Physical Preparation Summit in Review

Dr. Keaton Worland, PT, DPT, CSCS, ITPT
Oct 31, 2016
5 min read

Wow! What an amazing weekend in Indianapolis for the Physical Preparation Summit 2016. Truly electrifying from start to finish. We discussed everything from air flow and rib mechanics to metabolic capacity from a nutrition perspective. I can truly say it was an honor to hear these guys speak this weekend. They provided so much food for thought to foster my learning and improve my skill set as both a physical therapist and a performance coach.

The weekend began with Mike Robertson setting the tone; right from the get go he told us if you want better answers, focus on asking better questions this weekend. And wow did the guys attending take this to heart whether it be during a presentation, lunch, or the scheduled networking times. Awesome questions were asked all weekend: peer to peer, peer to mentor, and mentor to peer. Everyone was learning and growing and I loved it! It would be too daunting of a task to drive into each topic here, but I want to highlight some big take aways that are going to change my perspective on treating patients and working with clients. To begin, we started to discuss where athletes tend to have limitations and it evolved to the big three. They can't flex, the struggle to brake, and they don't have capacity. The ability of athletes not being able to flex was absolutely enticing! Now please do not think I am talking solely about muscle flexibility, if at all. What it all boils down to is that an athlete needs options to succeed at a high level. In other words, an athlete with fewer options, or rather less flexibility, will be more likely to breakdown, injure, and/or under perform with their body. This is because opportunity and variability become minimized. However, this is where we as performance coaches and therapists can intervene and mitigate this reduction of options.

Being courageous enough to take the necessary step back is sometimes the only way to take two steps forward.

One way to do so is to know the "trainable menu" of an athlete. This concept was not new in nature because it is simply about the ability to correctly and efficiently perform movements. However it was new in the sense that it shifts to a perspective more on the importance of knowing your athletes' limitations and being able to RESPOND to how an athlete is doing in the present. Being courageous enough to take the necessary step back is sometimes the only way to take two steps forward. For me, I always had this concept of regression and progression in the athletic population, but this weekend also made it clear that this can and should be applied in a rehab setting to facilitate recovery as fast as possible. One of the areas I am going to begin learning more about is going to be how to determine the readiness of a patient to help facilitate their care that given day. I am very excited to see where this takes me in the future. As the weekend continued we explored some nerdy control concepts that could be applied throughout the body, but I resonated with the thorax and feet. One of the greatest moments of the weekend was spent talking respiration with Bill Hartman after day 1 concluded. He said it best, "Airflow is movement and movement is airflow." I loved it! It was such an accurate statement. I asked him how he came up with this and in typical Bill fashion he looks at me and says "I didn't, that is from 1922." WHAT!!! Why don't we understand this stuff called breathing if this content has been around for so long? This isn't rocket science guys, it's breathing. We (humans) aren't complicated. We are complex and it's about

being able to simplify what we know. We tend to operate under analysis until paralysis. This was exactly what Doug Kechijian spoke about. We need to understand the basics better and their integrative capacities to further our knowledge and understanding. In other words, we need to better connect the dots we have before we add more dots on the spectrum. Although both are forms of progression. One of the dots in the spectrum is the foot (musculoskeletal) and another is its' control (neuromuscular). Their relationship is something I feel is often neglected to a high degree and don't understand why. The foot is one of, if not, the biggest sources of proprioceptive input to our body as it intimately interacts with the world. Loren Landow was on fire discussing the role of the foot in our athletes. It was simply put "do not teach calculus if they can't do addition and subtraction." Thus, if the foot can't be controlled you can't teach dynamic movements involved in pivoting, cutting, and general change of direction because

compensatory movement occurs up the kinetic chain. This is due to the body wanting to follow a path of least resistance: neurologically and mechanically. However, if we can control the foot and avoid compensatory movement, it becomes about our capacity of leveraging our levers to facilitate multidirectional movement. Here Loren discussed why the center of mass has to be controlled and maintained "inside." What he was alluding to was the ability to reaccelerate in various directions. If an athlete's center of mass is outside a foot or shifted too far to one side, it limits the options of the athlete and ultimately slows them down. Being able to teach this to an athlete ultimately increases opportunities and demonstrates true athleticism in my opinion. All in all, Loren was the perfect conclusion to day 1.

Day 2 was all about signal and noise in human performance. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I knew Derek Hansen was going to drop some knowledge. And that is exactly what happened, especially with his linear sprint mechanics and their role in CNS stimulus. I think one of the biggest takeaways was that we as a profession don't have everything figured out yet and shouldn't be afraid to admit it. This only promotes growth as it demands conversation on the unknown.

For me, an unknown was the overarching theme of his presentation; signal and noise within human performance. Derek was incredibly humble during his talk making it known he is still figuring this out too and does not have all the answers. This made it easy to ask questions and have discussions. To best summarize this concept I find it best to reapply signaling and noise to audio quality and then demonstrate the jump to human performance. Signal in an audio setting is the clarity and crispness of the sound being recorded whereas noise is the summation affect of all the background sounds. However, with regards to noise, a separation between biological and mechanical systems needs to be made. In a mechanical system, optimal computing occurs with elimination of noise and yields a Poisson Distribution. Derek explains through Alex Pouget's work that this optimal condition only occurs in a biological system when their is the presence of neural noise. Essentially it breaks down to the notion that neural noise keeps neuronal circuitry active and more responsive to a stress input. The importance of this is that we can now be predictive allowing enhanced performance rather than succumbing to a reactive state, which is protective in nature and in line with decreased performance. Thus by noise being present and yielding increased neuronal circuitry, we can enhance our signal for improved physical and cognitive performance. This concept is far from understood at this point, but is beginning to be explored from a performance standpoint and has the potential to significantly impact our field in the future. In summary of the weekend, all I can say is that I am extremely grateful for this opportunity I had to learn and interact with some of the most influential people in the field. If you have a chance to ever attend one of these summits, I highly recommend it and I guarantee you will not be disappointed. Take Care and remember you have to position to perform!