S2_EP_27 The Ph.D. Process, RPR, and Cutting Edge Psychology: an interview with Precision Nutrition’s Head Strength and Sport Psychology coach Dr Adam Feit

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Dr Mike

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Transcript

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:00:01):

Hey, it’s Dr. Mike T. Nelson here again with the new episode of the flex diet podcast. Today, I have my good friend it’s doctor. You just graduated a few weeks ago, Adam fight of precision nutrition. And we talk all about the PhD process. If you have any desire to go back and do continuing ed we get into at the end about Adam’s research and more of the psychology and of being a strength coach and a personal trainer. And we took all sorts of crazy tangents related to everything from Dom’s a delayed onset muscle soreness to the nervous system to RPR reflexive performance reset, and it kind of covered a good variety of topics in this episode. So I think you’ll really enjoy it. I always love talking to Adam. I’ve known him for quite a while now, and just a awesome dude with amazing information all the time.

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:01:03):

He’ll be coming out with even more information now that he has graduated. So make sure to look out for his stuff in the future. Of course, we were sponsored by the flux diet certification, go to www dot flux, diet.com F L E X, D I E T. And get on the wait list. You’ll be able to get notified as soon as the certification opens up again. The flex diet is a mashup of metabolic flexibility plus flexible dieting. And we have eight interventions related to protein fats, carbohydrates, fasting there’s even some stuff in there on keto, sleep, exercise, neat micro nutrition. And within each one of those, there’s an ongoing video of the big picture so that you understand the context of the concepts of both metabolic flexibility and flexible dieting. And then there’s a one hour technical video on each topic. So everything you wanted to know about say carbohydrates and how they apply to coaching people through nutrition and performance narrowed down to just over an hour.

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:02:22):

We’ve got all the references and everything for you, and we even have great interviews from people like Dr. Stu Phillips Dr. Eric Helms talking all about flexible dieting approach. Dr. Dan parti Dr. Mike Ormsby talking about protein feedings at night and the glucose regulation and a bunch of other key expert interviews. So go to flux diet.com. Sign up to the wait list. It’ll open again around January 2021. Enjoy this conversation with my good buddy, Dr. Adam fight going on as Dr. Mike T. Nelson here on the flex diet podcast. I’m here with now Dr. Adam fight. How are you, sir?

Dr. Adam Feit (00:03:09):

Pretty awesome. Dr. Mike T. Nelson,

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:03:12):

The old movie doctor, doctor, doctor,

Dr. Adam Feit (00:03:18):

Definitely. It’s a real, I think this, this might be my second podcast, or just discussion with somebody other than my wife and kids that since defending, so still trying it on, see how it feels, you know, but I’m going to use it as much as I can until somebody like you tells me all right. That’s enough. Well, we all, we all understand.

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:03:33):

Yeah. Yeah. It’s I remember going through the process, the guy I worked with at the time, he’s like, Oh, so when you graduate, does everyone call you doctor? And I’m like, no, most people I know just don’t give a

Dr. Adam Feit (00:03:49):

Or just totally fine. You know, my wife, she actually not, not many people, I guess, at some, depending on what circles you’re in, but my wife and I decided to go back at the same time for a PhD since she started teaching. And I did mine in sports psych. And so she actually got done a little bit earlier than me in April. And I was like, you know, all right, tell me about it. You know, like she’s like nothing, like it’s no, it’s like living with your boyfriend and then you get married, nothing changes. Oh no. It’ll, it’ll be completely different when I graduate and sure enough, I woke up actually I defended in the afternoon and it was like, okay laundry still got to get done dinners, gotta be on the table. And my daughter’s got danced. So, so you guys let her,

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:04:31):

Yeah, I think it’s different. Maybe when you’re a little bit older. Cause I remember I was so nervous for my defense because you know, you’re just like you put all this time and effort into it and you know, hopefully they wouldn’t set you up to fail. Normally you’ll kind of fail out of the process before you get to that or they just don’t let you do it. And I had been shot down a whole bunch of times before I got to my defense. So I was hoping that I was going to make it and you know, had a couple of people there and afterwards we just everyone’s like, Oh God, you go out and have some rage or have a party or whatever. I’m like, no, it was at like 11 in the morning. And we got done and walked across the street of the UVM campus, went to Buffalo, wild wings. I had a beer and my wife drove me home and we chilled out at night and I went to bed. You know, it was just more, just a sense of relief, more than anything else of like, Oh thank God that’s over.

Dr. Adam Feit (00:05:22):

Yeah. I won’t say that. I mean, just in terms of stress, I mean, you talk about this all the time, but when it comes from any dimension or domain, like your body’s really not going to recognize it. It’s just like overload. So I think, yeah, I got done in the afternoon. I think we ordered a pizza. We watch a movie on Netflix and I’m just always out that night, because like you said, I’m curious to know your process, but for us, that Springfield college, we had to take a written comps exam at the end of our second year for six hours. Then after that, we had to take a research exam comps for six hours. And then we had orals for content for two hours and that’s all to be just a candidate. And then you apply for your dissertation and whatnot. And so that was another two hour defense after the whole paper. So, you know, all in all, it was like 16 hours of just getting drilled by the firing squad accordingly.

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:06:15):

Yeah. They switched ours. We had just to, so to be officially be a PhD candidate after you’ve applied and everything, it used to be where you had to take a, like some heinous, like all day exam or whatever. And I was super nervous about it, but I’m like, okay, at least on this day, you know, June, first of this year it’ll be done. You know? And I’m like, I’m just so looking forward to that. And literally like right before I go in, they’re like, Oh yeah. You know, we switched it to a take-home exam. I’m like, what do you mean to take home exam? It’s like, well, we’ve got four people on your committee, including your advisor. So they each get to submit a question. They’ll each grade the question and you have 30 days to do it. So at face value to most people, when you described that, you’re like, well, that doesn’t sound as bad.

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:07:03):

I’m like, no, it’s so bad because you’re literally expected to write like a mini dissertation within 30 days. And I didn’t know this because they had changed it right before. So idiot me didn’t plan 30 days after of like flying my schedule of like everything else. So I remember traveling with my wife to visit her family. I still had a work. I still had everything going on and it was just, it was so bad. And you know, I think a lot of times I just like to Dick with you in the process. So I get the grades back and it was basically like, you get one appeal. So I didn’t pass the first time. And two of the people pass me to the people didn’t. So then I had to go in and take their comments and rework them, submit it again one last time. And if they said it wasn’t good enough, then you’re just literally like flush out of the whole program, which when I took, it was three and a half years into the program, you know? Cause people forget that it’s, you’ve invested like many years of your life already by that point. So

Dr. Adam Feit (00:08:05):

Yeah, the, the I think that’s, they actually changed it towards the end of my last year. So now they have you do the content stuff after year one to effectively. I mean, you don’t want to say it, but it’s to weed them out. Exactly. Totally. You have to like, like us. Yeah. You put in two, three years of work and then it was the same thing. You could fail it once at an exam once you couldn’t retake it until the following year. So it sets you back automatically. And I had some colleagues that, but if you fail it twice, you know, Hey see you later. Nice. And that happened to a few people in my wife’s program and the teaching administration program and just, you know, for us, it was a lot of the statistics because you know where we were teaching college and depending on, we took a lot more research classes than probably some other programs that aren’t heavily involved. And that’s, that’s a curve ball for a lot of us, including, including myself. So

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:08:53):

Yeah, I had to suffer through a whole year of biostatistics and this is after I had transferred in and had a minor in mathematics and stuff. But for engineering, you don’t, I mean, you don’t take a lot of statistics. I mean, you do the standard manufacturing type stuff, but you know, when you’re doing biological systems, that’s like its own branch of statistics. And I was so excited after I finally, that was like one of my last classes that I had to complete. And I’ve, I think I was more excited about completing the classwork almost than I was about passing the exams just because I was not a good test taker. And you know, like for most people listening, like you have to get at least a B or above average, or you lose funding, you get kicked out of the program. So you can’t just kind of Slack off. So I remember passing that class going, Oh, thank God. This is the last academic class I ever have to take for a grade. And that was, that was a good feeling.

