00:00:03] Matt Ibrahim: You have to fall flat on your face to realize what it's like to fall flat on your face. So then you realize you know what rock bottom? It's a really good place to build from, because there's only one direction you can go from there is up and so you think about, I didn't apply myself before now I'm gonna apply myself.
[00:00:29] PODCAST INTRO: Welcome to “In The RACK” podcast, where we provide you with the practical framework for breaking PRs in all facets of health and wellness. We are just a couple of bros giving you the simple house in a world of complex wants. No filters, no scripts, no rules, just straight talk, talk tune. Now, let's get into the rack with your hosts, Dr. Chad and Dr. Nick.
[00:00:55] Chad: Alright, everyone. Welcome to another episode of “In The RACK” podcast. I'm your host, Chad. And with me is my co-host and fellow physical therapist, Nick. Nick and I are super excited about this episode, we have another amazing guest speaker on the show. This guy probably doesn't need too much introduction, but I'm going to introduce him anyways. His name is Matt Ibrahim. Did I say that correctly, Matt?
[00:01:18] Matt Ibrahim: Perfect, one on one.
[00:01:19] Chad: Matt is a strength and conditioning coach, and you've been strength conditioning coach since what 2007? Do that was the same year I got my CSCS. We can be all together at this point. I'm getting old. I know we're not getting old. We're just okay. I love it. So we have some stuff in common. That's cool. So we actually the story behind that is actually we met Matt a couple years ago. And this was all because of Nick, because we were kind of planning out the new build of our facility at the time, which we're actually sitting in right now which is kind of cool. We wanted to pick Matt's brain about how we can start integrating strength conditioning into our facility, but also look and see how his facility flows, because they were just crushing it at the time. And we wanted to see how we could get on their level. So, Nick, hit up, Matt. And we went down there. And that was how we first met and it was love at first sight.
[00:02:07] Matt Ibrahim: So I remember the email, it was into my DMs but still massive. And I said, “I can roll with this, because we just got one and you're playing around with it”. And he was really intrigued about it was a Monday night you guys came and I think I was the only one on that shift that was coaching with an intern and it was busy, which wasn't usually the case. And you guys didn't we had a blast. It was fun.
[00:02:31] Chad: I remember that. And I remember I was just mesmerized by the big ass fan. Like, “Dude, so now we're just sitting under that same exact fan that you had I when I called the company”. They're like, “No, I can definitely get you a better model”. I was like, “Dude, that's not the model I want as big as highly effective”. Totally does its job. It's so good. So we are excited to have Matt on the show today. Matt has written a bunch of articles for like men's health, T-nation, which I love IBT nation all the time. Nick read it all the time. He's very active with the NSCA perform better true coach, which we also love to do to coach all the time. But above all, Matt does a lot of public speaking through nationally recognized competence. Do you have you done him to the NSCA as well?
[00:03:17] Matt Ibrahim: Yeah.
[00:03:18] Chad: Cool. So he's done a lot of public speaking. We actually had him up at our workshop just this summer to do a talk with probably about 15 PTs there had to be. Those are good for sure. And we were talking about strategies for deceleration training for athletes and clients and patients. So we've got a pretty good history with Matt and we love having them up here. So, Matt, give us a little breakdown as to who you are, who was the Matt Ibrahim?
[00:03:44] Matt Ibrahim: Well, Chad, Nick, thank you for having me. I also want to thank behind the scenes Taylor, Teresa, and Katie. They helped to round out the ProForm physiotherapy. So I think for me at this point in my career, the simple way that I look at things is I'm just a coach. I don't say I don't say just as well. I'm just a coach. I'm a coach and everything that I do, meaning you look at the word coach coaching is teaching, it's educating, it's instructing. It's helping it's guiding it's helping you get from point A to point B, whether whatever the goal may be, you want to squat 100 plus pound, do you want to broad jump, 100 plus inches, you want to lift up your young child or grandchild off the floor with your back, you want to ace your exercise, science exam, whatever it may be. I'm a coach. And so that has allowed me to whichever hat I wear throughout the day, because now my stage of my career, I feel like I'm a nomad. I'm always kind of traveling to a place doing a thing, changing course doing other things. So I'm coaching and all of these elements. It's important though, when I get home for the evening for dinner and in television and Netflix with my wife to shut off the coach hat and turn on the husband hat now and just relax and just enjoy. So, for me, I'm a coach. And so I'm fortunate that that I have the opportunity. And I look at an opportunity to do all these really cool fun things and interact with cool, fun people. But I don't take any of that for granted. I know that I'm very lucky to have opportunities to coach to educate, to teach and to guide.
[00:05:14] Nick: Nice. And with that coaching hat, you've gotten into the teaching side more. You're now teaching at Endicott correct? So tell us how you got into that the teaching at the college level, and then how you're doing with that how you're enjoying and all that kind of stuff?
[00:05:29] Matt Ibrahim: Absolutely. So I'll take a step back to show you at least I think I got there. So my father who owns a hair salon in Lexington mass and does a lot of other stuff on the side with real estate and businesses. He's very business oriented. And I remember growing up this life lessons, he had three boys, I'm the middle child. So life lessons here's what to do. Here's how to be here that I'll never forget, he had said to me at one point, if I want you to be my friend, I will make you my friend very aggressive. I understand that but he's very direct. And I took from that I think I was maybe 11, 12 and 13 years old. And I had no clue what it was in context with. But that always stuck with me. And so for me is, I put my authentic organic, best self-first. And that's just who I am. And in all facets, and we were talking about this before the show, that's just what you see is what you get, and I think people have to be that way. But beyond that is if there's something that I think that I can help you with, whether it's I helped you with and that's end to end of it, or you can help me and I can reciprocate, I'm going to make sure that I put my best foot forward in a very professional way to do that. And so with the teaching role, so I fortunate that Victor Kaiser program director at Maryville University, within the exercise science program, brought me on as an adjunct professor, in addition to Dr. Kevin Rooney and Dean Swanton at Endicott College as an adjunct professor in exercise science program. Both scenarios were kind of in that light of if I want you to be my friend, I will make you my friend, if I want to work for you. And I think what you're doing is great, I will put myself in a position where you can't ignore me. And that's just my mentality, not that I'm better than someone else, or it's me versus me. You and you look in the mirror, what can you bring to the table? How can you become an asset of value? So with Maryville, it was constantly reaching out to Dr. Keiser saying, “Hey, I'd love to provide a guest lecture and other guests lecture”. And I think at one point, you just said screw it like this. So I think after I did that, because I think you have to have conviction in yourself and what your skill set is, if you believe you can do something, you better do it. So I knew that if you just listen to me speak and educate the kids that I know I'd win them over, I just have that feeling and you have to believe in yourself. So it went well and then ended up he brought me on to teach a class called “Performance Coaching Strategies for Today's Athlete”, which is directly based on Brett Bartholomew's book conscious coaching. So it's actually Brett's book, and Brett's a great guy. The course is so valuable for younger students in exercise, learning communication, language and buying and trust me, he just thinks that the soft skills of coaching, so I teach that along with several other courses like introduction, introduction classes and lead taps course we just built up and developed so not only do I teach from Maryville, I'm fortunate that they allow me to develop forces with people like Lee Taft or people in the field. And we just put together a virtual health and fitness class, which is based on the past couple years, the pandemic fitness, it's kind of cool. So I'm very fortunate to have those opportunities. With Endicott College, I was the internship coordinator, the previous term that I co-owner was working at that you guys had visited. And with that, you have to interact with a lot of schools, directors, internship coordinators, and Dr. Bonilla was one who I was interacting with someone that worked for us years ago parked them on the side administratively. She was also in the sport management program there and she said, “You need to bring him into some guest lectures”. And so I came in. I've just missed lectures, and then it was one of those things where had really like to teach, I'm getting my PhD. I got one hand in hand. So again, thank you for those people. They give me the opportunity and I'm trying to bullishly work my way into a full time academic role. But I think the beauty of it is, if anything is easy in life, it probably shouldn't be doing it. It should be some sort of a challenge. It should be some sort of hurdle or, I take a step forward and then we're talking let me let me take a step laterally and see if that works. Instead of what can I do better, how can I better rounded my skill set so that I can be more of an academic professor or teacher and so I met those schools now doing those Maryville’s is based in St. Louis, Missouri, that one's all remote online. But then Endicott is in person and then I'm also coaching active the clients in their homes now so clients athletes, I work with them in the homes in the North Shore area or Marblehead Swampscott Beverly Sanlam and that is a case of just relationships, winning people over like, “Hey, here's the value I can add to your life, here how I can be an asset to what you're trying to do and just kind of knowing your position in your spot, and knowing that it's about them. And it's not about you”.
