Before we continue I want to take a quick break to tell you about anchor anchor is honestly the easiest way to make a podcast for starters it's free, which doesn't get any better than that. Second of all, they have a lot of tools that allow you to record and edit your podcast right from your phone or computer the best part in my mind. Is that anchor also helps you distribute your podcast, so I don't have to go and create an account with Spotify. Apple podcast Google pod. Cast overcast can't even list all the places that get the pancake is played from simply because I don't have to worry about it. Anchor does it for me if starting a podcast is something you're interested in download the free anchor app or go to Anchor dot. F m-- to get started not anchor.com anchored dot f m now back to our episode. All right. So, this is Whitney from get the pancake a podcast for volleyball coaches today. We have dr. Jacobs fort with us to answer some of our Physical Therapy related questions. So strength training recovery. I did ask on my Instagram stories for everyone to ask what questions they have for. Dr. Jacobs Fort and I was pretty overwhelmed with the amount of questions. That we got so I think there are 30 to 40 questions that we received and we're going to get through as many as possible because I know each question is really important. So we're going to cover as much as possible. I did pick out some of the most common questions and also a few specific ones that I would like to know the answer to myself not everything is 100% Physical Therapy related. There are a few big picture questions related to injury and I thought it'd be interesting to get Cubs thoughts on those as well. So Jacob thank you for being on the podcast. Yeah, of course. I'm excited to be here. I'm excited you have some of these questions but I was deathly something that I enjoy a ton of and you guys have some really good questions that we're gonna be able to get into so we're starting out or going to talk about how do you strengthen your ankles what ages to introduce strength training specifically how to train lab arrows and then of course the question that almost everybody asked it seems like was how to increase your vertical. So let's go ahead and just get started. We are going to take a second later to learn more about Jacob, but we'll dive into a couple of these questions first. So Jacob our first question is how to strengthen your ankles when you're dealing with chronic ankle sprains, and then maybe if you could talk about how to deal with just chronic injuries in general chronic injuries in That is a loaded question my friend, but let me start with okay Ghouls and we can see if we can go from there ankles are definitely something that are close to my heart. I've had I'm a chronic ankle sprain or myself or at least I wasn't High School. I've had two ankle surgeries high ankle sprains fractured ankles. You name it? I've probably done it to my ankle. So this is definitely something I want to help you out with as much as I can strengthen your ankles man. A lot of this comes down to ankle control and Ankle stability. Your ankles are really mobile joint is sitting on top of your foot. Which is made up of a ton of joints itself. So stability is going to be the name of the game for your ankles. And what's really cool about the ankle. What makes it so complex as it's what we call a multiplanar joint. So it's going to move and a bunch of different directions. So it's kind of like your shoulder where it can move like in a full circle and that complicates things. It means it allows it to do its job your ankles are meant to move but stability becomes a big picture. So if I'm going to be working with athletes, and I'm really working on ankle stability or working on preventing and Sprains trying to be preventative with our training man. One of the things that I'm going to be focusing a ton on is lateral ankle strength. So what I mean by that is strengthening up the outside of the ankles and one of my favorite drills for this for me. It's a really simple drill. It's not anything new and you're not going to blast on Instagram and get a bunch of followers from it. But I love to do banded lateral shuffles, right? You got to put that band around your toes, right so around you. Around like What's called the distal portion of your foot? So getting it out far close to your toes with that band that's going to get your ankles on fire. And that's a really easy drill to do with a big group of people to if you know if it's ever going to take the band's off them around our toes essentially and then we're just shuffling side to side. Yeah, you're having a nice control. So you're gonna be like an athletic stance so you can make it really ball ball related. You can get have them in like a ready position thing. No and then go side to side with that. You can try to make it a little bit more volleyball. Where you're going to maintain that distance between your feet but then like take a step for like they're not after a ball and hold and hold that band position that let pull your friend. They're going soft. So while doing this it's not like they're trying to run ideally. Yeah. No. No. Yeah, you're not really yeah. It's definitely like a controlled motion. Okay. Yeah controls the name of the game. And then anytime you can get into single leg work as well because you think about sports in general or whenever you run or when you take a quick step. You're very rarely. Are you on one foot and when you roll your ankle? Whoa, typically when you're coming down from a jump position, so being able to have like some good single leg stability is going to be really important to so a lot of times I'm going to get people you can get them on like you shouldn't literally get them in a in a single leg stance and do different volleyball specific drills where you know have on like, you know, throw a volleyball back and forth to me is it can be as simple as that haven't get it up in teams make it a competition make it fun. You are dealing with athletes and athletes like to write how to do so, I mean it's a long-winded answer for really some simple things that work really well. Well, it can be really effective done consistently, but I'm gonna be working on single-leg stance work. I'm going to be working on lateral ankle strength. So strengthen up the outside of the ankle. Alright, that is really great to know. I also sprained my ankle coming down after a block. So straightening the outside yelling some strength single leg work and then banded lateral movements, you said? Yeah. Yep. Those are those are two great places to start awesome. I know a lot of people will probably be getting those bands out and trying that at their next practice. We also had another question. Question speaking of ankles. Someone asked our ankle braces beneficial even if your ankles are not injured man. So yes it no. I mean that's the thing the more you kind of get into some of these like little like like sports injury related questions as people get very frustrated. Sometimes it's really not like a black and white right there. It's typically very gray. My first instinct is to say no, not really if you don't have any issues with your ankles, then you're probably not going to have issues with your ankles, but Of times, I mean they can't help with certain things like volleyball, especially if you're up nets like there's a pretty high risk of coming down someone's foot or just landing and I mean not really Landing an awkward position because that's called proprioception where your joints knows where it's at its base. And if you're depending on what level you're at, if you haven't rolled your ankle yet. You probably have pretty good ankle proprioceptive input. So you're not going to be in these more vulnerable positions, but if you're trying to be preventative and sure yeah, they'll help they're not know. Here's the thing ankle braces speaking of proprioception. And ankle braces don't do anything to prevent an ankle sprain right like you're going to roll your ankle. You're rolling your ankle right area. Like I've rolled my ankle a thousand times while wearing ankle braces. So I'm sure there's some of the listeners out here who have themselves. It doesn't necessarily stop the roll. Now the only time I mean that's you know, there's always caviar right a door. There's always the exception when I was playing football. I had an ankle brace that literally had metal steel place. I went down the sides. Both sides, so no my uncle wasn't going anywhere, but