Ep 82: Building Athletes: A Neurological Approach to Training with Elite Strength Coach John Nelson

Our guest is John Nelson, founder of Elite Level Performance (ELP). We cover John’s journey from dealing with back trouble in high school (including what ended up being a tumor on his lumbar spine) to establishing a multi-service facility aimed at optimizing athletic performance and working with the best baseball players in the greater Memphis area. The conversation delves deeply into the advanced techniques John uses and how these methodologies are dramatically improving movement and performance in athletes. We cover:

– In-depth discussion on neurological techniques to calm nociceptive responses, activate muscles, and improve movement patterns – and the effects all of this can have on athletic performance.
– The evolving approach to strength training, focusing more on full-body movement and de-emphasizing classical lifts.
– Integration of the Neubie device with advanced systems of assessment, activation, movement, and mobility.

Tune in for a comprehensive exploration of advanced training techniques and the impact they’re making with John’s athletes!

Read the transcript:

Garrett Salpeter (00:01.236)
Welcome back to the New Fit Undercurrent podcast. I’m joined today by my old friend, John (Nelson. Not that he’s old, but I’m talking about the duration of our, of our friendship there. I’ve known him for several years and we’ve been able to share notes and collaborate and did a few trainings together early on and, you know, establish the friendship over our shared desire to find better ways to leverage the nervous system, to help athletes get better, to recover faster from injury, to improve performance. And I’ve been, you know,

of course, in touch with him for many years and finally excited to have the opportunity to invite him on the podcast to take a behind the scenes look at what he’s doing with his primarily athletic population at ELP, elite level performance in Collierville, Tennessee, outside of Memphis. So we’ll call it Memphis for ease of geography. And then he also just opened a second location in Oxford, Mississippi, which is not far from.

the original location, 45 minutes or so. And it’s also where Ole Miss is, the University of Mississippi. So John (has done a lot of great work. I see a lot of work he does with these really elite high school and college baseball players. So we’ll certainly get into that. And he has a great business there. His wife is also a naturopathic doctor. So we’ll give a shout out to Mandy. They work with, he’s a strength and conditioning coach. They have a physical therapist they work with also. So they got a really good thing going and I’m just.

excited to have him on. So John, welcome.

John (01:31.408)
Well, man, I appreciate that. thanks for having me on and, man, I just, I, I appreciate, I think, you know, before we dig into all this, like, I appreciate the, the friendship and the relationship, you know, that we’ve, you’ve developed over the last. Gosh, I don’t know, probably what eight, nine years, something like that, at least. I mean, you know, I think doing what it is that we do, it’s not easy. You know, it’s.

There’s a lot of different challenges that come with it, both from, you know, like running a business, but also, you know, doing the type of work that we both do. And it’s like, I’ve always kind of looked at you as kind of like the guy who’s a couple of years ahead of me, like my, my big brother, you know, and to, to be able to have you to, to call. Cause I have multiple times, like where I’ve called where I’m just like, bro, I’m stuck. Like, or, Hey, this thing just happened. Like, you know, I need advice. Where do I go? How do I do this? Like you.

You’ve always been there to help me. And I just, I want to say that like, that is incredibly valuable to me. And like, I appreciate that, you know, and, yeah, man, I’m, I’m excited to be here.

Garrett Salpeter (02:42.26)
I appreciate that, thank you very much. And the respect certainly goes both ways and I really appreciate that. So it’s a good note on which to dive into the conversation here. So can you give us a little insight into ELP? Tell us about how you got started and also if it makes sense to sprinkle this in now. Also, if you were intentional about.

you know, choosing this target avatar of athletes or if it just sort of naturally evolved that way, you know, kind of sprinkle that into the story.

John (03:16.336)
man. Okay. yeah. Well, how much time you got here? Cause that’s a, that’s a loaded question. No, we could, we could really spend a, the whole hour going down that path. But, you know, how I got started in all of this, you know, I was an athlete, you know, growing up, you know, I, I say I was a high level athlete. I mean, I played high school ball. I ended up playing division two, basketball for a year at a small college out in Arkansas.

but I bring all that up because like, I was always in athletics and. You know, I always had back trouble. I had back trouble since I was probably early second. I remember it was like sixth grade ish, something like that. And it was never really resolved. Like nobody could figure it out. And, you know, both my parents were very well -respected professionals in the medical community around here. And so I had access to a lot of great doctors and practitioners, but nothing ever really happened. And basically.

What ended up happening was by my senior year, the pain got so bad. Like I just, I couldn’t function. like I remember actually being at a track meet, ironically, it was actually at, Ole Miss. and like my back just seized up so bad that I just, I couldn’t move. So, you know, it kind of ebbed and flowed, you know, that year. And then we had a, walk on tryouts for college basketball and I took a fast break to the corner. I planted my foot.

turned to throw the ball there, pass the ball at the top of the key and bam, my back snapped in half. And, what ended up happening was, there had been a tumor growing on my spine that I guess was never identified. Nobody saw it. And it had been growing on my L2 transverse process. And I guess when I made that rotation, it snapped off and how much of the vertebrae I took with it, I have no idea, but, that is kind of what led me down this path. So after surgery,

You know, I was obviously, I was a lot better, but I was still left with a lot of lingering issues. And, you know, when you’re 17, 18, 19 being told, you know, you’ve got disc bulges and you know, degenerative disc disease. It’s like, bro, what is like, what is going on here? Right. And, so I tried different PTs and Kairos and massage and like nothing really even helped get rid of this, you know, last little bit of pain. So that’s when I just said, you know what? I’m going to figure this out on my own. And that’s kind of how I got into training.

John (05:37.84)
so, you know, I quit playing basketball, came back to university in Memphis and got my undergrad and graduate degrees here. And throughout that time, I was just personal training, just got a regular certification. And I just naturally kind of got into the corrective exercise type of mentality. And as I was doing that, I slowly just kind of became the guy that people at that gym would come to that still had problems, you know, and it just kind of hit me. I’m like, well,

How come these people would finish PT or Cairo plans or whatever. And then they come to the gym and they still had problems. It’s like, that doesn’t make sense to me. Like if that’s what’s supposed to fix everything, why wasn’t that fixing it? And so that’s how I kind of just fell into this world just a little bit. And what ended up happening is, as I was getting ready to finish up graduate school, I had a good friend. his name was Elliot young.

