B Scar TV Podcast
Hi-Quality conversations with your favorite athletes, entertainers, thought leaders, and cultural tastemakers - hosted by NFL Linebacker Brennan Scarlett.
B Scar TV Podcast
HI-QUALITY QUICKIE | S2, E18: Iconic NFL & NBA Trainer Dr. Charlie Weingroff on Aaron Rodgers Comeback, High-Level Sports Recovery, & Injury Misconceptions
NFL Linebacker Brennan Scarlett sits down with Dr. Charlie "Chuck Wagon" Weingroff, one of the most sought-after professionals world-wide in physical therapy and athletic performance, a Doctor of Physical Therapy, a Certified Athletic Trainer, and a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist who has worked with countless A-List celebrities, professional athletes, as well as the general population.
Dr. Weingroff, a longtime member of Brennan's performance team, breaks down what makes or breaks elite professional athletic recoveries and his 6 keys to coming back from injury. Later, Brennan and Dr. Weingroff dive into Aaron Rodgers' comeback to the New York Jets from a ruptured achilles tendon, a miraculous story that has seen Rodgers shatter previous medical protocols of achilles tear recovery. Don't miss Dr. Weingroff's in-depth breakdown of the surgery, as well as his opinions on possible explanations for A.Rod's jaw-dropping recovery timeline.
0:00 | Intro
9:14 | Charlie's 6 Keys to Coming Back from Injury
15:00 | Sleep, Human Growth Hormone, and Recovery
21:16 | Making or Breaking a Comeback: Trust, Belief, and Desire
30:00 | Aaron Rodgers' Ruptured Achilles: The Facts
35:00 | The Speedbridge & Surgical Advancements in Achilles Repair
45:45 | Possible Explanations for A. Rod's Miracle Recovery & Will he Play in 2024?
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’Til next time... Peace ✌️
And we're back with another episode of BeastGuard TV, another one Today. I wanted to have a focused discussion around comeback stories with Aaron Rodgers, who is beating every timeline protocol out there that's ever been written in the books. But I think it's important to dig into what makes a comeback like this possible. What are the ingredients to having a successful comeback? And if you're anything like me, you love a comeback story. We all love a comeback story, but I don't think it's always told or expressed the amount of sacrifice, commitment etc. That it takes to enjoy a comeback story like that.
Speaker 1:So, with Aaron Rodgers, who ruptured his Achilles Week 1, the normal recovery process and timeline for an Achilles surgery and then subsequent recovery somewhere in the six to nine months range. Kevin Durant ruptured his Achilles. He was out for 552 days. Aaron Rodgers tours Achilles Week 1. Then 79 days, his window for return to play, which is this 21 day activation window. His window was opened. So obviously there's some incredible medical advancements, science, rehabilitation, psychology that's going on with Aaron Rodgers and his recovery, and so not only will I share some of my opinions and thoughts around the subject of coming back from an injury, but also we'll call on an expert in the field. Charlie Weingroff, who is a physical therapist, former strength and conditioning coach in the NBA, works as an advisor in a few different situations and really works with high profile and high performance athletes throughout football, basketball and a plethora of the sports. We've worked very closely together through my whole career and he's helped me rehab from several injuries, so we will call on him as well to get his take on the situation.
Speaker 1:But first I'd like to start with the ingredients. What are the ingredients of a comeback, in my opinion? Number one, I believe it's desire. You have to want it. You have to want to come back and whatever that is pushing you whether that's something to prove, whether you feel like you have more to give, you just want to get back out on the field, on the court, etc. Whatever it is, desire is the first piece of a comeback story, and that desire is comes from within. Number two is discipline. You have to sacrifice, you have to commit in order to return from any type of injury. Right, it's, it's rehab, it's pain. It may be as early mornings, it's maybe late nights, it's. It's going to have obstacles, blocks in the road. Recovery is never smooth. You're going to take two steps forward and you're going to take one step back, two steps forward and one step back, and it's really a mindset of perseverance but a level of discipline to be able to keep going across three, six, nine, sometimes even 12 months to get back to the point where, actually, on the field, playing the game that you love, that you desire to get back to.
Speaker 1:Number three external force. External force in both a physical sense and a figurative sense, from a physical and literal sense, external force, whatever injury that you have, the load, the resistance, whether you know that's weight, whether that's training to go longer, harder than you'll be asked to do, when you do come back to perform, the time that you take off and are forced to take off, that's as a result of your injury, your muscles. They weaken your capacity to perform lessons, and so, as you look to come back, that external force is huge, right. So, whether that's putting more weight on the bar, whether that's put more resistance through the tendon, whatever the injury is, I think external force from a physical sense is always a piece. But, almost more importantly, from a figurative standpoint, external force meaning having people in your circle that's going to push you so that you're not the only one pushing. Having, whether that's your physical therapist, whether that's your coach, whether that's your brother, your sister, your parents, some people that'll push you on the days that you don't want to go. When you do hit up against that block and you hit that brick wall, you got somebody that's in your ear. That's like yo remember why you're doing this. Hopefully they'll remind you of that. First ingredient, desire.
