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The Knowbodies Interview, Asheville Beer, & The Guitarist Analogy
1) The Knowbodies are three physical therapist that have created a podcast to help create healthier and more informed society. They cover a great breadth of topics, from equine therapy to dentistry to sleep. And now they have a rambling PT that can’t pronounce his -ings.
I recently did an interview with them on how I manage and appraise information. It was great experience. They asked great questions and were a pleasure to talk to. It was also interesting to hear the different questions each of them had. They all have their own style and approach towards interviewing. This allows the listeners to gain all these perspectives in one listen.
2) I wrote an accompanying blog post on dealing with information overload. Part 1 goes over some of the problems. Part 2 gives 6 tips on how to better manage and appraise information. I think these articles can be valuable for anyone that wants to improve their information digestion. Here’s the quick tl/dr summary:
1. Create Categories of Categories of Categories
2. Write it down
3. Actively Control Your Informational Environment
4. Understand Intention
5. Avoid Drama
6. Study
Retrospective Digressions
I like writing because I can slow things down, re-read what I wrote, and most importantly, edit. The podcast didn’t allow for any of that, but if it did I would add/edit these ramblings in…
3) The answer to the first question in the podcast is a New Belgium Voodoo Ranger 8 Hop Pale Ale
However, it’s probably for the best that it wasn’t discussed. The podcast would have ended up being a 40 minute ramble on my love for craft beer.
And in case you were wondering…
My Top 5 Asheville Beers to Buy in Stores
1. Wicked Weed
2. New Belgium
3. Hi-Wire
4. Burial
5. Oskar Blues
My Top 5 Asheville Breweries to Visit
1. New Belgium
2. The Wedge
3. Sierra Nevada (The Willy Wonka Factory of Breweries)
4. Funkatorium
5. Catawba
4) How to drop the ego in the clinic
Try to drop your attachment to the patient getting better. Avoid being co-dependent. Simply be there for them and do your best.
Don’t live in the future of whether or not they’ll get better. Be present.
Be content with giving them the treatment you’d want to receive yourself (Golden Rule).
Accept that they may not get better and don’t take it personally.
There’s no PT that gets 100% of their patients better. And if there are, they’re either delusional or they have the easiest patient population. So don’t worry about other professionals. Don’t get caught in the drama. Focus on the patient.
Try to help the person instead of just trying to solve their physical therapy problem
Develop many different approaches to expand your perspective and adapt the treatment to the patient (instead of the other way around)
Don’t identify with the medium/approach/theory, because then if they’re not getting better it becomes a “me vs them” situation
“When the student is ready, the teacher appears”
Study philosophy
Meditate
*I am by no means a PT monk. I constantly have to work on these things.
5) I think the biggest problem is the speed of information digestion (#72). You can read 4 books in a month. But you can’t study 4 books in a month.
6) This is what I often see when movement professionals are arguing on social media…
(source)
You can save yourself a lot of time if you can recognize this.
7) I wonder what it would be like if we could see the patient population of people on social media…
Would we see the “guru” that treats only a few psychologically primed, healthy, active patients?
Would we see the pain science guy that treats nothing but psychologically complicated, sedentary, chronic train wrecks?
Would we see the performance PT that treats a bunch of motivated, athletic patients looking for “fine-tuning”?
Would we see the movement pattern based PT that doesn’t treat any post-surgical or severely debilitated patients?
Would we see the research based PT that has a specialty and treats a homogenous population?
Would we see the researcher that doesn’t treat any patients?
These are things worth considering before reading or listening to another professional
8) The guitar analogy I attempted during the podcast probably didn’t make sense to many people. So let me try to reduce my idiocy.
The Guitarist Analogy
- Guitar Player = Physical Therapist
- Guitar Style/Genre = Method/Approach (PRI, SFMA, DNS, MDT, pain science, traditional orthopedic, etc.)
- Song = Patient
If I only practice and play rock music, I’m going to sound like shit when a jazz song walks into my clinic.
This analogy can also explain a lot of the bullshit in research and on social media. There’s a lot of “rock guitarists” arguing against “classical guitarists” and vice versa. Neither are trying to better the profession or improve the song. They’re just trying to validate themselves.
There’s a lot more to music than the guitar player.
(source)
Another important aspect of this analogy is the ability to openly LISTEN. Listen for the song type, what everyone else is playing, and how we best fit in. This is a skill that is often overlooked both in music and medicine.
We need to be versatile musicians that can both sight read and improvise in many different genres.
In other words, we need many different lenses and skills to be able to adapt to the many different types of patients.
Who knows what song will walk into our clinic next…
9) Again, I’d like to thank the Knowbodies for having me on their show. Check them out and subscribe to their podcast.
The main reason I do this blog is to share knowledge and to help people become better clinicians/coaches. I want our profession to grow and for our patients to have better outcomes. Regardless of your specific title (PT, Chiro, Trainer, Coach, etc.), we all have the same goal of trying to empower people to fix their problems through movement. I hope the content of this website helps you in doing so.
If you enjoyed it and found it helpful, please share it with your peers. And if you are feeling generous, please make a donation to help me run this website. Any amount you can afford is greatly appreciated.
