A Holistic Approach to Athletic Recovery

Welcome to The Baseball Awakening Podcast, where we dive into the raw, unfiltered, unsexy side of player development

Guest Bio:

Jason Papalio is a Professional Athletic Recovery Specialist.

Summary:

On this episode, Host Geoff Rottmayersits down with Jason Papalio. We discuss his holistic approach to athletic recovery.

Show Notes: In this conversation, Jason talks about:

• His background in sports and how he got to into becoming a Professional Athletic Recovery Specialist.
• The process he uses to choose different exercise or protocol for different players.
• Being able to recognize mobility issues by seeing a guy play.
• The importance of doing balance work in rotation sports.
• How pain means something and that something needs to be done.
• The timeframe of a mobility program and getting results.
• Doing a little a lot is better than a lot a little.
• The importance of breathing.
• Incorporating visualization into your meditation therapy session.
• How your sleeping pattern can affect your recovery and athletic performance.
• The role of nutrition in Athletic Recovery.
• and more.

Website:www.baseballawakening.com

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Email Address:geoff@baseballawakening.com

Transcribe:

Jason Papalio: 00:00 Jason Papalio today’s guest and we are talking about the holistic approach to athletic recovery, things that kids hate and professional athlete learned to embrace the nonsexy stuff.

Intro: 00:13 Welcome to another episode of The Baseball Awakening Podcast where we dive into the raw, unfiltered, unsexy side of player development, get ready for some knowledge bombs with your host Geoff Rottmayer,

Geoff Rottmayer: 00:35 Welcome to the Baseball Awakening Podcast, I am Geoff Rottmayer today I am sitting down with Jason Papalio and he is an athletic recovery specialist, Jason. How are you, sir?

Jason Papalio: 00:47 Doing well, how about you?

Geoff Rottmayer: 00:49 I’m doing great man. Listen, you’re a guy who spent a lot of time in the field of athletic recovery and that’s what I want to talk about today. But let’s just kinda start with your background in sports than how you came to becoming an athletic recovery specialist that you are today?

Jason Papalio: 01:09 Yeah, I’ve been working with a lot of teams and athletes over the last several years. Uh, a lot of mobility, yoga, stability, and balance work that so sorts of underappreciated. They love to do all the work with the weights or any of the heavy lifting. But it’s a challenge for them to work on a joint range of motion or working on mobility and flexibility. Just not the sexy thing. If you tell somebody to go form roll for 20 minutes or look at you with two heads. So it’s, it’s been good, it’s been a good process. It’s taken time where I’ve built it out where they work with private clients or work with some teams, whether it’s an elite high school team, some college teams, and some pro athletes. It’s over the years and it’s just a building over the years in working with the clients and building great relationships with the coaches, the strength coaches, athletic trainers, and all the different connections along the way.

Geoff Rottmayer: 02:07 Very nice. And when you talk about, when you say recovery, you know, with the mobility and stability and all that stuff, can you talk a little bit about why that stuff is important? You know, recovery, the term that kind of gets tossed around all the time, but I think a lot of people don’t really understand why it’s important because it’s not the sexy stuff, but it’s important. So can you talk a little bit about why it’s important?

Jason Papalio: 02:33 Yeah, completely understood. Yeah. It’s uh, it’s definitely a term that’s thrown out there. Uh, sometimes recovery to just be getting a good night’s sleep. You know, sometimes getting six to eight hours. Yeah. Getting quality sleep that sometimes they don’t get, I mean it depends on it. If it’s athletes that’s traveling a lot, if you’re traveling across different time zones, that could be one thing. Doing a lower activity, uh, lower modality of like yoga or some type of mobility work that you’re working on, flexibility and mobility or playability and the joints that just give them a time to get their nervous system back to kind of equilibrium and slow back down instead of staying at this very high pitch. So if they just say hi over time there’s a greater chance of injury. If you were to kind of bring it back to equilibrium, you could have these good ebbs and flows versus just staying at a kind of critical state or just higher state where something is injuries are more common or, or so at that pace. Just because you’re staying at such a high pace. So the load is a game, it can be practiced and it just adds up cumulative over a season or over a year depending on how much training they’re doing throughout. And you’re just adding on top of it?

Geoff Rottmayer: 04:01 Very nice, and how do you choose what protocol one uses, so how do you choose that this guy needs x,y,z, and that guy needs this?

Jason Papalio: 04:02 Yeah. I mean it’s, it varies. If it’s a team, a basketball team or baseball team, basketball team, it’s a lot of jumping, pounding. So for them, they’re going to need a lot, it’s kind of work on their feet a lot in the hips, a baseball team per se, a lot of rotation. So thoracic spine rotation. So it varies in that sense where a large group, uh, depends on if I’m working with them the first time or multiple times, then I kind of put them through a few different movements or exercises to see where they, where they are sort of. So I get a baseline and then I would sort of build out a program for them. So the first time is more of like an assessment or I’m assessing what their specific needs are. Now, if I’m working with an individual program, it could be just like building out a strength program or conditioning program and we do different baselines, right? An FMS test per se, where he could check what their range of motion is, what their mobility is. Whereas if it’s a larger team, I, I can’t spend the hours it would take to assess each individual person versus I get 45 minutes an hour, so maybe I’ll talk to the strength coach or I’ll talk to you athletic trainer and what are the specific needs. Maybe try to go to a few other games, see what their movements are, and then when I put them through some baseline things, it’ll give me a sense of where they’re tighter, kind of what the need is and then I could build it out from there. It’s usually a lot of his stuff just in general or even women get really tightened their hips based on their movement because the more load you’re adding on, more stress you’re putting on and they just don’t really have a good range of motion, a good control. Then that causes like if they have knee pain it could be their hips tight or their ankles tight. So it’s not always where the specific pain is. Sometimes it’s, it’s usually the joint above or below it.

