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SportsPrep Live is an engaging podcast hosted by Graydon Prescott, a talented 15-year-old with a passion for sports. Despite his young age, Graydon brings a wealth of experience to the table, having started his podcasting journey at the age of 9. With a focus on excellence in athletics, SportsPrep Live promises captivating interviews with a diverse range of athletes, offering valuable insights and inspiring stories to its listeners.
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You're listening to locally produced programming created in
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KU NV studios on public radio K, u and v 91.5.
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Hey everybody and welcome to another episode of sports prep live or to prep live, where we unbox the mic and talk excellence in athletics.
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Welcome back to sports prep live. I'm your host, Greg and Prescott. Today's guest is an entrepreneur, business owner, physical therapist trainer. The list goes on. He does it all. I'd like to welcome the founder of Atlas hoops, Dr. Julian pen Aranda. Julian, it's great to have you here today. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. I'm super excited to be here. So your career has a lot to do with basketball? Can you tell us what got you started in basketball? And when did you discover that it was a passion of yours? Um, so I've been playing basketball, shoot, all my entire life, essentially, I always joke around and tell everyone that I was playing basketball in my mom's womb.
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My dad always taught or always took me to the gym growing up back home in Chicago. So I mean, I remember dribbling a basketball as early as three years old, and I just absolutely loved it. And I've been continually playing ever since. I mean, despite several career ending injuries, we'll even call it career ending, but I just kept persisting through it. And here I am, basketball trainer, physical therapist, as Greg had mentioned, kind of have everything under my under my scope. Yeah. What got you started in physical therapy? You went from being a basketball player. And then you had talked about some career ending injuries? Did those have to do with it? What got you started in physical therapy? For sure. Yeah, it was the career ending injuries, I think, well, I don't think so after my freshman year of playing college basketball over at Trinity International, which is a division two school, I unfortunately tore my ACL, who playing in a summer league game
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kind of went downhill from there, I essentially lost the coach that had recruited me, they brought in a whole entire new squad. I didn't feel that I fit in and I was kind of lost, to be honest with you. So you know, I had surgery on my knee, I'd never really knew about physical therapy, literally until the next day where they're trying to crank on my knee, and I absolutely hated it. But six months, six, seven months later, I was attempting to play basketball again, I'm just been continuing since oh, what inspired you to open Atlas? And how has that evolution been since the pandemic, for sure. So, back in 2019 2020, I was doing I was dabbling into a lot of basketball training. I initially got into basketball training with Michael Lancaster, who's the owner of I impossible skills training, and he's out in Grand Rapids, Michigan. So a lot of it was essentially, at first, incorporating movements and movement tools that Michael Lancaster was using, into and trying to transcribe it into physical therapy. So
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I essentially was training and I absolutely loved it. I continued doing it even after working in the clinic. So I'd work a, we'll call it a seven to five. And then immediately after I would hustle across town, find a gym, train some players and
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it just transgressed ever since. And 2020. Obviously COVID had hit, I was trying to figure out what exactly I wanted to do. You know, in essence, I thought the world was ending. So I wanted to do what I wanted to do. And that essentially, I put all my marbles into finding a gym.
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Fortunately, my employer at the time was was like really pushing it, saying, If you really love basketball, do it. I'm never gonna hold you back. Yeah. So essentially, with the blessing of my employer,
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she allowed me to work with her for a couple of months while I was building, building Atlas in itself. And lo and behold, I've just been building ever since. That's great. You've worked with athletes of all ages. I've seen kids from sixth grade all the way up until professionals How does your training philosophy differ? When you're working with kids compared to professional athletes? I would have to say the training doesn't change. I like to stick to the basics and the fundamentals. It's more of the language and the tone behind it. With a lot of the younger kids, I tried to be a lot more easygoing a lot more encouraging, versus a lot of the higher level athletes you know, we will work a lot in the basics. However, you know, it's me pushing them a lot more cardio out, I would have to say yeah, a
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lot less breaks. But overall it's more of the language and the tone that that is different between you
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We'll call it the sixth grade sixth, seventh eighth graders all the way to the pros that I work with you.
