Blazing Paddles - A Pickleball Podcast
Join us, John and Karen, for a married couple's take on Pickleball. Avoid "Pickleball Divorce," saddle up and have a cocktail, have a laugh, and enjoy guests and influencers in this unbelievable explosion of a sport the likes of which we've never seen.
Let's talk about the impact pickleball is having on our culture. From Boomers to Zoomers, every generation is discovering a new passion. A game that wasn't on the map three years ago now has millionaires playing, billionaires jousting, and people scrambling for some piece of the pickleball pie.
Put your ears on and have a listen, you'll be glad you did.
Blazing Paddles - A Pickleball Podcast
Maximizing Pickleball Performance: with Dr. Eric Korem
Unlock the secrets to maximizing your athletic performance with Eric Korem, a trailblazer in sports science and wearable technology. From his humble beginnings as a walk-on football player at Texas A&M to pioneering the use of GPS tracking in football, Eric's innovative approach has dramatically reduced injuries and enhanced performance for top-tier athletes, including NFL players and Olympic sprinters. We promise you'll gain invaluable insights into how Eric's Aim7 app is revolutionizing the way we train for pickleball, a sport that's capturing the hearts of players worldwide.
Discover how to prevent pickleball injuries by merging exercise science with practical training techniques. Eric shares his international experiences and the creation of the first U.S. master's program for high-performance sport, offering a holistic view of athlete development. Learn about the critical aspects of load management, evidence-based practices, and the role of mental training in overcoming high-pressure situations. Eric's personal stories of coaching elite athletes further illuminate the importance of a well-rounded approach to sports performance.
Join us as we dive into the vibrant and inclusive pickleball community, where camaraderie and culture flourish both on and off the court. Hear about the unique experiences and anecdotes from top athletes like Zane Navratil and Megan Fudge, and understand the profound impact of pickleball on mental health and community building. From warm-up tips to humorous tournament encounters, this episode offers a wealth of knowledge and inspiration for everyone, whether you're a seasoned player or just discovering the joys of pickleball.
Want to find out for yourself? Download the Aim7 app today. Use our url to get a 25% discount and try the app for a free trial before committing. https://www.aim7.com/?via=blazing-paddles
Special thanks to Crown Pickleball for their support and sponsorship! Don't waste money on balls that break, Crown pickleballs rarely crack, are more visible and have a higher spin rate than the competitors.
Use our link to receive a discount on your next purchase! https://crownpickleball.store/blazingpaddles
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So, you don't understand. He is like a geek out on this. I mean, for the last couple of days, all he could talk about is you and your app. And do you know what does this? Do you know what does this? One thing it tracks is sex.
Speaker 2:Are you serious?
Speaker 3:I said so I'm looking for it, I'm trying to figure it out. Shut up?
Speaker 2:Okay, this is news to me. Are you talking about in the O?
Speaker 1:I was like how's he going to know the difference between? The eight best minutes on a pickleball court. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:Episode 17. Here we go, folks Blazing Saddles. We ride again. Today we are speaking with Eric Corum. He is a sports scientist and if you're geeking out about your pickleball game and you're still looking for ways to improve, this is a guy. He's developed technology and a wearable and biometrics specifically for our sport warm-ups. In-game strategies uh, post-game strategies. I think you're gonna like this one and make sure you check out show notes. We'll have a discount code for anybody wanting to get his app, aim seven. So let's get a chance to know eric quorum. Saddle up and have a listen. You'd be glad you did, are you? Yeah, I don't know if you noticed that my wife's wearing an Aggie hat right now. I'm an Aggie grad as well, so yeah, class of 03.
Speaker 3:Oh well, you're a little bit younger than me. Oh well, you, you're a little bit younger than me.
Speaker 2:I'm yeah, 89. Oh, nice, nice. Um, I actually played football there, did you really? Yeah, uh, 99 to 03, oh my, gosh.
Speaker 3:Well, I feel like I know you because I've been looking at your face up the last I wasn't a prominent player, trust me, you wouldn't have known me from that no, no, no, I know you from the app. I downloaded the app. Okay, just to check it out and thank you. We're talking about aim seven. We'll get into all this, but it was pretty cool.
Speaker 2:You do all the examples of the various exercises, so I saw that and we've got a huge library catalog in there the warmups and cooldowns, and I think there's like four or 500 different exercises in the app. But we can talk about that later. The new version comes out in September, I can send you guys a kind of a it's. The whole thing is getting rebranded and it'll kind of look and feel more like pickleball.
Speaker 3:Oh cool, yeah, so pickleball. And now I know your background. Obviously you started in football and I read a lot of your your bio, nfl, olympic athletes, all kinds of Wait?
Speaker 1:I don't know any of this. Tell us, tell us.
Speaker 3:Well, you should. Now, after study. I guess you studied kinesiology at A&M and then you went on to get your doctorate. How did you get into this, this industry of being like this performance guru?
Speaker 2:Oh well, I don't know if I'll go with guru, but I'm always learning. I think what I mentioned I played football at A&M and I was a walk-on there, and so you know how hard it is for walk-ons. You're just always trying to figure out a way to get on the field, and so I was obsessed with doing whatever it took and I ended up getting to play Um, and in that process I had a wonderful strength coach, Mike Clark. He's actually still in the NFL. He's with the Detroit lions, with Dan and all those Aggies, right.
Speaker 3:Aaron.
Speaker 2:Glenn and know those guys really well. And, um, I had a chance to go to the university of Arkansas uh, as, to work as a graduate assistant there and strength conditioning was very blessed to work with some of the top sprinters in the world. Uh, one day this coach walks in and he's like, hey, you want to train these athletes? And it happened to be a Veronica Campbell Brown who ended up winning eight Olympic medals, three goals, and I got to travel the world with these Olympic sprinters over about a 14 year period while I was working in college and pro football. And um, so I went on this path of being a traditional strength conditioning coach, worked at a lot of schools in the sec, different places, and then my career really had this major inflection point in 2011. I was at Florida state with Jimbo Fisher, of all people.
Speaker 3:Oh God.
Speaker 2:And, um, uh, I had the opportunity. I was, I was in an interesting role. He hired me as the speed coach and, um, I really had this vision for bringing sports science Like I was seeing emerging in other countries, to the United States. So I went to Australia and literally was embedded with an Aussie rules football team for like a month and I came back with a suitcase full of these tracking devices. So we're the first people to ever track football players and games and practices. So these devices were like the size of a deck of cards and we would put them I would duct tape them to the pads of the players and we're collecting, like GPS, satellite data and accelerometry crazy stuff, right, and we quantified the game of football for the first time. So this is before the Apple Watch existed.
Speaker 2:Fitbit was kind of barely a thing and our team coach, to his credit, gave me a lot of leeway to train our players differently. He helped me, let me manage practice with him and we had an 88% reduction in injury in one year. And then the NFL flew in and was like what's going on here? And it led to this explosion in the market for wearables that literally opened a multi-billion dollar market. So that's when I went on to University of Kentucky and then helped start sports science for the Houston Texans and got the doctoral degree. So my career has kind of been like I've always been innovating and trying new things and really kind of cut my teeth and trying to take data and make human performance solutions.
Speaker 1:Okay, wait. So what was your position on or what? What position did you play in football?
Speaker 2:Uh, I was a defensive end my senior year. That's where I ended up playing.
Speaker 1:Okay, and then these little trackable things, um, these little cards or whatever it reminds me of, like you know, the things that they throw in a tornado, and it measures. Twister, yeah, like they throw them into a tornado. And it gives you yeah, oh, like Twister, yeah, like Twister, you know they throw them into a tornado and it gives you all the data points that they're going through. That's super cool. So that invention led to what I'm wearing my Apple Watch and these.
Speaker 2:Well, those consumer wearables, the Fitbit was around right.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:The athlete wearables. You can't buy these on the. You know the average consumer is not going to buy one of these. These are thousands of dollars, right. But it really started in English Premier League soccer. These players if you want to Google it, you can Google like catapult tracking and they would wear these compression devices and in the middle, the upper middle of their back, they'd have these like card-like or they're about like a deck of cards, and it connected with GPS satellites so you could get speed. Then it had something called an accelerometer in there so you could get acceleration and deceleration. And then there was like something called a magnetometer and gyroscope so you could figure out where the player's facing on the field. So if you watch an NCAA football game now, you'll notice that like in the upper part of the back, middle of the pads, there's kind of a hump.
Speaker 2:That's where all those devices go. Now in the NFL we put them in the chip. There's these little two chips that sit in the top of each pad. They embed them right here and here and in the NFL stadiums we had these little beacons and we used what's called RFI frequencies, and so anyways, long story short, it was just If you ever watch a game in the NFL and you see it's like so-and-so ran 21 miles an hour and it says AWS, next-gen stats. That's the technology I pioneered.
Speaker 1:What did we just learn? Did you know this?
