Abby Fox (Intro): Welcome to the Still Caring Podcast, presented by Stillwater Medical.

Joe Akin (Intro): Here, community is at the heart of healthcare.

Katon Lunsford (Intro): Through honest conversations and shared experiences

Abby Fox (Intro): we explore what it means to care for our health—

Joe Akin (Intro): and each other.

Katon Lunsford (Intro): Because better health takes a village and you're part of ours.

Abby Fox (Host): Welcome to Still Caring. I'm Abby Fox, the PR and Marketing Manager at Stillwater Medical, and I am joined today by Lance Walker and Zach Collett. Thank you guys for being here.

Lance Walker, PT, MS: Thanks.

Zach Collett, PT, DPT, ATC, MS: Thanks for having us.

Host: We're really excited to have a conversation about resilience, because this season, a lot of the different stories we focus on are about unexpected health challenges.

And so, talking about resilience today, I think, is going to be great. But before we dive in, I would just love to hear more about you all. So, tell us a little bit about your background, what you do, and when Stillwater became home for you.

Lance Walker, PT, MS: Go ahead, Z.

Zach Collett, PT, DPT, ATC, MS: My name is Zach Collett. I'm a Stillwater native, grew up here. I went to school, went to Oklahoma State, and then left for about eight years, working as an athletic trainer at the time. And then, school brought me back. I came and went down to Langston for physical therapy and finished there in 2014. Started working out at Total Health. And I've been there the last twelve, going on thirteen years. I had a great opportunity during that time to be able to continue to work with the Stillwater community and kind of home. Stillwater became home kind of around that time whenever my wife was also working for Oklahoma State. And so, we decided to stay here after PT school. And then, I've continued to do sports medicine coverage with Perkins Tryon. I've helped some with Stillwater High School over the years, and so just keep plugging back into the community.

Host: That's great.

Lance Walker, PT, MS: Yeah. And then, I'm Lance. I'm a Director of a Human Performance and Nutrition Research Institute here at Oklahoma State, and that's a lot of words, but man, it's a big honor to come back to my home state. And we've talked before, Zach, as I'm also a physio by some training. But I started off as a coach, and spent some time in Texas in high-performance sport, working with elite athletes from really all diverse places.

But I'm a fifth-generation Okie. So, I was able to bring my family back about four years ago here and settle in on taking this vision of health through performance to life here in Stillwater, and I kind of feel like I've come home.

Host: Yes. That's awesome. Where in Oklahoma is your family from?

Lance Walker, PT, MS: Well, I just usually point north and west.

Host: Okay, great.

Lance Walker, PT, MS: If Oklahoma, you know what I'm talking about. And I grew up on a farm in a ranch community there between Freedom and Woodward. I was born in Woodward Hospital there, and then sort of spent half my time with my mother in Ashland, Kansas, a little southwestern town there. Small town. And in the summers with my dad, and my grandfather there on Freedom at the ranch, doing some farming and ranching. So, no matter where I went, I couldn't get away from the farm and ranch piece, which has been a real blessing for me long term.

Host: That's great. Well, my family, we have a family in southwest Kansas, and we're always like, "Ashland, we got to use the bathroom." And so, we're always glad to stop there.

Lance Walker, PT, MS: There's only one. And it's only open hours, I think. So if there's that flashing light, it's kind of a small, small place.

Host: It's a small world.

Lance Walker, PT, MS: Small world.

Host: Yeah. It really is. I'm so glad to talk to you guys today, because I think your experience fits so well with resilience. I mean, what you're doing day in and day out, you're helping people restore their health, you're helping them go to the next level with sports. If you had to say kind of what are those building blocks of resilience, what would you say those are?

Lance Walker, PT, MS: Zach, I'll let you go first. I'm sure you got some good ones.

Zach Collett, PT, DPT, ATC, MS: So, one of the first things, and I know Lance would agree to this, is sleep. Sleep's huge. So, that's when our body—

Host: Gosh, I wouldn't have thought that. Sleep.

Zach Collett, PT, DPT, ATC, MS: Yes. That's whenever our body is allowed to heal.

Host: I can do that.

Zach Collett, PT, DPT, ATC, MS: Yes. Nutrition. You know, if we're not eating and putting the right stuff into our bodies, we can only perform as good as we fuel ourselves, just like putting gas in a car. If we don't put in what we need to, it won't last as long as it should.