Speaker 1:And number four, which I think cannot be overstated, is positivity Having a positive mindset, a positive outlook that everything is going to be okay. Right, and approaching every day with a sense of levity, right, and I think that's not only from within, as, like you know, this day might not be the best, I might not be where I want to be, but eventually I will be. But then also everybody else in the, in your training room, in your circle, on your team, also having that same, that same mindset and that same belief that, hey, you're going to be cool, the mental, over a certain period of time, can really start to inform and influence how your physical is responding. I think that if your mind is telling your body that yo, you're not good, you'll never be good, that all these kind of negative self-talk, I think that the body listens If you're telling yourself on the other, on the other side of the coin, hey, we're good, we're maybe not feeling the best today, but we're going to be good. You wake up in the morning and tell yourself like I can't wait to attack the day. You got some enthusiasm, you know, you believe in your heart of hearts that you will be back on the field, on the court, on the pitch.
Speaker 1:Whatever it is that you do, positivity is arguably one of the most important ingredients of a comeback story.
Speaker 1:So for many injuries throughout my career, that's surgeries, that's little tweaks here and there, that's time away from the game, a lot of rehab processes, a lot of feeling like I'm at ground zero, and it's a tall has mountain that I got to climb in order to get back to where I was before I had gotten hurt, and so I've been through this experience and that's kind of where I'm speaking from. But I do want to make sure that we have an expert's opinion, especially in the context of Aaron Rodgers and understanding that Achilles rupture and how quickly he is coming back, or is on track to come back, and what it looks like, what it takes for him to do what he's doing and to eventually play in a football game in the 2023 and 2024 season. So with that we'll holler at my boy, charlie. Appreciate y'all, tuning in Peace. This is a high quality quickie by B scar TV. We're back with another episode of B scar TV, and I have my man, charlie Winegraf, aka Chuck wagon, joining me on the show today. Chuck, I appreciate you taking the time.
Speaker 2:Yes sir, yes sir, I think we're going to have a good time and have a very good conversation here about some of the things that you have planned here.
Speaker 1:Without a doubt, we always have great conversations and, to give a little bit of context to the audience, charlie Winegraf has served as a piece of my performance team Physical therapists has kind of guided any type of rehabilitation or recovery processes through my professional career over the past shoot, six or seven years now.
Speaker 1:So I trust his word and and he's an expert in the space of recovery and rehabilitation and in the space that I think makes sense for us to begin to give in Aaron Rogers and what seems like a miraculous recovery of his Achilles, and in the return to opening up the injury reserve window. So who returned to play over the next 21 days, which when they marked that window, it was 79 days from the time of rupture, and so that's beating timelines like nobody's business, charlie. I want to just talk a little more generally before we kind of jump into specifics about Aaron Rogers. Or, from a general point of view, what does it take to execute an effective comeback from injury? It's to be able to return to play at a high level, either at the Expected time of play or or even maybe sooner than expected. What are the kind of the pieces of the puzzle that you think are important?
Speaker 2:I think there's Six categories and I use those categories because there's somewhat specialties, but they're all linked together. Obviously, when there's an injury, there's clearly a medical component. When there's a medical component, really what I mean is that a doctor, a physical therapist, a certified athlete trainer, someone with a healthcare education, has a significant role in guiding, advising, you know, sometimes manual therapy. So there's an actual Contact piece to this. But to suggest that fitness doesn't guide that not only do you want to, to make sure that when you come back, that you want to be as close to game ready as possible. We can also use fitness during the injury process to drive Normal processes in the body to accelerate healing. Words like hormones, immune system, cardiovascular blood flow there's there's more specific ways to discuss those, but there's clearly an interplay in medical and fitness and they all go by the same rules of biology and physics. The same way, after a surgeon ties up a tendon and it's now no longer torn, it's put back together. How you make that tendon stronger is no different in a global thought process of how you make a tendon that's already Awesome and how you make that even better to prevent injury or to improve performance. The processes aren't different. You might have different entry points in how aggressive you are in applying those Principles of biology and physics, but inherently they're not different. So that's two.
Speaker 2:Number three Especially when there's a process of where something has to become bigger, something has to become more than what it is currently, that that new tissue doesn't come from nothing and Ideally it comes from what you eat and what you put in your body would be another category of nutrition. I would also include supplementation in that category. So if you're not eating everything you should, that is ideal for whatever Process you're targeting, then what you supplement in your nutrition. So now you have medical fitness nutrition and clearly, in order to be very precise with nutrition, you might use blood work, which is typically a medical process. So you can start to see, at least my train of thought, that everything is very tied together right the fourth category would be sleep, and Again where, if somebody were to use different categories, it's.
Speaker 2:This is just how I think and how I start to categorize things, because a lot of the net gain of what you do in your medical and fitness doesn't happen while you're doing it. It happens when you recover, and the most, the the biggest happy hour for Recovery is sleep. We get excited about lots of other things, which are all very, very useful. Well, most of them will probably be useful, but nothing is more useful than sleep and nutrition, because you need those things to drive the process. Like, if I, if I do a bunch of bench press, I don't get stronger while I'm doing that, I actually get weaker. I'm signaling a process that if I have the ideal nutrition and sleep, then Figuratively the next day or the day after, then all of a sudden I become better. It doesn't happen while you're doing it. So now we have four categories.
