Welcome to the Put in the Work podcast. I am your host and owner of TLD Fitness, Zach Skokheim, and I’ m here with a very special guest on our first episode, Tyler Kinch. Tyler, tell us about yourself. Yeah, thanks for having me. I’ m excited about it. I am a physical therapist by trade, so I own Revolution Rehab here in Grand Rapids, Michigan. And I started my practice after working in the corporate healthcare setting, I guess you would say. Okay. Working with a lot of high -volume kind of situations, a lot of billing, all that kind of thing. So I wasn’ I really enjoying it, and so I decided to start my own practice and get more into the world of strength training and injury prevention and things like that with high-level athletes.

Very nice. Okay. So tell me a little bit more, what made you switch from corporate kind of PT mill style to your solo? It’ s just you. Yeah. Right? Like, tell me what made you switch from that. Yeah, I mean, I’ ve always wanted to own my own business. I, you know, started some things throughout college, and so that was kind of the track I was on. I just happened to become a physical therapist, and then I got into the healthcare setting. Took a couple years to realize, I’ m like, ‘ eh, this ain’ t for me. Wasn’ t able to help the people in the way I thought they needed it or wanted to. I’ m a very relational guy, so I like to build relationships, and that’ s hard to do when you have 20 people coming in.

I get to the door every day and trying to shuffle them out the door. So, just started talking to some people and moved back here to Grand Rapids with my wife and kids and decided didn’ t have any connections. It was as good of time as any to start my own practice. Nice. Love it. What would you say is the main benefit? Like, if I was an individual and I had an injury, what would you say is the main benefit of going to you versus going through my insurance and using more of my own training? Play a corporate physical therapy clinic, yeah, I think you know there’ s there’ s so many we could go down a lot of rabbit holes as to benefits.

You know, and that’ s not to say that the physical therapists and the healthcare providers that are still within the healthcare system, I don’ t truly care about you, and they do a fantastic job, they’ re just limited by the rules and regulations and the red tape of what’ s covered, what isn’ To you know, the amount of visits those kinds of things and so at the end of the day I always say, quality of life is not billable, and the healthcare system is designed for high- volume catastrophic injuries. We do need it, and I wouldn’ t be wanting to be anywhere else in the world except in the United States if something bad were to happen to me.

But I think a lot of those individuals out there they’ re after that kind of higher quality of life or they’ re training for something, and then an injury pops up; they want someone who understands what they’ re going after, and to not slow down the process. I need a referral; I need to go through all these checks and balances before I can get the care X, Y, and Z – you name it. Um, someone who’ s just going to be like, ‘ All right, here’ s what we got to get to let’. Get there so okay, so so it sounds like it. As a more direct path for people, yeah, yep, it can be um and then also um a little bit more all-encompassing so um you know time is not a constraint for us in regards to getting started, and then also whatever it is we need to do uh we make sure that we do too um supplement their training and their goals.

Okay, nice earlier you mentioned that your main target demographic are athletes, yeah, okay? So tell me about um I guess tell me more about that like what what is describe the person that you really want to help, yeah, and I guess I would say I work with a lot more athletes in this setting than I did in the health care setting but my primary demographic would be uh health- conscious people people who are looking to be fit or well so not necessarily high- level athletes only okay um but yeah so I think it’ s just there’ s a lot of people that as they you know get through college and they start a career

and they have a family something hits them all of a sudden they’ re like I can’ t squat anymore without knee pain or I can’ t lift what I used to lift or I can’ t I used to be really strong and could you know squat and deadlift and train um and it doesn’ t matter where you are in the country it doesn’ t matter where you are in the country it doesn’ t matter where you are in the country, like I know people go through that all the time right, and so um, that’ s where it’ s just kind of one of those um, they want to get back to those things and sometimes the the health care system doesn’ t allow it so um, giving them a way to strength train locally here um, I think is what we’ re going after there.