Geoff Rottmayer: 05:56 Yeah. Very nice and whenever you stay you would watch a guy in a game, what are the things that you would be able to see? Because of it the interesting that one can, you know, go watch the game and see that this player has hip issues or you know, tight hamstrings or whatever it is, you know. So is there a checklist of things that you look for though? First I look at this and then I look at this. Can you kind of talk a little bit about that?

Jason Papalio: 06:26 Yeah, sometimes it is like a checklist where you’re looking at x, y, z. All right. If it’s a basketball player, I want to see are they jumping, are they landing knees tracking in which are taller athlete their hipbones higher. So usually it’s just they have less range of motion just because they’re taller. So that involves more pounding. So it depends on the kind of the size of the athlete. Are they tall and skinny? Are they big and muscular? Kind of just looking at that first and then when they’re playing a sport, say baseball in their swing or they rotating pretty well, do they, are they cringing? Does it seems like they’re kind of tight there? Can we, and I get a sense of maybe here’s the maximal range and maybe they’ve only got halfway. So it’s sort of a good eye test and I’m looking at just down their sports meets. So basketball’s running, jumping right. baseball’s a lot of throwing rotation. It could be, could be a lot of shoulder stuff. And then also with the athletes, it could be asking them so we can get a feel of what’s bothering that. Yeah, it’s just so it’s not just a program that I say is going to work well for them. Maybe they have specific needs that, and if we could have communication or linkage between it, they would, it would make the program more efficient.

Geoff Rottmayer: 07:51 Awesome. Awesome. So talk a little bit about the rotation part, you know, in, in baseball, we are either swinging or throwing to one side all the time. So can you talk a little bit about why it’s important to balance out that other side? Because a lot of kids and athletes, in general, don’t understand that did repetitive movements, you know, turning, turning, turning one way without balancing the other side. It really a recipe for disaster. So can you talk a little bit about why the balance is important?

Jason Papalio: 08:27 Yeah, there’s definitely multiple parts, so you’ll probably never going to get to 50/50, so in a perfect world we would get there, but probably I get, and when you get to 60 40 but for baseball athlete per se, they’re going to use that one side a lot more. So they’d probably maybe 65 or 70% using that and then the other side’s getting underutilized. So obviously on the strengths side, you’d want to build that side so that they can withstand it working on core and a sense to get them strong there cause everything comes from there. Getting them to learn how to kind of move from their spine, which was all movement comes from or getting a ribcage to come down. Those aren’t easy concepts for them to get, but over time if they could grasp some of these smaller concepts, they’re movement patterns can be more efficient and more effective versus them just aimlessly just kind of moving and then seeing where these tight areas are, where they’re under over rotating and try to work through those differences to try to sort of, as you said, kind of balance it out but get them a little closer to equilibrium. In a perfect world.

Geoff Rottmayer: 09:41 Yeah, very nice, you know, do you have an example of a guy you first saw that would very one-sided started working with you a little bit and you got him somewhat equal. Now, what does that do to his overall performance?

Jason Papalio: 09:55 Yeah. A lot of the guys that are really tight, they, like you said, making a baseball guy that can’t rotate as much and gets really tight. They can’t swing all the way through so they can’t generate enough force or enough power to get to sort of that, that optimal range. So maybe they can extend their arms, they can’t get the full extension, they can’t get the full rotation, so it’s just limiting their movement so they can get to a better range or a better, better sort of hard to say protocol, but do a better movement efficiency. That’s what I was looking for. Yeah. They’re able to get to a greater level of performance on the, on the field because now they have, they’re able to move fluid, they’re able to move better and one that be able to move without pain and ideally we’ve kind of strengthen that, that join or they have better control of it because sometimes it’s not just flexibility. Sometimes it’s learning how to move in that joint and they can understand how that, how that works sort of on a very much scale. But on a Gra on a smaller scale, micro scale, they have better control of that and they have better control of how their movements are on the field. And that might not happen overnight. And it depends on how often you’re working with the team, right athlete to get them to that point. But it just depends on each individual athletes or athletes respond to one thing and then other athletes respond better to others, other options.