my Mobility suffered because of that. I doubt that's what you want as a volleyball player. But your classic ASO ankle brace had a lot of let a lot of volleyball players where that's not going to do a dang thing to stop your ankle from Rolling. But what it is really good at is giving your ankle something called proprioceptive input. So allowing your angle to know where it's at in space a little bit. So that's like a tactile cue or ankle brace. It works not necessarily because it's stopping you from rolling your ankle it works. Because it lets you know that you're about to roll your ankle. Yeah, kind of it prevents you from getting into position to roll your ankle to bottle that right thing. I didn't know that yeah. Yeah, super cool and that's how a lot of those braces work. Like that's how like knee braces work you to degree. That's how tape works. You know, there's nothing special about K Tape now. I don't have anything against Cape I use it a ton, but that kinesio tape that's not doing the dang thing other than just writing some tactile queuing or some sensation and sensory awareness and these areas that may otherwise Be lacking it. Wow, especially if you've already if you rolled your ankle to begin with but if you have enrolled your ankles to begin with then my first instinct is of course, like I said earlier, I would say no, but then again from a preventive standpoint, I can see some benefit there, too. Wow question 2, and I've already learned a ton. So I'm excited to keep going and that was something that I thought I knew so that was really really cool. Yeah, it's super cool when you when you start looking at yeah, okay moving on so I did want to ask you some kind of bigger picture. Sure questions too. So you mentioned you played football. What other sports do you play? So it's like football basketball I ran track. Those are the big three, you know, I dabbled a little bit and like soccer and baseball but that's little kids. Yeah track and football with my to me well and you're really big into training as well like right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay. So thinking back to your team days may be back in high school. The question is what to do when a key player is injured in terms of Mental toughness and team resiliency when a key players injured that's huge that can be a I can be a big blow and you guys are watching the NBA Finals right. Now. The golden Golden State Warriors are going through a little bit of that with KD Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson being heard. I would say you want to Rally around the effort that that player put in to the team and in terms of wherever you're at in the season, right? Like that's a beauty being in a team sport is it's a team effort and you guys work together you guys bust your butts also, Come along if it's in volleyball all season long and when somebody goes down doesn't matter if it's a key player or not, but it just kind of hurts the lecture when it is a key player, but you all know how hard that is on that individual themselves because you know how bad they want to be out there with the team and you know, how bad like how much that hard work means to that person be able to see the results of it. So I would rally around that if I was if I was going to be coaching at if I'm when I'm coaching team sports reporter just being in a sport myself like trying to Rally around. Those efforts and knowing that that person gave it their all to put you in that position to be a successful team or to be as good as you can be and now you're going to go out and kind of Thrive off that effort and off that off those flows. It's kind of like lyrics playing with a bit of a higher purpose because you're kind of playing for that player not you know 100% obviously, you're always going out and compete right that it's like, oh like I rolled my ankle like I mentioned earlier that my junior year of volleyball and that was a a really good season for us and I personally felt really supported by my teammates because everyone kind of made it like, okay like we're going to keep going keep playing hard but I think as a coach looking at it, I would almost want to go to maybe the player who's stepping into that role because that's probably going to be a scary role you might have people shifting around into position. So I don't remember who filled my role that year. It's been awhile, but if you have ya go With an ankle injury that plays metal blocker, for example, you might be pulling and outside over and then other people are playing in position. So really just spending a lot of time making sure that everyone knows what's required of that position so that they can perform well and sort of make up for that injured player and then making sure that to the best of their ability that you keep the injured player involved. So when I was injured I was shagging balls and keeping score and you know, Handing balls at practice when I could but also icing a lot and I'm resting a lot trying to yeah get back and get healthy for the season but I think it's important to just work on making sure that everyone knows what they're doing what their role is in case there is any one that's moving around give them confidence give them your support and then make sure the injured player stays involved as well. Yeah and exactly and then just kind of feed off that it's really like a the next player up mentality. You got to recognize the efforts. Like I was kind of talk about or kind of rally round the player for 200 to a point, but you gotta let him know like you busted your butt just as much yeah to you're ready for the bro, you ready for the updated or for the like the increased responsibility. Whoever's going to be filling that in whether it's a single person or a group of players and really just kind of have them play with chip on the shoulder. Like all right. Now's your moment take yeah opportunity. I mean the amount of stories that can be told myself star players that are like household names that got their start because of an injured well enough, I'll give you Tom. See that's a perfect example right that me knows that volleyball related. But that's a big named one of the best quarterbacks of all time and he got his start because person started in front of him guy hurt and that is a great message to your players to when the season is starting maybe if someone's upset about not starting or not getting as much playing time as they would hope for our just saying, you know, like keep training because you never know. You don't want to leave players on and promised them playing time when they're probably not going to get it but you know, there's something to be said for training and being ready for that moment if it does come up 100 Absolutely. Okay, let's get back into Physical Therapy questions. So someone wanted to know how to safely get back into high level playing after a few years of no Sports at all. Yeah, after a few years of no Sports at all. I mean, I think there's a lot of into that like, why aren't you playing sports anymore was life busy. Did you get hurt did you have kids so, you know, maybe you haven't slept very well in the past couple years. Have you had a bunch of increased stress? Have you changed schools? Like there's a ton of things that go in. Right? Right, but I think the the best way to answer that question is kind of the same way. I talk to people about coming back from an injury or about just trying to improve overall resilience means right is gotta build something called tissue capacity. Okay, all of our tissues have a capacity level. It'd be the same as I trying to go from that running at all to go out running a marathon. Like I don't care how good of shape you're in you haven't ran a marathon before or haven't ran then your body's going to bring right period because your tissue lovely Tissues can't handle the amount of load amount of stress that you're putting in same thing for sports. If you hadn't been playing volleyball, if you're trying to get in the back into high level playing after a few years of no spores like high level and what do you mean by that? Is that right to like are we talking Club level or we talked in like you trying to make it back and then like or a pro circuit of some sort a you're going to work on skill set and your got to be humble and not be prideful. That's the word or capability. Yeah, right. It's super tough. I'm one of the most competitive guys out there and it is so hard for me to Can eyes when like I'm not good at writing and and to know and even