Athletes in Motion Podcast - EP 029 Dr. Chris Winter & Ben Potenziano

Narrator: 0:10

Welcome to the Athletes in Motion Podcast from Race to Recovery. With your hosts, Tom Regal, and Kenny Bailey.

Tom Regal: 0:29

Hey, Kenny, how you doing today?

Kenny Bailey<br>: 0:31

I'm doing fantastic, Tom, how are you?

Tom Regal: 0:33

I'm fantastic as well. We want to welcome Ben Potenziano back to the show. He's on a couple of weeks ago. And this is a rarity for us to have somebody on again. So they had to be decent. They had to be good conversation.

Ben Potenziano: 0:47

So remember, we're family, family to know that.

Tom Regal: 0:52

I'm still pulling the family card out here. Great to have been on and in our conversation. We were talking about sleep studies. And we were talking about the work that you did with Chris Winter and Dr. Chris Winter. Welcome to the show. We're able to I don't know if you've lost a bet with Ben or it's just his charisma that won you over to get you on the

Ben Potenziano: 1:14

show. But we appreciate you just want the best you want. Remember that the

Tom Regal: 1:18

best. So Chris is and we're gonna let him talk a little bit about his background and all but he's board certified sleep medicine specialist certified with the American sleep medicine and the board of American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, author of the sleep solution which Kenny is going to get this book gifted to him. This is basically this is all about Kenny on this whole show.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 1:43

The show is all about me again another therapy session.

Tom Regal: 1:45

That's that's what we're doing here. Also the rest of the child, and has a podcast asleep unplugged. Sleep unplugged. not asleep unplugged sleep on plug.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 1:55

Is it like an acoustic version? Yeah, it's an acoustic version asleep. You just unplug

Tom Regal: 2:00

it. Yeah. So we're and countless other publications and things. I think I originally saw one of your articles in Triathlete Magazine. So you've covered you've covered

Chris Winter: 2:12

a long time. I know it was a long No,

Tom Regal: 2:15

I know. But all good stuff. So welcome to the show. Welcome. Really glad to have you on here. Give us some background, what got you going down the path that took you into sleep studies and sleep specialties?

Chris Winter: 2:29

Yeah, it was a long, long time ago, it was all accidental. Growing up, I decided I wanted to be a doctor which a lot of kids do like between that. And ninja was really, really, really toss up man. Dr. Bade better I think I don't know how to get good information about how much ninja paid. But I would I got to college, I really had no information about it or so I got hooked up with some doctors who were doing research, they had a book out that you could just look up and see if there was a doctor doing something was appealing to you. And I remember thinking I'm going through this book, and just all looks terrible and boring and awful. And then there was this thing about sleep and doing research on sleep. And that was in 92 with this guy named Paul Surat at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and, and he's just the greatest guy to mentor. I never even thought sleep was part of medicine. It was all kind of like not only doctors do sleep like this is great. It's kind of cool. And so we started working together. And it was interesting, because back in 92, I said to him, you know, it'd be cool to look at the sleep of athletes. And I remember him saying something like, yeah, I use it. Nobody's really ever done that. And he said, That's the great thing about sleep is that it's wide open, whatever you want to look at. Nobody's probably looked at it yet, because it's such a new field. And we sort of forgot about it until after all my training and residency, I went back and started doing a research project on baseball players and presented it and it was the reason why I met Ben. I mean, the reason why I'm talking to you is because of Ben So you absolutely should have him on the podcast twice. I will never I was sitting in my little clinic it was a little little rundown clinic and I was partnered with this old Spaniard who asked me to join him in his clinic and then also started a sleep center and, and I was just doing this research on the side. And one day my office manager put her head and she said, you know there's a baseball team on the phone for you. And so then it seemed his research and was like, Oh, that that could really help us you know, so he was the one who made it all happen and so you know it was really going to be a one and done thing. I was not a plan to work with athletes. So with him we've just learned a lot over the years for sure. So that's that's how I got to be in this chair today.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 4:59

Yeah, So when you talk about research with athletes, what was it that was different that that made you made you look at that particular area that that you said, you know, athletes have a different? Was it just because of their field is different but the higher pressure what was those two or three things that were made you decide that athletes are the ones to look at?

Chris Winter: 5:19

What What was interesting to me was the idea that you've already got a population of individuals whose performance is being measured constantly. And those measurements are being made available to the public. So I could have said, you know, I'm really interested to see I'll travel effects insurance salesman or or accountant, exactly. I told my wife I said, on my show, I'll work with baseball players I said, should have gone with like gymnast. Female swimmer, like I don't know why big baseball player. But the point is, the athletes have this ready made body. Of, of it's a lab. I'm not even that interested in sports. But the lab itself is awesome. So and the other thing that was happening around the time I started doing this research subject was when the Montreal Expos were playing half their games in Puerto Rico. And I thought, Oh, God, Oh, interesting. This is a sign of God, this research that happened because for the first time, we've got baseball being played across five time zones instead of four. So it was that fact, coupled with I just gotten out of fellowship at a job and was getting paid and could do whatever I wanted to do. It was funny, I'll never forget one night, I'm like, crunching these numbers. And they were just baffling amounts of data, trying to figure out where each team was from a circadian rhythm perspective, every day during every game. And I said, What do you do as I'm doing this project on baseball I was going to do since I was an undergrad, and she said how much you get paid for anything? And she's like, well, I don't know about that. Eventually, after the presentation, the first presentation MLB funded us to look at it for ten years so I did get some money but

Kenny Bailey<br>: 7:07

not so your wife was like maybe that ninja thing after all, you know it's killing relooking at your job.

Chris Winter: 7:13

Everything comes down to I see you spending time doing x and what are we getting out of x you not being present

Kenny Bailey<br>: 7:21

was something that you walked in with with I mean, you had to be a thesis that you were coming in with was was the thesis, a timezone changes with a thesis of like, evening versus day, give us a little bit of background on the kind of

Chris Winter: 7:33

research or rec rec HT who had done a study where he basically was looking at traveling exclusively from the west coast. So giants heading off to play the Braves or whatever, on the east coast. And I remember looking at that study, I thought was really pioneering and amazing, but I remember thinking, well sure the giants are playing Atlanta but what what are the Giants been doing recently have been with a in Washington played a few games and maybe playing a game or two in Baltimore, and then came to Atlanta before they went home. But did they just arrive because it matters as soon as a convention in sleep that every time zone you travel, it takes you about 24 hours to adjust. I would argue that a younger athlete might adjust quicker, older coach might take a little bit longer, which is funny because whenever you go work with a team, the players like nah, screw off. And coaches are like, man, you gotta help me. Coach and you're 62 years old, he's like, dude, I'm 51 What do you mean? 63? Right. So, so that so that convinced and I was like, well, this research doesn't really take into account so I thought it should. And so every team is constantly in motion. So when the Braves go out to play the Dodgers, after they've been there for a few days. They're a West Coast team. So when they come back home, there's another adjustment that's happening there. So that my thesis was the more unadjusted you were to your current timezone. Whether you're playing at home or you're away, was really the most influential thing in terms of how the team performed. So it created this idea that the Giants could be messing around somewhere on the East Coast, fly home and on day one, they're playing a team Pittsburgh, or Miami, in Miami and Miami is playing giants you battle of Ben's old teams. But Miami has been on the west coast for seven days. Yeah, the giants are just getting back. So you've got the giants with the home field advantage. And so I wanted to give a name for what the Marlins have the Marlins have the circadian advantage. And so that's where that all came up with and my thought was, it was the circadian advantage that really was dictating a lot of team performance. I'll tell you a really funny story. When I presented in Minnesota the tenure guy from Michigan came up to me as a young student, he said, I can't remember his name and I'm a grad student at the University of Michigan. And he said, I really like your research because I used to I'm a mathematician by trade and went into medicine. He said, I used to work for big time Vegas gambling outfits. And he said, your algorithm that you've come up with in terms of the percentage of how this impacts the game is exactly the algorithm that we use. Wow. I remember thinking number one, this is because he's number two, that I discovered nothing that began people didn't already know PAC guy, because

Kenny Bailey<br>: 10:37

yeah, but you put data behind it. You got it. You got a title, right. So Dr. Winter is gonna be working for FanDuel. Moving forward. sponsored, sponsored by FanDuel. Exactly.