Speaker 2:Number five, which is crucial and is really kind of like a wet willy where you can't always touch it with a specific approach, is Is psychology, and that's different for everybody, because it's not only the individuals voice, it's also your ears, and then what's being said and how you interpret not only what's being said but also what you feel inside your body. I like to think everyone is a psychologist at some points called a friend and and, but obviously there's clearly an entire world of expertise, psychology and psychology for returning from injury, which is the specific topic here, can be very, very focused. But not everything is gonna work for everybody and Anything can work for anybody at some point. So sometimes what works for one person in that psychology Space may not work for somebody else. But clearly, how you feel, how you trust what, what you feel and what you're being told Clearly is another thing other than nutrition and sleep etc. And then so now we're up to five and number six.
Speaker 2:I would call it load management. How do you dose all five of those things Into what you're doing and how much you're doing it and how often you're doing it? When you're doing Plan B, there's some really, really brilliant recovery strategies, but if you do them immediately after your training, you basically wipe out the value of training. It doesn't mean that the recovery was a bad choice, the timing of it, and I put that all part of load management. So all six of those things can be Interplayed, interwoven, whatever made up work you want to use To create the most elite result, whether it's recovery for injury or any type of developmental process in your body.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that that makes a ton of sense. I like to think about it as kind of like pieces to the puzzle. Right, if you're, if you're missing one piece, you're just not getting the, the full picture, and then you're not getting the optimal, the optimal picture. I want to go back to your fourth category of sleep and curious, like, what is that? Window one, would you say, of an elite professional athlete? What? How much sleep should you know we be trying to get, and then kind of text-to-pose that Next to how much sleep should you be getting if you're in recovery phase?
Speaker 2:I'm not aware that there's a Precise consensus on this answer. Which makes it. Which makes it a really good question.
Speaker 1:I've heard a lot of different, different windows. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I think we know what's clearly not enough Like. If you're under a certain amount, you will see significant drops in crucial hormones that are very important for all individuals, much less especially for physical performers. And I think if you're if you're under five hours multiple days in a row, you will see a Significant drop in testosterone, which is a crucial thing, and it's not a word that we should be scared of or afraid of that. That's a very normal thing to require in your body and and to that end, I do think you will probably hear or see seven to nine hours, which is a big gap for a lot of people. But also, remember, there's also multiple phases of sleep and just because somebody sleeps nine hours, that doesn't mean they have an ideal phase, and I'm not aware of the specific way to Get into a particular phase of deep sleep, rem sleep or light sleep, and they're all. They're all valuable and important, but I think seven to nine is a good idea. I think when you're under five, you're gonna see a significant Negative impact. You may not always know where the positive impact is right and I think I think also because Sleep is one of those things where coach is not there with you to guide you. You know it makes it a little bit harder to have some hard science, but significant value in all of the general sleep approaches you know that are known and discussed, such as winding down and exposure to light and blue light, and not even, maybe to that end, not even having a television in the bedroom. What you can eat. It's all these different things that are very, very valuable. Now, as I mentioned, testosterone is not something that we should feel taboo or you're not discussed those hormones and Particularly for injury. If there is a most important, testosterone really be the basis of all hormones. But human growth hormone would be the recovery based hormone. Now it's important to recognize that they do two different things and the human body is constantly turning over. Like we could be kind of silly and say that we were both Completely different human beings 30 days ago because, in theory, every cell in our body Changed. It's just a normal process. So let's just say that that process happens once every 30 days and I'm being very, very cartoony in my description here to explain what human growth hormone is and why it's crucial and then hot, why it relates back to sleep. If that process turns over once and there's a recovery process where you need to build something and it needs to and you want it to happen as fast as possible and as and as strong as possible. Human growth hormone, in theory, if it was maximized, would make that process. That normal process happened three times over 30 day period. So it turns over faster, so it just accelerates the normal Processes that are already happening in the body.
Speaker 2:I know we're on sleep, but how do we signal human growth hormone? And there are particular types of training processes that can specifically signal human growth hormone. And If you sleep Typically for most people that are not shift workers, meaning they they, they work in while we're sleeping we're basically going to suggest 10 pm To2 am Is the happy hour. That if you train a particular way which I can get into, but that's not you're talking about sleep. So I'm just going to say train a particular way to tell your body hey, if we can be, if we can get into deep sleep between 10 pm and 2 am, then you will get the maximal endogenous building release of Of human growth hormone.
Speaker 2:And that's crucial because now there's a challenge go to sleep at 10 pm Ain't easy. For a lot of people. That means you probably have to wind down at 9pm. I mean, on Monday nights there's still two hours of wrestling to watch, and on Fridays there's still an hour. So it's a very big challenge. So those are some realities of all of those values of sleep. Human growth hormone would be a significant winner in terms of supporting a recovery process of any kind.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've heard that 10pm to 2am suggestion that you've made, and oftentimes we'll think about that when I'm at the bar at midnight like damn, I'm missing my HGH happy hour right now. That's a kind of lesson to Katelyn in my head.