Dr. Adam Feit (00:09:47):

That’s that was a great feeling. I think for us, we had to do outside of dissertation credits. I think our program had 74 credits of classwork. That’s a lot. Yeah. Or maybe it was 76, but I know the dissertation itself was like about 14 to 16 credits. And so, yeah, I mean, I was taking nine, 12 semester hours, like three or four classes. Like I was an undergrad again, working full time for precision nutrition, volunteering at the college for my internship hours, you know, for sports psych and you know, trying to be a halfway decent dad and husband. So yeah, when, when the pandemic hit, unfortunately there was, I guess a little bit of a relief of like, okay, I don’t have to continue to commute to campus. Like I can do this from zoom. Like I’m familiar with it, et cetera. So in some ways there were definitely more silver linings, I think in my lifestyle and my academic coursework than others, because it allowed me to kind of anchor down and really finished strong.

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:10:42):

And I’m assuming you probably had your data collection, I would assume done by that point, correct? Ooh, I wish I did because I know a lot of people’s studies, they just got blown up. Like I knew some people in grad school though. They were in their fourth year of a PhD program. We’re just finishing data collection. And I mean, it’s like, what do you do? You know, I know people that had studies that they had spent, you know, three years working on four years working on and can’t finish data collection, you know, you’re just like, Oh my God,

Dr. Adam Feit (00:11:15):

Oh, there, yeah, a guy I went to school with the same thing. He had gone to proposal like ready to go. So this was the beginning of second semester, last year. And I actually got to proposal a couple of days before our spring break. And then we ended up shutting down after spring break. So I got him right at the Nick of time because I was doing AC or I was doing interviews remotely through zoom. I was able to kind of get through IRB with no problems, but yet we had a bunch of master’s students, you know, my wife’s the associate director of strength conditioning. And we still got grad students that want, you know, need to collect data and they’re doing awesome things, you know, the effect of fasting on strength and power and you know, trying to take blood and whatnot. And they’re like, yeah, we, we can’t do that yet. So I think that’s going to be a struggle. I think, you know, Hey, I feel if there’s any students out there, like I feel for ya and I, hopefully this gets sorted out sooner than that.

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:12:05):

Yeah. I just think we’ll look back at probably two to five years from now. And if you look at just research across many disciplines, I think you’re going to see this little divot and a drop and a little asterix of just all this stuff that just kind of got hosed in the process.

Dr. Adam Feit (00:12:23):

Yeah. I will say, I mean, I had to put that as a limitation. Right. You know, what, what was holding me back? It was like, Hey, I did this during a pant, a worldwide pandemic. And maybe some of the answers that I got from the participants weren’t truly reflective because they hadn’t coached in a couple of weeks, but don’t hold that against me. You know, let’s, let’s get this thing published someday and then we’re going to be all right. So

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:12:43):

Yeah. And that’s the hard part, even as a reviewer and stuff too. It’s like you, I always give sort of the benefit of doubt to the person doing the study, unless there’s just a methological air. That’s clear as day where you’re just like the whole thing’s AFT you know,

Dr. Adam Feit (00:12:58):

You’re not reviewer three. That’s what you’re telling me in your, our human.

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:13:03):

Yeah. I’ve been on the other end of the spectrum on, on that too. And, and it’s hard because like everybody wants quote unquote perfect data collection and everything, but there’s also the reality of it. You’re collecting data in the real world. If you’re doing some external validation type study and it’s not going to be perfect, it’s going to be kind of messy. You’re going to do the best you can with, you know, the number of people you have and the power and the statistics and all that kind of stuff. But it drives me insane when more armchair online critics are like pointing to flaws in the study and I’m like, did you email the researcher? I can almost guarantee that they probably thought of that. You know, cause I just had an energy drinks and we ended up using a ride to fatigue as one of our markers.

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:13:51):

And they’re like, Oh, well, why didn’t you do a time trial? This doesn’t relate to sports performance. And I’m like, you know what? I actually had it written that way. I changed it because we could only get recreational level athletes. So if I get someone who’s like really good on a bike who rides a lot and someone who rides twice a week and I showed that there’s a learning effect now in the order of the trial that’s done and I don’t do enough familiarization trials, et cetera. The whole study is screwed, you know? And then you’re relying on volunteers. So I probably got to add two familiar race, familiarization trials, plus the three times that they’re coming into the labs and now that’s five times they have to come into the lab, you know, for free and get poked and prodded and tube stuff in their mouth and all that kind of stuff too. So it’s yeah. There’s always going to be limits. You do one thing. You can’t do the other thing then.

Dr. Adam Feit (00:14:39):

Yeah. Well I love how you bring it up. I mean, it’s interesting. We’re taking the angle that we are, but just kinda, you know what chaps me as a coach, right. As a practitioner is once I started to learn it was, and I seen those critics, right. We see the trolls online. Like we get the emails that I’m watching, you know, your Facebook posts and it’s like the higher control that we have in the study, the less applicability it is going to be in the real world. Right. We’re naturally balancing out internal and external validity. So I laugh. Like I hysterically sit back and sit in my chair and look at these posts on Facebook and Instagram and whatnot. And people are, I mean, throwing arms up of like thinking how is that going to be appropriate? And it’s like, you have no idea because again, they’re not in that process of the compromises you have to make and largely in party, you know, some of it isn’t really your choice. It’s your committee. And it’s like, they’ve got stuff to do and they want to make sure you graduate. And so, you know, there’s obviously some ethical concerns there with research, like anything else, but yeah, you want a completely buttoned up like white labeled perfect study gold standard. It’s going to come at a sacrifice. But obviously it depends on what you’re trying to look at. Right?

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:15:46):

Yeah. And even some of the people like years ago when Kevin Hall was doing some studies in a metabolic chamber, people are like, Oh my God, how does he dare do that? That that’s not real world. No one does that. No one has all their food perfectly calibrated in this. And like, exactly like, do you have a metabolic chamber? Like you’re going to run a study that the cost, you know, a couple million dollars and it’s not set up for external validity. It’s trying to figure out what is the underlying mechanism of some of this things. And we are purposely trying to hold everything, you know, as tight as the gnat’s to try to figure that out. We’re not trying to do this, to tell you okay, with your real world online coaching, here’s what you should do. You know? So then it just kind of goes back to what is the mechanism? What are you trying to show by this study? And you know, it takes a collection of studies, both internal and external validation. And that’s the consensus all the time. So anyway, sorry,

Dr. Adam Feit (00:16:40):

Setting it up for the long picture. This is a better word. Just like airing out our grievances at academic process and bridging the gap between right. Theory and application. We’re going to face battles everywhere we go. So do the best we can with what we have.