[00:10:10] Chad: For sure. And I think it's great that you're not only teaching it, but you're also doing it. And that was always great when I was in college to talk with those professors that actually had like real life experience, because it makes more sense. And you can definitely give more application to what you're teaching, which is pretty sweet.
[00:10:26] Matt Ibrahim: That's my biggest hang up for myself. Again, my competition is myself, that's how I view things. Like, how can you become better to better serve though the service mindset? There's a saying, I'm going to butcher it. One of the most history college basketball coaches, if you should probably know his name as you play college basketball, but he said, make sure at the end of each day, your servants towel is filled. You've utilized that serving style and just servings probably John Wooden. I wouldn't think that's perfect. Thank you. That's great to save us that servant style. And so for me, it's like if I'm going to teach you about how to deadlift, I should probably be dead lifting to some extent in my life currently, and coaching athletes that are deadlifting. Because if I'm just teaching you based off the textbook, the standards that help myself to I'm not helping, I'm not doing this justice for yours. I'm failing you. And this is me. I'm not talking to any other professors in any myself. So this is how I'm leaving aside. Thank you for that. It's perfect.
[00:11:33] Nick: I love that. You mentioned that though. Because we actually talked about that. Chad and I on a podcast a while back about how we wanted to have some level of in the trenches experience for a lot of our patients. And a couple years ago, I went to Chad. I was like, “Man, we see a lot of runners. Now their bus run, we should probably pick this up”. And he was like, that's all you man. So I picked up running recreation very, very few miles, but I just wanted to have the in the trenches experience of you're talking about your knee was aching at this point “No, I felt that before. Let's troubleshoot it now together”. So it is cool that you mentioned that because it is it's a huge piece of how we do things here too as well.
[00:12:13] Chad: Trying to be able to empathize with our patients and clients as much as possible. I just joined a CrossFit gym, which is totally outside of our comfort zone. So I'm still getting the hang of it over there. But I can totally see why some of that stuff can be aggravating and I can relate a lot better to my patients and clients now that do CrossFit, which is awesome.
[00:12:33] Matt Ibrahim: That's the biggest thing you say, relatability. So Luca Pucca are hustling for hours, properly. But he talks about in ethics a couple of years back, you meant this to me, like feel, felt, found to relate. So I totally feel what you're talking about with my knee as well, because I'm running to an identity. And , and I felt that as well, in my past, maybe not the same extent as you did, but I definitely felt that as well. But what I have found is, if I work X, Y and Z, we can get there to get that type of build someone up that type of thing. And so, building self-efficacy what you just talked about as well. But let them feel confident about themselves.
[00:13:17] Chad: And they're not alone. Because stretching the patient, this feeling, and his hip hop knees off me and my hip. It's already a good sign. That means we're getting some movement here. This is good. So I stretches other side, my shoulder popped. It goes, “Was that me?” I said, “No, it was me, man”. I said, “But we're in the same boat. It's all good”.
[00:13:34] Matt Ibrahim: We're in this together. Think about fitness, performance, health training. It should be a community a cultural thing, like physical culture, we're doing this together but it's not just me. So it's a mentality. And I think that's something that people really drawn. They attracted. Absolutely, absolutely.
[00:13:52] Nick: Now, I would say that was a big thing. When I first reached out to you a couple years ago about the steel mace. It was really cool that if you look at things from an Instagram standpoint. I had just started Instagram months prior. So essentially, I didn't really have any followers, nothing like that you easily could have looked into your direct messages be like, “Who is this and just like, deleted it. But you were kind enough to respond and more so than respond, you engage right away and made me feel that way, which is an awesome gift that you have”. So for you to be now providing that to the next generation of college students is pretty cool.
[00:14:34] Chad: The days of Instagram that was like, I didn't have that. I have Facebook. I'm like, “Dude, you're missing the boat”.
[00:14:43] Matt Ibrahim: It's a fun so here's it'll say, it's a fun world.
[00:14:46] Chad: But the blessing and a curse.
[00:14:48] Matt Ibrahim: I'm at the point where I'm at just in life. It's important for my brand for what I'm trying to do for service I provide. But at the end of the day, you gotta enjoy life to screenshot put it down. And to backtrack to the initial thing you said about, could have not looked at it versus did followers or Monopoly money. If you're a good human beings, I should be able to tell in person or through a screen. And that to me is that's just how I was raised, my parents did a great job and my family and whatnot. So it's just show kindness, but good into the world. And the hope is that it comes back, but don't count on it, you don't want to just put good into the world positive energy positive vibe, and just, I think that's just kind of the way I am. And kind of flipped that even more, if I had not been helped by the many, many, many people in the field that has made me want even more so to pay it forward. Because if you help me, you've helped me like, I want to help you pay it forward and get back forward in this together. Again, that whole community cultural thing, it's like, you can relate anything to sports, and then you can tie in food if you want to as well. That's just a side piece. But it's a team, you're one player on a team. The whole Kobe Bryant thing where Shaq was like, there's no in team, there's me that's Kobe mentality and I love that.
[00:16:13] Nick: We need those people too.
[00:16:14] Matt Ibrahim: We need those people to at times, nope. And again, buckets. It's gotta be us.
[00:16:19] Chad: 1,000%. We were just talking about that in the last podcast that we have with Jackson Frey. Because he's a huge strength and conditioning coach out in Chicago, and just being able to have those connections, like yourself and being able to bounce off ideas and just kind of working together as a team is so important. And we kind of have to get over this whole ego trip where I'm better than you. And you're better than me because we're all on the same team. And we all have to play on the same. We're all playing the same game. And we're all trying to help these patients or clients the same way. So we're doing our patient or client a disservice when we're trying to trying to provide a service that we just either aren't optimal for. And we need to know when we need to refer out to like, say, Matt, do Matt crushes it during this. This is not my wheelhouse and vice versa.
