Improving Movement Quality with Dr. Andy Chen

You're listening to the PT Profit podcast, episode number 144. Today I'm sitting down with Dr. Andy Chen and we're talking all about improving movement quality. Are you ready? Let's get started.

Hi, I'm Beverly Simpson, former fitness manager turned online personal training business owner. And this podcast is where smart fitness professionals, including trainers and clinicians, discover how to increase client performance in movement, package and position their products and services and get out of their own way so that they can increase their revenue to live a life that they love without sleazy sales. Welcome to the PT Profit Podcast.

What's up coach? Thank you so much for pushing play on another episode of the PT Profit Podcast. Welcome back. So I'm super pumped to to get into today's episode because we're talking about improving movement quality. Because the truth is that so many people, especially if you're struggling to grow your business, is that we focus so much energy and attention on trying to get the next client. Trying to get the next client. And I get why, but what I really want you to consider, if you haven't already, is that doubling down on the experience of the current client that you have right now in front of you is going to net a ROI that is 10 times worth any amount of marketing and Facebook ads budget that you can throw at it. And the reason why is because not only is this client going to share and scream your praises, this client is also going to give you borrowed authority. You know, instead of having to spend 30, 60 days or however long it takes to build this arbitrary know like and trust instead dead they're getting. Your client will give a stamp of approval to to all their friends and family. And word of mouth is one of the fastest things that you can do to grow your business. So this is why on Thursdays I bring high level professionals to come and help you sharpen the saw and actually implement what we talk about so that you can grow your business, learn from their stories and you can generate more revenue on the back end. So today we have a very special guest. We have Dr. Andy Chen, who is a PT DPT, is NYC native, born and raised in Queens, New York. He received his Bachelor's in Psychology from the University at Buffalo and his Doctorate of Physical Therapy from the University of St. Augustine. His experiences range from youth athletes to weekend warriors to Olympic and professional level athletes. And when he isn't in the gym, you could find him reading, traveling and drinking an ice cold ipa. In this episode we talk about how to improve movement quality. We also talk A little bit about sleep staying true and authentic in the social media range and how we can use the socials to share our message, to really genuinely help people. So without further ado, let's go ahead and roll that interview. What's up, Andy? Thank you so much for joining me on the show today. How are you?

Good, Beverly. Appreciate you for having me on.

Oh, I can't wait to dive in. I've just been. We were just sharing before I hit record that we have seen each other's work through a mutual friend, Dr. Shauna Storga. And I am just blown away by some of the stuff that you have shared and put out into the world. So I am really excited to dive into today's conversation. So for those of you who have not had a chance to learn about you, your work, can you share with us a little bit about who you are, who you serve, and how you got there?

Yeah. So my name is Andy Chen. Some people call me Dr. Andy Chen, but I'm a physical.

I did. I did. When I first said, I was like, oh, hello, you got to do it for the.

For the gram. But all of my clients just call me Andy. But I'm a physical therapist in New York City. I own a practice called Moment Physical Therapy and Performance in soho, New York. And I graduated. I guess we'll do a quick little educational spiel. University at Buffalo with psychology. Then I went to University of St. Augustine for my doctorate of physiotherapy. Worked at an outpatient practice prior to starting mine for about two years. And now it's been six months. Most of the people that we see are people that have been in persistent pain for five to 10 years. I think the record might be 20 years. And it's just we work with a lot of people that have been mismanaged by the healthcare system, and they never had a chance to really tell their story or really get assess. And most of the time they say things like, you know, they failed physical therapy or they failed surgery, meaning the surgery didn't go as planned or nothing healing has taken place and there's something wrong. And that's kind of the space that we operate in. We try to validate people's experiences and we try to get them back to high performance.

So now you opened up this practice in person in the last six months?

Yeah, past six months.

Wow, that must have been an intense experience.

It's. It was a learning curve, and I think there's a certain. There's certain rules in operating in New York City that are just different than rules elsewhere. So for instance, I had no idea getting your, your personal, your PC professional company, I didn't know that took about three to four months to form. So when I quit my job, I was kind of like, wow, I made a huge mistake, I need more time. But at that time I was like, I just have to figure out what was the next step. And I just kept chugging along. So it's definitely been a learning experience. And I'm someone that likes to prioritize clinical learning. So this has been a whole different ballgame for me.

