're going to talk a little bit more tactical than we did last time. I want you to begin by talking about, you know, kind of your role as a consultant and kind of what are the kinds of problems that teams bring you in to solve. And then we can kind of delve a little bit deeper from there. Yeah. Tactical sounds so sexy. So I can't wait. Yeah. So what are, what are some of the things that, you know, like you're, you're brought in as a consultant. I know mainly it's, it's running related stuff, hamstrings. Um, anything else besides those two areas or what's kind of your main area of focus? Yeah, I would say those are kind of the foot in the door items. So if, if somebody calls me it's, it, it usually is like, Hey, we have a problem with a lot of hamstring strains. Um, there there's been quite a few of those, I would say, um, you know, August, September as, as sports kinda got back into, um, training camps and all that, whether it was, uh, universities or pro sports. And so that's, that's one of the first ones where they're like, yeah, we just. Having trouble managing this and getting people to stay healthy. And then, you know, as part of that, you know, they're kind of connected in terms of, you know, well, let's look at how they run and, and let's, let's figure that out. Um, so we do start talking about the biomechanics piece, the loading progression. So it's, I try not to, um, Separate those out too much, because it's all one in the same. Like if you have somebody who's, as you know, is if you have somebody who's training properly and looks good mechanically and is very efficient, you tend to have less problems. So that's, that's kind of the framework that I operate on as well. What have you guys been doing? What do they look like when they run? What do they look like when they accelerate, decelerate, all those things. Um, and of course you go through a history. But everything kind of dovetail dovetails together. When you start getting all this information and data together, you're like, Oh yeah, I see the guy run or girl run. And it's, it's clear to me what's going on there. So, um, I would say, um, You know, if, if we do, if I am brought in to talk about speed or get the team faster, or what have you, um, inevitably we start talking about soft tissue injuries as well, because you can't, you know, you can't talk about, you know, the success of a team, uh, without getting into those areas. Because as you know, in this COVID area, if you don't have players on the field or on the court, you're not going to win. Right. Um, You know, for whatever reason now. So making sure that that durability piece is in there is, is pretty important with everything I do as well. Yeah. And developing speed. And then the hamstring rehab, I think, or it's, it's a complimentary process, right? Because you can't be fast if you're always getting injured. And I think that you would probably attest to some of the mechanical things that need to happen to both run fast and to either prevent or rehab some of these hamstring injuries. And I know this is just, I'm asking, you know, your opinion, your experience. This is not a randomized controlled trial, but in your experience, what are you typically seeing as the main causes of these hamstring injuries and the teams that you work with? And then how does that kind of dovetail into, what do you think are some of the issues when it comes to developing and training speed? Yeah. It's very interesting. I was thinking of you the other day. And I was watching, um, a number of YouTube videos, uh, cause Chuck Yeager had passed away recently. And so I'm watching all these things about test pilots and he was talking about like the risk reward ratio of like being a test pilot. And obviously there's been casualties. And if you go fast or if you strive to go fast, you know, the risk goes up almost exponentially. And I think that's. That's kind of the same thing that we're talking about here is what's causing a lot of these injuries. Well, um, in sports where people move slow, you know, and we could probably go through those, but there's, there tends not to be a lot of hamstring injuries. Right. You know, most of the hamstring injuries are not in American football with the old lineman. You know, maybe the, the D tackles, but it's going to be for the guys who run fast and get up to high speed. So, first of all, you're looking at okay. You know, which people are hitting high speed and they're going to be in the higher risk group, um, you know, irrespective of mechanics and all that just by running fast, you're putting yourself at risk and then you start looking at things like, okay, well, how prepared are you to run fast? So there's a physiological component and there's a biologic, uh, biomechanics component to that as well. So if. You are running fast a lot and you're not in shape, or you're required to run fast, whether it's chasing somebody or, you know, reaching, you know, trying to catch a pass, a deep pass. Um, and, and you're not prepared for that. And this happens a lot in training camp scenarios. When people come to a say an NFL training camp, and, you know, they're used to doing their workouts with whoever, you know, maybe a private sector person or they've taken some time off. And then they go back and it's like, well, we need this many reps to evaluate you, or this many reps to get up to speed, you know, in terms of, uh, the plays we're running and the scenarios that we're running. So right away, the load goes up, everybody's running a lot more at a relatively high speed, which could be higher than, you know, maybe 15 to 25 miles per hour, uh, anywhere in that range there, which is fast enough to get hurt. And so. You, you put all those things together, um, you know, out of shape, lot of demand and even the stress of competition, the stress of like, I have to make this team. Um, and, and you've kind of set yourself up for a lot of the problems associated with hamstring strain, right? And the most common one is, you know, when people are running upright and the natural stride cycle is, you know, lift the knee and then. You know, the, the, the lower leg and foot kind of reach out a bit and pull back through. And when you hit the ground, that's usually when the problem occurs, because the hamstring stretches, you know, it's trying to prevent the knee from kind of hyper extending up, and then it's under the greatest length intention. And then you hit the ground. See when you pull. So either you have good biomechanics and you're not excessively overstriding and creating that problem. Right. And, or you're strong enough to handle that because you could argue that there's a lot of people out there that don't have great mechanics, but are powerful and maybe they've endured, you know, the stresses of that, that action, because they're just strong. And I think something like that, you know, uh, uh, I was going to say Scandinavian, um, but you know, the, the, the. What's the name of that thing. Oh, uh, it's not Scandinavia, but the Nordic Nordic, there you go. Anyways, the Nordic hamstring egocentric exercise. Um, so you I've just blanked it cause I don't even use that, but, um, People use that. And they're trying to like, strengthen, like let's strengthen. Right. You know, and okay. You know, there, there's obviously an application for that and, and it's sort of a catch all in terms of like, okay, let's get everybody strong so that they don't get into that late swing phase and strain the hamstring. Right. Now I have some reasons why I don't use that, but we can get into that, but, but certainly, maybe strength is a possibility of resolving it, but also the specific preparedness of being able to run fast and get into those positions with the right technique, um, under the volumes that you will encounter and training camp and games and all that. So I'm, I'm kind of looking at everything and going. First of all, let's make sure that mechanically you are sound. And then on top of that, can you maintain that mechanical efficiency over a variety of speeds, speed changes, but also a given volume that we need you to be at. And with all of that, I'm trying to create a level of proficiency so that they have a reserve. Over different speeds over different durations. And maybe they get into like a slight biomechanical anomaly where they can still handle it. Cause they're strong enough. Right. So those are all the things I'm looking at in terms of like causes and trying to, um, kind of fix the pro the process or fix the problem