Speaker 2:You're also going to tell everybody that the language that I use is you will endeavor to achieve this. So if we put a certain number, then the goal is to get as close to that as possible. So look, midnight to 2am is better than 3am to 4am. So this is just science. And now it does beg the question if we do believe so strongly in some of these factors, then why don't we do it? But now that takes us to the psychology piece, and that's really. You see how psychology can mean a lot of different things. It doesn't just mean come on, be, you can do it Like that's not just there's a lot of questions that psychology can answer, at least in theory.
Speaker 1:That's a good bridge to my next question for you just around, if you have witnessed any particular kind of personality profiles of athletes, of players that seem to be most effective in their returning to play at a high level? Obviously you've assisted and supported in the rehabilitation processes of future holofamers all pro NFL you know across sports, so you've seen a lot of different personality profiles. Have you seen a pattern in those who are able to come back at an effective recovery rate or even beat timelines, and what type of person is that?
Speaker 2:I'm going to go back a little bit and give you a little anecdote. When I was being coached, slash, mentored, in Marine Corps special operations as a head physical therapist, some of the old heads would tell me, Charlie, you get one shot with these guys. They'll do what you say if they trust you. But if they don't trust you right away, it might not happen ever. And that's a little bit of pressure, and I don't think for other spaces it's that pressurized. To create that trust, how do you create trust in someone is not an easy, it's not a linear answer. That's the section where our tickets are in, but I don't know where our seats and what row we're in. To create trust, whether it's an extremely high performer, First of all, if you're a professional athlete you're one of the greatest to ever live. That's just how it is. But obviously in any type of rehab process there's a little bit of sales, meaning you don't know what to do and you have to trust this other thing, whether it's a person's voice, a piece of paper you're knocked out when the surgeon is doing his or her business. So there's a lot of trust. And how do you create trust? And I believe clearly the voice matters and in this conversation, someone listening. If my voice reminds them of something horrible, meaning I sound just like that dude that picked on them when they were little. Nothing I say is going to matter so clearly the literal voice, but really what I'm saying, how I'm saying it, how often, and that, how do I make you feel that's a little bit of sales? It's not, because how do I get you to do something that you don't know how to do or may not want to do?
Speaker 2:I can go back to another story from Marshaugh, Colonel George M Bristol. He was Olympic judica. He invented the Marine Corps martial arts program. He was somebody I really connected with and he was like Charlie, you need to lift when the guys are lifting. I'm like I don't want to lift with these guys. They're not on my level. He's like if they see you bouncing five wheels, like squatting five wheels, bouncing five wheels up and down during lunch, they'll trust you. They shouldn't trust you for that, but they will, and there was some guidance. I had to trust Colonel Bristol to do that. Now, of course, squatting five wheels for me isn't that big a deal, but how do you create trust with somebody is just being willing to have that conversation?
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, and I think that's fascinating because when you your approach as being part of the support team and kind of the performance team of the athlete who's getting the rehab, you're thinking that every athlete has the capacity to return just as any other athlete. It's all based upon how much do they trust you to then implement the program and trust what you're saying. That is kind of your perspective, because my perspective, as I think about it, is like well, the athlete has to have a certain type of mindset of discipline, has to have, you know, a positive outlook on things you know, et cetera, et cetera. I'm thinking about the mindset of the athlete and you are on the side of whatever athlete can recover to a high level, that can return back to high performance or maybe even exceed their performance beforehand. As long as they trust me to implement all these things that I've researched and found to be true, I think B.
Speaker 2:It may not only be trusting me, so I'm not going to name a name here, but it is one of your teammates recently who I saw and there was a little bit of baggage, where he had gone from one of the best players in the NFL to really staring at his mortality. And he finally came to me and we spent a couple hours I remember it was either a Sunday night game or a Monday night game because he had to leave to get to go right to the stadium. He was going to be in sweats anyway, so he didn't care. I don't think he didn't trust me.
Speaker 2:He didn't trust the entire process because to a man and I told him, and I told anybody who he allowed me to tell I think you can come back, I think you can do this, I think I see enough here in this period because, again, that's the standard. I don't know how it goes, I'm allowed to be wrong, but I'm saying I don't think this is a waste of your time, I don't think you should hang it up right now. That's my opinion, and I don't know that he didn't trust me. Even if he did trust me which I'm not sure he did it because we communicated significantly even after his decision to retire was made. But because the whole process had taken something, that thing I don't know what the word is but his trust was no longer given to the process and even though I didn't represent that process, I was still a part of it and he didn't have it and he knows exactly who I'm talking about, and you may have spent more hours with him than me.
Speaker 2:So, it's not just trusting the person who's giving you the actual granular guidance, it's trusting the whole process. And then, of course, you're going to get into whatever spirituality means Because, again, I'm very liberal in using examples from the Marine Corps, because, remember, going undefeated means you don't die. So some of these standards are a little bit more powerful, where spirituality is like how do you actually do something that creates that kind of damage to someone else, even though it's your job? Your job is to do things that are I don't even want to say what it is you kill people.