Geoff Rottmayer: 11:26 Right and when a guy comes to you and he is hurt, maybe it’s a repetitive type of injury and it’s one of those things where it hurts. So they just say, you know, go rest a little bit. And uh, he goes right back at it but doesn’t change anything, you know. Can you talk a little bit about what that conversation is like? Could you see it all the time? At least we do in baseball, you know, the kid’s arm, hurts take a couple of weeks off, doesn’t anything different. All of a sudden he comes back as arm feels great. And then all of a sudden the arm hurts again. But can you talk a little bit about why that’s important? I mean, you know, pain means something. It also means that you need to do something. So can you talk a little bit about what this conversation like?

Jason Papalio: 12:11 Yeah, I mean, sometimes rest isn’t always the answer because then you just come back to the same pattern. So it is a short temporary fix, but it’s not a long term solution. They say now the studies are out that kids and start specializing in such ages because then you get stuck in this pattern that might not be appropriate. You’re not using like you said, more dominant on one side versus the other and it just leads to an injury over time. So the conversation is how do we get to a better place? And that’s not always an easy conversation. How do we do the work that’s going to get you there? And yes, some of it might involve some work in the weight room where it’s strengthening along those lines. Some of it is going to be, hey, you’re going to have to foam roll 20 minutes a day. Hey, you have to use a Lacrosse ball and work on your hip flexors and just work through these tight and tense areas and get better tissue quality. Or Hey, it’s going to be, maybe I need to do five, 10 minutes of Yoga, work on some breathing or meditate and just kind of get yourself to more free or flowing state versus a kind of tighter kind of jagged edge, you know? So sometimes it’s just finding that balance for them and in each athlete might be different to younger athletes and might involve the parent conversation. So it’s just a mixture. Each one’s a different case, but having, trying to direct them in the right place so that we could ideally mitigate their injuries that them playing at a higher level for a longer period of time. In a sense.

Geoff Rottmayer: 13:55 Yeah, I agree and you said something, talk a little bit about the timeframe, kids come to you and say, x, Y, z hurts and, you can see that with his movement pattern. It’s not sexy at all. But the question is always how long is this going to take? And it’s not always an easy answer because of everybody different, but you never really, but also you never really get there because one of the things where you’re constantly working to get there and you’re in their time when the field that you kind of saved, when you’re taking a step back. Can you talk about that a little bit? The timeframe?

Jason Papalio: 14:35 Yes, that’s a very good question because the timeframe is, is always a challenge. How much time, how much time are they? Daddy came to that sport, so how many hours are they spending and how many extra hours or how much extra time are they going to do it? So anything which will get better, so I would see him once a week. We’re not going to make great progress. If I see him twice a week, we can make that approach three times a week even better progress. Then it’s, it’s sort of a, a continuum where they’re going to have to do five, 10 minutes of this work or maybe even 20 minutes or more depending on this, on what they, what needs to be done to balance it out to get to this more pliable, quote-unquote state, you know, so it varies each how much time they want. They’re going to put in to do the, you said the nonsexy work or the joint type of movement stuff for the non, the nonvoting type of work and it could take, they could see some benefits in several weeks depending on how much they’re doing it. Yeah, they’re months though, see greater increases and then the more consistent they, they do it in, the more they get on a regular program, the greater, the greater place though Viet. So maybe it’s they go to the weight room four or five times a week and then they add this into their dynamic warm-up or they’re cool down for five, 10 minutes. So they’re getting some of it there. So it’s not just jumping into a strenuous, stressful situation. Stressful, adding more stress to their body. They’re actually remembering a bit or they’re adding some more pliability work in. So it depends on how dedicated they are to work on it. As you said, that conversation’s important. And then getting them to see the benefits so it’s not going to be as quick or as in a strength room, you can go work, you can make great progress and you could add on more weight. So it’s a numbers thing, but how do I say, yeah, you’ve gotten more mobile, you’re moving better. It’s a feel thing. Sometimes less pain. As you said, receptors are different, so each case is a little different, but it could go from several weeks to several months based on the case. Now if you get an athlete at a later stage, so you get a younger athlete, their pattern hasn’t been moving as for as long, so you have a greater chance of changing it. Whereas if you get an athlete later, it’s harder to change that pattern. So we could, there’s some preventive maintenance to get them to a better place. So it could just be readjusting their hips per se. It gets him back in alignment, you know, which could be as simple as, it could be a simple fix, but with, with some, with myself or someone or an athletic trainer or it could be more detailed work.

Geoff Rottmayer: 17:23 Yeah and for the people that are listening, it requires consistency and how much do you do on your own. It’s going to help with the timeframe and the consistency. So this is the same concept with the recovery and the mobility work. That consistency in how much you do on your own part played the big role so, I liked when you said that.

Jason Papalio: 17:44 Yeah. I like to say like, let’s start and get them on a consistent program. What’s it going to take him about 20 days, I mean, 30 days to get pretty consistent. So if they could start at a minimum doing five to 10 minutes, then we could start building something on that. Or as I say, okay, do this for an hour every day, that’s going to be a challenge. But if I give them three things to do or five things to do and say, Hey, do this for one minute per side, that’s two minutes. Do these three things, that six minutes, I think you can master that. So start with that and then if you could show me that you’re doing those, I’ll see you when we’re doing the work, like in a few weeks later, if things are feeling better and the joints moving better, correct. Then I’ll know you’re making that progress and I can give you more. Whereas if I just see you once a week or twice a week and we’re, we’re making small progress, but the progress is, and as great all know that you haven’t been doing the work on the side and that’s, that’s the hard part. Right.