Cool, I like it, I like it um, okay. So your your main um service, it sounds like, people that are people that have an injury prevention services are there like describe kind of the all-encompassing service that you do provide to your to your clients, sure yeah so something i m actually passionate about self-development, uh, and largely kind of setting goals, strategic planning, those kinds of things, and so uh, that’ s something I do in addition to solving injuries. So yeah, I do have a lot of people the bulk of my clientele are people with injuries, and they’ re trying to get back, but I also enjoy working with people who are in the healthcare system, and they’ re trying to get back, but I also enjoy working with people who

um maybe want to get into strength training, but they’ re concerned that they re going to hurt themselves so giving them some insight from a physical therapist medical background point of view of this is good pain this is bad pain um you know kind of that support on the back end it’ s very common in the health care setting where people enter they get care and then they get kicked out the back end and say here are your exercises do them for the rest of your life good luck if you need anything come on back um and i like to give a little bit more um on the back end so that’ s where

um for example if someone’ s working out with their personal trainer here in grand rapids um like when they have some questions about aches or pains with a squat you know they don’ t necessarily need to go through this x -ray mri all these things they could consult with their physical therapist and personal trainer and kind of tackle that on the back end for injury prevention as well i like that i like that so one thing you always tell me is um that most of the success for a client comes from the work that they put in outside of your sessions is that is that true and kind of describe like why is that the case yeah so we’ re physical therapy is much more in the world of like personal training and exercise than than most medical services right you go to a chiropractor massage therapist or a doctor you’ Re going to essentially show up as a patient and receive care, and hopefully leave feeling better with what they did.

And there are factors that physical therapists do, manual dry kneeling cupping all those things that are going to help you get better with what they did, and all those things that we help people get better with or feel better get out of pain. But the long-term success comes from the building habits and strength training on the back end, and you can’ t ever prevent injuries entirely, but it really comes down to having that person take ownership in their own life and develop habits and a lifestyle that promotes better healthy living long term, which is why I always say what they do between the visits is what. s most important which is why i

don’ t call my patients patients i call them clients because it gives them that kind of onus of like a this is my thing i have to do this i have to invest in my health and that will better prepare them when we say all right now let’ s go find you a personal trainer or what’ s your plans long term they will already have been working on that throughout their time with me so they’ ll transition well into whatever they do next that’ s very nice very nice okay so if i was nursing an injury currently yep what what is the best plan of action action do i rest do i continue doing do i continue working out do i have exercises that i’ m doing

do i ice it like do i take a sauna like what’ s the best plan of action if i if i do have an injury yeah it really depends on the individual and what’ s injured and their goals at the time so if they’ re training for something specifically or not but at the end of the day you know if there’ s a clear sign of injury sharp pain can’ t do a movement or an exercise it definitely obviously rests and using any sort of modality or technique that provides pain relief you know that’ s step one obviously figuring out what is the problem and how long that’ s going to take to rest but largely we don’ t want to remove someone from their activity

if if they can do pain -free activities and rest a certain say they injured their their ankle but they can do upper body workouts still do as much as possible because that’ s just going to keep the body um in its best shape as possible and then we can kind of work the injury from there okay nice there’ s this uh funny anecdote going around of when you go to your doctor and you tell them that squatting hurts your doctor is going to tell you to stop squatting sure what’ s your take on that yeah so i i think it’ s the again it’ s a programming issue if someone has knee pain

when they squat well then that means the knee can’ t tolerate their body weight, so then they really need maybe some more medical care or change in their programming to allow that knee or pain to resolve, so then one day they can squat because if the body can go through a movement, then why not allow the body to go through that movement and then you just slowly start to load that tissue from there. That’ s the same as if someone were to go to a personal trainer and say, well I can squat at 100 pounds, but when I go to 150 pounds it hurts. Well, then it’ s too much weight. So, I think

it’ s just doctors generally they don’ To have enough time to sit down and explain to people all that, and then also they have to err on the side of caution that if they tell someone it’ s okay to squat and then that person just decides to go and squat 200 pounds, it’ s on the doctors for saying hey you know so they just err on that don’ t squat, okay yeah as a cautionary sure that makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay how do I know if I’ m truly injured versus like I’ m maybe I’ m just sore or people use the term I tweaked my neck yeah or I tweaked my right…

Describe the difference like what’ s this spectrum of soreness all the way to like an actual injury sure well the body heals itself, we just help it along so a lot of times if someone Sore from say working out, you know they’ ll have soreness for a couple days and you’ ve even experienced it where maybe you did a little too much lifting and you’ re sore for five to seven days or a little bit longer so but generally speaking you subconsciously just kind of know what to do. It’ s like I tweaked my back, I’ m gonna rest, not do as much, and in a week or two, you know it feels better and you get back here, you’ re back to your life, right?

