How To Build Your Model Based n an Assessment

What's up, Coach? Today I'm sitting down with Alex Zephyr and we're talking all about how to build your program, your training model based on a virtual assessment. Are you ready? Let's get started. What's up, Coach? I'm Beverly Simpson. I'm the owner of PT Profit Formula, the host of the PT Profit podcast, and the founder of B. Simpson Fitness. And today I'm rolling an interview that I did for the podcast early on with Alex Effort all about how to build your programming and build a training model based on the virtual assessment. So if you like this video, go ahead, hit like, hit subscribe and tap that bell to be notified when the next greatest video comes out. So I'm sitting down with Alex and he was sharing with us all about how he has had to modify his business and pivot during these times, but still remain in integrity with the patient, with the client and build an efficient patient program based on a virtual assessment. And he's going to break that down all for us today. So without further ado, let's go ahead and roll that interview. Hey, Alex, thanks so much for joining me on the show today. How are you doing?

I'm doing great. Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate you having me and I'm excited to get started.

I'm really excited to get all of your work out into the world because honestly, you are brilliant at what you do. So just for a little bit of background, based on how I always start my podcast, can you share with us a little bit about who you are, who you serve and how you got there?

Yeah. No, again, appreciate you saying that. So I'm a exercise physiologist and strength conditioning coach out of Toronto, Canada. You know, I started getting a bachelor's at University of Toronto, playing sports all my life. So I loved getting into sports. And, you know, I played a lot of hockey, rugby, soccer. I was exposed. Luckily, my parents exposed me to a bunch of different sports, so I was able to really integrate myself into different type of skills. And that made me love sports. And so I wanted to play professional hockey as a career, but as a lot of people, they're just not good enough. And the reality is, in Canada, because the sports aren't as well funded as the States, the ability to actually be go into professional sports, it was a harder route. And it's just the money's not there to support the training and the travel and stuff like that. But what I did, though, is because I would get hurt quite a bit. I actually gained a lot of appreciation for Physiotherapy and strength conditioning. And so what I decided was I'm going to get to the NHL a different way and I'm going to do so by maybe doing more of the strength conditioning and physio route. Now in university I did a lot of internships with physio clinics and you know, for me it just wasn't something I was super passionate about because only because I think my experiences skewed it a little bit. I worked in this one physio clinic that we had a professional baseball player who tore his rotator cuff right next to it. We had this 80 year old man who also had a rotator cuff and they're following the same protocol. And back then I really didn't understand enough about anatomy and movement to know that that was wrong. But I just felt that, you know, if this person's a professional baseball player, they should 100% be getting a different protocol or program this other person. So it's just too cookie cutter for me and just too, you know, constantly the same situation. I wanted to be more of a dynamic situation. So what I did is I got my exercise physiology postgraduate degree, which is kind of like an in between from a strength conditioning coach and rehab. Because in Canada what that allows me to do is I can't put my hands on people. It's kind of like that, like a personal trainer can't or a strength conditioning coach can't. But I'm able to work with pain, which in Canada personal trainers typically need to refer out. Not that they can't deal with it, it's just that's just kind of how the system works. So I wanted to work with a certification that provided me with less obstacles so I can work with generally everybody. So cool thing was is I started actually working in a neurological clinic, working with stroke, Ms. paraplegics, quadriplegics. And that provided me a great insight into kind of how the neurological system affected movement and very small movements. And then I went into the collegiate setting. I was working at the University of Toronto here, which is essentially would be equivalent to like a D1 school where I oversaw the entire return to performance program. Whereas because at the school they had strength conditioning staff and they had rehab staff, but they just weren't on the same page. So the strength condition coach would kind of do their thing and the physios would do their thing and there wasn't really a cohesive integration of, you know, the athlete moving through this process of returning to performance. So I was kind of in there bridging that gap, so to say. So bridging. And that's really kind of where I found what I was passionate about, which was understanding the rehab side, understanding the strength conditioning. So not just about lifting heavy weights all the time, which has its purpose, but more so understanding how movement works, how breathing works, how breathing can be integrated, how gait can be integrated into selecting exercises. That's really where my fundamental principles are that I, that I use, which is we can look at somebody and we can determine that they're either in a phase of gait or a phase in respiration, and usually a combination of both, and then we can select exercises based on that. So after that collegiate experience, I worked in a sports med clinic for a little bit where I was now introduced to athletes, business executives, and every chronic pain, everything in between. And now I left there about two years ago now and I work for myself. I started Resilient Training and Rehabilitation Incorporated. And now with COVID just like a lot of other people, I had to really transition my business just because I couldn't see people in person. So I started Resilient Education as a kind of like a portion of Resilient Training Rehab, which essentially is an education company, talking about my model and how I integrate that into working with clients from all spectrum. So I basically, that education company is really talking to or communicating to trainers and rehab professionals on basically how to use exercise or how to be more strategic in your exercise selection. Because we're not working with people in person, we now don't have the luxury of assessing them, you know, using our hands or kinesthetically helping them through movements. So what I had to do was completely change how I assess people and how I cue and program whether it's pain or whether it's training. Because now instead of, again, like I said, using my hands to help guide them, I had to put more constraints into their system or into their program, such as like using a box or using heels elevated, toes elevated, in order to make sure that I don't have to cue too much or I'm not over cueing. And so, yeah, so now I'm kind of working online. I'm doing, you know, I'm kind of back to my in person clients, but I'm also doing consulting online and doing the Evolve mentorship and a couple other things. So it's something I'm really passionate about. So that's kind of, I guess, my, my arc.