So, a big one that a lot of people are talking about now is even just movement and physical activity. Because you used to think that, as you aged, your muscles would get smaller, but there's research now that shows that if you continue to strength train, you continue to be active, you may not have that same muscle wasting as we once thought just happened with normal aging.

The other couple things that I have is, like, family and community, having a great support system, that's huge. Motivation, continuing to have that drive that gets you up out of bed, gets you to the gym, gets you being active. And then, also just how we respond. You know, we choose how we're going to take the activities that come at us. So if we look at it and say, "Well, worst thing possible is happening to me. I can't do anything now," versus, "This is an inconvenience, but I can grow from this," or, "I can take this opportunity and turn it into something, potentially a blessing in disguise." How we respond is typically huge at how that resilience is built.

Host: Absolutely.

Lance Walker, PT, MS: I love that because what he's talking about for me when I think resilience is the ability to bounce back, you know, to respond. And I really like what you said there about responding. And I think a key for us that we can maybe steal from elite athletes that I've been around my whole career has been spent really working in and around elite sport.

And they bounce back almost every day. You know, it's like it's not like a crisis that they—there's a constant bounce back, because training is kind of a beating, you know? And so, it's almost like this process, and I think it's a process of bouncing back on a daily basis, is one thing.

And you mentioned something really good, sort of the social piece of resilience. And that's something too that we've learned in watching athletes perform at high levels and bounce back from challenges, is they do a really good job of surrounding themselves with a village. And sometimes that's a sibling, sometimes that's a physical therapist, which is what I love us talking about, some of the work you do. But they have this village, and they lean on that village, and they trust that village. And when that village has some competence and some confidence, you know, a competent, confident provider, healthcare provider, man, that makes all the difference in the world.

And so, I think those are a couple of things that I saw in the elite athlete world, even beyond just bouncing back from a crisis or a terrible thing. But every day, there was this build up, this thing of resiliency that was developing day after day after day, and that's something that I think we can all apply in our lives.

Host: Well, and it's almost like they're not waiting for that to happen. They are creating that circumstance so they can train their body to respond.

Lance Walker, PT, MS: That's a really good point. They're preparing to perform. And they're thinking it's a process. It's a process. They're not really preparing to prevent something.

Host: Yes.

Lance Walker, PT, MS: They're thinking very proactive. I want to be on the field, on the court, right? Yes. I mean, that's what you see in the clinic a lot. And so, those are some things that, "Hey, maybe we can grab a hold of that. And I want to prepare to be the best teacher," or "I want to be the best dad when I go home tonight after a long day of directing this institute prepare to perform." And, when you start to change that mindset, I think that's something that, you probably use in the clinic all the time with your patients, whether they're sports or, you know, athletes for life.

Zach Collett, PT, DPT, ATC, MS: I like to say to patients that if what you were working at home was working, you would have never had to come see me.

Host: Yeah.

Zach Collett, PT, DPT, ATC, MS: And so, we have to change something, whether it's activities, whether it's positional tolerances to, different postures and stuff throughout the day, or if it's just building overall capacity. Like, that's stuff that we have to work on and do day in, day out, so that way life becomes easier.

Host: That's right. Yeah. That's awesome. Well, you probably, I mean, speaking of your patients, have great examples of kind of seeing this at play. Are there some like daily habits or mindsets that just stand out to you as you think through, you know, some people that you've worked with?

Lance Walker, PT, MS: Man, we could probably go on and on. But I think one of the mindsets, again, of the performance mindset is having that sort of why always right there sort of within eyesight, because sometimes when our folks get injured or a crisis, that why can sometimes feel like it's far away. Man, my why is I want to play basketball again, and they're looking at their leg from a surgery, and they're like, "I can't see a basketball court. I can't even see past this knee brace." So, they're focusing maybe keeping that, "Hey, let's keep a glimpse on that why all the time, even though right now doesn't look like basketball.

Host: Right. I'm not on a basketball court right now.

Lance Walker, PT, MS: Yeah. But I think you do a good job of that as a therapist, and I know that that's what some of these high-performance teams do, is let's keep that why forefront of everybody's mind, the therapist, the dietician, the tactical coach, the parents, I mean, everybody should always see, hey, that's the end result. That's our functional, you know, outcome. We used to, you know, train on how to write goals for that. And even day one, there's something in there that connects to that why.

