Business of Endurance

Stay on Track: Running Injury Prevention with Blaise Dubois

October 13, 2023 Charlie Reading / Blaise Dubois Season 5 Episode 8
Stay on Track: Running Injury Prevention with Blaise Dubois
Business of Endurance
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Business of Endurance
Stay on Track: Running Injury Prevention with Blaise Dubois
Oct 13, 2023 Season 5 Episode 8
Charlie Reading / Blaise Dubois

Journey with us as we take a fascinating excursion into the world of running, injuries, and recovery with our guest, the seasoned athletics consultant and physiotherapy chain co-owner, Blaise Dubois. His expertise shines through as we probe into the psychological intricacies of injury and the monumental role nutrition plays, as well as the ongoing debate around barefoot running. Hold onto your headphones as we unravel the concept of training with pain, and the intriguing possibility of optimizing performance beyond its limits.

As we delve deeper into our conversation with Blaise, we expose the shortcomings of the widely accepted 10% rule of increasing weekly mileage and discuss the pivotal role of sleep in injury recovery. Shifting gears to elite athletes, Blaise enlightens us on the importance of training quality over quantity, leading us to question and redefine widely held beliefs. The mental game isn't forgotten, as we explore the empowering lens of positivity and the growth mindset, examining their impact on recovery and performance.

Moving away from the tracks, we delve into Blaise's entrepreneurial journey, navigating the challenges of running a physiotherapy chain of clinics. We explore the concept of collective decision-making and the importance of work-life balance, with Blaise's candid and insightful reflections leading us to question our own approaches. From the importance of vacations to managing distractions and over-indulgence, get ready to glean a wealth of knowledge from our enlightening exchange with Blaise Dubois. Buckle up and tune in for an episode packed with wisdom, insights, and quite a few surprises!

This episode was sponsored by The Trusted Team and 4th Discipline

Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Journey with us as we take a fascinating excursion into the world of running, injuries, and recovery with our guest, the seasoned athletics consultant and physiotherapy chain co-owner, Blaise Dubois. His expertise shines through as we probe into the psychological intricacies of injury and the monumental role nutrition plays, as well as the ongoing debate around barefoot running. Hold onto your headphones as we unravel the concept of training with pain, and the intriguing possibility of optimizing performance beyond its limits.

As we delve deeper into our conversation with Blaise, we expose the shortcomings of the widely accepted 10% rule of increasing weekly mileage and discuss the pivotal role of sleep in injury recovery. Shifting gears to elite athletes, Blaise enlightens us on the importance of training quality over quantity, leading us to question and redefine widely held beliefs. The mental game isn't forgotten, as we explore the empowering lens of positivity and the growth mindset, examining their impact on recovery and performance.

Moving away from the tracks, we delve into Blaise's entrepreneurial journey, navigating the challenges of running a physiotherapy chain of clinics. We explore the concept of collective decision-making and the importance of work-life balance, with Blaise's candid and insightful reflections leading us to question our own approaches. From the importance of vacations to managing distractions and over-indulgence, get ready to glean a wealth of knowledge from our enlightening exchange with Blaise Dubois. Buckle up and tune in for an episode packed with wisdom, insights, and quite a few surprises!

This episode was sponsored by The Trusted Team and 4th Discipline

Speaker 2:

I'm Charlie Venigan and I'm Claire Fudge and this is the Tribe Athlon podcast.

Speaker 3:

The first days, pain is always a good thing to tell you okay, don't do it. The signal of pain have one interest make you avoid the gesture, the posture, the movement that is painful.

Speaker 1:

That was Blaise Dubois, and this episode is Stay on Track Running Injury Prevention. Blaise Dubois, a former consultant for Athletics Canada, has a notable background in sports psychotherapy. So after graduating from university in 1998, blaise quickly specialized and earned a diploma in sports physiotherapy. He's now a very respected figure in preventing running injuries. He co-owns a physiotherapy chain of clinics and he's the founder of therunningcliniccom, where they help runners avoid and recover from injuries. So I got the opportunity to chat to Blaise about the psychological stages of an injury, the impact of nutrition on injury and recovery. I really enjoyed chatting to him about barefoot running, so something that we know. Is that a kind of trend, a fad, or is it really worth going back to? And also the concept of training with pain. So I know you're really going to enjoy this interview with Blaise Dubois.

Speaker 1:

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Speaker 2:

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Speaker 1:

So, blaze, welcome to the Tribe Athlon podcast, really looking forward to chatting. I know there is so much that we're going to be able to cover today. I always like to hear the story behind the person that we're interviewing to start with, so tell us a bit about your Swiss roots and about your running background, and then maybe go into your professional roots after that.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, Hi, Charlie, it's a pleasure to be here with you. So my Swiss roots. I'm born in Switzerland, in the French part of Switzerland, and I immigrated in Canada when I was 10 years old. But I live in the mountain, isolated in a house that had the bathroom was outside. There is no hot water. I have very nice memories of my young age. I remember we were in a school in a village where we were seven, from the grade one to nine, all in the same class. So it was really like the old. So we never see that anymore, but I have very nice memories about that.

Speaker 1:

Fantastic, and tell us about your running, because you're a runner as well. I mean, I know that predominantly we're going to be talking about your profession in the kind of injury prevention space, but tell us about your own running background.