So I have just a couple follow up questions on that. I'm curious, was it hard for you to make the transition from wanting to go to the NHL and into the more of the coaching and rehab facilitator. Was that a hard transition? And then the second question was, I'm curious about the facility that you were working at in terms of the facility where they were training, you know, business executives and everyday clientele and also training people that are working on a collegiate level. So I'm curious how they were able to attract that type of clientele. What was the common thread? Because they seem like two different avatars.

Yeah. So it's interesting because I think when you're a young coach or young therapist, you know, we have this perception that working with professional athletes is like the pinnacle. It is exciting and it's fun, but anybody who has worked will tell you that, you know, what you are doing is you are. You are changing their ability, their physical ability or their skill by like 1 or 2%, because the reality is they've already gotten there doing what they're doing. So you going in there saying, okay, hey, you can change this, change this to make you faster or make you more powerful or make your movement more efficient. They look at you saying, look, I'm already here, you know, like, just make sure I don't get hurt. Whereas when you work with more general population or people who are trying to make it to that professional level, to me personally, and it's not for everybody, but for me personally, it's really rewarding because you're able to make significant changes and faster. Professional athletes have these compensatory strategies that they developed in order to play their sport right. Whereas, you know, the people who aren't as patterned or aren't as adapted, such as, like, the collegiate or the young athletes or even the general population, there's a lot more change that can be made and faster. And so I personally loved that because I worked with professional athletes, I worked with young athletes, I worked with general population, I worked with chronic pain. So I kind of hit every single spectrum that you can possibly hit. And I just found that working with, you know, the population I'm working with, which is business executives, a few athletes and people in pain, really is rewarding for me because there's nothing better than getting somebody who's had back pain for 10 years, like one of my clients, and all of a sudden he's, you know, he was about to go surgery, and now all of a sudden he's, you know, he's playing golf, he's playing hockey, just like he. He thought he never would be able to. So for me, like, Cases like that are super rewarding. Now, the transition from, you know, wanting to go to NHL to collegiate, I mean, what I found was as I was kind of working, you know, with younger teams, like younger hockey teams and different facilities that train professional athletes. Like, I found that I was more connected to, as I said, the younger athletes or the ones that wanted to get to the next level or to Division 1 or something like that. Like, I just found, like, they were just in there more to get better. Not saying professionals weren't. I'm just saying that I saw changes a lot more with these people than with the professionals. And so that just really made me feel like, okay, maybe I want to go this route. In terms of the clinic, the clinic didn't have a lot of collegiate athletes. That was more the university setting. But what the clinic did, which I really, really liked, and really, you know, it was something that I was connected with because it's kind of what my thought process was, was we need a team of people whenever we're working with somebody. Right. If you're a massage therapist, you know, massage therapists can benefit from having other people work with them just to get different perspectives. Because I think anybody can attest to the fact that if you work with somebody for three, four years, you know, you may not be able to pick up on certain little changes as effectively because you kind of know their body already. So getting that outside perspective can say, hey, I noticed this. Did you notice that? It's like, I actually did notice that, but I wasn't really, like, paying attention to it that much. And so it's always great to have this team of resources and team of people working. So they had Osteo, they had Cairo Physio, they had myself, which actually I kind of brought that service there. I just saw what their model was, which is like, let's have this integrated team of people so that, you know, we can have massage therapists on staff, osteos, chiros, physios, so we can all have different perspectives. I went in there and said, hey, let me provide the exercise component to this. And that's kind of really where between that and the collegiate setting, I really found my niche, so to say, which is really, let me assess somebody, and then based on that assessment, I can select a specific exercise rather than giving them 10 exercises. And then the reality is those clients aren't going to do them. They're just going to be overwhelmed and not compliant. So the transition from the professional, like wanting to do professional to, you know, general population, I think that just Changed with maturity. I think, I think as I said, like when you're young, like you want to go professional and when you get more experienced, I guess what you do is you start to see that everybody's an athlete depending on how you look at it. And the way that I look at it is every single person needs the same quality, just different, just different level of it. Right. Everybody needs balance, they need power, they need strength, they need mobility. Athletes just need that at a higher extent on certain parts and it needs to be maybe more specific, adaptable to their sport. Whereas general population person who just wants to be able to do whatever they want to do without pain. That's like the programming is different and the intention is different. And I think it really comes down to the context and like where am I trying to bring this person the intention, what are their goals, what are my goals for them to make sure they can achieve those goals. And then I think comes down to the communication which is like, is this person going to trust me? And I think that comes into the buy in. But I think there's more to buy in than just communication. I think, you know, you need to show results and you know, I think buy in is a mixture between does that person trust me, Am I communicating my plan to them effectively based on their goals and am I providing them results?

Results? Yeah, I think that's really key. Like that is a huge point is that, that a lot of people miss is that buy in comes from trust in. Is this person going to take my word for it and then are they going to do it and then, and then evaluating the actual result? Like, and I don't mean result in terms of, you know, whether or not it's good or bad. It's not really about what's on going good or bad. It's about can you look at the actual result and then make a change, hopefully moving them towards the goal. That's what's going to help with buy in.