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You are you have your PhD in physical therapy. And in that you must be very experienced in that realm. What do you consider to be the most common misconceptions about physical therapy? And how do you address them with your clients? For sure, um, the biggest thing with physical therapy is
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a lot of people think that we're more so misuses or people that stretch players or clients. So a lot of what I tend to educate the athletes on are, yes, I can do those things. But a lot of those activities that we do, such as massage, stretching, those are a lot. Those are short lived, they'll feel good in the moment. But we really have to work on balancing it out with strengthening the strengthening components, the athletic component by having you play the game itself. And then we can certainly work into detail like stretching and massage massaging or whatever passive intervention the player needs. I'm great impressed got this is sports prep live. And we are on the mic with the owner and lead trainer of Atlas doom. Dr. Julian veneranda. Julian, in your experience, what are the most critical physical and mental attributes that separates elite athletes from the West, I would have to say the biggest thing is focus, absolutely focus.
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When I had the opportunity to host, some NBA players at my facility, they would walk in
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stone faced, ready to work, they would do their stretches, you can tell that they already had a routine. So they knocked out the routine, whatever equipment that they needed, they had let me know ahead of time, and I just got it set for them.
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And they just went right into it. And all honesty, it's the focus, you know, it's a hard earned, not hard earned, but it's a hard hour of them just knocking everything out. Once that hours done, now they can chill out and do whatever they want. Yeah.
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So after the training, the next big part is recovery. And recovery is a very crucial aspect of any athletes. They're sharing it. What are some of your favorite recovery techniques or practices that you would recommend to athletes of all ages? So I would have to say, static stretching, where you hold your stretches after, after you exercise is a huge thing. Yeah, rather than before. I would say that's the biggest misconception, a lot of people tend to do a lot of those static holds, you know, holding for 30 to 60 seconds of the stretch that's actually on a scientific level has actually shown to decrease performance. So I tell people, okay, we can, you can warm up any way you want as simply as just jogging up and down as long as you get the heart rate going. And then after we go through the workout, let's go ahead and recover by doing those stretches, that's when the the muscles actually stretch. Okay, I might need to change things about my workout routines after hearing that. Another thing that a lot of athletes struggle with is nutrition. It plays a vital role in an athlete's performance. And as you would know, that is a huge issue among athletes from the young ages to the pros diet can be a very big issue. What advice would you give to athletes? What dietary advice would you give to athletes or your clients to keep them in peak performance condition? For sure. So, you know, with my profession as a physical therapist, we have a very baseline foundation of nutrition. So I can't go into detail as to what a player would essentially need. Because it's not truly in my scope, I would usually refer them to a dietitian. However, if we are thinking about, you know how much food we should be taking in, I always refer to Okay, put on your I put on your Apple watch, see how many calories you're burning. Usually, I would have to say on average, you're burning. Depending on how intense the exercises are, you can burn from 800 calories all the way to 2000 calories within our hour and a half. So having the ability to eat afterward and replenishing that that caloric deficit is super important. And I would just generally say balanced diet.
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You spoke about focus in the previous question. And along with focus, there's mental toughness, and that's often a very underrated aspect of sports. How do you develop your athletes mental resilience and focus just to keep them dialed in from the moment they walk into the gym to the moment that they're taking off their shoes ready to leave? So my biggest thing is in a lot of the kids call me coach communication, because I'm constantly talking to the kids and to the athletes just trying to dial in and dial in on how they're feeling that day.
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And the reason I do that is so that way I can figure out okay, how focused is he going to be
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during the workout, if he's not focused, why isn't the focus? Let's talk about let's have that conversation first. And then, you know, we'll throw in some exercise. Okay, how are you doing now? How are you doing now? And I'm always constantly talking to them seeing how they're feeling, how their bodies feeling, how you're feeling during that exercise, or during that drill itself.