Host: And is it the verbalizing of that? Like, do you think that helps people if you can define your why and what you're looking toward?

Zach Collett, PT, DPT, ATC, MS: I think so. I think that's something that when You, know where that goal is, it's like goal setting. If you don't go and have that goal of what am I trying to get back to, then it can be really challenging to know how to progress it, know what you need to do. Because if there's no end in sight, then how do we get there?

It's very hard to be able to do that. and so, if we can, in the clinic or with any of the other challenges we find ourself with, or patients that we end up working with, if we're able to figure out what's that one thing that we can do to get them back to where they want to be in life, that that's the direction we can take. Maybe it's somebody walking from their bedroom to the bathroom because they haven't walked independently for years. Maybe it's getting back to the basketball court and being able to jump. Maybe I'm just finished with collegiate athletics, that's not what I'm looking at now, but I'm looking at still I want to run, I want to be active, I want to do something so that way, when I have kids, I can do that stuff with my kids.

One of the things that I put down, was preparing for life, because those are all tasks that we have to do to prepare for life. So that way, when life happens, we're ready for it

Host: You said two things that are really Important there. And we see it in athletes for sport, athletes that are first responders, you know, this concept of athlete. I kind of feel like we're kind of all sort of athletes, even though you guys—we all are kind of competing against gravity and fatigue. And there's a competition going on almost every day.

Yeah. Yeah, daily.

Lance Walker, PT, MS: But you said a couple things. One was control the controllable. You know, that's something we hear a lot in the news. It's kind of cliche, right? Control the controllables. But that's really something that we have seen, I think both of us have seen in, in our clinics and in working with populations that are resilient regardless of what their crisis was, that they are controlling the controllables. And sometimes that's hard conversation.

Zach Collett, PT, DPT, ATC, MS: Oh, yeah.

Lance Walker, PT, MS: "Hey, today, we're going to control. Yeah, I know it's hurting and I know... We're going to control what we can control. Let's get one extra degree of flexion today," right? That could be something, a really basic, but that's what we can control. And so, that's a really good thing, I think, for us to think about. What is that controllable?

And then two, you said it really good, there's a process. You know, it's not about getting all the way there today. No. It's the very next step that I can take. And I think being good with better. Ynot perfect, not done, you know, even if it's just a step that direction. So, you're controlling those things, and then showing progress every day in clinic, right? How valuable is that to say, "Man, you really progressed on this one thing today."

Host: Well, and your reminder of that is so key because I've been to physical therapy before and I can remember being like, "Ugh, I'm here again." You know? And they're like, "Well, what's the matter?" And I'm like, "Well, I'm not better yet." You know? And they're like, "Okay, well are you better than you were last week?" And I'm like, "Yes, I do think..." you know? And so they're like, "Give your body time." You know? And so, that's so key.

Lance Walker, PT, MS: You made a really good point. We do that trick in therapy- Yeah ... a lot is, you're in pain or you're dysfunctional, and you're coming in, and it's a Tuesday, and you were just here last Friday, and, "Man, I still feel the same," you know. And I got into that, right? I'll tell you a secret. I was probably the most famous Big Eight wide receiver back in the old days. Because I actually played in games, but I had more knee surgeries than receptions in my career. So, I spent a lot of time in that sort of space of like, gosh darn, you know? But the idea was always this sort of, "Man, Friday and then Tuesday, I just don't feel like I'm progressing." But when the therapist would pull out their script, and they'd say, "Look, last Tuesday, you were here. This Tuesday, you're there," you're like, "Wow, I'm progressing." And I needed you in my village to pull that out and say, "You know what? When you pull up a level, look at you. You're actually on that march forward." That was helpful for me as an athlete, too, and I know that's something you use a lot in the clinic, and you probably use as well.

Host: Absolutely. Yeah, as a parent. I mean, I mean I feel like happens all the time.

Lance Walker, PT, MS: Yeah.