with the hamstring strains. Yeah. In terms of mechanics, like what are the, the red flags for you? Cause I think in physio now there is a trend. Where the pendulum is swinging way towards, like there's no good or bad mechanics. It's all about kind of like load management. And as long as you, it's just a matter of, we prepare for a particular activity like running, for example. So the, you know, the prevailing thought now as well, your body can adapt to running. As long as you build up your mileage, if you're a distance runner or you have the right programming, if you're a sprinter that the, the mechanical phenomenon itself isn't as important. And I think that's probably a reaction to where like, Physio used to be very, very biomechanically oriented. And now there's kind of a, maybe an overreaction pendulum swing too far the other way. Um, you know, my personal belief is that, especially at high speeds, that mechanics do matter. And I think, you know, a lot of times people will say, well, even the best sprinters in the world with the quote unquote, best mechanics will strain their hamstrings. Therefore, a team sport athletes. Shouldn't worry about it too much, which again, I don't know if that's the best logic, but in, in your opinion, What are the mechanical things that you immediately, you know, you highlight as, okay, this is something that I want to address because you know, they're at risk for injury. Yeah, there's some good points there. And I, again, when we talk about high speeds and high performance, you know, you look at something like say the, the, um, automobile racing and, you know, I can drive, you know, you'll, you'll remember, you know, you'll be in. New York and you're driving on the freeway and you see some, some guy driving a Honda civic with his wheel, like wobbling. And you're like, Oh, I wonder how long that'll last. Right. And then you keep seeing him every morning. Right. And he's doing okay. But if you see a formula one car with the wheel wobbling, like that's going to be bad very soon. And I think it's the same thing with athletics and high performance. Like you said, if you're. Yeah, approaching 26, 27 miles per hour. And something is just off by a little bit, and it could be one stride, right. You know, you're, you're running and everything looks really good. And for whatever reason, somebody beside you or trying to catch you and you push that little extra bit on that one stride and it just throws everything, the equilibrium off of that stride cycle. A lot of the time that's enough to create a problem. So I don't necessarily buy the, you know, the idea that, well, these elite sprinters still pull their hamstrings. Like obviously you saying bolted towards the end of his career. Um, but he was relatively healthy throughout. So, and if you add up all of those steps at high speed, like if you said, how many steps did you say in bolt takeover, 25 miles per hour. Well, I dunno, we're talking like 10,000, a hundred thousand, whatever. Right. That's way more than almost anybody else has done. And he's been relatively healthy aside from maybe one competition or two competition. So, you know, I think you're trying to work on that basis and go like, like you said, let's make sure technically everything's in place and then technique does change with velocity, right? So. If you're jogging, you know, that's going to be a different technique than if you're running. You know, if you're driving, if you're jogging at 10 miles per hour or eight miles per hour, if you're going 20 plus miles per hour, things change. And a lot of that is going to be how much force you put into the ground. And then how much you kind of vertically. No bounce up from that. So when you see somebody jogging, you know, their hip height is very low and they can land a little more out in front of their center of mass. Whereas if, when you're running fast, it's more of this sort of pogoing effect. And you're landing a little more underneath, you know, to create that vertical, you know, Um, positive displacement. Uh, and if, if you're doing that, you know, that's good, but as soon as you start to overstride under that condition, um, then you're putting yourself at risk. The leverage is off and all that, but at slow speeds you can be less efficient. And then it's kind of proven this, that, you know, in terms of efficiency, in terms of like speed, um, You have to have a high hip position. You have to let it land underneath, but if we're walking or jogging and the forces are way less, you can land out in front and you can break and you can kind of vault over that. And that's. That's more economical in terms of like going along distance and you'll see that just by watching long distance runners versus, uh, sprinters, you'll see that the knee height and the heel recovery is way different because it's just designed differently in terms of, you know, what your intent is. So I think you're always looking at all of these things together and going okay. Well, okay. You know, jogging is a lot different. In my courses, I have some, you know, EMG readings of what jogging looks like and when the muscles fire, or walking versus sprinting and it's it's way different. So you have to recognize that and understand, okay. Um, when they're sprinting, we have to make sure we emphasize vertical action when you're jogging. You're going to emphasize it as well, but there's a little more horizontal jocking forward and back, and that's okay because you're not going to get injured at a slower speed, but as soon as we start going faster and faster and faster, we have to make sure there's that vertical action. And also utilizing like elastic responses more. And as soon as you start taking advantage, like, as you know, you know, the, you know, if you take a ball. And you just let it bounce. You know, it doesn't bounce as high if you put an energy into it and then it, you know it. Yeah. Pummel it into the ground. It'll come up a lot higher and you do take advantage of that elasticity of that basketball or whatever ball. So the same thing happens with the human body, where if you put more force in the ground, it forces the lower limbs, you know, and you're doing this progressively to be more elastic and that becomes part of your propulsion system. So you don't have to. Hit the ground and then pull on the ground to go faster. You just hit the ground and your body responds and goes up. So understanding all these different mechanisms, I think is important as well, because if somebody is not elastic, they're going to have to use more muscular energy to create propulsion. And I want people to be that very taught basketball where you just throw it down the court and it just keeps bouncing and not plopping on the ground. I would imagine there's not. A disparity between how you would teach someone to run, to be faster and how you would teach someone to run, maybe to prevent a rehabilitate, a hamstring injury. They're kind of like, you know, running, running, learning how to run faster with good technique is presumably going to put your hamstring at less risk, because I think a lot of times like the, some of the physios who were a little bit more of the, on the anti mechanical side will say, well, you know, we can't prove that changing your, your sprinting to, you know, having a more vertical foot strike. Is going to prevent injury. Therefore it's not worth the investment, but if you want to run faster, it probably is worth the investment. So it's almost like the performance and the medical side of things are really just two sides of the same coin. They're not, there's not really a disparity between the two objectives, right? Yeah. And, and I, you know, I'm, I'm as big a proponent of research and studies as you are. And, and, and it's sometimes it's just really difficult to study these things in isolation. So I don't even know how you would really properly study that in terms of like, you know, queuing people and, and, and coaching them. Um, Because everybody responds to a different queue differently. So, um, where some people I have to like an example, being some people I say, I want you to. Consciously put more force into the ground downwards, right? And then some people I have to say, I want you to lift the opposite leg up faster, because if I say put force into the ground, they tend to just put force in the ground and then keep pushing on the ground, which negates the elastic response. Where if I say, just think lift off the ground, they get off the ground quicker and their