[00:17:04] Nick: And then the other thing we're talking about with that was people constantly. Oh, they did something that I did, or this person that I've liked before did something that I don't like now, I don't like them. How did we get there? So that's such a big thing right now. It's crazy. So you kind of touched upon some of the things about giving back to the people that helped you. And I know, I've heard other podcasts that you've been on that you've talked about your past, how you easily could have kind of quit and went else a different route. So why don't you want to tell us a little bit about that, you can get the abbreviated version, if you want to deep into it, whatever you want.
[00:17:45] Matt Ibrahim: Yeah, get your popcorn. So I think what education is what really made me want to go back in education to get the degrees and then the teachers because I didn't do well. And so 13 failed classes by academic standards, like C minus for less than that, that was more based on me, that lack of effort, didn't care, didn't apply myself. No application, no thought process, kind of like now I'm gonna go lift weights that put on academic probation, six years, 132 credits and average broken 220 credits. Don't wait too long there. So the last semester academic probation, they finally let me back in, just finished the program and basically just do your thing and get away. I did that. But then they brought me back to speak every year, every semester for their introduction class, which I thought was interesting. And I was very grateful for that, and that's what kind of kicked off the speaking. And I said, “Wait a second. I really enjoyed this”. And I didn't have I didn't put a presentation. I just spoke from here. And they seem to enjoy. And so they bring me back. And they brought back the talked about that and the failures. And I think this is obvious, but I think that most people, maybe they're afraid they're timid, they're like, I'm not so sure. You have to fall flat on your face, to realize what it's like to fall flat on your face. So then you realize rock bottom, it's a really good place to build from, and because there's only one direction you can go from here is up. And so you think about, I didn't apply myself before I'm gonna apply myself. I didn't do this before. Now I'm gonna do this. And so you realize what you have to do to get to where you want to get to. And so for me, it was how do I get in a position where I can teach educate and speaking coach people, and I was fortunate that I had people around me that would allow me to do that. And then then you get to the point where I'm helping let's say 10 clients. I'm training people well that 8 or 10 people or groups or whatever it may be. How do I help more than that? A number of people came in their social media but different outlets online, great articles, podcasts, writing, collaborations posts. How can I get even help even more people in that world? Academic bodies that have 300 to 500 students. Let me do that as well. So that's my old look, how can I help more people, but do it in a way that is scalable, and that the message is clear in its authentic because at any point, if it's not authentic, then why am I doing this? So for me that every step of the way, there's been I'm sure many other people in their lives, they've been failures, mistakes, you trip. But if you learn from those, and then apply the new things you've learned, in hopes of not making that same fear that that is a good thing. If you're failing just to fail, then that's a different story. So did that, like you guys are doctors of physical therapy, that's something I want it to become. Three years in a row, five of the same schools didn't get into any of them. So that's 15 letters of he didn't get in, three of them have paid for me to come back and speak. So I don't know if that's coming full circle or whatever it may be. But that's the way it just wasn't stacking winds over here. So it just wasn't me. No, maybe it wasn't for me. But I've had the fortunate opportunity to work in a lot of clinical settings, rehab setting, sports, physical therapy setting, so working alongside clinicians, and physical therapists and physios like yourself, and really trying to take the movement lens within my scope as a strength coach, performance coach, and utilize that and knowing when to say, I got, shouldn't clap, maybe I gotta know when to pump the ball. Because this is an injury, this is out of my scope, where you need some orthopedic lens. I got a great friend who does that, Chad does that, Nick does that so on so forth? And that, to me, that's the whole thing to teach how can we win so you can win? So that's kind of where the athletic. And then I think in looking at the current scenario now where things happen, that aren't always ideal in life, and you just have to make your work and figure it out. And to me, it's, if I'm not in a high pressure situation having to problem solve, and I'm not going to enjoy it. You got problem solving is like, I'm thirsty for that. That's something I enjoy doing. So, again, if it were easy, I don't want any part of that.
[00:22:00] Chad: Totally. So if you were looking at a younger version of yourself that's contemplating these same decisions. I don't know, I want to be a strength coach, or I don't know, I want to go to PT School or whatever. Is there some advice that you would give to them to help them make that decision clear?
[00:22:14] Matt Ibrahim: I would say be okay with being uncomfortable more often and more frequently then you were. Because taking the risk, taking the shot, taking a chance. While you if you don't believe in yourself, not a good idea. Taking a shot, taking the risk, taking a chance, when you have full conviction in your ability to do something is a complete different ballgame. And so for me, I wasn't a risk taker earlier on. I think for the past four or five years, I've developed a more of a fixed wing and being with failing and so I think you kind of come into your, I look at myself as a late bloomer. I'll be 33 in January, I'm not too young. I'm kind of in the middle. Like, I lift weights and run and sprint and hopefully look and feel athletic. But I would say just be more of a risk taker still be calculated, because you guys are gonna try to calculate think things through thorough thought processes. But take risks, take chances and continue to be thorough and do your homework. But don't be afraid, just put yourself out there. I know early on, you probably don't believe this. But in high school, I was known as the sweater right on the front of the classroom.
[00:23:28] Chad: Everything you’re talking about right now.
[00:23:30] Nick: I’m with you man.
[00:23:33] Matt Ibrahim: Let's look at his pitch right now go to the front of room. I'm not really sure you're sweating. Public speaking was not something I enjoy. Now. Let's get to like, , I've been fortunate that I've spoken front of hundreds spoken from the time like, it's, I enjoy, I love engaging, I love interacting, because I feed off of that energy. So it's true. I think you have to expose yourself to different scenarios where you don't you don't even know maybe skill sets why? And so that's kind of a roundabout way of answering your question.
[00:24:04] Nick: I love it. Now I can resonate with you on this. Sweating and being scared of the public speaking because I was the same way growing up. And then not to the same extent you have so far, but through college and things like that I was one of the better students, so they would ask me to speak at things I'd be like, I really don't want but I probably should. It's the right thing to do to gain the experience to do all that kind of stuff. So you are super uncomfortable. You're scared before and then you do it, you feel great for it. And I was just thinking about when you're talking about the home, learn from your mistakes, but then apply it that the parallels there obviously are crazy, but even from a rehab perspective, like we have a lot of people that come in, they're in pain. And they're in a situation where I can't do that it hurt last time I did that. Well, have you tried again, or have you modified in any way? “No, I just don't do it anymore”. So again, the parallels right there. It's we do the same thing with our movement all the time, especially nowadays, where it's like that hurts probably shouldn't do that anymore and then we just stopped. So we haven't learned from mistake and just apply that we just kind of learned and maybe even learn the wrong information. But we've learned something and just left it as is we didn't actually get up and now try it differently or try it again later on. So I was just thinking about that, as you were talking about that, which is an interesting parallel to draw for sure. So where was it going to go with that? It's being a parallel. So you did the workshop on deceleration here a few months ago. And it was awesome, fantastic information. We have a lot of PTs rehab professionals that applied this, they might be listening and be like, “Well, I get it”. But at the same time, I'm not seeing people in that kind of deceleration situation. They're back with their strength coach, whatever, at that point. What kind of advice would you give those people that might be seeing the patients and clients acutely where deceleration might not apply quite yet, but you can still start to sprinkle that in just so they're not blindsided. Those athletes aren't blindsided by the time they get there, even everyday people that need deceleration on planet Earth.
