Sports Medicine Pioneer

Dr. Cooper

Welcome to the latest episode of the Catalyst Health, Wellness, and Performance Coaching podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Bradford Cooper of the Catalyst Coaching Institute. And today we’re going to be speaking with one of the pioneers of sports medicine. Dr. Andy Pruitt initiated in many ways, the concept of bike fitting and was the founder of one of the first sports medicine centers in the world. The center of sports medicine in Boulder, Colorado. It’s a fun discussion with someone who has had such an incredible impact on multiple fronts. If you’re thinking about pursuing your certification as a health and wellness coach, the last fast track of 2020 is coming up November 14th and 15th, it’s entirely virtual. And as soon as you register, you can, if you want, begin the other components of the process to get a running start. This will set you up for the 2021 national board certification through the NBHWC. So it’s perfect timing. If that’s on your radar, the last five fast tracks have filled up early, so don’t wait too long. If it’s a priority, all the details, CatalystCoachingInstitute.com or feel free to reach out to us anytime Results@catalystcoachinginstitute.com and just a quick reminder, check out youtube.com/coaching channel as we now have over 90 videos covering health, wellness, and performance available for free over there. And we’d love to get your feedback. Now it’s time to take a stroll down memory lane and turn our attention toward our own optimal performance with Dr. Andy Pruitt on the latest episode of the Catalyst Health, Wellness, and Performance Coaching podcast.

Dr. Cooper

Well, Dr. Pruitt, welcome to the Catalyst Health, Wellness, and Performance Coaching podcast.

Dr. Pruitt

Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.

Dr. Cooper

So just about everybody knows Dr. Andy Pruitt, even if maybe they don’t realize they know you based on the influence you’ve had both on sports medicine and the cycling world. I’ll give the quick version that they’ve heard in the intro, pioneer in the world of bike fitting, founder of the center of sports medicine in Boulder, Colorado, Paralympic medalist. What, as you look back over the journey, what are some of your favorite memories?

Dr. Pruitt

Favorite memories? Wow. You know, I, my career started as sideline medicine as an athletic trainer. I came to Boulder, Colorado to be on Eddie Crowder’s last football staff. That’ll age me. Yeah. That’s why I came is to be on Eddie’s last football staff. CU was ranked third in the nation at the time. Um, I had only been out of undergraduate school a year, but I had started a sports medicine program out in New Jersey in a small college, a booming success if I have to say so myself, so anyway so Colorado called and boom here I am. So, 40 plus years of sideline and clinical medicine, 40 years of bike racing and 35 years of caring for cyclists at all levels. I, I mean memories. If, if, if you were to ask me my greatest athletic memory, it’d probably be winning the world championships in France in 1987, that’s probably my, my favorite athletic memory. But clinically it was probably opening the Boulder center for sports medicine. I had been away all summer with the Olympic team. I was the, chief medical officer for USA cycling and the chief medical officer for all cycling venues at the Atlanta Olympics. So I had been away all summer, knowing that I was gonna leave my small practice in Denver to open this revolutionary, at the time, revolutionary.

Dr. Cooper

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, no question about it.

Dr. Pruitt

Yeah. Now they’re on every corner, but, at the time it was a, it was a big deal and that opening night as I looked around and thought, wow, this is, you know, I’ve opened the Olympic training center equivalent, but open to the public with total, community physician input and support it. And it was the greatest 20 years of my professional career, running, the Boulder center for sports medicine. So, like I said before we started my two careers have been intertwined. And, I don’t know, that’s a tough question right out of the gate, but no, but I, I enjoy you making me think about favorite memories. So I would give winning the worlds and opening BCSM my two favorites.

Dr. Cooper

Beautiful. Beautiful. All right. Let’s get into some of the specific people you’ve met, some of the world’s greatest athletes in, in your lifetime. Who are some of your favorites that stand out above the crowd for you personally that maybe, maybe the audience doesn’t even know these names, but for you personally, who stands out?