Geoff Rottmayer: 18:45 Yeah, that’s the whole saying of do a little a lot and not a lot a little, so it’s better to do every single day to do one day for an hour.

Jason Papalio: 18:54 Yeah. Ideally, we’d love to get them to maybe half an hour, an hour of doing some of this work daily. But if I give them, if I give him too much, then it’s, it’s harder for them to, to find that block of time.

Geoff Rottmayer: 19:08 Something that is becoming more mainstream and more talked about is the breathing part. You know, and this is something that I’m trying to learn more about it. Well. So can you kind of talk a little bit about breathing and why it’s important?

Jason Papalio: 19:22 Yes, very important because we want to get them into sort of a flow state, right? Everybody wants to play in this zone, right? And that’s how he’s talked about as like you said as a word thrown out there, we got to play in it. How do we get to play in the zone? Well zone, it’s sort of just less conscious thought. So the more thought you involved in the more and more time here, mind kind of reshaped, unless you go on autopilot, your body could do it on autopilot once it’s done enough times. And that’s sort of the zone where it’s an unconscious, hey I’m not thinking about walking downstairs and how my knee moves. Actually, it just moves automatically when I had thought into that and say when he has to do this or do that when I walk, you’re probably going to fall or a trip down the stairs. Cause now you’re involved more thought into it. So part of it would be doing a meditation practice where you’re just breathing and basic could be spending five minutes, say we’ll start five minutes, we’re going to inhale, or an account, 1002 1003 1000 there could be a pause and then there’ll be exhaling one 1002 1003 1000 so now I’m using the words of one 1002 1003 1000 to kind of distract their mind. So other thoughts aren’t coming in. Or if they do come in and they’re not getting attached to them, and if they could give out this practice where they’re just breathing aware of their breathing, that’ll keep them in the present moment where there be, where your feet are. I like to use that word so we can get them to be where their feet are and be in that moment. It’s sort of like next play. They don’t get wrapped up in the current play that happened. They don’t get stuck on that and they’re able to move forward. So it’s, it’s the same thing. Repetitive practice of spending some time being aware of other thoughts, directing you. Are you directing your thoughts? Are you, are you able to filter out and how you get to a quote-unquote better place?

Geoff Rottmayer: 21:34 Yeah man, I love it, I tried both ways. The key to the meditation part is that you got to count through the breath, breathe in and breathe out without trying to distract a thought or not be present because the mind is going to wander. So the people that are listening, if you’re going to try the meditation part, you need to count your breath.

Jason Papalio: 21:58 Yeah, that’s, that’s so important because I think the average person, and if my numbers are right, has about 50 to 60,000 thoughts a day. You take that into account and while you’re just trying to sit there and what’s happening, those thoughts are coming in right then and out. Right? So like you said, and we discussed if we’re able to count, it could just be one, two, three. Then out one, two, three I’m able to focus on the breathing of the inhale and exhale. And now my mind has something else to do versus the focus on all these thoughts that are coming in and out. So if you break that down, that’s a new thought about every seven or eight seconds that comes in.

Geoff Rottmayer: 22:41 Yeah, I know. But can you talk a little bit about prior to walking up the plate to hit or prior to throwing a pitch, so it’s not really that long drawn out, but so can you kind of talk about some different scenarios? Is it enough to, you know, one, two, three, breath in and out?

Jason Papalio: 23:05 It could be something where, like you said, it could be a thing where you do it every day, five, 10 minutes a day, 10 20 minutes depending on the person. And a very successful people do to meditate on a daily basis. So if they were just to take a couple breaths before they go to plate, it would get them sort of refocus to be in their body and be present. So it could be take a breath, stop. So I like to use ABC kind of method so the acronym of Adversity, belief, consequence, right? So diversity would be all right, I got up to the plate, I swung and I missed. The belief is is probably negative, right? I missed the pitch. I’m not going to get hit. And then once the consequences, they strike out, right? So the adversity comes, I swing, I don’t hit it. What’s the belief? I’m going to have a great swim. Maybe I take a breath, you, I stepped out of the box, refocus back in, see the ball better, and now the consequences, it’s not negative. I’m going to get a better swing. This is going to be my best swing. I’m going to get a hit versus I’m stuck in this negative train of thought. They took me to the negative consequence and went back to the dugout of, struck out how do I, how do I reverse that? So it’s in that middle part, that belief thereof changing that sort of thought pattern in a sense of, hey, did you see that great swing I had? Even though it was a strike? Hey, I’m going to get a hit or just almost that positive thought-provoking in a sense, or going up to the plate. Hey, today I’m going to get to see the ball. Well, I’m going to have great swings. The subconscious doesn’t know the difference between the conscious and subconscious, so you can repeat it a hundred times and when you get up there, you’re, your body would know, hey, I’m going to get a hit. That’s what I’ve told my stuck Tanglin so myself, but it doesn’t, it almost over able to override the system and create this positive mainframe and then in a way to be more present and more focus at that moment versus just going into this repetitive thought pattern that led you to this negative consequence. Hopefully that wasn’t too drawn out.