Speaker 2:That's part of your job. How do you accept that? How do you have the spirituality to believe in that process? And maybe that's the word that it's hard to say, because that word means a lot to a lot of different people. I remember a story where Peter Huntley his name was. He was Lieutenant Colonel. He came in and I was talking to one of the doctors and we were in the gym. He had said that, charlie, I just came back from Quantico and we were talking about the program it was called Perez Performance and Resiliency. He's like man, what you guys are doing with the mind and body is unbelievable. Like this is awesome, we need this, but the spirituality is like just not there. Don't get it. Even though I was a civilian, I still tried to show the respect that that environment commanded. I said, sir, if I may, it's like you have to ask permission to speak. I said you see that squat rack over there, because I knew Bristol told me all, they all knew about my powerlifting career.
Speaker 1:They knew about the five wheels.
Speaker 2:They five wheels was a warmup. They all, they all knew I was in the NBA. They all knew, they all knew it was right before. You know, I really started to work with a lot of football players at that time. As you know, I was always in basketball.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And I said you see that squat rack over there. When I put 800 pounds on there and I bent over and got back up, I believed in two things. I believed I was going to be successful and I believed I was going to be safe. I said, when you go over there to kill all the bad guys, you believe in the same two things. You will be successful in eliminating the bad guys and you're going to come home to your family.
Speaker 2:I don't care what you believe in, I know for me, I believed in my training process. You might believe in the flag on your shoulder, you might believe in something, in God, something you can believe in, anything and what you're. I think you're identifying about that uniqueness of an athlete. That's you believe. Maybe you believe in that paycheck, maybe you believe in it running out of the tunnel, maybe you believe in making that play that you always dream of, but that's why you go through things with trust. I think, unfortunately, the word spirituality starts to push people into a corner about something that they don't either believe or agree with or even want to talk about. You just got to believe in something and I think maybe that's what you're trying to describe in that rehab process.
Speaker 1:No, for sure, For sure. I think that's a profound point in that category of psychology, I think is so layered in that process, because it's belief in self, it's belief in your team, it's belief in the whole process, it's belief in whatever that is and how important.
Speaker 2:What motivates you? Might not be someone else.
Speaker 1:Right. Well, I think this is a good segue to kind of turn our attention specifically to the Aaron Rogers situation. When he had came out and said he talked about his procedure and how he was planning on coming back this season and people were telling him oh, this is unheard of, you're 41 years old, no shot. And his real kind of comeback to that was like, I mean, I believe that I'm different, I believe that these protocols can be beat. He talked a lot about the psychology of his ability to come back, but I want to kind of start from the beginning. Obviously, aaron Rogers, he tore his Achilles, ruptured his Achilles in week one. I want to just maybe kind of give you the floor as far as what was his procedure, that he got, what would be the expected time of recovery, and will pull one stat for you. So the amount of time between Aaron Rogers' data injury and his date of activation from Injure Reserve was 79 days.
Speaker 1:The date of from Kevin Durant the time that he tore his Achilles and then returned to play was 552 days.
Speaker 2:These are completely different.
Speaker 1:We're looking at these windows. I mean I'll give you the floor.
Speaker 2:Look, that's a significantly different discussion, and one that I am reticent to have, since I was involved intimately in one of those situations and I know a lot that maybe the general public doesn't know and I'm not about to share.
Speaker 1:So I'm not going to compare the two.
Speaker 2:That's for me to say. If that was the whole topic, we'd have to discuss a little bit differently on what we talk about, because here's the first thing I'm going to say.
Speaker 2:You mentioned Aaron Rogers' outward communication of his psychology. There's no psychology on earth that is going to outrun biology and physics, so that you can believe whatever you want. I can believe that I'm going to be an NBA basketball player with KD. That doesn't matter. There's certain realities, so I don't really care what he believes. That's nothing other than how we discussed earlier, because that process is right, left barriers of biology and physics. Psychology is biology, but it doesn't have to always be. You can say whatever you want. There's people that believe the world is flat. There's people that believe nonsensical things.
Speaker 1:There's guardrails. Biology are your guardrails.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I do want to suggest that just because someone believes they can accomplish something doesn't mean that that's legitimate or is even possible. I've had this discussion before, but not publicly like this, and that's just because nobody really asked. I do think that there's probably things that I will say that because I have a significant trust for you. You mentioned our relationship. You neglected the relationship that you have allowed for your family. I've worked with your brother, your sister's, an elite athlete, and when you're not around, your dad and I have had hours of communication, given our connection. In Toronto One day, I don't think you were at home, and then for the first day, I met him. So there's a trust here, but I'm still only. You will know what I say is fact, and then you'll know what I say is opinion, and I have no knowledge other than what is publicly disseminated, and that's a thing when it comes to this fandom. Even if you do have knowledge of sports medicine and performance, what happens inside an NFL facility, which we both have knowledge of, nobody knows. That's the thing. There was a fellow on the Dolphins that tore his Achilles last week or the week before, and people are making YouTube videos. I mean, what are you even talking about. You don't know anything about this person, you don't know what happened there, you don't know what happened after. So let's start with his surgeon is elite. I've had communication with the surgeon, not about this case, but he has done surgery on athletes that I have worked with. Now I do think it's important that we recognize that surgeons typically don't have a role after they're done with surgery. That doesn't mean that they're not you know, they're just excommunicated, but they're not a primary decision maker in these elite situations. Once they do what they do, they leave it in the hands of someone else to not screw it up. Now, the guard what you say I like that term. The guard rails is probably, as you know, I talk and think really fast, so I couldn't come up with guard rails. That's the correct word. The guard rails of biology and physics are usually handed off to someone else.