And Elliot had some connections with some folks that you and I both know really well. And, yeah, he said, man, you need to come up to Minnesota with me. You need to meet, this doc and see what he’s all about. And so that doctor was a doctor, John (Pielo, Dr. J as people will probably know. And it changed my life from that moment. This moment I stepped in his office. I said, this is where God is taking me. And I said, okay.

I’m sold. So I got certified, did some other work with some other practitioners and started ELP out of my, atrium and my condo and, with my wife, the day after I got out of graduate school and you know, that’s kind of how we got started. you know, I just felt called to, to bring this type of stuff down to the Memphis area. Cause like, for those of you that aren’t familiar with Memphis, like,

I’m from Collierville, but I mean, we’re right outside of Memphis, but like, I mean, this is a basketball town, like real talk basketball, but then baseball around here is huge. We’ve got a lot of great athletes that have come out of this area. And I was like, man, there’s just, there’s so much stuff here that we did. This area doesn’t have, and I felt called to bring it down here. And so that’s how ELP got started. So we basically started out of my garage and, you know, grateful that we’ve been here for 12 years now.

John (08:08.016)
You know, and, and that’s kind of how we, how we started, you know,

Garrett Salpeter (08:13.3)
That’s awesome. And yeah, definitely give a shout out to Dr. J who you mentioned. So I, you know, when I talk about my journey, I talk about having a few very impactful mentors and different learnings along the way that helped crystallize for me the importance of the nervous system and that, you know, profound influences on everything that we do at New Fit. And he is one of those. And that’s, you know, initially how we connected was through that shared mentor. And, and.

he is great. So his, his program there is called neuro target. And both you and I actually went through his version of the training, you know, so he, he is a chiropractor functional neurology chiropractor. And he of course is doing adjustments and things like that, but you and I as non clinician, non chiropractors, you know, wouldn’t do that. So he, he developed a version of it based on, on movements or other, other, you know,

John (08:55.152)
Mm -hmm.

Garrett Salpeter (09:10.612)
manipulate mobilization, mobilizations, not that are non adjustments that can be done by non -collisions and things like that. So it was really, really cool to be able to learn those techniques. And that was a big eyeopening experience for me to be able to see like, wow, I can make these types of changes for people, you know, and, and that was the big, a big step along the way in developing new fit and the newbie and everything too. So I’m glad, I’m glad we get to give him a shout out and thanks for sharing that story too. That was, you know.

can totally relate to that, that pain to purpose, you know, having going through that, you know, the experiences of just being disappointed, not really being able to help. And then, you know, of course that’s traumatic with the tumor and the L2 injury and everything there, but yeah, thank you. Thank you for sharing that. And then in terms of, you know, starting ELP 12 years ago, did, how did you, how’d you go about that? You know, getting, you know, you, you wanted to bring the service to athletes there. So that was sort of your intention. How did you then translate that?

John (09:46.992)
Mm -hmm.

Garrett Salpeter (10:07.252)
where the rubber meets the road. How did you actually get your first athletes in the door and really sort of build your business around that? If you’d call it avatar or ideal customer profile, right? Kind of looking behind the scenes at the business.

John (10:19.472)
Yeah. So, trial and error, man, trial and error, you know, it was, I didn’t know anything about business. I knew like actually some of my, my graduate work was actually, you know, sport marketing and sport commerce. So I had some, you know, marketing and business, you know, concepts there that, you know, I, I had been learning and it was good at. And so.

I basically, I left all of that behind. I turned out, I give my wife a hard time about this, because the chiefs, wanted me very bad. They offered me something very nice and I turned them down and it’s like, you know, maybe like I could have had a Superbowl ring, right? I could have had multiple Superbowl rings right now if we didn’t start ELP, but you know, here we are. but not so, you know, I started, started just like anybody else probably does, like just, I tried to get people in the door. It’s like, look, I’ll, I’ll.

I’ll work on you for free. Like, you know, give me a couple appointments. Let me, you know, let me show you what I can do. And, and the way that I believe, you know, doing business should be done is like you provide so much value and you do so well for your customer that they can’t help, but go out and tell other people about it. And that’s what happened, you know, and it quickly became, people started sending, sending people to me for all kinds of scenarios. I mean, one of my earliest clients I ever saw was a,

a very serious case of scoliosis. And I remember being like, I have no business dealing with this. Like, I mean, I know how to do like some muscle testing and a few different things. Like how do I do this? And, you know, we just, I put forth the effort, we put forth the work. I made contacts with people and learned. And I mean, that story, I mean, a year later, she, gosh, what was it? I want to say her curvature was increasing at like five degrees every six months or something like that. And I want to say she was.

man, I want to say the numbers on, on air, but I want to say it was something like 30 degrees. And we not only got it to stop, but we reduced it by like 15 degrees or so to the point where the orthos were like, she doesn’t need surgery anymore. And they were blown away. And, and then things kind of grew from there. So the wellness side was always kind of there. And I tell people like, I kind of fell into that a little bit, you know, just after, you know, seeing what was out there. I originally wanted to utilize like my skills.

John (12:39.92)
the neuro target and be able to work with athletes and fitness clients. I never, you know, envision myself getting, you know, as deep into the wellness side of stuff as we can, but that’s the path that I was brought down and cool how we got going in with the athletes. man, it was a snowball. it was a snowball effect as I’m sure you can relate and anybody else who’s been doing this a while. It’s like, you got one in and next thing I know there’s 15 others, you know, that came in and.

That first big group of athletes we had was a baseball team from the Mississippi area. And I talked about Memphis basketball, but if you’re not familiar with Mississippi, I’m less than an hour from Mississippi. We live in the southern part of Tennessee. This is a baseball hotbed. And one of the first athletes that ended up coming to us was actually Austin Riley and his high school baseball team.