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:16:54):

I feel like it’s when you watch Seinfeld December 23rd, and it’s like the airing of grievances for the holiday celebration they had with the steel pole and the feats of strength for Festivus for the rest of us. So sad. Like I, I bring up Seinfeld references now and students are like, what are you talking about? I’m like, what?

Dr. Adam Feit (00:17:19):

That was Seinfeld. I bring up anchorman says, I mean, you talk about more modern. I was in San Diego coaching at the Olympic training center, the summer it came out and I was, you know, I was turning 21. I’m like, this is glorious. Right? Like, I mean, every other coaching cue was a one-liner from the movie. And so I bring up, you know, little things like that. And they’re like, well, no, never seen it. And I’m like, wow, like you were, you were doing humanity and coaching a disservice right now. Yeah. I did the

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:17:50):

RPR level three cert and Kyle deeds had one of his interns there. And so she’s a super nice girl, but the, the two presenters were just giving her a hard time because you sometimes forget like how young people are, who are entering coaching and even students. So the running joke, the whole weekend was like, all these old classic movies were, we were just quizzing her the whole time if she had seen him or not. So we were making her like top 12 list of movies. She had to go back and watch,

Dr. Adam Feit (00:18:17):

Let that stand for the record. Young coaches and scientists need somebody like that in your corner, because there are a lot of valuable life lessons that these shows and movies can show you about life. So glad you’re able to be there for her, with you and Cal. So that’s great that you did the level three. I was actually just on the phone with JL this this past weekend. Nice catching up. So we just got yeah, we got our grad students at Springfield hooked up with RPR level one and got, got a couple of continuing ed programs in line for the winter break. So we’re excited to, you know, kind of bring that more towards the forefront and, and get, you know, younger coaches better, so to speak. So, yeah.

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:18:56):

And you did the level one if I remember correctly. Yeah.

Dr. Adam Feit (00:18:59):

I actually, I don’t even know what it would be called right now. I remember cause Cal had come out when I was running the gym in New Jersey ripped and it was like one of

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:19:08):

Those super early ones, I think wasn’t it. So

Dr. Adam Feit (00:19:11):

I have, you’d have to clarify this for me, but technically my, my certificate is like level two as well. We, but all the drivers, I mean, we went through everything and it was very hands-on so I do have level two before it was like level two. Yeah.

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:19:27):

Yeah. And if you have Cal is the instructor it’s I went to the early ones because I, I learned through Douglas heal through, be activated, which RPR got a license to teach his stuff. And I remember sitting in one of the first ones that Cal taught publicly in the twin cities. And it was about like two in the afternoon. He was only doing level one that day. He was supposed to do level two the next day. And he’s just, you know, ripping through stuff. And he’s like showing everyone how to do all this stuff and was like, Oh yeah, great. It’s like two in the afternoon. He’s like, all right. Well I think that’s it for level one, any questions. And I look around and everyone is just like, like deer in the headlights of a Peterbilt. They have like, no idea what just happened. So I’m raising my hand and ask a bunch of questions and then people felt like it was okay to actually ask questions that they didn’t really understand, you know, some stuff. And, and I love Cal. He’s awesome. But he’s done it like so much. Like if you sometimes don’t interrupt him with a question, then it’s just like, everyone’s got it. Cool. Alright. Alright. Next thing. Oh, you gotta see this next thing is super cool. And

Dr. Adam Feit (00:20:26):

Yeah, I remember that we had about maybe 40 or 50 people at our place when he came out and did the same thing, you know, for the weekend. And it was awesome. And we had the gym, you know, we were partnered with the physical therapy clinic as well. So we brought out like eight, 10 tables and you know, we’re all doing this stuff on each other, trying to figure it out. And, but like exactly, like you said, right. It becomes almost a second language where you’re just assuming, you know, you don’t realize how much, you know, because you’re probably in a different room. Well, now you’re in this room and you’re like, Whoa, hold on. We have to slow things down a bit. So it’s been great to see how everything has changed and, and really evolved into, you know, especially with the online stuff and working through that and, you know, with the colors and the vision work. And I’m excited to dive deep a little bit more into it as, as things evolve accordingly.

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:21:12):

Yeah. It was one of those things. And obviously I’m biased because I teach for RPR and even back to the science thing, people are like, well, what’s the exact science of it. I’m like, I don’t know. I mean, I can tell you some stuff. I think that’s going on. There’s like been two, three studies that’s ever really been done on it. But again, you hate to say that in my experience or anecdotal only, it’s like, I’ve tested a lot of other systems and I don’t know, man. It just, it just seems to work and I’ve translated that even to online stuff. And I don’t even tell people what it is like. Yeah. Just do these drills. I know it looks bad. Crazy. I know it looks insane. And like generally the feedback is very similar to each time. So it’s yeah. I think that’s always hard when you’re like yourself.

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:21:59):

You’re obviously not a lot of work in science and we’ll talk about your dissertation coming up, but then you work in the real world also. It’s like at the end of the day, if a client comes in, they don’t care how many studies there is on something. I hope that I know some of the background of it if they ask and I can get them a better result, but if 17 studies say this thing should work and it does, or doesn’t all they care about is the an equals one result by the time they walk out the door, you know? So I think that’s always the, even the debate online too. And it’s like, how can you kind of bridge those two together where like the research kind of gives you the general direction and then the me-search gives you the specific answer on an individual end equals one level too.

Dr. Adam Feit (00:22:43):

Yeah. Well, and I, and I know we talk a lot about it at precision nutrition, but I think we’ve all fallen as a victim or the Victor, however we want to look at, but the trap of like, evidence-based evidence-based right. So is it evidence led? Is it evidence-based but like what, what truly is evidence-based is it simply waiting for that white paper research journal that is, you know, by the time it gets through all the reviewing and it’s finally out there, it’s, it’s probably a little bit outdated. Is it a combination of the coach’s intuition and their personal experiences as well as what’s what the client feels, what they’re going through as well? So, you know, it’s, it’s important to consider all of that in the process, because if we look at all of that, me-search, if we look at all of the things that powerlifters were doing and bodybuilders were doing for years and years and years, yeah. They probably couldn’t explain it, but we can’t deny that what they were doing albeit outside the effects of other performance enhancing substances or methods were working. And so why continue to fight and make a big deal about it? Why don’t we work and collaborate and let’s validate those and help them get the recognition they deserve. I think that’s super important to us.

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:23:49):

Yeah. Especially if your goal is to get stronger than it makes sense to look at what a power lifters and Olympic weightlifters do. If you want to preserve as much muscle mass as possible and get leaner drugs aside, maybe looking at what bodybuilders do, at least the consensus, that’s probably going to give you some pretty good clues to start there. And of course you always have to be aware of, you know, what is the cost to do that. But as a starting point, it’s probably going to give you some pretty good data to look at.

