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Barrier Busting
The Barrier Busting podcast offers insights, strategies, and inspiring stories that explore practical tips and powerful tools for unlocking our full potential.
Barrier Busting
Building Good Habits for Lifelong Physical Health
Ever wondered how a personal injury could spark a lifelong passion for physical therapy? Meet Dr. Greg Zucone, founder and president of Spectrum Physical Therapy and Athletic Training, who transformed his early love for sports and science into a groundbreaking career. Join us as Dr. Zucone recounts his journey from overcoming a sports-related injury to gaining extensive experience with top institutions and sports teams, all leading up to the bold decision to launch his own practice in 2004. This inspiring episode reveals the meticulous planning and courage required to transition from full-time employment to thriving entrepreneurship.
In the wake of COVID-19, healthcare costs have skyrocketed, placing a significant financial burden on patients seeking physical therapy. Dr. Zucone sheds light on these challenges, discussing the rise in copayments and the labyrinthine complexities of insurance coverage. He underscores the indispensable role of physical therapists as movement specialists in various settings, from outpatient clinics to home services. Additionally, get an insider's view of a specific physical therapy practice, from its staff composition to its patient demographics, highlighting the notable number of Medicare beneficiaries served.
Don't miss our discussion on fostering physical health through good habits and effective exercise routines. Learn why regular movement is vital for preventing chronic pain and arthritis, and pick up practical tips for maintaining an active lifestyle. Dr. Zucone offers expert recommendations on elevating heart rates, incorporating weightlifting, and finding motivation—even for those who typically shy away from exercise. Whether you're a fitness enthusiast or just starting your journey, this episode is packed with valuable insights to help you stay active and improve your overall well-being.
Are you feeling stuck? Is something holding you back? Are there obstacles in your way? Well, let's smash through those obstacles so that you can live your best life. Hi, I'm Matt Brooks, founder of Matt Brooks Coaching, and I'm fascinated with how people overcome barriers and achieve success. Join me for insights, strategies and inspiring stories as we explore practical tips and powerful tools to unlock your full potential. This is the Barrier Busting Podcast. Welcome back everybody. This is Matt Brooks. I am your host of the Barrier Busting Podcast. I'm a certified professional life coach and you can find out more about me by visiting wwwmattbrookscoachingcom.
Speaker 1:We've been talking about habits for several weeks now and we're going to do a little more of that today. But we are going to get physical today. That is, we are going to talk to a physical therapist about our physical habits and how they play out over time and see if we can pick up a few tips to maybe avoid some things in the long run. My guest today is Dr Greg Zucone. He's a physical therapist who's the founder and president of Spectrum Physical Therapy and Athletic Training, which has two locations in New Jersey one in Old Tappan and the other in Edgewater. So you can find out more about him by visiting wwwspectrumptatcom. That's spectrumptatcom. That's spectrumptatcom.
Speaker 1:Dr Zircon is board certified in New Jersey as a clinical specialist in sports physical therapy, is an advanced clinician for hip and joint conditions and has worked in a number of major hospital institutions. As a certified athletic trainer, dr Zircon has experience at the professional, collegiate and high school levels. Most notably, he has served as intern athletic trainer for the New York Giants minicamp and head athletic trainer for the Fordham University men's basketball team, among other university positions. Dr Zircon holds both a doctorate and a master's degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and a bachelor's degree in athletic training from the University of Delaware. I am so excited to have you here today, dr Zacon. I can't thank you enough for giving us your time. Welcome to the Barrier Busting Podcast.
Speaker 2:Matt, thank you for the opportunity. It's a pleasure to be here and I'm hoping to help your audience become a little bit more educated today with the importance of physical therapy and how the service can help improve their well-being and also their quality of life.