timing is better. So it's, it's very hard to study that. I don't know. I mean, you could say, okay, these are the down people and these are the up people. And then you do a study, but. It really depends on how they interpret that cue as well. So, you know, some people ha you know, like they say, some people have to have the receptor sites for that cue. And if you don't, then you've got to give them another queue. So I think, um, you know, I I'm really always. You know, if I'm working with somebody on hamstring rehab, I'm trying to figure out what will push their buttons in the right way. And that's no different than if I'm working with somebody on a speed project. And like we're trying to get faster. I'm trying to connect with them and figure out what is the best way to get the desired outcome. So if it's that vertical force production, it could be up, it could be down, um, Sometimes it does. Like, I don't like using the word push because it, it kind of, you know, intuitively a lot of people think it means like really a long time push a long time on the ground. But sometimes with some athletes, I say portion, they do better. So, you know, I think I'm always aware of. You know, what everybody's a particular cue could be to solve the problem. I know what I want. I know what I want it to look like, but I may have to use different language around eliciting that response from somebody. And I think that's kind of the interesting part is. Um, you have to really work at it. Like you can't just go, okay, here's your workout, go do it. You know, go on the corner, you know, let's go do the physio thing in the corner over there, go do your exercises and then report back to me. You actually have to walk them through it and you have to watch a rep, give them different cues. Okay. How does that feel? Okay. That feels really easy. It feels really bouncy. Oh, okay. That's what I want. Um, Or that feels like, you know, I feel a lot of pain when I really push. Okay, well, let's get away from pushing. So I think that coaching piece may be what's missing for a lot of people when, you know, they have a template of how it should work, but then you got to get in there and you got to be a human being. Okay. And so in terms of, you mentioned earlier, when we were offline about diagnosing these injuries and how, you know, the MRIs are kind of a blessing and a curse because in some cases, the MRIs are. Almost overly sensitive and they give people, medical providers, reasons to fixate on, on things and hold people back. And then it probably creates a bias towards maybe being overly conservative. So, you know, what, what do you think the physios medical staffs can do better in terms of like from a functional standpoint? It's easy to diagnose somebody as a strain hamstring, but what, and the people that you've worked with, even people with like, say like a grade two, like, what does your progression look like from the day you get the MRI result to the timeline in terms of when you can get people back to high-velocity running? Cause I mean, I have had experiences with some physicians where I've gotten a referral, you know, strain hamstring grade two, and this was maybe like six weeks after the original injury. The athlete's done zero running. In one case, I had an athlete who was going to a division one program for track for the a hundred and the 200. And he was told to take his entire winter season off for a grade for a great, actually a spring season. So he injured the hamstring during indoor and like the, the state meets. So this was maybe in like, um, whatever it is, like February or something like that. And then he was told. You should take the entire spring off to rest for college. And so, like, we hadn't run in six weeks. Of course, the first session, you know, I had them doing tempos and the curve or doing different, you know, mock drills and some easy accelerations. And just to prove to him that like, you actually can do things, but, um, it, it seems like there's no, there's like do hamstring exercises, maybe work up to Nordics, but people are still very afraid to run and they just see it as. All or nothing, you're either injured or you have to run at 25 miles an hour and there's no in between. So how do you go from that? Like that MRI stage to really diagnosing the problem from a functional standpoint, not just a pure pathology in the MRI, and then building that person up until they're actually are running at a higher velocity. Yeah, that's a good question. Um, you know, I, I, again, I'm a big proponent of getting as much information as possible. So if somebody does have an image, um, ultrasound or MRI, you know, it does inform you about what you can do. And if, obviously you see the hamstring, like on just one final strand, they're like, you're going to treat it differently than if it's just a smaller tear. Um, But most of the time it is going to be, I would say function-based in terms of, okay. Like you said, can you March on the spot? Can you lift your knee without pain? Yes, I can do that. Right. Okay. Now can you do it at this rate? You know, a little faster? Yeah. It still feels good. Okay. How about if we skip and you put a little more force than the ground? I feel that a little bit there, but it's not getting worse. And, and so it's this iterative approach of like talking to somebody, seeing, you know, are they guarding, um, You know, what kind of response are they giving you? You know, what is it, what is showing on their face? Like if they're like, uh, you know, as they're doing it or it's like, no, that's fine. Um, and this working back and forth from rep to rep, and obviously I have some guidelines around, you know, if it's a grade two, I'm probably gonna do this many reps, this many sets and that, and then I'll cut it off. Like I don't need them to keep going. And I don't, you know, and I'm very careful about that. Like, let's keep going until they do wince or they feel so pain. No, I'll usually cut it off and live to fight another day and we'll do this on consecutive days. Right. And I had this theory that if I had somebody for five, five visits in five days, I could probably do better as a, as a physical therapist, which I'm not, but I could probably do better because I'm getting data day after day after day after day. And we can build up this momentum and get them to a certain place rather than seeing them once or twice a week. So I do it on consecutive days. And the first day you do whatever marching, skipping, high knees, maybe some running high knees at low amplitude. Then they come back the next day. How do you feel? Oh, it feels a little stiff, which is to be expected. Right. They did some movement. And then, and again, this may be two or three days following the initial injury. Um, and then come in again. Okay. Let's do exactly what we did last time. And then we'll add a bit, so you have a choice of whether or not you want to add. Uh, volume. So you can add more sets or reps. Uh, you can add intensity and intensity is going to be dictated by amplitudes. So if I lift my knee up higher, I put more force into the ground if I lift at low. So I'll have, you know, I call them gears gear. One is ankle height gear two is mid shin gear three is, uh, opposite knee height. So that's how high ISTEP and that'll determine how much force you can put in the ground. So I'll, I'll have these sort of checkpoints where I'm like, Oh, let's do everything in gear one. No problem. Okay. We go to gear two, still, no problem. And maybe the transition from gear two to gear three is a more careful, you know, measured progression. But when I get them to those Heights and they putting they're putting force into the ground vertically, which doesn't have that sort of late swing stretch, right. Then I'm like, okay, They can handle the stance phase. They can handle this, you know, the swinging motion of the leg to some degree. And then I can start thinking about adding horizontal components to it. So it, it is really, you know, despite what may be showing up on the imaging, it is competency based and obviously. How they feel. Right. And so I've had people who've been diagnosed with like a grade two, who've come back in seven to eight days. And I don't know if that's a diagnosis problem or they're just very fast at healing or whatever it is, but, you know, I don't necessarily constrain myself. Based on what an image or, you know, some other practitioner has as, um, necessarily deemed the classification of the injury because I've seen things move