Speaker 3:I knew the data was there. I had no idea they were wearing those trackables on the wearables because they're not really visible unless I guess, you know where to look.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly. So it was a wild ride and had a lot of fun doing that and I wanted to. So we were building all these amazing solutions for elite athletes to improve their training, to help them stay healthy. And then that led to looking at, well, the whole part of training an athlete, like the mental side and the physical and the nutrition, and so I kind of assumed a role where I would oversee all of that and I kind of got this idea. I was like, hey, I wonder if we could bring this capability to the average person on the street with, like an Apple watch right, like to help them live a healthier, more fulfilling life and give them really personalized, detailed recommendations for their health and wellness. And so I started the company aim seven and that's what we do, and, um, and then I found pickleball, like a lot of people, that just changed everything, right, right, and so, yeah, uh, we can talk about that a little bit later, but that was kind of my journey in in in human performance.
Speaker 3:Well, so I mean you were, you were a D one athlete. You get out of school and you said you went to Arkansas and you're going to be helping train sprinters. How were you able to just assimilate and train world-class sprinters?
Speaker 2:That's a great question. I probably wasn't really super qualified, you learn. This is the problem. There really wasn't a great curriculum for this here in the States, and so a lot of it was SED do, which is not a good model. I would take exercise science classes, but exercise physiology doesn't really relate to training elite athletes or athletes in general. It's more like cardiac rehabilitation. So I ended up just taking general physiology courses in the vet med building.
Speaker 2:I just love physiology and um, and so a lot of it was reading training manuals, visiting biomechanists, uh, talking to elite performance coaches. A lot of it was I was overseas in Australia and the UK they actually have. You can get degrees and things like sports science and high performance coaching, so I was getting a lot of my information from overseas.
Speaker 2:And then in track and field, athletics is a very old sport and so some of the foundational principles of developing an athlete can be traced back to sprinting. So that really gave me an education and I learned a lot along the way and you know, built up kind of a you know, you learn how to do this and you learn the right way and the wrong way, and then as science emerged, you're reading as much scientific literature as you can and you having to go back and apply it. I was very blessed later on, when I was at the university of Kentucky, when I got my doctoral degree, I helped them start the first master's program for high performance sport here in the U? S. So that was, uh, quite a quite a cool opportunity to to turn around and help create something to educate the future of, you know, the coaching profession.
Speaker 3:That was the first one for high performance.
Speaker 2:High performance is this um, is the um, it's the basic. No.
Speaker 1:I'm in that category, john. Of course he's working on it.
Speaker 2:Elite performers. So it's like the physical, the psychological, the technical, the tactical. So the training of the athletes, the actual sports skill, the strength and conditioning, the nutrition, the sports psychology, and then sports science. So bringing it all together in one cohesive program.
Speaker 3:Nice. Well, it's funny because it's kind of kismet how we ended up getting connected with you. Excuse me, andrea reached out, yeah, and I was reading about the program. I was like holy cow, I mean, this guy couldn't have been a better match, because we're you know, we've discovered pickleball and have injured ourselves.
Speaker 1:Wait a minute, god knows how many times. I don't know when you found pickleball, but we found pickleball during the pandemic, so we had a lot of time on our hands. Yeah, and you go out there and you play pickleball the wrong way for six and seven hours. What do you think is going to happen?
Speaker 3:You're going to get injured.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and we weren't doing any training to keep our, you know, while he were, I wasn't. So two bum hamstrings, uh, uh, tore my tricep. John has torn both of his biceps, which fixed his shoulder problem, by the way. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like. Did you like like? The bicep rolled up.
Speaker 3:Disconnected from the shoulder. So, I've got that little Popeye deformity now.
Speaker 1:So yeah, he likes it Playing pickleball.
Speaker 3:Yeah, playing pickleball. Yeah, deformity now. So yeah, he likes it, he's playing pickleball. Playing pickleball, yeah, you know when, um, you just make a real quick. When you're up in the net, the ball, your your instinct, you're moving faster than you know. And I can't tell you how many people I've met in pickleball who've worn their bicep. I mean, everybody thinks the knees and the knees are bad. I've got a 20s Achilles. Here's the other thing.
Speaker 1:We both had bad knees. I didn't even realize it until because I'd been overcompensating with my right leg. Then you play something like pickleball and all of a sudden you realize that there's something more wrong. We've rehabbed both of ours because he tore his ACL a long time ago and then they he had a torn meniscus and they wanted to do surgery. And I was like no, no, no, let me do some research. And anyway, have you heard of no knees over the toes guy? Yeah, yeah. So, and you, you mentioned science, so I'm very curious on this cause. I did, I was obsessed with this guy and we actually even bought a um, a torque tank, and we do this on our um on our sidewalk on our front sidewalk.
Speaker 1:But it has transformed our. I mean we're in much better physical shape from training from the bottom up and um and so in. But but he on the podcast he was on Joe Rogan and what I listened to he said the science and the scholar. It takes so long for them to catch up to the newest, latest and greatest right.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:So he said for him, for doing any training like he's doing, it's going to take 30 years For it to be in the curriculum, for it to be in the curriculum.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say like, I'd say like five years for it to show up in the literature. So, like you know that's, I wouldn't say 30, but I'd say probably like five is about accurate. So, like the best you know, there's evidence-based practice which is like what does the literature say, and then what is practice-based evidence, which is like what does the literature say, and then what is practice-based evidence which is like what does experience tell me? Right, like you just told me. You articulated perfectly like the reason why most people get injured.
Speaker 2:There's really like three main reasons why people get injured. One is load management. You didn't call it load management but you knew what it was doing too much, too fast, and there's simple, easy ways to people can track and monitor that themselves, not having a training program off the court. And then I would, I would include into that warming up. If you do a general, good neuromuscular warm up, you're going to reduce your risk of injuries. Doing resistance training and mobility training is going to and this isn't crazy stuff, this is like at least a couple of times a week. And then the last thing is technique. Like when I started playing pickleball, just like everybody else just I'm a performance coach I had poor technique. So what did I need to do? I needed to go get a coach and I needed to learn how to. You know it, you know I was using obviously I was using too much of my shoulder and I wasn't rotating at the hips and doing all the things that you should be doing. And so, guess what, my bicep tendon started hurting.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And then the pickleball coach was like this is what you're doing. I'm like yeah, dummy, of course. So then I started talking to myself.
Speaker 3:The performance coach.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you need a coach.
Speaker 3:Everybody needs a coach right. Everybody does.
Speaker 1:We played pickleball the wrong way for the first year. So we were playing like tennis and it's COVID. So you play for six and seven hours just banging away at the back of the court with a hard paddle and a hard ball, and that's why our everything tore and you're, you know, just not physically ready for it. So, um, when, when, when did you find pickleball?
Speaker 2:Well, I had heard about it from a friend during the pandemic and, um I I honestly didn't even look it up. I just remember her saying I'm playing pickleball and I love it. She was in Austin, texas. I'm like, what is pickleball Like? I'm just thinking like this name like what, what is this?
Speaker 2:And um, I wish I would have hopped in at that time. It wasn't really until last fall. Um, we had put out a version, we had just spent two and a half years building the tech behind our app and we put out the first version of aim seven in the market. No big launch. It was like, let's see, it was for general health and wellness, exercise, recovery, mental fitness, right, very personalized tools. And, and a friend of mine who worked for steve coon, I used to work and help do the major league pickleball thing. And duper called me up and was like eric, listen, there's a lot of people that are hurting in pickleball. I'm like pickleball. He's like Eric, just do the research. Okay, they need help. And there's not one health and fitness tech product available on the market. Like, go to the app store, there's nothing out there. I was like okay, and um, and then he introduced me to Tito Machado with Duper, the CEO of Duper, and Tito looked at our app and was like, look, just focus on pickleball and we will.
Speaker 3:If you guys have listened to the show, you know that Karen and I talk often about injuries that we've we've suffered since we took up pickleball. It's a different movement, it's a different sport. Uh, that's why we were so keen on getting Eric Corum on this show. No-transcript. There's lessons on how to monitor your sleep, your rest, and it'll customize workouts for you, specific to pickleball. It's an amazing thing. We hope you'll download it and remember in the show notes we're going to have a discount code for you 25 off. That app again is aim seven.
Speaker 2:Let's get back to eric um, oh, wait, there we go, we lost we lost you, so you're back pick up where he said you, if you'll just focus on pickleball, oh yeah he said if you just focus on pickleball um, he said we, the sport, needs the expertise that your group has around nutrition and psychology and resistance training, all these different things then we'll partner with you right out the gate. So we spent about four months looking at the sports, spending time with people and looking at the problems you you know that are occurring and where they're coming from, and so we built the first version of the app that came out March 15th the one that you have on your phone right now and you know it's warmups, cool downs, resistance training, basic load management, mental fitness skills, and so that's that's how I got into pickleball. It was really a business venture and, just for anybody that's out there listening, I've trained 25 or 26 different types of sports, everything from lacrosse to water polo, to football, to world-class sprinters. Everybody thinks that their sport is special. It's not.
Speaker 1:Well, pickleball is extremely special. I think it's very special.
Speaker 2:Well, special from the sense. Let me restate that. Special from the sense of like you got to like have pickleball, specific training or this or that. It's like anything else. If you're an engineer, you know how to reverse, engineer a problem, got it? Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:So we just like. We're like, let's put our brains on this and deconstruct all the issues and then, like you need a pickleball coach to learn technique, you need these general tools, and then we can make them more and more highly specialized. But like, uh, next week I'm going to. Every once in a while I still dip my toe back into elite sport and I got a call from a university with a volleyball team that needs help and I'm like I'll give you one day. But if you know how to solve problems, you know how to solve problems. So we're just taking all of our problem-solving capabilities and throwing them a pickleball and as I've played the game now, I can't stop playing right Of course, of course the game.