Speaker 1:Well, that's exactly what we all need. One thing I got to say is I've noticed, since I've been in the helping profession, I've paid a little more attention to how various doctors, dentists, other people in the helping professions work, and I've noticed that a lot of them seem to think that we all went to medical school and we didn't, you know. So we don't understand half of the terminology that's coming at us. So if you can put it down in straight up language for us today that's easy to understand, I would so appreciate it. Um, before we get into your impressive career is what I want to first talk about, before we get into physical therapy habits and stuff like that. But it's pretty clear to me reading about you that you caught the bug for this very early on in life. You're one of those people, it seems, who had a real clear vision from an early age, right away from undergrad. So tell us about how you caught the bug for this kind of work, for sports medicine, for athletic training and for physical therapy.
Speaker 2:So, yes, it did start early on. I was an athlete and I had a passion for science and math. And when I hurt myself in high school I quickly realized I wasn't going to be a professional athlete, but maybe I could choose a profession where I could help professionals stay healthy and rehabilitate after injuries. So that's kind of what springboarded me into the field of physical therapy I was 16.
Speaker 1:My father gave me some great guidance and that's when I chose physical therapy, not only to, I guess, emphasize the importance of exercise and well-being, but also help people and help people in the community stay healthy and stay active so in a way, this came as a result of an injury and I I've got a laughing at that, because it's so common that people in the helping professions go into like like me, we go into the healthy professions because something happened to us, you know what I mean and it just opens our eyes, the healthy professions, because something happened to us.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. And it just opens our eyes, right. So it's good to see. And you know, frankly, I want to talk to a physical therapist who's had an injury themselves. You know what I mean. You're not just thinking from the books, right? So all right, well what's interesting from experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So you got out of school, you worked around a lot of hospitals, you did a lot of different gigs, you worked in colleges and high schools and things. But in 2004, 20 years ago, you opened up your own practice Spectrum Physical Therapy and Athletic Training. That's a huge risk, right. That's a big thing to do. I imagine just the initial investment of the equipment you've got to buy and the space you have to rent or own is huge. What inspired you to take that risk? What was it that made you say I want to run my own show?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so humble beginnings, matt. I didn't just take the leap of faith and just sign a lease and have some space and then wait for patients to come. I was still working for other employers, whether it was a hospital or a clinic, and I was doing this on the sides. So I had a full-time job, mind you, with benefits, and then I was taking the leap of faith from 5 o'clock to 11 o'clock and I did that probably for a few years, where one patient during that time would turn into two, two would turn into 10. And then, when you have enough volume, then you can kind of step away from your full-time job and then you can kind of go part-time.
Speaker 2:This was the best way that I could do it at the time, just being conservative, plus I didn't have a high overhead. What I mean by that is I didn't have a wife, I didn't have kids, I didn't have a lifestyle of cars, homes. I was living a very, very simple life as a single guy, and that's not easy to do in Bergen County. Maybe it was a little bit easier 20 years ago, but that's how I started in people and invest in yourself, and eventually you do have to take the leap of faith and be on your own, but you still have to maintain a certain lifestyle as you're taking that leap of faith. So it wasn't easy, it's still not easy, it's still very challenging and um, with inflation and the cost of business today and keeping people, it's outrageous.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and it really has gotten crazy. But it's funny you bring that up because I'm actually writing some shows right now that I'm going to do on time management skills, right, and I'm I come at that from a very different perspective than the experts were saying to be rigid about this, that and the other thing, because I've known some people who are very rigid about their, their daily routine very rigid, and we were able to be successful at that, day in and day out. You know those people, you know who they were. They were people that didn't have children and weren't married. Okay.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:They can focus that much. But no, congrats to you, because 20 years is a big deal and you know Bergen County New Jersey is a jungle. It's an expensive place and it's hard to maintain that, and a family in Bergen County. So congrats to you. What have you learned over the years about business and people and yourself? What has this whole journey of yours taught you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I'm going to classify it Really, since the pandemic it's gotten a lot more challenging in dealing with people. I would say how? So I can't get to physical therapy? I have other things to do, I have other responsibilities, or I'm going to cancel, it doesn't really mean too much. Oh well, or I'm sick again with COVID, or I'm not feeling well. I just think that perhaps people may have more of a I don't want to say victim mentality, but they're certainly leaning more on you know. Oh well, we've seen worse in the last four or five years. It's not that big of a deal. I don't make therapy two times a week, or hey, it's not. You know, I'm going to cancel last moment because I don't really value your time, because I have other. I want to go to a concert and enjoy life, yeah Well yeah, that last option sucks because people should be respecting people's time.