Speaker 3:

So I started running when I was seven. I remember in Switzerland I go see my grandmother that was at 7K from my house and I enjoy running. I have no idea why and I started running like that. My family did never run, we didn't have TV when I was young, I don't know, I was just loving jogging. So that was the first time I was jogging, and not very regularly.

Speaker 3:

But when we arrived in Quebec in Canada I was pretty good for the 1K at school and I was winning the 1K. So before the Olympiad I was training a little bit. And when I arrived to the secondary school I started to do the cross-country, to go at the provincial championship and have a lot of fun for running, and I became an 800 runner. So when I was more a fast runner, so for the 800, I run. Until university I was not a very good one but I run two minutes flat on the 800.

Speaker 3:

And so that was the beginning and after that I finished university in 1998. And at this point I started to road race 5K, 10k. I run two marathon and I start to run trail, and now I'm running just trail and because I enjoy to go explore the montane I start to do ultra trail, but I'm very bad. I'm very, very bad. I did a 100K in Mexico last fall and it was not very good, but I enjoy to be on my feet long time and to explore many montains, see beautiful part of the world. So that's my story about running.

Speaker 1:

Awesome and I think it's all relative. I realize that, and you're dealing with some of the top runners in the world, so I get why you said it, but there's going to be a load of people that are listening to this going. You call yourself a very bad runner and yet you've just run 100 kilometers. So it's all relative, isn't it? But I get what you mean. And so what took you into your profession? So give us kind of the summary of your profession but also what took you into that profession.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So when I was young I was always injured. So I was in contact with physios and I say, okay, this is the job I want to do, like help runners and soccer player, because I was playing soccer when I was younger too, to be able to do their sport, to be functional. And I make my at Laval University at the medicine faculty. There is a physiotherapy program in Quebec City so I did it. I finished in 1998. And just after that I become a physio full time. Most of my caseload was runners, so I develop an expertise on this and I start to give conference, to give courses for health professionals. I become owner of a PCN physiotherapy clinic. It's a group of 14 clinics Now. I am one of the main owner of this group and we have 240 employees. And in 2008, I founded the running clinic. That is a continuing education organization that go around the world to teach courses about running, injuries prevention, treatment, diagnosis etc. And we have actually probably 50 speakers around the world. We have a big part of our business that is done in France. We give close to 100 courses per year now. So it's a lot and we develop Italy.

Speaker 3:

This fall I will move, I will go in China and Japan. We go in Norway and Greece, so we go pretty everywhere. And, yeah, and I was knowing that I need to speak English to teach around the world. So you know, when I immigrated in Canada, I immigrated in Lac Saint-Jean, it's the north of Quebec, and nobody speaks English there.

Speaker 3:

So my first real contact with the language was pretty late in age. I was adult. It was at university that I was reading scientific articles in English and I had a hard time for doing that at the beginning. So we decided with my wife to go three months in BC the west of Canadian to learn English. So we go there in a family and we during three months I didn't speak English with French, sorry with my wife and we were there with my kids. I have one daughter, one one daughter and one son and my wife was pregnant and we go there in a family and the morning I was going to school, the afternoon it was my wife and we mixed it and after three months I realized that my English was not really better. So I have a very hard time with this language.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, you're doing excellently, and your English is dramatically better than my French, so no, don't worry, you're absolutely fine. Now I know some about some of the content that you teach in the running clinic, but one of the metaphors that I picked up that you talk about a lot about is peace and love. So is that a good way to explain the type of education you provide in the running clinic and, if it is, explain what you mean by peace and love?

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So, yes, you know my personal why it's in French we say grandir en innovant, like growing by innovating. I don't know if the translation is good, yeah, but I keep time in my schedule to think, to be creative and to develop some tools and some theories for health professionals, because I teach that and many people was knowing the price. When you have an ankle sprain, what do you do? The acronym is price was price, and we develop the peace and love. And we develop the peace and love because there is many new things coming in the literature saying that we need to change the way we treat pathologies. So the peace and love was one of this. But we developed the mechanical stress quantification, we developed the love for overuse injuries, the peace and love for acute injuries, and if you want, I can just explain what's the peace and love, but it's just one of the theory we develop at the running clinic.

Speaker 3:

So, yeah, so the peace it's an acronym to the peace is what you do immediately after your injuries. So when I say P is for protection, e for elevation, a for avoid, anti-inflammatory modalities means all the type of pills that are anti-inflammatory and the eyes, C is for compression and E is for education. So it's the acronym that what we do in the first three days when you have an acute injury, like you fall, you have an ankle sprain, you have a muscle tear, that's the peace you do immediately and after that you have the love. So when we say we speak about the love, it's L for load, o for optimism, V for vascularization, doing cardiovascular activity, and E for exercise to normalize your mobility, your strength and your proprioception. So this is the acronym of what we do under love. This is what we do also for tendonitis, knee problem, like all the overuse injuries for runners. We use the love as the acronym of the treatment for this type of pathology.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so this is the treatment of it, but you also do in your courses. I assume I understand the prevention of the injuries as well. Is that correct?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, certainly, certainly. We have a lot of things we expose in our course about the shoes, about orthotics, about stretching, about strengthening, about mechanical stress configuration and this is the most important one, like how to manage the load you apply in your body to be sure to not be injured. This did the key thing to prevent injuries, and we expose all the science of that in a manner to that the health professional, runners and other health, the coaches can learn something simplified to apply in a practice. But, yes, we speak a lot about prevention, even if the peace and love is the treatment plan. For short term, the peace and more long term, the love.