[00:26:10] Matt Ibrahim: I think the building blocks for me are nailing isometrics and Essentrics. There's a lot of good literature that talks about the relationship between the centric control resisting forces and deceleration. That's kind of like marriage right there. But I think if you even look before that body awareness, kinesthetic awareness, understanding where your body is, in space loading the tendons like isometrics are really good like HSR read heavy, slow resistance, build a tension, build awareness in the tendons, specifically patella and buatan and kilise tendon to have the more huge tension load. Obviously proximal hamstring tendon comes to the party's most of the time, but it's the lesser talked about. So for me is building strength in isometric positions, especially for those we talked this lower five body regions, ankle region, calf soleus Achilles, the posterior tibialis is there as well, I got called out in science for sport for not talking about the posterior tibialis posterior to be honest, this is one of the major ones, anterior tibialis, obviously good friend of mine, the need region, we have the patellar tendon, quad tendon, the quad muscles, etc, etc. We have the hamstring region, all of those cool muscles, you have the groin or adductor region, and as well as the hip flexor region. So targeting those muscles, you can do bodyweight, low weights, low, low loads isometrics and then build up that awareness build up that strength and then add in some of those time and attention are King Tut Essentrics. And then from there, those just exercises and movements, those were not talking about plyometrics yet. And then when he talked about Plyometrics, jumping, landing force absorption, they talk about speed, acceleration, deceleration, then you can start getting into some of those avenues. And that's a great conversation to talk about the stranger to fear of physio saying great look, we help this athlete build the building blocks, their knees, ankles, hips, hammies and groins are really strong. We've done Copenhagen planks, we've done Nordic variations. We've done cc squats or Naylors. We've done reverse Nordics. We've done some seated and standing Hillary's because we know so wasting gas buck was important. Soleus reign supreme, physiologic cross sectional area like low that sucker. It produced forces we need that. So getting those guys and gals really strong. You could say, “Hey, we've done all this stuff”. Now you're gonna have an awesome job loading them up and have a ball, decentralise, say let's go. Thanks so much. I appreciate that. So that's a handoff like handing of the baton, if you will. And so I can talk about deceleration forever. I'm so next Thursday performed that is doing some sort of online web zoom webinar series. I don't know why, but they allowed me to be on the same panel is Mike Boyle, Lee Taft and Todd Wright has been there for years. Lee Taft the speed guy and Mike Boyle. So we're talking about speed and acceleration. And so obviously, my input in my Outlook is going to be okay, how are we trying in the diesel components to enhance rate of force above to enhance utilities to enhance VBT velocity based training? How do we do that to enhance that? And to me, they kind of go hand in hand. What goes up must come down like jumping lately. You can be really fast like Mendoza. But if you don't have the brakes to slow that car down, kind of useless, you're gonna get in an accident. So I'm tying those pieces together. My boss is that guy from. But he also got the hot girl. So, for me, I think when I talk about the celebration, or whatever, when I emphasize and I emphasize talking about calf muscles, I know it's kind of like, Matt, beating the drum like we get it. But the reason why is because I don't think we're focusing on these things enough in the entire athletic development model. We'd like to speed. Speed is sexy power is sexy force production is sexy pliers are sexy, lifting weights sexy, that's awesome. These things are going to help you become more optimal in those areas and that's just kind of my outlook.
[00:30:11] Nick: I liked that too. Because draw another parallel, you were just talking about getting comfortable being uncomfortable. Isometrics, Essentrics, that's all uncomfortable. So that you got to early on in the rehab process, you got to start to develop that resiliency against discomfort, or else we're gonna have some, some roadblocks later on, for sure but it's so true. Because if you look at something like the foot, you just talked about posterior Tibialis, the majority of the muscles around the foot, create supination, which is how we, we push off. But in order to load those tissues, we have to go the other way, we have to lengthen them and that's where we are decelerating. We're loading into the tissues, and then boom, exploding out of it. So you have to slow down in order to speed up literally. So it's super important. I think you're right. You can see it in the strength conditioning world that the other stuff, like you said, it's sexy, and it’s much cooler looking. But it's same thing in the rehab world, we're putting all our eggs in some of the other baskets, and people aren't addressing it. And then we're getting all these higher injury recurrences and it's multifactorial. It's not one thing, but could we be doing better? Absolutely.
[00:31:23] Matt Ibrahim: I could blame this on social media all day long. But I think we're trying to get cute. We're trying to get creative. We're trying to invent our own exercises. And we forget the foundations and the basics and it's unreal how many people want to get spotted for doing a really, really cool exercise, but it makes no sense. And if anything you're promoting injury, you're not helping it.
[00:31:48] Nick: For sure. And another part of it too, is sometimes we were all talking about before, you gotta walk the walk some of these more. So on the PT side, some of these clinicians can't show it appropriately. Like they can't show the deceleration exercise appropriately and that's a problem too. So we appeal to people listening all the time that might be clinicians out there that you got to practice this stuff yourself, at least to some extent, even if you can only do one rep. Good, that's fine but you got to try this stuff yourself. Practice it, because you need to be able to decelerate your body, if you're not playing any sports, but also you gotta be able to show people that if you're not doing an exercise, because you can't show them or you're not capable of doing it, that's problem.
[00:32:31] Matt Ibrahim: Kevin Carr talks about this a lot. Like, your ability to coach something to actively coach something and demonstrate like a demo is pivotal. Imagine if you had no ability to talk like you were stripped of your ability to speak. If I can show you what to do, and you can mimic it, that's incredible. It's really difficult. Let's say you restricted your ability to demo something. Let's say you were immobile. For whatever reason, maybe I'm not wishing to send, I'm just a hypothetical scenario. And you try to talk someone through it, he puts you into, “Shit, I’m frustrated”, it's really difficult to verbalize things. And so what I've learned and I don't care how, why do coaching toolbelt is the best in some of the best coaching scenarios. Less is so much more in terms of verbally. I saw a stat that 65% of adults are visual learners. So they think of like two thirds of the population, or they have to see that. Me I need to see it like that. I don't even tell me like don't even show just showed it, just show me you're not talking about let me show. I got you no problem, that's just I'm very visual.
[00:33:40] Chad: And the ability to be able to show them what they're doing wrong, and then show them how to do it. It's even harder sometimes, to show correctly is really hard. And that that movement variability is crucial for you being able to show them but then even then being able to have a spectrum of movement. So now they can decrease their injury risk in the future. Because if they only have two movement options, that's not right, their odds going forward. So you can maximize that by just increasing your variability for sure.
[00:34:11] Matt Ibrahim: This is the conversation about multiplanar like understanding the importance of all planes of motion I know you've probably thought he's going to talk about frontal plane lateral spot level.
[00:34:18] Chad: We've talked about.