Speaker 1:We have lost, I think, a certain amount of respect for each other over the years as people and but. But the the first one is more problematic to me, in the sense that covid did, we did our. Our lives changed dramatically and we learned to live without all the things we used to do, and so that would change us psychologically. I haven't thought about this in terms of keeping appointments for things that I mean, physical therapy is not a luxury, but some people could look at it as a luxury expense in their lives, wouldn't you agree? So that could be disposed of if we have other things, things we prefer to do, which is really, it's really unfortunate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know it is a luxury physical therapy. But because what people don't realize is we pay all this money for our health insurance and we're not really sure what services we get and what our responsibility is. And it changes every year because you're asking people, okay, to invest. You go to an orthopedic surgeon or you go to a primary care doctor and they say, hey, you need physical therapy and you need it two or three times a week. And most people aren't really sure what is that responsibility from the patient standpoint and tail. So people don't realize that they have a copayment and the insurance companies today are keep raising that copayment.
Speaker 2:So if it was $20 five years ago, today it's probably $40. And then the insurance companies are saying we're only going to cover so many visits and as an individual you're paying all this money for health insurance but you don't realize that you're given the same coverage for a sprained finger as you are a broken leg. So that's where it gets complicated. And having spread out those visits over a period of time and understand what your coverage responsibility is, and that's where physical therapists, that's where we come in. You wanted me to talk about in layman's terms what we do as a profession.
Speaker 1:We are considered.
Speaker 2:You know the healthcare practitioner or professional who specializes in movement. So we are movement specialists In the state of New Jersey. We don't necessarily need a prescription for the first 30 days for commercial insurance such as Aetna, cigna, unitedhealthcare, horizon, but for Medicare, if you are of the age of 65 and older, you do need a prescription from a medical doctor, and we have the documentation that we do for all of our patients. We're communicating with the doctor and giving them the information that we're seeing when we're assessing the patient's range of motion balance, strength, their gait, their flexibility and then we put all of these clinical impairments as I would call it balance, strength, their gait, their flexibility and then we put all of these clinical impairments as I would call it Matt into a. How does lack of shoulder range of motion impair someone's function of washing their hair or cleaning out? You know their ears, or you know putting on a shirt or doing something functional Daily life activities, daily activities, yeah, yeah yeah, daily activities.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And then how, as therapists, how can we write goals that can tie in the impairments related to the function that the patient can get better with in the next four to six weeks?
Speaker 2:So that's kind of where we come in, you know, as the healthcare practitioner. So that's kind of where we come in as the healthcare practitioner and it's a great dynamic field, especially what we do in the outpatient orthopedic environment. We're getting people that are coming to us that are medically stable. Yes, they may be on some medications and they may be a little bit impaired at the time with their function, but generally these patients can walk in and walk out, whereas if you want to do physical therapy in an acute setting that's more of a hospital base they're a little bit more medically unstable. And then the next stage, after that or up from that, is an inpatient facility where people are medically stable. They don't have to be in a hospital, but maybe they have to go to a rehab or a subacute rehab facility. They're not ready to go home. That's more inpatient and then they do go home. There is home physical therapy services, but for outpatient we're kind of considered like more of a specialty.
Speaker 1:Okay, and I actually that's what I wanted to talk about here a little more about your practice, just briefly, cause we've got to move on. But you had mentioned to me earlier that something like 60% of your patients are Medicare right. So, first of all, how big is your practice? How many people, how many therapists physical therapists do you have working for you? You know, give me an idea of that.