worse to know like I used to be good at this, you know, if you start off as a Ferrari, but then you never drive it for four years. There's got to be things that happen. There's going to be maintenance that needs to be done. There's going to be rushing you to knock off and from a sports standpoint. You have to recognize that and you're going to have to get back to the fundamentals and you have to be savagely good at the fundamentals before you can before you can move on to an elite level. That's what you did to start off with. That's what you have to do again. And then for the same thing from a training perspective You can't jump straight back into an elite Level Training Program. If you have been trained for four five, six, how many how many years is a few years? Like it's just not going to happen. Now you may be able to advance will be quicker sure because that muscle memories there, you know, those motor patterns have been developed over years and somebody who's like, you know, just starting off from square one, but you got to respect the fact that you were an elite level at some point and you're not there anymore, but you have the capability to getting back there. So the best place to start would be at the fundamentals and then just progressing from there. I'm building off those. It's just like, you know, you trying to build a house in a weak Foundation. It's going to topple over the first storm that comes and same thing with sports same thing with training same thing that they strengthen auditioning being savagely good at the simple things and then progressing from there. Awesome. I love to that. There's like a little bit of a mental aspect to like you just got of suck it up and got to just realize that you're not going to be able to start at 100 right away and work your way up and you should respect that fact, like heck man. I would not want to it would kind of stink if somebody could take four years off of a And to be able to jump right back into low they were yeah it almost kind of downplays how difficult it was for you to get there in the first place. Excellent why it is a very well if you haven't been in it for four years, like I said, you can get there faster than probably when you got there before but you gotta respect the fact that you took time off and again that all depends to like four years of are going from 28 to 32 because and that's a big difference, right? Unfortunately just a father time because yes, but but that's what I would say start at the basics get savagely good at it and then press savagely good. Love it. Okay, next question, which it's another one of those things where I think I know the answer like the ankle braces, but maybe you'll surprise me. I don't know question is should you stretch before doing anything or warm up a bit then stretch. Should you stretch before doing anything as soon as you need to practice putting but it putting your shoes on. Hopefully knee pads first then shoes on and then just going straight into stretches. So I'll answer this two ways if I'm a player and I've got I know that I have a mobility issue or I know that working through some type of I know like my hip flexors or Tire. I know I got tight calves or I know that my hands are too tight. Then yeah get there a little early and be an athlete and work on your body, right? But if I'm a coach then no, I'm not wasting my time programming static stretching into my warm-ups. It's wasting your R time it's wasting your athletes time in a matter of fact research has shown that static like long static hold stretching will actually decrease your performance. If I'm going to be doing static stretching if I'm going to do it at all. It's going to be a key words while I'm doing some type of after a practice or after a workout or after conditioning. I'm going to be doing some static stretching working into some of these bigger and ranges improving my athletes mobility. And then I'm also probably going to be working on some breath work when I go through that as well because breathing is super important that could More podcasts in and of itself right there. And if you haven't heard of the art of breath by Brian Mackenzie, that's an excellent course for you coaches out there. I'd totally recommend that I don't get it. I have no Financial connection with those guys. They're just super smart and they know what they're doing and it would be of super good value for y'all. I will find a look and I will include it. Yeah. Yeah, it's really cool stuff. That's a long answer to say if I'm an athlete and I know I have some tissue restrictions. Yeah or some mobility issues. Yeah. I'm going to get there early before practice like before like legit practice starts, and we're getting into our warm ups. And everything and I'm going to be working on my own self maintenance myself body care. If you're an athlete you have to do that, if you're not you're shortchanging yourself. So if we as coaches have an athlete that maybe does have some restrictions. We just need to tell them you get here early stretch this out and then you'll be ready to jump in with the team. It kind of ties into the next question as well. So it will we can kind of combine them but the next question is that they do Dynamic stretching at the beginning of practice and static stretching at the end. Would you recommend just starting out with Dynamic stretching or would you? Like a warm-up game where you have your athletes play a little bit but not go all out or what. Should they do first? Yes, I'll do both. So like here's the thing your wall most don't have to be take an hour-long actually go around and present on this a different gyms to when you're talking about an adult's training program like as adults you get busy as kids you probably even busier honestly some of these schedules that kids that use use athletes have now but getting our and you're trying to get through as much as you can with some of these programs. Wings and like your warm ups don't need to be anything super expensive. So don't feel like you gotta get overwhelmed by like I have to have the perfect warm-up. What you want to do is you want to get your core temperature up you want to work in big range of motions and you want to start working into some of these more Sports specific movement. So you're going to be doing for that day. And so that when you're asking to ready to go the ready to rock, they're warmed up their little sweaty to breathing heavy to neurologically prep times ready to go and you're going to get the most out of that practice session. She's not gonna be starting off super sluggish and trying to put wake people up. I love the And some type of mental component to our warm-ups, especially if I'm working with how guys so, you know say for your warmest you have people doing some type of like jog back and forth or Sprint back and forth or side shuffles or whatever your ID. I'm gonna have I'm gonna do something where I'm like, all right. I'm going to go when the math problem equals an even number. So right instead of just right and go or hit the whistle or whatever like I'll be like, you know, I'm really been a mess. My mess is Nolan pretty sick. Yes. Well, I'm like, all right, you know and 2 plus 1/2 plus 2, so then they have to go they have to Think about it and then they have to and then react and so they're waking up their central nervous system a little bit more. They're getting a kind of shaking the fall to the rust off their busy day and they're kind of getting ready to ready to actually focused on all the logic and exactly. Yeah exactly. I love that my maths not great. Yeah, so I'll have to I think I can handle basic notion or it could be off of like, you know go when I say stay instead of a city which is even harder actually, but then we're like go and I say when you know The object is a blue the color of the object is blue or you know, just something where they're getting where they have to think that makes it for the reaction. Also. I enjoy making my players laugh or attempting to anyway, so that seems like something especially younger kids. They would have fun with that. Oh, yeah Yonkers I'd say what me my adults who love that too. It's fun. Especially the math. That's when that's when Pride. Yeah. Yeah, that's always a fun one trying to see the the gears get grinding when we're doing some math problems love it. So since we kind of are talking about I was thinking little kids would like that. You said you work with adults. Someone else did ask what age do you start training your athletes what ages are