Speaker 2:Now I can't stop playing, right, of course, of course, and it's special and addictive. It's fun, it's addictive. Um, and then I've done. I spent a lot of time at tournaments. Um, I just love these people. Like, how could you not love the people that play this game? They're just. I've never been around a more welcoming community of athletes, I think, outside of juitsu, which I've done for a long time, that is. This is the closest this is like, but it's for everybody. Does that make sense? You don't. Anybody and everybody, of any age, can do it.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent, a hundred percent.
Speaker 3:We found that even with the people who are in the industry I mean people who are getting into the industry most of them have done so because they love pickleball. But we've had so many, uh, made so many good relationships with other other people who like pickle roll and crown pickleball and a lot of the people and I know that, um, you've got a pro that you're working with too now, right, zane?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we work with Zane Navratil. We work with Megan Fudge and Ryler to heart and Tatiana rule. Um, that's been a blast. As a matter of fact, my baptism into pickleball at the highest level. You know the story with Megan and Ryler.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:No, oh, you've got to have them on your show. So I coached at Florida State. We talked about that. Ryler Megan Fudge's husband was a tennis coach at Florida State, a tennis coach at Alabama. He was on the US national team tennis coach. He actually was a professional player himself played in the US Open. Megan is a college tennis player. She's elite. She's one of the top females in the sport. They live in an RV and they have their two kids and they travel around the country. They don't have a house and they just go travel. So they were like Eric, come with us to the U S open. I ended up staying at some person's home. I never knew.
Speaker 2:Right, they were parked in the back on the slab and these wonderful couple had a. It's funny because everybody knows what I'm talking about. Right, they had a indoor tennis pickleball court in their backyard in Naples, florida, called Pickle on Third. They were the most kind and generous people. We ended up just really and I was up at six o'clock in the morning I would take Ryler to the Naples Pavilion helping him get ready, go back pick up the kids and Megan take them there whatever they needed from a warmup or cool down or recovery, and I was with them every day through that entire week.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Except for the championship day. I had to fly back for the last Sunday and I really understood like you're watching these people and what they're putting their bodies through day after day after I'm like, oh my gosh, this is a grinder, right, right and if.
Speaker 2:And there's a lot of people playing competitive pickleball, going to tournaments and they'll play six matches, two, three days in a row, right, and then you wonder why people get hurt. And so it was, you know, and I made so many friends at that event. Um, it's where the I've wear my be weird warm-up t-shirt for the first time. If I had 500 of those things, I would, you know, and I made so many friends at that event. Um, it's where the I've worn my be weird warmup t-shirt for the first time. If I had 500 of those things, I would have sold every one of them, the be weird ones. Have you seen this? Are they from Austin? Oh, I'm gonna have to give this to you. So I got a quick story for you. This is pickleball for you Texas at Pace Pickleball, showing people our app. This is months ago, doing customer discovery, and I meet this guy. Everybody's like you got to talk to Julio. Julio's, like you know, everybody knows Julio, right? So Julio's sitting there and drinking a beer, playing pickleball. He's really skilled.
Speaker 1:Drinking a beer playing pickleball that's the same pickleball.
Speaker 2:This is it Right. And why won't you warm up? Because that's the first thing we're trying to get people to just warm up and he goes.
Speaker 2:He just points to everybody else. He goes do you see anybody else doing it? Ironically, his friend walked up and started warming up next to him, but I was like so are you embarrassed? I was like just be weird, warm up, man. And he started dying laughing and then he downloaded the app. I didn't hear from him for three or four weeks and I had this thing in my mind it's like, be weird, warm up. That's what we need to do. So I wore this t-shirt to the US Open and people were stopping me everywhere. Well, julio was at the US Open. I didn't know. This Text messages me a video of him warming up, then winning I think he won a silver medal, and now he's posting on social media showing everybody him warming up. So he went from like I'm embarrassed to do this to I feel so good, I want to show the entire world. And so that kind of became our little slogan be weird and warm up.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. I love that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a pickleball story, right, that is a great pickleball story.
Speaker 3:I'm guilty too. I'm a wonk, I've always. I love the tech part. I just love seeing how you have it. Um, going through the app, because I've done this through our uh, our regular benefit provider. They have a program called hinge that, yeah, you're doing rehab. I did that for my shoulder, I did that for my knee and it's it did great for me, but it's just pretty vanilla. I loved that. But getting out to the court like if we show up to play, we don't- look for yourself.
Speaker 1:I do, I do, I do.
Speaker 3:You have to I have to stretch my, you guys say you don't warm up I was really bad about that not warming up at all.
Speaker 1:She does a lot more than I do I do I really have, because I hurt both of my hamstrings. I have to do um, I stretch them and um, and then I do my knees. So I'll squat like down on my knees and let the blood go out of the knees, and so I I oil my knees up pretty good before I go out there too.
Speaker 2:Can I give you a little tip on that? Yes, please so as we age, our joints hurt, right, and it feels like it takes a while for them to quote warm up right. It's like a tin man, like you need to put some like oil in there. Did you know that your joints don't get direct blood flow? No, so there's something called synovial fluid and synovial fluid uh, which like a sack yeah, when you move the joint, it moves synovial fluid around the joint and lubricates it reduces friction the only way to really pump fluid into the joint is to move it.
Speaker 2:So part of your warm-up should be there's really like four parts to a warmup, but one of those parts should be mobilizing joints. So, for instance, like shoulder rolls, arm circles moving internal and external rotation in different positions, neck rotations rotating, you know, hip rotations, rotating the hips forward and back, knee circles, like if you want to improve the flex, you know, hip rotations rotating the hips forward and back, knee circles, like if you want to improve the flexion, your knee flexes and extends. Right If you rotate the knee, guess what? It improves flexion and extension, ankle roll. So you should go joints. I did those yesterday.
Speaker 3:Those are awesome. I've never done them before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and people look at you. They're like it looks a little funny, but, dude, you feel so much better and so, starting at your neck, going down to your ankles, and just taking a joint by joint approach, you will feel it's like a little dose of medicine every single day, a lot of wellness things around your pickleball session that will yield significant changes in other parts of your life and help improve your you know if you're suffering from osteoarthritis or even preventing osteoarthritis, and so, anyways, I wanted to say, like with your knees. You know, doing squatting exercises is great. Knee rotations, spending you know some time really getting that knee to flex and extend and rotate, is really going to make it feel better. But it's not. It's. You're actually like you're pushing fluid into that knee and that's what's making it feel so much better.
Speaker 3:Ah, I didn't know, yeah, I was doing those. I'd never done those before either, where you push down on the knee with your legs extended and you're kind of just pushing down, almost getting a hyper extension.
Speaker 2:So yeah, be careful with that, but just kind of rotate just a little bit. Yeah, you don't want to pop your PCL or anything like that, so you?
Speaker 1:I mean, you don't understand. He is like a a a geek out on this. I mean, the last couple of days, all he could talk about is you and your app and do you know what does this? Do you know what does this? One thing it tracks is sex.
Speaker 3:Are you serious? I said so, I'm looking for it, I'm trying to figure it out.
Speaker 2:Shut up. Okay, this is news to me. Are you talking about in the?
Speaker 1:I was like, how's it going to know the difference? Between the eight best minutes on a pickleball court.
Speaker 2:You're talking about an apple when you give it permissions. Yes, that's, you're talking about an Apple when you give it permissions yes.
Speaker 3:Yes, that's what I'm talking about. That's an.
Speaker 2:Apple thing. Oh my goodness, that's not.
Speaker 1:So it's his thing talking to you?
Speaker 3:No, it asks if you want to allow all your data, and so you go there to allow all you can do it one at a time.
Speaker 1:Now you're tracking our sex.
Speaker 3:One of them's sex.
Speaker 2:Hey man, you can go into apple health. You get literally input. Yeah, if you wanted to track sex, um what? Yeah, they don't have an out. Well, they may, but they don't have. Uh, you know, like, if you're wearing your apple watch, you go out and start walking. It says you're walking, yeah if you do your elliptical. Thank goodness there's nothing for. But you can go into Apple Health and track that and yeah.
Speaker 1:Mine's turned off, it says I just opened my health app and it says share my data with Apple.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you would have to literally manually input that one. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh good John.
Speaker 2:I did.
Speaker 1:That's how it, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Well, I can tell you something right now. We are not making any decisions about your warmups or resistance training plans based off of that, but I think there are some longevity benefits, I agree.
Speaker 1:Mental health benefits. There you go. Absolutely oh you know what, and you wrote the. I wrote this down because mental health. What did you call it? Psychology, sports psychology? I wrote this down because mental health, what? What did you call it Psychology, sports psychology? I thought.
Speaker 3:I was going to need a sports psychologist. She got the yips. She got the yips, I got the yips.
Speaker 1:Yes, Serving yips on my serve. It was so bad Um Eric like, if you can, maybe I'll show it to him. Maybe.
Speaker 3:I'll post it. She. You ever seen the Seinfeld episode where Elaine's dancing and she? That's what Karen looked like, Preserve, she was just so wound up and tight and worried about hitting it out that she could hardly make herself serve.