Dr. Adam Feit (00:24:18):

Yeah. And I, and you know, you know this, but just, it’s never about proving something is working because we can’t do that in research, but going through that process, and I’ve struggled with this, just being a coach over the years of like trying to find the best way or the Holy grail of like, Oh yeah, I’m going to get this certification or RPR is that ticket, right. It’s but how can we clear the waters? Right. You know, if the, if the water itself is pretty muddy, well, we can probably rule out this technique or we can probably rule out that protocol. That’s just as important, if not more important than trying to validate all the things that are working, because this, this industry itself is completely saturated with fit fluency, SIRS, and protocols and challenges. And it drives a lot of us nuts. I know, for a fact, so,

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:25:02):

Yeah. Yeah. I’ve in my, one of my favorite quotes is from Dr. Pat Davidson is that it, you know, the scientific process is just like knocking down bowling pins. It’s like, we’re never really proving anything. We’re just like, okay, this theory, okay. We, we kind of disprove that doesn’t appear to be true. Oh, this one. Ah, okay. We’re able to disprove this. And at the end of the day, you’re left with, you know, these two, three, four, five theories. And that might be true. I mean, we haven’t been able to disprove them so far to date doesn’t mean that we won’t. But if you’re not trained in that thought process too, which, you know, took many years to beat into my thick skull it’s hard to explain that to clients because everybody else in the quote unquote, real world is like, well, what do I do? Like, what is true? Like what is the correct thing? You know, what is the optimal thing to do? It’s drives me batshit crazy. It’s like, no, let’s just work on something better. Yeah. I don’t think that’s the best route. We’ve got some pretty good data to show that that’s probably not the thing, but let’s go over here and kind of go in that direction, you know, and maybe we don’t have as much solid data on that, but hasn’t really been disproven yet. So it’s probably going to get us closer a little bit better.

Dr. Adam Feit (00:26:15):

Yeah. I love how you bring up the idea of theories, because I remember having a discussion with my advisor and, you know, in sports psychology, right. That the softer science you’re basing your work on a theoretical framework. Right. So what is the lens that you’re looking at this and that, how you’re going to answer the research questions. And I just remember going through that whole proposal process and watching other people, and it was like, Oh, yours is based in self-determination theory or yours is, but you know, mine was based in self-efficacy theory or yours is based that theory. And that theory, and I remember reading a paper and talking about it being like, we’re, I think we’re spending so much time trying to stay in the lane of all the theories that were established. Like, why aren’t we trying to either disprove it or maybe create a new one and lend some evidence towards something else.

Dr. Adam Feit (00:26:59):

Right. Like I remember we just hired a, a we, but at the college hired a new exercise physiology and neuro professor, young guy did some post-doc work at Harvard, like really sharp guy. And you know, we’re talking through some of the advanced ex FIS stuff. And I remember when it just had come out, I think it was last year, but how they’re talking about like, Dom’s how maybe it’s not the, the really the muscle fiber, it’s more of a neurological issue. And it was like blowing people’s mind. And I’m like, this is the stuff that we need to circulate because yeah. The old coaching adage, right. You always do what you’ve always done. You’re always going to get, we’ve always gotten. And so if we’re not pushing the boundaries and exploring the edges, then we’re just going to say, Oh, this is based in this theory because some guy from the 1970s at a, you know, high or middle-class school primarily filled with, you know, college age resistance training men with, you know, certain levels of privilege said at work, we’re not going to get into better.

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:27:54):

Yeah. Even with DMS, I’ve always wondered too, because if you look at the data, it’s it doesn’t everybody thinks that, okay, if you have Dom’s the delayed onset muscle soreness performance automatically goes down. It’s like, Oh bro, my quads are really bad. So my performance is just going to be crap. Yay. If you look at the data, it’s not super clear, right. At some point, if you absolutely completely brutalize and trash a muscle. Yeah. Your force is definitely going to go down, but it doesn’t track like this nice one-to-one relationship. Then you throw stuff in like, you know, markers we use for muscle damage all the time. CK, creatine, kinase. Yeah. They’re associated with Dom’s, but they don’t track perfectly on his one-to-one linear relationship either. At some level, if you’ve got a ton of CK in your blood, you probably have some Dobbs and you’ve definitely damaged the muscle and you probably have impaired force, but in that kind of in-between zone, I don’t, I don’t even know anymore. Like you said, maybe it’s all just a sensitization of the nervous system because you’re going by, unless you’re doing a biopsy and looking at Z line stream and stuff like that, you’re going by what they report. They’re saying, Oh no, VAs, the visual analog scale, it’s this. So that’s their interpretation of, of feeling and a sensation. And that gets even more messy.

Dr. Adam Feit (00:29:18):

And, and that’s, and that’s, I’m glad you brought that up because looking at it from the other end of coaching, mental performance, the perception and the mindset that they bring to that situation is going to give us more information than anything. I remember when I first started coaching, we were, I was working with, you know, Olympians, like Toby Stevenson was a silver medalist in the pole vault. This was maybe 2004, but guys like iron waltz and Jared, the late Jared roam, I mean power throwers. And I’m looking at the program and like, they are squatting hard and heavy and push pressing hard and heavy that like within 12, 16 hours of the meats. And I’m like, and you know, we had, I think some block country what was coming out. And I think he was the bronze medalists in 2004 and the shot, and this guy is like max effort, dead lifting like six, 700 pounds for triples and doing the same thing day before to me.

Dr. Adam Feit (00:30:11):

But I’m asking him, I’m like, you come from a traditional coaching model, right? Like no dorms like slow like 48 hours before the big game. And he’s like, I love, they’re like, we love to feel tight. Like we love to feel compact, stressing the system so much before it, like, we feel better. And I was like, yeah, they didn’t teach me that textbook. So I’m obviously not going to mess with it. I’m just a Slappy intern, but it seems to be working for you. Right. But that whole perception of how does this feel if, if you’re going to delay in that and sit in that discomfort of like, Oh, I’m sorry, I can’t do anything. I’m not strong. I mean, you’re just sitting in that defeating attitude and yeah. You’re going to perform not well.

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:30:51):

Yeah. And then I, my brain even goes to him like, well, is there something to like having some inflammation and higher, you know, interstitial fluid and pressure to, you know, change like dynamic movement that we haven’t looked at or something I have no freaking idea, but who knows?

Dr. Adam Feit (00:31:10):

Yeah. Well, that’s, I think the beauty of it right. Who does know if you do know, let us know, there’s a quest for all of us to try and find out and to just move away from the traditional ideologies of, you know, inflammation and then icing everything. And yeah, it’s funny you bring up Pat Davidson cause he had gone to Springfield college as well. When I was leaving my undergrad and you know, he’s making his Mark in the health and fitness world, but just challenging these concepts that we just were blindly following about how we should train and how we should not train and how we should set up programs. So it’s important to kind of be that, you know, that go that rogue way or that rebel way and start to look at things from a different perspective because that’s how we are going to advance in this field.

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:31:54):

Yeah. Yeah, totally. And so tell us more about what you looked at for your PhD dissertation. It’s kind of, sort of related to these topics a little bit.

Dr. Adam Feit (00:32:04):

Yeah. well I appreciate the opportunity to chat a little bit about it, but I had come from a pretty heavy strength conditioning background. I had dabbled in a lot of different areas and in different levels and whatnot and had an opportunity to come back, get my PhD alongside my wife, as I said earlier, but I took the sport and exercise psychology route because I had was probably still suffering PTSD from my undergrad ex now that there’s good guys like you to get my information brought back to the is it the start Frank Starling mechanism cardiac system there? Yeah. the, the chalkboards still is just so in my face about that, but what I was interested in is, is really evaluating the gap, right. We talked about like tensions or essentially where we are now and where we could be.