training athletes from a strange sounds like they actually there was another question here. Someone asked about starting training for your athletes. And then how do I introduce 12 and 13? So 12? Thirteen year olds to strength training with something like lightweight Med balls and dumbbells great questions. Those are heavily debated in the world of strength conditioning. But I mean right now, I mean what you trying to do when you're working with younger kids especially around the ages of 12 is look these kids barely know how to move their own freaking bodies. Let alone you don't want to load them up. Like I'm sure you know, what all these kids are walking around like baby giraffes and they have no idea how to control their body and that's and so what you want to do is you want to get these you want to get these athletes prepped. Up and ready to go and to get good movement patterns in so that when they do start they don't even have the hormones to get stronger yet. Typically there's always the exception to the rule but your typical 12 to 13 year old isn't even going to really benefit all that much from like trying to do traditional like linear progression strength training right now. You can always get into the debate and biological age versus like numerical age or what sure but overall what you want to do when you're working with youth athletes as you want to get them moving. Super efficiently teach them how a squash is look and if you want to put a PVC pipe or you want to put like some super light weight on there fine go for it, but they better be moving really well and then you don't have to be perfect. But you definitely want to be improving movement patterns before I load an athlete up with a bar or like a 12 year old athlete up with a barbell across their back. I'd probably would have them do okay. You look really good with your let your squats look really good. Now, let's go single leg. Let's see what let's see. Can we control our body now that we're on we're with one the next right? Right and then because that's gonna be a whole different Demand on the bottom and that's going to be something that's going to be really tough and you can make these body weight movements as hard you want now, you don't have to stay at body weight by any means but you definitely want to I focus on floured our focus on form focus on body control focus on Sports specific movements and just being able to move well because once these athletes move well now unless they start pick up the weight that you know, you give him a couple more years and they're starting to actually have some of these hormones that allow them to get stronger. Boom now now not only do you have reduced The risk for your athletes, but now you're going to get away better benefit there and get stronger way faster and they're not going to develop for movement patterns that develop or carry on with them all the way until they get to a Collegiate program or they see me in the clinic. We gotta change a bunch of things. So the main thing then is just to focus on while sport specific movement. So making sure that they understand how to control their body learning how to do the movements for like squats or what-have-you correctly squats. Push-ups how to jump how to land. I know there's some questions coming up about how to jump shots like yeah. How did how does it how did squat down on the single-leg how to how to run appropriately I know this is like a super vague answer to this and and you know, if somebody wants to shoot me an e-mail. I'll give my contact information at the end of this feel free to reach out to me. I have no issue with that and we can dive into it a little bit more. But again this kind of goes back to what I said earlier being savagely simple at the basics and the basics are being able to move your body and have control and know what your Doing in certain positions period period love it another great answer. Let's see. Let's talk about this is a question from an athlete. So I do get a lot of questions from Apple and I really like addressing these because I think a lot of the coaches listening could benefit from knowing kind of what they're putting in their athletes head. So yeah, this question was how do you discuss injury with your coach without? It it coming off as an excuse. Yeah. First of all, I'll say this. This shouldn't be a question. Right? Like if you're if listen if you're coach you should never have a barrier put up to where your your players afraid to come to you and tell you how they feel whether it's emotionally physically spiritually, I guess like anything like you shouldn't have those kind of barriers up like you don't have to be your players best friend, but you're at a minimum a mentor to them or you should be or you're not doing your job very well and people aren't afraid to Talk to their mentors. That's why their mentors and that's part of the job of being a coach. Anyway, I'll get off that soapbox because that's okay. I might add some more layers. Yeah, I mean because like here and here's why I say this is I was in the exact same boat when I was in high school. I played Sports growing up three seasoned athlete like my entire life my freshman year. I injured my knee. I had two knee surgeries and then I told my quad I had breast surgery my so I've missed my sophomore junior year supports devastated devastated and I go back my senior year and you know I get wound up in a tackle and a simplistic word. I blow out the outside of my right like Tour all three ligaments out on the outside. My ankle had like nerve damage fractures, but I wanted to play so bad. I didn't say a word to my coaches and then when my coaches did find out they tried they brought me into their office and they started like Raymond me telling me that like the medical world is a business and that I'm not really hurt. I'm not really interested. It's like Yeah, you know it's and you don't want to be that coach period come on know your roles know your and same thing. We as Healthcare professionals have the same conversations. Like I'm not going to go out there and I'm not going to do volleyball specific drills with people because that's not my Lane. That's not what I'm gonna do. It's not what I'm good at. It's not what and if I try to I be doing a disservice to whoever I'm working with and you as the coach should be is she had that exact same mindset like it's not your job to decide if somebody is injured or if they're faking right? That's why I have you that's these questions instead of trying to answer them myself because Your background is that kind you've trained extensively you do it every day. That's why you're answering these questions. Exactly. Yeah, we know our lands and we and we stay within those Lanes now, there's gray lines for sure. Right? I talked to coaches a lot like, you know, you're kind of like the EMT of the sport injury world. You almost to a degree like that's your first your first line. You're an athlete though. And you have those reservations. Honestly, you don't have you don't have to go to your church about an injury. And so you go and you see a medical provider, that would be if you're legit. I worried about your coach thinking that you're faking an injury. Just bypass that coach, right? You don't have to go to that coach. It doesn't sound like there's a good relationship there to begin with. I would go to a medical provider my unbiased opinion. I would go find a performance-based physical therapist who works with athletes on a daily basis don't go to your typical run-of-the-mill PT Clinic who works with Grandma and Grandpa and helps them get back from knee surgery is nothing that your get some back from Total knees and calves some stand-ups, but someone else like nothing wrong with you that's on a regular basis. Yes, because they know they're going to be able to have a little bit of a different skill set that's going to allow them to better diagnose and help you with that help you navigate through your energy. So that's going to be looking for a performance-based physical therapist is like how would you search for that? Yeah, so there's a really good group called clinical athlete. They've got a almost like a search engine for people in your area that be the first place I would go and then unfortunately from there it's going to be like word of mouth as you can reach out to me again, and if you're in a certain area, like we know a lot of people and a lot of Parts of the country. We can definitely try to help you out but clinical athlete would be the first place. I