Dr. Pruitt

Well, the one that people are gonna recognize most at the moment is Peter Saigon. Peter is just a character and he would be a character if he played soccer or if he was an artist or that’s just him. And I met him at a time when he was in great need and was lucky enough to help him. So we had a relationship that, you know, was more than a sponsor, thrusting me on a team. It was, I already had this relationship with him. So he is just a character. He was what cycling needed at the time. He’s in the Twilight. He may not want to admit this right now, but he’s in the Twilight of his sprinting career. I don’t think he’s in the Twilight of his classics career, but anyway, Peter is just the character you see on TV is, is truly him. And he’s such a great guy. And the other one that’s popular right now that people will know is Julian you know, I’ve known Julian since he was just a kid. And he too is just this bubbling, effervescent, Frenchman, right. And I mean, Frenchman in most loving way, just great, great characters. I’ve enjoyed them. And then there was a guy who was a professional wrestler of all things. He’s no longer with us. His name was Leon White. He played, center and middle guard for CU back in the day, a gigantic guy. That doesn’t add up much does it. But he went on to be a professional wrestler and was known as the baby bull. And he wrestled mostly in Europe and in Japan, but he was just this great big guy. And there was a time in the training room at CU. He was a freshmen and we made the freshmen wait to be the last guys taped and Leon required a lot of tape. Anyway, and I remember him busting his way into the training room and just coming after me verbally. And I pinned him up against the wall, grabbing his shirt, and we had a little altercation at that moment. I’m half his size. And we had a respect from that moment on, I had the pleasure of caring for him as he played for the Los Angeles Rams after CU, he then went on to be golly, I don’t know, 15 years and, and, you know, pro artistic wrestling, whatever you want to call it. And he confided in me in a way that he would have never had we not had that chest bumping rotation in the training room. So I could go on. I mean, I love to tell stories. And in 40 years I’ve met lots of characters there, there’s the 300 pound guy and there’s the 130 pounds of Julian. And the baby bull are pretty big opposites that I can say I encountered in my forties.

Dr. Cooper

I love it. Let’s, let’s get in a little bit more of the, we love the practical side here on the, on this podcast. And so as you’ve spent time with these incredible athletes, as you’ve watched them as you’ve chatted with them, as you’ve observed them behind the curtain, what have you learned from them for your life? What have you digested from them where you say, you know what, I probably do this a little bit more because of this interaction I had because of the time I had with this person over here, kind of the iron sharpens iron, but in a more personalized, in your case, very unique way.

Dr. Pruitt

I’ve always been a, my goals were nebulous, right? I never sought out success. I’ve had this conversation with our common friend, Rob Carrera. I never sought it out. I just everyday did what I thought was right. I don’t want to get too mystical about it, but I, I I’ve always tried to do what was right. And so success found me, um, the, what these characters have in common is incredible focus toward an end goal. And I think if you were to ask my friends, my local ride buddies, my wife, that if I, if I say it out loud, if I say I am going to do X, I’m going to do it. So, and that, you know, you know, Peter said to me is that I want to win multiple world championships in a row. And he said, you know, I want to win on multiple kinds of courses. I don’t want to be just a climber, just a sprinter. And he set his mind and he did it, I think. Yeah, I think that’s the secret that these guys have. They don’t all have massive physiological engines. They’re all on par with each other, but many times it is the guy who wants it the most and has prepared the best, right? The harder we work, the luckier we get, you know, prior planning, proves success. There’s all kinds of, you know, slogans, but I think that’s what I would walk away in camp cycling or any other sport and walk away and say that kid’s special, or that woman is special. And then within the next couple of years, they’re, they’re winning world championships or, or bowl games. So that’s, I think that’s the difference. If you put 50 world-class athletes on a fence, they’re all within a couple of heartbeats or max VO2s, right? Of each other. And it is that dedication. And it’s that willingness, that focus, say it out loud and do it. That’s, that’s what I took away.

Dr. Cooper

So let’s run down that path a little bit because I agree. I think that is an absolute superpower. And it’s, it is the folks that I’ve crossed paths with, same thing. That is a huge one. But with you, it was, it sounds like it was already there. It was natural. Is that something that you think people can learn or do you either have it, or you don’t?

Dr. Pruitt

Well, I think you have it personally. I was born with it. Right. I don’t want to go down this road, but I, uh, you know, I had a hunting accident when I was a kid and, my mom always told me I had a one track mind. Right. So that, that that’s the good start to focus and goal setting. So I, you know, I had a gunshot accident when I was young, and everybody was worried. I was an athlete. And the first, the first question I asked when I woke up, will my new foot have toes, and when will I run? And this was 1964. So the thought of an amputee running?

Dr. Cooper

Right, right, right, right. Different world. It a bizarre concept. Yeah.

Dr. Pruitt

Different world. So I, I I’ve always had it Brad. I, I, that’s, that’s just me and, and for better or worse, you know, get the hell out of my way.

