Today’s episode welcomes back to the show Tommy John, along with neurological training adept, Alex Lee. This episode was recorded in-person, after spending a few hours playing “around the world” in basketball and sliding down slides on a children’s playground.
Tommy John is a Chiropractor/Sports Performance coach (depending on which way his hat is aligned) and is a field leader in neurological training. He blends psychology, culture and intention into a masterful training system that helps athletes stay healthy and maximize their sport experience. His book “Minimize Injury, Maximize Performance” is a leading edge guide for the success of young athletes in today’s regressive sport culture that does not prioritize the health and well-being of young athletes.
Alex Lee is a chiropractic student at Life West who will graduate in 2020 and has years of experience in neurological training techniques. As an athlete who experienced back pain as a result of training that didn’t prioritize human movement, he has found freedom from pain and enhanced athleticism by utilizing the techniques taught to him foremost by Tommy John, which he now utilizes in his own coaching and teaching.
This episode is all about how to optimize training from a neurological an psychological perspective. If we think about the biggest rocks of training, the absolute foundation, it all starts with an athlete’s intentions and the basic functionality of the human body (being a “better human” as Cory Schlesinger puts it). Tommy John and Alex share lots of anecdotes and insight as to how we can optimize our own performance, and that of our athletes by incorporating neurological principles in this awesome conversation.
Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.
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Key Points
- Methods from a neurological perspective to “be a better human”
- How fatigue can be a teacher and assessment from an intention driven perspective
- How an athlete’s “why” impacts their results
- How spending time away from weights, by using maximal intention ISO’s can be incredibly effective
- Where the field of chiropractic and sports performance is headed
- Alex and Tommy’s top bodyweight, barbell and ballistic exercises if they could pick only 1 of each
- Early specialization and injury as a cultural sport phenomenon
Tommy John and Alex Lee Quotes
“One of the easiest pass/fail methods to rewire the body is standing on one leg”
“We should be a good mover before we load the move”
“I get still excited that, in the face of whatever we are dealing with, can stimulate and adapt at any level at what you are trying to put intention behind”
“The brain doesn’t know we are training and it’s positive, it senses the system is being threatened…. it will do the gnarliest environment ever where it’s like “I am going to die if my knee hits the ground before 5 minutes is up of an ISO lunge”, the changes in the face of fatigue (are immense)”
“Every single suggestion I make is going to check your “why” and if you don’t have that clear picture, usually based around something you love… whatever that is, it’s coming and if you don’t have it, you will dip out… and your expectation of your gains is not going to be there”
“If there is an injury, if it senses it’s going back to that environment, it’s going to freak out, even if the environment is safe… one of the purposes of rehab is to break that PTSD”
“I remember 2 years after (training hard on ISO’s) I stepped back in the weightroom and was able to move stuff around… it was like Bruce Willis in “Unbreakable”.
“When you can get to a place in your head when you are training everything max effort, physiologically, the adaptation is insane”
“A true chiropractor will just go in and assess the spine and see where it needs to be adjusted… where is this person stuck. They should try to talk themselves out of an adjustment, you shouldn’t need one”
“I’m almost a defender of the power inside of us”
“From womb to 12, it’s backwards how we are raising our kids, it’s screens, seats and swaddling. Excessive confinement to prevent movement”
“The kid that craves only 3 foods also isn’t a good mover”
“(For athletes who lack movement patterning) I do the basics of what we did as infants in 1000 rep schemes”
“Anyone who is processing and battling, throw them up on a hang, and they will be able to raise the level of whatever they are going through”
“(Early Specalization) This program is so much greater than just sports”
Mentioned in this Podcast
Bret Contreras and the “nocibo” effect Episode #83
Cory Schlessinger and innate movement Episode #138
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8AMFZ43WnI
About Tommy John
With Master Degrees in Health and Exercise Science from Furman University, Tommy John brings over 17 years of health experience to the table. At completion of his studies Tommy played professional baseball for three years with teams such as the Schaumburg Flyers, Tyler Roughnecks and the LA Dodgers.
The primary goal of Tommy John Performance and Healing Center is to provide entire families with integrative, individualized care plans and treatment to improve their quality of life by reducing physical and emotional pain from injury and aging and minimizing the use of pharmaceuticals or surgery.
About Alex Lee
Alex Lee is one year away from finishing a Doctorate of Chiropractic at Life West University with a focus specifically in Upper Cervical Care (Toggle-Recoil and Knee Chest techniques).
As a baseball athlete, he was a 4-year starter at Wofford College. From 2012-2014 Alex managed two D-BAT indoor baseball training academies before rehabbing from a fractured L5 vertabra and taking a particular interest in chiropractic, rehab/training, and the body’s ability to heal itself in the right conditions.
Alex played four seasons internationally in Europe and Australia from 2014-2016, applying neurological rehab and training principles before enrolling in the Life West chiropractic program. He runs aleechiro.com and longtermathlete.com as well as training Brazilian jiu-jitsu and training athletes in his downtime.
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