very quickly and I've seen grade ones take a little longer for whatever reason. Um, So I think, um, you know, I think you just have to assess what's in front of you. And then with that information you move forward. And you're just trying to notch things up very gradually. And you know, most of the time it works really well. And I rarely have setbacks because I'm very careful about that sort of iterative approach and moving things up now, have people improved quicker? Yes. But a lot of time, that's not a necessity. Like we have a playoff game in seven days. He has to be ready and if they don't win that game, then they're out. So, okay. We'll put them in. Oh, look, he played a full game, no problems. Right. You know, I'm not necessarily taking credit for that. I'm just sort of like. All right. Okay. So let's kinda, kind of continue some of that progression for the next round of the playoffs or whatever. So that's happened a lot, but I think if, if you're just using a measured. You know, common sense approach around a lot of this. You can, you can advance people pretty quickly. And, you know, uh, and I got to say this, but in Canada, you don't have the luxury. A lot of them the time, unless you want to pay for it upfront to get an MRI right away. Right. So, you know, sometimes it be after the fact to prove that yes, what I did, you know, healed the hamstring properly, but I think. I've worked better under those circumstances because I don't have all this fancy technology to tell me yes, you can train them or you can't, it's kind of like buy it's like, Hey, you talk to them. Kind of like, you know, I guess if you were training a horse, you know, you can't really talk to them. So maybe the imaging is more useful, but you know, it's kind of the same thing you're working off of what has worked in the past and applying it to your population. So, yeah, I mean, it sounds like you're trying to get people doing things that resemble running. As soon as they can, it could be the same day or the next day, whether that's a step over even like a, a resistant, acceleration, something where you're training with intent, but at a lower velocity where there's less stress on the hamstring. What do you, I mean, it might seem like an obvious question, but can you speak to the downside of waiting too long to do those activities? Because when you have someone who's kind of in purgatory where it's like, well, you've got a grade two, we don't know what to do. Let's not run let's re-ask like, what's the downside to telling somebody, okay, like we're not going to run for three, four, five, six weeks because in my experience, the longer you wait to do that, even from like a psychological standpoint, that's more difficult. It is for the athlete to ever want to run fast again. And so it seems that there's a critical window of opportunity earlier on to kind of overcome some of that inhibition. And there's also, I think it speaks to the way that we diagnose these injuries, where it's very tissue centric. You have. Uh, grade one, a grade two, or a grain grade three, it's based on the amount of muscle damage, but there's also redundancy built into the body. And I mean, if you're, if you arrive or anybody else's rehabilitating an athlete to run at close to max velocity a week after a grade two, that hamstring hasn't healed, it's just that you can work around that pathology. So there's obviously like a neurological component to it too, but what's again, that downside to, to not being aggressive enough. Yeah, very good points again. Um, like I, again, I, I think a lot of people in physio talk a lot about like, Oh, well, we don't want them to compensate with other muscles. Right. But we're doing it all the time. Um, so I, I factor that in a lot, but at the same time, whenever you don't do something, There's going to be a D training effect and that's going to be physiological, but it's also, you know, there's a skill component to that as well as you know, and there's a, like you said, the psychological component is huge. So there's one team I was helping out. And their typical approach was like an eight to 10 week return to play process for hamstrings. Right. Even in season eight to 10 weeks. Yeah. Yeah. So, so, so right then and there, as soon as somebody pulls a hamstring under that regime, they know that they're going to be out for two months. Like that's just the way it goes. Right. Because of they have a very conservative approach. So when we started doing my approach and got them back in two to three weeks, Even just the attitude of the player has changed in terms of being engaged in the process, because they're like, Oh, I know I'm going to get back faster. And so there wasn't that same anxiety around being injured because of whatever. I, you know, I don't know if it, obviously it affected them in terms of being around the team, but you know, maybe there's like financial incentives around it as well. Like, you know, games missed is tied to your contract, who knows. But I think that psychological component is huge. If you come. If I do a walk and jog program to get you back for a hamstring injury, I know that's less effective, but also I know that when a player does a walk and jog program and they're, you know, they're doing it on the sidelines and they see everybody else running. If I'm doing a sprint based process where I'm running progressively, you know, longer sprints from a short distance. And they're like, wow, this is a lot closer to what's happening on the field beside me. So I think you can't discount that psychological component on top of that. There's all the di training effects and atrophy and shortening and you know, of muscles and all that, that I think is huge. I think also the skill component is lost. So. If you don't run, if you don't sprint for, let's say that eight to 10 week period, um, or at least six of those weeks, it's a skill that you've lost. Like I know with myself and I'm no spring chicken, but if I don't sprint and I take some time off, when I get back to it, I have to be pretty careful about. You know how fast I go and how hard I push, because I've lost a bit of that skill, like neurological in terms of timing and coordination, intramuscular coordination. So I know that I have to come back carefully and I have to have a progression. So I think that's the other portion of it. And I don't even know how you classify it. So there's the F the, the, the tissue strength and the, you know, the, the physiology component. There's the psychological component and then there's the skill component. And I think they're tightly interwoven. And if you get away from any of those, or if you have a deficiency in any of those, it's going to hamper you on your return and then doubly, you're going to question your ability and to stay healthy again. So if you're out for eight to 10 weeks and you've lost some of that skill and that physiological ability, when they put you back on the field, you're thinking. I don't want to hurt myself again. I haven't really tested it. I, you know, all of those things come back and it's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy, which I see a lot. You'll see that, you know, always hurt his hamstring again and he's heard it. Okay. Well, if you resolve the technical component, if you resolve the loading component and they're psychologically feeling good about themselves, they're probably not going to pull again, but you've seen it more, more often than I have that. We have these chronic chronically injured hamstring individuals, and then they're labeled, you know, and that's going to affect their career in terms of their, you know, longevity. Um, not necessarily longevity like physically, but just the perception of their longevity and their effectiveness. So I think all of those things factor in, and I think that's why my approach works really well. It's it? Doesn't give people time to. Create a deficiency or, you know, um, D trading effect. You don't have too long to feel sorry for yourself. No, no. And, and it's not like it's a careless approach. It's not like this over aggressive, careless approach. It's very measured, but, um, I think there's an understanding, like with any injury, right? Like there's a window of opportunity that you have to hit in terms of to get people back and in a timely manner. And if you miss that window, whether it's in range of motion in a knee or something like that, um, it's very hard to get back to. Um, so I'm always thinking about that. Like the clock is ticking and it's