Zach Collett, PT, DPT, ATC, MS: And we see patients that are in that same boat every single day. And so, knowing what that process looks like, it's hard for somebody that it's a novel experience, and this is the first time they dealt with this. If this is the 100th or 1000th time we've worked with a knee, and we see that constant progression that we're trying to hit those milestones, when we can look at it and we're like, "Okay, you're right where you need to be," or even, "Let's tweak this a little bit because we want to push you a little bit more because we know what you're capable of," sometimes that feels really hard because it's not something that you might be used to because, again, this is something new. But being able to trust in the process, it's always great whenever you see somebody that finally trusts in the process. And all of a sudden, it's like a light switch. And they come in the next time, they're like, "I don't know what you did, but I feel significantly better."

And it always happens. Some take a little bit longer to get there, but it's like once that process starts, then that motivation to keep going and keep doing whatever, even the hard stuff, it's like I know this is beneficial because even if I'm sore, even if I'm having difficulty with it, I know in a week, two weeks, whatever, that gets me back to what I need to do.

Host: You have that experience to look back on and keep yourself going. That's great. Well, I'll transition a little bit here because I think, you know, HPNRI, is that acronym that you all use? Yeah. I've heard a lot about it, like, kind of in the news, but I've not known what that means, and especially when I think so much about the research part.

What I love about OSU is that land-grant mission, how it's like not just about the knowledge, but it's about getting the knowledge to the people. So, talk to us about how you're using the research that you guys have to help Oklahomans.

Lance Walker, PT, MS: Well, your first question was a good one. What does it mean? Human Performance and Nutrition Research Institute, and that's a lot of different words there that feels like a mouthful, but they're each very, very important words, that sort of if you pull up a level, you can pick each of those out. And man, those all kind of fit together and make something that's really important, and that importance is why this was created.

This was created to improve health through performance. We've been talking, we've been talking about performance here, right? Yeah. I mean, it's about performing for life, performing for sport, that we're all sort of wanting to get to that why, and that's our link to what we're going to do today to be better for tomorrow. That's the same for sport. It's the same for you and you as a therapist, you as a practitioner, me as a dad. And so, that's the why, and that's what it is. It's an institute, a hub for the ecosystem of human performance, of which Zach is a part of. So I mean, that's a great example where it's not just this special little place that people will go and do really cool stuff. It is an ecosystem. It's an enabler. And we want to get with these folks, these are the force multipliers of health and human performance that are in our state right now. Therapists, coaches, educators, employers, you know, policymakers. These are the folks that are the force multipliers that then taking best practice from science, mixing it with evidence from the practical world. We got experts like Zach that join us on some of these lines that create this virtual sort of community or village of expertise, but you blend the science. You pull that forward, make it digestible. Make it usable.

Host: Yes.

Lance Walker, PT, MS: Try to filter out what you can that is at a certain level of evidence, and then cross it in with some of this expertise, and then that becomes this enabler, right? This enables this better. Like, we just talked about as providers, as practitioners, that's what we're about, is better as providers so that he can be better for the 20, 30, 50 patients you might see in a week.

That becomes this force multiplier of the science, the best practice and the evidence and the practical. You're blending that together and then Sort of creating a village with you to elevate performance for all. So, that's the why and the how and, and where it ends up going and how it ends up impacting your listeners and, hopefully, you.

Host: That is awesome. And it's not just his 20 or 30 patients, it's times however many people that you have bringing together. So, I wondered if you, Zach, could talk about that from your seat, kind of how it has impacted you.

Zach Collett, PT, DPT, ATC, MS: And basically, the overall whole goal in health is always to make somebody better. And so, one of the things that I love about Project Echo, which is one of the, the, the educational platforms that are through Oklahoma State that are sponsored through HPNRI, that the two that I'm on, one is a sports medicine, athletic training, the other one's a strength and conditioning one, and there's other ones for physicians, there's other ones for health educators. There's all sorts of ones across the state. So, it's not just physical therapists and athletic trainers that can benefit from some of those.

But as a physical therapist or athletic trainer, I can't prescribe medication, I can't create diets, I can't perform counseling services, and I can only get as much experience as I can get in front of me day to day. Well, with systems like Project Echo and the HPNRI, I have access to those tools those contacts, educational resources, and a support system that basically turns into, "I have a guy for that."

Host: Yes. Talk about village. Yes.