Speaker 2:Right. So briefly, we have two offices, three full-time physical therapists I kind of go a little bit more than full-time because it's my practice. We have two full-time administrators, another part-time administrator, we have a billing specialist that's outreached and then we have some physical therapy aides probably six of them that go back and forth between the offices. Our practice is primarily, I would say, 40% Medicare back and then 60% is private paying patients or commercial based paying patients. So that means they do have United Healthcare, horizon, cigna and those other commercial paying.
Speaker 1:Sorry if you said this and I missed it, but do the people that are working with you have various differing specialties, or are you all generalists, or how would you describe that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say that once you pass your licensure'm a conductor and my shoulder is bothering me and I'm doing a lot of activity, you know, and it started to wake me up at night. Or if I have a sports injury, or if I'm just your Medicare patient hey, I want to get stronger, my balance is impaired, I don't want to use a cane, so those are the sort of patients that we kind of see in the clinic and all the therapists, technically, once they do pass their licensure, can treat these patients. It's only when you want to start to specialize. According to the American Physical Therapy Association, which is the APTAorg, there are specialties that you can veer into and learn more about, whether it's orthopedics, neurological, geriatrics, cardiopulmonary, pediatric or women's health those sort of areas you can start to specialize in.
Speaker 1:So what kind of physical problems are you most commonly treating? What are you seeing pretty regularly?
Speaker 2:That's a great question. I would say that predominantly in the outpatient orthopedic environment, 80% we're going to see is going to be encompassing of back patients, hip patients, shoulder patients and knee patients. I would say that's probably 80% of our population that we treat.
Speaker 1:Boy and I'll tell you sorry to interrupt, but I've known a few people with chronic back problems. That is not fun to live with. That is not fun to live with. I really, really it pains me to see that you know.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I know, back pain, low back pain. I think it's the number two reason why we spend most of our health care dollars. I say that I mean low back pain. Hey, go to the doctor get a test, miss days off from work, go get um, you know, medication for workers comp injuries, surgery, rehabilitation. So I I recall, uh, through the American physical therapy association, that 80% of the general population will have low back pain in their life at some point, which is really high.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, I don't want it. I've seen it. I don't want it. What do you typically see? Most often that's the result of lifelong bad habits. You know, I'm sure you see people in their 60s and 70s who are, you know, dealing with something that you know is really the result of a lifelong bad habit. What kinds of things are you seeing?
Speaker 2:So we're seeing people that if they didn't have good habits and they're in their 60s and 70s, most likely they probably didn't exercise regularly. What I mean by that is you want to have good, rigorous exercise three or four times a week for about 20 consecutive minutes where you get your heart rate elevated a certain percentage of its max. So the people that didn't exercise regularly, they're getting early onset arthritis, which all of us do get through. But what they're not able to maybe adapt for is the change in lifestyle. When patients come to us and they say, hey, I have arthritis, it's a very common diagnosis but we can't change the arthritis.
Speaker 2:We want to teach the patient to move a little bit more efficiently so that they're not aggravating the joint but they're getting their body stronger. So the worst thing people can do is stop moving. The body is designed to move. So we have to really take it upon ourselves to make exercise a habit, just like brushing your teeth, just like washing your hair, washing your body. You have to make exercise a habit and if you're not doing it regularly, you are going to see the residual effect of what happens when people aren't active More pain, more stiffness, more swelling in their joints.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, I think that's a great point, and we're going to talk more about exercise in just a little bit. Just give me one or two common bad habits, aside from arthritis that leads to chronic pain.
Speaker 2:I say the first thing is sitting more than standing. Believe it or not standing, even if you're doing a podcast or if you're doing work and you're at a standing workstation, you're actually it's like compound interest for your body You're actually working harder. So that's something that we want to encourage all of our patients to do Stand more during the day than sit. Those are some of the habits that people have and that's something that's easy to do.
Speaker 2:You're not talking about, you know, bench pressing for a half an hour. You're talking about stand more, that's we can do that right, Just standing. You know, a little bit more during the day and getting a standing workstation.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's so easy to do. That that's an easy. That's what. That's a great one for us to just take a quick break so can think about standing more with Dr Zaccone in just a moment.