Speaker 1:It was just crazy and it was a um, it was debilitating. It was absolutely Okay. Look, watch this.
Speaker 3:If you can see it.
Speaker 1:Can you see?
Speaker 2:I can't.
Speaker 3:It was a glare. We'll send it to you Please send it to me.
Speaker 2:I'll give you my number. You can text it to me later.
Speaker 1:Yes, because I showed a girl this morning. I was like, if you're ever in a bad day, text me and I'll send you this video.
Speaker 2:Is it?
Speaker 1:something you want to share publicly. Oh, I don't care.
Speaker 2:Are you on social media?
Speaker 1:Of course you know what we should do.
Speaker 2:We should collaborate on a post, and I'll have Dr Alex Arbach. So one of our team members is the former head of wellness and development for the Toronto Raptors. He's an elite sports psychologist and some of our best performing posts have all been around the psychology of the game. Some of them are got like 50 or 60,000 views already on Instagram and we only have like 35, 3,700 followers. What'd be really interesting is if we would post that and then have him go through the yips.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, that would be amazing. Yeah, let's do it. We could collab on it. So I I am not serving out anymore, but I have this one. Talk about technique. Nobody's seen this technique. Trust me, it's not a good serve, it's nothing good about it.
Speaker 3:It brings joy to so many people around her but it gets in, that's all that matters Right.
Speaker 1:Right, well, but I have this other serve. That is the proper technique, where you're coming across your body and like and I want to look like the pros, I don't want to look like an idiot, okay, but I'm stuck mentally because the minute I get pressure, so in a game I can go out and hit it in all day long. If it's just John and I, right, and then I go, game time falls out. It's a head thing. It's a head thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would love to get Alex's take on this, but one of the things I've heard that may help with the yips is creating variability, creating the bandwidth for change. Actually, my dad's the one that he had helped. That's a whole other story, but he helped some elite softball players with this problem. When you have very little bandwidth for um change, uh, when it comes to a specific skillset and how that skillset's executed, whenever you deviate from that or you add pressure to it and it constrains your environment, then that's when people end up having issues. Um, so, putting yourself in positions off the court or when you're training, that make things you know, very unpredictable. Um, that can really really help.
Speaker 2:So, like we would do this with track athletes, um, for, like um man, we used to do stuff with sprinters. We're like you know you're in a, there is nothing. I think that has more pressure than like a hundred or 200 meter sprint, because the whole thing is over in less than 20-something seconds. If you're in the Olympics, you train four years and all it takes is one misstep and there's so much in the. It was called the bird's nest in Beijing. Veronica, this athlete I worked with Veronica Campbellica campbell brown. You can look her up. She's one of two women to ever win the gold medal back to back in the 200 meters. It was so bright on the court, on the track, because of all of the lights and the cameras that there wasn't a shadow okay, that's why wow because it was coming at every angle.
Speaker 2:Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:That's crazy.
Speaker 2:So it was more like a vertical type of thing, right so, but she does an amazing job. One of the things, one of the tools she uses, is visualization. That is one of the absolute best sports psychology tools that you can use at your disposal. And she would literally lay down, and then she did this like almost daily, and she would go from. She would literally think through every single thing that's going to happen, from the warmup all the way until she got onto the track. She would visualize every single part of that environment.
Speaker 2:If you can get on the court in advance and then, like, if you go back to your hotel, like lay down and actually visualize what it's going to be like to be out there the next day, visualize yourself going through like a serve and you know, coming up to the uh, coming up to the no volley zone and what's going to. You see what I'm saying Going through scenarios. Yeah, it is an incredibly powerful. This is not a woohoo tool, this is something that the best in the world do. It creates a mental model for something that hasn't already occurred. And then I would just say for you I'm going to talk to my friend Alex and come back to you on this. I think this would be a great post to get him like show this Elaine type of moment. I'm actually visualizing what this reel is going to look like.
Speaker 3:It's hilarious man.
Speaker 2:And then have Alex like comment on the yips and what somebody could do. I think that'd be really cool.
Speaker 1:I think I'm not the only one. This has happened. There are at least 10 other people that I know who have had issues like this, and a lot of it is around serving. In fact, one girl had before I did, monica, yeah. And I was like, come on, this is so easy, right. And then when it happened and I beg to differ with you there's more pressure in an MLP style tournament when you're you just have to get one point to win and we're in a dream breaker and I lose because of the serve. That's pressure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's pressure.
Speaker 1:You want to talk about the lights. It felt like everyone out there was staring at me. I my hand was shaking, my mouth went dry Like it was awful, and that that's why I think it took me so long to get over it, because it happened. And then I'm forced into this tournament situation where I'm dealing with it and now it's a high pressure, and now I mean I'm not kidding you. You think a rec game is pressure. It's no pressure at all. Why can't I hit up my servant? So I would love any help you can provide me.
Speaker 2:We got a lot of tools yes, for sure, All these sports psychology tools. You're going to start seeing more and more pro athletes wanting to use these in pickleball. A lot of the athletes that are excelling right now were former collegiate or semi-pro pickleball players, but you're starting to see this new wave of pickleball players that are coming out of high school and college. They're not getting access to these tools because they don't have professionals that are working with them in college. This is really where the elite are separated. Skill up to a certain point is kind of a dime a dozen Elite athletes. No matter what the sport is, the differentiating factor is always between the ears.
Speaker 2:Can you actually perform. Actually, here's a really cool statistics. Who do you think I don't know if 100-meter dash men's 100-meter dash, Just think men's 100-meter dash. Who do you think has run more sub-10 100-meter dashes in the history of track and field?
Speaker 3:hey, picklers, you may have noticed, summer hit and it hit with a vengeance. It's only going to get hotter from here, and if you're out there playing pickleball, you know one of the toughest things to do is to keep the ball to where it's still lively. They get soft out there. Well, I'm here to tell you there's a solution, and that is offered to us by Crown Pickleball. If you don't know Kevin Perkins and Crown Pickleball, check him out on Instagram. Go to his shop. He's got balls, paddles, shirts, socks, wristbands, hats he's got the whole deal, and he's a good human. We like to support good humans. So get your Crown Pickleballs. Save yourself a little money this summer when everybody else's balls are melting. That sounds bad, but you'll have the crown pickle balls. All right, let's get back to the show Usain Bolt.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 3:Carl Lewis.
Speaker 2:No, you're not going to guess it, jesse Owens.
Speaker 3:Osafa Powell. Oh, osafa, that was my next guess. Who's that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the point, google Osafa.
Speaker 1:Powell. He is technically one of the greatest sprinters of all time?
Speaker 2:How do you spell his?
Speaker 2:last name P-O-W-E-L-L oh Powell, and he was racing at the same time as Usain Bolt. And whenever Bolt wasn't there at a race he was running at, he would crush everybody and he would run ridiculously fast times, but when pressure comes he would always fold. Was he elite? Yes, but he was never good enough to win on the highest stage. Why he wasn't mentally strong enough? Um, and it's, and you know, everybody's like mental toughness, right. Like you got to be more mentally tough. Well, mental toughness is task specific. Nobody can be mentally tough to everything, Right. And so people are like whoa, I want to go train. Like Tiger Woods famously went and trained with the Navy SEALs, which was stupid. He ended up ruining himself. But like if you took a Navy SEAL who could jump out of an airplane and do all sorts of crazy stuff and then you put him in the Masters.
Speaker 3:Oh God, I was just about to bring up golf.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they would fold. He would fold immediately Like they would. Just he would have a huge stress response. All the stuff you would think about heart rate, elevated, palms are sweaty, but Tiger Woods, being inoculated to that stress, could calm himself down, could regulate and perform. So these elite pickleball players, the best of the best of the best, can regulate themselves. They have self-regulatory tools. That's why mindfulness is one of the most important mental fitness tools that you can develop, because it helps you.
Speaker 2:As my Peter Haberl says, attention is the currency of performance. Every elite athlete wants control of one thing when it matters most your attention. Because, like Karen you're talking about, you know you're in this situation and all you can think about is the pressure and then this and then that. Just because you're uncomfortable doesn't mean that it has to impact your performance. If you're aware of where your attention is, you can redirect it and focus it to action that you can take. So there's a great story the greatest Olympic cyclist of all time. His name is Sir Chris Hoy. I think he won six or eight olympic gold medals. Now this guy is like the greatest of all time goat and he's the goat. And when they asked him, sir, he was knighted. When they asked him what it felt like to race in an olympic finals, he said it felt like he was going to the gallows.
Speaker 2:Wow, like he was going to get executed. I'm telling you, more than a dream breaker, I've been there. There is no more pressure-filled situation than an Olympic finals, because it only happens every four years. Right, and you either make money or you don't. People that don't finish in the top three, nobody knows who they are and they're going to live in their car, quite literally.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:These other folks are going to make a lot of money, they're going to keep moving forward and so. But what's chris noted was is like when he would feel that pressure, then he was able to direct his attention to his feet in the clips, his hands on the steering wheel, his butt in the seat and then when he was attentive to the gun and he could take action. But that all goes back to your ability to be mindful and to control your attention, and so one of the key things that we teach elite athletes is how to be is mindfulness, and it's really hard. It is, it's unbelievably difficult, and so we have all that Go ahead.