not ticking because we have to get them back on the field because they have to score goals or whatever it's ticking, because I know there's physiological realities around that, that window of opportunity. Yeah. And so if I'm oversimplifying your philosophy, it's be as aggressive as possible without doing any harm early on. You know, it, it, it's not careless because it's very athlete driven. You're going off. You know how it looks to you, but more importantly, how it feels to the athletes. So the athlete is the ultimate driver of what he or she does or, or doesn't do. And so early on, because it's very subjective, it's based on symptoms. And what things look like to you in terms of technique, motor patterns, compensation, like I said, it might be doing some step overs. It might be doing some, you know, acceleration work. That's either at a short distance or loaded to reduce the velocity, reduce, you know, upright running and the potential for. A hamstring injury and then ultimately you're going, cause the gold standard is maximum velocity running upright early on. It's very subjective between your eyes and that athlete's perception of pain and fear. What's your kind of, you know, before you say, okay, you're good to go play in a game. What is your kind of objective criteria where, you know, you're not leaving it to chance, but maybe it's telling an athlete like, okay, do you feel like you're ready to play in a game? They might say yes, but. Depending on the athletes, you know, own kind of recklessness that may or may not be a good way to do it. It should certainly play a role, but w what makes you satisfied besides your eyes that, okay, this athlete is safe to play in a game. Yeah, there's I mean, a lot of it's going to be, um, I it's going to be volume related. So have they accumulated enough volume at a given speed? And because I do a distance based approach, so it's like short sprints that start with maybe 10 yards, 10 meters, and then they start inching out from there. And, you know, they may go as far as 30, 40, 50 meters. So by virtue of the fact that we start them short, they can only hit a certain velocity. So they might only hit. Maybe 65 to 70% of their max velocity running 10 yards. So right then, you know, if I keep them at 10, they're not going to go over 65, 70%. There's no way it's just not physically possible. Right. Unless they're going downhill. Um, and then if you take them out to 12 and a half meters, 15, and, uh, you know, 17 and a half 20, and that, the reason I do that is that usually is about a step, right? Every time I take them out and people are like, well, Step. That's not much, but if you look at the, um, The velocity data that you see from sprinters, a step can be a lot of, you know, it can be a lot of velocity gain. One step can pop you up that velocity chart pretty quickly. So you gotta be very careful with the number of steps or the distance. But if I go 10 yards, uh, 10 meters for a certain number of sessions, and then we go up to 12 and a half 15. I know that I'm, every time we run, we're going to hit at least 65, 70% of max velocity, which doesn't happen a lot in sports. Let's be honest. Um, so cause they're shorter acceleration distances, but I know that even if I get them to run 20, they still run that 10. If I get them to run 30, they've run 10. So even the volume of 10 meter accelerations has grown over. Let's say two weeks. So I know just by the fact that I might be doing 300 yards of total distance, and then the next day I do three 50 and then they do 400, 500, five 50, whatever. Over that two weeks on consecutive days, that's more high quality running than they've done practicing or playing a game. So we're kind of creating a reserve effect by just doing this repetitively every day. You know, we may give them a day off here and there, but you can see like, uh, one of the teams that I work with, they just. Compile everything based on GPS and GPS, isn't the most precise way of doing it, but you still get a measure of distance number of accelerations over a certain velocity or, or rate, um, and a velocity. So you can go, okay, 80% of our runs have been at least 15 miles per hour or greater have hit, you know? And then if you measured that on consecutive days, if you measured that compared to when they practice or when they play it's way and above what they're going to do in a game. So you're kind of. Overcompensating to some degree and creating a reserve so that when they go back to the game, I don't know, they could play the whole bloody game and still not come close to what we did in practice. Right. So I just know based on the time we spend and the distances, we cover that if they have to play. And this is what's happened with this one team in Europe. Um, because they had a, an important game in like a champions league game. Um, the coach said we really need that guy. We're going to put them in for at least, you know, usually it would be 20 minutes, 40 minutes, 60 minutes. Like we need them in there. He's got to play 60 plus minutes, this game, otherwise we're out of the tournament. He played little stiff afterwards, and then he played the next game and he's fine. So you're, you're really by doing this approach, um, you're really. Filling all these gaps and then some, so that they're ready to perform. You know, at, or beyond what you need them to be. And I think that's, that's the key is that it's, uh, like you said, it's, it's a measured, intelligent approach that doesn't put them at risk, but it's still filling all these areas that they'll need in the game. Anyways, like if you look at the average football player, like they might accelerate five or 10 yards, right. And that's not even at full, full speed because somebody is in their way or they don't want to, you know, get out of position in the game or are overrun the quarterback when they're trying to pursue them. So if you look at sports that way and you go, okay, I just have to do more than that in my training, in my preparation, then I know there'll be ready. I think that works really well. Whereas if you do a, say you do like a Nordic based program or you did a jolt walk jog program. Which has no relation to anything that's happening on the field. You know, you could, you could argue that while we're working on work capacity, we're working on strength. Yeah. But that, again, that's not as specific as what's happening on the field with short acceleration and the velocity at which that hamstring is struck, lengthening and shortening. And you know, so now you're missing that. And then if you decide, well, after two weeks of doing Nordics and jogging, we're going to start sprinting. Well, you've just lost two weeks of training. Um, and now you're, you're, you're behind the eight ball because if they want you back and you do have to hit 20 miles per hour, well, you're nowhere near that good luck, right. Or we've just done it one workout. So I think that's, that's what I kind of hang my hat on is we've done the work. Right. And if they have to go above and beyond what normally happens to game, well, that box is checked off. So across different sports, like what are maybe some target volumes you're looking for before you. Say somebody who's ready. Like examples might be skilled position player in American football to, you know, a soccer player, more of a field sport athlete. I would imagine that the football player is going to have less of a volume than the soccer player. But, um, what do you, what are you looking to kind of ramp people up to you before you sort of discharge them in terms of their volumes. And then is that at like maximum intent? Are you giving them kind of like an RPE. Um, in terms of like, what's the intensity at that given volume? Yeah. It's it's um, I would say the curve of that progression is, is, um, relatively parabolic in terms of like, you know, you're going to increase volume, um, like this, um, and then it'll, it'll start to drop off as you get closer to playing a game, but the velocity will, you know, go up. Like this, right? So as that volume drops off, the velocity goes higher, right? So you're, you're trying to find a critical volume, which could be, like I said, my first session might be three, 200 to 300 yards of, you know, 20 to 30 reps of 10 yard sprints. And then it may go as high as anywhere from 600 to a thousand. So it could be 60 to 100. Reps of tens. And then, then as the velocity starts going up, we start dropping that off and we may get down to around 300 to 500 yards of total