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And really just simply saying, Yep. How's your body feeling? During this? This your knee? Is your knee bothering you? Alright, well, let's let's figure out another way or another intervention or another drill so that way we can navigate around whatever you're feeling at that point. Yeah, I've had a lot of trainers in my time. And the one thing that I really noticed with you was the communication. How did that come to be? Where did you learn that communication is such an important part of the trainer to play a relationship? Um, you know, I'd have to say that I grew that
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after I tore my ACL, yeah, just the physical therapist that I worked with, I can just see you know, him talking to all his patients, including myself the tone, his poise with with everybody.
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I was with him for more than the six months that to prescribe for physical therapy. I was with him for almost two years, both you know, as a, as a client of his but also as a as a mentee of his so just seeing how he would talk to all the players and or not players, but to his patients. That resonated with me, and I just wanted to continue doing that as I got older. I see. Dr. Julian Fernanda, physical therapist, lead trainer and owner of Atlas hoops is here on Sports prep live. I'm Greg and Prescott. And we're discussing basketball, injury prevention, and more. Speaking of injury prevention, injuries are a significant concern for athletes. What are some key strategies that you implement to reduce the risk of injuries in your clients training programs as a physical therapist and as a trainer, so I tried to implement and I find that fine line between performance and physical therapy. So essentially, when I am
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going through a lot of these activities with the player, I kind of go through a general regimen of Okay, let's go through a dynamic stretch, dynamic stretching program, where we put the body through some awkward positions that are not usually performed during basketball, just to mentally prepare them, but also to get the body better prepared for it, then we'll go through a lot of the activities. And during those activities, especially when the players are tired, I'll implement more of those awkward movements, those 3d movements that are working what's called the transverse plane, those rotational planes, into our into our regimen. So that way, they can really, truly focus on those exercises and really understand what the body is doing, when you're tired, and how to perform them correctly. So that way, when you are doing, you know, say that movement occurs during the game, your body has already experienced it. So it knows it's already been programmed in the brain. Okay. So that's a real thing. Programming the brain? Oh, yes, the brain is the controller of everything.
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So how do you adapt your training methods to cater to the specific needs and goals of each athlete that you work with? So?
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That's a great question and still buckles down to communication. Yeah. Communication at the very end of the day is super important to me.
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You know, I do ask a lot of questions. And you know, I do get feedback, like, how are you feeling with this exercise? What do you feel like you need to personally work on, I'll reach out to a coach, if they have a great line of communication. If the player has a great line of communication with that coach. I'll say, Hey, can you put us in a chat? Let's go ahead and talk real quick. What do you feel like? We'll call Brandon, what do you feel like Brandon needs to work on and then we'll we'll certainly implement whatever Brandon needs in addition to, well, what the coach needs from Brandon, in addition to what I see as impairments, okay, I'm setting aside the amateur athletes, could you share some insights into the training regimen of professional athletes what sets their workouts apart from those of amateurs, so a lot of their workouts and it's I've had the opportunity to see one of the Las Vegas aces for almost three or four months on a daily basis. And what sets us apart is again, that focus but what separates them as they work a lot on the basics. It's crazy how much of the basics that they implement, but in addition to that, they work actually a lot on game situations. So putting them through game, like putting them on a one on two, for instance, or a two on three, or they'll play of they'll, they'll prepare a player on the professional athletes hip, for example. And they'll say, Okay, we're going to set up this drive, you got to you got to you got to pass
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During this and you got to relocate. So it's a lot of game movements. And in addition to that, a lot of the trainers that a lot of these higher level athletes work with, they actually record a lot of this stuff. So they're getting live feedback, okay. And so with that live feedback, they'll stop it, they'll stop gameplay in total. And then we'll all go to the monitor, we'll watch what the player did. And we'll get feedback. And that's where a lot of my communication comes from. It's alright, you could have done this, this and this here. But let's backtrack. What do you feel you could have done there? Okay. That makes sense. I'm with your clients. Of course, all athletes at all ages, face setbacks, you had your ACL tear. I recently had a knee surgery, we all face setbacks, how do you keep your clients motivated, especially during those challenging times? When they're facing setbacks, whether it be physically in their training and their performance? How do you keep them motivated? I'm complete encouragement. You know, I always try to keep a smile on my on the players faces.