Speaker 1:I haven't even thought of that, so now I'm going to be. Your nose is sweating right now. I need to be more mindful.
Speaker 3:Uh, she's very, very, very, very competitive and very hard on herself. I think that's part of it too.
Speaker 2:Well, here's what I'd recommend Go into the Learn section of the app. Dr Peter Haberle, the former senior sports psychologist for the US Olympics, is in our app and go to the series on psychological flexibility and he will teach you all about this. And then we have mindfulness tools and meditation. All that stuff's in there, yeah, there's such a.
Speaker 3:You've got quite a lot of content packed into this thing. I haven't even been through all of it, but body, mind recovery you've got. Oh, I know what I used today though. Oh, look at that guided mindfulness. Guided mindfulness, gratitude journal, the gratitude journal. It was funny. This Sunday our pastor was talking about his gratitude journal. I was like you know what? I've never, because what am I going to do? I have another day timer that I carry around. Now I've got an app, I've got a gratitude journal, and I actually filled it out today you know what the, the power of that is, um, really interesting.
Speaker 2:I you know I was kind of I'm a skeptic first and I think as a scientist you should be right. But the research on gratitude is really amazing. But the way you do gratitude is really what matters. And if you notice in that journal it's called the Big Three Gratitude journal. That actually came from UC Berkeley and what you're doing is is the most important part is is when you write whatever you're grateful for that moment that you had, you should try to experience the emotions and feelings you had at that time, because that is really what connects you to like that grounded feeling of being truly thankful and grateful. And so, like, if I go back, typically, if I do the journal, it's my, my, my moments of of gratefulness, I guess, or gratitude, or around my kids and my wife, right, and so I try to like sit there and like really think about like that moment I was hugging one of my kids or that special moment.
Speaker 2:But that is what really makes the physiological changes occur in your body, which lowers heart rate, respiration rate, blood pressure, HRV. But that's a powerful tool and you can do it in bed before you go to sleep at night. Just take five minutes and three questions.
Speaker 3:I'm really going to give it a shot. Yeah, it was different than I thought it would be, because it actually I thought it was going to be list the things you're grateful for. It wasn't. It was three questions about you know what. What was a positive thing that happened today? I forget what it was, or something, or what was something you did today and I, I, I did. I started smiling while I was typing it in because it was actually pretty. Yeah, isn't?
Speaker 1:that crazy.
Speaker 3:It really is?
Speaker 1:You said that we didn't have a good moment today. I said Now that I hear him talking like I gave you a hug this morning. I said no.
Speaker 3:Like I gave you a hug. The last one was have you had a real special experience with a loved one yet? I said, no, there's going to be going back to that apple health thing, right, and then you can record it if you wish.
Speaker 2:Oh man, we're gonna have to we're gonna have to mark this asterisk aim seven does not care about that information.
Speaker 3:This is the best podcast I've done in a long time oh man, thank you for that, because you're this, this is kismet, that we're talking to you, so so I get home from the grocery store today and I walk in and he's doing up down, whatever.
Speaker 1:What is that? I'm like I'm like are you doing the app?
Speaker 1:yes, I'm doing the uh wood chops oh yeah, yeah, wood chops, as I'm telling you, you hit the right person here. He loves this stuff. He, when he was injured before, like our, because he went to the knee doctor, our insurance was alerted right Knew that he went to an orthopedic doctor and so they proactively reached out and said, hey, we have this rehab program that you know that 80% of surgeries are not necessary, right, so try this. So they sent like to your tracking point thing they sent him this um, yeah, it's hinge.
Speaker 1:I told her about hinge.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And um and so he did that. You know, really, he's really geeked out on that too.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:What are?
Speaker 2:you doing? I'm going to check that out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but but it was it does. It has a little mechanism like gear point, where you had the little card readers. This thing, um, when you put it on your leg it must have sensors on certain parts of it and it goes into the app, um, while you're doing your exercises, and gives it the readings or whatever.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sensors on it. I don't even use the sensors anymore and just because I, I I kind of do it out of habit now but my shoulders being I mean you're, you're a guy, you played sports your whole life All of our shoulders are trash and it's uh with my knees. It's just good to do something like that, but I think it's better with the stuff that you have on your app is, so it's a lot more variety and it's a lot more specific. There were three or four of the exercises I did yesterday, but I've never done before, and so those were great.
Speaker 2:Have you seen the prehab programs in there yet?
Speaker 3:The prehab Yep. That's what I did yesterday. Yeah, that's where I did the ankle rolls and stuff, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, dr Kyle Richman. So if you go into off-court training we have so on the home screen it says pre-match, post-match, post-match and off-court training. Yes, you click off-court and you click prehab and Dr Kyle Richman will take you through a 12-week program for any of these areas Knees, calf, achilles, low back, shoulder, hip, elbow. When I started having another issue I had at the very beginning was elbow tendonitis, but that came from something else. I have like a genetic. Very beginning was elbow tendonitis, but that came from something else. I have like a genetic predisposition to tendonitis and it got flared up. So I'm like, all right, I'm going to do this myself. Really helped a lot. But, um, uh, the new um I'll tell you this on here, the new version comes out September, early September and the uh. Well, we're going to be releasing daily mobility training.
Speaker 2:So, you can do eight to 10 minutes of general total body mobility on your own at home, and then the what's called the user interface or the UI for the. You know the warmups. You'll be able to click start and it'll give you a countdown timer. It'll show you the, the looping video of the whatever the exercise is, with like 20 seconds. When it's over, it goes three, two, one next. Actually, you don't have to do anything, you just click start and it'll take you through and you'll be able to choose. I'm a beginner and I have seven minutes and I've only got a five by five space, and then it customizes the whole thing to you.
Speaker 2:Wow so we're, we're about to level this whole thing up through all these conversations we've been having with. We're about to level this whole thing up through all these conversations we've been having with players of all different skill levels. You know, and I'll tell you what's an interesting thing is doing clinics, what's?
Speaker 3:y'all's rating.
Speaker 1:Oh God, it's so hard, okay. So here's the thing. Let's say a 3.7.
Speaker 3:3.75. Yeah, I'm easily Stop.
Speaker 1:I think we're barely scratching. No, we're probably three, fives. Well, so that's the heart. That's the thing about pickleball right now is that it's. The rating is all over the place and everyone will tell you that. Every coach will tell you that every every clinic we've gone to and duper we haven't. We implemented duper as a club during rec play and it just screwed everything up. It caused fights, the ratings weren't good, they it was just all.
Speaker 2:So we, we stopped using it they don't have a new reliability metric in there that kind of is supposed to stabilize the algorithm and make it really reliable okay because, look, I'm, um, I can understand. Whenever you have data and scoring it's a real and there's nobody there, that that's like a third party right.
Speaker 2:There's error in the system, and I think Duper would tell you the same thing that, like you, the idea is to make it more and more precise over time. So I know they just released some type of reliability metric that makes it more reliable, but I had a coach like assess my technique Right?
Speaker 1:Like.
Speaker 2:I was like where am I? And she was like you're right at a three. Oh, like you know, I'd only been playing for a little bit. I didn't care if I was a two, five. I just kind of want to know where am I on this spectrum? Um, I have no ego about that stuff. Right now I hope, like in a year or so, I'm, I'm a little bit, you know. I get to play like twice a week. I don't get to play like four or five times a week.
Speaker 2:I got three kids and trying to build this business. I spend more time on the court talking to people than I actually do playing, but it is what it? Is.
Speaker 3:So it does have you, though, kind of hooked as a player as well, cause you said this did start as a business interest. Oh yeah, so now.
Speaker 2:I'm, I'm, I'm documenting my journey. So every time I have a lesson, we document that, um, like what the skill was. I was learning and I eventually want to start playing in tournaments, but I'm. I'm taking a slow approach to this. I want to play my first tournament sometime in the fall. Um, I may end up playing in like a lifetime fitness league. There's a.
Speaker 2:Friday league here and, um, I have a bunch of people in our neighborhood that, um, it's really funny. If you go, follow us on Instagram. We've been doing a lot of just like hilarious content. We found that pickleball people love fun and then they like to be educated, so we've created some crazy characters, a lot. All of these crazy characters and people are people from our neighborhood, Right, Okay, Like we were filming on the courts one day and this group of four ladies were like hey, I wear this lab coat and it's like the pickleball scientist. They're like what, are you the pickleball doctor? I was like, no, I'm the pickleball scientist. Can we be in the next video? I'm like are you serious? And so they come out with all their friends. And then they come out with all their friends and then they start telling people the best one of all is we in here in Houston. You guys know who Hakeem Olajuwon is.
Speaker 3:Oh sure, the dream, the dream right.
Speaker 2:One of the people that's in our community. Her name is Svenja. She sent text messages me a picture of her and Hakeem and she's wearing her Be Weird warm up t-shirt and she's showing him our app. That's awesome, and I was like that's pickleball for you right there, though. It's the best, it's the best.
Speaker 1:It's the best. So you mentioned tennis elbow, or what they call tennis elbow. A lot of people are having those issues especially. I had a diadem warrior, which was heavy, and I wanted it because it gave me more power but, it destroyed my, so last year my latest injury has been my hand. Planner's wart Stop, I don't have a planner's wart. He keeps saying I don't, I swear it is not true.