Dr. Cooper

Have you seen athletes that have developed that over time, as you’ve seen people that maybe have the talent, they don’t have the focus, but over time they develop it or is it literally, it’s not going to happen because this guy or this gal just, they just don’t have that piece.

Dr. Pruitt

So again, these are my personal observations. They’re not science, but the guy that’s got it, he’s always got it. So there’s the, there’s the athlete that has suffered a disappointment or an injury. And then they find a new gear. Right. Is that learned or was it there and their setback opened the door, right. I’m not sure. It’s about mental toughness. It’s about mental focus. There’s a lot of great athletes sitting on a couch somewhere that have no idea that they’re a great athlete. They’ve never tapped it. Right. I mean, if I’m coaching someone, athletically, I’d rather have an average athlete with a tremendous focus and work ethic than the gifted athlete who has no focus or, or work ethic. So that’s, you know, that’s for sure personal bias. Yeah.

Dr. Cooper

No, no, no. I’m right there with you. Absolutely. All right. We don’t want to take too deep a dive into bike fitting, but we can’t leave it off the table either with your history. I remember when we won the race across America, back in 16, people were constantly like, Oh my gosh, how, how terrible was it to be on your bike seat, that little seat for, you know, 15 hours a day? I was fine. Like that was not an issue at all. I had a great bike fit. I was so comfortable. I would joke about it. I was more comfortable my bike than my easy chair, but let, let’s start for the serious riders. Most of them already know all about bike fitting, but what are a couple of things they might not realize that you could kind of bring to the forefront for them?

Dr. Pruitt

Well, I, I would, I would contradict what you just said. I don’t think all elite riders know all about bike fit.

Dr. Cooper

Really? Interesting.

Dr. Pruitt

It’s not uncommon, for these elite characters, not to even know what size bike they ride.

Dr. Cooper

Mm, interesting.

Dr. Pruitt

Sat on it, been successful, position has been, um, basically inherited or, um, you know, get the, the, the thumb ometer, um, looking at it. So no, there there’s, I mean, Fabion Cancellara when I first met him, he had no idea. So I think there are people who succeed. This happens a lot in the, in the highest level, people who succeed too, despite their background or their equipment or whatever else that is, have that focus and that physiological gift seed. So my philosophy toward biking developed over decades, but it was basically the bike has to look like you and you’re comfortable in your bike because somebody has made that bike reflect your biomechanical and physiological gifts. And if it mirrors you well, then you do not have to adapt. So the human is incredibly adaptable, you know, living machine while the bike is an adjustable rigid machine. So if you get on a bike that doesn’t, even just millimeters off your body’s going to adapt to that position. And if it has to adapt too much, there’s going to be a physiological break. There’s going to be a tendonitis. And there’s going to be some kind of overuse injury that occurs when that adaptation fails. So when a bike fits you, right, adaptation to those misgivings are minimized or, or not there at all. So that, that philosophy is just always, I don’t know, it was there, the first real bike fit I did 1979. we think, it was on Connie Carpenter her claim to fame now, as the mother of Taylor Finney, of course, we all know she’s a world champion Olympic champion. Exactly. And basically she came to the training room at CU and had knee pain. And, I had one of the football players hold her saddle kind of like a time trial start. And she backpedaled for me, that was the first dynamic. She couldn’t peddle forward, right. Um, when, uh, bicycle trainers, you know, didn’t exist at the time, right? Well, she backpedaled for me, that was the first dynamic bike fit, um, that we did. So I just knew that she had this funny knee wobble and that’s, those are the days when we were nailing cleats on the bottom of wooden shoes. So we didn’t get it right, right. Then you had to adapt to that faulty cleat position.