Speaker 1:

I see and are the courses designed, and we'll go into some of the sort of detail of the advice that you give, but are they designed for professionals like physiotherapists or are they designed for just running enthusiasts and runners themselves, or is it both?

Speaker 3:

So we have for everybody. The only thing is that it's better when you give a course of two days about. The base of the course is the new trend in the prevention of running injuries and this course or the fundamental of running injuries are first of all for health professionals sport doctor, physiotherapists, chiropractor, podiatrist, etc. So this is two days but we decline this course in a one day course for coaches where we take off the diagnostic part. But there is so much good thing about prevention that is good for everybody. So we have all the question about the shoes, the running technique, the stretching, strengthening. That is very good for coach. So we have a specific course for coach and we have also general public conference lecture for running enthusiasm even if there is some time runners that are not coaches and not health professional and coming to the course. But for sure it's harder a little bit.

Speaker 1:

Brilliant, that sounds fine. We'll come back to where people can find those in due course, but so let's talk about injury prevention. What are the key things? You mentioned minimalism and shoes, and I believe that's one of them. What are the key things you find yourself talking about when it comes to preventing injuries?

Speaker 3:

When we speak about prevention of running injuries, is the mechanical stress confication, it's the good dosage of what you will do, to be sure to don't go over the red line.

Speaker 3:

That's the red line is the maximum capacity of your body to sustain a mechanical stress and if you go over, you will stress too much a tissue specifically and you will start to develop like micro tear, inflammation and pain and pain. Initially it's the best signal you can have to tell you okay, you need to slow down. So the first thing I tell to my patient, my client, is you need to listen to your body and you need to quantify pretty well and going easy, the increase, your volume, increase your intensity, increase your deni-velation, your D-plus increase. Everything must be increased very readily to be sure that your body adapts. In 80% of the case, patient come see me in clinic injured and we can identify one part of their training load that was too much for their habit. So that's the key thing. It's a long, a lot before the shoes that we love speak about and it's a lot more before the running technique that this is the new trend. We speak more now.

Speaker 1:

So I remember reading, when I started my running, about the fact that you should only increase by 10% each week, and I think that was 10% total mileage over the course of the week. Is that the best form of measurement or is there a more scientific version? I think that's. It sounds like that's in tune with what you're saying, but is it just straightforward 10%, or is there a better way of measuring it?

Speaker 3:

So the 10% makes sense for most of people. But there is actually probably six, seven scientific paper that tried to validate this 10% and was not. It means that some people can be 15. Some part of your life it's maybe just five, because your body is more, I will say, tired. Like you are psychologically, more prone to injuries. You just divorce, you don't feel good, you hit not very good in this time, you don't sleep enough and all those things will decrease the capacity of your body to tolerate stress. So the 10% makes sense for a general public.

Speaker 3:

When I give general public conference I speak sometime about the 10%. I say, okay, for most of people is 10%, but the 10% is about the volume. But when you take the jogger, the recreational runners, volume is probably the only parameter that they use because they don't do hills and they don't do fast training, so they just run. So volume can be an interesting point. But when you have an eye level athlete or someone that is used to run faster, doing two times per week interval training with speed, this is a lot more stressful for the body than just the volume. So my mechanical stress configuration will focus, often with eye level athletes, a lot more on the quality than the quantity, even if we need to look at the quantity too, and for trailers it's pretty simple is how much D plus, d minus you do, because this is probably the key factor for stressing the body how many matter of denivelation going down you accumulate in your week. This is probably a key factor to your mechanical tolerance your knee, your all the structure that absorb the shock when you go down. So 10% is not.

Speaker 3:

It's interesting, but it's not really the specific rule To answer your question. We have no matter. We can take all this parameter and we cannot make a mathematical formula to say, okay, you go over your maximum capacity. You know that you go over your maximum capacity when your body tell you because if, even if we make a mathematical formula, and during one week you cannot sleep well because you have anxiety and stress and you have a lot of. You just lost your job and your wife live, you and I don't know the worst thing you can imagine at this moment of your life you cannot tolerate the same level of stress that if you are happy and everything is fine and you produce a lot of good hormones in your body because you're in love, you have a good job, etc. So that really is your money.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so that's really interesting. I was going to ask you about the impact of stress on your propensity to get injured and your ability to recover from injury. So your I think what you're saying there is, if you're really stressed or not sleeping well or whatever, you're much more likely you can tolerate less training or you're more likely to get injured. And equally, does that apply to when you're trying to recover from injury? If you're stressed and everything else, then you recover more slowly. Is that correct?

Speaker 3:

For sure, for sure. The first thing I told you is the load you apply in your body.

Speaker 3:

But, the second thing is how you can tolerate and adapt to this load. So there is always two things there is the level of stress you apply and you have your capacity to tolerate the stress. So if your capacity decrease for the same level of stress, you will be injured. And one of the things you can do is try to increase your capacity to tolerate more stress and be able to train more. And increase capacity means be very gradual because the body adapt to the stress, but also be sure that your terrain I don't know if you say that your body is able to take. It means sleep well, be less stressed, eat well, etc. And I think that sleeping for recovery is probably the most important factor, and especially when we become more old.