If you don’t know Austin, he plays for the Atlanta Braves now, the one, a world series. And I take zero credit for anything. Like he was already great before he ever got to me and we didn’t work, you know, very long before he got drafted, but that was how we kind of got into the baseball niche. I think that high school team, I want to say there were like 11, I think 11 signees on that one at senior class.

And I think seven or eight of them were sec. And so like, that’s the type of talent that we had here. And from there it grew and we really fell into the baseball niche when it came to the athletic training. and how I learned all that is how you say rubber hits the road. It was like, okay, I, there’s a lot I need to learn. And so when I wasn’t with people, I was reading, reading, reaching out to people. And I think at some point that’s how you and I connected. I think I just, I found.

Somebody, I think it was Chris. He was like, man, you got to reach out to Garrett or Dr. J or somebody. And that’s how, that’s how it happened. You know, just I learned on the fly. I’m a very kinesthetic person. Like I got to feel it to learn it, you know? And so it was like, I don’t need a basis. Let’s just rock and roll, man. We, we fall on our face and fall on our face, but you’ll figure it out.

Garrett Salpeter (14:54.324)
I like that. I mean, a lot of that is the truth of entrepreneurship. People can say, well, I got this business plan or this or that, but a lot of it is airplanes only partway built when you take off and you got to complete it before you land.

John (14:59.732)
Yeah.

John (15:10.576)
Yeah. It’s a little Donald Miller reference right there, I think. But yeah, I mean, I always, I joke around. It’s like, I’m unemployable. Like I’m just unemployed. Well, I couldn’t work for anybody else. My brain just doesn’t work that way. Like I just, I see things a certain way and I’m just, I’m headstrong about it and I go for it. And you know, and that’s how we did it. And we just, we figured it out, man, you know? And so, yeah, for the other younger practitioners, man, you follow the rules, you know, follow the rules.

You know, there’s so many people around these days that just, they want everything to be perfect. Right? Like, I mean, I got to know this, I got to know this and I got to know that. And it’s like, no, like you got to go. There’s no perfect time.

Garrett Salpeter (15:49.748)
That’s true. That’s good. Good. Good mindset there. I want to use that as a segue into some of these learnings, because this is one of the fun things about our relationship is we can each learn different techniques and ideas and stuff from each other. And I’ve got some books on my wall here that were recommended by you and different things here. So one of the things I’m looking forward to covering here is a few different…

few different techniques that we’ve never talked about in this podcast before. And that I, you know, things that I know you’re using. So I know you’re using things like, go to, we’ll talk about that, you know, certainly influenced by West side barbell, this technique that I learned about very recently from you called PRRT. So I want to, I want to sort of, I want to dive into, to those different things so we can expose our audience here to some of these things that they may or may not be familiar with. Also in order to, in order to,

do that, let’s, I think it’s probably worth framing up. So if someone comes in to ELP, let’s talk, let’s sort of implement them along the continuum of care. You know, if someone comes in like with an acute injury, for example, and then talk about what they’re doing during rehab, whether it’s with you, your PT or whatever’s going on, you know, talk about that and then, and then performance training. So let’s, let’s sort of among these different topics, let’s break them up in order like that. So when, when you start with someone,

you know, correct me if this is wrong, but I’m guessing the first thing is, is, you know, muscle testing and the activation work with, you know, neuro target and certainly some overlap in what we teach in our new fit level one course and things like that. But is that, is that the, is that the first step essentially in the assessment phase?

John (17:35.92)
Yeah, absolutely. you know, I tell people, you know, we’re a multi -service facility. you know, we, we, it’s myself and my wife, we’ve got a couple of coaches as well. I’ve gotten advising healthcare providers, you know, some more of those who work with, PT, you know, advising, healthcare providers there, but yeah, when somebody comes in, you know, we just identify, okay, you know, what is it that, you know, what are your goals and, you know, just learning what they’re looking for so we can direct them, you know, forward.

You know, typically if it’s an athlete coming in, you know, they will, they’ll meet with me in the beginning and we’ll go through our assessment process. if they are currently dealing with an injury or recovering from something, we can kind of bridge that gap a little bit and discuss some different things. But usually we’ll go through, we’ll go through like the diameter testing. we always get the force output measurements with an athlete. we do like body composition stuff with them. but also, we do the go to movement analysis, which, you know, I’ll be happy to dig into here in a second if you’d like. And then.

If somebody’s coming in for wellness, you know, so they’re calling, you know, or coming to see us because the doctor referred them or, you know, for that type of purpose, then yeah, we go through more of the neuro target, you know, slash new fit evaluation. And I could tell them, I always just kind of start putting the, you know, putting the piece of the puzzle together and say, okay, you know, here we see ABC and this is kind of the direction that, you know, I think we, we could go and.

You know, I tell people all the time and other practitioners, I’ll tell you the same thing. Like if you don’t know the answer, it’s okay. Say it, you know, say you don’t know the answer, but you know, we’re going to find the answer for you. you know, I always say that to people like, you know, if I can help you, then let’s, let’s do it. I’d be happy to, and if I can’t, I’m gonna find somebody that will, but yeah, we definitely always go through the, the neuro target and the new fit, evaluation. And then sometimes depending on what people are, why they’re coming in wellness wise, I may do a movement analysis on them. It just kind of varies.

And with athletes also go through a lot of FRC principles and things like that with them as well. Does that kind of answer that question?

Garrett Salpeter (19:33.684)
Nice. Yeah, for sure. So I like that. And can you tell us about, you mentioned the GoTo assessment. Can you tell us about what GoTo is and then dive in a little deeper to what that assessment looks like?

John (19:48.208)
Yeah, absolutely. So, go to, stands for the great. Yeah. Go to, yeah. Like the goat with an a on it. Yeah. So I found out about go to, actually through another mutual friend of ours, Ryan Paul, up at Washington. Ryan’s another guy like, like you that has taught me so much that without like, without him, I wouldn’t be here. and so, yeah, Ryan turned me on to go to, you know, I think a lot of people in our field probably have heard of them, know who they are.

Garrett Salpeter (19:52.084)
And this is G -E -O -A -T -A, Goat Up.