would go for sure. For example, go to a medical provider figure out what's going on figure out a game plan and let your coach know if they have an issue with that then there's I mean, there's legal things that can happen at that point. But I mean if you really want to go down the rabbit hole, but let's also I would let me say two from the athlete perspective. If you have a coach who is doubting an injury. It's probably because you've been behaving in a way that causes. Has the coach to doubt you that's not for sure. But I know I have heard a couple players in the past who I'm to run sprints and suddenly they're not feeling well, but you know, they're doing at their ankles bothering them, but then when it's time to play a fun game, that's when they want to jump in. So I'll let them sit out and then they'll jump back. Yeah, you said this was hurting but you literally doing the same. Yeah. It's now it's just fun. So that's a good point. You're hurt. You're hurt. I mean, that's a that's a great point. If you're hurt, you're hurt sit out. The only way that you can get better essentially is by giving yourself some rest and making sure that you are actually okay to continue but make sure that you're conducting yourself in a way. I practice that shows, you know, you are dedicated to the sport as a little bit of preventative work there. Yeah fleets part, but always be going 300 fractious and but you know if that hasn't been you. If you have been going hard and your coaches doubting you just because you feel that they are may be questioning whether you're hurt or not. Don't let that change your opinion. I know another personal story, but when I rolled my ankle my weightlifting coach my PE teacher, everyone was saying like, oh, you're fine just ice it get back on the court, you know, you're being a wuss and I was on crutches. I needed my crutches. I knew it was her and I ended up going back to the doctor. And there was a hairline fracture which they didn't catch the first time and I remember them saying yeah. Oh thank goodness. You weren't using this. You could have done some serious damage to it when when in reality. Everyone has been pushing me to get back on the court because they thought I was faking it and trust me. I was a hard worker, but everyone just thought I was faking it and being a wuss I think so. Yep. We can move on to the next question, but make sure you're putting in work as an athlete if you're hurt. You're hurt. Don't try and To pick and choose when to come back on the court. Just let yourself rest and find yeah, I'll include that resource that you mentioned Jacob. Yeah classic black and then get yourself some help. Yeah. That's a great Point. Yeah got to put forth the effort. You have to have a good relation to the coach and then seek the appropriate medical ailment. Okay quick break though. Do you want to just let us know a little bit about yourself like who you work with where you're located and what you do? Yeah, I'd love to sew. My name is dr. Jacobs War for all you guys who don't know or who missed the intro or fast-forwarded through it. Like I do what I do and right. Yes my background. I got my undergraduate degree in exercise science always been interested in enhancing Human Performance has been a passion of mine ever since I mean, I guess High School. I've been dealing with injuries and have to improve it myself. But after college I did about a six months long internship with a Like An Athlete Performance enhancement Center and so like, you know work I'm with you two athletes Collegiate athletes some pro athletes and terms of improving human performance for performance. And then just noticing that there's a little bit of a gap there in my skill set. And what I wanted to be able to do for people went off the PT school where I got my doctorate degree in physical therapy and then was able to combine my skill sets of strength and conditioning and physical therapy tool and me into a position where I'm at now where I work with a performance-based physical therapy clinic and Atlanta, Georgia to come pick me. Two athletes potential where we work with active adults and the Atlanta area, we work with athletes of any age. I think the youngest person had on my caseload so far down there has been like 11 years old or something like that all the way up to Olympic level athletes. We've got a couple of Olympic lifters on our on our case low. We have pro NFL players, you know, volleyball players of all different ages and it's a ton of fun and we get to work with people who are really interested in improving themselves versus people who don't really want to be there and on top of that. I'm also so a strength coach for a training facility here. The name of the jam is called stab Wellness. I really try to keep one foot and that Arena as well because coaching to the passion of mine. It's what I really enjoy doing coaching being from a strength coach perspective. And yeah, that's where I'm at. That's what I'm doing. Well and he is really good at stat Wellness. I was just there I took a class with him and I wasn't sore for days but I definitely knew I got a good workout. Yeah, it's gold goes making get just that get a good workout. But in that feel like you can't For 10 days and that was yeah, it was a good feeling. So thank you. So Jacob for that excellent work out. It was really what I'm here for. Okay, so you did mention training some volleyball players. And so the next question that we have is about specifically strength training exercises for Le barrows. Do you have any insight into that heck? Yeah, so I actually got to work with some pretty Elite level Collegiate Le barrows this past summer. I tell you what for a libero you got to have first. Up quickness period you got to be able to react have a high react ability skill sets. You got to be able to have just be have a quick lateral step. So if I'm going to be training wheel barrows specifically if I'm working with libero specifically that's where a lot of my focus is going to be on. All right, how quickly can we get that first step because with volleyball I mean, especially libero you got to be able to react quick like you're the first line of defense essentially and you got to be all set it up, right? So I'm gonna be working on single leg strength lateral strength and bilateral meetings. The side I'm going to be doing different plow metric drills to help develop that power next quickness as well agility drills that again get you lateral get did you kind of diagonal because very rarely I hope you're not like backing up too much as a libero. You shouldn't be doing that but that definitely that step forward and to the side as we were working on a ton. So I heard you say plyos and anytime I hear plyos. I just think front row so lebaron's need to be doing files as well. Heck yeah bluebells may be doing flyers and listen, like I think people don't fully understand. Climates far Plyometrics are meant to deliver or minted make you powerful period they are meant to you. They're not meant to be how many box jumps. Can you get in a minute? Like they're not meant to get you super sweaty. They're not meant to they could breathe really hard. They're meant for you to deliver max level effort every single rep and if you can't deliver a Max Level efforts on a certain set or a certain rep, then you need to back off or you need to give yourself bigger rest like these are movements. That should be very powerful very quick Max effort every single time I would be doing And there's a ton of different things. Like it's just not jumping in terms of like just straight up and down like I'd be getting I be doing single leg jobs happy getting people lateral a really good drill be doing some form of lateral bound with a stick type movement again, but working on single light control where you start off on say your left leg. You're going to jump over onto your right and you're going to land on your right leg and you're gonna hold that Landing into your nice control and you own that position and then again repeat to the next side. But yeah, I mean, that's just simple example, I'd be doing some type of cross. Silver movement as well. I mean there's there's a bunch of there's a bunch of things. I'd be getting the volleyball involved. But yeah, definitely planimetric drills in terms of getting side to side not necessarily straight up and down and jumping because that's not necessarily A libero skill set. Right the working on that side to side quickness is what I'd be doing. Love it. Awesome. Okay, the next question