1) I’m three years out of PT School and have worked hard to build a professional support network with particular focus on having great mentors. It was a priority to me coming out of school to find a clinic that would provide this opportunity for me. I also had great mentors in school who guided me in my research plans and in determining my path. These mentors are always available to me and happy (I hope!) to give their input when needed - but they’ve been around for 3-6 years. The absolute best thing I did in 2017 was add a new mentor to my crew. I have access to new perspectives, resources, a bigger network of professionals - all with different experiences and knowledge. My original mentors haven’t lost any value- they’re huge influences on me both personally and professionally and I’m immensely grateful to them. But doing this has reinvigorated me to grow as a physical therapist and has provided me with new content to read, classes to consider, different ways to prioritize my continuing education towards certifications, and career and employment advice that ultimately doesn’t impact him. I highly recommend finding mentors that will take the time to put your best interests to heart and help you along the pathway and keep growing your professional network.
2) The second best thing I did in 2017 was to find myself a personal health coach that helped me get on track with work-life balance and develop my own routine. She's like having a professional closet organizer come in and give me guidance towards organizing my life. Even coaches need coaching- in lots of ways. It's not just about a coach for the weight room. She's here to help me get balance and keep me accountable while I'm getting my diet and training into a regular routine as well as helping me with my mental focus.
I’m a huge fan of the idea that people should be doing training programs- not arbitrary workouts. This is something I have been guilty of for years. I know enough to write a workout but never spent the time to write myself a program with consideration for microcycles or macrocycles working towards a longer term focus with targeted goals. Thus- my past was full of workouts - a habit that yielded plateaus, imperfect compliance, and failure to achieve the goals I have set for myself. And I got bored with them! Now, I have a plan and a timeline with an end date and know that as I reach its end, I will either get a coach to plan my next cycle or write a new one myself - but either way - my routine is planned and I know what I'm doing for the next several weeks of training.
So- that’s a glance into my current routine... but how does this help with patient care? By working on my own training, I’ve seen how longer term planning and focus during sessions has impacted my own body and have started to implement this with patients. For example: I see lots of kids with ankle sprains. In the past, I might have done a session with strengthening, balance, mobility, and plyometrics all together. Now, especially if I’m not sharing the patient and plan to see them several sessions in a row, I might focus a whole session on balance in several ways and the next whole session might be a core training or core and strength focus. I think overall this will help me become more efficient and I’m looking forward to seeing how it impacts my patient outcomes. Additionally, I've given a lot more thought to the dynamic warm up component of my own workouts and the rehab sessions... that's a post for another day, though!
I’m a huge fan of the idea that people should be doing training programs- not arbitrary workouts. This is something I have been guilty of for years. I know enough to write a workout but never spent the time to write myself a program with consideration for microcycles or macrocycles working towards a longer term focus with targeted goals. Thus- my past was full of workouts - a habit that yielded plateaus, imperfect compliance, and failure to achieve the goals I have set for myself. And I got bored with them! Now, I have a plan and a timeline with an end date and know that as I reach its end, I will either get a coach to plan my next cycle or write a new one myself - but either way - my routine is planned and I know what I'm doing for the next several weeks of training.
So- that’s a glance into my current routine... but how does this help with patient care? By working on my own training, I’ve seen how longer term planning and focus during sessions has impacted my own body and have started to implement this with patients. For example: I see lots of kids with ankle sprains. In the past, I might have done a session with strengthening, balance, mobility, and plyometrics all together. Now, especially if I’m not sharing the patient and plan to see them several sessions in a row, I might focus a whole session on balance in several ways and the next whole session might be a core training or core and strength focus. I think overall this will help me become more efficient and I’m looking forward to seeing how it impacts my patient outcomes. Additionally, I've given a lot more thought to the dynamic warm up component of my own workouts and the rehab sessions... that's a post for another day, though!
3) In 2017, I dramatically increased my "reading," particularly because I discovered the world of audiobooks and podcasts. I know- a little late to the party. The experts in the field say you should be devoting an hour daily to learning/reading and many days that just wasn’t possible for me - but with a new longer commute after my job change, I can get an hour of audio time at least 3 days per week. Thus, I've been working my way through all of the existing episodes of “The Ask Mike Reinold Show” and have found that reading shorter blog posts during the day adds up to my hour when I can't sit down and read longer pieces. Just like my workouts, I wrote myself a reading plan and am reading all the archived blog posts from Tim DiFrancesco (awesome variety of quick reads with the occasional basketball flare) and Lenny Macrina (new blog - with literature reviews! So good!), rather than just arbitrarily reading whatever comes into my inbox - and I have a plan for the next round of podcasts and blogs once these are completed. Here are some of the great books I read in 2017 (and yes, I do also read novels - because I need to be able to talk to my patients about something, too!).
- Sports biographies: Sum it up (Pat Summitt - Tennessee Women's Basketball), Forward: A Memoir (Abby Wambach - USA Women's Soccer), Shoe Dog (Phil Knight - Founder of NIKE), Tuff Juice (Caron Butler - UConn and NBA Basketballer)
- Unique in sports- Born to Run: a hidden tribe of super athletes and the greatest race the world has ever seen by Christopher McDougall
- World Biography: Born a Crime (Trevor Noah), I am Malala (Malala Yousafzai)
- Breathing: Science of Breath
- Women in science: Headstrong: 52 women who changed Science and the World
- Currently reading: Deep Nutrition by Dr. Catherine Shanahan (coming soon: blog post for book review!)
Looking ahead to 2018: what do I have planned?
1) I’ve got some shadowing/observation time that I'm arranging with various different practitioners including surgery observation, time with a chiropractor who values exercise, quality time with some experienced and up-and-coming strength coaches, and some amazing physical therapists with various specialties.
2) In addition to the blogs/podcast archives I'm finishing up, I have several new blogs planned to get through - particularly the works of Eric Cressey - which is a whole lot of reading because he's been writing for so long. Also, more books planned:
2) In addition to the blogs/podcast archives I'm finishing up, I have several new blogs planned to get through - particularly the works of Eric Cressey - which is a whole lot of reading because he's been writing for so long. Also, more books planned:
- Nutrition: The Omnivores Dilemma by Michael Pollan and In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan
- Evolution: The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
- Coaching: Conscious Coaching by Bret Bartholomew
- Pain Science: Explain Pain: Supercharged by David Butler
- Sports Biographies: Pre (Steve Prefontaine), In My Skin - My Life On and Off the Basketball Court (Brittney Griner),They Call Me Coach (John Wooden), From the outside. My Journey Through Life and the Game I Love. Ray Allen.
- Women's Basketball: Bird at the Buzzer by Jeff Goldberg
3) Even bigger focus on sports periodization planned for my own training program to begin in March 2018 once my current program is completed. I'm banking on this getting better from reading so much of Eric's work
4) More blogging. Because I'm starting to really enjoy my visits to the local coffee shop where I'm becoming a Thursday morning regular and am loving their ginger peach pot of tea.
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