reps. Um, and that could be tens or that could be fifteens or twenties. So, you know, it might be again, 20 to 30 reps of sprints. Um, You know, would they be max velocity? We'll know if it starts getting to max velocity, then the volume has to come down and the recovery has to open up. So those initial sessions, it would be like, run their run back, run their run back. And that kind of dampens the velocity and the intensity by just. Adding more volumes. So when the volume peaks at a thousand, the velocity is not that high, but we're kind of strengthening them with the volume and then we drop off the volume and then we get a little more precise with the velocities that they have to hit. And so it's kind of like a, just a training program, right? It's uh, I mean, that's all it is. Um, which is why a lot of rehab professionals might not really understand it. Like you have to have a really like yourself, you have to have a solid. Basis of, of training athletes. And then you're like, Oh, okay. I can manipulate volume intensity in this way. And I can expand recovery so that the velocity velocity goes up or I can contract the recovery so that I keep the volume in a safe or the velocity at a safe place. And I can also restrict how far they go. And if you don't understand all of this stuff, my approach seems like it's really crazy. But if you do understand how all this stuff interacts with each other, um, you're like, Oh, okay. That makes sense. Yeah. Short distances. They won't get to a upright position. They they'll have more knee flection and ground contact. So that means less stress on the hamstring. Oh, okay. Yeah. So right. But, but you have to have that, you know, pedigree or that, that, that background and understanding how these different things interact together. And then it makes perfect sense. So once I have somebody to that, like, I, I, I've been doing a lot of virtual stuff where I just walk people through it and I've had a lot of success. Um, You know, through surrogates or whatever, I haven't been there to teach them, but I've walked them through it. And I said, this is how you do it. And then we check in every week, how's it going? Good. You know, they may have a little technical question, but it's very easy to implement. You know, if you understand all the things to look at, uh, from a distance you don't have to, I don't have to be there, which is great. Yeah. And I think one of the things that's probably the scariest for coaches and physios to implement an approach like yours. Especially with an injured athlete, because I find that a lot of times people don't even want to approach or touch things like mechanics until somebody is injured. It's assumed that if someone has quote, unquote healthy, that they don't need to work on anything. And then all of a sudden, when an athlete is injured, they're under the microscope and there's a lot more scrutiny, but it's one thing manipulating volume and intensity. In a rehab protocol, but now you're, you're out. Imagine you work with a lot of athletes where if the first time you meet them is when they're injured. Granted you might not be getting a total 100% accurate snapshot of how they run because their pain could be influencing how they run. But if there probably a massive over Strider with, you know, an injured hamstring it's presumably they were also a massive over Strider for after the injury. I think a lot of coaches and physios are scared. Like I don't, I don't want to try to tweak how an athlete runs because. They've been doing it their whole life. And am I going to screw them up? So I think a lot of times rehab does provide a nice opportunity to work on mechanics because your output is necessarily lower. Um, but you know, if you kind of know what you're doing and you understand what good technique looks like and how to coach it, like what's possible. And how quickly are you able to see. Athletes internalize some of these mechanical changes where they can go on the field and not have to think about it. And you're not worried about did I get in their head and make them think about running in an overly technical way. Whereas prior to the injury, that's all they did. Was they just ran. Didn't think about it. Yeah. I mean, that's, the, this process is a wonderful opportunity for you to fix their running. Right. And, um, and you've probably seen that yourself where somebody comes to you and. Um, doesn't matter what kind of injury it is. If they're running athlete, your first priority is to look at their running and maybe that was the cause. And maybe that's part of the solution. Right? So I think for me, um, You know, when I, when I work with an athlete, it's my opportunity to one, fix the running. But the other one is to get by and around my approach. So if we do get them back to health, now they will adopt my approach to training, which resolves all of these things as well. Right. And whether it's technical, whether it's finding the right volumes and loads and all that. But I think if, if you know, there was a, there was a case in the NFL where we're, um, looking at somebody who had chronic hamstring poles. And, uh, it was, it was purely mechanical like this, this was a fast Twitch individual who, you know, had great performance on the field, but the problem was chronic injuries, a lot of soft tissue injuries. And a lot of the time I find that if somebody has a lot of hamstring issues, it can manifest itself into other injuries as you probably have seen as well. So even ACL injuries. Um, so. Right off the bat, they send me video. I'm like, yep. This is a classic case of somebody with their hips sitting too low overstriding, uh, pelvis is anteriorly rotated. Um, as part of that, right. You know, they're kind of. Their posture is off. And so as soon as you see that, you're like, yep, we need to fix that. We need to start from maybe some drill based work and then progress from there. And, um, and I'd say nine times out of 10, it does work. It does help the situation. But like you said, you need somebody on the ground that feels confident with identifying those technical issues and then feels confident with. Prescribing work and giving cues to help fix it as well. And it doesn't take much like, like I said, I can do this by distance with a lot of, uh, practitioners, um, And once, once they get some momentum around it, they're like, Oh, okay. Now I know I can see what you're saying. Yep. We got it. You know, and they cue them properly. And the one thing I did notice, and this is not a, again, this is not a slight on PTs or ATCs or anything like that, but I think a lot of them were shocked at how much work it was to actually watch every rep, keep an eye on every step, maybe video record, review it. And they're like, this is a lot of work. I got to spend a lot of time with them. I'm like, yes, yes it is. But, but if you do this, this won't be a problem anymore. If you fix this now, you know, obviously there's going to be some maintenance that they have to do. And, but, but if you fix this now mechanically, this athlete is now off your plate and you can work with other, you know, rehab cases that demand more attention, but you do have to put in that initial work, um, And, and maybe it's just a different way of doing things that you're used to. Um, but being on the field with them and working with them, you're going to learn a lot about them. You're going to learn a lot about the process and it's going to pay off and you will have a much better idea of how to communicate with the performance staff and the strength staff and saying like, this is what I see. What do you see? And maybe they can help fix it. So that doesn't become a problem because usually what happens when I finish, uh, an RTP process is okay, they need a minimum amount of volume to address this so that they don't have a problem moving forward. Um, and it may not be a lot. It might be like a microdosing approach of like getting them to do a certain number of sprints of a certain distance as part of their warmup so that they. Check that box off because once they start playing like a perfect example, as a defensive back in football, where a lot of their work is backpedaling and multi-directional, and they don't get into a lot of full-out sprints. And when they do. Um, their, their hips seem to be a little lower because that's how they're taught just in their movement. So you have to kind of teach them, you know, okay. When we sprint, we get up higher, we can hit higher velocity, safer, blah, blah, blah. And then