[00:34:22] Matt Ibrahim: It's important because most like the average human being is they just live in the sagittal plane. Which a great that's awesome like you're going to be great at squatting deadlifting like bent Austin, but you want to get side you want to get fun to play you want to get multidirectional transverse plane you want to able to rotate twist I'm gonna do all these things because shits gonna happen in life where you're not in a gym and it's not a country its own controlled environment, aka like the majority of life you fall to target protect yourself like things are going to happen.
[00:34:52] Chad: Injuries ever happen only in the sagittal plane. I don't think I've ever seen that.
[00:34:56] Nick: Except that video though. So, did you see that video that was floating around trying to do the sissy squat but it was loading it? And he wasn't even his angle was not good either. It's not great. But then it's ACL just popped off and then he fell to the ground. I was that was pretty. There's other always three planes involved in everything. But that was pretty strictly sagittal.
[00:35:23] Chad: I know you can make a case for everything that I think sagittal definitely.
[00:35:28] Matt Ibrahim: You look at it. And you feel bad, obviously, for an injury. But maybe he shouldn't have been loading that for sure at all.
[00:35:38] Nick: Like we also don't know. We don't know if that was his first time he saw someone else do it. That was his first time. And that's such an injury history in a nutshell.
[00:35:45] Matt Ibrahim: You're getting a snippet. But still, maybe you shouldn't have learned that. Now we'll be recovered for sure.
[00:35:54] Nick: And now that company that makes the system squat, little machine there and now they're gonna be hurting because no one's gonna buy those for a while.
[00:36:03] Chad: Because they see squats are bad for your knees. Now we'll see. It's gonna come out.
[00:36:07] Matt Ibrahim: Well, this is the conversation of the whole overrated, underrated and Carissa hopped in on my overrated underrated Instagram story the other day about Spanish squats. So there's some talk of that in the literature that I think they call it like a strap, like a Russian strap squat, which is a little bit different. It's not as vertical angle of the shin tibia fibula. But these are these vitamin or health exercises. Direct isolated work where you're getting just quad or you're getting just hammy via North, you're getting predominant, not just growing via Copenhagen, you're getting just gastroc via standing heel raises are always received. Like you're trying to isolate these tissues. And this is where I always think about a bodybuilder. What is their main thing hypertrophy for the most part? And people for years have said, well, think about it but most excellent. Do they want building muscle and building robustness? Don't you want to build muscle to some extent? You want to be able to get to be air quotes, functional at some point. But you have to build you have to have all these building blocks in place that constituent parts of the puzzle to then put the puzzle together. And so these health exercises, vitamin exercise that we talked about isometrics eccentric loading, you do a good job of it, then say strength coach, if you're a physio, I've done all these with the athlete. This is this is like, this is where I love to live is the best place because you can help them build robustness, not only physical, but mental fortitude.
[00:37:45] Nick: For sure. So you are a huge proponent of walking daily. How even as a meathead did you get into doing that? When did it start that kind of stuff?
[00:37:59] Matt Ibrahim: So I think inherently we all just like we generally know the benefits of walking in cardiovascular health like Vitamin-D, you get sun as males. We have lower Vitamin-D especially in New England when it's colder and darker more time for the year. So I knew I thought he was kind of walk to the car or grocery bag carrying in a farmer carrying men's can becomes a walk. Admittedly, I think like anyone during the pandemic, any kind of aid is whatever you thought you could eat, the guy's not gonna count these aren't these are like fake calories.
[00:38:33] Nick: It's unreal.
[00:38:36] Matt Ibrahim: Honestly, I'm not gonna rewind some Creek, I probably 1050 pounds. So I believe I talked to like, 220 and I like to sit around 200. And there was that piece, and it was kind of hard mentally you kind of have to do something right now like lifting weights is cool. We've done for 20 years, but I didn't do something else. And so prior to that, you talked about doing some stuff to relate to your clients athletes, I had been preparing for the Boston Marathon I know Believe it or not, I did a 70 mile run my friends Tara had dragged me it wasn't really run. But anyways cardio has not been something I've always really enjoying. , I don't mind high intensity intervals. , Sprint's I love Sprint's athletic stuff piles, but like cardio to me, it's kind of like mundane, but so I said well walk, it's kind of cool. And then my coach Greg Robbins, he's a huge, huge proponent, huge fan of weight vest walks. And so if anyone knows Greg, he is kind of one of those guys who walks the walk, and then talks the talk and he backs the blank out. He really does that. And so I had seen him have some really great success himself individually. I said, Pollack, let me give this a shot. So I had started with 220. So 40 pounds weight vest, and I would carry two fives around the neighborhood where I live with it's a police station, literally next door to me, during the pandemic. Not a good idea. I couldn't breathe. Maybe I should just do 20 pounds. And so at this point in my walking career, I'm up to like, think of meat non-exercise activity thermoregulation like the shit you're doing when you don't really think about a routine. Greg talks about are the retractable gear 3.5 to 4 hours a week of that. So I live four days a week. And then I tried to get into minimum of four totals today gotten 30. How to get them before the show, and you get to talk about it. And it's fun for me and I enjoy it. I get to see the nature of birds chirping. I get my Starbucks coffee, don't worry. It's just a black cold brew with a shot of espresso. I don't get anything out of it. Just coffee. And today was a 30. So Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, I'm not routine, our 30 minute bangers. And Wednesday standards guaranteed one hour Sundays like whatever listen wants to do, we do insurance go for long walks or rock, whatever, I don't put the best time on Sundays, Sunday's best lists. So I tried to get four hours of a vest walk minimum each week, and then whatever extra is icing on the cake. And I think you get a lot like think of decompression, think of mental health, mental wellness, stress, anxiety, think of just kind of getting in touch with your thoughts and just kind of the birds, I joke around, but you're getting to different scenery. You Blaze different neural Paths, you're just learning different things. You're walking, learning, but it's also nice because you can build up some of those foot muscles and lower limb muscles. You just walk it and think of think of ground reaction forces are really, really low. So it's just nice way to get extra miles. And I don't do it for the weight loss component. Although I do think wearing a vest probably helps in that regard. For me, it's more of a decompression thing.
[00:41:45] Chad: For sure. We get that as a group not to just last week we actually did, we went out for a walk. And it's something that Nick's been doing over the last.
[00:41:53] Nick: I've been trying to get into it every day because I normally would do. So from the spring through the summer, I was doing some form of cardio at least five days a week and then I was lifting five days a week. And sometimes it'd be like cardio seven and lifting five. So I was doing too much for sure.
[00:42:15] Chad: He didn't see it if I had to tell him I was like Nick, I think you're overreaching bro. It's sunk in for two hours.
[00:42:22] Nick: I had blinders on.
[00:42:23] Chad: Do you think I'm really overreaching? I'm like, bro, “Yes”.
[00:42:27] Nick: I had the blinders on.
[00:42:28] Chad: You took that Thursday off, you went home.