I can imagine. I can imagine. Okay, so, and also before we hit record, you were starting to talk a little bit about your mentorship. Can you give us a little insight into what it is that you are building in addition to your in clinic or your in person clinic?

Yeah. So background is like 6 months ago I quit my job and then I started my own practice. And when I started my own practice, I had a few inquiries. And at that time I was supposed to work at a home health full time for this home health company. And we had done the onboarding and the only thing I had to do now was shadow another physical therapist. And I went to go shadow the physical therapist. Really, really nice guy. But I just. So much of what was being treated in home health seemed like an afterthought of someone's lifestyle. Meaning these things could have been avoided from the get go, but since they were mismanaged, they have like double shoulder replacements, double hip replacements.

Can you give us some examples?

I literally shadowed the therapist once and I saw one client with a therapist. The guy had a double rotator cuff repair and a double hip replacement. And since his physical therapy didn't go quite as planned, he never restored full hip flexion. So he couldn't even sit up without support. So these are just things where one, it was going to take a mental toll on me. And I hate to sound selfish, but at that time I was like, I just need to be in a good headspace to create something else. And the one thing that really felt like, it almost felt like an uphill battle because all of these things that I was going to see were byproduct of a terrible healthcare system, terrible treatment philosophies and people being mismanaged. So I was like, why not just address those things and create content for those people that haven't had that yet? So I decided not to go with that job. And now I'm kind of sitting in a position where I, I didn't have enough Money to, you know, make a living. But I had enough to, like, get by and some money saved up. So I decided to sign up for per diem job. Took my first client for the per diem job. And at that time, I got close to, like, double digits sessions per week. So I was okay. I was going to survive. But now they were. The schedule was pretty much erratic. They just threw anything on your schedule without you confirming, and you would just have to be available, and you would have to travel around New York City holding a massage table with you, which is in very convenient.

Oh, my gosh.

I took one client from the company, and that was my only client with the company. I just realized one, I just couldn't do it anymore. And sometimes I would be trying to schedule like a networking, a coffee, a lunch, and it would just get in the way. So that was my first month being quote, unquote, unself employed. The second month, I got a lot of traction. And then by the third month, I was already a full caseload. So then by the fourth month, I was kind of building up my girlfriend, who I work with, and she's got a full caseload now. And then at the fifth month, I was thinking, well, I need to hire somebody probably by next year, because everyone kept telling me November and December were notoriously going to be slow. But we kept getting busier and busier. So I was like, let's build a mentorship, and I'm going to find someone in this mentorship that I would like to hire. I ended up getting rehab from another physical therapist locally, and then he also rehabbed Christie, and then I started consulting with them on certain clients that I wasn't seeing success with. And he was knocking everything at the park. So we kind of had coffee one day. He's like, would you ever want to work together in, like, 2023? Then I kind of said, what about 2022? So the mentorship originally was built to kind of be like a hiring process and also to kind of create something where I can show people how we were able to scale to essentially a full caseload within a couple of months, the same skill set that I use. And since then, we've got 21 clinicians and coaches in there. Going through his second month currently, and it's been an amazing experience, one as a community, but also myself, because I realized how much fluff I had in my framework.

Yeah, I'd love for you to break down your process, if you wouldn't mind. Can you share with us a little bit of, like, some of the things that you see that you do differently than what most people do.

Yeah, the. I think the overarching theme for the mentorship is that this is not an endpoint. It's just a starting point. And if you think that you're going to learn something concrete right now and just go with it for the rest of your career, you're going to fall and you're going to fail. Very often the key is when you fail, realizing what went wrong, realizing what you didn't know, and then getting that knowledge and then building that mentorship or your framework again. So what the mentorship is, it's just me falling 50 to 100 times the past two years that I've been practicing physical therapists and diving back into the research, consulting with other physical therapists, going to continue education courses, mentorships, anything, read books, you name it. I just try to help every single person I can come in contact with and make sure that they get better. And if they don't, then I'm going to refer them to someone else. But that's what the mentorship is. It's just been my constant reiteration of helping people go from chronic pain back to high performance.

Yeah. So. And it also sounds like it's chronic, impossible pain in the sense of these people have just been having pain. No one can ever uncover what the root cause is or what the real issue is.