Dr. Adam Feit (00:32:57):

And what I saw a lot of was that let’s say strength, condition, coaching, or physical performance coaching, high performance, performance enhancement. We have so many different names of like getting people more bigger, faster, stronger Jack than tan, right. That are we neglecting a big piece of their development? And so I looked at I’ll, I’ll slow it down a little bit. I wanted to know what the use of sports, psychology techniques, strategies, skills essentially mental skills. How are those being used in the field of strength conditioning? So I did a two-part study, put out a survey, which is awesome. The first part was like 1100 responses. I was like, let’s, that was crazy. Yeah. Like 10 times the amount that was in current published research. So I found a lot of research from Radcliffe comfort and Fossette in like the mid two thousands.

Dr. Adam Feit (00:33:50):

And I was like, this is great, but I’m like, I’ve got 10 times out of amount. And then I get to the process of like cleaning the data and screening the data. And I was like, Oh man, we only got like 600 close to 700. So then I brought it down to college coaches cause I spent a lot of time in college and had been at the college. And so I looked at essentially, you know, on a scale of one to seven, one being very infrequently, seven being very frequently. How often were you using what you know about sports psychology, these skills and strategies on a regular basis? So, you know, we talk about the use of music, but you know, what are you using for arousal regulation? What are you using for concentration strategies? How are you using self-confidence motivation goal setting, et cetera.

Dr. Adam Feit (00:34:30):

And so I got some really great data from that, but like any research, right? You just can’t stop with that one research question. And so while I picked up things like, Hey, you know, knowledge obviously is a barrier we’re only going to coach, or we’re only going to write a program for what we feel competent in that that makes sense. Right. I remember when let’s say kettlebells had come out and when I said come out, it was like popular and mainstream coaching. If I didn’t have any experience with it, I wasn’t coaching it. And it was really the same with, you know, elements of sports psychology. So we found things like that. We found that there were no differences between genders kind of ransom, some basic statistical test to see where we were at. But I was like, all right, now that I have the landscape kind of painted, right.

Dr. Adam Feit (00:35:11):

We know goal setting self-confidence and motivational strategies are like the top three used by coaches. I want to know exactly what you’re doing. Like I want to get in your face. I want to be at your hip. And I want to be able to say, all right, take me through your day. What elements of mental skills are you using? Why are you using them what’s in your way or whatnot? So I did a follow-up study, interviewed 16 division, one conditioning coaches from, I think, four out of the five power, five schools. I had head coaches, I had football, only coaches. I had Olympic only coaches. I had males, females. I had coaches that were coaching less than five years and coaches that had less, had more than 20 years. So I felt like really good from a sampling strategy of like, I I’m really trying to capture as much of collegiate strength, conditioning as possible.

Dr. Adam Feit (00:36:03):

And so that’s what I did. So I looked at, Hey, you know, how, what are you doing specifically? What are the barriers and obstacles in your way? You know, why aren’t you doing it the way you thought? Right. Because I had, I was a little biased. Right. And you know, I’m writing my positionality statement. I’m like, hell yes. Sports psych, like self-talk and taking some ammonia salts, like, of course that’s gonna improve performance. And you know, I’m, I’m guilty of a little Monday motivational video. They’ll once in a while, there’s those cheesy, one-liners like, yeah, let’s go and let’s get your chili hot and all that crap. So I wanted to look at that and I wanted to see, like, what did they know about sports psychology? In, in coaching, you have to get a degree in a related field. So where are we following kinesiology, where we fall in exercise science and, or did we have some people that had some background in that?

Dr. Adam Feit (00:36:51):

So I’ll pause in a little bit, but essentially I did a deep dive put together. I think it was 16 inner, like 90 minute interviews with coaches, the coding process for anybody that’s still listening and understands that man, that was, that was a slap in the face, like over and over again, because you think you’ve kinda got like the answer and then you go through it again and you’re like, Nope, that’s not it definitely. I mean, I kid you not. I had transcripts thousands of pages of transcripts. Well maybe not thousand 16 interviews, 50 page, so hundreds. And I’m coding them, I’m tagging them, I’m highlighting, I’m making little notes and then I’m cutting them out and I’ve got like three things set in my living room. And I’m like trying to, I mean, it was like a beautiful mind. Like we’re also all over the place because you’re trying to make what is the data telling me and showing me.

Dr. Adam Feit (00:37:43):

So, yeah, I went through that process and was able to get buttoned everything up you know, by the end of the fall. So so that’s where I started. I wanted to know, I want to do a deep dive. The role of a coach is very influential. You know, they’re doing more than just training, proper strength, training and conditioning methods. They’re providing emotional support, social support, physical support. And if there’s anybody that is going to coach mental skills, the, the strength condition coach can be an ideal person because of the strength of that athlete, coach relationship. I mean, you know this with your your MP3 clients, like you, you build great rapport with them. They trust you. They’re probably telling you things that you’re like, Whoa, you know, should this be a counselor or a therapist or whatnot. And so when we look at that, right, we, there’s a gigantic stigma against mental health, mental sports psychology.

Dr. Adam Feit (00:38:36):

And that’s what I found in the research. Right? Some coaches are like, yeah, I don’t, I don’t mess with that. I just once they start talking about suicide, I defer out and I’m like, Oh, it’s not just that. Like, we spent so much time on relative intensities and periodization schemes and advanced, you know, French contrast training. And it’s like, this is such a big piece here. So I really wanted to figure out like, how are you guys? How is everybody doing it? What do you even know about it? Where are you getting your resources from? And what are some of the things in your way? So I’m looking forward to hopefully putting it into the publication journals. I need, I need a little bit of a break, as you can imagine, but yeah. So we’re going to wrap all that up, but curious to get some Q and a here, but essentially sports psychology. How is it those elements and techniques and skills being used as a coach and what can we learn about it in other sectors

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:39:31):

As well? Yeah. I mean, I think that’s a, a huge area, especially in the future. For awhile, I served on the mindset performance Institute. I was just research, helping them with more from the cause I got into it backwards. So I started many years ago. First client sat down and you can imagine that a male, 40 pounds overweight look at it as food log, not as even a sleeve of Oreos every day. Cool. Don’t eat the Oreos. I’m like, man, I’m a great coach. This is awesome. Got you can imagine it goes away, comes back again. It’s still eating like a whole sleeve of Oreos. Right. And this goes on because I’m not very bright for God, almost like two or three months. And eventually I just got so frustrated. I said, fine, don’t worry about it. We’re not going to do anything. And then I went back and started taking more neurobiology classes.

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:40:20):

Cause I’m like, well, maybe I should figure out, like, how does the brain work? Like I only know a basic thing. Like how does it work? How did you know, association neurons, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff. And then I realized, I’m like, Oh my God, I’m such an idiot. I’m all I’m telling. This poor guy is like Oreos, Oreos, Oreos. It’s like, don’t think of a pink elephant. It’s like, you just thought of the pink elephant. So I’m berating this poor bastard about his Oreos. And he’s just thinking Oreos, but he’s cognitive enough to know that he’s not supposed to have the Oreos. So then he needs them and then he feels bad on top of it. And yeah, I had like three clients almost like that one right after the other. And I remember after like literally half a year in the profession, I’m going, why am I going back to school for exercise physiology?