So really, it’ s when after a couple weeks, like that’ s just not changing the pain is just getting worse or not there’ s no like light at the end of the tunnel, that’ s when we’ re kind of like all right, what? Going on, is there something that we need to check out and some structured care that you might mean, okay, okay, got it. Um, what is an overuse injury? How does that differ from a normal injury? I mean, an overuse injury is a normal injury that’ s just essentially an example of you know, I sprained my ankle, it’ s an acute sudden force that causes that tissue to tear or be you know, have trauma, that kind of thing.

Overuse is essentially the tissue has been used so much for either a short amount of time or a long period of time, years to where it Just worn down over time, and then it no longer can tolerate the task at hand. A lot of things could be different; it’ s a, you know, very complicated in the sense that maybe you had an old injury you sprained your ankle, then all of a sudden it didn’ t heal as well as it could have or structures didn’ t get as strong as they needed to be during the rehab process. And then other muscles had to start to compensate over time, and then you see injury down the road from potential overuse.

Okay, so, so it’ s important what you’ re saying is this: it’ s important if you do have an injury to properly take care of it because that that injury could one day almost turn into kind of like that long- term overuse injury, yeah, where it’ s like you know you. Re pulling on a thread and then all of a sudden the whole t-shirt is right, like that sort of thing, yeah, yeah, that’ s kind of the way it is. Why I always have my clients to try to strength train and get involved in some sort of activity because the more stable and resilient your body is, yeah, more less likely it will

withstand overuse type injuries, so you got to think if someone doesn’ t train, doesn’ t do anything then they start to run their tolerance or ability to run longer distances might be limited versus somebody who s been running for a long while, who trains their body properly they might be less likely to have overuse injuries because their body’ s just more tolerant to the task at hand but take that with a grain of salt because you know if someone decide who’ s been running for 10 years decides they’ re going to really ramp up their training program so it comes down to a programming issue where they do too much running too fast that can lead to an overuse injury where essentially they just stress that tissue beyond a point it was able to tolerate, okay yeah so I’ ve heard I’ ve heard um strength training be described as mobility work under load and the load is that accurate, do you feel like that?

An accurate um definition or or are there true differences between strength training under strength training and mobility work? Yeah, I mean there if you look at that, I think that that’ s just a creative way to to put those two things together. Right? You know, you essentially when you’ re strength training, you’ re taking the joints through a various ranges, and so if you don’ t have a ton of mobility, then you’ re going to strength train through the range that you’ re able to uh go through, right? And then there’ s mobility which, you know, uh, you may not be loading heavily or you may may not the focus on strength training; it may just be mobility.

I think it s kind of it was just a creative way whoever said that of like uh yeah we’ re working on gaining range and as we continue to go through that repetition and build strength the body builds tolerance and allows you to maybe go into further training and then you’ re going to be able to do more of that and then you’ re going to be able to go into depth and things like that um with your squats or something so over time you do gain mobility by the act of just moving and staying active so i’ ve always been curious how does age affect our bodies ability to recover from an injury sure yeah i think it’ s pretty common knowledge that, as we get older, we struggle to recover as fast.

You know, you hear somebody say, ‘ Oh, the moment I turn 50 like or 40 or 30, I went for a run; I just couldn’ t, you know, get out of bed as easy.’ And so, I think that’ s just that’ s common and the body just slowly over time starts to lose its ability to regenerate the cells and to respond as well as it used to when it was younger. So, when we do activities and things like that, um, it takes us longer to recover, so that’ s why it’ s so important, especially early on. So kind of like you think of your retirement, right? They always talk about the more you start, then compounding interest and then it grows and grows and grows.