Exactly. It's like when I, when I assess somebody, I'm always the first part of anybody's assessment really is listening to that person's subjective experience of what's going on. Especially pain, Right. Pain is interesting. I feel like a lot of people have pain for a long period of time. They create and they create it as an entity. So let's say I have somebody who's got shoulder pain on their right side, right? We do a movement or something. They refer to it as it. Oh, it didn't like that. Oh, it's really bothering me like this Part of my body is really bothering me and they'll put their hand on it and they'll focus on it and that becomes their reality of this is the pain. And so the first part is really like, let me hear what your perception is. That's really what it is, getting their perspective, right? And then after that it's assessing their body and looking at the movements that are objectively important to me to try to identify not the symptom, but why the system could, or why the symptom could be manifesting so the root cause of it. And when I'm communicating what I'm doing, I, I'm always bringing it back to what they said to me subjectively, right? And I think that's where a lot of people miss the, miss the boat with an assessment. And I always say this and something I'm going to be saying in my masterclass next week or October 6th is our assessment as trainers or physios or rehab professionals, strength condition coaches. Like, our assessment is our sales pitch to the client, right? And it is a genuine sales pitch that basically says, this is what I'm seeing, this is the plan based on what I'm seeing. What do you think? Always, they should always feel like they are in control, like they have the keys because you are making them make the decision. What you are there doing is you are providing information and what you can do is based on the objective assessments. Maybe you do one exercise that changes something that's related to their shoulder. Now a subjective experience of pain, like a scale of 1 to 10, may not be the best approach because some people just aren't connected with their body very well. Whereas you show them, hey, you see how your internal rotation of your shoulder wasn't that good. Now look at it. Oh yeah, it doesn't hurt as much when I do that. Or it's going much further, right? Providing that quick little win, I think is really, really important for their buy in. So what you're doing is you're listening to them, which everybody likes to be listened to. Then you are assessing them and you are explaining what you are doing and why you are doing and how it relates to what they said subjectively. Then you provide an exercise or for manual therapists, some type of manual intervention that helps improve something to them. Again based on the objective experience or the objective measurements and the subjective experience. And then at the end provide them with a plan and saying, hey, based on what we've seen, maybe it could be good if I saw you for the next, you know, two times a week for the next two weeks, and then we can start to phase it off based on how we're feeling or we can do this. How does that sound? Right. Like, to me, like, that should. It's not. It depends on the context, for sure. But that's a great skeleton in terms of, like, how to systemize your assessment so that it creates buy in. It provides you as the practitioner with enough information to make a decision. And then that assessment is really where you're going to be making your decisions on your exercise selections. Right.

I think it's so powerful and it's really. I really love that we're talking about the assessment because just for me and my experience and training, the, you know, hundreds of personal trainers that I used to work with when I was back in person and as a fitness manager, is that I feel like trainers tend to fall. And I'll speak to trainers specifically, because that's who I worked with, but I feel like they fall into one of three categories where they either don't want to assess because they don't see the value in it, or they don't know how to do it, or they assess based on these weekend certifications that we're all taught to do. But then there's no real, like, rubber meets the road. What am I supposed to do once I've assessed? I just assess because I know I'm supposed to.

Yeah.

Then the third, they. They assess once and they're like, okay, I did it. And then they never assess again. Not recognizing that the assessment is an ongoing process.

Well, that's the reality of it. I mean, I think sometimes you could think of it a few ways, and you're absolutely right. That's exactly what I think in terms of what some of the issues are with assessment. But I think what people need to realize is that every session is an assessment. Right. Like, how is this person feeling? Subjective. They sleep well? Do they. Do they, you know, have a fight with their significant other? Or does something happen in their life that was stressful that's going to affect movement, and then maybe picking one movement that you're looking at based on your other measurements that say, okay, you know, this was limited before. Let's see how this is going. Right. But, yeah, no, I think a lot of people, you know, they. They don't either know how to assess, as you said. And so what they do is they either don't do it or they were like me way back when, when I'm still trying to figure things out, which I'm doing, like 70 assessment. Measurements, like just. Just assessing everything. And the reality was I didn't use any of them to make a decision. I was just like, I know I should assess, so I'm going to assess, but I'm not using it. I'm just like, okay, that person's still going to squat, so let's squat. But it wasn't like I was able to now create like a system where I'm like, okay, now my assessment is eight. Eight measurements. That's it, right. Sometimes it can get to 12 depending on the case. Right? But eight out of 70, because now I've understood how the body works and understand what is actually happening from the inside out of my body in order to be able to select an exercise which is really like, the exercise should be the implement or the tool to get the changes of the objective measurements, right? And then as you said, you know, people go to certifications and they, they're taught this new assessment process. And now what they've done is they've thrown out everything that they've learned before and just do this methodology. And what happens with that is then you just follow the algorithm. And then that's where you get stuck when you see people who defy that algorithm, because you are going to find those people. I mean, when I worked at the Neurologic Clinic, they defied every science that you can think of. Like the people with the stroke, people with the Ms. You constantly had to adapt your model and look at outside perspectives. And for that reason alone, that's when I'm like, okay, it can't be super algorithmic. There's got to be some sense of algorithm in your head so that you can actually apply information, because otherwise you're just, you know, constantly just analysis by paralysis, right? Or paralysis by analysis, whatever. Whatever way that is. But the reality is, like, we have to understand, like, first of all, what are like the first principles of movement, right? If we don't breathe and we don't move, our body's going to start to deteriorate or we're going to die, right? So that leads me to believe that those two fundamental principles, they relate to every single movement. Muscle, fascia, ligament, tendon, whatever it is in your body. Those move based on those two principles. So when I breathe in, everything is relatively externally rotating in a normal human being, right? No compensation, just normal. When I breathe out, it's internal rotation. I have three different phases of gait, which you could probably break down into three other phases. So like six phases. But in all intents and purposes, we have three Phases of gait. Two of them include more of a supinated foot. The other one includes a pronated foot. So now we can look at somebody and say, okay, well, breathing is external rotation. If I breathe in and then they are stuck in a heel strike, which is more supination. Okay, now I can start to select an exercise that maybe brings them more into a mid stance or a pronated position. And so I can improve internal rotation. So now what you can do is you kind of systemize your exercise selection or categorize your exercise selection process based on your assessment. But it has to start with your assessment. Your assessment has to guide what your exercise is. Right. So the way that I think of it, and it's kind of, I don't know if you know, you've seen the movie Willy Wonka, but the way that I see it is that if you remember that one scene where Willy Wonka goes and he clicks all these buttons on this machine, which is like a combination of all these different ingredients, and then he pushes a button and it just, it's this one little piece of candy that's a mixture of like blueberry, chocolate, all these different things. That's what I see as the machine being an analogy of the assessment. And then the exercise gets spewed out of that machine. And that is your exercise. Right. So rather than saying, okay, I'm going to click the chocolate one, make that candy, then I'm going to click the blueberry one, make that candy, which is commonly prescribed with these 10 different exercises we give people. Maybe we have this system in our head where we can say, okay, based on these buttons of the machine that I've selected, this is the exercise that I'm now going to utilize to try to get the Change out of 10 different places of the body. Rather than just, okay, I'm going to give you this external rotator cuff exercise and then I'm going to give you this pelvic tilt. And so I'm gonna go after the hip, then I've gone after the rib cage, I'm gonna go after this. It's like, let's integrate it together. Let me put you in a position based on where I saw you were limited in your assessment to be able to make the changes that I objectively want and that you subjectively need.