Speaker 2:We need proof. We need proof.
Speaker 1:I don't have pretty feet there, I have bunions.
Speaker 2:Those are that and that's a pickleball thing I just want to know you offered that information I tell everyone because I will tell, because people your feet hurt in this game yes I have replaced every one of my insoles with orthotic and orthotic that gives me a high arch and it has fixed my bunion problem.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 1:I tell everyone because I, I mean, I too, want to avoid surgery, but anyway, my, my hand, um carpal tunnel, apparently has appeared out of this thing and they wanted to do surgery. I had the nerve test, which hurt like crazy, um, and then they did it in a cortisone shot injection which was did nothing, um, so I'm kind of trying to rehab it myself without anything that I, without knowing what I'm doing, really.
Speaker 2:So I can give you a couple of things. There is a program we have in our app.
Speaker 2:That's all for this part of it is like, um, something called cars or controlled articular rotation, so learning to move the joint through a full range of motion. Oh, that's in the app, um. Another thing is isometrics. So there's an isometric exercise is where you don't change joint position. So, for instance, like a bicep curl, like right, you flex your bicep. An isometric would be like your whole. I'm on video here. I don't know if this is gonna be on video we're gonna show some video clip
Speaker 2:okay, so if I'm holding a weight like at 90 degrees, the joint angle's not moving, so there's isometric long duration, isometric holds really help tendonitis, and so there's a couple things I would highly recommend. Okay, um, I'm not a physician. Go talk to your doctor.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I'm trying to check all these. You don't understand. I had three different doctors telling me three different things. I can't get sued.
Speaker 2:So my wife's a physical therapist. She could write a very detailed program but in general a couple of things you can do. One is long duration isometric holds. So for like Achilles tendonitis or patellar tendonitis, we would have people get into certain positions and the idea is to hold for up to you try to get up to two minute isometric hold. So it could be like you know, you could have a barely flexed elbow with a weight in your hand and it's adding tension and you're going to try to get to two minutes as long as you can without and you're going to try to get to two minutes as long as you can without uh, with as few sets as possible.
Speaker 2:Okay, um and uh, you know, repeated a couple times a week. Start two to three times a week. Um has tremendous impact on tendon remodeling an hour before you do any type of that type of exercise. One like I'm not a big like there's a lot of supplements out there that do absolutely nothing. Right, there are some supplements that the the literature is very strong have a tremendous impact on overall health and wellness.
Speaker 1:Which one?
Speaker 2:I can give you, you know, like creatine.
Speaker 1:I thought you were going to give it to me?
Speaker 2:Oh well, I was going to give you. You know, like creatine, I thought you were going to give it to me. Oh well, I was going to give you one.
Speaker 1:I was on pins and needles.
Speaker 2:Well, creatine monohydrate Everybody should use that Really. Oh, it is the most peer-reviewed supplement Thousands of research articles. It's being now used for Alzheimer's research Everybody should use that.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, Two to five grams a day of creatine monohydrate monohydrate Okay.
Speaker 2:One of the things we do for our annual members, by the way, is there's a company called thorn.
Speaker 3:Okay. Annual member of Ames. I am an annual member.
Speaker 2:You get 25% discount on thorn supplements. And so it actually we've had people sign up for our annual membership just to get that discount, Cause you can't get it anywhere on the internet. Really. And they're one of the most respectable companies in the industry, so Creatinine is one of them. But for joint health, collagen is fantastic and I can send you Thorne has one. My favorite brand out there is Bubz B-U-B-S. Natural and actually I can get you guys a discount on that.
Speaker 1:Now, is this the powder form, or is it?
Speaker 2:Yes, but collagen, there's so much good research. Right, there was actually a new randomized control trial. Randomized control trial is, like the highest, the best type of study that you can do. There was a new RTC out 12 weeks of collagen supplementation on healthy individuals and knee and hip pain and people who use collagen, have less knee and hip pain.
Speaker 2:It's just a phenomenal supplement. It's one of the few things that I recommend for everybody, especially pickleball. I think pickleball players should be using collagen and here's something cool collagen supplements in the form of gelatin an hour before they would do their tendon, these tendon protocols, and they would use several hundred milligrams of vitamin C with it because the research was showing it would help with tendon remodeling very fast. So the tendon protocol plus the collagen was really helping with the pain and the remodeling and the process could. So we were giving it to guys through gelatin. But if a more concentrated form of collagen is even better, and so I recommend that for every. I use collagen every morning in my coffee and I really started getting faithful about it about three months ago, and I can tell a tremendous difference in my knees and elbows.
Speaker 1:Okay, A hundred percent need this, but what is tendon remodeling?
Speaker 2:So for us well, like, oh sorry, I didn't mean to use jargon Um, it's like, okay, every cell in your body turns over, right, the lining of your intestines to the skin, um, to muscle cells, right, like, eventually you have to turn over. Well, that's a process that's called remodeling. Or, you know, we think about, like skin is rejuvenated, right, that's kind of probably an easier term. Well, when you do resistance training or any type of training that places a stress or a tensile stress on the tendon, you can actually make that tendon stronger. It's like remodeling it, right, okay, and so, um, that's basically what the process we're talking about here is like strengthening and getting rid of the inflammation in that tendon that's causing you so many problems.
Speaker 2:I see a lot of pickleball elbow issues because of two things One, people. One people start the sport and they go from zero to 100. So we only have so much capacity for stress and tissues have what's called a stress-strain curve, meaning, at some point, like if I was to put a bar over you and say, all right, I want you to bench press the bar, and you're like, oh, that's easy, and I'm like five more pounds. Eventually, we're going to hit a point where either you're going to fail or you're going to rupture, Right, yeah, if you know Milo of Croton, the old story about the little boy that picked up the calf. And then he picked up the calf the next day, and he did it over and over and over. By the time he a grown man, the calf is now a huge, oh my gosh, oh there he is.
Speaker 3:Hey, there you are. Uh, houston, texas massive storm. I thought I heard some thunder is that what that was?
Speaker 2:yep?
Speaker 3:knock rolling blackout, sorry oh geez, I forgot about that too. I'll tell her about that. Uh, all right, we I don't want froze up and left when you were like this, and it was a, a huge steer. Oh, yeah, so Milo of Croton.
Speaker 2:The story goes is that Milo was a little kid. Every day he picked up this little calf, right, and he kept doing it day after day and as he grew he became a man. Well, the calf also became a huge steer. Well, guess what? Milo could keep lifting the calf and he got stronger and stronger and stronger over time, right? So strength is really easy to build. You just have to slowly do it, incrementally over time.
Speaker 2:Our exposure to pickleball needs to be the same way. If you microwave it, you should expect a microwave product. You're going to get injured and hurt. If you slowly increase your time on the court, you have a better chance of reducing your risk of injury. So the rule of thumb should be like let's say you're playing twice a week for an hour. Don't increase your playing time more than 15% per week. The safe dosage is like 10 to 15%. So like if you're doing 120 minutes a week, what? Don't? Add more than 20 minutes the next week? Does that make sense? But if you go from playing two times a week to five times a week, you know, add more than 20 minutes the next week. Does that make sense? Yeah, but if you go from playing two times a week to five times a week. You know all bets are off. That applies to every single sport. If you go into the app, we have something in there called exercise load and we actually track it for you and we start telling you when you're kind of in danger.
Speaker 1:Oh really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there's this section in the app too, like where it's body, mind and recovery. You can ask it for a body recommendation. You can go in there and pick pickleball and it'll tell you your optimal duration and heart rate zone for that day. You should be on the court.
Speaker 1:Oh, all right, I got it. I got to get that.
Speaker 2:Got to get it.
Speaker 3:There's a lot in here. The new version is going to. As we're talking to Eric here, you're going to hear us reference the app Aim7. Well, what does it do? Well, it attaches to your current wearable. So, whatever current device that you use for all your metrics, it will connect with that. It's pretty seamless, I was even able to do it. It will connect with that. It's pretty seamless, I was even able to do it. And then it allows you to calibrate your various functions of mind, body and restfulness, and measures your sleep, measures your exercise, measures your steps. It connects with your wearable so that you have biometrics at your disposal. It also offers workouts post and pre. That will help you stay injury-free, hopefully. And then there's the dreaded mental toughness that we all suffer from occasionally. There's a lot of lessons on that too. So download the app, use the show notes to find a code 25% off. Let's get back to Eric Corum.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, this is unreal.
Speaker 1:You're back. This has never happened before, hey no worries, because while you were gone, I just signed up for the app.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:I made a fish a piece of time.
Speaker 2:This is all being recorded. Are you guys going to edit this?
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure Okay.
Speaker 2:Do you guys own a facility?
Speaker 3:No, we wish. I'm a chief people officer for a medical company and we started an apparel company. This is one of ours, dink, I love it. An apparel company, pickleball Anyone, pickleball Anyone. We're going to send you and Andrea a little swag, by the way, because we'd love to give you something to represent.