Dr. Pruitt

And the Europeans had been telling us that the cleats go here and your knees go there and there you have it, right. It’s written in the Italian fit manual published in 1976. This is how you sit on a bike. And it was based on how the young, 20 year old male Italians that were successful, sat on their bikes. And they, well, if that guy looks like this and he’s successful, then that’s the way we should. All right. And it’s just totally wrong. It’s not true. Um, but a lot of people washed out of the sport over the years because they could not adapt to the, uh, Italian fit method in those years. So, um, the reason your bike is so comfortable for you is the someone made it look like you, hopefully it was an intentional, it wasn’t that, an accident, but I suspected it was an intentional, absolutely mirror image of you. You see the guy get a, uh, a spare bike at the tour, right? It’s for if his bike fails and he needs it. They’re never quite the same. I, even though the mechanics are meticulous about every millimeter adjusting the brake hoods and the saddle heights in the saddle, the bar roll and all those things. When you get on a different bike, different than when you’ve been riding for four hours, it is different. So suddenly that first 15 minutes that body’s going, wait, I’ve got to do this. So if you think about the world championships, that just were, I don’t know if you have watched them or not, but, but, um, uh, the young, kid. My mind’s gone blank. Um, he had just won the tour de France, right? And so here we are in the tour. And just before the big climb where he was going to attack his bike fails, he drifts all the way to the back, gets us, gets a new, new bike, rides all the way through the Peloton and he’s halfway up the hill and he blows up. Now, did he blow up because he was fatigued from the tour? Did he blow up because he was leading out a teammate? Did he blow up because this spare bike wasn’t exactly right. And that is a definite possibility for the reason that he hit that his attack did not succeed. He was not on a bike that he started the race on. So anyway, I took it a left turn there on you. But,

Dr. Cooper

Oh, we love left turns here. This is, that’s the fun part. Let’s slightly more left turn over to the recreational rider. Is a bike fit important for that person? So if I’m riding twice a week, I get out on the weekend. And then sometimes during the week, I head up for an evening ride for an hour and a half. Is, should that person be looking for a bike fit?

Dr. Pruitt

Well, let’s just say, they’ve got a slightly malfit bicycle and they’re riding only twice a week. There’s a lot of time between those rides for those adaptations to heal. You may not really notice it as that same guy that rides twice a week that suddenly wants to do RAGBRAI, you know the ride across Iowa, right? So now all of a sudden, on day three in a row, whatever small injuries have been, then he’s going to have patella tendonitis or saddle sore or whatever it is. So that, that shows me that twice a week, guy has a lot of chance to heal in between now the weekend warrior, who doesn’t ride all week and who hammers himself Saturday and Sunday.

Dr. Cooper

And nobody does that. What do you mean?

Dr. Pruitt

At 70, I have trouble doing that these days, but anyway, that that guy has a less of a chance to recover between hard efforts. And he may be more inclined to have trouble. But the answer to your first question, does everybody, need a bike fit? And the answer is yes. How many, how many bikes are hanging in garages? And, and the owner says, you know, I don’t really like bicycle. It’s uncomfortable. I just don’t like it. So they hang it up, stop cycling. Right? So that’s a sad thing because cycling should be a life long sport. There is no reason in the world, you may need training wheels at some point in time, but biking should be a lifelong sport. So yes, everybody deserves a biomechanically, correct fitting bicycle.

Dr. Cooper

That’s great advice. I didn’t know you were going to take us down that path, but that’s, that’s fantastic. So with that in mind, pretty much every bike shop, many physical therapy clinics and other places offer the fittings. Are there certain questions? So if someone hears this and they’re like, you know what I need to do that. Are there certain questions somebody should ask before they make that appointment?

Dr. Pruitt

It’s such a tricky question. Back when I was taking care of Connie, you know, in the late seventies, there were probably three bike fitters in America and five in Europe. And we all knew who each other were. And, and we all were experts in our own way now, partly thanks to me, but there’s a lot of want to be experts out there. So everybody thinks they’re a bike fitter. Physical therapists believe it to be in their, in their world right in their skillset. And I will tell you that, that I have some retail bike fitters with no medical training that I would refer to before, you know,

Dr. Cooper

Some of the PTs.