Speaker 2:Additionally, when it comes to information, there is still a absolute necessity that individuals health care information is protected. So we're never going to know everything. So when I communicate, I'm going to say yes, I can communicate with Dr Neil Elotrash if I need to. That's a fact. Okay, the understanding of the surgical procedure? Okay, let's talk about that. This is not brand new. I believe that this type of surgery probably was started in 2018 or 19. Okay, so it's not old, but it's not. This is not an experimental procedure and even if it was, this is an elite surgeon on an elite athlete 41 years old, that does make a difference, but this is still one of the greatest of all time. So part of that that a 41 year old that's the greatest of all time is still in this elite category.
Speaker 2:Now I think it's also important to recognize where let's start with where the rupture was, because this procedure has varying levels of utility. You can try to do it, but it is most useful when the tear is in the middle.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay.
Speaker 2:Now. So anytime the tear is in the middle, it has to be put back together, and that's a repair or, in other cases, a reconstruction. Those are two different things, but they don't matter here. Using the speed bridge, which?
Speaker 1:is what's that's there. Okay, that's the newer surgery.
Speaker 2:So here's the Achilles and Dr Neal hasn't done anything yet. Over here is my foot and over here is my knee. So the typical procedure would be to, you know, bring it to you, stitch it up, and you got to make sure the length is proper, and then you go about and I'll get to the rehab protocol. Right now we're just talking about the surgery. In this case, the speed bridge puts two stitches through the Achilles here because it's healthy here at the bone and it attaches here. So you see, it's anchored here on the heel and it approximates this way. So it's still getting sewn up in the middle, but now it's being anchored at the heel.
Speaker 2:Now why would we do this? Because I do think it is attaching to my opinion which is slash fact that the science of tissue healing, tissue loading, rehab process is faster than what we're typically seeing in most protocols for surgery. Okay, way back when I don't, I guess it would be in the 80s you know people that were not compliant with the ACL protocols, meaning they wouldn't wear the brace or they didn't do they. They got better faster and that's what drove the research to see faster loading. So this isn't a weird thing that sometimes science catches up.
Speaker 1:When you say the protocols, that's that. When you say the protocols, this want to be clear that means you know rehab. Okay, that's the rehab. That's what the doctor says hey, this is how it should proceed.
Speaker 2:Doctors. Typically the message comes from the surgeon because they can do different things. But really in elite situations it's a ground table, like me.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Usually it's the physical therapist and obviously I'm a grandizing to my role and I am not going to suggest that the way I interact is always the way it works. But, yes, the the piece of paper with the protocol comes typically comes from the surgeon, but that that that protocol is influenced by what therapists are saying as well. Okay, so now the value of anchoring at the heel is, if you are silly in this early loading, that, we know, is what the science is supporting. It's not just being held together here, it's being held together here so it doesn't pull apart. I'm all in on that. I'm all in. I believe that this is a very, very useful tool. However, I've also going to suggest it has nothing to do with how the biology of my fingers heal. So, whether I have the anchors or not, if I'm smart, this still takes time to become sturdy and dense.
Speaker 2:And so so what? What? The what? The speed bridge in my, in my opinion, in my understanding and how I've communicated with other surgeons about this process, is that I'm all in because there's no downside to doing this and if you take the wrong step, you know, okay, the anchors may protect you, but if you don't take the wrong step without the anchors, this, the biology here in the middle, is still the same, so it still has to take the same amount of time for that area to heal. Now there's a third component that kind of puts those two things together. Because the anchors give you this confidence and maybe psychology to load earlier. You're applying a more contemporary utility of science and it's not weird, it's. We've talked offline.
Speaker 2:I have multiple patients that are doing the same thing. Now they're not NFL players and the demands of agility and lateral movement and the unknown of getting smashed is not part of their world. But I have a gentleman who's squatting, you know, three and four wheels three months after Achilles, because we're we're doing things. That again, the cert, you know I'm not beholding to a surgeon, which might seem weird to other therapists, but again, it's different, different relationships and different ways of working together. So I'm all in on the utility of this because it puts you into a more contemporary view of science and the. The protocol that is largely accepted with the speed bridge is that you would get to a level where you can start to train kind of recondition at 12 weeks. We're significantly earlier than 12 weeks here, so that is not something that is easy to explain as all all.
Speaker 2:It's because of this, because we don't know it, we don't know it, we don't see it. Now. Here's some other things to consider. Some are. You know, I'm just talking now as someone that is being asked questions. We mentioned some value of being to sleep between 10pm and 2am. There are other ways to introduce human growth hormone into the body and that would be a brilliant possible explanation for this process. And then you know, well, that's against the rules. Well, I'm just saying that that's a possible explanation, because we will never know. And in fact the NFL, as you know, as a player rep, is less forthcoming than even other other professional sports. If you get popped in baseball, they will tell you exactly what they did. When we saw with DeAndre, he actually shared what he took or what he was, what he was tested positive for. So it would be so that that's, that's up to the player.