Speaker 1:But yeah, we got so crazy about pickleball in a hurry and then we're looking around and all this stuff was yeah, like our friends would give us stuff that was pickleball and at the time there was no merger, okay, and it all went to charity. Because I was like it was, it didn't feel good, the material wasn't good, it didn't, it was corny, it didn't look any you know how many pickleball y'all or you know I mean. So we came up and because we knew the growth of the sport, like our idea was. I'm walking through the grocery store. I know there's other pickleballers in here but I can't recognize you because there's nothing that made people recognizable to each other. So when our clothes are very, very, you know it's not anything flashy. It doesn't say have corny sayings or anything. It's just something small that will say I'm a pickleball player, except for milk. And then, yeah, we have one that says milk M-I-L-P. And this is man. I love pickleball underneath, I love it.
Speaker 1:These have started I mean, this is how we got to know Chris Gronkowski with Ice Shaker, because one of our guys that is founder of our club was wearing our milk shirt and one of his right-hand guys saw him, started conversation. And then, you know, here we are doing ice shaker competitions and you know, pick a ball, and he, he, he came out and played in our Oktoberfest. It's like it's a conversation starter. So anyway, we did that and then he had started a, an HR podcast during COVID. He during COVID, he was doing it for a while and he kind of got bored with it and he was like the only time I have fun is when you're on. So then I came on and I started being his co-host. Then Pickleball became a major part of our life. I'm on the board of our club, I'm, I do when are you guys?
Speaker 3:I'm in Fort Lake, south Lake.
Speaker 2:It's right at DFW Airport. I go over in Richardson.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Oh, that's where I go to my office.
Speaker 2:My office is in Richardson, right off Campbell. No way, I grew up on Campbell and gosh. Where is it? You know where they have like the. It's the old telecom corridor, but now it's man. It's been a while Right where the Owen sausage farm is like a new state farm off of George Bush, kind of in that quadrant right over. There is where I grew up.
Speaker 3:It's a I go. I go in twice a day or twice a week.
Speaker 2:Twice a day? Jeez, that sucks, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:So then the podcast, every conversation turned to Pickleball anyway, and we were like why don't we just go all in Pickleball? So then we started doing Pickleball and our idea was just well, we have 2000 people in our club, We'll just bring people on and get to know our club members a little more. And club.
Speaker 2:We'll just bring people on and get, get to know our club members a little more.
Speaker 1:And then is this club on Facebook.
Speaker 3:It's the Southlake paddle club.
Speaker 1:Okay, and we're a nonprofit and we have over 2000 members and I'm on the board. That's awesome. Yeah, we. It's a crazy story that one too, but it's such a but that's the thing is. Pickleball creates community. One too, but it's such but that's the thing is. Pickleball creates community how we want. We love pickleball. The people we've met in this, I mean, you know, now we're doing our podcast remote, we've been asked to do a couple things here and there and I mean it's just, it's anything that we can do to further the community of pickleball and bring people together and make them healthier or give them, you know, mental health.
Speaker 3:I mean seriously. We've talked. We've had people on here that have literally explained how the sport saved their life, or changed their life at least. And one guy, sutton Howard, for instance, was basically living in the Tenderloin district as a homeless person in San Francisco, drug addict, and is now a professional pickleball player and clean and sober and doing wonderful. It really is. It's the power of the people in the sport.
Speaker 1:We've seen it with our kids I mean with kids that were affected by COVID that isolation and this age of the look down at your phone or gaming, this is transforming their lives. I see more kids now outdoors, and I'm not talking. There were the kids that were involved in pool sports. That's one thing. This is a whole nother thing, because it's socialization and exercise and competition at the same time.
Speaker 2:It's amazing. My son well, my oldest son's really starting to get into it, and that's what he likes the most is he gets to play with other kids.
Speaker 1:Our son the last two nights has been out playing. But you were talking about something. What was he talking about before he got cut?
Speaker 2:Oh, I was talking about load accumulation. I can't remember where I got. Where we got cut off, where we got thunderstruck, Jesus, I'm so sorry about that, but no, no're good.
Speaker 1:It's not your fault. Early on we played in a tournament, it was super hot here and he ended up just getting like a heat stroke. I don't know what, but he was affected by the heat and someone had said well, once it happens, you're more prone to it. There are times when we're out there and I mean he's worked out every day of his life and he and there are times where he struggles more than than I do and he thinks it's that. But I told him breathe through your nose. I don't know. He said that seemed to help. That's another thing. Is that this heat?
Speaker 3:is killing. The heat is dangerous out here. It really is. Well, I'll tell you what.
Speaker 2:We've got a hydration guide I can send you guys if you want to share with people. That's a really important thing is to know and to dial in your hydration, and it's not just water, but electrolytes are really important. You should be drinking a certain amount of fluid, at least 16 to 20 ounces, before you play. 16 to 20 ounces for every pound of body weight that you lose and in this weather, like I was playing yesterday at um 10, 30 or 10, 45, I mean I was drenched when it was over with, and now we're dealing with extreme heat and humidity, and in dallas it's I think I looked yesterday it was almost 100 degrees, yeah, but, um, you know, cramping is something I hear a lot about.
Speaker 2:That's a multi-factorial problem. It's hydration, it's um, and hydration, like I said, is electrolytes plus water. It's also nutrition, like have you eaten enough carbohydrate before you play? Because carbohydrate sucks water into the muscle and most people don't know that. And so, like, if you're on a ketogenic diet, your muscles aren't as hydrated, so you're more prone to cramping. If that's your lifestyle choice, it's fine. You just need to know that. And then also it's a tissue issue have you built up enough fitness? And so there's not really one place we can put our finger on for cramping. And then there's a psychological component. If you're really anxious, if you're really aroused, you're going to be sweating a lot more. We would see this with elite athlete. I had one player when I was at the university of Kentucky. This guy ended up being a first round draft pick in the NFL and we would have to send him into the locker room a few minutes early at halftime so he could literally change all of his clothes. His shoes would be completely soaked because he was so like his eyeballs were this big.
Speaker 2:There's some pro players. I know that they're like when they're playing they're just sucking in all and they're in a highly aroused state. You're gonna sweat more. And if you watch people at the kitchen, you know the kitchen line. They're like, you know, because you're waiting for that ball to come right at your face. Usually the people's mouth are open. You notice that, yeah, and so I should probably make another video on that one, but that all these things together can lead to cramping and and so you've really got to have a good plan for it. And then around tournament play, it can be even worse because you're playing back to back to back to back, and unless it's indoors and even indoor situation people get really fatigued. And I think that's a. If you play, if you're a tournament player, your nutrition is a really important part of your ability to win out. You know your skill and your stamina, but then are you, are you feeding yourself at the correct interval so that you can have enough energy, especially when you get to a finals, that you can be at your best?
Speaker 3:And there's some tactics around that.
Speaker 2:So I'm happy to. I'll write a note for myself to send you a link. You can put the show notes for people for that.
Speaker 1:So someone gave him pickles and pickle juice. Yeah, I mean, there's so many of these hydration things. I can't get it, I can't figure them out.
Speaker 2:Pickleball cocktail.
Speaker 1:Right, everyone's got one. And now, all of a sudden, there's these little chew things that have salt in them, and there's that drink that has God, it's called salty or something.
Speaker 3:I forget what it is, but it is horrid.
Speaker 1:No, it was good, but it's all over the place. Element I I'm back to just doing, because I loved liquid IV but the citrus caused me to get cuts. It was too sour for my mouth.
Speaker 2:I use Ultima.
Speaker 1:Ultima Okay.
Speaker 2:It's zero calorie. It's not overly salty, but if you're a heavy sweater, you're going to need more sodium, yep and so if you know that about yourself. Yeah, there's Bubz.
Speaker 1:Element, element, element. Have you heard of that one?
Speaker 2:Yeah, really good brand.
Speaker 1:Right 1,000 megs of sodium, 200 megs of potassium and 60 megs of magnesium.
Speaker 2:I mean most of these will be fine. Element Pickleball Cocktail by Jigsaw Health. Ultima Bubs has got one that would be more for tournament players. It's a little bit more salty If you're playing like four or five, or you out there for playing two or three hours in a row. You're going to need you're going to need to fuel with food too. You need to get something that's easily digestible on your system. If you're going to go out and play for a couple hours, after about that 60 to 90 minute timeframe, you need to put something in your body. It could be as easy as like white bread with honey on it, or citrus fruit like a orange, um, or something else. It's very easily digestible. But make sure you get some food on you.
Speaker 1:Now let me ask you this Do you think that you I heard someone said that, with these electrolytes, like you need sugar to digest an electrolyte or to have an electrolyte. Have you heard that?
Speaker 2:I thought it was the first time I heard it you don't need sugar but the carbohydrate like research does show that, like carbohydrate rich beverages, like Gatorade, if you're playing, if you're doing long duration activity I'm not talking about a 60 minute workout, I'm talking like 90 minutes to two hours those are more beneficial. Why? Because you, you need a quick hit of carbohydrate. Um and so you know those are very you. Typically it's a maltodextrin that's in those types of drinks. Uh, that's really quick hit on your system and so you're going to get some instant sugar and it's going to help a little bit.
Speaker 1:That's what I resorted to. That's where I'm at.