Dr. Pruitt

Exactly. So, but, but I also, one of my number one referrals is a PT bike fitter in San Jose, I’ll give Curtis Krambuhl at a shout out. That guy is just, he marries the two disciplines as it should be done. He’s a follower of the bike should look like the rider. So how does somebody pick a bike fitter? I think experience. So if you’ve got a buddy that had success, so my best friend has knee pain. He goes to see Joe blow fitter and he resolves his knee pain. Oh, okay. I’ll do that again. But just because they’ve got a fancy studio or, or the busiest shop in town and they’re cheap, right? The hundred dollar be aware of the hundred dollar bike fit, even the $200 bike fit beware. So I think knowing who in the community has used this person, do they have medical connections? So if they’re not a PT, what if in a pure retailer, some of the best they’re some of the best bikers are purely retail fitters that have got a good eye and have good education in the, in the world of bikes fit, how do you pick that right one? I ask the right questions. If they’ve got this, if they’ve got a medical connection. In other words, if there’s a retail bike fitter that has a chiropractor, a physical therapist, even a nonsurgical sports med doc that they work with and they trade, you know, clients that that is, that’s a good guy. He’s developed a respect in the medical community where the medical community refers to him and he refers back to them. He or her that’s, that’s good. So picking how to sort through the wannabes to the, to the real guy, it’s, it’s a challenge. It is, technology’s important. There’s a friend of mine down in Arizona that has every technological gizmo known to man. And he actually lectures around the world on the use of technology and bike fitting, but it’s like an MRI. So you and I come from the real world of medicine, right? So we have a young physician who doesn’t really have, developed his evaluation skills yet. I got knee pain. Oh, we better get an MRI. Well, you know, and I know that the MRI is going to have lots of false positives, absolutely. Lots of noise. Yeah. And then he sends them off to the orthopedics. Cause they’ve got a torn meniscus on an MRI. They take out that torn meniscus and they didn’t resolve the issue within that, you’ve got to be able to use technology, uh, and you have to be able to interpret that technology. So technology alone does not make a bike fitter. Do I think that we’re going to automate bike fit at some sometime based on math? I think that the basic bike fit ultimately could be done automatically based on math, but it won’t be that final, that final perfection that you’re looking forward to ride across America. That’s for sure.

Dr. Cooper

Right, before, I want to shift over to sports medicine. But before we do, you mentioned something that I know somebody out there listening to is saying wait, what a hundred to $200 is too little to spend on it? Can, can you talk us through, so for the personal list thing that says, you know what I, this makes sense. I think I really need this because I am riding two, three times a week and I am going to try that, you know, that century ride in my, my region or whatever, but wait, did he say $200 is not enough? Walk us through the rationale for saying, you know what, I’m going to invest $250, $300 or even $150 to $200 help us out with that a little bit.

Dr. Pruitt

Well, a good bike fit is going to take two and a half hours. So if you think about that individual’s time and his overhead and the service that he’s offering, you know, it just do the math. It’s going to add, it’s going to add up to that, right? So if he’s invested, let’s say 10 grand in technology, he’s got, rent, he’s been educated. Um, he has experience paying somebody. They’re going to pay a physical therapist, a hundred dollars an hour. You know, why wouldn’t you pay a professional bike fitter? I I’ve told classes of bike fitters, do not give your services away. You are not a free power bar. Uh, you’re not, uh, you’re not a free tube. You, you, you are providing a professional service that is either going to eliminate somebody’s discomfort or prevent somebody’s discomfort. So it is, it is a, it should be a valued service.

Dr. Cooper

Well, and I think you made a huge point there that a lot of people don’t realize they’re thinking bike fit, Oh, I’m going to go in. They’re going to adjust my seat for a few minutes. You know, it’s going to be 15 minutes. You’re saying no, no, no, no, no, no. If it’s done well, we’re talking an hour and a half, two hours, two and a half hours. So folks keep that in mind when you’re looking at this, this is not a quick fix. It’s worth the investment. And I can tell you from experience, it is so worth the investment. So let’s shift over to sports medicine. You founded the Boulder center of sports medicine. And as you mentioned, there was not one. Now everybody’s like, Oh, well, yeah, nice. There’s one in every street corner. But, but that wasn’t true. That was a groundbreaking approach. What, what changes have most intrigued you about sports medicine industry over your career? Maybe starting around that time and taking this up to now?

Dr. Pruitt

Well, let’s start with why I did it. I had been the, I’d done several Olympic festivals as a, on the medical crew and Olympic festival. And those days were an off year. So they weren’t Olympics. They were, they were a pre Olympic, uh, event, all the Olympic sports. And it was to really bring all the American athletes together pre, between real Olympic years to get them to help choose the Olympic team. So I had worked several of those. I had done several summers volunteering at the Olympic training center and, was the chief medical officer for USA cycling from 92 to 96. So what’s interesting is that when I left in 1985, I went to Eddie Crowder, the athletic director at the time and proposed this concept of being, having the training room open to the public certain hours of the day, and having the ability to charge for our services and the athletic department wanted no part of it. We don’t want all those cyclists and those weird rock climbers, we don’t want them hanging out in our training room. That was their response in all honesty and Boulder was full of post-collegiate athletes, Frank Shorter being the name. So I just opened the door to Frank. I said Frank I’ll, you know, you’re welcome here any time. We tapped his feet almost every day, but there was because there was no venue for post-collegiate now Olympic athletes to pursue care. So the, the idea that I went to the athletic department, whether it was let’s just open the training room to the public charge, a cash fee, it will be a revenue stream. There was zero interest.