John (20:17.456)
They made a massive push on social media. There, I think were some things in the beginning that probably rubbed some people the wrong way, but then there were some new ownership changes and things like that. I won’t get into all that, but, you know, I’ll say that when I came into it, it’s kind of a funny story, how it all works. Do we have time for me to share this story here? Like how I got into this go to thing? All right. Okay. So, all right.

Garrett Salpeter (20:41.684)
Yeah, let’s go.

John (20:46.256)
So Ryan introduced me to it, but.

Working with the baseball athletes is a big part of who we are at ELP. And I’m, I’m proud to say, I mean, I’m sure there’s coaches that have done better than us. but you know, we’ve taken five or six, I can’t remember. I think five or six now high school kids from low eighties to 95 miles an hour plus by their senior year, including one kid that hit 99 and a hundred. And in his first year at Arkansas, he hit one or two. And so what started me down that path of trying to figure out why these.

guys were able to throw so hard versus some other kids who maybe had the work ethic, you know, but they didn’t get that type. I mean, they got results, but not that result. I, my brain, as I told you, I’m kind of an unemployable person. Like my brain just doesn’t jive with the normal stuff. Like I can’t chalk things up to genetics. Like, I think there’s more to it than that. Now granted, some things are genetic, but anyways, it kind of hit me.

After I watched his name’s Brady, Brady tiger, he plays at Arkansas right now is high school year. It clicked with me. I said, I’ll keep this G rated. I’m trying to watch my language for your audience. so guys, you hear me pause. It’s probably cause Garrett’s editing me out. but now like watching him throw, it just clicked with me. I said, wow. I see it. It’s a, it’s movement. It’s not strength. And that’s how.

When I took him and compared it to other people, it was just this light bulb moment. I said, holy crap, that’s it. And so then we, then, you know, that’s how go to kind of came into the picture. so, you know, back to the go to, the greatest of all time athletes are, I think they’re changing the greatest of all time actions. I’m not sure. you know, Gary and Ricky, you know, their whole premise is about, you know,

John (22:47.92)
helping you move like the greatest athletes of all time. Because when you actually look at the video of athletes, whether it’s, you know, Barry Sanders or Michael Jordan, or, you know, Simone Biles or Babe Ruth and compare them. And they even compared it to like indigenous cultures who like essentially don’t have a lot of orthopedic issues. If any, you see the same patterns. And so like when somebody comes in for like an athlete, always tell them like, it’s very easy to get strong. It doesn’t take a genius to get you strong under a bar.

That is not complicated. What is complicated is proper progression. So like, if you want to be a better athlete, wouldn’t it make sense to move like a good athlete does? Like to me, that just makes sense. And so like that was kind of the foundation, you know, kind of what sold me with go to it was like, I see it now. This is why he can throw a hundred miles an hour, you know, and you know, these other guys can’t, and here’s what go to has, and here’s how I can build that. And for me, I felt like that was.

a part of my program that was really missing. you know, and so there’s, you know, a few different global laws that they adhere to. you know, but a couple of the big ones are, are the concept of the inside ankle bone high, the feet straight and loading what we call the energy wave, like, or the bow and then releasing the energy. There’s some other global laws in there, but those are kind of the bigger three. And that has really bled into everything I do, including my work with the newbie and the wellness.

stuff. So, you know, it’s hard for us to separate all of our services because they all kind of blend together as well. You know, does that make sense?

Garrett Salpeter (24:24.148)
Yeah, it does. And I like this. So two quick things. One is part of why I enjoy this podcast is the opportunity to learn about new stuff like this. So I’m not, you know, now of course I want to go and experience this assessment and some of the exercises and stuff like that. Right. So, so I’ll share that. But I also, also really enjoy talking about stuff like this because just like you said, you can combine it with the newbie, you know, so if, if someone listening to this has a newbie and

is looking for new ways to increase mobility and help their patients or their athletes combining the newbie with go to may very well be something. I mean, I’m certainly going to try it out after this conversation. And it was one of the things I was eager to dive into today. You also mentioned, you know, FRC principles. You and I actually did together as, yeah, we did one of those weekend courses with Dr. Spina.

John (25:14.32)
Yep. Yeah, we did the FRC course together down there.

Garrett Salpeter (25:20.852)
and learn that and that’s something that we do quite a bit in our level two course at New Fit. That’s one of the things that we do when we talk about, sorry, there’s a little bit of a tangent, but I think it’s a worthwhile one. When we talk about mobility, there’s two main components to that. One is the ability of muscles to relax to allow you to go to the joint end range of motion. And then two is the actual joint end range of motion, the joint capsule, that deep connective tissue.

that controls how much the hip rotates within the socket or how much the elbow can extend or hyperextend in some cases or whatever that might be. So sometimes you’ve gotten the muscles to relax and you’re running into that, literally the end range of the joint and you actually need to spend time loading the tissues in that end range so you can remodel the joint capsule if you want to increase range of motion, assuming that’s a worthwhile goal given the circumstances. So that’s another question, but the…

John (26:15.216)
Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, go ahead. No, go ahead. Your show. I don’t want her up.

Garrett Salpeter (26:20.308)
Well, the cool thing about that is that that’s great by itself and we can also use the newbie as an accelerator to help with muscle activation in those, he has these progressive pale and regressive angular isometric loads. You can use the newbie to help contract or lengthen the specific muscles, sort of like you’re programming the software of the nervous system. You can accelerate that process. So the two work really well together. So I’m thinking of course, along the lines here of being able to use.

you know, techniques like this to try out what would it be like to combine that with the newbie. So I’m interested to hear you describe, you know, that you’ve done that and, and, you know, so I think all that is to say, please say more about, about the assessment and what you’re doing and how you’re using it.