Chris Winter: 10:50

I've had several people say, it was funny, this, this little Korean guy did my statistics. He didn't speak a lot of English. And he said something like, I forget what his words were, but it was kind of like, you should be using your doctoring to cure cancer. He said, everybody knows this, I thought was really funny. Like, he's like, of course, when you travel, it's gonna mess you up. Like, you know, why am I wasting time? And why are you wasting time doing this? Well, I guess it's helping nobody except gamblers.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 11:21

Yeah, I guess that's the question. Yeah, we had a, we had a gentleman named Ian on he was a chef and a personal trainer for MMA fighters. And he was watching them try to cut weight. And he was trying to say, Look, you guys are actually being dangerous, the amount of fluids you're losing, and your dehydration, you're going into the fight. Dangerous. And so he was trying to figure out a way to do it in a way that was more healthy and get these guys ready to go. And he was basically shunned for years. So I have to ask about sleep studies. I mean, when you know, I think like you said, I think when Ben proudly approached you, it was probably a nice surprise to say, you know, people are taking this seriously. When you look at sleep, I mean, everyone to your point, they almost feel like it's intrinsically obvious, right? I don't get enough sleep, I'm gonna be lethargic, I'm gonna probably not perform very well. Did you have that challenge of sort of getting you just getting past sort of that initial, like, to your point, you got a statistician, this is telling me like, Well, yeah, this is obvious. I mean, what what were the numbers, you had to show that suddenly it showed it was a significant way that it did have an impact, and that you can correct it? Because it's one thing to point out a problem. It's another thing to say, Okay, here's the three things you can do about it. Right? Was it a struggle to try to get through that mountain? I guess? It was

Chris Winter: 12:38

a mountain. It wasn't for me. It's for Ben. You know, what's interesting is true. We look at the organization, the numbers are there. I mean, no, no, I don't think anybody intrinsically believes that sleep is unimportant. nutrition isn't important, or stretching or physical therapy, or mindfulness is important. Yeah. So the numbers are there. I think the numbers are there in droves. But there's also fighting a mentality of sleep is intrinsically a little weak sounding. I gotta take a nap. Yeah, exactly. With my blankie or, you know, I don't know what. So I think that the battle was never, you know, I get pulled into an organization by an individual. That individual is always bought in Ben was bought in, he didn't even know what he was talking about this. This makes sense to me. Let's talk about it. Then it becomes who who has Ben reported to and how's the structure of the, so you throw it out over, you know, a decade or two. Within an hour or two of arriving, you can kind of figure out what's going on? Like, I remember I was some of the best discussions I've ever had about sleep or with Bruce Bochy, like I mean, he'd sit down and you sleep doc. Well, I've been you know, to talk about stuff like so I've always found that your mark number one that you were probably within a good organization is like the big P the managers in the GMs. One, the leadership's not going to buy into it Yeah, work with the with the Oklahoma City Thunder and Scotty Brooks would always make time he knew my name. Hey, Dr. Winter was going on and we'll talk to you at lunchtime today like he and he would come with questions. I read this thing about this thing you put on your forehead is that any good like so you know versus teams where that athletic trainer who brought you in is bought in but you can tell it just the rest of the organization hasn't quite gotten there yet. It's still your first one in last one out the best person and we have a cot in our coach's office where he sleeps you know like and that's means He's a great leader. And so it's interesting, you know, Indians, Tito and their managers just fantastically interested in sleep. That distills down I mean, Ben can I don't get to see behind the curtain like Ben does, but it's still a barrier but Uh, you know, in 20 years sleep will be like Gatorade. Everybody believes in it. Everybody got Gatorade stocked up in the face. Everybody's got sleep person who's helping them out or whatever. It's just standard what we do can't believe back in the day. We didn't have sleep people, you know, it's called nutritionist. Yeah. Who's your church? Oh, we don't have a full time nutritionist. What? Your professional organization in New York City, you know that? You have a full time nutritionist. That's great. Yeah. Anyway, but Ben can talk to more about that.

Ben Potenziano: 15:27

Oh, no, no, bring up the point that what you just said, Chris is like we go back to that point is like, I remember the point in time when we did this and explained it to you guys prior to that is like that 10 year study. No one shared that with us. And I was like, This is absurd. I said, I'm sitting in sitting in Colorado. And we're, it's the seventh thing. And they put this blip on there. This 10 year study, I go, how did we not know about this? How did we not get involved? And that's how I reached out to a friend at the offices in New York. And they gave me Chris and I'm like, Dude, you got to help us because we're doing this all the time. We're in San Francisco. Think of the travel that we're doing. And it just seemed like it made sense. And the other thing I wanted to bring apart because you might remember this is we were planning to we there was 2010. And we had just beaten the Braves. And now we had to go play the Phillies and I remember getting in the office. If you remember this, it was Brian Sabian, Bruce Bochy, Dave aggression and who's still there, my buddy, the head trainer, and myself. And we talked to Chris, and he said, they were in because they're there, they wanted to find the advantage of how we're going to do, how can we beat the Phillies, and we've got to travel. And I remember that, to me, that's where I was like, Okay, we're starting to make more sense of this. And they're starting to understand. And it's still a process, Chris, you know that. But it's, that's where I think we made some headway. And, you know, it was great to have him there, because I had him on the other line, and we had their ears, you know, the manager and the GM. And he listened. And we did, we did really what he suggested. So

Chris Winter: 16:57

I'll never forget 2010 They were so out of nowhere, and they'd beat the hell out of the Phillies. so quickly that Sports Illustrated, which comes out every week, really didn't have enough time to introduce the average sports fan to the Giants, who I don't think were really predicted to be in the World Series. Now. By the time they figured all that out, he'd already beaten the road to Philly. And it's funny because I do some work for Philadelphia, and they're still sore about Dallas.

Ben Potenziano: 17:33

Philly, I leave that alone

Kenny Bailey<br>: 17:34

across to all the sports but I

Chris Winter: 17:36

always say that that was such a bad circadian matchup for Philadelphia that tried to make them feel bad or like you were working the DNA in your cells, man.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 17:49

So I guess that's the question. It's okay, so you're on the phone with these guys. What specifically? Are you recommending one of those? What do you like? I haven't read the books as well, as you can tell. But what? What is that thing that you're trying to do? So you got the circadian rhythms are off? What are you recommending? Is it is it? I think we were talking to you, Ben, like, you know, make sure they get sleep in the afternoon. I mean, what are those things that you're trying to get them? And is it just the athletes? Or do you talk about the coaches as well? Or is it?