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Speaker 1:All right, you got to pardon my shameless plug there, Dr Zacon, but you know I'm just getting this business up and running. Don't you love my voiceover artist boy, isn't she fabulous?
Speaker 2:She's so good and so professional. I don't know where. I don't even realize where you could find someone like that these days.
Speaker 1:Well, it, it, it. I just fell into it. I got very lucky with that. So if you ever need a voiceover artist, let me know. Of course, we're talking about my wife here, and Greg knows where. We know each other personally, so let's get back to it. Since you deal so much with Medicare patients, what habits should people focus on in their earlier? I know you talked about movement, but let's get even a little more specific. What should they focus on in their earlier years to ensure long-term physical mobility as we age?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, the one thing that people should focus on is, just as I mentioned, being physically active. Now, what that means is, you know, today we're more at home. We're not, you know, getting outside and exercising. Everything in the workforce now is working from home. If you look at, even compared to like 75 years ago or 80 years ago, people had to get out of the house to go to work, they had to walk to work.
Speaker 1:They had to move. My grandfather immigrated from Portugal, all right, and at 80 years old he used to brag that he had the same underwear size that he did when he was a teenager, because he worked for GE and he lived about three miles away and he walked to work every day. He walked to work, he walked back home, that's all I mean. He was always outside.
Speaker 2:So yeah, those sort of things make a big difference. Yeah, in our practice we found that the people that were physically active, if they did something like construction or if they did things like you know hey, I was a teacher for a number of years they were on their feet, practicing teaching. Those sort of professions seem to do better long term. And someone who was just an administrator behind the desk for 30 years, interesting.
Speaker 1:Who was just an administrator behind the desk for 30 years? Interesting. So you know, and really you know, I love those desks that electronically move up and down so you can stand, you can sit throughout the day, you know. So we really what we need to do is get a government grant so that everybody who sits at a desk all day can get one of those Right.
Speaker 2:Well, look, it's an easy fix. It's a good point, but it's an easy fix. You can find something online. Just google standing workstation. Yeah, yeah yeah and there's so many of them that are relatively inexpensive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I've seen a few that I really want that are not inexpensive, but I really want them bad. So we'll see one of these days if I pull that off. Um, let's, let's take a slightly different turn. What? What's a specific habit, or a couple specific habits that help us maintain good physical health in general? I mean, I know you're talking about working but, like you know, I happen to know like posture is a big deal, right. Posture can really, you know, if your posture is not straight over time, you're going to have some neck issues, right? So what are some things that we should be looking for in our normal daily lives that are in addition to movement, about how we hold a pen, or you know how we type, or should we have those things that we rest our wrists on when we type? You know what are. What are things like that that we should be thinking about?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a great question. That could be very broad depending on what people do and what their. To simplify it, whatever we do for prolonged periods of time, we have to make sure that we're efficiently in a position that our body's not really working too hard. What I mean by that is, if we're sitting, you want to have an ergonomic chair. You want to have your computer screen in front of you, your keyboard in front of you at a certain level. Use a work headset instead of a phone that you're holding to your head, work headset instead of a phone that you're holding to your head. You want to keep everything in front of you for basically the time that you're sitting at the desk.
Speaker 2:If you're driving a car or truck across the United States, you want to make sure the same thing. That's your workstation. You want to make sure that your hands are positioned properly on the wheel, maybe from 10 to 2 standpoint. You want to make sure that you're sitting upright and your legs are kind of in a position underneath you where you're not rotating your hip or your foot from the gas to the brake. You're kind of lifting up the leg and then pushing on the brake and then lifting it up and pushing on the gas.