John (27:04.528)
Yeah. Yeah. So like back to the FRC, stuff, you know, I mean, again, I was turned on to that Ryan and you and I ended up doing it together and, and I liked it. and I mean, Dr. Spien is brilliant. and the things that Hunter can do are just, they’re not human. if you guys haven’t seen his Instagram, go find it. it’s insane, but you know, we, I went deep down the FRC rabbit hole and, so we got FRC certified, we got FRA certified. and then we, we,

got, we didn’t get certified in kin stretch because there was a license fee thing. And, you know, but for those of you that don’t know what, but FRA is their assessment process. And then their next level is kin stretch, which is like putting all these concepts into almost like a group class. and we did that and, it was like very, very difficult and it was great. A lot of our athletes and Jen pop client loved it. but one of the things that always just kind of stuck in my head again, I told you, you know, I, I, I,

The norm is not something that my brain understands. I just, I never could figure out like why, why would somebody have a capsule that’s just locked down? Like pending there’s no, you know, arthritis or medical reason why, like it just doesn’t make sense to me. Like, and so that’s where again, kind of the movement side of it came into play. And I always just, my gut told me it was like, look,

You know, your mobility is a byproduct of your movement as well. And I’m a firm believer that at this stage, you know, of the human race, we are truly de -evolving. We are not evolving. We are de -evolving. I mean, kids don’t do what kids used to do. They don’t go out and play. We’re stuck in shoes, you know, at such a young age, primitive reflexes are off the charts now. The kids are stuck in front of iPads. The human body doesn’t develop. And so like you combine that.

You know, you look at that and then understand why all these injuries and stuff are happening. To me, it just didn’t really make sense to just go right into the mobility thing because when they had, you know, atrocious movement patterns to begin with, then that’s probably why the hip got locked up anyways. And so we can address the hip all day. But if we come back in and, you know, they just go walk out the door with a foot collapsing and, you know, poor, you know, absorption and release phases, like we can do that all day and nothing’s going to change.

John (29:28.08)
You know, and, and so that is again, you know, another credit to, to go to for kind of opening my mind up to that. and so, yeah, so in our, and by the way, using, you know, Pales rails with the newbie is that’s the next level stuff, man. Like guys, that’ll, that’ll get your client. I promise. It’s really good. I’ve done it plenty of times. it’ll get you cause they’ll make you sore by, by themselves and you add the newbie to it. And it’s a whole other, whole other level, but.

Garrett Salpeter (29:49.62)
Yes.

Garrett Salpeter (29:56.692)
That’s right.

John (29:57.808)
But as far as the assessment goes, okay. So, you know, we’re going to look for a couple of different, you know, elements, you know, when they come in, we’re going to look at a postural analysis. We’re looking at, you know, certain things in posture. And then I call like a minimal dynamic movement. So for me, that’s going to be like a squat, you know, like a, you know, a toe touch, I’ll throw a single leg stance in there. I kind of include that in minimal dynamic movement. Just, that’s just my, my approach.

And then dynamic movement. So walking and or running. And from there, you know, we can identify, okay, you know, we have these different biomechanical markers here that are either a they’re presenting as energy leaks. If you’re an athlete and, or it could be a precursor. I mean, no matter what you do, you can’t prevent all injuries, but you definitely can lower the risk for sure. You know, yeah.

Garrett Salpeter (30:48.02)
Let me pause you for one second. So if you’re doing this, are you just taking video and doing slow motion analysis? Are you just watching this with the naked eye? I mean, just fill in that.

John (30:54.7)
Yeah. Video, slow motion analysis. Yep. Slow motion analysis. you know, and we’ll break it down and see where the weaknesses are. but also, you know, some of the postural impacts, you know, or how posture can impact, you know, the body such as, you know, in the joints, in the, you know, in the facet joints and the disc and the bursa things like that. So kind of give them an idea of saying, look, okay, you know, here is, if it’s an athlete, here’s the weakness.

You know, and these are things that, you know, you need to improve because you can do strength and speed work all day. That’s fine. But if you don’t move efficiently, you’re either a never going to be able to display it, you know, and B, you know, you’re probably going to get hurt. And so I don’t care how good of an athlete you are. The best athlete is also the one that is healthy and can play. Right. And then from the wellness side of it, it’s like, all right, let’s get you in balance. Let’s get these muscles working the right way. Let’s have the newbie come in and do its thing. Sometimes we will throw in, you know, go to work with it, you know, to help reeducate these proper movement patterns.

you know, and then we also just say, okay, you know, here’s where you need to, you know, you feel good now, you know, doctor has cleared you awesome. Here’s your movement homework. Go, you know, show you how to do it. And here we go. That kind of, they give you a little bit better idea of how we break it down.

Garrett Salpeter (32:11.572)
Yeah, for sure. So we have the video assessment, identify, can you give an example, a success story or a hypothetical example of something you might notice and then what types of movements you would assign to somebody and what you’d expect to see change? Just give us an example of how you can actually implement that.

John (32:46.864)

I want to like, let’s go into kind of the lower back. I feel, you know, I feel like is a really good one. you know, I’ve seen a lot of, you know, a lot of lower back, but also actually I’m going to sidestep that we’re going to go more into like the glute hamstring issue. All right. So see a lot of lower back, a lot of glute hamstring type things. And so what happens is like, you know, when you, when you see in the movement where like,

Big toe, second toe isn’t, you know, lining up straight. That causes the inside ankle bone to collapse. Then we naturally are going to get this internal rotation of the shin and the femur. And like, all you got to do is look at pretty much any ACL injury ever for the most part. And you’re going to see the same pattern. Watch the inside ankle bone collapses and the internal rotation, those forces, you know, they, they, they happen in the shin and the femur and bam. But a repetitive one like that, a repetitive step like that.

can cause that significant muscular imbalance to occur. And so like what we will find is like almost predicting hotspots kind of like, cause I know that if their inside ankle bone is going to collapse, I know the hotspots are likely going to be somewhere along the functional or spiral fashion lines because that’s going, because the ankle collapsing is going to influence their hip extension pattern.

And it’s going to throw it out of whack, which means the brain is going to start to guard and lock things down. And so like, you can almost kind of predict hotspots a little bit. and so when we’re looking at something like a high hamstring, it’s like, yeah, we can, you know, we can work to get the muscles firing. You can do, you know, we can, you can rehab it with your doctor, your PT. We can use the newbie string, the stuff back up, but that pattern is still there. And if that pattern is not eliminated, that’s going to come back.