single sport versus multi sport, which is better for kids to stay healthy and prevent injury multi-sport next question. Nothing. That's a that's a no-brainer easy. I mean the research you can't argue with it. It's multi-sport. You look at like man. What was this crazy stat that I saw like, I mean, it's all over use a Google it and you'll find it but the amount of athletes that Urban Meyer who is arguably the point of the best. I'm a little biased because I'm a buckeye arguably one of the best coaches and Collegiate history and that just from a coaching standpoint, but from a recruiting standpoint it blue anything else out of the water and shows how many athletes he got that were. Were multi-sport athletes versus single sport athletes. Remember you telling me this? I feel like it was like five that were single Sport and then it's a ridiculously low number. Yeah, and everyone else is multi sport. Yeah, because I mean you think about it a you're moving it up watched it or move it plane. So if you play volleyball and all you do is play volleyball, you're gonna be doing the exact same patterns over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, but you do something like are you take a volleyball player now, let's go run track in the spring time. Now you talk talk talk about a volleyball player who may be doing high jump and maybe learning how to get a better. Position on how to jump higher right or how to control their body little bit better or you take a volleyball player and now they go play soccer now man their lateral quickness and they're just overall endurance and is so much stronger. It's preventing injury as well. Yes and preventing injury and something else. That's really cool that people don't really think about is just creativity and Sport and movement because think about it this way say you're an athlete since the age of 10. All you've done is play volleyball. That's it all year round volleyball. Uh-huh. That's immediately where your mind goes and anything. A certain situation is just like how would a volleyball player handle this right and then you go and you turn to a multi-sport athlete who's a stud of volleyball but it is also as a track star 2 now, they are like, all right, how would an athlete handle disposition first is versus door handle the situation here. Athlete exactly. Yeah, exactly. Like you just get create more little bit more creativity in your movements. I mean, you see you can see the transition happened a good example is basketball players Collegiate basketball players who can't make it into the NBA and then they go and they dominate in the NFL because they have a And skill sets like boxing out that it really good at for like catching passes and Tristan. So like they develop a certain skill set and they take that creativity to a different sport and dominates the position same thing can happen in any sport you could take like I just talking about with high jump with and track and applying those to volleyball if you take that if you get really good at high jump and track and guess what you're going to be able to jump through the roof when you get inside of getting to a court you're going to be a lot better at it. Probably more than probably better than anybody else you're going up against so mental too. As far as burnout I had a yeah, the mental fatigue. Oh my God. Yeah because I got sick of volleyball when I was I think my sophomore year of high school. I just like I didn't want to play anymore. It's reflecting. It's nice to go for a break and actually volleyball now has become year round with a longer Club season for most players and earlier training camps and now beach volleyball is gaining in popularity, which I actually think Beach The nice break from indoor but while still getting to play volleyball mentally anyway, but I think there's a lot to be said for taking a break and playing a different sport and just not having the stress of your constant volleyball. Gosh. I totally agree I think about any of the sports I played and I love sports but I would get sick and tired of all of them by the end of the season, you know, it's it and then miss and then miss the heck out of them when when it's when the seasons yeah. Ready to rock. Yeah. Yeah, that'll agree. I mean that's a long-winded answer to simple answer being. Yeah multi-sport. No doubt no-brainer. If you have a if you have a kid who's a really good volleyball player. The worst thing you can do for that kid is make them cycle of all the time. Okay, let's go ahead and jump to no pun intended besides box jumps. What are some exercises to help with a vertical? This is a question that everyone wants to know Jacob. How do you get a better person how you can get a better vertical? I mean, I hate to make all these answers sound like really simple to start but get stronger right? You have to be strong to jump high. This is a whole rabbit hole that we could go down into for a very let's keep it surf levels or simple other than Bachchan Bachchan is a good place to start but man the amount athletes who don't have good control over their body who are then trying to jump very high and add a Max Level effort. You can see the disconnect there. Actually. I was just working on this the other day with a youth athlete in the clinic the first thing I would do do if I'm going to try to improve jumping with somebody is I'm going to see how well they can land from that jump how well can they absorb load because our bodies are pretty smart. They're typically not going to let us produce more Force than it feels like you can handle then it can absorb this actually comes from when I was out in Colorado Springs at a symposium at the national strength and conditioning association's headquarters. We're talking about how to improve a volleyball players serving speed like a bunch of coaches were running right or like, you know coaches and then High School strength coaches or whatever. All right. So, you know, we're going to work on anterior shoulder strength or the front of our shoulder and work on strengthening that upper chest our internal rotators. And I remember I was I'll still like a just a little just a little baby in the water strength addition. I was a freshman because that's my freshman year of college in my mind was just blown by this and I'll never forget it but the guys like no he's like strengthen their back and I was like what they're back and he's like your body will not let you produce more force and it feels like it can control through the stronger your antagonist muscle group. Is the more Force you gonna be able to produce because you're going to be you're just simply going to take the governor off your body because it knows it can control it. So it's the same thing with jumping like can you control good luck? Can you control a things? Well, you better be able to do even if that's not the case and you and you and you can jump really high but you land like crap then you're setting yourself up for injury. So Landing. Well, it's not okay and that's what you're going to do things. Like Drop squats. You're going to do things like depth jumps you're going to you're going to be working on that load. Now so then go forward and get higher jumping capabilities as a I want you to be strong and period the stronger you are the more you're going to be able to jump. So by strength, I don't mean always just slots, right like for Guarantee put on Karen split squats are going to be a really good thing to do lunges are going to be really good thing to do. Step ups are gonna be really good thing to do just anything that's going to help develop lower leg strength, but then yet you got to take that strength and you got to apply power to it, right? And once you start applying power to a power is quickness, so He's like hang cleans. I think it's one of the best movements you can do for an athlete is teach them how to do it Hank link and go from there. Like that's that's a very powerful movement that crosses over very well to just about any sport but I'm gonna be hitting a ton of time metric drills. And again, that's there's books worth of jewelry. That's perfect. So, I mean, I won't dive into it too much you want more information again, hit me up, but I'm gonna be doing a ton of plyometric drills what we got. We're not just doing box jumps. We're going to be doing broad jumps, you know, we're trying to get going to get try to get power for zhanna late again. Just trying to get powerful tips the more For and snappy our hips are the better you're going to be able to produce force