[00:42:30] Nick: I had the blinders on. I didn't even take fully off. I went for a walk. And it felt great. So I was like, “Man, I should do more of this”. And not to say I wasn't walking. Alicia and I, my wife, we walk on the beach, we live near the beach. So we weren't going to be all the time, but normally it's Alicia, do you want to go for a while? And that's on top of I already did cardio and then lifting. So I was like, if I'm not gonna work workout, or I'm gonna short my workout, I need to get out of the clinic. Because look at this place. We're sitting in Iraq doing a podcast right now. So every time I'd be in here, our break, we closed now from 12 to two and have two hours, I had the internal desire to try to use all two hours to the best of my ability and try to gain as much fitness as possible right now. And so now I've just been trying to get out of the clinic for 30 minutes to go for a walk. And then it's been nice. So just trying to try to up the, the walking. I think before I was probably getting 8,000 to 10,000 steps a day. Now, it's 13 to 15 which still, I probably don't need that many but it's nice. It's a lot. We're constantly moving in here too. I do the stairs like probably 15 or more than that, and then upstairs training people just like up and down the turf. You don't realize and then I did that. We got the balance beams here. So I'm always like playing on that even when I have clients, like I'll be barefoot and they'll just be doing something. And while I'm like talking to them, I'll be walking on the beam. So my arms are moving so the phenomenons can you're doing swings throughout the day. So I bet you that you're well that's my swing that I do 100 swings a day. 100 kettlebells swings a day, that's just my thing. And it's straight, so it's unbroken but it's not the same way every day. Sometimes I use a 53. So it's lighter. And I just read from our fast, everyday doesn't every day and then I'm the one to at least one day a week I try to use the 124 400 straight and that's just grip strength.
[00:44:26] Chad: I will say get a grip strength is mighty we do. So we do a carry a loaded carry every week when we call it the barbarian walk and we've got it to the point where we are doing trap our carries at our bodyweight pretty much.
[00:44:40] Nick: It’s 225. You got to do 10 deadlifts right into a farmer's carry to failure. And then your partner jumps in. They do tend to lists they go to failure. Once your partner fails, you got to jump back.
[00:44:54] Chad: It's about 80 yards or so?
[00:44:55] Nick: We pretty much laps out in parking lot. So it's probably around that.
[00:45:00] Chad: Nick you'll get about two laps in and I get about a lap and a quarter. And I'm like, “Damn, how did you hold that thing?”
[00:45:08] Nick: Swings baby, swings every day, if you want to get your grip strength up swings everyday people, it's the Fountain of Youth lifted like 150. But that's just my thing. And honestly, it takes me off two and a half minutes. So if it's sometimes it's the worst, it'll be like, I'll get out of here at seven. It'd be like 650 all that crap and into my swings. I gotta get men. It's only a few minutes. Like, I didn't want to leave early. But you got to do.
[00:45:36] Matt Ibrahim: Well, that's the whole thing was discipline and building characters like, well, if you said, you're going to do this thing, you should probably do the thing. Because you told the person that you're going to do the thing. I've tried to make things really simple word, the last tidbit on walking, I love it so much that a lot of my clients who anytime you hear weight loss you like, because it's the easiest entry point for cardiovascular work. I'm not like sitting here saying I'm not comparing walking to jogging and running a sprint. They're different animals. But you crawl then you walk any kind of building ladder. So a few of my clients, I'm like, , you should get a 20 pound weight vest, like let it rip and our programming on true code for that online and in home, , workouts, walk for ‘X’ amount of minutes. At this pace, find the hill or don't find hill, what type of tempo or pace I'm late from lunch pace. Because the only nice face, Greg as well. And so I got my brother got one, I got my father in law one like, I'm big on just it's a starting point. And we just start here, and then you can go from there if you'd liked it, having a waitlist around is never a bad idea.
[00:46:45] Nick: That's awesome. I like that. I like that a lot. There was something else in there too, that you had said that I wanted to comment on, but I can't. Well, since we were talking about Ken Hardy, you want to segue into we can do this? We've been trying. We've been asking, it's been asking every person every guest, we kind of know you're answering it because everyone in the field, the answer is pretty similar. But we just want to hear your perspective on it because we have this. It's funny, because we always talk we call it a debate that Chad and I have, but it's not a debate because we end at the same point. We just take different roads to get there. Will cardio hurt your muscle gains? What's your enlightenment's?
[00:47:26] Matt Ibrahim: This is interesting. So when I was preparing for the boss map, and I want everyone to know who's listening, I'm not a runner. I'm not somebody who say, “Wow, that guy looks like he's a runner”. But anecdotally, from October 2019 to April 2020, I didn't actually run it. Because I think you had to like film yourself or like, record your time because you weren't allowed to do because the whole thing and I was like, what, I've raised the money. It was a fundraiser. I was like, I raised plenty of money. I'm happy I did that, but I ran 17 grand so we're getting over half that is 70 more than I'll ever run in my life. And I'm like, I could have had a pizza and French fries and watch a movie this time. But anyways, so for me at the time I was only lifting like full body strength conditioning strength training twice a week while running I think it was three small run of two small runs each week like three to five, three to six or four to six. And then on the Saturday Sun was a big like a monster run like anywhere from depending on where you were in the prep from like six to 15 miles and so obviously the closer I got the more mileage.
[00:48:32] Nick: So everybody listened to what he said there he was training for a marathon but he was still lifting, all that runners listen to that he was still lifting you can still live there.
[00:48:42] Matt Ibrahim: This is good. I'm gonna segue right back to. I want to take a detour. Running is a form of a plyometric you're always on one foot, two feet, so it is indeed athletic. But it's like a jump rope it is ployment it is extensive it is low, low amplitude but it is a plyometric rate of force development and joint reaction force if you need to be strong to absorb that those forces so again, we talked about calves come into play nice you like talking about cat I can't help it. So these things come into play you need to be you need to be relatively strong and so we had been working with a lot of the endurance population at the center of this was this a lot has opened my e to this these opportunities but running so the question was does running take away or degrade your strengths or vice versa or…?
[00:49:35] Nick: You can talk about both
[00:49:36] Matt Ibrahim: Lifting weights absolutely makes you better at running because running economy running efficiency rate before running economic thing. I'm not saying it's gonna make you a world class runner but you'll be able to say wow, like I actually feel more put together more my forms a little bit my techniques better my turnover rate, my knees feel healthy, so on so forth. I think strength training. There's a lot of good research on this that it shows it does. Resistance training or RT in the research or strength training is one of those things where it's, it's one of the only hammers you can swing that has a direct impact positively in so many areas, flexibility, endurance, mobility, so on so forth. The flip side of the coin, think of the individual who just runs for five, six days a week and doesn't lift any weights whatsoever, you're chronically going to have some form of lower body injuries, because you're only loading the tissue in the tendons and the structures and the joints and the bones more mineral density in one way. You're not building up that durability. And so if I'm going to plan to be a really high volume runner, I want to lift at some point, I don't think I answered your question directly, though.
[00:50:45] Nick: No, that's okay. That was great, though, because it's so true. I would say that the majority, I don't want to say the majority, because we see the whole lifespan, but the majority of our runners are runners that are in here that don't have the strength training in the background? Or if they do, they're like, oh, no, I took a break from it for now to increase my running. And like, I don't want you to do that. I want you to gradually ramp up the running while you're still doing the strength training, maybe tip, tailor it back a little bit, but still need to keep doing it. So I would say a majority of people we see in a rehab context, when they're runners, by trade are ones that either don't have the strength training background, or they just stopped that abruptly or significantly decreased it to the point where running was just outweighing it so much that now they got themselves into a little bit of a pinch.