Speaker 1:

Right, and is that so? The general advice would be eight hours, wouldn't it? And I'm quite keen at tracking my sleep, where I use the Aura ring to do that. But when I up my training load, should I be taking my sleep beyond eight hours, or is it just still eight? Quality hours Is still good enough, or again, is there any science behind that?

Speaker 3:

Yes, there is science. It's not my scientific expertise, but I deal with as a clinician every day with this type of question, so I read a lot on this, even if it's not my expertise. But when you increase the level of physiological stress by increasing your training, you increase the needs of sleeping. So your eight hour can increase. And it's not eight for everybody.

Speaker 3:

Some people is seven, some people is six, but even at six is very rare to have someone training a lot that I've just need six hour of training with an impairment of the brain and the recovery. So really probably eight hours is probably where most of people are, but some people need nine and some people seven is okay. And when you increase the physiological demand in your body you increase your needs in sleeping. So your eight hour will probably become a nine hour. And when I train more, sometimes I need to do some nap, and because my body has me to and it is always the same thing, do you listen it or do you take caffeine and because you're tired, so you can wake up and you can still be there. And so the best is for sure it's not to take some drugs to to awake you and be sure to listen to your body and when you need to sleep more, you sleep more.

Speaker 1:

Okay, brilliant, and you mentioned the brain and the impact. You know the impact of the brain, so I heard you speak about the psychological stages of injury and also the need for the brain to recover from the injury, as well as the actual body to recover from the injury. Can you talk a little bit about the psychological stages of an injury, but also how do we get our brain to recover and why do we need our brain to recover?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, first of all I would like to speak about a very interesting study of riot 84 subject and showing that after three weeks and of an acute ankle sprain, the great of the spring did not correlate with symptom, function and pain. Instead, psychosocial factor, in particular the adaptiveness in response to pain, explained more the variability, the variation in symptom and limitation after the ankle sprain means Psychological factor is more important than how much important is your sprain. So that's crazy, because for me an ankle sprain was just an ankle sprain, very easy, very simple, and you have the grade one, two, three and have an ankle sprain, and the three it's because your ligament is completely there, the two it's partially there and the grade one is just stretch. But the thing is that for the recovery, your psychosocial factor or, more important and predictive of how you will repair that, the grade of the ankle sprain. So I will. It's just to tell you that the brain is so strong in our recovery and that's the first thing that you need to understand. Very, very so that's the first thing.

Speaker 1:

The brain is a Can. I just clarify exactly what you're saying there, because I just want to make sure I understand it. So I think is what you're saying essentially your body is recovering, but you also need your brain to know that your body is recovering. Is that what you're saying?

Speaker 3:

Yes, but I will go further. If you think you will be good and you're positive in your recovery, you will recovery a lot, a lot faster than someone that is more negative about the prognosis and to say, oh, I have an ankle sprain, I won't be able to run for three months, et cetera. The brain condition and dictate how fast you will repair also is not just the grade, and even the grade of the ankle sprain is a less good predictor of how you will evolve that what you think. So it's just to tell you that the brain is a key factor for recovery and reaper return to running. It's very, very important.

Speaker 1:

And so the follow-up question to that, then, is what techniques should we be using to stay positive other than getting good sleep and reducing stress and things like that? Are there any brain techniques we can use to recover more quickly?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that's a good question. As a clinician I try to tell to my patient okay, don't worry, Most of people with this type of injuries will reaper pretty fast and you can help you by thinking positively. But you know what? Some people have a hard time to think positively and some people, even when it's very big injuries, they always think positively. So it's a state of mind that sometimes we can influence a little bit, we can become conscious of this. But it's not always easy to say, okay, I need to be positive, but my ankle, I cannot run and I depress because I cannot run. But you know, some people have also brain that sensitize more to chronic. Problem means that a little injuries can become chronic because your neural system is sensitive and you just need to put a little bit of oil in a fire and the fire become very big. And for some other people, because they think positively, because their brain doesn't sensitize to the pain, so there is some people that are more vulnerable to become like developing chronic pain and some others absolutely not.

Speaker 1:

So I'm assuming that ties in quite nicely with Carol Dweck's research around mindset, isn't it in the growth mindset versus the fixed mindset? Somebody with a growth mindset is therefore more likely to recover more quickly than somebody with a fixed mindset of. I am injured and that's the problem.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3:

And when you say you ask about the stage of the injuries and you know you can have a like someone with a new moderate pain of the Achilles tendon, no cycle social factor, smart with the rest and the progression, and we don't have stage because it's recovery pretty fast.

Speaker 3:

And to the opposite, we have someone with an important injuries, like a big knee sprain with miniscule and ligament tear, with a vulnerable neural system, means that this person tend to be more depressed easily or more negative and with many other cycle social factor, like I said before, like divorce losses, job, money issue, etc. And the second person will pass through. First of all, have a very poor prognosis of these injuries means that it will take a certain time and it's possible that he passed through all the stage of grief denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. And that's for some people with injuries that is complex, in a parent that is complex, a body that's complex, a neural system that is not very malleable I don't know you say in English like adaptable this person can really have a hard time and pass some months to with all the stage of grief.