Yes. So I'm curious. There's this paradox that I feel that I'm curious to get your perspective on because it's something that I hear and in what you're saying, meaning, let me give you a tangible Example of what I'm talking about, like, have you ever seen those memes? You know, it took 10 years to look like I was an overnight, an overnight success. Or, you know, someone said you teach someone how to move and how to do a squat, now all of a sudden, you know, they want to, you know, squat 400 on their back, right? So of course there is a progression that someone has to go through. But what I am also hearing from you and what also know is your superpower is that you have this ability to look at somebody and shift something and get instant immediate results in towards, you know, their subjective. What they want, right? So I'm curious in. How do you determine what needs to be, you know, a progressive overload in terms of their success in order to see the result that they want versus you should be able to assess this, create instant change. How do you create, how do you navigate that?

I think it depends on the person that comes to me and like, what their, again, their subjective goals are. Like, if it's somebody who's got chronic pain and the people who I see who have chronic pain have seen five or six different therapists or doctors or whatever, and so they've been referred to me. And so automatically I kind of have some sense of validity and trust, whereas I can kind of do what, you know, not whatever I want, but I can, I can. They're gonna trust anything that I say and anything that I do with them. And so for me, what I make my decisions based on is really, again, like I said, my assessment is what I make my decisions based on. But yeah, I think there is that paradox where people kind of look at, let's say, like the Rock, for example, and you can see how Jack the Rock is, right? And. But the reality is, is like this guy being paid millions of dollars to have a body like that, right? And he gets up at 4 o' clock in the morning every day and he works out seven days a week. And the person going to the gym two days a week wants that same body. But it's like, well, you don't know all the stuff that he's done and how many years he's done it. You are seeing the end result rather than the process. And I think a lot of people focus on the end result rather than enjoying the process because they never really understand or they really never know where that end result is. It's like always search for the horizon, like, what are you gonna do when you get there? Or how do you know you're there? Right? And so where I Think again. Like, the difference is just the person. Like, if I'm trying to get the immediate results, you know, it really depends on their experience. However, I will say, though, that I do try to make immediate results with everybody. So, for example, let's say you have somebody who wants to lift £400 on their back, or they already do, right? Like, I talked to some power lifters who lift way heavier than I can, but their knees are hurting, their hips hurting, their backs hurting. So what they're doing is they are getting that movement, but they're not getting it with an efficient movement pattern. Otherwise they wouldn't feel pain. They're driving some type of compensatory movement in order to get that load off the ground. So I come in and I say, okay, let me look at your squat body weight and then with weight. Because if you have somebody who's squatting 400 pounds, okay, let's do body weight squat, and then let's make our assessment based on them. Based on that. I don't think that you can, because they're only feeling pain when they squat 400 pounds. So you gotta look at both. And then from there, again, what phase of gait, what phase of breathing they're in. And, you know, I think, you know, some people get overwhelmed because, like, you know, as you said, like, with experience, you're able to spot things out quicker and you're able to, like, merge things together, rather than when you teach it, you're like, okay, you're gonna look at this, then you're gonna look at this, and you look at this. Whereas, like, when you gain experience, you're able to just merge those together all in your head and say, okay, I'm looking at all of this together and I'm moving through it quickly. And then I'm able to select an exercise really quickly that comes with time. And what people need to appreciate is that process, as I said, not the end result of getting there as quickly as possible, but learning something, then applying it a lot based on your context, adapting it. Because what I do with my people is going to be different than what I would do in a professional setting or in a collegiate setting, because I only have to deal with one person. I don't have to deal with a football team, which I've had to do to basically modify their entire program, because out of 90 athletes, 60 of them got hurt during preseason training. So I'm like, okay, well, we can't go back to that. You know, let's lift heavy barbell, back squats all the Time, let's modify it. Maybe we put the weight in front of them. Maybe we do a trap bar deadlift. Maybe we do all the things. And in those settings, you can't do an extensive assessment. But the reality is, Bev, is during this pandemic, as I said, I've had to completely shift my assessment. So now what I've done is I do mostly active assessments, which can be translated into a professional setting with multiple people. Now a group setting, like group training class. Because I get that question a lot. Say, okay, how do I take this? And I have 20, 30 people in front of me. How do I categorize the exercise based on where they're limited in movement? Because I can't just focus on one person. And I was like, okay, why don't you select one measurement? And then from that measurement, like, okay, like, let's say it's a toe touch, maybe. Hey, who can touch their toes? Half people raised their hand who touched to their knees. The other half, okay, you guys are both doing squats. You just may do it this way, you just may do it that way. And now what you're doing is you're creating pods and you're creating a community within the group based on similar movement patterns. And now you can say, okay, all those people who have their heels elevated versus toes elevated versus front foot or rear foot elevated, like, now you're able to quickly manage the room because you've now bucketed people, so to say. Does that answer your question? I think I kind of forgot what you said.