[00:51:31] Matt Ibrahim: I look at running like, running is the vehicle that sweet. What type of what type of truck is that out there?
[00:51:37] Chad: Oh, that's a gladiator.
[00:51:38] Matt Ibrahim: You get a sweet white Jeep gladiator what's nice red and black stickers and the ProForm license plate. Running is the vehicle strengthening is gasolines not going to run this unless you have strength training in your repertoire. And so you can take a picture that that can be a logo if you'd like to, to but you can you can, you can try to drive that you can play with the wheel, we're not going to go into unless you strength train to so that they can accept that load. It's really important this is this gets into the whole topic of force absorption. This is why I get so jazzed up about because I'm like guys, we can be awesome in all these areas. If we just do the thing. The thing is lifting weights and thing is landing so on so forth.
[00:52:15] Chad: I think it kind of gets confusing for people too, because I think people look at running as a form of strength training, and I don't know if that's like something that they were either told, or they just assume that that's there's, they're strengthening as they're running so that they kind of tell themselves, they're working out even though they're running. So they don't, it's our job to make them know that that's not correct.
[00:52:41] Matt Ibrahim: This is why I like looking at research. And I'm in a PhD program, and I'm not that research guy, but I was putting it up. Maybe I'm sure I don't know anyways. I think if we bring back the word resistance training, I know it's kind of just a sprain, if I say resistance training inherently, you have to have some sort of resistance, like bodyweight. But in the context of a runner, hey, you need to have a band, you need to have a mini band, a TRX need to have a kettlebells, a barbell or a dumbbell, a plate, medicine ball etc. There needs to be external resistance that lowers my body so I can adapt physiologically to that load for the stressors.
[00:53:19] Chad: It changes the whole verbiage of the activity.
[00:53:25] Nick: It does. And I think a lot of people to pick up running because they think, it's burning more calories than resistance training. But if you resistance train, you put on more muscle. And now the muscle requires more calories. So you're still doing in a roundabout way. It's just people have a hard time kind of grasping that because they're like, if I go run, I'm gonna burn twice as many calories. That's true, or twice as many calories and half the time, but you still might be losing muscle. So it's an interesting topic, for sure. But we just always like to ask that question. You want to talk about the best bang for your buck?
[00:54:04] Chad: That was a fun one. I want to hear what Matt's answer is gonna pay this one.
[00:54:07] Nick: But we'll do best bang for your buck first and then we'll do favorite. So what is your and it can be anything best bang for your buck exercise, whether it's for you clients, anybody but best bang for your buck across the board get to get a check off the most boxes and you love it?
[00:54:27] Matt Ibrahim: So I think it's if you're someone who you want well, I want to be simple deadlift. And the reason I think this is because I was gonna say what the last straw was while I was gonna say getup that's a good one, but really reason I didn't is because I don't think there's that much of a learning curve. Like the reason let's say, Olympic weightlifting like “No, no, but there's still a little bit of think for sure”. Tensegrity your attention and a lot of radiation. So where do I want to feel this? You might get away with half trickers get it for free work but I'm gonna do a full trip together. I want to make sure that they're competent. And that's not an easy one. Not an easy one. Like usually you coach at this conference, Gary, because they talk they talk with fist up and you have the shoe on your handle drop the shoe easy? No, it's not that. To me, it's a dealt with. And I say this, let me peel a couple layers back, please. So, deadlift we think hold barbell conventional or barbell Sumo? I love it. Like, let's do it great. This thing called the trap bar, there's a thing called a really heavy kettlebells. And there's a thing called dumbbells you can hold vertically. When you train people in their homes, you have to be really creative commercials. And maybe you had a band for resistance around the foot and be in always getting C's percolating. His ideas are going. I don't have these three categories of my disposal, but same thing with goblet squats. Well, they've already hit the 40 pounder, they make dumbbells up to like a buck. Like you can keep going. So a kettlebells, especially the ones that so there's circus kettlebells that are all the same diameter and shape, then there's the ones that I appreciate much better. Like kind of the Russian version where bigger the more weight, the bigger they get, at one point, at one point, that kettlebells is kind of the same depth as that as you would go for a trap bar deadlift. So learning tension there, active foot pressing to the ground, pushing the floor away from you, hip extension, trunk strength, lat stiffness, that mean we're getting all the beautiful qualities, then I can really understand I'm gonna use those quads and other lifts as well. So to me it's the purest form of Fidel if not just a barbell to mentor sumo trot bar kettlebells, dumbbell deadlift, just understanding where I want to be to create force, can you think of the power position. IMTP, isometric mid-thigh pole is one of the greatest test to show our what's his power profile this athlete? They're in that kind of hip hinge deadlift position. And then someone who will argue and say, Trump or kettlebells or dumbbell this kind of squatting. I know, on the hip. But I'm talking about the name of the exercise.
[00:57:05] Chad: That’s exactly what we said on the last podcast.
[00:57:08] Matt Ibrahim: There's been a conversation lately with like mosquito squats are always known as need not I think Mike brought that up. And it's a phenomenal conversation to have. Well, his outlook as well. It's actually more hip domain. What I'll say is, “I firmly believe you can really make any lower body exercise more hip, knee dominant”. Guys knows that Boston Pizza was when we teach the hip hinge one on one workshop. He talked about a dimmer and a light switch. And then Greg knuckles has that beautiful chart, the hip hinge continuum shot and it shows the case the most maybe a good morning. The least which is the most squatty like pure barbell back or front squat, because it's the interior loaded. So it's just kind of where you want to go with that with me, is the deadlift.
[00:57:58] Nick: I love it. And actually, you've said at the beginning that the last person said that but Jackson actually said deadlift was his favorite. His best bang was split squat.
[00:58:06] Chad: That's right, that's right.
[00:58:09] Matt Ibrahim: Wait a second. Because split squats vary with my favorite deadlift is bang for your buck. I have a unique answer for you and I apologize.
[00:58:20] Nick: Oh, I like this a unique answer.
[00:58:24] Matt Ibrahim: So over the years, I've always had this affinity for one single leg RDL or one leg RDL, whatever you want to call it. I love it. I think it's great. It just gives you so many good qualities. I have come to really appreciate the value of a sports one and I know why I seem to snippy with the last guy. Here's why I've appreciated it. I'm thinking like split squat you can go flat mound you can go front foot elevated ref or both feet. Put these two voiceovers in person. But think of think of the front foot that we think active foot we understand knee can go over our toes like things can happen. It's wonderful. And you're like, well that guy in the back to kind of hang in there. Like we're getting big toe except on the houseboat. Who has big toe tension inherently, not many folks who could use it every foot push off one sprint and running and walking. Big Toe is really important. Jumping and landing, Big Toe deceleration. So to me it's like understanding how to load those is this important and then I think the exercise that everyone hates similar to bike Sprint's which we're doing later, is the rear foot elevated or Bulgarian split squat Think of what you're having to do to complete that task you hate it but the results are there. So if I had a really narrow down the rear foot elevated split squat is like the most bang for your buck but the younger cousin of bad what's quite I get to answer but I don’t want it.