Speaker 1:

And so, just to just to recap, what were those stages of the psychological stages? That was denial first, wasn't it?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, but it's the same that when you lost someone, when you have a right, I see you and it's denial, anger, bargaining. You say bargaining in English.

Speaker 1:

Bargain. But bargaining, yes, we do. I'm not sure that's the term you would use in in this place.

Speaker 3:

But when you try to to, to yeah.

Speaker 1:

I know what you're bargaining is that it's the right, it's the right term, but I'm not sure whether it's yeah, so it's denial anger bargaining bargaining, depression and acceptance. Okay, yes.

Speaker 3:

At the end. The last stage is okay. It's happened to me. Now I move on. Now I will do what I need. I will do my exercise. I will focus on the good thing. I'm lucky to not be dead, to just have a knee ankle, knee sprain, and let's go.

Speaker 1:

And so again, somebody that moves through those stages more quickly is likely to recover more quickly, I assume. Is that what? Yeah?

Speaker 3:

but, like I said, if someone have like a new little achilles tendon pain, after two days he rests and he start gradually and he never pass through this stage, because this stage is when something go wrong.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I see, yeah, okay, Okay, brilliant.

Speaker 3:

Because that was the your stage of an injury. Yeah, and psychoso, you said psychological, psychological stages.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, and in Claire's absence, I have to ask the question that she would have asked, which is, when we're talking about the impact of different factors on recovery or on how prone we are to get injured, what's the impact of nutrition on the likelihood of getting injured and the likelihood of a speedy recovery?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, again, it's not my scientific expertise, but as a clinician I answer to a lot of things and I did some course about running injuries because at the running clinic we have Anthony Bertoux and Isabelle Morin. There are two nutritionists, one in France, one in Canada, that build all the course of the running clinic about nutrition and they speak about nutrition for recovery and for lack. It's a little bit more complex, but we know that global health is a predictive factor of recovery for any injuries. So if you're healthy means you will. I give you an example If you're old, smoker, stressed, poor sleep, bad nutrition habit, you will reaper a lot slower than the other person. Okay so, but this is the general health condition and there is some data. Actually and I refer to the work of Anthony Bertoux he just write a book in French that is a big, a big, a lot of a lot of science in it and they explore all the science about nutrition and injuries et cetera, and showing that a healthy I think you say microbiota- Micro, oh, micro bacteria, no, the microbiome.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Speaker 3:

So this is a very important thing for health and this can influence the low-grade inflammation and many health problems. So having a general health condition influenced by nutrition and influenced by how healthy is your microbiota microbiome this is one of the the link we do between nutrition and injuries.

Speaker 1:

So this is this is a really important point, isn't it? Because if somebody's injured, I know, if I'm injured and I can't do what I want to do, I kind of feel like, well, I'm going to sulk, I'm going to eat rubbish food, because I never eat rubbish food, or don't eat much rubbish food when I'm, when I'm in the heart of my training. So your instinct is to kind of go, well, I'll just eat, you know, rubbish, because I can't train anyway because I'm injured. But actually eating healthily puts your body in a better place to recover more quickly. So it's that's that's really interesting.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, for sure. The only thing is that it's a long-term process. Means that if you eat, if even if you eat badly during one week, I don't think it will be a big difference for your injuries. It will be maybe a difference for your, your stomach and your et cetera, but short term. But for injuries, for inflammation, for recovery, nutrition won't have a very big effect. Like you rest, you do cardiovascular activity to increase metabolism of your tissue and increase repair and recovery. This is an acute effect. But nutrition is a long-term process.

Speaker 1:

Be healthy, having a good microbiome, it's a good thing on long term, and you and you just touch on something that I wanted to explore more, which is I was fascinated when I listened to you about the importance of exercise in the recovery process and speeding up the recovery by by doing exercise. So talk to me a little bit about that and talk to me about, you know, when is too much? You know is? Is a bit of pain okay or is? Is it okay for certain types of injuries and not other types of injuries? Yeah, and why is exercise so important as part of the recovery process?

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So the V of love if the vascularization as soon as we can when you have an injury, if you can increase your metabolism and your vascularization in your tissue by doing a cardiovascular activity that not stress too much the tissue that is affected or inflamed or irritate, that's the best thing to do and you need you can do, two times a day 20 minutes of cardiovascular activity to increase the speed of your recovery. Now you have a knee problem. You have a knee problem because you run a long run and you irritate your knee. You have a PFB, patella, formal pain syndrome and you do bicycle. So bicycle is still stressful for the knee. So maybe it's not the best activity you can do. Maybe it's better to swimming, to swim with the pool between the leg and not moving too much the leg. But you can still do cardiovascular activity with us using the affected tissue.

Speaker 3:

The L of the love it's the load Soon as we can. We load the tissue that is affected, but in the dosage where you are not reproducing the pain or in a very controlled way. And that's your question how much pain I can have if I have an injuries, and I will tell you it depends of the acuteness of the injuries. When it's acute, we don't want pain. When it's chronic, we accept some pain. It depends of you Means. Are you very sensitive to pain or not really. So some people don't feel the pain but create a lot of inflammation after. So those people must be more easy. And some people interpret the pain as like very important all the time, but it's not very dangerous because they over feel the pain. So for those people I will say okay, you can have a little bit of pain, but the pain must not stay more than 30 minutes after your physical activity and the day after you must be able to do again the same training you did the day before.