No, no, it does.

It's.

We were. You know, it's. It's just. It's interesting because I know for me, I was just thinking about my context, and my experience is that I would assess someone and then all of a sudden be like, well, it didn't happen the way they said it was going to happen in the certifications, so I guess we'll just keep trying, you know. And then it was like, how do you determine what is insanity? Meaning just do the same thing over and over, expecting a different result versus, well, you know, we just. Versus. Oh, we need time, we need practice. We need, you know, whatever the case may be, because someone's not going to lose £400 overnight or put £400 on their back. But it was just interest because I didn't know, you know, when I was first training how to navigate that whether or not I should have gotten results and instant results towards their goal based on what they said or if it was time.

I'm always under the impression that or I like to undershoot things, a win. Do you know what I mean? So it's like, because I. The thing I can't stand more than anything is losing, right? Not that I'm super competitive. I mean, I kind of am competitive. But what it does, it says, okay, like, based on the information that I have or do not have, I'm going to make this prediction. Now, you know, there's a great book that I just read. It's called Thinking in Bets. And essentially what she says, and she's like, she basically wrote a book about. She's a professional poker player. She wrote a book about how to make decisions. And she's saying that we can never be 100% accurate. We can only have a higher probability of a successful outcome. And that's what I try to do with the assessment, is saying, okay, I'm selecting these eight measurements, and through these eight measurements, I'm going to have a higher probability of success with that. Now, how I communicate with the client is I say, hey, we are going to. I'm going to assess this. And then after that, what we're going to do is we're going to play around with a couple exercises and we're going to see what exercises get the best change, right? And it could be super, super small or it could be great. But now what we're doing is, again, it comes down to, are you providing them with a plan, course of action, saying, Hey, £400, you want to lose £400 or you want to put £400 on your back? Well, there's progression, just like with everything. But what we're going to do is we're going to, as you said before, constantly assess. And maybe it's every day we assess. So we have these process goals, then we have outcome goals, maybe monthly or weekly, and we can say, hey, how are we progressing? Okay, maybe based on this, we might have to change this, or we're able to jump 50 pounds because you're just doing it so well and it's become easy quickly. Depends on the person's experience. Have they exercised before or have they, you know, or haven't they? And if they haven't, then initially you may see that you have quick results at the beginning, but then it slows down a little bit. But that's where you kind of like, okay, I expect there's going to be this little, you know, this plateau. So I'm just going to create a different implement to do that that's progressing the exercise or whether that's changing the exercise. But I think it really does have to do with your conversation with the person and setting expectations with that person. Just like with everything, it's like have if the person is expecting, you know, this magical result, right? Like they've had pain for 10 years. I get this all the time where people are like, hey, I've had pain for 10 years. One session, you know, maybe we've reduced their pain by 75, 50%. They're like, what the heck? I'm not, I'm not cured yet. It's like, well, you've had this for 10 years. What are all the things that you've done in the past 10 years? We have to peel those back. And for some people, like, you can get it right away, you can get the change right away. With others it could be a slower burn and with others it's maybe a little bit in between, but I think it's setting expectations. Hey, we are going to try some things out. Let's see what happens. Based on your assessment, we are going to try this. Hey, how'd that feel? I didn't really feel it. Ok, that may be too progressive for you or we may have to try that again. So you can understand where you should feel this. Right. I'm doing a squat. I shouldn't be feeling in my knees, my quads, my abs, my glutes, right. Like all these different things. I should be able to open up my upper back so that I'm able to shift my weight into my heels. Right. Like it's really contextual based. But again, I think it's setting expectations and saying, we have a plan, we have a process, what do you think? Client buys in and now they're not super frustrated that they're not getting the results tomorrow.

Yes. That is so important is that I also, you know what I really loved about it, which is why I just think it makes the assessment that much more important is that you have an action plan and you also have a, you know, based on the assessment and you can manage X expectations based on an assessment instead of just throwing spaghetti at the wall. Because, you know, when we're dealing with outcomes, and this is true in business too, is that or really just anything in general is that there are only a certain amount of things that we can control, we can create that we can assess, we can guess, test and assess is always what I say, right? Is that, you know, but we just need to know what we're doing in order to make that happen. And then you're going to just deepen you're going to deepen that bond with your client, that buy in. Because you can say, this is what I thought was going to happen and it didn't. So here's what we're going to do instead.

And I think you're spot on with something that I think a lot of people forget is that if we actually think about things from a systems perspective, like our body is a system, business is a system that follows certain principles.

Every.