No, that's. That's kind of. I had a call with someone, a potential client that would be coming in, and he was talking to me about, like, a shoulder issue, how it's been going on for three years. And then near the end of the call, he's like, you know, is this something that you see, like, sound. It just sounds like they don't know what's going on because there's nothing showing up in the mri. And I just kind of said, you know, this is probably one of the easier calls that we get, because most of the time when people come to see us, they, you know, they're having symptoms down one arm, symptoms down one leg, constant nagging pain, you know, severe weakness. And their lifestyle has been significantly modified now based on, like, their current functional limitations. So it's never just like, oh, one body part hurts. It's like, I have two main body parts that hurt and four, like, minor ones that I would like to address as well. And then this is one thing that I want to be able to get back to. That's a good moonshot. That's kind of the people that we work with.

I See, and are these people that. Would you call these people, like, active people? Are these athletes, former athletes, or these, like, mom and dads? Like, how did they. How did they get here?

That's the. The tough part about now, like, thinking of that side of the business, right, Is understanding where the referrals are coming from and having, like, an idea of where the leads are coming in, because that's things that you got to focus on when you grow past yourself. But we work with people that are in their 60s that have been in pain for a long time, and they want to be able to, one, reduce their risk of falls, be able to play with their grandkids. And to me, they need the same qualities as someone that's going back to high performance. If a grandkid makes a quick move, someone at 60 needs to decelerate themselves and move towards their grandkids. When someone goes back to high performance, they need to be able to cut, plant, and redirect their position to where they need to go. So we see kind of people from all walks of life, and they find us in the most random ways. One time we got my baby. My babysitter recommended you guys, and I was like, whoa, I didn't even know that that was a thing. But I think the goal is to just right now kind of consolidate, figure out where leads are coming from, and then create content for people that are like our clients that have been frustrated and they want to have their stories told.

Yeah. You know, it's interesting, you. You say something that. It sounds so simple, but I'm not going to lie to you. Most of the people struggle with that, that content, of creating content for the actual client, because people think, and it's not abnormal. It's totally normal. I did this too, where. And I often catch myself saying this with my clients, where I'm like, oh, you probably already know this. You probably already know this and it's not true. Right. It's just simply not true. What's easy to us, or even if we said it one time, 10 times, it doesn't mean that it's going to be easy to them or it's something that they've kept inside of their mind. So it's just such an important part that so many people miss.

And it's being able to communicate in, like, different ways. Right. Like, that's the. The bread and butter is one thinking about what platform you're communicating it on. Because the way you'll talk and deliver content on TikTok is going to be significantly different, Very different. So and then working with like the attention span, like TikTok, you got half a second to catch it, maybe two to three. But if someone clicks on your content in LinkedIn and YouTube, you've got a little bit more time. So it's just taking those things into consideration. And you know, with TikTok, for instance, you might just be saying, this is going to improve your mobility here. With Instagram, you might be saying like, here's why you have a restriction, how you might improve it. And then LinkedIn and YouTube, it could be like, this is a complete breakdown of how we might assess a hip. And then it's being able to deliver the right content for the right platform and ideally having the right person in your head that you're speaking to.

Yeah. And then getting. Well, and also taking. When you know who that person is, getting really clear on their behaviors on different platforms because someone who is, you know, got incredible chronic hip pain that is like, I can't. This is unbearable. They're likely not going to TikTok to being like, how do I fix my hip pain? Right. So it's not even. It's like a continuum of your ideal client. Each client can be on different platforms, but they're going to experience the platform differently, which I think people miss.

That is. Yeah, there's a lot of people that message me for social media advice or like content creation advice. And it's so hard to kind of put things into like some sort of framework because I've never thought of it that way. I just kind of intuitively thought to myself, like, well, attention span is really short on TikTok, so we're going to do really, really short content there. Personally, when I watch a YouTube video, if it's something that I'm interested in, I'll most likely be able to sit through at least half of it. So I know I have a. And it's just kind of thinking about your behavior because chances are you probably want to work with people similar to yourself.

Yeah. Or that. Or that you resonate with that. You connect with that. Well, we're going to like. And it's in. It's. And it's also that you resonate with them, you connect with them, but that they also assume your authority. Like, I'm sure that you have to deal with this a lot as you're starting to step out of the health care. The traditional health care system is that people just go online and they're like, who does my insurance cover? Okay, that person looks good. It's close to me. And Then they get an assumed authority just based on what their insurance covered and the fact that it says doctor before that person's name. Right. And so when you're stepping into your own business and trying to, you know, position yourself as an authority, you have to do the same thing, essentially.