Garrett Salpeter (34:48.116)
Okay, so then what, you know, of course we’ve talked a lot on this podcast, you know, about ways we can use the newbie to work on hotspots or different things like that. What would the, what would the go to approach be? You know, are you gonna do movements if you’re saying, so if you’re saying inside ankle bone is down, we’re talking about, you know, foot pronating, tibia internally rotating. So what are you gonna do to, to.

counter that, you know, in terms of movements. What’s the strategy then to fix that?

John (35:18.128)
Yeah, sure. So I’ll take, you know, I’ll take the go to recode work that, you know, we, we utilize, you know, we just have different progressions, you know, things that start on the ground and work their way up into, you know, kind of body weight and loaded patterns. you know, and they address different aspects of it. So like they address maybe foot function, they address, maybe setting the bow or absorbing the energy the right way, or they, you know, address, you know, the cornering or the releasing of the energy the right way. So kind of depending on where it is, we need to hit the person.

And depending on where the hotspots, I may implement some of those. and so like I had a, you know, I had a baseball player, I guess it was over, I guess it was over Christmas or so he had like a repetitive thigh issue. Like he kept pulling his quad and they could not figure out why what was going on. Well, when you squat four times a week, it’s probably going to happen and then try to play baseball, but that’s a different conversation. So, you know, they came in, we took video of it and sure enough, it’s clear as day. You can see it.

Like you can see the internal rotation happen. You can see, you know, during the landing phase, you could see when he tries to push off, he can’t release, he can’t transfer that energy, you know, from the bow up through the hips and hip and spinal engine to where it releases. And so things were just getting stuck. And so with him, we would put him in balance. We would find where those hotspots were. And we would go through like a recode progression where we were teaching him to keep inside ankle bone high and learn how to reestablish that bow. And so.

It’s almost like an over exaggeration of, of learning how to reestablish that pattern. And then we add the newbie to it and the newbie just further enhances that neuromuscular reeducation. And so those are kind of the progressions that we would go. So like in a standard 10 session, like let’s just say a 10 session, you know, type of protocol, you know, we’d probably do, you know, three sessions of just, you know, I mean, of course I’ll clarify, you know, Penny, there’s no medical limitations, things like that. Of course, you know, practitioners, you guys know that, you know,

You know, we go through some basic movement just to kind of re -educate something. So it might be groundwork. It might be something just like a basic leg extension. Just learn how to use the quad and then hamstring. You know, how many times do we go through a leg extension with a client or a patient and we don’t even think about, hey, quad to extend, hamstring to flex and pull back down. You know, that right there is proper movement. And then we might go after we go through those progressions, we might go through something where.

John (37:43.312)
you know, we do a little bit more of like learning how to establish that bow. So it’s almost kind of like a, like a super modified, like wall sit type of approach. you know, it’s not like the, you know, yielding ones that we talk about, it’s a little bit of a variation of that where we’re really emphasizing that ankle, that foot in the ankle, really emphasizing on getting that 22 and a half degree deviation in the knee from the middle line of the body, getting that energy wave to open up, you know, and then the last couple would be.

More like learning how to use it in a little bit more of a dynamic setting, like learning how to, you know, set that bow and release it. You know, and all those again with the newbie and those proper progressions with it.

Garrett Salpeter (38:21.78)
So some progressions that even if the movements are different, progressions that people will likely be familiar with in terms of doing isometric patterns, sort of learn to activate, build some stamina, then add some strength and some speed to it, you know, that sort of progression. And these movements, I’m curious to, I’ve heard about it from you and a couple other people, so I’m curious to try it out and do some of these movements for myself and dive deeper. So that.

John (38:47.984)
Yeah. Yeah. And it’s very good. you know, like I said, I mean, obviously I wouldn’t be out there promoting it. I mean, they’ve both come on our show. you know, and I do think it’s good. I think it, I think it addresses a lot of things in our society that no other system is really addressing. And then when you add the newbie to it, it’s a whole other level. Like it’s like a cheat code, you know, because it just is what it is. We don’t move the way that we used to move.

And then you have all these other stimuluses that add threats to stress to the body, you know, whatever, endocrine disruptors, blue light, all this other stuff. And so now we just, let’s just focus on basic human movement and use the power of the newbie to help enhance that.

Garrett Salpeter (39:32.916)
I love that. That’s a clip I want to capture right there. That’s beautifully said.

John (39:36.816)
I don’t know if I’ve given you too many. I probably lost most of your audience. They’re probably like, who the hell is this guy?

Garrett Salpeter (39:41.748)
that was good. Everyone who stuck around is rewarded with that gem there. And I was planning at the end to mention your podcast and where people can keep up with you. But since you mentioned it there, let’s tell people real quick about the Starting Block podcast. I am honored to have been a guest on there. So,

John (40:03.056)
Yeah. You got a frequent flyer miles, on ours. so yeah, our podcast, the starting block podcast, it, honestly it came because a lot of our athletes were like, you need to start a show. And I’m like, no, I’m not doing, I don’t have time for that. They kept pushing and pushing. All right. I felt there was a need. I felt like there was a need since you and I came from kind of the same tree of people.

I felt like there became a disconnect over the years where all of us were just dispersed everywhere. And like, nobody knew who anybody was. And so we go, this circles all the way back to the beginning of our conversation. How did I get ELP up and running? Because I worked my tail off and connecting with people and learning, right? Like learning from like you and others. And so like, it just hit me this one day. I was like, I’ve always felt there was this disconnect amongst all of us, not in like a bad way. We’re just.

We all are doing our own separate things. And this, you know, podcast could correct that and bring us all back together to where we can all, you know, work and share information for the betterment of our clients, patients and communities, because this is the type of stuff that, you know, can really help people. It can change their lives, change my life. Right. And so that’s how the show got started. so as myself and my buddy, Chris Scarborough, you know, Chris, guys, Chris is from Birmingham. he uses, you know, newbie as well. good dude.

you know, we’re about a hundred episodes in now. you know, Garrett’s, like I said, Garrett’s been on a few times and the whole objective of the show is just, it’s for the athlete, the parent of the coach. It’s just a cut through all the garbage, you know, that’s on social media. There’s just so much out there now. And like real talk, I don’t, I don’t have time to sit here and worry about algorithms on social media. And, you know, I just, I don’t have time to fiddle with that. There’s only so many hours in a day. And so it’s like, you know, people are going to go to.