when you lower down, you can change direction. But a lot of the time, somebody hasn't pointed that out to them, like a football coach, rarely would, they would look at very specific stuff. And so you have to point that out to them. And then usually it resolves itself. They don't have so many problems. Yeah. I think a lot of times it's, it's easy to justify that something doesn't matter if you don't understand it. And I know because at one point that was sort of me where I wasn't as comfortable analyzing running. So you can just, just rationalize well, like, because I can't do it, it must not matter. But, um, I think if you have it in your toolbox to be able to analyze it and have the ability to change it, if warranted, you can always choose to not do it. But then, then now you're making a decision based on. What's kind of best for the athlete and the circumstances. Not because you have a knowledge gap and that's where I think sometimes, you know, there's always a judgment call at this stuff. Cause I think that for like somebody who's coming off an ACL surgery where they have like eight to 12 months to rehab, then it's very easy to make mechanical changes along the way because there isn't that time pressure. And because you're doing gait retraining as part of that, athlete's initial acute rehab. You can kind of sprinkle in things that look like. Running progressions into that, that gait retraining. It becomes a little bit trickier when you're like maybe the pressure you've been under where it's like, okay, you've got, you know, a week to get this athlete ready for a playoff game in the premier league. And you've never worked with that athlete before, based on certain time constraints, would you ever adapt purely like a, a load management, you know, just volume and intensity based approach and kind of abandoned the mechanics? Or do you always try to address that mechanical piece? Like if you've got a week, for example, Do you say, well, I don't think I have enough time to mess with mechanics. I'm just going to try to get this person to. Run the way they would normally run, do a couple of tens build up the distance or you, you know, and I know it's hard to speak in absolutes, but are there ever situations where you feel like you don't have the time or it doesn't make sense to address the mechanical piece or is that always kind of a big part of what you're doing? I mean, I think I bring it up with the staff and I say like, this is part of the problem, but like, like you said, um, re-establishing load in and building resiliency around that load is probably more important. Like, um, Because you could fix the mechanics and if you haven't done the load piece, they're still going to be vulnerable. They're going to miss step and then it's going to fall apart. So I would say yes, if they have, if they run with like, like running backs are a perfect example. Like they have to run with their hips low, with more knee flection and ground contact because of contact and direction change. So if you're working with Barry Sanders, um, You know, do you want to change that a lot? Do you want to say, look, we got to be up higher, right? Cause if somebody hits him, he'll go flying. So I think in that case, you're going to go, okay, we need you to do this prescribed load, this many reps and keep doing that. Just stay relaxed. Try not to be too tight when you do it. And that may be all. And there's been a lot of cases where we've done like a three week RTP and then we never, I never see that athlete again or ever talked to them again. And I feel, I honestly feel very, um, I feel some anxiety around that because I know, okay. We only did a three week fix. We have to integrate this into the program. And for whatever reason, people just. Don't care or they're just like, okay, we're going to move on to the next bad guy solved. We're going to move on to the next project. And, um, and sometimes they, they don't have a problem ever again, and sometimes there's a recurring problem. So it's, you know how it is. You can't save everybody. Um, So I it's always in the back of my mind that yes, there is a, there is a sort of long-term plan that should be in place for all of these athletes so that, um, you know, it doesn't become a problem. It doesn't, it doesn't rear its ugly head again. But you know, that's, that's, that's very tough. Like, and that's why like, I've, I've gone back with a lot of my courses and I've said, okay, Let's try to get the younger, um, PTs and younger strength coaches trying to follow this philosophy. Um, and to some degree I've kind of, I've kind of taking it to the extreme and said, just run them, just like, just work on running. Like, yes, you can do Romanian deadlifts and all these other, you know, Nordics and all these hamstring things. Do you absolutely need to know? You don't have to. When in reality, like with my own son, we're doing all of those posterior chain exercises too, but I'm trying to take people and say like, you know, let's, let's solve this running piece right now. Um, and just lay off that other stuff and then you can always go back to it. And that's, I think a big hallmark of the progression is I will not allow people to do lower body resistance training during my re return to play process because it, it creates. It creates problems. It's like an engine. It runs interference to what I'm trying to do, which is less tension, more skill. In terms of that intramuscular coordination. I don't want people feeling stiff or feeling like any sort of dorms or anything like that. So once they reach, you know, the volume and the velocity that I want them to reach say, it's like, again, that two to three week progression. Okay. Return back to lifting. Right. We've got everything in place. We've got everything hard-wired in place where we need it. Now go back to lifting. There's never a problem, but there's always been the case where I've said, this is what I need to do. Um, and then somebody, a third party comes in, whether it's their personal trainer. Um, an athletic trainer who isn't part of our process or a medical person, or, and they take them into the gym and they do Nordics or whatever. And then of course the athlete shows up and what's wrong. Ah, I'm just really sore in the hamstring right now. And I'm like, well, yesterday everything was fine. Oh, well I did this extra stuff. So. Uh, you know, I just keep them away from that stuff. We'll do some upper body work. Um, but whenever I've had anybody interfere with doing some lower body work as part of what I'm doing, it's, it's only created problems. So I'm very careful with that. Yeah. It speaks to the fact that there's just so much discretion and judgment involved based on timelines and different circumstances. Um, one thing I was curious about is, you know, we've kind of focused more on like the, the rehab piece and it is a spectrum between. The rehab and the training. And you also mentioned that, you know, sometimes you wish you had more continuity or follow up with some of these. Yeah. It's, you know, when athletes are healthy in your experience, like what do you wish that the athletes themselves, their teams, where we're doing more of, to kind of make them, you know, to kind of mitigate the potential for some of these hamstring injuries? Like, what are you seeing as the low hanging fruit and sort of hamstring injury, risk mitigation that a lot of, um, Teams aren't really addressing. Yeah. I really think it comes back to some sort of gap analysis where you're looking at, um, What isn't being covered. And I think, you know, um, like if we use the soccer example, I think Dave Tenney was really good about bringing that to my attention about, okay. Um, we have to have a mix of qualities happening in practice to make sure that one, they do the short stuff, the direction change and all that. And then they do a bigger field, um, and scenario where they do longer runs at higher speed. Um, and I think that's, that's something that I'm always looking at. And even with the. The European team I was working with, um, when the, the players were missing practice, um, and just doing linear sprints, we, the, the trainer said I'm getting them to do more multi-directional stuff because they're missing practice. And that's where all the multi-directional stuff happens. But when they returned to practice, I do more linear stuff because that's what they're missing. The longer linear runs it upright position. Right. So, you know, understanding that interplay of what's being. Taken