No, for sure. The, I think the overarching theme and the reason why I feel like we've been relatively successful the past six months is we genuinely care about people getting better and it doesn't have to be with us. So let's say someone goes with an insurance based person, you know, I'll follow up with them a couple of months down the line and I'm just going to say like, hey, Julie, just wanted to check in and see how you're doing. We just always want to make sure people got the care they need. And if they say everything went well, we'd be like, awesome. Julie, really glad that everything worked out for you. If you ever need anything, just let us know. But have a great weekend. I think when we start to talk about like mission, vision, values and all these things, if it's something that you want for the world, doesn't matter how the world gets it, they just need it.

Yes.

And that's one thing I've picked up on now. It's like, I truly just care that people get better and it doesn't matter how anymore.

And people subconsciously feel that and know that. I mean, there's a reason why people are like, I just resonate. I don't resonate. And they can't maybe necessarily pinpoint it, but they can feel it. It's an unconscious, a connection, essentially.

Yeah, there's. I released the video, we tried to do one YouTube video every week and I talked about my number one business tip. And the number one business tip for me was just making sure that everyone that comes through the door gets better. And I feel like there was no other way to put some skin in the game behind it. Then if someone doesn't get better and we find out what it is that they need to address, maybe after the 10th visit, I'll treat them for free. I know they've already financially invested in me. For me, it's no longer like, hey, how do we survive for the next couple of months? I'm thinking, how do we create something that's going to last for the next five, 10, 15 years? And I feel like the only way to do that is to build trust and give people transparency because none of that is happening in healthcare now.

You know, it's so Funny because we just took my daughters to. We have two daughters and we took them to the ENT today and our appointment was 8:10 and 8:30 but they had booked for other people for 8:10 and 8:30. So there's like six of us sitting there being like we all have the same appointment. Well, not all of us are going to get seen at 8:10. So it is just so aggravating to me to like be in the room and then not get seen until 9 o'.

Clock.

When couldn't you just told me like 9 o'. Clock. Right. That's going to build more rapport with me than telling me I'm going to be seen at 8:10, not telling the teachers because like, you know, you think they're going to get to school on time when. Oops. Just kidding. Oh, I hate that.

And that's the little things I think set up everything else. And it's also the things that we forget as someone that's kind of out of that space. Right. That most doctors don't really listen after eight seconds or they interrupt you after eight seconds. Whereas when you work with someone for that full hour, one on one, and I don't book anyone else for that hour, it's almost strange. It's like, wow, that was the best service I ever had. And you're not even a service company. Physical therapy company.

Yeah. Well, I think people too underestimate. Goes back to what we were saying earlier is that we think that, you know, it's. People underestimate the value in just being present and actively listening to the person in front of you. Because we've all done hundreds of sessions and we all, you know, our brain is designed to automate. So we all think, think, oh, I know what this person's gonna say. Oh, I've done this a million times. This is what it is. Right. So I get why it happens. But the small details that you can do for your clients can oftentimes be the difference between being fully booked or overlooked.

Yeah. And it's, I don't want to say I think people overlook the skill of listening. It is like it's so tough and you might be. And I think you only have a certain capacity once you realize like listening is a skill and you really start to do it. You're like fatigue tired by the end of the day.

Yes. There's a reason why you only do, you know, I do four coaching calls in a day. If I do more than four coaching calls, I'm going to bed at 7 o'.

Clock.

I'm tired. Right. Because it's a lot of, it's a lot of receiving and giving and receiving and taking in the sense in terms of energy and mental space and, and heart. It's a lot.

I think the most I can do is like two evaluations back to back. Then I need to like go for a walk.

Yeah. Just. Yeah. Clear it. Yeah. So just to shift the conversation a little bit, I'd love to hear a little bit. Since you have done so much clinical work in your mentors and with your clients, I'm curious, what are some of the common, common I don't want to say mistakes, it's not the right word, but common decisions that are on repeat in, in the industry for your. From your client space and from a physio's space. Like what are some of the common traps that people fall into?