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You know, as a physical therapists, I have a good understanding of how the body works. Yeah. And so basketball brings a lot of happiness to people. I've been fortunate to see that and even you know, including myself, so I'm able to place players in positions where they can still play basketball, even though they have an impairment.
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While that's sitting in a chair, shooting around dribbling, sitting in a chair, playing catch dribbling and throwing a tennis ball or a medicine ball at them. I know ways around are no ways to work around an individual's injury so that way we can continue doing what they love, and usually it's basketball and we can always chit chat in between. Yeah, it's great and Prescott sports prep live. I'm on with Dr. Julian pen Aranda, founder and trainer at Atlas hoops, Vegas, his premier private basketball training studio, and he's also a physical therapist. When I say premier basketball studio, I mean premiere. I've been there with Julian and I'm certainly not the only person who has I've seen some big name athletes in their working with you. Tell me who were some of the more notable athletes who have come to the gym with you for sure. So back in will we'll call it summer league 2021 I've had coos my headline Lonzo ball I worked with Paige Becker's which was an awesome opportunity.
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I've had some big name I've had Phil handy there. I can't tell you who Phil handy brought. We had Phil handy there from the Lakers. I've had, I've worked with Ross several times. Russ is awesome. He literally listens to Russ.
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More recently, I've had
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I'll just call it the the All Stars from from the Las Vegas aces facility, all of them.
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But, you know, it's been it's been a blessing to have all those players and just to witness them in the facility and just to nitpick at them and just to see that you're all human beings.
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As a trainer, you've likely encountered various training myths, can you debunk one or two common misconceptions about fitness and training? Hmm, um, that so there, there's this thought that block training, meaning you do 567 of the same reps is better than random training, random training is better.
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So adding variability, such as for example, you know, when we're practicing on shooting, say we're practicing on the curl and mixing up the footwork, mixing up throwing a body in front of you. Adding those constraints within training is actually more beneficial. And that has actually shown to increase a person's confidence despite misses really, yes. Wow. I'm balancing academics and athletics can be challenging for young athletes. So I'd like to take this opportunity to ask someone with a PhD. What advice do you give student athletes who would like to excel in both the athletic world and the academic world? Simply do your homework, you got to time manage everything. Especially if you want to become one of those premier athletes. You have to tight match and you got to take care of grades because in this growing up grades were super important. Having anything under an 85 My mom was gonna
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slack the back of my late
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but even even past that, you know, even in college, managing managing your time, you know, you have you have to carry a certain GPA in order to play. Oh, really? Yes. From my experience. Yeah.
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And obviously, it varies from school to school. We had a hold at least a 3.2 in order to play and we were pretty strict at a Division two. Wow. Yes. So that was extremely difficult. There were a lot of sleepless nights in college.
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But do your homework
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maintain a high GPA and continue those same work that work ethics even past college. Well, as long as you keep your GPA high Yeah, oh, it's worth it. 100%
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How has your own experience as a college basketball player, influence your approach to physical therapy training and mentoring younger athletes
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simply Mamba mentality.
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Just keep grinding it out. I've always held that ever since I was ever since I became a Kobe fan. Back when he scored 81 I want to say 2000 6006 was January 22. There you go.
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But I remember watching that game and you know, just carrying that same mentality and attitude, you know, especially when YouTube became very, very popular, all the all the motivational videos started popping out. And I just kept watching those same motivational videos just to keep myself going and I honestly, I, I still have my iPod that has the original Kobe video that I always watched and it was completely pixelated. Yes.