Speaker 2:I'm pretty confident that Aaron Rodgers is never going to admit that he did anything. Even if he did, however, aaron Rodgers does have a track record of being very public in suggesting that he doesn't have to play by the rules, which we saw a few years ago when he did not get the COVID vaccine and did not participate in the restrictions that we all had to participate in and I promised you before what I say is a fact. It was a fact like that. Aaron Rodgers has demonstrated at least one time that he was. He did not think that he needed to play by the rules, and to suggest that he would never do that again is not a human process. That is a normal process that if you cheat once, you would possibly cheat again. Now, if you never cheated. You have no evidence to say that they cheated, but he did. He did this. I mean, we know this, that this is right.
Speaker 2:So that would be one explanation as to how this process has been accelerated with all the other good things that we have discussed a surgery that allowed for early loading, brilliant sleep, brilliant nutrition, one of the greatest of all time, but that would be one thing. That would be. I would be. I'm disappointed that that's not discussed.
Speaker 2:Like I'm not saying anything. Wild. I'm giving scientific merit to a discussion. Number two what we see on television, he's not doing anything. That's like significantly demanding for the ankle to get into a stretched position and then really pushing off in an explosive fashion because he probably can't. So to be at that stage, with or without exogenous support, is not strange to me. Like he's not doing, like I'm not, I'm not, oh my God. Like he's not doing, you know, he's not. He's not doing plyometrics, he's not sprinting. If he is, we're not seeing it. Because that's the. That's the problem here we don't know. So again I'm I'm being very honest to this discussion of like I don't know the, I don't know, we don't know this stuff. So this is just what I'm saying. Something else to consider when we talk about physics and Rodgers is a right-handed quarterback. The demand on the Achilles of the front foot is not nearly the same as your back foot.
Speaker 2:So, when you load that back foot, you've got to get long in the Achilles, and that's indeed where you see Achilles pop. Now, that wasn't in his case. He just got blindsided. No, he didn't get blindsided, he was. This was not a traditional rupture. His foot got caught. I have no comment on the turf or whatever.
Speaker 1:It's his left foot, it's his left Achilles, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's his front foot, correct?
Speaker 1:He's a right-handed quarterback.
Speaker 2:So when you drop back and you have to load into that back foot, that's where the Achilles would get long and that's where you'll see sometimes these things happen. So for him to be a little bit accelerated in the process of watching him throw his right Achilles is nice. Yeah, he's never injured Right. So you don't have to get onto that front foot and get long. So those are three things that I'm not sure are discussed. Certainly the first one is not discussed significantly and I don't know. Yeah, so if you get upset, it may be very upset. I get upset when and you know this about me like dude, just say the truth, man, just say it. He did not do that and then somehow the story went away. The story didn't really stick around by him. So look, that would be an easy way to explain this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that's an interesting thing to think about. It's in the context of recovery period, right when we talked about sleep and the importance of human growth hormone and HGH and the natural production of that hormone in your body and how it helps with recovery, obviously in the context of introducing exogenous hormones that can speed recovery.
Speaker 2:So obviously, not accusing anyone. Obviously, I'm not even concerned about slander or anything. We're just having a conversation. That would be one explanation. But all the other things doing all the other things, really, really well, you have not seen him do anything. That's wild, yeah, to be 80 days instead of 120 days. I'm not like doing backflips as to how did this possibly happen?
Speaker 1:If I saw him doing things, that would significantly stretch the calf Some bounce If you see him bouncing. If you see him bouncing, yeah, I don't see any of that.
Speaker 2:And it's his front foot which doesn't have the same mechanical demands of the back foot as it relates to the Achilles. So now, with that, now is he going to play Like doing the? That's a question that remains to be answered. Yeah, half speed, drop back, obviously. You know, one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time can just flip their wrist and the ball will be on a dart for 40 yards. Yeah, I'm not seeing it, but we don't see everything. That's the thing.
Speaker 2:We don't see we don't know, and that's where you and I have high level of accessibility. In other situations, remember, there's people that have zero accessibility and they're making claims and statements and blah, blah, blah and they're missing. The easiest explanation that's an Occam's razor now, like Occam's razor is the usual solution, is the one that's the most simple. That's not one that people are talking about and I gave you my. It's not my expertise, I'm just a human. That's answering the question.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, I think you've kind of I mean you haven't confirmed my theory, but my theory around the whole Achilles process is that we look at like the normal nine month timeline that they give you six to nine months to come back from an Achilles. In my mind I'm like, okay, well, with Aaron Rodgers, if he sets his timeline to be a little bit sooner than that and he starts to load the tendon sooner, then there's a possibility that that load actually that load sooner actually helps to In the healing process and it actually accelerates it because he's putting more stress on through the tendon, which then is adding strength. And I'm no doctor, but from our discussions, resistance.
Speaker 1:External resistance is what builds the tendon and then what's helps you recover and you have to dance, you have to dance.
Speaker 2:You have to dance at an early stage when this is not firm. If you put too much, you're going to make the surgeon real mad because it ruptures again. So when I say early loading, there's a high level of scientific intelligence that's required here. Pain and etc. All these things come into play. But when you see the eight, nine, 12 months period, remember everything is a range. But in those processes there's two things that's not in play here.