I think one, it's the biggest frustration, I would say is that people tend to feel better with the physical therapy while they're doing physical therapy. But once they start to return to the things that they want to do, they always end up getting hurt again and then they go back to physical therapy. So there's never someone that clearly delineates what the steps are to get you back to doing what you love. It's like, all right, let's try these things. And you did it for about six weeks and we did twice a week and we checked off the boxes. Go back to doing what you want to do. And we have people that say, you know, I went through three cycles of physical therapy. Five. And I'm like, I can't imagine how frustrating that is. I think the biggest mistake is that generally most people are under prepared for what they're trying to accomplish and they don't ever have a plan on how to get prepared, how to train, how to optimize their body to be able to withstand the demands of their lifestyle.

Mm hmm. And do you feel like that is that is a physio industry concern issue? Is it something that they don't like that they don't teach you in PT school? Like what causes someone to not be able to actually and to be fair, like I'm just going to go ahead and say I get that there's only, you know, at most three hours or five hours a week that you're spending with someone and you are trusting them to, you know, reiterate these movement patterns in the other 160plus hours in the week. Right. Like I get that it's not like a burden of responsibility is not all on the physio or the coach? I'm just curious, you know, what are some. Are there some preventative things that a physio can do to help support the client?

Man, it's almost like you can give some tips. But I know if, like, the toughest part is, like I always say, like, at some point in your life, you've got to bring your work home and you've got to learn and you got to do things that are going to update your current model so that you can help more people. Tough part about bringing your work home is that you're already bringing work home. If you're in a typical clinic, you're swamped with notes. You've got so many things that you always got to catch up on. And let's say insurance investigates a previous client from, like six months ago. Now you got to reopen those notes. And it just. It's not a good system for physical therapists to get ahead of it. They always feel behind from work so that they're just really trying to tread water and stay afloat. So how can we even pile on more learning and other things to get people back to doing what they want to do? And likewise, if it's not at home, it's in the clinic. If you're working with three or four people for that hour and they all need your attention, then you're going to feel stuck again. But I would say one thing that I've been able to do myself personally is put everything out on the table. You know, these are all my progressions and regressions. This is what I expect to see from someone when I want them to return to run. Because it's not like the demands change. You know, some people might have longer limbs and all that stuff, but for the most part, I'm looking for heuristics and models that work 80% of the time. And then when they don't work at 20% of the time, that's when I can consciously start to figure out what I need to modify, what I need to tinker with. But if I'm rethinking how I'm going to return someone to run every single time, it's just inconsistent. So you got to build heuristics. And heuristics to me are just frameworks that work 80% of the time. It doesn't need to be perfect, but it needs to be something that's flexible and adaptable. And you've got to have some sort of baseline you're working with, or you're just going to get Yourself too tired, constantly rethinking everything.

So what are some of the baselines that you order? Some of the common baselines that you see, whether they're, you know, running every day, trying to play sports, granules. Do you have, like, do these have to be baseline or baseline frameworks that are for each individual person, or do you have some principles that you live by?

Yeah, so I've got principles that I definitely live by, meaning want to improve movement in isolation, movement and integration, great exposure and things like that. But from a return to run standpoint, like right now, if someone wants to slow down the podcast, I'm looking for 30 single leg calf raises. 30 single leg bent knee calf raises, a long lever, open ankle plank, a side plank. Being able to do a step and stick, bound and stick, hop and stick, triple hop, and then stick all the time while doing this is we're just building general movement patterns, a squat pattern, hinge pattern, lunge pattern. But I'm looking for those first baselines that I'm looking to see is can they support their whole limb before we start moving against space? And once they can, I'm going to speed up the movements so they have to tolerate more eccentric loading once they can tolerate, you know, hopping and hop, hop, hop, stick. Now they're back to running. And I've got a whole return of progression in my head. Start off with 1 minute run, 3 minutes walk, 12 rounds, and then we rinse and repeat every single week. And then there's KPIs that we're tracking, symptoms that we're tracking, and criteria to progress to the next week. But I can say this very confidently because I've done it so many times and it works 80 to 90% of the time. When it doesn't work for a specific population, if they're coming back with a specific diagnosis, then I know how I'm going to change the plyometrics to be able to meet the demands of where they're currently at and scale them up. Or if there's something else that is coming with a previous injury, I can help. And I can see where that framework might go wrong. But at least I still have a baseline that I'm working with.

I love that. I love that. I love that. And I love it mostly, too, because this is what we do in business, too. You have to know what those metrics are that matter. And then being able to assess the performance, guest test and assess is always what I'm talking about. So I'm curious, you know, how often do you test those Those, you know, those patterns?