Chris Winter: 18:16

Yeah. Oh, go backwards. In your questions there. I think you've got to involve the entire staff, coaches, athletic training. When you look at the people who are getting hammered the most with sleep problems, it's often not the players, I mean, Ben's got to get there early, set everything up, and be ready for the players. When they arrive, game happens, they leave and then they break it all down and get ready to you know, the responsibilities that some of those individuals have. I don't really understand how anybody could have families and lives and it's like neurosurgeons like divorce rates What 90 But they just work themselves crazy. I mean, it's it it's so interesting to me what it looks like from the outside oh man to work for Miami get these great Miami swag and hats and be on the team bus and be around all these players man I bet that wears off in about three weeks your jobs get better love what you do,

Kenny Bailey<br>: 19:10

you know, that's not compliment, right there

Chris Winter: 19:14

are people I'm fooling everyone does he's amazing. Do I mean you can see the people who were in it for the swag are not gonna be very long. But yeah, but you know, so it's interesting that what we're trying to do is number one, I mean back in that time, it's just respect sleep. You know, it's it's a performance enhancing drug. But when you start really breaking down what we were doing with that Phillies series, it's every circadian rhythm is not just sleep, it's everything our bodies do. Okay? It's red blood cell production, body temperature, hormone release, athletic performance. Everything has a peak and a trough if you plot it out. So if you had a baseball player, you know, do some sort of hitting challenge every hour, 24 hours a day, you would see his plot peaks around Probably four o'clock in the afternoon draws about two hours before he gets up in the morning. It's generally the way we think about athletic performance. So it's all about how can we make that athletes peak lineup with that time when he's about to perform. And so, at the time, when we were working with Ben, we were treating the team as an average collective, okay, if you're on average, it's going to be better for your team to travel after the game and get in here, because that'll put you all at a certain advantage, versus we just went through it with the wizards because they just went to Tokyo to play preseason game now. We didn't give a shit about those games. So they just needed to get to Tokyo, play two games and get back without people getting sick and hurt. Yeah, but we were trying to make that disappear. We were trying to keep them optimally prime for East Coast time, despite the fact they're traveling halfway around the world. For the World Series, we're trying to make them peak at that game time, which are a little bit unusual because of primetime viewing and stuff like that. So it's really about okay, what can we do to make that brain think it's at its peak performance time. And as as you go on, you start to understand that certain players, you're more morning oriented or evening oriented, and Ben and I did some research, we were looking at pitchers, and if you were designated we did some surveys on players and figured out they were morning types or night owls. And then over the next season, did it matter in terms of when they pitched the night owls actually pitch better at night to the day people actually better and earlier games? Absolutely. Then he and I did a study on hitters same thing. So then it becomes, okay, well, this is a critical at bat or we're down in this game that will make us do in the playoffs. It's like you pick the left handed or the right handed person or whatever to pick, you know, now it's all of a sudden, maybe we should pick, pick the night oriented bat or the night oriented pitcher, because it's such a late game. Now. We played one, they played one game when they came to DC. And those are rain delay, they ended up playing it. I mean, it was so late. So as you start to look at these types of things, you can start to break down more individual game plans for every year. If you look at it closer, why did we went up to you what you don't want a morning oriented come in until 10 o'clock at night to save the day, right? So it's really important to assess those individuals and make sure that they're peaking at the right time. There's all kinds of interesting little tools and things you can do to make that happen.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 22:20

Yeah, but some of these players I mean, especially for basketball and other sports, and I'm not sure about baseball, but you know, you've got your your, your starting five in basketball, that they're going to be on that court. So I don't care if they're a night sleeper or a night owl or sleeper, guess what, you're going to play the game, right? So do you generally have to go more individual I mean, so the higher the contract, if you will, the more individualized is that kind of way.

Chris Winter: 22:42

And I think that player involvement matters, too. If the player is not that interested, you know, listen, you're really morning oriented, or you got to stop, you know, the one of the things you always see as a guy as a couple of kids, and now he wants to get up and get his workout done to our workout in which we can be there when the kids wake up, take them to school, that's awesome. points for being a fantastic present Father, you're training yourself to be athletically great at 4am. So you tell me one NBA game that starts at 4am. And I'm saying so see it in the average and the average athlete, I'm training for my triathlon every day when I get home from work. And then you get down to Florida for the big half iron, and it starts at 5am. And you're wondering why you didn't get your PR? Yeah, you felt terrible, because you've never trained at 5am? Yeah, so it's really interesting. Yeah, so the NBA is different. It's a smaller group of individuals, you can be a bit more selective with them, you know, bigger baseball teams and the fluidity of their their movements. But at least you can look at that and say, Okay, well, this is such a night oriented guy, and we're going to set him for 13 games a season, we'll rest him for you, I'm sure there's some algorithm they have about, he's not going to play, every game will rest him for the day games, that he's the ultimate Knight. So there's little things that you can look at, I mean, again, there's a million things a manager is gonna look at to figure out what they're going to do with an individual or a team or player. But it just becomes one metric to look at left handed right handed, you know, whatever.

Ben Potenziano: 24:10

Chris, let me ask you, when I know, I think we've talked about this before. But when you look at the NBA players, you look at, majorly, we're looking at athletes, what common traits are you seeing between the sleeps issues? Are we seeing because NBA goes in could be the night before play the game pack up and then leave because I've had friends that are athletic trainers in the NBA. And they're like, well, we'd like your scheduled better. And because you're in town for three days or four days, but we're playing 162 and there, but the whole thing, it's different. And I you know, can you kind of explain a little bit the common traits or the common things that you're seeing that has maybe benefited both, but you've worked with that you've seen this work that might be able to shed some light on that to different athletes, so to speak, but their athletes Yeah,

Chris Winter: 24:56

no, great point. I mean, sort of the spectrum of NFL, NHL, NBA MLB in terms of travel, you know, travel once a week 16 games, little more frequent in hockey more frequent. So, yeah, so the common thing I think is, what are we doing after the travel, the Major League Baseball does have the advantage of getting into a place and being there longer. But they're still it's still the movement. So the common thing that you see is, is we're going to plan for these bigger trips. And that's what most teams want help with. And in Major League Baseball, yes, they stay there a little bit longer, but they still make a lot of trips during the year. Now, the Mets playing the Yankees who nobody cares about that are the Yankees playing Boston, a system, little quick trip up, it's usually looking at the bigger trips. And frankly, with Major League Baseball, there's sort of the marathon aspect to it that what I find so fascinating about baseball, and not all these ideas for studies, but that mean nothing but one of the studies, I would love to do, or I'd love to see, I'm sure somebody's done it is how a team starts the season. And how the first you know, month predicts the the end of the season who makes the playoffs? I imagine it's completely arbitrary, it means nothing. So I'm always fascinated by and try to tell players look, baseball is such a long season. If you could just lie down and take a 15 minute rest every day, starting today during spring training. And you made it a goal to I'm going to seek a quiet environment every day. And with a lie down and close my eyes. If you fall asleep, great. If you don't, it's no big deal, just rest for 15 minutes. And then you compound that over an entire season. What I feel like is the key to a baseball team is I want my team at the end of the season, to be the most rested, that you're coming into October with a lot more in your tank than everybody else. Because you're going to perform better, you're gonna get injured less. If you tweak something, you'll bounce back from it quickly. So great that you only lost one game, the first month of the season. It's a meaningless at the end of the mean. So I really find that to be interesting. So the travel and the sleep sort of maintenance over the season is really what it's all about him and it can be something as you know, hey, our catcher just had twins. And he's really struggling, you know, well let me talk to his his partner and let's get a plan in place. For the kids in the family who's a basketball player from another country, his wife had a baby, and both families from whatever staan came. And we're living with him in the apartment. And the team said he doesn't leave the training center anymore. He just he's like, everybody's there. It's impossible. And they're all surrounding the baby. So it's injured at a guy went he was scared to travel. He scared to stay in a hotel, an NBA player because he went one time and a fan a woman had gotten into his hotel room and hit the guy showered, he got in bed watching ESPN in his boxers and she walked out the closet and said, Can I get you anything to eat? And he was like, are you coming from the hallway like service person you realize she's coming right out of my closet. So there's a what do you do orders are causative? Definitely not.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 28:39