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:41:03):

This has nothing to do with physiology. It’s almost all psychology. And you know, now fast forward, 16 years later, I think it still does. You know, I think in the future, I’d be curious on your opinion on this coaches and trainers will have to know sets and reps. You’ll have to know your exercise phase. You’ll have to know your basic nutrition like PN and all those programs I think are awesome. But I think that’s going to be the base level. That’s going to be the expectation that you have to have these things down cold. The next level is going to be, how do you do things with like psychology? How do you actually get people to do to change their behaviors? How do you get them to stay motivated? Whatever that is. And that to me is like the next level and all the skills that I kind of had to pick up along the way, which I’m sure many other trainers have had to.

Dr. Adam Feit (00:41:55):

Yeah. I mean, I’m obviously biased because I work for precision nutrition. We’re in that, in that space, but that’s, that’s what drove me to, to get the degree. It wasn’t about, you know, hating exercise fits necessarily. And you know, am I going to remember the rate limiting step of you know, glycolysis and all of that, but it was about, okay, great. I’ve had my fair share of struggles. I I’m, I’m a naturally a bigger guy. I played offensive line. And so getting the meal plans, understanding macros energy in versus energy out, like as much as we want to deduce it to simple as it’s either this or that. There’s so many other factors at play. And when you coach, as long as we do, you get to understand that, all right, he or she has got the plan, but why aren’t they executing it?

Dr. Adam Feit (00:42:39):

Right? Or they were all gung ho the first week when I signed up and they paid me, you know, a month in advance, but now what’s happening. Why, why are they ghosting me? Or, you know, how come they’re, they’re doing this or they’re doing that. So yeah, I would say, you’re going to have to have that base level of competence, but you and I both know, right? Like your clients, aren’t asking you the questions that your, your university professors and educators said, you’re going to need to know. Right. Like I still, I still laugh when I visit my wife on campus when, when classes were still on, you know, sessions and I’m looking at the lab and you know, they’re measuring the polls, radial Pauls, and they’re doing the blood pressure. And it’s like, I remember 15 years ago, I’m like, yeah, I’m going to just use a heart rate monitor. And they’re like, that’s not always going to work. You know? And I’m like, yeah, if it doesn’t, I’m going to have an extra.

Dr. Adam Feit (00:43:27):

Right. And now the metrics and the wearables and all the KPIs we can pull from that is driving how we’re coaching that. So you know, like we just finished a course for PN about, you know, we call it change psychology, but yeah, using these elements of behavior psychology and the, the bio-psycho-social elements of like, here’s why especially now, right? Here’s why your client is gaining weight and they don’t want to, or here’s why there’s stress to the max. And it’s not just about like, Hey bro, like let’s do some meditation and drink some Bulletproof coffee in the morning and call it a day. There are so many things pulling on them. So to answer your question, yeah, I’m, I’m 100% behind you. The work is being done. I think now more than ever mainstream fitness and health have to publicize that have to share that instead of the latest, like Instagram giveaway around the holidays about, you know, typing, give me your stats and I can just put in a fancy calculator and give you your macros. That’s great. But guess what? They’re just going to sit there. And if you don’t learn how to coach that, you’re not going to get any results.

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:44:28):

Yeah. And it’s an interesting dichotomy too, because I just got a testimony from a client who graduated and she was like, just like, wow, you’re much more of a life coach than I ever imagined. You know, which I didn’t take that as a knock at all. I took that. I was like, Oh, that’s a huge compliment. You know, because people come in thinking that it’s all sets and reps and finding the perfect program. And obviously you have to deliver on, on that front. But I mean, I can’t even think of a single client who’s ever come in and been like, you know, man, I know you’re going to give me sets and reps and you’re going to talk to me about nutrition, but you know, it’s really my psychology that needs help. Like nobody says that, you know, but almost at the end of the day, that’s kind of their rate limiter, you know?

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:45:13):

So it was trying to approach it in a way where it’s like the old analogy of people go to the movies to watch whatever the new movie is. I guess maybe not so much now, but you’d dial it up in your TV, whatever. But back when theaters were in business, the theaters themselves would make more money off their concessions than they would ever on movies. But they went advertise, Hey, come to the theater and get popcorn. It’s like, Oh, that doesn’t make any sense. But when I go there, it’s like, Oh, maybe I’ll get a popcorn meal, get something else. Right. So they’re still delivering on what they promised, Hey, here’s the new movie, but you know, while you’re here, maybe you should think about this thing over here too. Yeah.

Dr. Adam Feit (00:45:52):

The whole idea with the, the movie theater and I was, I was listening to a few of your older podcasts and you you’re talking about the, you know, the ages of food, right. So, you know, hedonic issues, right. And, and health and whatnot. But I remember I was presenting in a seminar class and there actually was a study. And I mean, maybe the lab was debunked and maybe it was out of the Cornell food lab. They had some ethical issues there. But part of it was like back to the movie and the popcorn was yeah, the, the, I need some help. My psychology, you man, you just explain what happens in the environment of a lot of our clients. Right. They’re, they’re eating uncontrollably. They’re not even aware of that. And I remember one of the studies we’ve looked at was they were, where are they going to eat the popcorn?

Dr. Adam Feit (00:46:32):

Whether it was fresh or stale. And what they found was essentially the popcorn’s there. You’re going to eat it. So I remember my seminar class, I had made popcorn and I left it out for like three days on a broader day. And I thought, nice bags. And I’m like giving a little PowerPoint and they’re just smashing food. And then we get to it. And it was like, you you’ve all been punked like often sitting at the table for four days. Right. But you still ate it. So I think when you bring up that whole yeah. The psychology piece, why are they making the decisions that they’re making as a coach? When you hear something like, Oh, you know, you’re a life coach. Yeah. We naturally, I think, feel that as like a negative connotation, like, Whoa, I’m not all about that, but let’s move forward. Right. 2021 coming up now more than ever, people are gonna want more than just somebody who can throw me a workout on an Excel spreadsheet or a training platform. And these are the things that, again, it’s change or die. If you don’t adapt with the times, you’re not going to be of any value to anybody. You’re not going to have any services provide because they’re going to want more.

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:47:31):

Yeah. I think this, you know, your basic macros and your training program are just going to become a commodity in and of themselves. Right. And you know, most of the clients I work with all my clients are awesome, but you know, there’s usually something that was kind of a rate limiter or they just can’t pull a program off of the shelf, whether it’s a weird mechanical issue or something going on. And I mean, that’s the time to use the services of a coach, you know, because we all, I think have to, that we deal with the very biased population too. Right? Huge survivorship bias of people that are seeking you out for a particular thing who are going to pay you a lot of money. So they are motivated to change. They are motivated, you know, to do those things that may or may not be kind of the general public running around either. You know? So I think sometimes when we live in the trainers space only, it’s easy to kind of look out and go, Oh, why are people so overweight? Why don’t they do other things? You know? And they’re like you said, they’re, especially now they’re stressed out. They’ve got a bunch of whole bunch of other stuff going on. They’re probably doing okay with wherever they’re at in their life now. And until something usually drastically changes, it doesn’t really rise up and become a priority either.