Every session?

Every session. So someone's seeing you three times a week. You tested every week? Every day or every week?

Most people I see only once a week. And from a program adherence standpoint, I just tell them, you know, we're going to use these sessions to coach you up, make sure that you're very competent with the movement patterns for bringing you home with them. And these sessions are to progress. So if you want to make the most out of these sessions, you've got to do this work. And before I even, like, give them the program, I just asked them, how much time can you dedicate to this? If they can say they can dedicate 10 to 15 minutes, I make a program that's 10 to 15 minutes. Certain people I work with, I can dedicate three full workouts. So I'm like, perfect, let's create three workouts. But this is where one we come in. I have a idea in my head of where, you know, mobility screen. We'll check them. We do the movement prep, retest the mobility screens, and then we just move on from GPP and everything else and scaling the training. But the goal is to assess every session.

I love that. How long do you see adaptation take?

Adaptation takes. I mean, from a neurological standpoint, it can be instantly. And from a tissue tolerance standpoint, it's going to take like six to eight weeks. But I think so much of when you're working with someone that already has a good baseline fitness, a lot of it is just giving people access to different positions and making things feel tolerable again. Meaning if they're doing a movement in a particular pattern that's very sensitive, your nervous system, your body will always kind of hold back a little bit. But if I can gradually ramp up the stress to make you feel safe, then your body's going to give you more to work with. So sometimes you don't necessarily need to see a tissue adaptation. They just need to be gradually exposed in a way that's safe, that makes them feel confident with the movement, because if they don't feel confident, then they're immediately going to guard up.

And I really love that you talked about the neurological adaptation, because while it can be instant, I feel like people pattern, you know, they're patterning their trauma or what, you know, oh, this is gonna hurt. This is gonna hurt. Like that's a neural response that, that I'm curious, like, do you have to spend time with that?

No, I definitely think that I. I try to make it feel as safe as possible and I always kind of tell clients, like, you know, as we're going through these movements, they might start off very gentle, but I don't want you to feel that I'm babying you. We're just starting off very gentle because I would rather ramp up than have to ramp down. If we start off and if we slowly ramp up, you'll feel more comfortable doing that. And it doesn't need to be, you know, to failure. Doesn't need to be. It doesn't need to be pain free. It just needs to be tolerable. And that's where we kind of talk about traffic night, traffic light analogies and giving them a framework to make decisions as well. It's not just, I need to call Andy every single time I'm wondering, this exercise, it's safe. I tell them, like, listen, I've got. You're on the map already in terms of all of these six moving patterns that we're going to be doing for training. I know that you're going to feel better as we progress through these moving patterns. And every single one of these moving patterns is a logical progression. I'm never going to make you jump more than you have to. It's just a chipping away, chipping away, chipping away.

So good. And so how, you know, I'm also curious about, while you said it, you know, the frameworks work 80 to 90% of the time. I'm curious, is it a linear progression? Like, how often do you have, you know, ups and downs and what causes that?

Yeah, the macro scheme is going to, like, when you look at it from a macro perspective, it's always going to be linear. But when you go into the micro, the week to week, it's going to fluctuate up and downs. And I always love pre framing. Like, for me, pre framing is huge. Even if I get a change that first day, it's not like, yep, I'm the guru. I fixed you, we're good. I'll see you. It's more like, you know, this was something truly structural. This was something that was going to limit you for the rest of your life. We wouldn't be able to get some of these changes, but the longer we train, the longer we move in a specific way that gives you more strategy, more freedom, the more it's going to stick. Like right now, you have to do it all of the time to feel this way, but eventually you're going to wake up in the middle of the night and go through our screens and you'll feel super loose. But that's where we tell people, you're going to have a flare up. And I want you to have a flare up because I want to show you how to navigate those flare ups so that, you know, you have the tools you need to address it yourself. Because I don't want to always have to be there for you. I want you to be independent. And I think people really appreciate that.

Yeah. I think that is one of the things too, that happens to strength coaches too, is that progress your clients so that they don't need you. Right. It is funny because I'm always looking for the ways that I can stay, you know, what are the things that I stand against and what is my message in the market space? And I always go against the grain. Not entirely on purpose, but just from my own experience in the sense that, like, you know, we're dealing with the grown adults. You don't need accountability. You are responsible. You need support. Put the support in place and the strategy, and then accountability becomes moot.