You know, I could go see lunch. So how much is that you mentioned? I guess my my initial thought when we came into this was around performance. But you know, you mentioned injury. You mentioned other things. Have you seen a direct correlation? Or can you draw a direct correlation between sort of when you see fatigue coming in and when especially throughout the season is that a study that you've done or want to do?

Chris Winter: 29:00

Can you know is interesting, I remember, Ben was instrumental in getting the pirates to set up nobody wanted to call it a nap room because nap right sounded like sounded lazy and I'll never forget they called it the regeneration room Nice. Ben was nice enough one time to give my kids like low passes. So my two little boys were walking around for the game and they said what's the regeneration room they couldn't go in because it had this cool lock which I'll tell you about a minute. And I said oh the regeneration rooms like that place where they take a player if he slides too hard to second gets his arm ripped off the scientists in there you'll know it because there'll be a sleeve on their arm. Oh my goodness years they would watch baseball games regeneration route but it's cool. It's title and that's great story was Ben had it set up where you had a key card and you swiped it. And you got into the room, and the keycard allowed the pirates to figure out who was using it. And I'll never forget, I got a call. It wasn't from Ben, it was from somebody who like crunch numbers for the pirates. And it was, it was probably a year or two after they started it. And they said, it's very clear, I just wanted to let you know that we've crunched the numbers. And it's very clear that the players who are using the regeneration room are performing better. And so it was really cool that this was not something I was involved in. But the pirates, which I think I tell players, all the teams all the time, do the math, let's figure out if what we're saying to players is truly working. I believe it is. But if you tell me Look, Chris, everybody you help sleep does poorly. I'll retire today and show me the numbers. I'm out. I hurt people for God's sakes. But this guy was like no, no there. So you can say, well, it's not the room. It's because people who care about their health and their performance are more likely to use it

Kenny Bailey<br>: 30:54

to make a person who has a correlation or causes.

Chris Winter: 30:57

Relationships. Thank you very much. That's exactly right. But I thought that was interesting that they felt really positively about it.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 31:02

Yeah, it's like a Volvo. Right? People think Well, is it the car that safer? Or is it the fact that safer people generally playing football, it's exactly that doesn't matter. As long as the performance goes. I mean, if it's if

Chris Winter: 31:12

that's that's, we don't care. They're doing better. So

Kenny Bailey<br>: 31:16

they're doing better right?

Chris Winter: 31:18

Now the great thing about a room like that, with a big sign says regeneration room. It's a symbol to every player, not only the veteran that can do what they want to do, but the new players will be scared. I don't know if I should take a nap, it might look bad. It's a symbol to the team that we care about sleep. We care so much, we built this room for you to go take a nap in it. And I think that's really important. Like Arianna Huffington, when she naps in her office, she does it with the door open. So all of our employees can see her like, passed out on the back, or whatever. So I love that. So sleep positive.

Tom Regal: 31:51

Yeah. And I think it's putting a positive mark on it by saying calling it something like a regeneration room or something like that. You're you're giving you're giving that to your people, that this is a positive thing, not a negative kind of bad thing to do. So you're what's so

Chris Winter: 32:07

brilliant about it is it's like a kid with a nap. Never call it a nap never talked about sleep to say okay, it's rest time. Yeah, yeah. Because they're saying the same to the players, you could come in here and lie down and close your eyes and put the little noise machine on and think about your girlfriend or your celebrity crush or whatever you got going on in your mind. That's good. That's regenerative. It doesn't involve necessarily you becoming unconscious and falling asleep. So players are, you know, anxious. Sons of bitches they got to perform tomorrow, not get sleep. And so yeah, I love the fact that they call it that because everybody can rest, everybody can lie down and close your eyes, that's always under our control whether you sleep or not. And that's a little bit more up in the air. But you know, they're saying to the players come in here and rest. That's all we want you to do. And it's going to make you regenerated.

Ben Potenziano: 32:59

And then

Tom Regal: 33:01

go ahead, I can relate it back to back when I was in college, I was trying to try to finish up, took a whole bunch of extra credits and was killing myself kind of going through this thing. But I needed to take a PE class, and the PE class I took was yoga. And this is way back before it was cool. Right? Before it was anything else. It was just this, it was just this yoga class, I'm going gray. The reason I took it is because it wasn't like we do the stretches, we do some of the poses and stuff like that, but then they would take 10 minutes or 15 minutes at the end of this whole thing. And we would just lay out flat and a nice relaxed position. And then she would kind of talk us through this thing. And that was the only 15 minutes in my week that I got to actually just chill, right because I was I was projects 22 credit hours trying to get I was trying to finish up this in you know, in a certain amount of time. And it was just like, I thought it was awesome. And it was the only piece that I got. Did I do that when I started working, you know, 67 hours and trying to be a triathlete at the same time now I kind of lost that because I I needed to get back to that. But it was that one piece now that I look back at it was like probably the only reason why I finished that year.

Chris Winter: 34:17

Imagining you know, the yoga offering at the Naval Academy. Yeah, right suddenly the most popular course.

Tom Regal: 34:27

Exactly. So

Ben Potenziano: 34:30

good. Go ahead. Yeah, no plates,

Kenny Bailey<br>: 34:32

five seats gonna ask I mean, you know, to get new players coming in been, you know, they're 23 years old. You know, they're invincible. They play video games probably till 2am Right? They they never get injured because you know, that kind of thing. But the older players started understanding like, Hey, I've got I've got a shelf life, you know, and I'm starting to see that I have a shelf life. Is it more difficult to get those younger players you call it regeneration room, whatever want to call it I'm not. I think it's fantastic. You do In Is it is it? It seems like for those guys, especially those guys that need to perform, because their next contract, I mean, they're probably on a rookie contract. And so if they actually do perform well, that can be financially beneficial to do that is Is it difficult or more or less difficult to try to get those guys at? Is there an age issue? I guess is the question I'm asking.