Zach Collett, PT, DPT, ATC, MS: Yes. And that's, I mean, Lance and I have had plenty of conversations along the way. The most recent one, he asked me about nutritional resources for athletes and whatnot. And so, it creates those conversations. I've got another mentee of mine that I'm doing through the American Academy of Sports Physical Therapy that's actually through Duke Health. I'm going to connect him with one of the athletic trainers up at Oklahoma State because of a mutual thing that they're looking at that Scott Parker has up at Oklahoma State. So, that collective community is basically what we're establishing. And one of the reasons why I continue to promote it to colleagues, students, anybody that's willing to listen is like, "Hey, there are resources out here that are beneficial for everything day to day." And we all have things we're good at. Not everybody's good at everything. So, finding out that person that can help you, and being surrounded by those people with the same drive, and they want to make the same difference for people and that same motivation, just like you had talked about, that's a huge force multiplier as to what we can do.

And the thing about that space and Lance's mentality is very contagious. Like, his motivation is very contagious.

Lance Walker, PT, MS: No pressure there.

Zach Collett, PT, DPT, ATC, MS: Well, you've talked about, you know, you come into these spaces and some of the different symposiums I've gone to and you're like, you know, "I'm the big cheerleader for this. I'm the person that gets everybody to talk, and I'm the person that helps break down barriers and breaks down these silos so that way we're all in the room having the same conversation." And that's huge because so many different programs exist in parallel.

Host: Yeah. Yes.

Zach Collett, PT, DPT, ATC, MS: And they may be looking at the same thing and trying to study it from different perspectives. But if they never talk, we can't solve the problems from both sides of the equation. We're only pushing it from our side. And that's one of the things that I love about this platform, is because you get to see different perspectives. You get to see how this is going to benefit not just myself, but my patients or colleagues, or even the next generation as this continues to mold and develop into something that once the facility gets built and everything, future research, anything that comes out of that building is intention to help somebody in the state of Oklahoma.

Lance Walker, PT, MS: And it's the process you talked about that he's part of. You know, he's not like this sort of, "I'm going to sit back in the audience." He is engaged in the process, right? I mean, there was 50 or so on our last sports medicine line from all over the state and beyond, right? He was in there. He's contributing in that community. So, he's got expertise that nobody else on the line has. And you are able to contribute that nugget when a case is brought forward. And they're like, "Holy cow, I need to connect with Zach on something." That creation of that village. You said community. You like to use the word village. We're creating a village not just around you, but that you are also sort of benefiting the villagers that are in your village with your expertise. And so, that engagement, I think, is a big part of how you get—it doesn't start necessarily with science. It starts with engagement and listening and finding out what's working, what's not working. Where are the challenges? And then, exploring what's working and what's not working. And so, some of that is qualitative. Hey, well, tell me. Some of that is research-based. And then, at the end of the day, it's got to get out, right? It's got to be mobilized and in a way that can enable a practitioner, a coach, an educator, a parent.

And I think you brought up, you know, Oklahoma State Extension. The land grant mission. They've been doing that really well—we—for over 100 years. So, it's not like we came up with this amazing thing. Zach and I were sitting around going, "Hey, let's—" Are you kidding me? Oklahoma State is like, you know, gold standard of that. We're just following the lead, just taking a little different approach. We're not trying to cure it all, get it all. Gosh, there's these force multipliers, these folks that are out there, we can play a role in that land grant mission, only in a uniquely different way. And I think that's the power of what you said. So, that process is constantly going on. And if it doesn't get it in a position where you can use it, you know, it's lacking context. I mean, that's where the, you know, like, come on, how do we make it?

And so, that's where Zach can come in and say, "I need something that I can help my nutrition with my patients, because I'll be honest, I don't know how to get them to eat right for X, Y, and Z." They're going to spend six, eight, 12 sessions with him. He can pollinate some of these great practices of eating better in that six weeks' time. You're kind of a health educator, right? Because I know this, when they leave, they go back to their dinner table, and they're sitting around eating and they're like, "Hey, you know what? My therapist said to eat this, not that." I hear it at my own table. I used to think I kind of knew what I was doing. But my kids will come home and say, "Coach said do this." Yeah. "My doctor said do..." You know, I'm like, "I've been telling you that for 10 years. And all of a sudden because your therapist said it, they're an expert." Let's give them those tools, because that stays with them, right? And so, it's that science that lingers, that practice that lingers, elevates and lingers with your clients, with your patients, with your family. That's the big deal.