You know, that just shifts my perspective on things already.

Well, you know, it's just. It's just funny. I'm a mom, right. And so I have often find myself hover parenting over my clients and not my own children. And it was because I want my children to build resilience. I want them to step into their, you know, responsibility. And my husband's like, well, why are you doing that with your clients? And I'm like, oh, you're right.

Oh, man. And that's, you know, when you have those realizations, it's like, wow.

Yeah.

And some people, you know, at some situations, that could be a fight.

Yeah.

But when you feel comfortable in that space, it's like, wow, I can make the product or the people I'm serving so much better by giving them more of their independence back.

Yeah. And I also think too, you know, special. And I also speak. This also comes from my personal experience, especially when I was newer and starting out, is that there's this sense of like, I have to have it all figured out. I have to be the expert in everything that, like, if there ever comes. Came to a point where it was like, I just don't know. It was almost as if I was saying to the client, I don't know this, so therefore I'm not good. But that's just not true. When you can say to a client, I'm gonna. We're gonna figure this out, but I need help. I think that that's. That's just going to deepen the rapport and the trust More so than if you just try to figure it out on your own.

Personally, I love that I tell new clinicians and the people in my mentorship as well, you don't have to feel imposter syndrome if you have the client's best interest at heart. If you don't know what's going on, and this might not work depending on the setting you're in, but when you own your own business, I've had less imposter syndrome because I don't feel like this person needs to come back all the time. If I don't know how to help this person, I might have a clue of certain things that might, you know, release some of their symptoms and ways that they can train more comfortably. But I don't feel like I'm missing the boat on something I tell them I'm not. I want you to do this for the next two to three weeks, and I'm going to consult with the therapist on my team or I'm going to read a little bit more because I don't think I'm onto something completely just yet. But when you come back in, or I'll only ask you to come back in if I think we can take that next step, you know, that's where it's okay to say, I don't know, opposed to coming back, let's say, three times a week for the next six weeks, even though you have no idea what's going on, you're just wasting their time and you're wasting your time. So I love that. Like, it's okay.

Yeah, I love it. So I'm curious, just in your experience, you know, what has been one of the most challenging lessons that you've had to, you know with your clients when you're working? Like, what has been the most challenging experience of your career? That really, like, you had to press some thinking limits when it came to figuring it out?

Oh, man. I would say, honestly, I get challenged, like, once a month now. There's something that happens once a month where I'm like, oh, man, I gotta figure it out. Like, you know, two weeks go by and you're kind of brushing your shoulders. Like, man, I am crushing it. Like, everyone's getting better, everyone's doing well. Someone comes in, it's like, oh, man. But, you know, there's just. I've had certain biases coming into physical therapy. You know, I have a bodybuilding background is kind of how I started into training. Then powerlifting, started doing kettlebells, got certified for that. Then I started doing track sprinting stuff because I realized I wasn't good at, you know, plyometrics and returning someone back to running. Now I do a lot of jujitsu and running, but my lens has always been people just need to get stronger and I think that helps. You know, when you come out of PT school, you can definitely be very successful just getting people stronger. Then you start to look at movement quality, how someone moves. And before I was just like, you know, just load it, it doesn't matter. But now I'm seeing things that I wasn't seeing before and taking things into consideration that I just wasn't taking consideration before. Looking at the pelvis a little bit more in depth. Looking at the ribcage a little bit more in depth. The thing with those anatomical structures is that people tend to create these narratives that make people very fearful. But I don't think you have to subscribe to those narratives. And that's something that's been helping me a lot and it's given me better outcomes with shoulders, neck pain and other things. And it took a lot for me to start to adopt those things. I'm so much in that get stronger, just loaded mindset now. I'm like looking at not just that side of it, but also the movement quality side of it. And when you kind of combine everything together, that's the goal, right? Whenever I can't solve a problem, let me get another lens, put it into the framework. Let me get another lens, put into the framework and see how everything blends together.

That's, that's really good. I, I'm curious, you know, I, I'm, I'm curious about when you're dealing with pain or when you're working through helping someone get out of pain. How do you navigate knowing between what is just supposed to be part of the process and uncomfortability versus this is something that you need to pause and you need to rethink this.

Meaning how do I know?

Meaning like how do you assess, how do you assess when something is oh no, this, this like they've got another flare up and you go oh, nope. This is just part of the process. This is part of the healing process. Let's, let's stay the course versus oh no, we have something went sideways. We have to rethink, rethink this micro plan. I'm asking you some hard hitting questions.