Geoff Rottmayer: 25:30 No, no. I love it and for the people that are listening You can practice that pitch or shooting the hoop or whatever it is. It can be practiced while you’re doing now, which is crazy. I’m not even standing in the box and I can practice how I’m going to respond and be present.

Jason Papalio: 25:57 Right, By doing the visualization is you better get to the stressful situation. You’re prepared better. So you’re able to handle that situation better. Just like you’re going to go talk and talk in public speaking and you’re not good at public speaking, have 500 people in front of you. You want to get some friends out that you’re going to do a talk to so that you can prepare yourself off, I’m going to be in front of people on the CIS. So same thing here. You can practice, Hey, I’m going to see how real can I make this visualization so when I get to the game, it doesn’t seem so surreal that the stressors start kicking in and I’m not able to perform.

Geoff Rottmayer: 26:43 Awesome. I love it. You know, let’s, let’s go back and talk a little bit about the sleeping pattern. You know, young kids in players that are traveling across the country, they are pretty inconsistent with what time they go to bed and what time they wake up in. This can have an effect on and their sleeping pattern though. Can you talk a little bit about that and why it’s important to have a consistency sleeping pattern? Now only, you know the number of hours but being consistent with what time you go to bed and what time you wake up. Yeah.

Jason Papalio: 27:21 Yeah, because during sleep you go through a certain number of rem cycles can get through about four of those at a consistent pace that would get you about six hours. So like you said, the number might be 68 79 it varies per person. Right. But if you can get to this set schedule, your body needs that time of almost shut off where the system could sort of reboot. I like to use it as then you feel rejuvenated, refreshed. But you’re right, you want to keep that pattern the same. So you want to go to bed nine 10 o’clock wake up the same time, five, six o’clock cause then the body will get into the same thing, consistency, routine of I need this amount of sleep at this time. Whereas if you throw out the pattern, often you go to bed at 12 one night you get about eight one night you go to bed, two in the morning, one night my body gets all thrown out of place and then you don’t get to bed early enough. These systems don’t start working in sequence or the sleep, the rem sleep doesn’t start kicking in and then you also get sort of a nervous system response. Neurological response or things are sort of refreshing, re-stimulating again and allowing your body to perform at that high level energized, ready to go. They’ve also done some studies where people that get less sleep or get less fragmented sleep just as we are speaking about the visualization that the people that go to sleep and say, Hey, I’m going to wake up. I’m just feel energized, refreshed, ready to go. Whether they get four hours or 10 hours, still feel refreshed because the mind gave them that sensation but the body still has to catch up to those number of hours over time and on a consistent basis. It will certainly catch up to you like sleep debt. It just over time, right? I got four hours, I got three hours, I got six. So what’s the average? Maybe five, five and a half. How do I get for 70 I got to keep accumulating, leave hours. Just like anything else you’re doing in practice to get to be more well rested, to be more alert, to be more effective and be more efficient.

Geoff Rottmayer: 29:32 Nice, that’s interesting so how does a guy who traveling across the country to play a game, how does he work on that?

Jason Papalio: 29:41 Yeah, I mean that’s a challenge because the circadian rhythm gets thrown off. So now you’re on this circadian rhythm, that chair your normal schedule. So you go for one hour, two hours, you go for three hours. That’s throwing off that rhythm now. So one of the things would still try to get on the same schedule. So even if you’re an hour ahead, ally behind, I rarely go to bed at night and wake up at six. That would be your schedule still. Even if you don’t want the hour to throw you off. So you can do a lot of things to, to get to sleep. So being away from your phone for time cause the light and the stimulation is going to be, is going to enhance your nerve, your nervous system and your body to say, I’m still awake. So maybe putting your phone in darker mode so you could do that. Making sure the lights are out, making sure it’s comfortable so that you’re able to get those hours asleep. And that if you’re, if you’re struggling and you can only get five hours, maybe take a 20-minute nap, maybe take a 90-minute nap, find somewhere that you can get those hours in so that you feel refreshed, ready to go at your highest level. So you can only get five and that’s all you could get. So the, you know, you can’t change it but you can get a 90-minute nap. You can get a 20 minutes early to recommend 20 because then you don’t get into full rem because once you get past 20 you know, wake up really kind of groggy because then you’re in your rem sleep pattern and that’s almost more of a deep sleep and it’s harder to wake up to that stage. So I would recommend doing 20,25 minutes, like maybe set a time or 25 minutes and take a little while to go to sleep. 20 minutes quick power nap, refresh rate rated out. You have a long time set it for 90 you can get the whole website, go in that one cycle and you’ll be awake. You can just, things maybe have some caffeine before you go there. You take a nap because then that’ll, that stimulant will kick in when you wake up 30 minutes and 90 minutes later so you don’t feel as groggy. So there’s that kind of ways, not to trick the system, but to add on to it so that you can enhance the performance when you’re out on the field.