Host: Well, and I do think, you know, I was new to healthcare before I stepped into this role two years ago. And so, being here has just been such an illumination of the fact that healthcare is a team sport. Like, you know, we're all pouring in our own expertise. We're trying to navigate things as best we can. But if we can have guides along the way, like Zach, who can kind of help put the pieces together and help us, you know, find better health, then that's such a gift.

Lance Walker, PT, MS: She said healthcare was a team sport. I like that.

Zach Collett, PT, DPT, ATC, MS: We're all athletes too.

Lance Walker, PT, MS: I mean, that's a hard concept. That's a big concept. But you're kind of seeing that. And it's so cool to see that this performance thing, that's not just for people that play sports. And I think, for us as practitioners, I want Zach to be a better version of himself tomorrow. So, take care of yourself too, right? I mean, I'm thinking of you need to take care, a servant. But you can't serve at your best if you're not at your best yourself, right?

And so, that's something too that you as a healthcare, you as a provider, me as a provider, make sure you're pulling out that one thing, right, that can maybe keep you at your best For what matters most to you. And I know Zach enough to know it's about serving others. That's what matters most to this guy. So, that's contagious for me, because I can buy into that, pal, all day long. And so, I'm going to make sure that you're at your best for what matters most to you, because that lines up just absolutely perfectly with our land grant mission, and also the mission of HPRNI.

Host: Okay. Well, we end all of our podcast conversations with the challenge to care. So, it's just a challenge to our community to do something for themselves or the health of this community. What would y'all's Challenge to Care be? Zach, you can go first.

Zach Collett, PT, DPT, ATC, MS: So, I'm going to take a page from Lance's playbook and says, "What's the one thing that you're really good at or an expert in?"

So from anybody that's listening to this, the thing to look at is how can you use that, the thing that you're really good at or an expert in to fill a gap in our community.

The more we collaborate and see how we help each other, the more we can grow as a community. So, utilizing the resources that we have or say, "Oh, I'm not good at this, but I know somebody who is." Being able to fill those gaps, again, helps us establish a better community and a better team environment because we're all good at something.

Host: Absolutely

Lance Walker, PT, MS: And the one thing, and it's something I try to tell myself and we talk about a lot, you probably do this, is don't wait for perfect.

Host: Yeah.

Lance Walker, PT, MS: Just take that very next thing and find maybe just that one thing. What is one thing, one piece of this? If I want to get one more degree of flexion today, that's what I'm going to focus on. I'm going to take one extra stairwell today, you know, I'm going to eat one more little serving of vegetables if I can get access, you know. I'm going to drink one more glass of water. It's something. It doesn't have to be I'm going to have the perfect exercise and sleep, and we wait for perfect, and all of a sudden, man, three weeks later, we're like, "This is impossible to sustain," right?

Pick that one thing, that one thing that you could do and create a little bit of momentum today, and then better. Not perfect, not unbelievable, not optimized, not all-inclusive. Better. And stack those betters day to day. That's what elite sport does. They do that every day. Why can't we? Why can't we just adopt that one step better? So, that one thing, find it, stack it, and then use it to get to your why.

Zach Collett, PT, DPT, ATC, MS: And the thing to remember on that is even the elite athletes aren't at their best every single day.

Lance Walker, PT, MS: Yeah, it's a great point, Z. They're keeping their eye on the prize though, right? And it's not a straight path. It's kind of a windy kind of a deal.

Host: It's not getting discouraged when we're in a dip, you know, it's keeping going.

Zach Collett, PT, DPT, ATC, MS: I tell my patients that all the time is as long as it's moving upward for your progress, you're moving in the right direction

Lance Walker, PT, MS: And you're moving. Yes.

Host: Yes.

Lance Walker, PT, MS: That's it. You're moving. There is no neutral. You're either going forward or you're going backwards. So, what are you going to choose today? I'm going to take a step forward. I love that. Great job.

Host: Well, I am so motivated to the day. Let's go. Thank you guys for being here. Thank you. You're welcome. We really appreciate it.

Zach Collett, PT, DPT, ATC, MS: Thank you.

Lance Walker, PT, MS: Thank you for having us.

Host: Thanks a lot.