So uh, the earlier you start and the longer you work at being healthy and the stronger you are, the higher you start. The older you get, is what we always like to kind of say. So if I’ ve exercised for a while or I work on mobility, then I start up here. So as I age, I know I’ m going to slowly decline over time, but if I start at a I’ m going to decline over time because that’ s just life. But I’ m going to hit a much more debilitating state sooner, right? Right, you’ re going to hit that lower spot way sooner than if you started way up here, right. Yeah, sure. So there’ s nothing that you know, strength training isn’ You’ re going to prevent the aging process, but it’ s going to help you start at a higher point, yeah.

So, you can do more for longer and that’ s kind of like the retirement plan – the sooner you get into it, the more you invest in yourself, the better off you’ ll be further down the road. Okay, and so are you saying that strength training is basically like the best way to prevent that those aging- connected injuries? Are you saying that strength training is the best way to prevent those, yeah, so that you can build up that retirement, you know there’ s yeah there’s there. As a lot of you know, research out there that will support you know mobility work, strength training, those kinds of things, and how it helps us long term, not just for the muscles but cardiovascular health, bone health, like all of the things right?

Um, so definitely using strength training as one of the ways to kind of build up our strength and our health long term uh is a fantastic way to stay healthy, okay. And so from a more scientific standpoint getting in the weeds of it you mentioned that it’ s that as our bodies age it’ s more difficult for our bodies to regenerate cells can you describe that a little bit a little bit more well? You know every time you that? So, kind of how you know our muscles get bigger over time right? So every time you go through a workout, we break down that tissue and then the brain sends everything it needs to to rebuild that tissue and the brain’ s like thinking, ‘ Oh man, this person just kind of tore my muscles up.

I’ m going to build them back bigger and stronger so the next time they do this, it doesn’ t happen.’ But then we understand that whole process is where progressive overloading comes in where it’ s, we continually up the ante, or RSA system, and we’ re able to do that ourselves, break down that tissue more and our brains like, ‘ Oh shoot, I need to build it up more’ and so things like that start to you know decline over time where the ability for the muscles to build up stronger aren’ t as effective as time goes on. Another thing would be like bone health, so if you’ ve heard of like osteoporosis or things like that, the systems at play to where the bones get stronger over time also gets impacted as well.

Um, so weight training loads the bones and that makes them stronger as like a starting point. And so, the argument’ s the same is the stronger we are going into our aging years, the better we are. Yeah, that’ s not to say someone can’ t start now, yeah, we encourage it right, yeah, of course, um, but it Just one of those, you know? Movement is key, yeah, movement is the best medicine, so that’ s what I love, it’ s cool. Um, so you and I have kind of talked about the bridge between physical therapy and fitness, let’ s say in a perfect world this like dystopian future what do you what do you see that as like what’ s this what’ s this like beautiful mix of physical therapy with fitness what does that look like for you?

Yeah, I think they’ re you know the same when you like go into the hospital assisting and you have like physicians and nurses and they’ re working hand in hand to provide care right so as we ve talked about, you know, physical therapists are much more medical- based and personal training is much more, you know, performance- based strength training and so we are specialists in our craft but there’ s this bridge that we have to gap of uh and a lot of times that doesn’ t happen where I guess I’ d ask how many physical therapists have you communicated with owning a gym, uh, in the insurance-based settings or the healthcare system, sure right? And how many of them have reached out to you saying ‘ Hey, I have this patient’ which again, HIPAA things like that we have to obviously protect people’ s privacy but how many physical therapists are able or have the time to reach out to different gym owners or personal trainers

so they’ Re just solving one aspect of that equation that equals someone’ s health, correct? They’ re just like, I want to solve this and that’ s it, yep, yep, and so, and that is what insurance pays for, and circling all the way back to the original, you know, and rightfully so. They as a physical therapist, they shouldn’ t be reaching out to a personal trainer to say, hey, this is what we’ ve been worked on when they’ re so busy already and they’ re not getting paid for it, so you can’ t blame them, no, no, it’ s not their fault, it’ s just that’ s the system, so figuring out ways to bridge that gap where you know, and that.