Speaker 2:If you're standing and you're teaching a classroom whether you're a teacher or professional, you know certainly standing upright with your shoulders back and then it gets a little bit more complicated depending on your shoe and your footwear. Right, If women are wearing high heels, you know you're basically working harder because your higher heels throwing your center of gravity forward, so you have to work really hard to stand upright a little bit more. The other thing, too, is if you have flat feet right, If you have flat feet and you're standing for prolonged periods of time or you're doing construction work, you want to have proper shoe wear. You want to have thick rubber sole boots, or you want to have someone assess your feet to see if you need an orthotic or some sort of lift that can potentially give you a little bit more support. So these are just some simple things that we're looking at. When patients are coming to us, you know what their work demands of them and how we can make it efficient for them to do their work demands.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think it's not an insignificant thing to discuss, because these sort of I'll tell you. For instance, I bought a couple years ago a stand for my laptop Because I noticed that when I was sitting at a desk I was hunched when I was on that laptop. And by getting a stand you know a cheap stand and raising that laptop up a bit, it just literally corrected my posture, literally corrected me, and it's simple things like that that really will make a long-term difference. And if you're not paying attention to those simple things, you could have a problem in the long-term, am I right?
Speaker 2:You are correct, and these are simple things that we emphasize to our patients. Hey, you know what does it mean to stand upright, you know, almost like you want to use the military as an example, but keeping your feet underneath your body, keeping your shoulders back, chest out, head straight and evenly distributing your weight on both legs. Some people will lean to one side where they'll carry a child on one side or a heavy purse. Some of these women with their purse, it's so heavy. I asked them is there a gold brick in there? Or you know some other silver brick that you can share with us? So these are the things that we just kind of go over a little bit and emphasize for them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nice, okay. So all right, let's let's jump into exercise. I know it's a real passion for you and I know those people listening. You're going to hear the speech about exercise. You're going to hear the speech about exercise. You're going to hear it because he's a physical therapist and it's his job. So you know, suck it up, because we're about to get the lecture, but we need to hear it. We can't hear it enough. Give us the you know, the general idea about what kind of exercise we should be doing, how much every week, and what it is we're trying to achieve.
Speaker 2:Hit us. Yeah, it's a great question and we try to keep them in simple forms as much as we can. We're not here to patronize people, but basically we tell everyone hey, whatever your baseline is, that you're doing every day, you have to exercise and elevate your heart rate to probably about 65% of your max heart rate. Now I know I don't want to get too complicated, but the general formula that we use is 220 minus your age. So if you're 40 years old, 220 minus 40 is 180. That's your max heart rate. You want to be at 65% of 180, which is roughly about 120 beats per minute. So you want to do vigorous exercise at 120 beats per minute for about 20 consecutive minutes.
Speaker 2:It can include anything. You could be going for a walk up a hill, you can go for a hike, a bike ride, you can use the elliptical, you can go for a run. That's something that we just encourage our patients to do three to four times a week and we ask them to sprinkle in a little weightlifting, especially for the men to help their testosterone levels, but just a little bit of weightlifting where you're elevating your heart rate too. So if you can exercise four times a week at a heart rate at 65% of your max. In two of those four days is weightlifting and two is general conditioning, whether it's swimming, biking, walking, hiking. I think that's recommended and that's certainly something that's going to help your overall well-being and your physical conditioning.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, that's not terrible. That's not terrible. He didn't give us the lecture. He didn't give us the lecture. But I want to ask you I've heard this many times walking and swimming are probably, for people that aren't incredibly in shape, the safest things to do. Am I right? There's the least like swimming. In particular, there's the least risk of injury, I've been told. Is that correct?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it depends on what the activity is. For example, you know, certainly running is going to put more force on your joints because there's more every time your foot hits the ground. There's a shock wave that will ripple through your body and maybe wear things down a little bit quicker. Absolutely that will ripple through your body and maybe wear things down a little bit quicker, absolutely. So I try to emphasize to our patients there are things that you can do besides running. Swimming is maybe the least stress on the joints and it's certainly a great cardiovascular workout, whereas walking and elliptical activity may be a little bit more rigorous. Biking is good from that standpoint, where you're getting your heart rate elevated and you're not putting too much force through your joints.
Speaker 1:But you are working your knees pretty hard when you're biking, right?