Ben Potenziano: 35:22

It's interesting, because if you go where Chris and I started when it was a veteran club, then from there, they didn't have asleep room backgrounds with the Giants. This was all this is where it all came together. Then when we got the Pittsburgh, it became a little 50. And then that room was something that here's the thing with the sleep room, coaches looked at as like naps, who needs a nap nap? Now, you know, that was a little bit of a problem that we were dealing with always laying down in there taking a nap. And just like, we had to get away from that stigma of like, it's not a nap. It's again, we're just trying to get them prepared for you. So they're at their best for us because we're together on this. So that was the fight a little bit, but then it started to go away. But now Now with the Marlins, they allowed us to, they gave, hey, here's a room, I asked for it. I said, here's a room. And Chris, like I haven't, we've talked about chairs, we were able to get three chairs in there now that you know, the antigravity and all of that, and then the air purifier and the blue lights again. And now that we're using it, going back to your question, these younger guys are using it because it's it's kind of how we looked at is like, recovery is important. So we wanted to understand this as like a safe a safe zone, you can go in there because then we put third bodies in there. So they can go in, lay in the chair with a third body on their legs or their arms so they can get so we're now we're using a two fold, right? We want to get to we want you to get the compression, all of that to help. And that's what we were promoting. And we're promoting this. And you're right. And like Chris helped me with some of these guys that are still playing video games before in the morning. Then sleep till 1231 o'clock get in their cars, come over eat lunch, and then here we go. That's what I got. I got it done. I love the kid. But that's his routine. That was his routine. I'm just like, hey, you know so it's like that's the younger guys are by have bought into it. Not that they have bought it. The older guys have to I mean, we have some older guys, so to speak. When you say older, I think our oldest player was 34. This year it went from 23 to 34. It was 134 it was 31. And then everyone else was under 30. Oh guys, yes. We're gonna go. Yeah, it was 23 Yeah, that was it. We had young kids young. So this was I think also good for us to educate. You have the it's also

Chris Winter: 37:39

interesting to like, it's always sad when the older player is starting to slide now he's super interested in sleep.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 37:47

Yeah, exactly. Trying to figure out what that trigger

Chris Winter: 37:50

job is to convince that 23 year old I know you're the best on the field, like you can show up drunk with your arm your two year Exactly. Still beat out to be blunt. so convincing that person that they can do better or be here longer. It's a trick man. It's a key words is your skill. So you know whether you can tape an ankle or you know, the ability to communicate with a player while you're doing this, which Ben does and try to let you know. Invest in yourself. This is something that will pay dividends and you will want to do this at some point in the future. And when you look at athletes always think about Grant was that guy from Duke Blinken on the right Hill, Grant Hill. Grant Hill got it early. I remember when the very first time I ever met the Oklahoma, Oklahoma City Thunder Kevin all he was on the team guy went on to UConn I think won a national championship. I remember sitting down with him and the guy was asleep fanatic. You know thought his neighbors were too loud never partied never thinking what a weird NBA player like and you know, it was cool as the guy stayed around looking as his his career he just always made a roster and I think he did because that got figured out sleeps important from the get go like he wasn't somebody you had to come to it later in his career. So that's why I like working with young athletes, college athletes, you know, minor leaguers. Not that adult like the professionals, but they're hungry to like, it's like I love triathletes you mentioned I've got this seat for your bike. It's point oh, two ounces lighter. It's only $3,000 Oh, absolutely. Where do I get the bandage I'll take

Tom Regal: 39:45

any triathletes we love.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 39:50

I told my wife. I told my wife you can spend less money on cocaine than carbon fiber and I still say the same way. My carbon fiber habit it's actually more Branson than just, you know, snorting coke and being like, yeah, that's about right.

Chris Winter: 40:06

Yeah, they're hungry. Yeah. But I think there's a Murli. It's a cool thing, I think, I think.

Tom Regal: 40:14

Yeah, if we could get triathletes would be a fantastic pool to do a sleep study on basically, because they're trying to do everything. They're so driven. They're looking at every little data point. Now they're, they're starting to wear the glucose monitors all the time, they're starting at, you know, they've got the aura rings, they've got all of the data, that they're just crying, I don't think they know what to do with it, to be honest with you. It's just gathering all this data, because it's data that's supposed to help them, but parsing through all of it, and making sense of it, and then and then tying it into their regular life, like their family life and all this other stuff. There's, there's a whole market that needs to help these people. Oh, absolutely.

Chris Winter: 40:55

Market is not taking advantage of the situation. Ben can talk to you about this. I mean, I see it all the time. We now have accelerometers, we now have this plate that measures your explosive force, and we're doing it. And it's always interesting. What are you doing with the data? Man, I just have a better time to collect it correct? You need time to think about it. It's almost like you know, there's no time to think because we're just collecting, collecting, collecting, and it always falls on somebody who's already in the organization. So there may be a pot of gold and some of this data. But if you don't have time to sit and think and look at patterns and create hypotheses about if you're just collecting the data, it's like you said it's becomes an O and then it gets it creates a feedback loop. We bought all these sleep monitors, and paid all this money for them. What did we get out of it? Yeah. Like I was working with an NHL team. And they're like, We want to put monitors on all players like don't. That's crazy, like much, you got 75 Where your senior players already sleeping just fine. Why do we need that? But yeah, I mean, God slow and focus our questions in our therapies on those individuals, rather than just sleep monitors for everybody, which will be on the shelf and three years collecting dust that we spent 1000s of dollars on and what did we get out of it? Nothing? Yeah,

Kenny Bailey<br>: 42:11

I think Tom's got a great point. The fitness industry, by far loves gadgets, right? So we think if we can measure our steps, that behavior change occurs, right. And, you know, I came from the corporate world, in the corporate world, you know, when you're, when you're looking at data and dashboards and everything else, you got to be careful too, because what you measure could drive the wrong behavior. Right. So if you start measuring things, that's cool. But if you start measuring things and make decisions on things, you can start driving the wrong behavior on those things. And so I see this fallacy happening in the fitness world where Tom's point we got or rings, we got all these things, we got all this data. That's great. But if it doesn't change behavior, if it doesn't drive the right action. What does it matter? So I measure to your point, I can measure my gait? Okay, I have no idea how to what I'm supposed to do with my gait? Absolutely. It's answered is footpod. Right. It's like, I just want to know, you know, how I'm feeling and what we need to do what's going on. And one day,

Chris Winter: 43:08

there was this great headband many years ago, Zo that did a great job of measuring sleep. And it failed very quickly, because nobody knew what knew what to do with the data set, sort of like the Miami invest in the best MRI ever. But they have no orthopod or radiologist to interpret. So you've got a bunch of amazing pictures of knees and shoulders all over the clubhouse. I don't know what to do with it. Okay, but it's the best picture we could ever get. And I think a lot of teams are buying the MRI, they don't buy the radiologist. And we're not we're old is how is it it'll change. Eventually, you'll wear something it'll tell you exactly what you need to do. And it'll be scientifically correct. But right now, wild west right now of and we're looking at cell cell

Tom Regal: 44:00

answers. We're looking for data for day to week and we go okay, that tells us I mean, your 10 year study, you need to 10 years to show the patterns the pattern is what we need to be looking for.

Chris Winter: 44:13

will say that they'll be like, I couldn't have trouble sleeping. I bought this thing and exactly what happened. Like I'm still having trouble sleeping like what did you think was going to happen with signal up your arm into your sleeping? Like really?