Speaker 2:So this is in defense of what we're seeing here. Number one they're in a boot which is no longer contemporary. You're going to see elite situations are still going to be in a boot. So if you're in a boot for four to six weeks, you're not just taking four to six weeks on top of what we see with the speed bridge. You're on a different sacred timeline because you have to now overcome the average speed of the astrophy and the stiffness that was created, and the rationale is I need to put you in a boot to make sure this thing doesn't re-rupture, and I'm saying that that's not contemporary.
Speaker 2:Now, if I'm working in a situation where it's not worth it, just do what the surgeon says. I'm not getting into it. But in other situations then that's hey, doc, come on now. You know, this isn't. Oh yeah, so that's number one. Number two particularly when it's not professional athletes and we're talking about general population, the whole process is wonky, like meaning they're not training on day one and that's even. We've even seen that in elite situations. Just because you have an Achilles doesn't mean that you can't train your other leg, you can't do pull-ups, you can't do your upper body, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2:As long as you're properly protecting and all of that can enhance and usually what I would say we're not accelerating the early phases, we're chopping time off the end because you're going to be in, you know you're ready to play, ready to train. Period is smaller because you've done more physiologically to prepare yourself Right. So remember that's not with a speed bridge. If you're taking nine, 10 months with this speed bridge technique, you are taking a significant period of time to train, which is always good.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:When you hear ACLs, there's a suggestion that you need you should have two years before you're back to full speed. Yeah, probably because they did a bunch of nonsense early on. Now I'm not saying everybody should come back in five months from ACLs the longer the better but they need the two years to train because in the real world they're not training with the physical therapist and then just because they go to a trainer, that doesn't mean they're doing the right things there. So there's apples and oranges here when we talk about nine to 10 months, versus what you see in this case with the speed bridge, which would be in a positive defense of what we're seeing in this case with Aaron Rodgers.
Speaker 1:Now that makes a ton of sense and I think it's really helpful for me, and hopefully for the audience too, to just kind of dig into this case a little bit more specifically than maybe the headlines might show. Well, you know what it takes to come back from injury generally and then what it takes more specifically around Aaron Rodgers situation. So we'll see how it continues to unfold. I appreciate you, Chuck Wagon, for London Beast Guard TV, your expertise.
Speaker 2:I'm going to be a regular Like.
Speaker 1:I'm going to come in on a little square here. Yeah, let's go.
Speaker 2:Hey, it's, look the rule. Everything that I said I hope that you would agree in everyone listening. I gave you fact and I gave you what I know to be fact and what I know and what is obviously opinion. But the entire discussion is around the biology and physics don't change. Whether you're cheating or not, whether you get this surgery or that surgery good, pt, bad training, whatever it is, everybody goes by the same rules of biology and physics and at some point maybe we learn that biology changes probably more to the fact that we know more than what we used to know. But I'm not sure anything's ever changing about physics. I think we might have, unless we need to learn about black holes and you know and some of these other things. But right now there's an acceptable level of biology and physics as it relates to human performance and there's a lot of things that make sense here and I would say everything makes sense. We just don't have all the pieces to this if we really are trying to investigate, and that's not possible and I'm not sure it's necessary because it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:Aaron Rogers is, for most people other than his family and his teammates, he's an entertainer. This discussion is allowing people for 30, 60 minutes to divert into something other than whatever their life is. And the reason professional sports exists and we all make money and have a role is ultimately to allow people to enjoy and divert from maybe some other struggles and the realities of life. So who cares, aaron Rogers, whether you like him or not, that means if it's one or the other, that means he's doing his job brilliantly. And because all entertainment is about making you care and you can play a football game this season, charlie.
Speaker 2:Nope, nope.
Speaker 1:This is all for show.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can't I don't know what the point was.
Speaker 1:It's all for the show. It's all for the entertainment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I can't, I don't know, I don't. I'd be surprised if he comes back and plays.
Speaker 1:I'm an.
Speaker 2:Occam's Razor. I'm a I'm a truth guy and I'm an Occam's Razor guy. The easiest solution is the most likely one. He's not playing, okay.
Speaker 1:There we go, there we go. Hey, we'll see. That's what I was saying, time will tell, time will tell. And if I'm wrong, if I'm?
Speaker 2:wrong, it doesn't matter, like it doesn't even like it's fine. But this is, this is a good conversation, if you're wrong.
Speaker 1:We'll talk again and we'll pull up some clips from this conversation of you saying that it wasn't going to go.
Speaker 2:Seriously where I said it doesn't matter and I don't really care. Yeah, You're only going to pull up the clips where it says and you'll doctor it up where it makes me sound like I said he took HGH. Right, right, right.
Speaker 1:I appreciate you, chuck wagon, for spending some time with me. Man, we'll, we'll connect again soon.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much, all right.
Speaker 1:Thanks everybody for listening. Peace. This episode of B-Scar TV has been brought to you by Scarlet Creative. For the full length video episode and more content, find us on Instagram, youtube and Tiktok at B-Scar TV, and please leave us a review. Drop a comment. What do you want to see? What do you want to hear? Who do you want to hear from? We would love to hear from you. This is your host with the most burning scarlet. Find a note. Thank you.