and the better you're gonna be able to get vertical. Once you change your direction that you're applying that Force. I mean depending on the skill level or the training level of the athletes something that I love to do to improve not just vertical jump and also speed as well as something called complex sets where essentially you are doing something going to take Daedalus. For example, by the way, not to do deadlifts. That's going to be awesome for you. Say you take something like a deadlift right? And then Then you're going to hit will say 5 to 8 reps that like 85% of your one rep max. And then you're going to immediately drop off from that and you're going to go do something like Toto hops or you gonna do you're gonna do yes. It's essentially it's where you just stand there and you and you try to jump up in the air as soon as hard as you freaking can without but with like minimal interesting, right? Yeah, or you're going to do something like you're going to do some like box jump, you're gonna do something like broad jump. So you're going to Something like single-leg box jumps, but you're essentially what you're trying to do is you're trying to prep up your like do some neural priming with that submaximal pasilla high end High efforts lift with like, you know, a compound Movement Like a deadlift or a squat and then you're going to go immediately apply that neural priming to a powerful move it like a box jump or a broad jump or a pogo jump and that has a lot of evidence to suggest that it is a very effective way of improving people's vertical jump skills, so get strong. GE and then apply that strength and a powerful way with various and learn how to land and strengthen your back so that your body knows it's in control of itself and allows you to use that strength. Well, yeah the back then it was more for service but don't just have the swing going into an attack. Oh, yeah, so I guess that's not always the case. Yeah. We're sometimes like jump setting and blocking and doing things like that. But yeah, you're a little ahead. Specific yeah, exactly you're applying couple of kids. But yeah, if you want to hit harder get a better get a strong. Well, let's go ahead and jump to that question because someone asked how do you get back muscles? And what muscles are most needed for hitters? So we already talked about vertical we can skip that way. I've got notes upon know the pop notes now about what to do. Yeah. So, how do we get those back muscles? How do you get those back muscles? What? It should be like, all right, I'll get to that question here in seconds how to straighten your back but like guys with with your strengthening and with your training protocols. Like I had a I was actually listening to this other podcast called. I think it's called just fly there were talking that a guest on there. Who's there who's a very well-known strange coach and you know, and he's made a living and he's made a very strong reputation for self office strength training and at the other day he said like, you know getting strong it's like falling off a boat and water getting strong shouldn't be this really Complex convoluted issue that we make for it. The simpleness of strength training is what is so appealing to it in my opinion. Yeah how to make your back stronger. So you're going to want to do things like we're talking about upper backs. One of my favorite upper back strength drills is going to be a bent over row or penley row. Those are going to be getting a barbell on your hand. I getting both sides your back to work together is going to be a great place to start then I want to do I'm going to be bent over rows with the sync with the dumbbell. I'm going to train my body and how to work unilaterally or one side versus the The other so your back is really good for pulling not necessarily pushing. Right? So any drill that you can do in the gym that's going to improve pulling and when you pull for your back you want to do both horizontal and vertical pools. So bent over rows I got talked about and you can get all you can get face pulls you can get really there's a ton of different horizontal pull that you can do at that. That's what I mean. When I say that and then vertical pools are going to be things like your pull-ups. They're going to be things like lat pull-downs. They're going to be things like straight on lat pull-downs. They're going to be A team that's going to really be really engaging your lattices in particular but your lats and your scapula retractors those going to be too big back muscles that you're going to want to focus on and then don't forget about your final Erectors to those are gonna get really strong with things like in particular deadlifts. I can't say the amount of like powerlifters that I work with who have these massive spinal Erectors. That's the muscle that goes right along the sides each side of your spinal column. That's an awesome live to do for that and there's a bunch of other ones but But if I had to choose one exercise of do for my back, but it's just one exercise do for my back. It would be probably the best if I had to choose my top three favorite drills for strengthen your back deadlift and then I probably have to go with bent over row and pull ups I like the specific do this do this do this. But if you're not able to do that, you can do this. I just love the specifics, but also the general is good just lift more. Yeah. I mean don't get So far down into the weeds that you get frustrated and you get a little trousers by exactly if you want to get your back stronger pull more weight period get more volume in get more time under tension is simple overthinking. Yeah, exactly. Don't get too too caught up with this that with it. But at the same time there are better things don't go to your favorite Instagram influencer and find the coolest-looking exercise that they're doing and sand and overhead because you're not going to you're probably not going to get very far with that and that's those are made for me. These anyway not because they're beneficial as just because it looks cool. Yeah, they're they're made because they look cool and you know how they in honestly, you know how they got to that through the point where they can handle this type of positions to do things that look cool. They got savagely good at the basics. So they did the things like the pull-ups and the rose and deadlifts and everything else to get nice and strong so that then they can go and do some weird-looking handstand on a med ball with a kettlebell. Caribbean right, right. Yeah, it's a okay. Don't get vertical pool horizontal poles. You can basically break it up into those two movements and your backs on you and I so strong and then throw in some deadlifts awesome. I want to respect your time. So I'm going to cut down the questions a little bit we can do like two or three more. I know there's a bunch of really good questions any ones that you see on the list that you specifically are wanting to answer what Nothing female athlete should do to prevent injury. This is a really big one because actually see no athletes are at a much higher risk than male athletes at 10 really they are. Yep. It's like a significant amount. I mean don't quote me on the number, but I think it's something as high as like 60% where it's at. It's an absurd amount and there's a lot of things that go into that acute angle and like different hormone things. But one of the things that you can do is get your lateral hip nice and strong so bilateral hip I mean outside hip so whenever you're looking at an athlete and you see their knee kind of cave in when they You're a cave-in when they jump you want them to have better lat outside hip control. So things like single length boomers are going to be really good. There's a type of training called R and T training. So literally the letters are ten. Okay T RN T training were essentially what you're going to do is you're going to have them get into a rear foot elevated split squat position and then you're going to take a band and you're going to pull that band so that their knees got it would collapse their knee in and they got to resist at band and pull out. That's a really good drill to do to help prevent some of these the positions that can lead. Lead to ACL tears. So outside hip strength is really important. That'd be my first thing and the most important thing females should do to prevent injury is lateral hip strength. Okay, so someone else wanted to know how to become a physiotherapist in Canada. So I know you go by physical therapists