Speaker 3:

And there is a third factor it depends of the pathology. So there is some pathology where we say, okay, I don't want pain like the IT band syndrome, no pain accepted. If you have like stretch fracture, no pain accepted. If you have a muscle tear or muscle pain, you can go on pain, no problem, because it's a very high metabolism tissue. And even if you go on pain, I know that the tissue will still repair, even on pain, and you can continue to train. If you have a tendon, a chronic tendon example, a necklace tendon that is painful and is a chronic means that you have pain since more than three months. You can train with pain, but the pain must live, must come back to the normal level during the 30 minutes following your physical activity and the day after you must be able to do exactly the same training, or more, that you did the day before.

Speaker 1:

Oh, so that's interesting. So the Achilles part made sense for that. What about somebody that's got a calf tear? I think you were saying you gave that example, but just use that as an example within what you've just said.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so for a calf tear, because this is the more frequent pathology for runners, long distance runner. I accept a pain up to four out of 10 from the day three.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 3:

So very early we accept having a certain pain if the pain doesn't increase during your jogging and if the pain don't stay after your jogging. But running a little bit on pain can be integrated very, very early. For muscle tear we are very aggressive now. Wow, a lot more than we were 10 years ago.

Speaker 1:

Wow. And so just to be clear, so that's, you can tolerate four out of 10 pain on that muscle tear while you're running, but it needs to. That pain needs to have gone 30 minutes after you finished running.

Speaker 3:

Yes, but maybe you start your running with a pain of two out of 10. So I need, I want that the pain come back to two, because that's normal at the time.

Speaker 1:

I see yeah, yeah, okay, wow, that's really interesting.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and when you have an acute injuries you, you can take times, a little bit like take three days, where you try to avoid pain, because the first days pain is always a good thing to tell you okay, don't do it. The senior, all of pain have one interest Make you avoid the gesture, the posture, the movement that is painful. Okay, okay, okay.

Speaker 1:

So you need to listen to it to start with. But yeah, with something like a carter you can get back on it way quicker than I would have probably. And then so gradually you're increasing that load, but with that constant right, okay, still doesn't get to more than four, still doesn't goes back to how it was before within half an hour.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So like doing a little bit of stretching can be integrated pretty soon. Doing strengthening with load at slow speed can be integrated pretty soon. Jogging slow can be integrated like some days after. But if you want to do fast training like plyometric stuff, acceleration, ABCDs, the drills, all those stuff must be integrated very gradually later, because this is the way we enjoyed again and a calf.

Speaker 1:

Okay, okay, that makes sense.

Speaker 3:

So always quantify. When I say the mechanical stress, quantification is, I do something that I consider to be like a level of stress and I listen to my body. How do you feel? You feel good, perfect. The day after. You increase the level of stress and you increase again day after day depends of how your body reacts, okay, okay. So in medicine we add in the time a lot of protocol. You have a fracture we have six weeks in cast, sorry, and after that we have a protocol. When you have a muscle tear, we have a protocol. When you have a ACL rupture, we have a protocol. When you have a surgery for that, we have a protocol. Now, all the protocol doesn't mean nothing now. It means that we just listen to the body, we do a good mechanical stress quantification, a good graduation of the load, and that's all. And that's for every pathology.

Speaker 1:

Brilliant. That's really, really, really fascinating. Now I heard you we've kind of touched briefly on minimalism and running shoes and are you still a big fan of the barefoot running approach and minimalist shoes? That's really not very easy to say, is it? And if so, tell us why. But tell us how. I remember when I first read Born to Run, I went straight into Vivo barefoot shoe and I was about to buy a pair of running shoes and the salesperson was very good and said have you just read Born to Run, by any chance? I said yes, and they said right, in that case, go away, learn to run barefoot and then come back and buy a pair of shoes, which I thought was amazing, given that they just told me to not buy a pair of their shoes. So tell us a little bit about how people graduate into that sort of approach to running, if you think that's right to avoid getting injured in the process.

Speaker 3:

First of all, if someone want to integrate barefoot running, it's pretty hard to be injured because your skin will always be the limited factor for your progression for most of people. So if I run barefoot, I will say, okay, run 200 meter barefoot and maybe one minute, and that's all, and you put your shoes on after and if you want you can increase day after day by one minute more. So day two you can do two minutes and three minutes, and even that is a little bit too fast. So probably you will do some plateau and you will progress gently and probably your skin will be the limited factor if you run on asphalt especially, and with this the risk of injuries will be pretty low.

Speaker 3:

If you buy a pair of minimal issues and when I say minimalism there is a continuum between the more maximal issues and the more minimal issues Means between 0% minimalist and 100% minimalist. There is all a continuum. And so when I say minimalist means nothing, you can buy a five finger. That's the five finger is 90% and more minimalist shoes. In UK you have vivo barefoot. There is some shoes that are 100% minimalist index shoes, but you can have a minimalist index sale by the industry that have just 50% of minimalist index Means that there are not so minimal. You can buy an Nike free 5.0, very flexible but stick. You can buy a Oka 11, four millimeter of stock but a very high stack, so that's not minimal. So we define minimalism by five criteria. There is the flexibility, the weight, the stack, the drop and the control of pre-nation technology and all of this criteria make the minimalist index is like a rate we can give to the shoe. So when you say minimalism versus maximalism, for me it's not very clear because there is all continuum between both extreme. So if you buy like an innovate 225, that's what I run with this is a 70% minimalist index running shoes and this is a shoes. I run ultra trail with this type of shoes. So it's minimal but it's not five fingers. I cannot run a lot with five fingers because I'm not used to, but if someone want to be used to with that, it's not a problem. And why I'm running with this type of shoes?