Dr. Adam Feit (00:48:45):

So, yeah. And I think just calling that out specifically, that it’s just natural for us to say, or just tell ourselves, right? Th these defeating thoughts and negative self-talk of like, but I used to be able to do this and it’s, it’s no excuses now. I’ve got more time now, more than ever, right. Let’s say pandemic times. Right. And I’m in this as a coach or in the industry, I should be doing better and I’m just going to do it harder. Right. Or I need more willpower. Right. And these are like all the things that let’s try harder. Yeah. That’s it right. Like paleo harder, man. It’s like an inside joke we have at work. Like, Oh, it didn’t work. We’ll just paleo harder. Right. It’s not a knock at, you know, the Dalio followers out there, but it’s, if something’s not working, you just can’t do it more. Do it harder. It’s you’ve got to develop. And again, back to skill development, right. Everything for the most part are skills and they can be learned, but are you putting them in the right sequence? Are you putting them at the right place in time of the coaching conversation and are like, are you doing the thing before the things, so all of these elements all intertwined and it’s like, you know, what, how about we do back to the Seinfeld? Right. We talk about this all time, like do the opposite, right. Georgia

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:49:57):

Just stands up principal. My favorite

Dr. Adam Feit (00:50:01):

Principle of, of what we try and just like, you keep doing all of this and your life sucks. George decides to do the opposite. He’s just like crushing life. So instead of doing it harder, why don’t you do it less hard and be more consistent, right. Instead of being so strict and beating yourself up because you were a couple of calories or grams over your macros that week, and you had to Mark yourself, noncompliant, why don’t we open up a little bit of the, the freedom there and give yourself a little bit more choices and, you know, tying all that into it, you brought up like the idea of the coach, but that’s a basic, psychological need is, is relatedness, right? So you tie that in with the autonomy, for them to choose establishing tasks and exercises and just challenges for them that they’re motivated to accomplish. And they’re competent doing, you’re not, you’re not putting them out on a, on an Island of like, someday you’ll get here. No, you’re doing something with it within their stretch limit capacity. And then you actually have them a part of something greater than themselves. Like a team like a coach. You know, the whole idea of accountability really is that come down to coaching now more than ever, we, most of us are craving that. So go get yourself a coach coaches get coached all the time. That’s a big difference maker for you.

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:51:13):

Yeah. Awesome. Those are the wrap up here. Is there something that surprised you from your research? So like what you thought going in and then where you ended up once you were done and you think kind of changed your mind or things that were unexpected?

Dr. Adam Feit (00:51:31):

Well, that’s a great question, Dr.

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:51:33):

Mike that’s it sounds like something you change your mind about stuff over time. So one of my little grading of people, I guess you could say is, do they ever change their mind? Right. And not that you have to be wishy-washy and change your mind all the time, but in the face of new data, are you going to at least consider the data and go, okay. I did consider it. I’m not changing my mind. And here’s why so I always have big respect for people that can at least be open-minded enough to look at it and go, maybe I should do this. Oh, there’s some new data now. Okay. I’m going to go in this direction now instead.

Dr. Adam Feit (00:52:07):

Yeah. No great question. I’m glad you posed it. So yeah, I actually went into it thinking the strength conditioning coach was like the person you are the person that is the best person to do this because of the quality of the relationship. You spend so much time with the athletes, everything, the respect of the organization, et cetera. So I went in being like, I’ve got to prove to me and to my committee that like, no, no, no, the strength coach, like they’re the ticket, right? They’re the linchpin, whatever, whatever it is. And as I started going through it, I had to remember that I was also looking at this more importantly from the lens of a sports psychology practitioner. So whether that’s a mental performance coach, a sport and exercise professional, I couldn’t just be like coach Adam or coach fight the strength coach. And what I found was yes.

Dr. Adam Feit (00:52:53):

Okay. The coach is an integral part of that piece. However, they don’t have the skills. They don’t have the knowledge for the most part. And while some might have, and this came up actually as a quote, some might have the ability to perform psychological first aid. They don’t have the resources the time or the knowledge to essentially put the tourniquet on. Maybe they’re not aware of diagnostic interviewing. Right? And so now as a sport psychology professional, I’m thinking, okay, instead of trying to put the sports psych people out of a job, because a lot of division one institutions are going to be hiring, rather it’s a sports psychologist and mental performance coach, a psychiatrist. And there’s obviously different scopes that you can work with there. How about we start bringing them to the same table and saying, Hey, look, I’m a strength coach. I can do some basic first aid here.

Dr. Adam Feit (00:53:44):

Right? I can work on some arousal regulation methods. I’m working on relaxing. I’m doing RPR and doing breath control, et cetera. But I really love to take it up a notch and I love to enlist your support. So now as we start getting towards a high performance model, it’s no longer like Joe, the strength coach in the basement of the weight room and all of the administrators on the six or seventh floor, it’s about, can we really put together a high performance team? Can we get the support of the sports psychology professional? Can that individual or team of individuals help our coaching staff? Because they are the first responders. They are the boots on the ground. They’re doing all these readiness surveys. Well, do they really know when to poke and prod or to actually alert and kind of sound the siren off? Right? So in terms of what I would change, I was like, gung ho of like, yeah, we don’t need that.

Dr. Adam Feit (00:54:33):

We don’t need an athletic trainer. We don’t need a physio, like strength coach to go at all right. You know, that, that essence of martyrdom. And I came out being like, look they’re, they’re in a great position to do all that stuff, but they’re overworked. They love to learn, but they don’t have resources. So guess what? Like that’s, that’s research study. Number three for me is I want to put together like the strength coaches, playbook for sports psych, but work with other sport and exercise psychology professionals to say, you have a market here now. So instead of trying to go directly to the athlete and if it’s a private sector, right, and it’s not covered by insurance, you’ve got issues there. How about you start coaching the coaches because now you’re gonna be able to reach more people just like, you know, let’s, let’s talk RPR, you’re trying to coaches and then they can go do their own thing. So that’s what I learned from it. You know, a little bit more integration with other areas of performance and let’s, let’s get all the right people at the right table speaking the same language because too many kids fall through the cracks too many coaches fall through the cracks. And I think our industry would be a much better if we start opening the doors instead of locking them down.

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:55:36):

Yeah, no, I think that’s great. And if any good resources for people who are listening, who’d want to start in that area until your next study comes out.

Dr. Adam Feit (00:55:47):

Yeah. Well, I guess continue to shameless plug from me. I’m trying to build up now that school’s over. Try to build my personal brand as like a strength in sports psychology coach. So I’m trying to do my best and learn from guys like you, Dr. Mike, and establishing a little bit of a brand, but there, I think some of the seminal research was you know, by Radcliffe comfort and Fossette a lot of that was in JCR and organizations like the ASPCA association of applied sports psychology, and just looking at how coaching behaviors have been affected or do affect psychological factors and, and vice versa. So I think we are to see a shift. I think we’re seeing it a little bit more consistent now, more than ever, especially with the impact of mental health and performance during COVID-19. So don’t be surprised that you know, every third or fourth study, isn’t some time trial to fatigue laptops, it’s going to be about communication. It’s going to be about proper coaching behaviors. And it’s going to be about improving all facets of, of athlete and client performance rather than a bigger bench, bro. So that’s where I’d start.