Like, everything is cross disciplined, right? Like everything is. You look at business, you look at psychology, you look at, you know, whatever, like the health industry, you look at, you know, all these different organizations, they all follow a certain principle, which is we need to assess something in order to understand what our key performance indicators are. Then we are going to execute, you know, this exercise, this strategy, this way of marketing, this way of supplying or whatever it is, and then we're going to go back, okay. Then we're going to reassess and say, hey, did that get the outcome that we were expecting? No. Okay, let's try a different way. So everything is connected. And I think, you know, when I was younger, you know, I wish I did this more, which was learn outside of my industry. Because what you're able to do is you're able to create patterns. However, you still have to understand. I think Greg Hawthorn was listening to his podcast with you and he said you have to understand anatomy and physiology and basically how the body works. Like, that's the first thing you have to do is understand functional anatomy, which is not dead guy anatomy, which somebody who's like a cadaver on the table and you pull a muscle and says, okay. You pull a bicep, say, okay. This muscle flexes the elbow. It's like, well, the reality is, is it also does other things like internally rotate, externally rotate, because every muscle is triplanar. But you're creating this pyramid, so to say, where you understand the foundation and then start to learn things outside of your industry. Because it's able to create. You're able to start creating patterns of saying, oh my gosh, like, this is why this person has this kind of posture. Because you look at stress physiology, you look at neurology, you look at endocrinology, look at all these different systems, you're like, oh my gosh, this is why this person has it. Or this could explain at a deeper level. And now you get to a point when you're assessing, you're completely thinking in terms of a system and saying, okay. My assessment is to understand what that body is presenting with what strategy or what pattern they are outputting. So to say, I'm going to provide an input, which is an exercise, manual, therapy, foam rolling, whatever it is, breathing, walking, changing their environment, which is like, go sit in a quiet room and listen to some classical music or something. That's. Or go meditate. You're now created an input to change that pattern of that body has. And then we're just reassessing, saying, hey, did we make a favorable adaptation or favorable output? Because in our context, we can only look at the body through movement. That's our lens. You go to psychologists, they're going to look at, you know, like, understand, like, your behaviors and your mind and stuff like that, whereas we are looking at the movement. And so we have to base our decisions based on movement. And the deeper we go into physiology and the deeper we go into these cross disciplines, we're able to be more effective and more strategic in our decision making, because that's all it is. Like, you look at a lunch and I look at a lunch, we may be looking at two different things. Not one is better than the other. It's just two different things. But the more, you know, the more you're able to say, okay, that person needs to hold that ipsilaterally. That person needs to hold it in their other hand. That needs to be held in a goblet. You know, that person needs to do a row. That person needs to press. Like, you're able to be like, okay, I now know based on all this line or all this train of thought that I'm going to select this exercise because of, you know, all these different things. You're absolutely right. I get so many questions saying, hey, like, I have a person with back pain or neck pain, or this person wants to, whatever, get faster or something. Like, what would you do? It's like, I don't know. That's such a broad question. It's like, well, what are their systems? Look like, you know, like, who are they? What do they want? What is their goal? Is that just your goal or is that their goal? It's another thing. It's like people learn things and they're like, hey, interesting to me. Not care. Right? And the other thing, too, I guess if we're going on that. And again, this might piss some people off. That's okay. But have you ever. I can't remember where I heard this, but somebody asked me, not me personally, but just set it out there. They said, has anybody ever asked you what certifications you have? Like, no. Clients do not care what they care about is results. So if you're going to certification because you need the ticket to be able to do what you want to do, or you are trying to get certain information from that certification, great, go do it. But if it's to have letters behind your name, people don't look at those letters and be like, oh, cool, what are those letters behind your name? The only people who do that are people within our industry. They look at it like, oh, it's cool. You did this system. You did this system. It's like, clients don't care. Clients care. Are you a nice person? Do you care about what I have to say and are you going to help me? It's like, nope. Anything else? Right?

So true. And in fact, I was going to bring this up because it's something that you were talking about. Two things that I think are really, really important that you do unconsciously because you're unconsciously competent in this, that I think a lot of people miss, which is that we forget that we're tribal humans, right. And that we get into Dogma all the time. But the faster that you can let that go, right? It takes courage, it takes confidence, and it takes skill to go cross. Go look at other industries, right? I think. I know for me, I'll just for myself is that when I would get into Dogma, it's. It spoke more to my own insecurity than it did to my skill, which is a lot of people get into that trap. It was really Kyle that was like that Kyle Dobbs, our mutual friend, where. Who really helped break that context for me. He said, you know, there's just. It all works and it all matters. It's putting it through your context and putting it through how you are going to make it work for your client.

Yeah, exactly.

And once you can let that go, right? And that's gonna take. That's gonna take a sense of, you know, letting go of your ego, which is hard to do. I'm. You know, that's hard.