Speaker 3:

Because, first of all, all the literature show that drop cushioning and motion control doesn't prevent injuries first and doesn't increase comfort. This is a perception we have and the thing is also it's that most of people is probably 95% of people in UK, in Canada, in Europe that run with maximal issues, that have a minimalist index between, I will say, 10 and 30, 40%. So pretty everybody now running maximal issues. We are used to that. So because the population is used to run with maximal issues, we need to be careful when they change habit. If they want to move to a minimal issues and they go too fast, they will be injured Because running in minimal issues increase the level of stress in some specific tissue like the acolystantin, the plantar fascia, the foot in general that was weakened by the use of maximal issues.

Speaker 3:

So when you chronically use maximal issues, this tissue are protected, protected tissue make him, make it weaker and if he become weaker today, where you move to be barefoot because you go in Cuba, you go in the South and you go in flip flop and you go barefoot on the Sands for one week, you come back with some proanthropy. I see a lot of this in Canada because in the middle of the winter people go in Cuba. That's a classic.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so with the minimalist shoes. So it sounds to me like I was talking about the extreme of kind of almost barefoot shoes, like the five fingers, like the Vivo barefoot, and it sounds like there's several stages to get there. So, for example, I have collapsed arches. Would those sorts of shoes still be better for me? Would they even kind of help my feet, or are there any types of situations where people should avoid the minimalist shoes?

Speaker 3:

There is not a lot of reason why we need to avoid minimalist shoes and especially not collapsed arches. Like you said. Thin foot, pronator foot, flat foot are not linked with pathology. So maybe I will surprise you, but actually the prospective study and the systematic review don't show that flat foot or cause different injuries. So it's like a big nose we are born with, we grow up with, we are fully adapted to and it's not a problem and this we need really and that's the default of a health professional podiatrist, physiotherapist and a sport doctor that was considering flat feet like a problem and is not. So we need to go away of this false assumption.

Speaker 3:

So the thing is also is that if you have, like a collapse arches and you do a lot of pronation and you are in a very soft shoes, it's possible that the softness of the shoes bring you in a more pronated position because you're in a soft mat. So, being on something more firm I don't know you say in English, but you probably do all the pronation you have and not more, because remember that your feet inside the shoes do what they want. So your collapse arches on the feet on the shoes are the same that outside of the shoes you don't sit, but the foot is doing exactly the same movement, even on anti-pronator system. Do all density, and all this stuff doesn't correct the pronation and the movement of the foot Absolutely not.

Speaker 1:

And what about the trend for everybody to be racing in carbon plated shoes now? Is that an exaggeration of the problem of the maximalist shoe or is it? Obviously they're generally very light, so is it sort of on that scale they would do well on the minimalist? How do carbon plated shoes fit into all of this, and particularly with the view to injury?

Speaker 3:

So about the injuries, we need to be careful because the rigidity seems to transfer force from a little bit more to the talus, so the bone of the foot, and we have some stretch fracture case series now about using this type of shoes. So we need even if you integrate this type of shoes, you need to be a little bit gradual and progressive. The thing is that if you're used to have a big, bulky shoes, like 95% of the population, these shoes will be one of the good things because you will have a very light shoes to race but big like your training shoes, so the difference won't be so. There is a big stack, a big drop, a lot of rigidity. So if you're used to train in an azimuth cumulus, brooks, adrenaline, like the standard of the industry, this shoes is pretty the same about the stack, the drop, the flexibility drop. They are very light.

Speaker 3:

The next of Nike, the Nike Viprefly Next, is 180 gram. That's very good. The old generation of shoes that Eile Gébrecy-Lacier won the marathon with was 240 gram, a lot heavier and thinner. So they were using like a medium malice, like between Maxi and Mini, like in between but, and they were not fully adapted to this type of shoes. So they were finishing the marathon with a little bit of soreness and because the shoes was a little thinner but at the same time, even if they were a little bit lighter, they were not like like the new generation of shoes, the carbon plate shoes.

Speaker 3:

So the real innovation of Nike with these shoes is to make a big, bulky shoes maximalist, but very light but with a very good marketing. They sell tons of these shoes and we know actually that the carbon plate changed nothing about the performance. So probably the foam helped a little bit and probably there is a big variabilities between people, from minus 11% of auto consumption to plus 11%. So some people wear these shoes and decrease their performance, but they are so convinced that is not a big deal and they just paid more than 300 pounds to have it.

Speaker 1:

So Well, and also, I would just suspect paying 300 pounds for a pair of trainers also creates a placebo effect as well in itself, doesn't it?

Speaker 3:

For sure. Exceptional placebo effect. When you pay this price for a shoes that is everybody want to try to copy and that the best in the world use it for sure, you have a huge placebo effect.