Speaker 2:It depends, Matt. That's a good question. We try to have a higher seat height where the knee isn't bending too much. Sometimes people have a low seat height when they're on the bike and their knees are getting a little bit more worn out.
Speaker 1:I say this just because I have a very good buddy who I've known since high school, who was a hardcore biker and he's now just had. You know he's now on his second knee replacement, you know. So he he blames it on the biking. He did a lot of karate too, so it might have had something to do with that as well. I don't know. But all right. Last question for you.
Speaker 1:Today there's a lot of people out there who just hate exercise. They just hate it, they just can't stand it. And I do not judge these folks at all. I'm not a big lover of exercise, although I do it. But there's a lot of people that just hate it. What do you say to them? And we know that you got to get you know. Frankly, I'm going to say you got to get off your ass and move, you just do. But for people that just really hate it, you know, what can you say to them? What words of encouragement can you give them that don't make them feel you know bad and guilty, but might make them enjoy it a little more or want to do it a little more? How do we get people that hate it motivated, want?
Speaker 2:to do it a little more. How do we get people that hate it motivated? Yeah, that's a great question too, because there are people that just they're not self-reliant on keeping up with exercise for their own wellbeing. So the first thing we do is we tell those patients hey, maybe there's someone that you can a partner or someone that can help motivate you and hold you accountable.
Speaker 1:A life coach, by the way. So when you do it, a life coach, by the way.
Speaker 2:So, when you do a life coach, a life coach, someone that can say, hey, you know, I'm going to hold you accountable, we're going to do this together. Um, you know, we're going to do it three or four times a week, um, and that's really something that usually will spark the interest and it's just something that starts simple with hey, you know, let's go for a walk around the block and then building off of it. You know, it's like anything else. Everyone has big goals in life. I want to have the big home, I want to have the big job, the big career. You have to start small and build on it, and that's really what you can do with someone who can hold you accountable.
Speaker 1:Are my listeners hearing what he just said? Because I did a whole half a show on that that it's not about.
Speaker 1:One of the reasons why we blow it with our New Year's Eve resolutions, for instance, is that our goals are too big. Our eyes are too big for our stomach. When it comes to goals, you make 1% improvements and over time they compound just like interest, and you will have, you know, huge improvements over time. They compound just like interest, and you will have, you know, uh, huge improvements over time. But the reason we fail so often is because we set our goals too big. So I'm so you walked right into my trap. Thank you, dr zico.
Speaker 1:That's awesome all right, uh, that's enough, uh, beating you up for today, but I'm very happy to say he's gonna come back. He's going to do another show with us, but first I want to remind you check him out at wwwspectrumptatcom. He's going to come back next week and we're going to discuss a variety of topics, including how environmental factors, such as workplace ergonomics, influence and affect physical habits. We talked about that a little bit today. We're going to get more in-depth about that Repetitive stress and overuse injuries which athletes have Everybody has those, seems like everybody has those.
Speaker 1:How technology is changing the game for physical therapy and tracking physical habits. I want to know if everybody's Apple Watch or whatever watch, smart watch is actually making people healthier because they can track each other we're going to find that out next week and what to do in particular to protect your health after the age of 50. I know that things change a little bit after 50. And I want the people out there that are over 50 to hear what they should do and a little more on how to, you know, be motivated to take better care of ourselves. You won't want to miss it. So, dr Zacon, this has been great. I can't thank you enough for taking the time to do this and for coming back to do this. Another time.
Speaker 2:Thank you for being here today, matt. Thank you for the opportunity. I'm looking forward to speaking with you and your listeners next week, and it'll be a great opportunity to learn a little bit more about what we can do to maintain a healthy well-being and a healthy lifestyle.
Speaker 1:And I know that we all want to hear that, so really appreciate you giving me this kind of time. Listen, everybody. This is it for today. I hope you've enjoyed this episode. If you did, please hit that subscribe or follow button so you will know every time I drop a new show. For now, thanks for listening. Be well, and I'll catch you next time on the Barrier Busting Podcast. Thank you.