Dr. Pruitt

So I left, I went down to Denver and just joined a, an orthopedic group, which I owe a lot of gratitude to. I worked two days a week in the, OR. I have an undergraduate degree in anatomy. Well, let me tell you two days a week, 10 hours a day in the, OR is the best anatomy lesson. No kidding, a guy could have. Putting in total knees and total hips and fixing an ACL and a rotator cuff. So it made me a far better anatomist and a far better clinician. So anyway, I’m there, I’m working at the Olympic training center. I’m working for the cycling team. I’m working at Western orthopedic and Boulder community hospital called me and said, we’re thinking about getting in the sports medicine business. And we hear you’re the guy. And so I told the president of the hospital, I said, okay, this is my idea. And I’m happy to leave my very successful, uh, employment to come do this. If you do X, Y, and Z and X, Y, and Z was building the Boulder center for sports medicine. The concept was an athletic train room, like at the Olympic training center. So at the Olympic training center, you have rotating physicians and physical therapists. The athletic training staff is pretty much set at the training center, but the physicians, chiropractors, podiatrists, physical therapists, they rotate through on a two week basis. And they did at the time. I’m not sure what they do today, but it showed me that having the athlete, an athletic trainer, a physician access to imaging, um, having the whole team at the bedside for this athlete was a concept that should work right, money aside. This is the concept that should work in a place like Boulder, Colorado, and that’s what I’ve proposed. And, um, we built it. It was a huge success. And we, we actually had olympic committees from other countries come look at, uh BCSM to see how they would want to set up their national training centers. And of course, universities, we started, we had so many requests to come tour the place we started charging a fee.

Dr. Cooper

Tells you you’re doing something, right.

Dr. Pruitt

Why shouldn’t I charge you? You’re going to open up a center to compete. Anyway, what has changed is the internet? A couple of years ago, I was the keynote speaker at training peaks and their endurance coaching seminar. And what they asked me to talk on was what changes I had seen over my 40 year career. And it’s pretty crazy, right? Heart rate monitors didn’t exist.

Dr. Cooper

Oh, my word.

Dr. Pruitt

Yeah, isokinetic strengthening. I mean, so I had this whole list of technologies that MRI didn’t exist, uh, back in those days, the, the word sports medicine or sports surgery. Oh my God, we would open knees to fix. But for me, you know, I really believe in time and place. I was in the right, right place at the right time where we were doing these huge open surgeries to fix an MCL, which we weren’t even fixing anymore. But the anatomy lesson for me to turn me into a better diagnostician was huge. I think there’s too much. So to answer your question. There’s too much technology at the time. I think that we’re too reliant on MRI and those kinds of things with one exception possibly, and I think that’s ultrasound, diagnostic ultrasound in the right hands. Oh my God. I’m you can see tendinitis. You can see scars, you can. So the advancement that, that I think, uh, two advancements that I would think is, is the use of diagnostic ultrasound in the right hands. And then biologics, platelet, rich plasma injections, STEM cells. And I use that word carefully, but there are, there are doc in the boxes doing STEM cells. And then there are folks that are truly doing it, you know, customizing the concentrations and STEM cell choices based on the location where they’re gonna be put. Um, so if you ask me what the biggest revelations are in sports medicine, I think it’s use of diagnostic ultrasound and biologics. Um, yeah, it’s been a oh man seriously, 40 some odd years.

Dr. Cooper

All right. You’ve seen it all. When it comes to the endurance world, including the ugly side. Can you take us behind the scenes of some of the, you know, the performance enhancing drugs for those people that are listening saying, well, why, why is it such a big part of the culture? And second kind of follow up, are there any answers to solving this issue or is it just what it’s going to be?