Kenny Bailey<br>: 44:30

Take that thing and go grab some whiskey and then the watch is

Ben Potenziano: 44:39

interesting again, real quick. Again, it's like we go back to numbers. It's so funny. You say this because we get all this data, right? We get reports workload reports every day. I'd love to share them with you. It shows you when you open up there's seven pages there. Seven. Okay, now listen, we we have these conversations. It's like And this is what I want to this is what I want to like to create as a group as a performance group this year is like, let's start to decipher because we talked about what are we going to test people for in spring training? What's important? Well, let's look at what's important for each player. Is it from the ground up? It's a hit thoracic mobility, what do we want to focus on to decrease injuries in the course of the year? So it's the same thing you're talking about? It's like, we need to focus on the number that's pertinent for the group because they're all trying to figure out what's, what's the problem with injuries this year, they're up, they're up again, and they can't blame it on. We've got to get beyond COVID. You know, it's not because it's not, you know, it's like, okay, we only played six games. Okay, but we had all this time to build, there's no, no, let's, let's rethink this. So that's where we are.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 45:46

So one of the things that Tom and I do this is athletes in motion, we're trying to track it like regular human beings about what's going on. And it's also my therapy session. So Doctor, I'm glad you're here today. It's really a cry for how seriously I felt like he chose versus therapy for me. So I've got a I've got an Ironman coming up in two and a half weeks. So I'm sitting in Tennessee, the Ironman is in California, which means I'm gonna be two timezones before I get there, so my intent, and usually my intent is always to get there on a Thursday and the race is on Sunday. Get there Thursday, because if there's anything wrong with the plane flight, or whatever else, you have to check in Friday, Saturday, sort of your day to make sure that you know, all the equipment's working, everything's good, you do the check ins, and then Sunday morning, you get up at 430. And then go right, and so Tom, who is my track coach, their drive the writing notebook. You know, so we, for example, the swim is going to start at roughly 730 in the morning. So we've been out in the lake at 730 in the morning, so I'm feeling pretty good about that. So people like me, the everyday person we have, I run to a recovery lounge, we have somebody that just took off to Berlin, to go to the marathon, we've got somebody going to Chicago to do the marathon, we've got a lot of people that are traveling for these really big events. So I guess Dr. What would you recommend that I do? You know, when I land? Is it a is it a Thursday? Sort of rest and relax? Or how do I get my circadian back to I try to just get on West Coast time as quickly as possible? Because this is what kind of on the podcast, this is what people are kind of curious about.

Chris Winter: 47:19

Yeah, so generally, when you're thinking about east to west Travel, it's usually best to get out there a little bit earlier. But the convention is because that most athletes who are going from the East Coast to the West Coast are going to play a game that starts at seven o'clock Eastern Standard Time. So if you get out there quickly, that seven o'clock game feels more like a five o'clock game. Yeah. So because you're on the back end of the circadian rhythm, you're actually my guess is that gun goes off for your iron man at what 5am or something like that?

Kenny Bailey<br>: 47:51

Yeah, six 7am. Yeah, seven. Yeah. So. So

Chris Winter: 47:55

things can be a little bit different there in terms of, you know, when do you train and whatnot. So going from east to west quickly out there, when that five o'clock gun goes off, it feels a little bit more, it's gonna feel a bit different for you in terms of your where you're so generally speaking, what we tell people to do is get out there and get light very quickly. So, you know, when you arrive there, there was this also this really interesting study that CEPR did up at Harvard, where he basically showed that your circadian rhythm can be suspended with starvation, and so you don't so on your flight out to the West Coast, maybe you skipped dinner that night, try not to eat on the plane. And when you get to your place out in California, you eat your first meal on the on the schedule that they would so if you're hungry at five, hang in there, make it to seven and eat dinner there is what he showed was that your brain will suspend your circadian rhythm in cases of starvation. Because if you're a squirrel, and you can't find nuts, it doesn't make sense to sleep for six hours when you haven't eaten. So you're going to eat and once you eat, this is the circadian rhythm would sort of restart on that time. So I've talked to business travelers, as a triathlete or athletes always will refer like hey, don't eat for a little while that might screw other things.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 49:20

Yeah, no kidding. So say for

Chris Winter: 49:23

drinking or point of the year you know, and have your big main meal when you get out there just because but you know, I think it's gonna work well for you. I think the harder transition would be the California person training comes to Tennessee for triathlon that don't do that crazy. The

Tom Regal: 49:42

Barkley Barkley marathons.

Chris Winter: 49:45

Yeah, I think I think the West Coast athletes that start the bark Leah with three and with the bugle going off with struggle but that's feeling like Yeah, but you know, just being outside having meals outside you know, is a really is a really good thing and yeah, think that this transition will work really well for you, that will be good.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 50:04

Yeah. Because I think that's to your point, you know, everyone worries to things that are kind of interesting one is sort of I am, I'm not a morning person, I hate mornings. So me too, you know, you know, I gotta meet Tom at 7am. And I'm dragging my ass trying to get out there. And then we have a good swim. And I'm like, Oh, that was great, you know, but, but to your point, you have a lot of athletes that are worrying, not they worry about sleep other than, you know, I just I gotta go to bed at night. But they're super nervous, right? There's going to be 4500 athletes, we've got, you know, like I said, we got a gal that just went over to Munich where, you know, it's 30,000 people that are running that race, right? And how does how does if it's one of your first marathons, these are amateurs, these are pros that have figured out, you know, kind of, like, you know, this is this is how I make my money and I and all that sort of stuff. I don't know if the tension is different, but for amateurs, sleep is sort of the night before almost guaranteed that most people get a really lousy night's sleep is it is it's, you know, you can do the obvious stuff. Like don't don't look at a screen and you know, make sure you go to bed. I mean, it's that just sort of just do the brach blocking and tackling and your body should be okay with that. Is that kind of stuff. I always

Chris Winter: 51:12

tell athletes sleep is the most important thing in the world outside of bacon and sex. But sleep is irrelevant.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 51:19

In that order just

Chris Winter: 51:23

sleeps irrelevant. So the point is, you're a good sleeper. It's kind of like a baseball player saying, Hey, Ben, I'm not going to go today. Why not? Well, I didn't eat dinner last night. So I can't Yeah, I think you can find out what happened. Exactly. I said that I think I said that exact same thing to a player one time for the Giants. And he said to me at the next spring training, he said I remember you saying sleeps most important things were outside but tonight is irrelevant. And meaning that if you have a bad night means nothing. And he said something like I thought you were full of shit. He said I had two kids and they had like some bought vomiting bug or whatever. They were vomiting on ice and I'd never even got into bed. He said I came to the clubhouse the next day and told BRUCE He's I can't play. So I was up all my disaster injuries, like now you're playing because I need you to play because whatever, like. And he says the only game you've ever had two home runs. two home runs. And the next spring training he told me said it was funny because I would have called you because I couldn't remember your name. But he goes, I'm glad you're here because I wanted to tell you I thought you were full of shit when you said that. And then that. So you know, I think a lot of athletes or if you're in the military or a doctor, you learn pretty quickly that yeah, sleeps great. But if it doesn't happen, you can still took you take somebody's spleen out. It's not that big of a deal. So I think when athletes start to realize that, you know, where it's kind of like they have a certain Zen about them. I mean, yeah, there's a picture that I'm sure Ben knows very well that. And he does look like somebody who's an amazing pitcher for the diet. He be looking somebody who could never be rattled. And in fact, one time we were watching a World Series with my wife even said after this pitcher came out was sitting on the bench. They showed him right before they went to commercial like sitting there she was, what do you think he's thinking about and said, probably like competitive calf roping or something? Like he's not, he's not there. He's like, like, some people like a pitch grader pitch terribly to manage to get dinner doesn't care like and so that mentality is a great thing to take to the bedroom. Like I got a huge race tomorrow. I'm just gonna sleep here and but if you don't, you're still going to be fine. Just rest that get really good at meditation relaxing, have your plan. I always tell the athlete you got to plan for to get into the swim and something goes crazy or your bike is not right or whatever. And that's probably the difference between the Pro and the amateur in the sleep thing can really throw an amateur Yes, it's Ravel like I don't feel like this in my training runs ever and now I'm out here in California and I feel like I'm not good I'm two miles into this run. I don't think I'm gonna make it like Yeah, even the sun I'm going to work my way through this thing. Yeah,