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:56:51):

No, and I think that’s awesome. And because I, I talked to Kaldi’s quite a bit, especially when I was there at the university of Minnesota, I still talk to him a fair amount, but I’m like trying to coordinate like these hardcore quantitative studies with elite athletes. Good frigging luck on, right? Because if I went to Cal or I went to you and someone and said, Hey, bro, I want to take your elite athletes. At least at the college level. I want them to do this program for 16 weeks. You’re going to be like, say what you want to like hijack all my athletes and do some batshit crazy program for 16 weeks. Just so you can publish a study. What if your program sucks? Then I have to deal with all these athletes on top of coaching on top of everything else. And it’s just really not that feasible because their job is to get performance out.

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:57:38):

They don’t give a. If anything gets published, that’s not their job. However, my qualitative study, maybe it takes someone like you or someone else just drop them into the environment with a question and maybe they observe, maybe they do some interviews. Maybe they do some other things where they’re not as intrusive. I think to a lot of the hardcore scientists that makes them bristle a little bit, because it’s not the quantitative we compared this and that and their squat speed, didn’t go up whatever. But I think there’s a lot of stuff we can learn from successful environments that then may set up even other more quantitative studies too. But I think right now there just isn’t as much known about that entire process as what we would like to believe either.

Dr. Adam Feit (00:58:22):

Yeah. Well, and I mean, you said it earlier that the train is going to suck. Well, at least half the training has got to suck because you need a control group. Right. If I’m going to give you my athletes, you better give them intervention. You know, I want them to get better, but yeah. And I think it’s important there to look at that. Like I know you’re doing some stuff with, I think, or you were with Dr. Ben house right down in Costa Rica. So like, things like that, like truly applied, like bro search, like let’s get after it. But if you have anybody that’s like reaching out or maybe if you’re a coach still listening to this, like, don’t be afraid of like, look you probably doing some great stuff. I’m sure there’s somebody in your department, that’s like itching for a paper that leads that could use the data that you already have.

Dr. Adam Feit (00:59:02):

Right. Like I had a meeting with one of our grad students and he put together an incredible KPI, performance tracker dropped down. I mean, it’s like, dude, you need to quit school and sell this. Like, you will make thousands, maybe hundreds, we’ll see. Right. But we have so much data look for the person that understands it. Right. And Hey, I’m a coach. I know what it’s like, I can still write programs. I’m still coaching. And I can look at the other aspect of that. So yeah, I can be the creep in the corner, taking notes and chaplain, maybe some of the perceptions and attitudes that are happening. But as coaches, you’ve got to open up to that. So, you know, let your guard down a little bit, if you truly want to be better and you want to help your athletes be better open those opportunities up and collaborate with people that can walk the walk and talk the talk.

Dr. Mike T Nelson (00:59:44):

Yeah. And my last part to the academics, I’d throw myself somewhat in that bucket too, is if a study doesn’t have perfect external validation, but it’s never been performed before, unless there’s a huge methodological flaw, just publish it. You know, because I’m doing this study with Dan house and Tommy wood and Ryan, we had people come in to Costa Rica. We had them do the same workout four days in a row. And we did a velocity measurements. And again, watching the study, it was far from perfect. There’s no question on that. However, so far, yeah. The study could be written a little bit better. We’re working on it, but you know, some of the standard journals were just like completely uninterested and I’m like, wait a minute, like, this is a good question. Right? Can you do the same thing four days in a row? And what happens? Right. There’s not much data on that. I thought it was a pretty novel question, you know? So I think it has to kind of go both directions too and not everything is going to have absolute, perfect internal validated data in blood levels and everything else, either. Those are great. That’s awesome. But then again, it’s like, are we doing the internal versus external validation on it? So

Dr. Adam Feit (01:00:51):

Yeah. Well that’s for the researcher to decide and you know, we’re all, we’re all gonna have our own biases and preferences, but at the end of the day, it’s like, Hey, that’s great. But you know, I think James Heather says like, well, if it’s happens in mice and I can’t actually take that and do it or apply it appropriately with my training population, then how much can I really take from it? So I’m all about at the end of the day, how’s this going to help? How is this applicable to what I do on a day-to-day basis? And if I can’t take it from the, from those research findings, then I’m onto the next one.

Dr. Mike T Nelson (01:01:24):

Yeah. Yeah. And I apologize that, you know, Mr. Heather’s not, I’m just giving him bad time.

Dr. Adam Feit (01:01:28):

Oh, I actually don’t personally, but his name gets thrown out quite a bit in some of the circles I frequent in the, in the Twitter verse. So I do know that he does have an account there and yeah, that’s great. But it was found in mice. So stuff saying we can just roll that over into a human.

Dr. Mike T Nelson (01:01:45):

Yeah, totally agree. Awesome. So where can people find more about you on the interwebs?

Dr. Adam Feit (01:01:53):

So yeah, I, I’m going to do it a little bit better job. Hopefully it’s social, but pretty active on Facebook like yourself. So some spots left there to connect and then I guess Instagram would be a eat, excuse me. Eight E fights. So a E F E I T a Twitter Adam underscore fights. But also my personal email E fight@gmail.com. So I have some open office hours. Like you, Dr. Mike, I checked out your playbook just wants to connect and chat. I I’m like my, my puppy, man. I just love seeing and talking to people now. It’s not really helping a lot too much. So reach out, love to talk shop, and if I can do anything or just connect, I would love to hear from you.

Dr. Mike T Nelson (01:02:33):

Yeah. And thank you so much. And hopefully we’ll get to maybe hang out again in person it’s been awhile. I think the last time I saw you was in Toronto when I crashed the precision nutrition potluck.

Dr. Adam Feit (01:02:45):

Yeah. That was, that was a great time, I think. Yeah, if we make it back up, there will be, we’re going to be crashing a lot of places and people there. So it’ll be a, it’ll be good to reconnect and hopefully get that level three someday.

Dr. Mike T Nelson (01:02:57):

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for all your time and sharing all your knowledge. I really appreciate it. And I’m super stoked to see all the great stuff that you have coming out yet too. So thank you for all your contributions.

Dr. Adam Feit (01:03:09):

We’re just beginning. So I appreciate it, Dr. Mike. Thank you.

Dr. Mike T Nelson (01:03:12):

Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast and that wonderful chat I had with now Dr. Adam, super great to catch up with him again, as we kind of wandered all over the map there with various topics be sure to check out his stuff coming out in the future. I know he’s going to have a lot more great information and I really enjoyed our conversation and it’s very cool to talk to people who have done both high level academics and who have been in the trenches, both lifting themselves and coaching for many years too. As we try to bridge the gap between those two universes and speaking to bridging the gap check out the flex diet certification, go to flex diet.com F L E X, D I E t.com. And that was one of my goals.

Dr. Mike T Nelson (01:04:03):

When I designed the certification is how do we bridge the world of what we know about academics and research related to nutrition and recovery. And how do we put that into a practical system that you can use, where you understand the context and you understand the intervention, and then we even break down the five specific action items that you would use with a client all within a flexible approach. So go to flux diet.com, F L E X, D I E t.com. Get on the wait list there, and you will be notified as soon as it opens again, in addition to lots of daily content there, the the newsletter. Thank you so much. If you enjoyed this or even if you didn’t still leave me a review, leave me some feedback, anything I can do to make the podcast better, I would appreciate it. And if you’ve enjoyed listening to it, I would appreciate knowing that also thank you so much. Have a great day. Talk to you next time.