It's very hard. And I think the other thing too, you know, it's kind of alluding to. It's like, you know, understand the fundamentals of the body, how it moves, you know, the physiology, the anatomy, breathing, gait, all these different things. Then, you know, take the certification that you need to do in order to practice, right? Then after that, go search, go seek out people, go ask questions. Like, I talked on a regular basis, almost daily. I talked to Katie, I talked to Greg, I talked to Chris. Right. I talked to Kyle. Like, I Talked to a lot of people all the time. And I'm not like, you know, and because of that, that's, you know, they bounce ideas off me, I bounce ideas off of them. But like to have those people, they, they prevent you from going through or being stuck in the dogma because what you need to do and doesn't matter how uncomfortable it is, you need people to question what you're doing always, because then you're never going to get stuck. And again, when you, you work with different people, every, every person is different and requires different needs. And if you are kind of staying stuck into and you're going linear rather than bouncing diagonal or going all these different directions based on who you're talking to, then I think that's where you're going to run into some problems. The reality is, Bev, is that everything that we are saying now in terms of how the body moves, it just, it's not that the other ways were bad. It's just have more information about things. And so now we're able to implement things more effective rather than, you know, guessing. And as I said, it's more about, we have a higher probability of success. But 10 years, the stuff that we're thinking about is probably going to be as if, as they were thinking, you know, about bodybuilding and stuff like that was like isolated movements are the way to go. And then we have a functional, you know, thing and then kind of go back to a merger, both of them now and. But that's just it. It's just like you just need to reach out to people. You need to be mentored by people. Yeah, I used to listen to podcasts all the time and you know, I remember I was taking pri and just mind blown by the things that they were doing, but it was very hard to implement. So like I reached, I was just mounted reps. Like I would try things on people that worked me for a long period of time, who were trusting in me, who allowed me to do it. I worked on friends, family, like all these different people to try. And then I would talk to people constantly and I would people, I would meet with people for coffee if they were in town. I would hop on a call, a zoom call. I would do a mentorship. I would do, you know, whatever it is so that I was able to absorb as much information as possible, but from people who were doing it, because it's no different than saying, okay, I'm going to read 100 research papers. Like, I'm going to go into a back of a book and I'm going to look at all their research articles and then try to read them, try to filter through them. But they've already done that, and I'm booked based on what, all the information that they've gathered. And it's no different than being mentored by somebody or doing a mentorship, because the reality is that's what they're doing. They are. They filter the information for you and they've said, this is what works. Yes, don't worry about this stuff. Save some time, because I wasted a lot of time learning things that weren't important or that. And then so it's like, okay, now you have somebody who's going to tell you what is important to focus on.

This is why. I mean, networking and mentorship is the most important thing. It's something that I will never, ever let go of. It will always have a mentor because, A, I want to learn from somebody who's doing it, who's in the trenches with me. B, I want. I want that. I want that community. Because especially right now in this time of COVID where we're not in gyms, it gets really easy to feel isolated. And multiple ideas, multiple minds, I think is so valuable and important. Plus, you know, I look at people at the top, right? Success leaves clues. And they all have their network of people that they grew up together and their businesses grew together based on their collaborations and based on the things that they did together from the beginning. And also, I feel like lots of people get stuck in this, like, oh, but, you know, I don't want to copy or I don't want to steal clients or I don't want to, you know, all of that. All of that insecure stuff that can sometimes come up. And I feel like there's plenty, like you said, there is, you know, plenty of. There's plenty of clients out there for everybody. And that you're going to have your people that resonate with you, and Katie's going to have her people that resonate with her. And. And it's not about, you know, either or it's about all. As much as possible.

Yeah. And I think the cool thing is I was talking to Kyle about this a couple weeks ago. Kyle Dobbs. It was like we were saying how. How amazing the abundance of information there is now in terms of, like, I wish that there was as many mentorships back in the day as there is now, because now have. Is you have the people who have been in the trenches, who have tested, who have reassessed, who have said that this Is what is working. This is more effective way of doing things. Now you have an insight as almost like being like a fly on the wall into what somebody does. And like, I wish I had that. But now it's an abundance amount. And eventually what's going to happen is like. But not with like the same as everything else is like, you then have to decide and you have to say, who do I resonate with? You know, who do I. Yeah, who do I connect with? Like, has this person worked in the same context as me? And like all these different things? Because now we're going to have information where we don't have to just go get information or certification from the big one, from the big companies. Now it's like you have the people who have taken all those courses or spent all that time reading, such as myself, or, you know, like, for me, like, there was one year where anytime I was in the car, which I was seeing clients at their house, I didn't listen to music, I listened to a podcast, audiobook, whatever it was, so I can continue to improve. And now that's kind of an extreme. But I was just in that mindset that until I get to the age of 30, I'm really learning and processing things. However, what Covid has done is Covid has kind of progressed that a little bit further and say, hey, like, I'm doing these things and people keep on asking me, like, what I'm doing, like, maybe I'll start posting. And for me, I'll say this. I didn't post for a few years on purpose because I wanted to make sure that what I was saying I had a thorough understanding and I could justify anything that I was putting out there and not feeling emotional about people attacking, you know, if they don't agree with me or stuff like that. Because I think some people get emotional about that. Like, for me, hey, let's have a discussion. Like, why do you disagree? Why do you agree? You know, and I didn't want to post anything until I had my, I guess, model or the way that I do things structured and, you know, put together. That's why I held off rather than putting things out there. And then I, you know, scroll down and like, oh, three weeks ago, like, I'm contradicting myself because I still don't have my, my theories, my mindset or my system in place. So now what I've done is I've just presenting out what like my fundamental system is or my foundational system, and that's going to change. But my system is not Going to change just the things that kind of the way that I do things might change, but the way that I think about things might not perturb too much. Right. And you know, what I suggest to anybody is just put yourself out there, check your ego at the door. Like, you're gonna mess up and you're gonna learn from those mess ups. Like, I didn't get results with some clients because I didn't have. It was either a confidence thing where I didn't think that I could. So, you know, you. Not that you aren't trying, but, like, you don't feel like you can. So, like, you don't, you know, you just, your effort is not 100% there. I guess you could say that's. Maybe that's a wrong way of saying it, but you know what I mean? It's just like you don't feel confident. And so. And then it's like, you know, again, there is kind of an ego. It's like, I think in our industry, it's like you can. Every single person has something to say about everybody else. It's like, well, that person doesn't know anything. That person doesn't know anything. It's like, well, the body is so complex that everybody is right. There's just people who have better understanding of the body, so they may be more effective, not that anybody else is wrong. And I think that as an industry be better at that because I think people attack each other too much rather than saying, hey, this person is just trying to put themselves out there and trying to educate people and trying to help. And whether it's right or wrong, we shouldn't be bashing people. We should be saying, hey, really, you know, I really appreciate you doing that. Or if you don't agree with it or you want to understand why private message them, don't blast them in front of everybody. And I don't know, I think it's. I think that we're very lucky as an industry that so many people are coming forward and starting to present and mentor people. And I'm happy that, you know, some people have found value and doing what I'm doing or taking my Evolve mentorship course, because what I try to do is really, you know, put out my model and create great connections. I mean, my favorite part about the mentorship was or is meeting people from all over the world and understanding where they're coming from and what their knowledge is, because I learned from them just as much as they learned me. And I think that's important is we should never Be too high up from other people. Like, everybody is trying to accomplish the same thing, get the best results for their clients and trying to. And I think as an industry, I think we're probably geeks at it too. Like, we're nerds at it. Like, we love it. We love the in and outs of things. But if we can take that and then now say, hey, this is how I communicate it to my client, because they may not necessarily care about the X's and O's, then we become more effective therapists and coaches.