Kenny Bailey<br>: 54:15

the sunsets right so West yeah goes to the East Coast right? Wow, it's like white white. Why is it so late? Like why? Why is it still sunny right? And that kind of scares you because you're kind of used to like you know, our dogs are ridiculous our dogs can predict exactly when it's ready to eat right and then we do a timezone change and then an hour earlier they're they're barking and we're like not Yeah, you got an hour right now so

Chris Winter: 54:38

well yeah, but it triathletes telling me just their bodily functions are kind of yeah, let's not talk about land. right out the window when they got to that other times. Like

Kenny Bailey<br>: 54:51

I don't have a good gi

Chris Winter: 54:58

it's always what I considered to be the winner. that drive was when I that part went well, like Yeah, exactly. came in last. But that was

Tom Regal: 55:06

that was the first place but it's for sure. Yeah, yeah. Most of our conversations are prerace conversations with athletes is like, sit down with them as, as we walk through all of that here, you're getting there on this day. When are you going to eat when you're going to sleep? What are you going to do? Here's where you put your legs up and rest. Here's where you actually have to move. You need to get your body going. Okay, and then walk through. Okay, what happens if this doesn't go as planned? Right? What's your plan B, you're on the bike, you dropped the bottle, you don't have your nutrition? What are you going to do? Right, and you're just going to deal with it. You have to look at it as and I think the mental preparation on that is probably I don't know, it's the most fun for me. I mean, that's why I do triathlons. It's because it's, it's, as I like to say it relates most to life, you have a plan. And it never goes to plan, right? There's always something that's that's spinning you somewhere else. But you have to keep going forward, you have to keep moving and going through. So what are you going to do, and you just kind of have to think through all the processes. It's a process form type of thing. So

Chris Winter: 56:05

planning and all those things you talked about are incredibly strong. signalers to a brain like you to get like the the doll, the tennis player, he puts both is bought water bottles. 16 process. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it seems silly. But all those little things that you can control are giving your brain a little roadmaps, you're 12 miles away from this, you're 10 miles away from so. And it also kind of creates a sense of control, which a lot of athletes really like you control these types of things until you don't like you said, Everybody's playing, it's great to get punched in the face. But I love that because all those little things that you do on that pre race day in that other time zone, are starting to get your brain to understand that even though we're in a foreign place, and sons over here, instead of over here, and I still eat my bar and a half, and three quarters of a banana, say the rest of the data for another an hour, I finished my banana after I drink half my water, like all those things are incredibly strong signalers versus just to kind of a random plan that maybe the younger, more experienced athlete would have and all those little things at tricking your brain to understand where you are in that process and adjust your circadian rhythm much faster.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 57:17

Yeah, it's a it's an interesting, you know, to Tom's point. I think, triathletes, in particular, it's sort of like the Volvo problem, right? It most OCD people kind of tend to go towards traveling right? And you see people that I mean, I will take my my bag, my transition bags, I will put stuff in it, I will empty it, I will put stuff in it, I will empty it. I mean, I'll check it literally three times before, you know and like make sure everything's in there. The one thing I think to your point is, that freaks me out is you know, you know, go you know, eight o'clock, I'll get in the water, whatever the sun's up all that good stuff. And then we show up to race day, you have to have a headlamp on because it's still 530 in the morning and you got to get your bike set up. And you get all your bag set up and it's dark and you're kind of freaking out right? You're like am I swimming in the dark? I never practice swimming in the dark and and then the sun comes up in the world's normal but that that hour before the sun comes up. If you don't, we're cracked. Yeah, if you could practice that. It's great. You never do and then you get there and you have this oh shit moment. You're like, you know I am I'm not even supposed to be up right now. Like, you know, what am I doing? Right? So

Chris Winter: 58:23

it should be a good word for that feeling of the dark day of race set up. It's a little buzz to it. People are nice. It's incredibly tense. Everybody feel it's just unlike any anything else. It's not bad or good. It's just a weird. You're excited and you can't

Kenny Bailey<br>: 58:47

be loud because it's right. So that's what's funny, but still dark.

Ben Potenziano: 58:56

transition will happen

Chris Winter: 58:57

in the New York Public Library for this exact reference section and change your code. Yeah, it's it's funny.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 59:05

It's a weird thing that the sun comes up and people like, Let's go but yeah,

Chris Winter: 59:09

arts and everything. Yeah, exactly. That's a very private time. Like before all that hoopla starts and you start getting ready to go free bars and drinks. Yeah, yeah.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 59:20

So I think you know, you mentioned like, we have folks that come to our shop that are like elite athletes we have we have student athletes and we do the exact same thing. We put them in leather chairs, we put them in compression, we give him a 15 pound weight blanket by the way

Chris Winter: 59:35

that just came out. I'll post it on my Instagram. Dr. Chris Winter that talked about it was that weighted blankets influence melatonin secretion gels. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,

Ben Potenziano: 59:47

it was that was that was it Ma was that

Chris Winter: 59:50

she did it Yeah. She didn't do the research. Was this shocking because she's so good. But um, yeah,

Kenny Bailey<br>: 59:59

yeah. Anecdotally, I can tell you for a fact, I

Ben Potenziano: 1:00:01

was interested. Yeah, yeah, we

Kenny Bailey<br>: 1:00:03

put people in cryo. So we crank up their, you know, we crank up their mount, you know, their, you know, their adrenaline, you know, everything's firing off for three minutes, because we just put them in really cold stuff. And when they come down off of that, you put them in compression, you put that 15 pound weight blanket on, at one o'clock in the afternoon. It's adult daycare, I mean, everybody's out, right? Plenty to watch, because, you know, that adrenaline starts washing out, the compression is kind of there. And that weight blanket sort of sets them down, you can see it too. I mean, we've seen, you know, these are elite, you know, teenage girl volleyball teams that come in just hyper and on their phone and that whole thing, and then all of a sudden, they're just like this with a with a blanket. And they're like, leave me alone. But I love it. Right? So yeah, so what we're trying to do is get normal people, you know, non athletes as well. Is it to your point, is it it doesn't matter, kind of what the stressor is, is the stressors, athletics, if the stressor is, is, you know, you've got a big interview coming up, or you've got a big meeting coming up, you know, just taking 15 minutes would be, you know, through the day to be mindful about that. Would that be?