You know, the people that have the most viewers, but it’s like, Hey, guess what? The people with the most, you know, views aren’t always the people that, you know, have the proper information all the time, you know, and that was the whole purpose of the show is to make it applicable to the athlete, the parent, the coach.

Garrett Salpeter (42:12.244)
Awesome. So I listened to it on the Apple podcast app. I’m sure it’s in other, you know, Spotify, YouTube, all those places, right? Starting block. Was it a bulldog? What’s the picture?

John (42:17.968)
Yeah, yeah, we’re everywhere.

John (42:25.072)
Yeah. It’s a, it’s a cartoon drawing of my Rottweiler Achilles holding a barbell. So one of our athletes drew it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. As you’ll find us, you know, we’re at, we’re out there. We’re, we’re on a, you know, all the audit, all the audio platforms and then, it’s on ELPs YouTube page. Yeah.

Garrett Salpeter (42:32.052)
I could kind of see it in my mind, but yeah.

Garrett Salpeter (42:45.396)
Nice, very good. So we covered that. Let’s go back. I do want to cover one other thing that you told me about this PRRT technique. Again, with an eye towards sharing things that are working for people in our community with others in our community. So can you tell us what it is, how you’re using it? Just give us a few more details on PRRT.

John (43:11.696)
Yeah, absolutely. So primal reflex release technique. I think it was either Chris or Dan Fichter. I think, I think it was, yeah, actually Dan is Dan Fichter’s the one that turned me on to it. Dan and I came down to, to Birmingham with Chris and out with him and he showed me this technique. I was like, wow, this is really cool. Like I saw people’s pain go like my own pain, just go away instantly. you know, again, I’ve always kind of challenged foam rolling lacrosse ball stuff, even though we do it, but you know, it’s like,

Why do those spots always come back again? and so when I saw this PRRT again, I was like, man, this is really cool. This could really help people. and this was, this was definitely for me, something that helped bridge the gap until I got the newbie because we could get somebody’s muscles working, you know, and then how can we kind of address the physical while the neurological takes over and the body kind of resets to, you know, you know, kind of default again. And when I didn’t have the newbie, PRRT,

was awesome with that because what it does is it is, it’s a system that identifies like nociceptive responses. I say it’s a fancy way of saying a trigger point, but you know, I think they’re very adamant about not saying that, but I did. It’s just like a fancy way of saying a trigger point, but it’s a startle reflex, right? So it’s like a nociceptive response. So it’s a lot more deeply ingrained than just a trigger point. And so when you find these, there’s these different movement patterns.

that you can do to release these. Some of them deal with reciprocal inhibition. Some of them deal with like PNF patterns. Dr. John (Iams is the guy that created, he’s brilliant. He is a brilliant man. That has worked wonders for me, wonders. Cause it’s an awesome thing. Like if somebody comes in with a shoulder or neck problem, you know, it’s like, okay.

we can get things working, we can maybe do a loosening if we need to before we start our scanning process wherever, but we can find these nociceptive responses, get it to release. And I feel like it is something tangible for the, you know, the client to walk away with and feel better. And so, yeah, that’s basically the summary of it. You know,

Garrett Salpeter (45:29.972)
Are you doing anything manually to the patient or client or is it it’s all movements that they do?

John (45:36.112)
You’re you’re you feel for it. Yeah. So like, like I say, you’ll go down the calf, right? Like, and there’s, you know, there’s a little technique to it. You can’t just like, you know, mash on them. Like, you know, you’ve got to kind of press a couple of responses and what you’re looking for is like that response. Like, do they have that startle reflex? You know, not like, it’s tender. It’s more that jump. And then when we find that then depending on where it is, you know, there’s different processes to release it. And so.

You know, it may be a reciprocal, like I said, a reciprocal inhibition type thing. It may be like a PNF pattern that they want you to do. It just kind of varies.

Garrett Salpeter (46:11.22)
Nice. Well, I’ll make sure we get some links to these different, you know, go to PRRT, NeuroTarget, you know, these different things that we’re.

John (46:16.496)
Yeah. I assume they’re still out there. I mean, it’s been probably 10, 11 years now since I did any of the coursework, but, I assume they’re still out there. Yeah.

Garrett Salpeter (46:28.276)
We’ll do a little research and see if we can find a URL to share. And let’s see, as we wind down here, certainly if there’s anything else you feel like you would want to share. Actually, let me ask you one more question and then we’ll talk about your website, socials, et cetera. But I know you are definitely influenced also by West Side Barbell.

John (46:45.592)
Yeah. Fire away.

Garrett Salpeter (46:57.428)
You know, so you have a weightlifting interest and background, and you also, you know, talked about this realization with that athlete, for example, about, you know, how it’s about movement and how people, you know, spending too much time building up, you know, powerlifting strength in the weight room doesn’t necessarily translate to the field. So what, what’s your sort of, what’s your latest thinking or approach in terms of how you work in?

for athletes, you know, traditional barbell strength with overall athletic progressions. Let me ask you for something we haven’t talked about in a while, actually. I’ll be curious to hear how your thinking has evolved on that topic.

John (47:39.92)
Well,

Real talk, like I’ve, I’ve almost gotten completely away from any type of, you know, classical lifts. you know, in the beginning, you know, I probably, as most coaches did, you know, I probably did, you know, I did a lot more and then kind of ebbed and flowed different stuff. But now to the point of where I am, my career, I guess, 16 years doing this now going on 13 years of ELP.

this standpoint now, I would say the integration of classical lifts is less than less than 10 % of our program. If that, you know, I do still believe that there is benefit to being strong under a bar. Yes. Or a debt or a deadlift. Like there is a need for strength, but to spend so much time working to develop.