I think that's so powerful. And I also. You said something that I live my life by, which is that you're either going to get the success that you want or the lesson that you need and everything happens and you're either just it's. And for me, it's not about, you know, avoiding failing. It's how can I fail faster? Because that's where I'm just going to learn. I'm going to learn, learn and learn.

Yeah. I think it's also being a good listener. You know, I think a lot of people like to talk, not talk bad about people. That's not what I'm saying. I just mean, like, you know, I've seen so many times where, you know, even just going into like a, you know, big box gym and working out and you just kind of like, sometimes I'll take. I'll pause my headphones just to hear the conversation between like a trainer and a person and all you hear is the trainer talking the entire time. And for me it's just ask an open ended question. Just let them talk. Because reality is Bev. And I think I've talked about this with Alina, but we are not certified in this. But we are cognitive behavioral therapists. We are not certified, but every time we talk to somebody, we influence their behavior. If I talk to you aggressively, you are going to feel, you know, that there's a threat. If I talk to you very kindly, you're gonna feel, okay, like, I can start to like, relax. I can trust this person. I can communicate with this person. And so I think the reality is like, we influence a lot more than just physical ability or physiology. Like, we have to appreciate the fact that, you know, we need to listen more rather than. Because the people who don't listen are the people who are more insecure and listening to people that might go against what their preconceived notion is of something. And then that's when they start to feel threatened. Their ego starts to feel threatened because they may not know as much as they think they do.

Correct. And I've been there, and I've been there, and so I'm really grateful for that because now I know what that feels like. I know that. Then I know that that's my work. I need to inward.

I've always tried to find working opportunities, like my jobs, where I'm working for somebody who is much, much smarter than me and who is more experienced, so that I'm able to just absorb as much knowledge as possible and just watch them and just listen to what they say, listen to how they say it as well, which is also very important. And just, like, look at how they react to certain situations. How do they program? Yes, that's important. How do they assess? Yeah, you're able to have them as kind of like your soundboard, as well as an indirect mentor. And, you know, putting yourself in those situations are huge for your success. But that's also allowed me to be. To put my ego in check, because everybody knows a lot more. There's always people that are better at things that you're not good at. So if you self reflect and acknowledge the fact that there are certain parts of you, your ability, professional, professionally, or personally, that are not there, go seek out people who you want to be like. I think Shaun Light said something like, you know, take like, exactly. Kind of like what I said is like, reflect on your career and if there's. Ask. If you want to be like somebody, go find that person and learn from them. I am blessed by the fact that a lot of my clients are very successful entrepreneurs. And when I decided to go work for myself, I just put out a couple questions. Like, I would go and have coffee with them, I would go and have dinner with them just to ask, and then just watch how they communicated about certain things. Whenever we were talking in a. In a session, just how they talked, how they responded. And it's just. That's allowed me to really kind of like, watch how they communicate and, you know, how successful people, both personally and professionally act and what their behaviors are like and how they got to where they are. I think, you know, just go out and put yourself out there and just ask the person that you look up to, do you have any advice? How did you get to what you're doing? And that's what's great about podcasts, is you can listen to people that you admire talk and say, okay, this is. This is kind of like what this person was doing. So it's kind of like, you know, taking them out to a Coffee. Because you're listening to kind of the stuff that, you know, what kind of what they went through. And that really helped me a lot is listening to people's perspectives and their arcs so that I could, you know, be able to, you know, avoid certain pitfalls that they may have. Have gone through that I see myself kind of going that way. So I kind of diverge a little bit and educate myself in things that are important.

Yes. I love this. Now, Alex, this has been incredible, and I want to be very mindful of your time. So where can I send people who are interested in learning more about you and learning about services you offer?

So my. So I. Yeah, I have my website, which is www.resilientedu.com. you can find me on Instagram, pretty active on instagram@alex.effer, which is my first and last name. And I have a actual masterclass coming out on October 6th at 4pm Eastern Standard Time where I'm kind of talking about my assessment process and how I've adapted it to the virtual world. Because the reality is. Is like we've had to be forced to go online from our assessment. So really just kind of how I transitioned and the way that I view it and. Yeah. How I've adapted to it. And then, yeah, you had me my Evolve mentorship as well, coming out October 12th. So, yeah, so those are really the main places that you could find me and feel free to reach out. I'm always happy to have a chat with new people.

I love that. All right. And we'll definitely make sure that we link all of this in the show notes.

Yes. Amazing.

Great. Thank you so much, Alex. I really appreciate your time.

Thanks for having me. I had a great time.

Thanks so much for hanging out with us today. If you like that video, please go ahead, hit, like, hit subscribe. And if you haven't already, tap that bell to be notified when the next video comes out and I'll catch you on the next one.