Well, you are known as one of the Prehab Guys as far as exposure to the most people online. I would love to get a little bit into your background in physical therapy, in movement, in fitness just to give our listeners that context as we dive deeper into the conversation.
If you wouldn’t mind, give us a little bit of your background and how you got involved in sports and physical therapy initially.
I was thinking about this in preparation for the podcast because I just had a patient yesterday, and I had a nice conversation with the parent, and they were like, “Wow, I wish I had this information when I was hurt.” It all goes back to this. As a teenager, I played soccer growing up my entire life.
I kept getting hurt as a teenager. I didn’t do my prep during the summer. I remember I got referred to physical therapy. The physical therapy that I had was very different than the physical therapy that I give to patients today.
It was very hands on in terms of using a lot of modalities, nothing in terms of prepping to get stronger, to getting back to soccer, to getting ready for the demands of soccer. Unfortunately, I never got back to soccer because I wasn’t listening to what the PTs were saying to do, but the fact is, what the PTs were saying to do wasn’t helping.
They were just saying rest or also ultrasound your quad. Honestly, what got me into physical therapy was, I wanted to help people get back for doing the things that they’d love to do, whether it be sports, lifting weights, or doing the things that they want to do on a daily basis without pain.
I grew up on the East Coast in New Jersey, then I went to Penn State for my undergrad. I studied Kines there. I was still very set on the physical therapy at that time. I got accepted to the University of Southern California. I drove all the way to Southern California. That’s where I met Mike and Arash.
That’s how we came up with the idea of The Prehab Guys. Fortunately, I’m in a setting where I had to work with teenagers now, who they play soccer. They play other sports. I give a very different type of physical therapy than the experience that I had. That’s the full circle right there.
That’s a great elevator pitch for your background. You kept it nice and tight. I really like how you bring up the idea of preparing to get back on the field or get back to the activities people love.
In my own experience in athletics for a long time, and especially when I was younger, when I was in college, I had the perception of physical therapy as this thing you did to play catch up to your injuries. You get injured. You go to physical therapy.
It’s all about trying to get you back to like not even 100 percent, like 85 percent, maybe 90 percent before you go out and beat yourself up again. I never thought of, in athletics, as physical therapy as movement as something that could prepare you to super compensate, that can prepare you to be at 100 percent or greater than your previous 100 percent.
Was there a moment in your education or in your physical therapy practice where that light bulb went off where you thought wait a minute, physical therapy movement can get people not back to just where they were previously or close to it but maybe even doing better and performing better?