Dr. Pruitt

So those are two questions, one the dark side of doing the sport, and then performance enhancing drugs. There’s two, they’re both dark side. I think one of the biggest things that I, uh, that I encounter and don’t like to encounter is the eating disorder. The bulemia the anorexia, the bad relationship with food, both men and women. Um, you know, it’s more prevalent in women, but I would tell you in the world of cycling and running, it’s probably equal men, women, and it scars them physically. It scars them mentally for life. Um, never to have never to have a real healthy relationship with your body image or with food. Those are, those are both devastating things. Um, performance enhancing drugs. Well, it’s, it’s, it’s like a beauty and the beast, right? It’s a story as old as time, right. And it truly is. And you can go back as far as you want, and whether that’s drinking lion’s blood or bear testicle, whatever, looking for that mystical edge is a story as old as time, and with high tech stuff, you know, EPO and, and other, you know, aerobic altering pharmaceuticals, it, the athlete and athletes coach could stay one step ahead of the testing process, which was pretty late for a long time. And then if have you got some countries that are going to allow systemic cheating? So then you’ve got the country that the athlete from the country that doesn’t allow systemic cheating, but you’ve got to compete with that guy from that other country. You’re going to look for something other than hard work. It is, it is human nature. I don’t know. I’m not, I’m not the believer of just open it up and let them all cheat that, that I think we would have a lot of deaths on our hands. If we did that, I’m a believer in WADA, the world anti doping association, I think they do as good a job as they can. They get a little vigilante on, uh, on occasion. But, um, I don’t think we’re going to control it. I think there’s always going to be there at a low level. I know athletes who have said, I will never cheat and they washed out. Right. They, they, they stay average and they look around going at guys you know better than me and suddenly he’s winning it all. So they’ve either quit the sport or they gave in. I, I don’t think we’ll ever rid ourselves of that temptation. I think it’s human, human, human nature.

Dr. Cooper

Right. I appreciate that. So let’s look next decade ahead. So where do you think the athletic performance world is heading? Are there some things that you see on the horizon where you’re like, Oh, and I think we’re going to see this in five to 10 years. Just any, any thoughts along those lines since you’re so involved in that, that core aspect?

Dr. Pruitt

Well, wow. So this is where technology I think is going to be a huge help heart rate monitor, you know, sleep monitoring. Now being able to actually it’s Wednesday, I’m supposed to do intervals, but you wake up in the morning and you look at your sleep evaluation and it says you’re only, you know, 20% recovered. You probably ought to wait until Thursday. Yeah. So power meters, um, zwift with the indoor, this, this indoor riding app where you can ride with your buddies around the world and actually join races with world class athletes. Right? Leah Davidson is a friend of mine, longtime client. She’s a mountain bike racer, two time Olympic mountain bike racer, hopefully a third time. If we get to have an Olympics next summer she’s been, and of course with COVID, there weren’t any races, right? Although the world championships mountain bike do start on Monday, but a lot of countries aren’t there because they either decided to stay home or couldn’t go. Um, anyway, back to Leah, she decided to do Zwift. She’d never been an indoor rider at all. And she had said to me, the other day that she’s in the best shape she’s ever been in her coach says she’s recreated herself as an athlete. And she’s competing on Zwift in men’s races and finishing in the top five top ten. So I think that there’s a, there’s a motivation to this trend. Uh, the downside is Zwift is over-training.

Dr. Cooper

Big time and anyone who’s been on zwift is shaking their head going, Oh yeah.

Dr. Pruitt

But it’s been great for business. Right. It creates a lot of, so yeah. Uh, I think technology, heart rate monitoring, power meters, um, qualified coaches. It’s just, it’s it’s it’s I think we’re creating, you know, monstrous athletes. The real question is where’s the top, right? What are we gonna, when do we stop breaking speed records? I don’t know. And I don’t know. I, I don’t think we’re there yet. I mean, can we run an eight second, hundred meters? I don’t know. So the training specificity, right? I mean, so if you’re a good coach, you look at this athlete. And so he’s got these spectacular glutes and you say, okay. You know, you, you gotta, you gotta play the hand you’re given and you develop those, those glutes to be monsters. So you’re suddenly, uh, you know, you’re a sprinter, you’re what, whatever sport you want to, or, you know, you’ve got these giant quads that look like they’re chiseled out of stone. You, you, you play your cards, right. You develop what that athlete has been given and then bring all the other aspects of that athlete up into, up into par with their genetics, man. I just think technology, uh, this is one place where I think technology is a winner. I think too much technology in medicine, uh, sports medicine, and not enough technology in coaching. So how many coaches are out there, right? COVID has created a whole new desire to be coached, be motivated to be led along. So there are a lot of coaching is now a cottage industry. There are thousands of people, you know, writing programs for 10 people that say, okay, I can supplement my income. I’ll take 10 athletes at 50 bucks a month. Suddenly he’s got a 500 bucks a month. Boom. And his boost, his income, he’s enjoying it. He’s getting success. And I again, I took another left, turn on you Brad.

Dr. Cooper

We love those. Keep them coming. All right. Speaking of left turns, I’m want to know what your next left turn is. So you’ve accomplished so much, you’ve experienced so much in your lifetime. What is next for Dr. Andy Pruitt?