Geoff Rottmayer: 31:56 Nice., that’s interesting so what about nutrition? This is a big Part of the recovery process, but can you talk a little bit about some of the best practices for the athletic game and stuff like that, Nutrition Wise?

Jason Papalio: 32:14 Yep. Yeah, definitely nutrition, so important. That’s one of the pieces. Just like we’ve been talking about the recovery, the mobility, we’re talking about sleep, we were talking about the mental part. It’s all part of this whole holistic approach, right? So I look at it as a chain link fence and pieces of the link at the tension missing. You’re not going to get to the full circle and you’re not going to get to the optimal performance. So how do we, to the scale is one the lowest, 10 the highest? How do we get to 10 on each one so we can get to the highest level? So nutrition plays its part. Are you eating a balanced diet? Are you just eating fried food? Are you eating stuff that’s not, that’s not an energizing view for the activity? Are you hydrating enough? That’s super important. So if we look at, if we look at hydration as a number, usually in general, people either eat that or athlete cheap. Pretty well because they’re conscious of that, but they don’t drink enough fluid to maintain that. So usually if you get tired, it’s usually in drinking a foot. So I like to use it as a, as a bodyweight number. So say you weigh 200 pounds, you need to drink half of your body weight in ounces to just get to equilibrium. So if you weigh 200 pounds, you need to drink a hundred ounces of water. Know that’s a lot of water. That’s a gallon, gallon and a half. So getting, getting kids are athletes to drink enough water to hydrate throughout the day, not just drinking 100 ounces in the beginning. Know there’s a lot of apps and there’s a lot of trackers out there. Continue to have a water bottle with you, continue drinking or they drink one of these, that 16 ounces or 20 ounces or they got to drink three more than he’s throughout the day. So that when you get to the event, you don’t feel like you’re going to fold or you’re tired, you’re not hydrated. And then while you’re at the event, you don’t want to every 1520 minutes per se having more fluid to replenish. So that’s a super important part. I mean, beforehand you want to have something with carbs because you’re going to be energizing, so you could still have some protein, but you don’t want to have anything too heavy as the edge. You get closer to the event sort of the, the more you want to kind of tell her down and having less food because their bodies and take time to digest it so it could be more liquid, whether it’s approaching or some type of shape that that’s easier, digestible that you don’t want something that’s going to give you gastro issues or something while you’re playing. You know, it makes it uncomfortable so you don’t have a good, a good meal maybe hour or two before. And then as you’re, as you’re coming closer to it, you on a sort of less so your body can actually process that and then performing it. You said afterward you want to have a good amount of protein, but you also need carbs because you lost all that energy. So same thing, best quality protein are going, to be honest, more based. So you’re going to have, it’s going to be chicken, beef, fish or no sense of in some type of card to replenish within that for salary too, after that activity and maybe even a quicker point. So you want to get the protein in quicker and maybe 20 grams. So it’s also looking at the labels, looking at the nutrients and this balanced diet that’s going to fuel you throughout the day and then to get you the optimum performance during the day.

Geoff Rottmayer: 35:52 Very Nice, let’s say I’m a young kid and I’m listening to this and he’s saying the hydrating part of this, so easy, I can just have you know, a hundred ounces of Gatorade. It’s not that hard to do. So can you talk a little bit about maybe not really, you know what you’re talking about

Jason Papalio: 36:10 in a sense you don’t want it sodium electrolytes and that needs to be replaced, but any need, just regular fluid, which would be water. And then some part, the gateway, now they make them with no calories. So it’s, yes, it’s a little healthier, but we don’t need like you said, a certain amount. It’s a certain amount maybe leading up to give you some more electrolytes. And then during or after. It’s good to have it because as you’re sweating, you’re losing the salt. So you need to replace that salt and the sodium and that you’ll find in the Gary. So it’s a great tool to have some before, before the event, during the event and some after. So maybe 1632 ounces to Pan Hel how sweaty you are, how much you’re hydrated. Along those lines, how do you feel energized or tired? You know, we might need to take a more, but maybe it’s the third of that would be a gateway to electrolyte substance versus the whole amount

Geoff Rottmayer: 37:24 Nice and what about someone that says, man, I take 3 monster energy drink before every game because that happens.

Jason Papalio: 37:32 haha Hey, hey if that gets you energized. That’s a tool. It just, maybe he’s not getting enough nutrients and throughout the day, so it doesn’t feel any judge, he’s not drinking enough fluids so he’s not hydrated. The turned need something else to be energized. So yes, they went recommend three one might be one might be fine, but you also want to check and make sure that these ingredients on it, on the banned substance list because even though it’s sold over the counter doesn’t mean that it’s legal for the sport you’re playing and as you could get to the higher levels and they test that could add all different types of parameters to it, you know?

Geoff Rottmayer: 38:10 Yeah. Let’s go back to the actual stretching, mobility work. What’s the best time to do this work? Um, during practice and what the best time to do it on game days and, and what does it look like before a game versus after the game?