The absolute strength component I feel like is in vain because of where we are as a society. I don’t care if you can, if you can squat 315 and I can squat 405, like who’s to say that that 405 makes me run faster or jump higher or throw harder. You know? And so like I’ve always felt.

Where does that line end? And so as I’ve grown as a coach, we basically don’t squat anymore. I’ll do it because high schools will still squat. Colleges will still squat. I will deadlift. my kids do deadlift and they do bench. they’ll go through basic proper progressions, but that progression right there is literally my quote unquote strength work. But that’s it. Like,

John (49:41.712)
No longer are my programs filled with, you know, trying to use assistance exercises to build those classical lifts. It’s not, if you’re looking at a program now, you’re looking at, you know, full recode for a number of different weeks, you know, depending on kind of what I see out of that person, you know, we’ll go recode and then we start to layer on the performance side of it. Maybe that’s a little strength, maybe it’s power, maybe it’s speed, depending on what, what they need.

But yeah, it’s changed a lot. I don’t think I’ll ever eliminate lifting completely. Because again, I think there’s a benefit to it still, but it’s…

It’s not what it used to be by any means.

Garrett Salpeter (50:30.964)
So everyone who’s going through your program for an appreciable period of time will do a little bit. And perhaps if it’s someone who’s on the floppy hypermobile side and really needs more of that type of strength, maybe they would have a little more in their program, but most athletes would have just sort of a minimum effective dose, sort of bare minimum of that sort of training.

John (50:57.392)
Pretty much, pretty much. Yeah. It’s a good way to say it. because I think, excuse me.

You know, I was all, I was told at one point that, you know, ISOs may be the perfect way to train somebody and you never have to do anything else other than that. But you know what? At the end of the day, you’re probably not going to have a business and the kid’s probably not going to come back and the parent doesn’t really care either. Right. And so part of it goes with it’s, I still find it challenging to, you know, explain to parents and coaches, you know, and even the kid.

that yeah, like you can hold this, you know, you know, extreme in range lunge with, you know, two 25, you know, yeah. And you can kill it. That doesn’t mean anything to them. They don’t, people don’t understand that for the most part, but if they realize like, Ooh, I can deadly 315.

It’s a different thought process, right? Now, maybe it’s different, different parts of the country. I don’t know. But you know, around here, it’s still a challenge that we have to work with. And if I’m going to pick a lift, I’m going to teach them deadlift.

Garrett Salpeter (52:07.828)
And there’s always that great saying, not mine, but you can give them some of what they want in order to be able to give them what they need. Right.

John (52:18.288)
I agree. I mean, a hundred percent. Yeah. A hundred percent, because you still have to build horsepower. You know, you can build the frame of the car. It can be beautiful. They can move great, but they don’t have any horsepower. Then that’s kind of problematic. And so that’s why I still believe there’s lifting. Now we’re working on some other very interesting stuff that I’m not quite prepared to talk about just yet, but in six months, that answer might completely change.

Garrett Salpeter (52:47.508)
So I’m excited to hear that and possibly a little foreshadowing here for a part two.

John (52:53.712)
Yeah. If I didn’t scare everybody off.

Garrett Salpeter (52:57.972)
I like it and I like it. Well, I appreciate you coming on and letting us peek behind the curtain at ELP. You know, it’s, you’ve in that region, I mean, you’re the guy for certainly elite baseball and, you know, knowing you as I have over the years, I know that, you know, your heart’s in the right place and it’s led you to a place where you can really get wonderful results and help your athletes and you know, the…

the college scholarships and the results at the next level certainly speak for themselves as do, you know, this new opportunity you have in Oxford and all these other things. So I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your thought process, some of what you’re doing. And as we wrap it up here, let’s give people a chance to, or some guidance on where to find you. We talked about the starting block podcast and then what do you…

Where do you want to send people? If anyone wants to find on social media the farmer John (or the ELP page, what’s where where?

John (53:53.964)
Yeah. So, yeah, the starting block podcast, we have a website, but I haven’t updated it in like a year. So you’re not going to find anything there other than just the link we’re on all the audio platforms. If you want to check us out, you know, and then it’s on ELPs, a YouTube page, you’ll eat level performance. in case you didn’t gather that everybody just calls us an ELP. the videos are there as far as social handles and stuff like that go. yeah, I’m at a farmer, John (underscore ELP.

I’m a country guy, so that’s why the, the farmer John (is there. And then ELP’s Instagram page is just elite level performance. And we’re Instagram is really my main social media platform. I’m not real active on Twitter or X or whatever it’s called. Facebook is just a by -product of Instagram. So Instagram is pretty much where to find us. And yeah.

Garrett Salpeter (54:47.572)
I like the farmer John (page because there’s then bonuses of seeing you rocking and repairing literally like the farm and the chicken coop and that stuff. I get a little glimpse into that too.

John (54:52.368)
Yes.

Yep. Yeah. Yep. Yep. That’s a, that’s true. Yep. And that’s where I usually put a lot of the starting block stuff as well. You know, but, yeah, I mean, you know, it’s been a pleasure to come on, man. And, you know, I reiterate everything we said in the beginning, like, you know, wouldn’t be here without you. And I’ve been, as I’ve told you a hundred times, like you guys are doing things the right way. You know, there’s a reason that I’m adamant about supporting new fit and the newbie.

Garrett Salpeter (55:06.068)
Awesome, awesome.

John (55:26.)
Man, I wish we could have gotten into the FSM stuff, but we’ll do that another day. but I love what you guys are doing things the right way, providing people with the support that they need to grow and to learn, you know, and there’s, there’s a reason you guys are doing what you’re doing and taking off. So, man, I’m super happy for y ‘all and for everybody. Glad to be a part of it, man.

Garrett Salpeter (55:29.588)
yes.

Garrett Salpeter (55:45.268)
Thank you. Yes, we are honored and grateful that you are a part of it, a big part of New Fit Nation. And I appreciate you coming on the show and thank you everybody for tuning into this episode of the Undercurrent Podcast. Please like, subscribe, and we will see you next time.