Dr. Pruitt

Um, well, I retired from the clinic five years ago and what I miss from that are the people, right. Um, I miss helping people, uh, but I don’t miss the politics of medicine during my, you know, I also was a product developer, biomechanics for specialized bicycles for 20 years of that 40 year career. And I retired in specialized about a year ago, about 11 months ago. And I don’t know, I just thought I’m 70 years old. I can’t just sit around and twiddle my thumbs. What do I want to do? And actually as a 70 year old athlete, I was experimenting with ways to recover better. And I discovered CBD. Well, like, like, like there’s a bike fit on every corner. And then there’s somebody selling CBD. I saw a cardboard sign on the side of 93 on the way to golden over the weekend CBD sale. I’m going to be sure to buy my CBD with your peaches and your grapes. Well, actually I’m doing a little consulting with a company called iCore labs in Boulder. It’s a startup CBD company that specializes in athletic recovery products. I’m having fun with it. My, my father was a country chiropractor, and I remember back in the fifties and sixties, him at the stove in our kitchen brewing up, sabz for industrial, now we’re calling the industrial athletes like farmers. And actually it took care of the high school athletes as well, but brewing up these salves and different kinds of things. I’m really kind of back to my roots. I brewed up some sleep formulas at home. And, and, uh, so anyway that I’m just, I am the science and innovation consultant to iCore labs. Um, we’ve launched a couple of new products that are my formula.

Dr. Pruitt

So it’s really exciting. It’s different than creating a shoe or a saddle glove. But it’s still creating and it’s still helping people and that’s, you know, CBD and, you know, everybody thinks it can do everything. If you look online, they will fix your everything you’ve got. The truth of matter is that CBD really just helps your body be the best it can be. It doesn’t make you something you’re not, it does help balance all of your other cellular systems. And that’s it’s well-proven. So, uh, we make our own cannabinoids in our own body, the endocannabinoid system. So we’re just supplementing a system that the body already has. So this is quite interesting and quite different. And that, so for me in retirement, I didn’t want to continue down things that I’ve always done right. I want to be stimulated and do something new, but still help people. And I think that’s, so that’s where I am along this will keep me interested. You know, you never know. I’m still riding my bike like crazy, I’m going bike racing tonight. Um, so been racing bikes for 40 years, it’s a habit that’s hard to quit, you know.

Dr. Cooper

But it it’s interesting timing on this, the CBD, we literally, for those people listening to this just two weeks ago, it went live today. But on this schedule, you’ll hear it in two, two weeks prior to this, uh, we had doctor Peter Grinspoon, a Harvard, uh, Harvard physician and health and wellness coach. Who’s been researching CBD for about 25 years. So it’s, it’s interesting that you brought it up when we just posted this, this episode on specifically, the whole thing is on CBD. So good luck. Lot to keep track of what’s going on that. The very last question, whether you’re on Twitter or not, it allows 140 characters about two or three sentences. If you had a chance to tweet out your most important life wisdom to the world in that brief form, no pressure here. What would you say?

Dr. Pruitt

I’ve already said it, the harder you work, the luckier you get. Um, yeah. I, I live by it. So, um, yeah, that there’s two models, right? Right place, right time. You’ve got no control over that one. You do have control over the harder you work, the luckier you get. Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Cooper

Beautiful. Dr. Pruitt, such a privilege. Thank you so much for joining us.

Dr. Pruitt

It’s been a blast. Thank you.

Dr. Cooper

Once again. Sports medicine, bike fit pioneer. Dr. Andy Pruitt, everyone. Thank you for tuning into the number one podcast for health and wellness coaching. Next week, we’ll be speaking to dr. Felice Jacka of Australia about her groundbreaking research on the connection between our nutrition and both our mental health and our brain health. If you’re looking for another option on the health wellness performance front, please take a peek over at youtube.com/coaching channel. Our library of brief, most of them are three to 12 minutes long encouraging motivational and educational videos, all freely available has now grown into almost a hundred videos. And just so you don’t feel like, Oh my gosh, what, how am I going to find anything? There are playlists that allow you to tap into the topics that you’ll find most valuable. Now it’s your turn. Let’s make today the day we move toward better than yesterday and help those around us, do the same in the process. This Dr. Bradford Cooper, of the Catalyst Coaching Institute, signing off, make it a great rest of your week. And I’ll speak with you soon on the next episode of the Catalyst Health, Wellness, and Performance Coaching podcast, or maybe over on the YouTube coaching