Jason Papalio: 38:31 Yeah, definitely. I mean it’s always good to do some type of movement or exercise first thing in the morning. I, I always just like to do something that’s, whether it’s yoga based or some movement thing and maybe it’s 10 minutes in the morning because I feel like that just gets the body moving and gets the joints moving and then it gets you going through the then sets the tone for the day. You could do it at night where you want to do maybe a slower pace where it’s kind of relaxing. It’s going to bring your heartbeat down and help you sleep. So those are two good like book ends early in the morning or end tonight were leaving in the morning and need a little faster, a lot more energizing. Maybe the end of day you need a little slower just to take you down to get you ready for that sleep mode. Now the bookend for the game. Would the report the game you want to do dynamic that are movements that are sort of repetitive or similar to the game that you’re doing? So they’re going to be dynamic, so that’s going to be some type of stretching while you’re moving, getting an American system fired up, getting you ready to perform. If you practice just be building up, running from running at 10% to 50% 75% to a hundred it could be a quick example or just any type of dynamic stretch that you’re doing when they enter in a pattern where you’re moving, that will simulate the pattern of a, of what you’re doing on the field so that you’d want to do at the beginning and a lot of teams, if you look at the college pro level and even some of the high school are getting better or doing this dynamic movement and with ea they just static in the beginning and sort of shut your nervous system down like we said and slows you down and then you’re not, whenever system isn’t turned on and not to get ready to play and it could cause for greater chance of injury because you’re not fully ready. End of the game is where you want to do that few minutes of kind of static work to kind of cool back down, make the muscle back pliable again, let the blood flow comes back in and let their recovery process start and enhance that by doing a bit of a slower static part at the end. And it could just busy as throw your legs up the wall and let the fluids rush back down and that would be a quick, quick benefit there so that then they could actually get to a, they can recover faster so that the body so that when they get to the next practice or the next game, they’re not on overdrive.

Geoff Rottmayer: 41:02 Right? So what’s your thoughts on heat vs ice? and even the MacPro?

Jason Papalio: 41:10 Yup. Yeah. I mean they all have a, has a purpose and sort of a place in there. And to me, that is definitely a use for he I stand like you said that mark pro thing. Um, I like something like that. The stem where your game and nervous system kind of fired up. I like using a sort of like a balanced disc on air that people are using to just get the nervous system, fire it up at a greater level. So I find those effects, does he? He, he eats a good tool to kind of also builds generate. He even got the nervous system turned on and then ice is usually just for a sort of an injury and inflammation to bring it down. So it kind of varies. But I do like the two of like the stem that’s turning the muscles on which you want to do for your activity versus calling it down and kind of show. Yeah. Now the cord sensation can give you a stimulating effect. So you want to take a cold shower for a few minutes. It would make him more and more a week. Right. Versus just putting ice on. That’s just a static position that sort of slowing you down. Heat’s going to generate more nerve neuro muscular sensation getting kind of ready to go. So that’s just a quick dirty take. But there’s a lot of science behind it and everybody follows a certain protocol. So it’s sort of what the system that works for you, and it might be different per person, it might be a different per team that might be different. You might go to one team and another team does a completely different, so what’s their system and philosophy that works?

Geoff Rottmayer: 42:52 Yeah, so let me ask you this, can you talk a little bit about stress and in not unplugging and what that does to your recovery and your performance and all that stuff?

Jason Papalio: 43:08 Yeah, stress. There’s good stress is bad stress and you need a mixture of both throughout the day stresses your body doesn’t know the difference between the stressors. Stress gets added to stress. Stress can be had an argument on somebody’s stress, could be a long practice. Stress could have a test coming up, but the difference is those are three different stressors, but the body just sees it as stress, so it just adds on and Akim lights. So it’s just, it can’t really differentiate and say this stress goes to that area, that stress goes hair. This one goes there, it’s just here it is, where it came wedding. Now we’re getting to a critical mass and everybody’s level is going to be different based on he’s done their build up further and makeup, right? But if those stressors get too high, inflammation gets higher and there’s performance, quote-unquote would go down because there’s just too much stressor on the body. Your body can’t perform at the highest level because there’s too much of it. And that’s where the breathing and meditating, we’d positive affirmations and visualizations coming. That’s where I, maybe so case sometimes you need a day off or hey, I need to get a little more sleep. Right? The body’s telling, listening to your body, but it’s putting every pitch. It’s allowing everything to come back down to a lower state. Maybe you don’t get to equilibrium, but we bring it down a bit so that then when the stressors come, they don’t get to the highest and you’re super, you’re overexcited and then it’s just your, your soul. We’re excited that you’re overthinking it and then the unconscious isn’t really able to perform. Right. So you don’t get to just sort of the zone. Right? Cause now you’re just so overthinking and over analyzing it. So many stressors are coming in that you just, you’re not on autopilot now. Right. When people say you haven’t had a body experience, it’s just, it’s almost like you’re so unconscious, which is the word I’m conscious. You’re just flowing. You’re just, they’re not even thinking about it. When the stressors come in, you’re overanalyzing, it could be the same thing. You’re going to take a test. Hey, the unconscious is the same thing. He’d be in the zone, hey, you see the answer. That’s it. But then you sit there and you overanalyze. Maybe it’s this one that falls into that, that you spent so much time over analyzing it. We can’t get to the right answer. Right.