So where I think physical therapists, as they improve their knowledge and skill set with lifting, so knowing what a deadlift is, knowing how to do a deadlift, knowing how to coach it, um, so then that will better help us be able to provide exercises to get them prepared for strength training and deadlifting or whatever it is they want. And then vice versa for personal trainers where they might have a client that you know is having knee pain and they try all the modifications right because personal trainers have you know, well if that hurts then we’ ll do this, well if that hurts then we’ ll try that, and if they’ ve tried all of their you know modifications and still nothing. Working then consulting with the person, the physical therapist and so closing that kind of gap there.

So, do you see in the future um getting crazy in the future we have flying cars and all that good stuff um? Do you see that a lot more uh professionals who are almost like cross-trained physical therapists who are maybe in a gym setting or physical therapists who are maybe even fitness coaches but they have this knowledge of physical therapy that they can use or even vice versa, like do you see that being the bridge or is it just more on the organization side of things? A gym who hires a PT or has a PT available for their clients. Like what do you see as kind of the sure the bridge, uh, I think it’ s already happening. You see, you know, social media and influencers.

You see a lot of personal trainers or strength coaches who are very, you know, focused on corrective exercises and things like that right, and so and then you see a lot of personal trainer or physical therapists who are really into strength training and getting certifications, and their their PTs, their physical therapists, and they have a personal training certification and they can do this and you know that. s just one of the things you want to of some side type right so um but then you start getting into this world of in some instances that’ s great because you know kill two birds with one stone like you have someone that can do both but

then you also have it where you know now are they spreading themselves too thin so it’ s kind of um i think it’ s already happening and i think it’ s great you know i i don’ t there’ s there’ s so many people to go around in this world i i welcome it all you know so if you have a personal trainer who’ s um that way then you know by all means have them use corrective exercises and help people out if you have a gym that doesn’ I have that kind of setup, but they have a physical therapist that works with the gym. Awesome, they can work hand in hand. Um, I think it’ s happening slowly but surely, nice. I agree, I agree for sure.

You’ ve definitely seen that trend of the of the bridge yeah, so no, that’ s great. Um, okay. So let’ s say that I was an athlete or let’ s say I was just a non-athlete, but I strength train, I work out, maybe I run if I wanted to prevent an injury. I’ m healthy, nothing’ s wrong with me right now, but I know that you know after seven years of running, you’ re pretty much guaranteed to have an injury right, like I know that at some point if you’ re going to be lifting for many years, at some point you re going to encounter something if i knew that and i wanted to prevent an injury what do you feel is the

best way to do that are there specific exercises right like do you have like a general list of exercises that everyone should do or is it more nutrition is it stretching like what do you feel like is the best way to prevent injuries in the future so that’ s always the challenge is you can’ t prevent injuries you can you can do your best to reduce the risk of them um so you know i think yes they’ re having a quality coach to do programming for your running or a personal trainer or gym who’ Focused on strength training, which will build up the tolerance of your tissue, and ultimately reduce the risk of injury. Making sure you feel properly because if you don’ t eat anything then decide to go do a 10- mile run, you don’ t have any fuel in the body; your tissue is going to fatigue out, it’ s going to cramp sooner, it’ s going to potentially tweak right.

So all of those things can be part of the process. But at the end of the day, you could step in a hole and roll your ankle right, or you could um be invited to go do a hill exercise and you’ ve been training for a road race, and you go do this hill exercise and the next day all of a sudden you’ re like holy cow! m injured right so um but i would say you know runners specifically they they have seasons where they have usually two a races a year maybe one they train for a marathon they do all of the things that are necessary to take care of their body to

eat properly to train properly make sure they don’ t do too much training and then you know do corrective exercises while they train and then in the off season strength training you know conditioning building muscle tissue to tolerate the next season so i think you know there’ Seasons where we’ re doing a combination of all of that is the most important to try to reduce the risk of injuries, yeah okay very nice very nice. So how do you eat and tell that to your family members in this world? Right? What happens in your religion, I think a very big influence is a good solution. Is Instagram? You’ re probably only allowing like a half- million subscribers so you’ re joining an subscribers group. I’ m sorry, just to give you an example.