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I encountered all of those models. I think they have a LeBron one though, is to watch all the time a Steph Curry One in the Kobe one. I used to watch those all the time. And that really got me interested in basketball. That's that. That's interesting that you say that because that's kind of one of the things that got me started on my basket. Mike.
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Can you share any memorable, memorable or unconventional training methods or exercises that have yielded exceptional results for you? If so, do you implement those in your training? For sure.
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I know a lot of people always joke around and I call it the
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for lack of better terms, that Disney Princess, it's a it's a it's a curtsy lunge.
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So you're in a lunge position. Instead of your left leg going straight back, you're actually going and a curtsy motion. If you can imagine a curtsy motion.
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It works what's called the transverse angle. So it works with rotation of the hip and puts you in that position where
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it's called knee valgus, which everyone tends to avoid. But technically your body should be adapted to that position. You're in that position when you shoot the basketball. So I often implement this curtsy lunge with a lot of the players that I work with. So that way we can work the the rotational aspect that's required within basketball and even within life. So that's another one of those injury prevention type of stretches. Okay, um, you have graduated college PhD.
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What was the most rewarding aspect of your career as a physical therapist?
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I would have to say, The most rewarding part that kept always pushing me was the fact that I got denied from physical therapy school twice. It wasn't on my third time, and I I really just wanted to be become a physical therapist. Yeah.
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Do your homework, Julian is if I could ever tell myself. My younger self anything is do your homework, but
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it was being denied several times. And finally getting in that third time where I can say that I became a physical therapy while I went to physical therapy school, and I worked my butt off to become that physical therapist and to have that doctorate.
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So towards the end of my shows, I like to do this segment that we call rapid fire. So I'm going to ask you some shorter questions looking to elicit some quick answers and possibly some hot takes. Okay, you ready? Sure. Okay, here's the easy one. Most points you've ever scored in a game at any age 3838 High atop or low cut shoes for basketball, low cut. longest time you've gone without touching the basketball in the last year.
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Bad
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one day.
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Wow. If there's any stretch that you would never have any of your athletes do what would it be? The hamstring stretch.
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If you could play one on one against any player ever, who would it be? Oh, I definitely want to play Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan. Yes. Who is your goat? Oh, Kobe.
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Ranked these players from first to best. Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. Oh man.
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Kobe, Mike. LeBron.
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Okay, most shots you've ever taken in the day, most shots that I've ever taken.
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Oh, shoot 500 500
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in your time as a basketball player, toughest opponent you've ever faced Derrick Rose. You face Derrick Rose. That was not fun. He is fast.
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I can imagine and this was pre injury there so pre injury Derrick Rose I can imagine a semi on
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crazy. Do you have a favorite video game? favorite video game? It used to be 2k.
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Starcraft StarCraft
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nerd out a little bit.
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Not bad, not bad. Alright, moving away from the rapid fire. If you could give one piece of advice to aspiring athletes or physical therapists looking to achieve excellence, what would it be? Keep going, despite what anyone says, keep going.
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And finally, this is not a rapid fire question. So take your time with this answer. What's the next big goal you're aiming to accomplish in your journey as a physical therapist and entrepreneur? So I would have to say, I'm actually trying to step away from the physical therapy side. Oh, really. But I am trying to focus as an entrepreneur, focusing on expanding my brand at Atlas. But also what's in the works as I am working on two basketball teams, first ever basketball teams. Nice. Well, thank you everyone for tuning into this episode of sports prep live. This was Dr. Julian Penner ENDA, thank you for joining me today. No, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. I'm great and Prescott, you can check out us on Instagram or Twitter formerly known as x or formerly known as Twitter now known as x whatever that means.
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At sports prep live, you can check him out at Atlas hoops 702. Thank you for tuning in everyone. As always, have a great day and we'll catch you on the next episode. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of sports prep live. I'm grading Prescott and don't forget to catch all of our episodes on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and be sure to follow us on Instagram or Twitter at sports reblog Thank you
Transcribed by https://otter.ai