Chris Winter: 1:01:04

Oh, I think I think the world would change if everybody came to your shop and did what you just said for 15 minutes. Yeah, you know, why do we hug somebody, if you wrote it down on paper, if your direction if somebody's feeling bad, put your arms around them and squeezed gently don't hurt them, but just making everybody swaddle a baby, we didn't respond to pressure, you know, I mean, physical pressure on our body, usually in a positive way. And so coupling that with you know, dropping somebody's temperature putting them in a relaxed environment. No, it's, it's, it's life changing. It's just can you convince a 17 year old to take that time out of their day? To do it, and we'll get to that place because you know, and the great The other thing I've ever mentioned about athletes, which is sort of the secret is, I can talk about sleep for the rest of my life and nobody really cares. I got seven people listen to my podcast, appreciate all seven of you and family members or whatever. But, you know, but as soon as Tom Brady or, you know, some other famous athlete, you know, says I think sleeps important LeBron James Tiger Woods or whatever. Then they do my work for me. You know, and I always, always watched on Christmas Day, and my kids were getting like Kevin Durant socks. I remember thinking, if somebody gave me socks for Christmas when I was 12 years old. dead to me. Really? Yeah. SOCKS like, they want socks. Why? Because athletes made socks. Cool. Yeah, they make socks. Cool. They can definitely make sleep. Cool. So this is the kind of stuff. We encourage you to get these young players in there who are coming to your shop. Who wants that? Yeah. Because Tom Brady does it and well, you want this interesting? Oh, runner out there.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 1:02:49

Yeah, I don't need Tom Brady to do it. He was a fascinating thing that occurred last week. Cross country kid came in. And he is one of the state best. Like he ran a 15 minute 5k Cross Country, just the kids fast. Right? He comes in and two other kids from a different credible and cross country that was staring at him going Hey, is that so? And so we're like, yeah, what's he doing? Oh, he's gonna do cryo, and he's gonna come into compression. And they're sitting there and they don't do cryo, and all of a sudden, they're like, Oh, you got to do that. Yeah, we got it. So it's at a smaller level. Because, anecdotally, again, I just have anecdotal research, because we've had this place open for a few years. But we see the the athletes, a student athletes that really care about like getting to D, one, D two, they're doing what they're seeing the D one D two, and the pros doing which is, here are the things they do to get knee to get ready, they need to be you know, they have to have a strength and conditioning coach, they're looking at a nutritionist, they're looking at these things, and this is another part that they need to do and sleep and making sure they get rest and making sure they do that. So that's the poll. Sometimes it's sort of like, you know, elections, right? Your elections really matter at a local level, not necessarily a national level. If I see the kid, it's gonna go to Alabama, right. And this is what the kid is going to Alabama is doing is it's not just the kid, it's the kids parents that are going that, you know, I want my kid, you know, and do you want to if I need to do that, that's what we're gonna do. And that's starting to happen. So to your point it it's good when kids feed kids. Yeah.

Chris Winter: 1:04:21

To like, somebody walks in with some fancy, whatever. And if they're an input player on the team, then everybody wants it. Yep. Yeah, they're hidden. Right? So that's why in a generation, it'll be everywhere because you're at a disadvantage if you're not. Exactly.

Tom Regal: 1:04:38

Yeah. So

Ben Potenziano: 1:04:40

to add on to that, too, like it's it's great to have someone like Chris who continues to educate because I still think that's the thing that we have to push, because that's something I want to present again and build up this offseason with, you know, with my directors like listen, well let's do this again. And then if it's something we can bring Chris at least give to talk at one point, just to bring it back out again in the forefront, to let them know that we are thinking about it, we are going to continue to think about it, we're going to push it. And that's where these guys need to understand 23. And still, you could be that your body's going to still feel that in six months of baseball, you're gonna feel it. Yeah, and I'm starting to, I've been doing this a while now, you kind of just, I worked out more, because I think that's my, that's my mental break. But it's also something I know, that helps me prepare for the day, in my way, and I'm not a triathlon. I mean, I, I guess you're gonna be, you're gonna cry, I'd like to try. I just I keep getting that little mental thing going. Like you guys, but that's the thing. We need to push it and that's really you know, people like Chris and yourselves you guys talking about

Tom Regal: 1:05:50

it? Yeah, it's gonna help. We're trying to incorporate like your entire lifestyle, not just one piece of it. It's not your you're not just training and and going to work all ties together. And I think the more we talk about it, the more you know, Chris talks about it, the more you put it, you know, kind of bringing it forward, the younger guys especially will start to see it all ties together, like no one. I don't think years ago, anyone thought about You weren't sleeping enough, and you're getting injured, and they didn't put the two together. And now you can definitively look at well, the sleep, what's not happening in your recovery during your sleep process is then causing you to have these injuries or to put you in a position to get injured. And now once we start putting all those pieces together, it's like yeah, it's playing video games at two o'clock in the morning. Totally affects totally affects what what you're doing. It's just, it's amazing. And I think we're getting closer to that.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 1:06:50

We're getting more I think the other end of it too is is we're trying to do with this podcast is say that you don't have to earn it right. You don't need to be an elite athlete. You don't need to be doing big triathlons. You know, if you're coming into a sport, especially if you're coming into sport, you're going to be sore, you're going to be tired, you're you know that these things in order to better prepare to avoid injury, because you're probably going to be your muscles aren't ready to go yet, because you really haven't been using them. You know, what can we do to make sure that people as they approach trying to get off that couch and trying to do something better? You know, trying to get Ben into a triathlon, you know, how can we get where they're having their experience isn't nothing but you know, I'm dead tired, I'm really sore, you know, I don't want to go do this again, you know, and they, you know, they're ramping like crazy, stupid, fast, when they shouldn't be those kinds of things. So that's what we love having you guys on is to just talk to, you know, liquid elite athletes are doing the, hey, by the way you can adopt these to your everyday life, this is something you can always, always get all the time,

Tom Regal: 1:07:51

right. It's an active lifestyle. And, you know, focusing on the recovery is huge just for even an office job. So it's all good, why just an office job, just an office job. Thank you so much. Both both you guys for being on this has been fantastic. Really appreciate your time. And coming on. And this is good. I can see us with some follow up stuff. Certainly, certainly in the future to talk more about this maybe once we get into Kenny's next year plan, as we like to say it's a cry for help. It's, it's it's turned in for both of us now. It's it's really, we're trying to Yeah, really it is any we'll definitely be here for you. To Sleep Solution, it's been eye opening for me and in basically in the sense that I'm totally convinced that sleep affects everything, like you do the first half of the book on that and it's and learning but we didn't talk about it but the glymphatic system I think is what it is. Didn't know that so so we're gonna come back on that at another point but fascinating book and I love your footnotes by the way, they're fantastic. Q everybody you have to read everyone likes,

Chris Winter: 1:09:06

I put them in there, they annoy you

Tom Regal: 1:09:09

or they do not they're I love them. I love it written in a way that doesn't put you to sleep which is kind of cool. So

Chris Winter: 1:09:20

either helps you with your sleep or it puts you to sleep either way, either way

Tom Regal: 1:09:23

you're gonna write so thank you so much, everybody we appreciate your listening and checking us out give us a you know five stars thumbs up, give us your comments all that stuff all helps with the algorithms allows more people to find the podcasts and more people to get out there and and we can reach and help everybody. So thank you guys all again and until the next time, we'll catch you that