No, that's a great question and I don't think you're going to be correct all of the time. But what are you taking into consideration when you're working with Someone, right. And I use this heuristic in the mentorship is does someone need variability or does someone need adaptability? If someone just came back and they're seeing you post operatively for a surgery, you know, you can do all of these really cool mobility drills you want, but you got to get that limb stronger because it's surgically repaired and the surrounding area needs to get stronger. If someone's been in chronic pain for years and years and you see that they might be predisposing themselves to very similar movement strategies that are very sensitive currently, they might need more variability. Currently, from a physical therapy lens, our view of variability is going to be movement patterns as well as movement restrictions and mobility. So now you have two different KPIs that you're tracking. Is someone's rep max for a particular exercise improving over time? Is someone's mobility improving over time? And that's when, when these flare ups are happening. If it's someone that is more on that persistent pain needs a different kind of movement strategy, just needs a little bit more freedom. The way they move. If their mobility range of motion tests are not changing and I keep them, I keep having them come back, that KPI doesn't change at all. I need to learn something else. On the flip side of it is if that person's coming back post operatively and we ramp something up, I know that it's okay, you know, inflammation came back a little bit more because the intensity of your training has got up. But I never want you to do something that hinders your ability to live your everyday life. So let's dial it back a little bit. We kind of know where your threshold is and we'll dial it back and slowly bridge that gap a little bit later. But context is going to be the biggest thing of figuring out whether or not you need to pause, have the person kind of take a break or like, no, this is okay, this is part of the process, but we might have just pushed it a little bit too much.

Yeah, I love that. You know, honestly, I asked the question because in, in business building, this is something that comes up a lot in terms of the nuances, deciding whether or not you're just practicing insanity and doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result versus, you know, take. Because. Because for me, at least every action step that you're going to take is going to provide you with some type of feedback, some type of data, some type of performance indicator. And as long as you have your metrics that you're measuring, it's Going to show you. Oh yeah, I just got better at my messaging. I got better at showing up. I got, I had more people come. Like there's going to different markers that will indicate that it's not just the same thing. You're tweaking it, you're changing it, learning. So, but it can feel similar sometimes. So it's hard to navigate. Can be hard to navigate.

Yeah. And the, the, you need to be able to do something enough to see trends or you had to seen a certain presentation enough to see trends. And I would never say that like every one person is the same, but there's very similar personalities, very similar presentations and sometimes a similar presentation with the personality. So these are all things to take into consideration as you start to build your clinical experience. Likewise, from a business lenses, there's going to be certain people that don't do well with a specific product. Then you start to figure out why they don't do well or, and then creating something for that person so that you're checking off those boxes, but you're creating something that works 80% of the time, 90% of the time. And for the people that don't get that result that you want, there's something already put into place that's going to take that into consideration. And that's how I see, you know, every. Anything that is robust has done that. It's recreated itself multiple times and had multiple iterations. And I feel like it's okay to fail in those instances.

Yeah, it is. Absolutely. And you're going to learn. We learn. Yeah. Okay. So Andy, this has been amazing and I want to be very mindful of your time. So for those of you who want to learn more about what you do, come hang out with you. What are some of the best places that I can send them to?

Yes. So on Instagram, I'm at Dr. Andy Chen. The physical therapy page is at moment PTP and then the mentorship pages at Moment Mentorship. You can follow me on either of those platforms. On website, it's ww.momentptv.com if you're ever in New York City, want to grab a coffee? That's going to be the best way to reach me. Catch me on coffee time.

I love it. I love it. Coaching over coffee. Okay. So I'll definitely link all of that up in the show notes. So thank you so much for hanging out with me today and pouring into my community. I really appreciate it.

Thank you so much for having me on. It was a fun talk.

Yeah.

Thank you for listening to the PT Profit podcast. If you like this episode, chances are your friends will too. So it would be a huge, huge service to us if you would please leave us a review and share with your friends on your social media channels. When you leave us a review, be sure to take a screenshot of it and email that screenshot to my team@info simpsonfitness.com and we'll send you a very special Instagram podcast that will show you how to create compelling content so that your idea ideal clients come to you and you go from wanting clients to a wait list of clients ready for your services. Thank you so much for listening and we'll see you on the next episode.