Geoff Rottmayer: 45:46 Right, right, I like how you explained that I love when you said, hold on, I wrote it down. Okay. Um, and I fall into this incident pattern myself. You know, I’m busy during the week. I’ve had the, I’m working hard and I’m super tired. And for me, I, you know, I’ve got a routine, but it’s okay to get that extra sleep if it needs it, if you need it. You know, it’s that whole listening to your body part. And it’s important. And it’s something that I’m working on for sure. But I love when you said that because it’s true and it’s okay and it’s not the end of the world. If I get that extra 30 minutes of sleep,

Jason Papalio: 46:26 it’s, it’s, it’s valuable to listen to your body and that, that’s a hard thing for most people because the, whether it’s masculine or feminine, it’s just always to grind their pusher, get to that next level, right, right. Sometimes that next level and keep, push, push, push, push, push, and then you go over the edge and then it’s a crash and it’s hard to get back up there. So you want to stay in this kind of sweet spot. So tide for people to feel like, hey, this hurts or that’s bothered me. What do I do to resolve it? What are the things I need to do? The general inclination and just keep going, keep going, keep going. Hey, I’ve got four hours of sleep for the past six months. I’ve been good. But now not feeling as well and kind of feeling sick of them broken down, but they don’t think of it that way. They just think I’ve done it and then it’s okay. So it’s sometimes getting that feeling of, hey this isn’t right. This is out of balance. What’s that? What’s that balance for you? What’s that sweet spot? And it’s a challenge to, to actually feel is the word they like to you as a as you said, it’s hey, maybe I need this extra effort, right? I didn’t get this, this enough sleep, but maybe I, I did something recovery lives. I want you to Cry Chamber and, and that kind of enhanced how I feel and maybe I went and did one of the float tanks where I float in and sort of like meditation. I thought in the water, it calmed me down. It got it maybe even took a snap or snooze and that felt good. So what are those things I did to help me get back to, uh, to it, closer to equilibrium so that I’m able to stay in this flow state or smoother state or middle ground versus too high, too low, cause too low, could be bad, too high?

Geoff Rottmayer: 48:24 Yeah, the whole go, go, go builds up and it turned into a lot of different things. You know, the body builds that stuff up. If you don’t, I plug and you don’t release, then it could lead to a whole worm or things that you know can, can do harm to your body.

Jason Papalio: 48:40 Yeah. And you can end up getting injured more, less alert if you’re not getting enough sleep or just use that example. So you’re, they’ve done studies, where people that are, that have gotten less sleep are just vessels less, focus, less able to focus and just not able to perform at that highest level. So less alert would be slower reaction time. And it just, bodies just, it didn’t get the rain that right amount of sleep or good sleep and then they, they just meander throughout the day on this. Just kind of gyrating up and down, you know? So there’s, there’s so many, there are so many consequences, let’s, people don’t either feel the consequences or don’t act on them and just keep going and say that this is normal.

Geoff Rottmayer: 49:35 Yeah, Jason, man, I don’t want to take up too much more of your time, but I love the holistic approach that you take. You just shared a lot of great stuff with us. So let’s just Kinda Kinda wrap this up with telling us, you know, if I want to have Jason come look at my team or come work with us, tell us a little bit about, you know, where, where I can find you. You know you’re in the journey, the area, right,

Jason Papalio: 50:03 New York area,

Geoff Rottmayer: 50:06 so you’re up that way. You know, what your website and how can people get ahold of you.

Jason Papalio: 50:11 Yeah, definitely. Then my website is my name, so it’s Jason j son and my last name, all one word, [inaudible], p. A. T. A. L. I. O. So it’s all their contact info is there. I’m also on Instagram, Facebook, the social media channels or, or on Twitter, but Instagram, Facebook, I have a page there. So it’s just my name to Jason Palio. So I try to keep it all the same. It’s a good way to reach out to me. Uh, usually it’s a lot of word of mouth where one team and then other teams are interested. Sometimes I’ll target or I’ll use or I’ll reach out directly to whether it’s a strength coach or an athletic trainer or a coach, uh, that, that, uh, that might be interested or that I feel would benefit. Try to show him here’s Xyz of why we should do this. Not just we’re doing it. And then maybe it’s a one-page proposal of here are the benefits. Or maybe it’s just a quick conversation we meet. Or it could be, hey, you don’t know what this is, but you’re interested in and you heard it works. Maybe it’s a half an hour demo and maybe they need to feel it like we discussed and see what, see how they see how their body responds to or did. It was effective for them. And so it could be multiple different tools, uh, of working with athletes. And sometimes people find me or I find them various avenues.

Geoff Rottmayer: 51:46 You know, the recovery part, you know, like we alluded to throughout the conversation is not sexy, but it’s so critical because especially, you know, everything that we’ve talked on, this conversation. So the Jason, I appreciate you coming on, man.

Jason Papalio: 52:03 Oh, thanks for having me. Appreciate the time.

Geoff Rottmayer: 52:15 Thank you for listening to our conversation on The Baseball Awakening Podcast, stay tuned for our recap show tomorrow.