Speaker 3:And well, and I also wanted to, I wanted to make sure we mentioned you have your own podcast, and tell me, tell me a little bit more about that what's the message that you're spreading there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, um, I started this about four years ago and it's cutting edge science, leadership and life skills and what we call simple tactics. So it's 15 to 20 minute episodes, um, and it's for people that are busy but want to be high performers. Think about, like have you ever heard of Andrew Huberman? Yes, the Huberman lab.
Speaker 2:It's like I think it's the number one podcast in the world right now Next to Rogan, but those are like three hours, so we distill the same stuff into like 15 minute segments on everything from uh, exercise to mental health to leadership. Um, I wanted to put together a podcast for people that want to be high performers, like um. Next week I have Steven Covey coming on the show. Um, we've had decision-making experts. We've had former special operations folks. I'll do episodes. I'm doing episodes now on Pickleball.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:So we do three episodes a week Monday, wednesday, friday. They're very short. The one that came out today was on three different things that are basically forces acting on your life that are forming you, and so really, as we grow older, we want to become the best version of ourself, and really what that is is about counter formation, and so I talked about stories, relationships and different three different forces that are kind of acting on our lives, but I try to do them in like. Some of them are seven minutes, some of them are 15 or 20. So when I have on a guest like a scientist or a researcher on a specific subject, we'll sit down for an hour, but then I break it into little bitty chunks so somebody could listen to it on the way to the grocery store. Yeah, so that's called the blueprint and we're, you know wherever you consume your podcasts.
Speaker 3:You sound like you said that before. Thank you. I appreciate you bringing that up you sound like you said that before. Well, thank you, I appreciate you you bringing that up. Yeah, absolutely, I mean we part of uh, that's the other part we found again in this industry. Everybody seems to be willing and wanting to help one another. Absolutely, the sport's still growing, still in its early years, despite how big it's gotten, which is just crazy we're at the bottom of the j curve oh, I 100 agree, and I was saying that for years, john, it's so.
Speaker 2:You were on the flat line. Now we're just starting to go up. Yeah Right.
Speaker 1:Like John said, helping other businesses that are coming up in this sport. That's a focus too. Did you go to the? Have you gone to any of the major PPA events?
Speaker 3:or MOPI events. Yeah, yeah, yeah With the US Open.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I guess when the Nationals was here last year, the PPA did a business forum I don't know if you know that, but they did and so anyway, this other lady decided hey, that's a great idea, we should continue doing this on a local level to help support local businesses. And so now we're part of a little think tank and it's so funny because the world is so big but it's so small and pickable, Like the connections that we've made.
Speaker 2:So what does the think tank do? You guys just get together and talk about how to build the sport.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they'll have like a. If you want to be the featured company, that day you will present an issue. You usually go in there with, excuse me, a problem or a question, and you have the others that are there that will each get a chance to tell you what they think, and then the next week it'll be the you know somebody else you'll rotate through it.
Speaker 1:So all entrepreneurs, all people who love, have a love and and have a passion for this sport, and all people who have different levels of responsibility in the sport are are invited in this. In fact, even Ed Chow is. I don't know if he's going on Thursday, but our next one is Thursday, ed.
Speaker 2:Chow is the GM of the Dallas Flash. Oh yeah, I bet, ed. I think I bet.
Speaker 1:Ed, we covered the Dallas Flash MLP exhibition a couple weeks ago.
Speaker 3:Against the Squeeze. Yeah, that was cool. Have you been to an MLP event?
Speaker 2:Yes, I was at MLP Atlanta.
Speaker 3:Actually our new operations director.
Speaker 2:I met him through that event. He just came on board. It was awesome, Really awesome.
Speaker 3:It really is. It's great. We couldn't believe that. It kind of gave us an indication of where the sport is. I mean, these were professionals, Some of them, like Tyson McGuffin was there for crying out loud and there was maybe 150 people.
Speaker 1:Like Hyson McGovern was there for crying out loud and there was maybe 150 people. That's how early this thing is. And these guys, you know, these poor guys are just. You know, most of them are like to your point on Megan and Ryler. They're living in a Well.
Speaker 2:that's out of choice, because I mean, they do pretty good. They just signed a nice deal with Franklin and she's crushed. She almost triple crowned in California. The APP event had 1,800 people competing, wow, and she won two golds and a silver.
Speaker 1:Well, she's in the signed group, yeah. The majority of these guys that are coming up are literally living in their car down by the river. Oh yeah, I'm not kidding you, living in their car down by the river. I'm not kidding you. Cole Whitaker, who is an up and comer, lives lived in his van by the Oasis pickleball center in Crockwell to learn how to become a good pickleballer and he lived out of his van.
Speaker 1:I don't know if he still does or not, but then you know, and you got um Slutsky, who we just we talked to the other week and he's um, you know he's, he's a programmer or something. I mean, a lot of them are not.
Speaker 3:This is not a full-time thing yet well, I think even zane wasn't that long ago, wouldn't zane like a cpa or an account?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, dude, and he, he's a unbelievable like. He and I really hit it off because of our. We're both like, very like. If we say we're gonna do something, we're gonna do it, we're gonna do it to the best of our. We were both like, very like. If we say we're going to do something, we're going to do it, we're going to do it to the best of our ability, and we immediately kind of connected on that and like he'll text me and uh, wait, wait, wait we lost you, he'll text you.
Speaker 2:He'll text me at five 30 in the morning. So if I send him an email or text I'm going to get a text the next morning at around five 30 in the morning. And we did a series of interviews on the blueprint with him and we kind of went through his daily routine. He's super regimented and part of that actually is what's helped him regulate a lot of the stressors in his life. So because he's so regimented, he front modes all of his work and I think it's around by four o'clock in the day he's done. If I need to get to get a hold of him, like I'm not getting a hold of him, he's like cut everybody off. He's calming down, he's relaxing, spending time with his new wife, you know, and he's very regimented like that.
Speaker 2:And he's one of these guys that will do whatever it takes to be elite and I love that. Like I'm, I'm meeting the same type of athletes at the highest level that I worked with in the NFL. They're all the same. The best of the best are all the same. They're obsessed with their craft, they're looking for ways to improve and there's a humility there that they're always ready and willing to learn. And when I approached this sport, I came into it not having all the answers, but really trying to learn, learn, learn, learn, learn and then try to apply our expertise to some known problems. You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I always call it like you got to layer the skills on in this, because there was a point where I was watching everything I could and I was taking lessons from this coach and this coach and whatever and it all these things that I was working on and I couldn't do anything right.
Speaker 1:And so Tim, our friend and the founder of our club, says he was working with me and he worked with me on mechanics, and that's another thing. I don't think that we people work on shots rather than, okay, the mechanics and I think you mentioned this earlier too right, technique, but I think it's actually mechanics, like the understanding, the mechanics not just doing, because our bodies, we are all going to do something a little bit different. And you look at the pros and you're like, how do they do that? Well, it's because they have somebody, their third alert who's, who's perfected their technique, their, their mechanics, and it makes a huge difference. Um, being able to hit a ball with topspin now instead of my shoulder, like your point, like gear point. I overused my shoulder a lot in in the beginning. I'm learning how not to do that because it's really embarrassing when you see it on a video.
Speaker 3:I'll tell you that well, he's gonna see it on video.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna get that video well, let's close it out with one question okay what's your favorite pickleball shot?
Speaker 2:my favorite pickleball. I love to dink and I want to be a world-class dinker.
Speaker 2:I think just watching, like I have to be, like watching Megan and then watching her how she bends and moves, and then watching Annalie waters at MLP Like I was like right there next to the court and watching how she used angles to her advantage, it was just like it was a thing. And the court and watching how she used angles to her advantage, it was just like it was a thing. There's a reason why she's so stinking good. She is also mentally one of the strongest athletes, I think, on the entire tour. But I would love to be just an amazing dinger, cause that's a skill that, as I age like power goes out the window. It's really about having that soft hands and placing the ball where you want it. I I'm fascinated by that.
Speaker 3:Amen, I'm right there with you. I am too. Now we're going to fill up uh show notes. Anyway, people can get ahold of you and I've already started to follow you on Insta, so I'll get all your socials and all that kind of stuff. But if people want to find out more about uhIM7 and what's next, what's the best way for them to do a little research on you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say follow us at AIM7 on Instagram and then go to AIM7.com. You can download the app. Like I said, the next version is coming out in September. I'll say this we have a 90% retention rate right now, after 30 days. So people are staying with us. They love this app. Retention rate right now, after 30 days. So people are staying with us, they love this app. We're building something that doesn't exist and really trying to build the future of health and performance for pickleball. So we're trying to nurture our community, get to know them. So, like, if you send us an email, we will respond very quickly. Um, we are really I am fanatical about getting to know people, understanding their problems and helping build solutions. And, um, we put out a really cool weekly newsletter that includes like a lot of like performance tips and stuff like that. So if you go to our site, you can sign up for that.
Speaker 3:It's cool. Well, if and if Andrea is any indication of the responsiveness of your team, I'm telling you she was bang, bang bang responsiveness.
Speaker 2:So she's awesome, very blessed to have her.
Speaker 1:Well, Eric, you were so great talking to you.
Speaker 2:Likewise, thank you for having me.
Speaker 3:Thank you for coming on and hopefully the weather's past you there, but uh, and good luck with the electricity situation. That's a mess down there, man.
Speaker 2:It's a total mess.