care of, and what might be missing, I think is really important as part of this, this whole process. Um, and it's so easy to go. Like, let's be specific, like let's be sports specific, but if they're practicing and playing, that's pretty sports specific. It's just those, those areas around the edges that I'm concerned about the longer runs and, um, you know, how that, how that may be missing as part of their training. Right. So that's funny, the specificity arguments, a lot of times, Specificities use to justify not doing maximum velocity sprinting. Cause the idea is that, you know, athletes don't reach max velocity a lot in field sports. Therefore it's not necessary. But if all they're doing is accelerating and changing direction in, you know, on the field or in practice or in the game, you can make a case that what you should be doing off the field is exactly what they don't get in the game, which is max velocity sprinting because of the buffer that it provides the. The speed reserve. You're seeing more people that I think are taking that approach and being outspoken about it. But sometimes it's almost counterintuitive. Like what you need is exactly not the most specific thing. Yeah. And, um, I think there's some cases, uh, you know, and you watch like there's certain players like this whole load management thing in the NBA has been interesting. Um, but if you go back and talk to Alford meal, like they didn't really load manage, like the players who played a lot. Tended to be more durable because they played a lot. Right. And then as soon as you start pulling pieces out of that puzzle and you start saying, well, we're going to skip this game and we're going to skip this, or they're going to limit their minutes. Um, maybe that does make them a little more, um, fragile. Right? So taking that anti-fragile approach, uh, is interesting as well. So I, you know, it's complicated. Like I'm not, I'm, you know, I'm not smart enough to figure all this out, but I do know that, um, Resting. Isn't always good. And you know, like we talked about in, in rehab, like, Oh, you need to rest, like, I've, I've had even scenarios, like, because I'm 51 now I think, Oh, I need rest. Right. And I, I. Was doing some longer runs. And my knee started bothering me like the inside of my knee. And, and I thought, well, I just need to do less. Right. And of course it got worse. Right. So then got back into squatting more and doing all these things and doing all my drills. Like, that's the thing, like I don't even practice my, what I preach sometimes. So I'm like, okay, I got to do what I would tell somebody to do. And I did. And of course it was better. Right. So it's, it's very interesting. Yeah. Speaking of load management, I mean, I think a lot of people have seen the last dance. I love the part where. Rodman went on the bender in Vegas, missed a couple of days in practice. And then his first day back at practice, he was like winning the sprints, you know? So there are different time, you know, but who knows what the right answer is, but I don't think it's, yeah, there's, there's something to be said for being a cockroach too. And just being able to take that beating and keep coming back. Um, yeah, it's it's um, No. I saw somebody else post about that. I think it was Josh funk and he was talking about like, people aren't exercising as much, but guess what arthritis is going up. Right. So, and I'm like, yeah, that makes sense, man, you got to do a certain amount of activity and that sweet spot is critical. Like in finding that, knowing where that sweet spot is, is probably like the gold mine. If you know how much volume to give somebody to keep them healthy. Um, you're always going to be in a pretty good place. Yeah. And then working people learn more about some of the work that you're doing, your courses and just your overall approach. Um, I I'll try to, um, put stuff on my websites. Websites seem less relevant these days because of social media, but I have like two websites, the sprint coach.com and then the courses running mechanics.com. That was that that running mechanics.com site was basically for the in-person courses. And now I have to. Change that over. So it's all virtual for at least, I guess, the next year. Um, but those are the two websites. And then, uh, on like Instagram and Twitter, I'm at Derrick M Hanson, Derek Matthew Hanson. Um, so I, I'm trying to put information on there and trying to get on as many podcasts and do as many things as possible just to get the word out. But, um, yeah, there's always, it's always good to talk to people in their individual professions and find out, okay, well, You know what, what's a better way for me to get my information out to reach that audience, because I, I, I think it's, it's so, so easy to say, like, this is how I do it and just expect everybody to follow you. But at the same time, there has to be some sort of, kind of meet in the middle, I think, too. Yep. And so are those the running mechanics courses? Are they available online or virtually now, or is that in the works? Um, I have the base foundation course. So that's, if you take the level one course and you can find it the best way to find it is just through my Instagram and I have a list of links there. Um, and I have, uh, an Instagram site dedicated to it running mechanics, uh, app running mechanics, but yeah. The level one foundation course is important because it's about all these things we're talking about, about good mechanics, uh, having some basic, uh, volume around those mechanics. And then the course that I'm working on now is the actual rehab course. Um, and that will have okay. This is what I do. And I use the hamstring rehab protocol as the model for everything because that's, it ended up being that's. What I started with the influence was, you know, a lot of track coaches that I had as mentors. And so I, okay. This is, you know, 10 yards, 10 meter approach to acceleration. This is why it works. This is, these are the studies that show why it works. And then I also do it for lower body injury, like lower leg injury, calf, uh, plantar, fascia, Achilles, um, ACL, um, you know, everything, quad strain. I just have some variations on it, but it's the same approach. It's the running based approach. Okay. Now what's the ETA on that medical course coming online? Um, well, if you put the screws to me, Doug, I'll get it done hopefully by the end of February. So maybe sooner that's not that far, you know, pretty close to when this air is in a couple of weeks. So that's great. So hopefully, uh, we'll get the word out because I know that, you know, I've taken them in person, but I would like to have that as a reference to continually refer back to, and we've got. A bunch of students coming in. So it's going to be on their, uh, their list of things to watch before they come. So well, that, that's a great thing about the virtual is that if I do it in a weekend, I mean, you can take notes and you'll get handouts and all that, but you may forget some of it. Whereas if I do it in this course format, you have it forever. You can refer back to it and I've, I've actually put in more time. So if it's like an eight hour course regularly in person, now it's 12 to 15 hours because I know you can do it at your own pace. Yeah, I definitely miss the in-person interaction, but it is also really hard to just, especially now having a kid give up an entire weekend to go to a course and just to, you know, even to be anywhere for eight hours, no matter how engaging it is, it's just hard to absorb all that at once. I've been loving all these online courses that have been coming out and it just allows you to go at a much more reasonable pace. So, you know, hopefully there's some kind of, one is over with COVID, there's a mix of everything's available online, but you could still kind of do certain things in person and get the best of both worlds. Yeah. I think what I want to do is basically, uh, you know, kind of have a hybrid, like, okay, you pay for the course, this is the online. And then when I come to your city, we'll do a full practical. So we don't have to pull out the slides. Like you've already seen that no more, no more PowerPoint in person. No, no, that's, that's a taboo. All right. Well, I appreciate your time. This is a really cool stuff. And you know, a lot of practical application here, so. Thanks again. And look forward to talking again soon. Yes. Thanks for having me on again as usual, and I hope to see you in person soon. Hopefully. Bye.