[00:59:59] Nick: I do like this Split Squat when lot of PRI guys, Connor Harris, there's a bunch of other ones that relate the rear foot elevated to regular squat two front foot elevated as the part of the gate, sorry, it'd be the other way, because front foot is more like heel strike, you go from negative Shin angle to kind of Shin over the ankle to a split squat, you're going from Shin over the ankle to forward a positive, Shin angle, and then someone moves on to the rear foot elevated. So that is a good way to think about them. Like, if someone comes in, it's a great way to think about it in the rehab world. Because if someone comes in and say, this person is having trouble absorbing shock, at heel strike to mid stance, let's work on the front foot elevated, and irregular split squat, someone's having trouble with propulsion, let's get him in the rear foot elevated position. So it's cool that you can kind of split it up that way and then split squat. Now you talk about a lateral lunge, you could argue that that's a split squat. So it is definitely a nice universal movement for sure. And it's a good one for both rehab and strength conditioning context for sure.
[01:01:07] Chad: Yeah, absolutely. So what does the future from Matt Ibrahim hold? What do you got? You got any cool things coming up, or what?
[01:01:14] Matt Ibrahim: Well, my client this morning told me to start watching succession on Netflix. I don't know if that counts my future. The whole lifespan of my future, I got into the first episode a few months back, and then we kind of like, fizzled out, “No, you gotta like three or four episodes, you gotta really, really invest in” it the whole night I'm gonna invest. For me just teaching. So between now and my next semester, I'm focused on just pour myself from an academic standpoint of teaching at the Maryville and teaching Endicott , and also being a student PGA about a year and a half left, and just really just becoming better at that understanding how I can become better as a scholar, student, but also understanding how can I take my learning my teaching style, and make it more academic friendly, versus kind of jumping all over the place and so more application and stuff like that, and then still training athletes and clients in their homes. So, for me, I think the long term goal is to be a full time academic professor, teacher, or just professionals working in a collegiate setting the entire time. I obviously, as you guys know, love to interact and engage. So I'd love to be able to interact with the screen conditioning staff, training staff, sports medicine staff, the exercise science department, somehow find a position or role that allows me to do all of these things, because I want to be able to pay for students. In addition, I'll always train folks, athletes come on to the side, and whether it's a few here or there, that's something I'll never stop doing. But to me, I'm really dialed in on teaching and educating. And I know that it's in the lens, at least how I see it as a coach.
[01:02:54] Chad: And that program is going to be gold, if they can have you as a professor and working with their strength and conditioning staff.
[01:02:59] Matt Ibrahim: One can hope.
[01:03:02] Chad: Anything else you want to add to that, Nick? Was there any questions that we missed?
[01:03:06] Nick: I don't think so.
[01:03:07] Chad: I know. Anything else you wanted to add? Matt, anything you want to say?
[01:03:09] Matt Ibrahim: Well, I think you guys for having me, I really do appreciate it. I think, like many of us out there, you've been on podcast and it's fun. Like, you go on podcast and you're through screening. And it makes the best way to find anytime you can be impression and interact with someone, let alone be thought of a gem, let alone being inside of a rack squat rack that we're actually physically sitting inside right now. We'll be using it a few minutes. It's just exactly to me like, I think you get more out of it. I think you kind of you squeeze more out of it. I really appreciate it. And anyone who doesn't know these guys, definitely check them out. They do a great job. Physical therapy, rehab S&C great staff, super friendly staff. And that's a big thing connecting with people just being kind know route people in the world. And just really engaging with one another because we help build each other up, we help build the field up and the better we can become for the field, the better we can serve our athletes and clients.
[01:04:07] Chad: So if anybody wanted to find you, how could they find you on Instagram or your website? If I want to pick your brand?
[01:04:13] Matt Ibrahim: Probably on Instagram. The easiest thing for me is Instagram because I finds my direct messages. I'm happy to reply to that and if there's any if there are any students listening to this or young up and coming coaches or physical therapist, when I say you can reach out to me, I would I look forward to speaking with you hopping on a phone call learning about it in negative to help, please, it's something I thoroughly look forward too.
[01:04:41] Chad: Well, we appreciate you coming up, Matt. I know you're not like super close, but you're close enough. So we gotta do this more often for sure. So, after we do this episode, we are actually working out and I saw and that's right, that's the deal. When you come on the show like you have to lift that's the deal like you just see it “In The RACK”. That's how we say it. So I saw the schedule for Matt's workout because, Nick, and I are pretty flexible in our routine right now we're kind of going through transitions so it's on you man. You tell us what the workout is. So we sent the workout and I saw a one it was bench-press and like to music and then Nick goes, “Did you see the rest of it?” No, I did. I looked at the end, it's bite splint.
[01:05:20] Matt Ibrahim: This is so I so I'm on a four day split now, so Greg Robbins is my coach out of the spring custom Western. He's the crème de la crème. I love him but I'm going to split now where I'm no longer actively like doing powerlifting competitions. Not that I was putting up respectable numbers by any means. But it's just my focus now is feeling good, moving well, feeling athletic. So it's the Monday is more of a squat focus Tuesday's more of a bench focus Thursday, the deadlift focusing on Friday is more of like a body, fun accessory, just whatever you want to do focus. And so there's definitely some arm farm, we're doing some bench pressing at some high volume, low percentages, and then we're only though it's like sprint, so it should be a fun time.
[01:06:02] Chad: It's gonna be great. I can't wait. So for next episode, we have another guest speaker, this guest speakers and in house guest speaker and I actually asked her today so no pressure. It's my beautiful wife, Katie Burnham. She is a women's health specialist in the field of physical therapy. She actually works here at ProForm. And we wanted to kind of bring her on the show to kind of pick her brain about what Women's Health PT looks like, and how Women's Health PT can help somebody that might need it who might you be, that we can help. So we are actually doing a workshop. It's tomorrow the 23rd. But by the time you hear this would have already happened. We are going to stream it on Instagram. So if you want to check it on Instagram, Nick and Katie are teaming up. It's how the pelvic floor and the foot are intimately related. And no spoilers but that big toe super important.
[01:06:53] Nick: That is important.
[01:06:57] Matt Ibrahim: Oh, surprised.
[01:04:41] Chad: I played around with it, it actually works. So make sure you check out that that IG TV. Definitely reach out to us if you have any questions about that. Look forward to the next episode. And you guys all know, I always finish with them all a story. I usually have it before the episode. But usually when we have a guest, I don't know where it's gonna go. So I do it on the fly. So, this is the moral of the story for today's episode “You learn more from failure than from your success. If you're listening to this, and if you have ever failed, try again. If you fail again, just make sure to fail better”. Remember, failure is not the opposite of success. Take it from our guy, Matt. Look at failure as part of your success.
[01:07:42] PODCAST OUTRO: Thank you for joining us “In The RACK” this week. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on any future episodes. You can also find us online at proformptma.com, or on social media at ProForm PTMA. And remember;
“If you train inside the rack, you better be thinking outside the rack”.
