I Am Pissed!  A Trip Inside My Head

I am really pissed off right now and I can’t focus on anything else, so you will get an inside look into my brain. Caution, you have been warned.

As readers of this blog know, I do training and nutrition work to get professional and every day athletes of all types performance increases. I’ve been doing it for several years now and I’ve spent well over $200,000 over the years on getting better at my craft via college, seminars, certifications, books, etc. This is not meant to impress you, but if you are serious about something you have to pay to play. I know many others that have paid very large sums to practice their craft, so this is no different.

Why I am Pissed

I am pissed off to no end now because I could not get the result I wanted from an athlete I worked with this morning. Note, this has absolutely nothing to do with the athlete and everything to do with me. I feel like I failed him because I did not have a solution to his pain issue. We spent 1.5 hours trying all sorts of things, with very little change. My agreement is that if I can’t get a performance increases or a large change in your pain, the session is free. The athletes satisfaction is my primary concern and I fully believe that if I don’t deliver, I should NOT be compensated. End of story.

The System Is Broke

This is the direct opposite to most professions. Take physical therapy (not to pick on them, but….) if you (not anyone who reads this blog, way too bright for that) are an average PT and you take 12 sessions to get a result and you charge $50 per session, you made $600. If you are a stellar PT and you get the result in 3 sessions, at the same price, you get $150. You were clearly better (got the same result in LESS time), but you made about 1/4 as much. How much incentive is there for you to get better? Not much!

True, that it is different when you own your own business, since if you suck, hopefully you will go out of business. If you suck, I don’t want you around to drag everyone else down and please go away and the sooner the better. I won’t get into the whole fitness business and how anyone can take a weekend cert by mail and be a fitness trainer. It makes me vomit in my mouth a bit each time I read it. Ugh. I need some mouth wash. Ok, I am back now. Where was I? I know business is very complicated and there are times where the most knowledgeable are also piss broke, but if you work for a large company, there is normally very little incentive to get better.

You’re Insane

I have many great friends in the field who are doctors, physical therapist, other trainers, consultants etc and almost all of them tell me I am completely out of my tree, coo coo insane, have a melon where my head should be because this is my expectation below

I expect that 99% of the people that walk through my door that I can get a dramatic performance increase (also many times equalling a decrease in pain) in ONE session that last 1-2 hours.

I’ve had many long discussions with many of them arguing that IF this is even physiologically possible. They say no and I say it is possible. If pain and performance are primarily (not entirely of course) controlled by the brain, we know that you can make changes in the brain extremely fast (as I have learned in Z-Health).

Yes, there are times that there will be a biomechanical and/or biochemical issue, but even then you should still be able to see a large change in one session.

I’ve seen athletes with missing rotators via MRI have no limitations on shoulder function and no pain.

Is this the norm? No, but it can happen. My point is that I feel the brain and nervous system are the most plastic systems in the body and are also open to the greatest change at the fastest speed (this is supported by research on brain neuroplasticity).

Does this mean we ONLY need to focus on the nervous system–no, of course not; but if pain reduction and performance are your goals, you have to address the nervous system.

Victory Destroys Knowledge

That was a great quote from Dan John. While I do remember many of the “successes” I’ve had, my failures stick in my brain like a canary in a coal mine. You notices I put “successes” in quotes since I did not do ANY of the darn work, the athlete did all the work and hence they should get the credit. I just helped point them in a better direction. They had the discipline to do the work!

I’ve been very fortunate to work with athletes to get them out of pain, avoid surgeries, compete in the Olympics pain free, bend over to pick up their kids without pain, take a ski trip vacation and ski 5 days in a row for the first time ever, etc. These are all great and completed by highly motivated athletes.

What I remember more are the cases where I could not do anything. We tried for 2-3 sessions or more with no change. Granted, these athletes usually had been everywhere and done everything, but I still feel like I should have had a solution.

I know that their pain is not my issue and that it takes many reps to over ride the lifetime of poor reps they have accumulated and that nobody has a 100% solution for chronic pain. Look no further than research on the success of various low back pain treatments and many of them are acute, no chronic pain issues. Yet somehow I feel I should have all the answers. They come to me as their last hope and if I can’t help them in a very short period of time I feel like I let them down and have failed them. Completely unrealistic I know, but I still feel pissed when I can’t get a result. I know there is a solution and when it evades me I can’t stand it. Yes I am neurotic too.

What To Do

To keep myself sane, I don’t work primarily with chronic pain clients. The toll on my psyche is more than I can handle and the logical conclusion is that the better you get, the harder the cases you get and at the end you will only be left with your failures. I know I can’t handle that. I do, however, take on “hard cases” to force myself to learn. I learn more from the difficult ones than from any others. Fear of failure will drive you much farther than success, but you need to be aware of the cost.

Performance increases are relatively easy for me now. I know that sounds like a super arrogant statement, but it is true. Most athletes have just a slight (or major) movement issue that is impairing their current performance. Remove that (which could be mobility, visual, vestibular or soft tissue) and performances goes up. Think of it as removing the king pin from a log jam. Once you do that, the whole river flows again just by that one minor change.

Your Trip Is Complete

There you have it. A trip inside my brain to see what drives me. I did warn you that it is a bit of a scary place. I’ve been told by multiple well meaning people that I need more knowledge like I need a hole in the head and I should spend more time on marketing. My business model of primarily seeing athletes for single sessions once a month or even less is the worst possible thing to do. What you realize very fast is that once someone is out of pain, they forget they ever had pain extremely fast, so your time for referrals is very short. Getting new clients routinely is much harder than working with them routinely. I do have some reoccurring clients, but most come for an acute change and that is what I deliver.

While I am spending more time learning marketing and business now (and they are no evil and truly needed), my true passion is bridging the chasm between research land and practice. We can learn a ton from both and in the process and I move step by step closer to that 99%. I may never get there, but if you aim high and miss by a bit, you are still much higher than if you aimed low. Don’t tell this to my psyche if you see it lying on the road somewhere trying to hitch hike!

A HUGE Thank You!

Thanks to all for their support and reading this blog. It truly means a ton to me and I promise I will do everything I can to help as many athletes of all types destroy their old personal records. I feel incredibly fortunate that I know exactly why I was put on this earth and exactly what I want/need to do. Many spend their lifetimes looking and wandering, so I am truly blessed and grateful.

I need to send a very special shout out to my soon to be wife Jodie too for all of her endless support and to my family. Thank you!!

Rock on
Mike T Nelson

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