Shocking! It’ s such a good thing to observe your active lifestyles that’ s really a big impact right and stuff like that. As part of the reason why this is what we do and why we need to do that as a group and great friends for quite a while, I was going to know Jack this and hush right, and so um again. Depending on the time of season would determine the type of strength training you would go through, right? So in the off-season, a lot more you know hypertrophy those kinds of power strength training, and then while you’ re running, the focus is to run and build miles up and at a base, so it’ s going to be a lot more mobility, some strength training, loading of the tissue; the body doesn’ t like to do the same thing repetitively over and over and over again be without some variation mixed in.

That’ s why uh you you get a lot of repetitive injuries with running because that. s all people do so adding in some strength training every week or cross training is i would say the third piece of like making sure that’ s sprinkled in nice yeah okay cool um what should someone look for in a pt if they’ re if they’ ve got an injury or maybe they just want help to prevent an injury what says what should someone look for in a pt yeah again it depends on the individual phrase that sure what should someone look for in a physical therapist if they have an injury that they’ re that they’ Re- working through or maybe they want to prevent an injury, what should someone look for in a physical therapist?

Sure it really depends on the individual, obviously a lot of physical therapists have different specialties so you know some physical therapists are pelvic floor specialists, some are endurance coach specialists, they work with a lot of runners, so that would be something to look for that they could meet them on the same level of oh I also run a marathon, so I know what it’ s like’ right, a personal experience. Um, but then also some people just jive better with others, so obviously finding someone that’ s going to listen to them and hear them and understand what’ s going on. I all P. T. s you know have gone through similar types of training, granted there’ s good and bad in every profession,

but if you’ re looking for someone that’ s going to be able to help you with that then you Going to have to look for someone that’ s going to be able to help you with that, so finding that person that essentially I think can hear you and understand what your goals are, and then know how to implement a training program or strengthening or rehab that’ s going to best help you hit your goals. Okay? What would be like a red flag? Like I’ m sitting down in a PT office and my PT says this what would be that red flag that that kind of tells you to run the other way, uh mine is always the if they tell you to stop doing what you’ re doing um so like uh oh you have shin splints stop running uh don’ t like again kind of back to the the doctor question about oh if it hurts don’ t do it yeah um that is uh very um

kind of an oversimplified you know answer and there’ s yeah um and then i would say the bigger thing is uh and you have to kind of look for it a little bit more but if they give you exercises instead of doing it um you have to turn it casually who knows why you can’ t keep trying because it’ s too hard when that was seen so the reason that i interested in doing SRM is like uh i don’ t think i saw a lot of people who do SRM because it can be very uncomfortable uh and i even if i wasn’ I’ m having a bad day with my friends, you know I’ m defeated by getting RFAed. Yeah, a lot of best practices, a lot of students going to give a course on SRM.

Um, if you’ re a risk taker and reading a book or taking a test, but also like when you’ re like like making sure the Pt or any provider for that matter um actually can get to the root cause of the problem and say this is why I think you’ re having these symptoms and this is how we’ ll treat that, why as opposed to just treating whatever the symptom is. Yeah, love it. Yeah, love it makes sense so sweet yeah nice that. All I got, okay. Did you want to do more talking, conversing, or you feel like that was solid, okay? We can redo it too if you’ re like, ah, I think it was good, okay. Um, maybe do like a sign off. All right, guys, well that was Dr. Tyler Kincannon of Revolution Rehab, thanks so much for being on the Put in the Work podcast, appreciate you being here, thanks for inviting me. It was a good one, and always like talking about this stuff and uh, can go down many, many rabbit holes, so my mac I’ ll come back for sure, oh yeah, I’ m sure we’ ll uh, I’ m sure we’ ll tackle tackling some rabbit holes in the near future. All right, thanks, Tyler.