physiotherapists are they the same are they different also? I know you're not in Canada. So I don't know how much information you have on that, but tell us about how you got to where you are. Yeah, I mean says yo physical therapist of the exact In terms here in the States. You have to go to an accredited PT program. You have to get your doctorate degree. That's you know, seven total years of training four years of undergrad two years of grad school and then you have to take a national board exam. So that's how you become one and here in the states. I'm assuming this process is similar in Canada, but I'm not Canadian, but I am rooting for the Raptors in the NBA. There's a lot of nice, please please Kawhi. And let's go man. I'm going to see these boys to take him down. So last User submitted question. They said my daughter complains of her being sore. Even after replacing her shoes. What's up with that the old so if your daughter's feet still hurt, then what I'd recommend again, I kind of recommended earlier is I'd recommend going to seeing a good performance physical therapist who works with athletes gods in terms of shoes. I wouldn't get too worked up about the shoes being an issue because Is actually a really interesting study by the military or they took a huge number of people and they essentially split them up into two different sections the first group they were able to go pick out whatever shoe they want it just pick out a shoe that feels comfortable right and then the next group they went to some shoes specialist at really kind of looked at it like oh the pronation or supination of your feet. Well, you see you have a very long longitudinal Arch here. So we're going to put you in this specific shoe type. We're going to get this video. Now. This is of you running. I see you have a little bit too much. The super Natori twist here. So we're going to get you here. So you don't roll your ankle and then they went down that rabbit hole and they got very very specific shooting them and then they come they check back like a year later and guess what injury rates and performance are the exact same. There's no difference between the see ya crazy. Right but I wouldn't get too worked up on, you know, sure give it a try see if it helps that's a very low hanging fruit piece of piece of low-hanging. You can then you can do that might make a difference. But if your daughter's feet are still hurting does a literally endless amount of things that could be causing your daughter's feet to still hurt and you'd want to go get a trained eye on that. So again, just looking up a performance physical therapist. Is that the same thing? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Performance Based Physical Therapy. Yeah, or just, you know, just somebody who specializes in working with youth athletes. Perfect. We're athletes in general. Yeah. Awesome. So I did want to ask you one final thing. Just see if there's anything that Came up through our conversation or you know, since you've been thinking volleyball if there's anything any advice that you've thought of that maybe you didn't get to expand on or that you want to add before we let you go. You guys all ask really good questions and I appreciate you bringing me on and and your guys's interest in being preventative with hitch certain situations and being able to just have a little bit of a wider breadth of knowledge. I The biggest takeaway I have for you guys is don't over complicate things. You want to be really good at the basics, especially strength training. Now, it doesn't always necessarily need to be boring like being good at Basics being simple doesn't always mean boring or in a definitely doesn't always mean easy simple does not mean easy period but don't rush the process of some of these movements and some of these things that you can do and then don't get too caught up in the weeds of oh this 12 year old Athlete on Instagram is already doing this movement here for is already lifting x amount of weight or Can we jump this high? Like it's wasted energy to compare yourself to somebody else or to compare yourself to a different situation. You can only control the situation that you're in currently. That's just a great General mindset to have regardless on a fewer training if you're in volleyball, it's going to some other sports or your return adult fits. A lot of people that I work with the overall message that I have for you guys is just to keep things simple be great at the fundamentals and then don't compare yourself to where other people are and just continuously be working on making yourself. Better because being consistent with the little things makes great progress over time and that's what strength training that's with injury prevention. That's with anything. So wow. Yeah, that's what I've got. Awesome. Well, I'm super pumped about this interview. I appreciate you being willing to do this so much. I think it's going to add so much value to everyone that listens and if you are in the Atlanta area right now reach out to Jacob he he's awesome. Like I said, he'll give you a good workout to Jacob. How would someone contact you if they wanted to ask you questions, maybe follow-up questions from this podcast, or maybe you get in touch with you to just see you in your office. How would they contact you for all you Millennials out there or what's a younger one? Is it Generation Z whatever idea I don't know but for all you guys out there, are you athletes out there or whoever it's grams a very easy way to get a hold of me my Instagram. And it was dr. Jacobs for dr. Period Jacob here. It's work. That's an easy way to get a hold of me. I've got a lot of really good information out there that I try to give out to people but then also my email you can reach me at Jacob at athletes potential.com. Those are probably be the two easiest places to go home. He's be either Instagram or my email address perfect. Probably honestly Instagram, but if you don't have in the same account, we're all on Instagram all the time, right? We don't have an Instagram. We don't reach out to me via social media as really feel free to vote. Reach out to me via email. I'm very responsive to that as well to Perfect. All right, Jacob. Well, I will let you go again. That was excellent. I was trying to keep notes, but I literally could not write down the amount of information you're giving me. So I'm excited listen back to this and take notes so I can pause and everything and just yeah all the information there's so many things that I want to incorporate with my teams moving forward and I'm really surprised at how many things I thought I knew that. The thinking was off just a little bit or like what you said about shoes, you know, you would think that the people who had their specific specialist you would think that oh, well that would be perfect. But the fact that there's no difference just rethink its mind-blowing. So I like okay. I will let you go. Thanks again everyone for listening to the get the pancake broadcast and we will see you next Sunday.
In this episode Dr. Jacob Swart answers YOUR questions submitted to @getthepancake on Instagram. ------------------ TOPICS COVERED INCLUDE ------------------ + How to strengthen your ankles  + What ages to introduce strength training + Strength training for liberos + How to increase your vertical (of course) + MANY MORE (some answers might surprise you!) ------------------ SHOW NOTES ------------------ Resources and articles mentioned by Dr. Jacob Swart:  + Art of Breath online course by Brian MacKenzie: https://powerspeedendurance.com/artofbreathonlinecourse/ + Performance-based physical therapist search engine: Clinical Athlete https://www.clinicalathlete.com/clinicians + Single Sport vs Multi-Sport Athlete Article: https://usatodayhss.com/2017/a-few-surprises-in-the-data-behind-single-sport-and-multisport-athletes + Female athletes more likely to tear ACL: https://www.verywellhealth.com/acl-tears-more-common-in-women-and-girls-2549223 + Just Fly podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/just-fly-performance-podcast/id1121047188 ------------------ CONTACT DR. JACOB SWART ------------------ + Instagram: @dr.jacob.swart + Email: jacob@athletespotential.com Work with Jacob IRL (in real life) if you’re in the Atlanta area: + Physical Therapist at Athletes Potential: https://www.athletespotential.com/ + Strength Coach at Stat Wellness: https://www.stat-wellness.com/  ---   This episode is sponsored by  · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. 