Speaker 1:

So I know the placebo effect. If you buy expensive branded paracetamol, it works better than the cheap paracetamol, even though it's identically from a chemical perspective and even if you know that it's that's the placebo effect, it still works better.

Speaker 3:

Interesting. I didn't know this study, but that's very interesting. And for sure is exactly the same.

Speaker 1:

So one of the things, one of the other things that you actually, so we ask. I'm going to kind of tie in two things here. I'm going to maybe I shouldn't, but I we always ask the previous guest, which was ultra runner, James pool, to ask the next guest a question, without knowing who that is going to be. So James pools question was if you weren't doing what you currently are, which I'm going to refer to as your physiotherapy world, what would you, what would your next best thing be? Now, my understanding is that you actually do some business coaching, particularly around the sort of freed company concept, don't you? So would that be the next best thing if you weren't doing your running clinic stuff? And if so, tell us a little bit more about what you do in that space?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yes, maybe it's this. I do a lot of things. I create two non-profit races in Quebec that we organize. Now we have one. That is the 10th edition and it's a very successful race. There is a trail race, a road race.

Speaker 1:

What are those races?

Speaker 3:

called Trail la clinique du coureur and there is a 5K on road and since three years is the Quebecer championship.

Speaker 3:

So there is all the best athletes in the province of Quebec that are there Very fast race a lot of people under 16, 15 minutes on 5K, so very interesting. So I love to do that Organize, like even for people, and having fun. And the other thing I did is I wrote a book in French that is the best seller in France and in Canada, but I think that maybe this fall we will finish in English because it's pretty old translate so maybe we will be able to publish for Christmas in English.

Speaker 1:

And what's the English translation title?

Speaker 3:

So it will be the running clinic La santé par la course à pied, health by running.

Speaker 2:

I can't push it.

Speaker 3:

I don't know the title exactly but I'm not the translator, don't worry. But I wrote a book that is there is inside a book there is 50 expert, international expert that contribute to for one, two page each, so it's really very dense and we cover everything the nutrition, the sleep, the, etc. So it's very interesting, Fantastic. I love also working with my hands and going on the wood and make trails and so maybe this is my best. I don't know, maybe it will become like oh, you say that in English Working in the wood like that, cut the tree.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, like being a well sort of a lumberjack type. Yeah exactly. Oh, that sounds well. It sounds like you're the sort of person that you're never going to be bored in retirement, are you? If ever retirement ever exists, you're going to have lots of things going on, so tell us a little bit about this?

Speaker 1:

Tell us a little bit about this freed company concept. I'm reading I don't know if it ties in with this I'm reading no Rules Rules at the moment the book about Netflix and how Netflix has no company policy on holiday, has no company policy on spending. It just kind of trusts in people. So does that tie in with the sort of corporate work you're doing?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's pretty the same Because I manage two companies. There is PCN Physiotherapy Clinic, so that's 14 clinics, 240 employees, and there is the Running Clinic. That is worldwide but it's a smaller company. At the Running Clinic we don't have a vacation, so we take vacation when we need it, when we want, when we, and we organize our work to be sure that we can take vacation. So if I want to take, like one week, I need to transfer my work to different people and there is no hierarchy of decision so I can take all the decision I want, and my colleague too. There is some rules. It means that if I want to take a decision, I need to consult the expert and the people that is concerned about the decision and at this point I can take the decision for the company.

Speaker 3:

When we take a decision, it's always about the. In French we say le bien commun Common good, common good, common good and there is three spheres. There is satisfying the client, be the employees happy and the perinity of the organization. So every time I take a decision, I need to take my decision according to this three sphere, but I have the power to do it, and there is some rules, but I have the power to do it because there is no boss in the organization. So when we want to do something, we speak with all the group, we use all the collective smartness and intelligence I don't know if you call this and we move on, and so that's how we function at the running clinic. And we have a it's not translated in English yet, but we have a website, entrepriseafranchicom, and it's all the tools we use inside the organization to manage, to organize, to function.

Speaker 1:

So this is essentially a company where there is no hierarchical structure. Do you still have an organization chart with different roles? But it's just that no one's more senior than another. Basically everyone's on the same level. Is that right?

Speaker 3:

Exactly, exactly. So there is no, I'm the founder, but I'm not the boss. And because there is a hierarchy of expertise, there is some people a lot better than me for doing the marketing or for speaking about different things. My expertise is on creation of content, teaching, so I'm focusing on my expertise. And we work in sales, so I can be part of the marketing sales example, but there is a leader of this sales that have all the knowledge and the expertise and the experience. That is the leader. When I say leader, because I don't want to use the term boss, but because there is no hierarchy of a decision, but there is a hierarchy of knowledge, so we are confident. We let people work in their expertise a lot more.

Speaker 1:

Interesting and this is for the running clinic where you said did you say there was about 15 employees in that, or did I make that up?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, we are 63 total 63. We have 50 speakers, but we are 12 in the core. Business Means that people that organize everything, the website, etc. But we have the other company. Pcn is a physiotherapy clinic. We are 240. And we just flattened the organizations in three years. So we have a sphere of leadership inside clinic and the best for the every leadership sphere take care of the management of this specific sphere topic.

Speaker 1:

And how does this work when you bring in a new employee that's got a huge amount of experience in a particular sector but doesn't necessarily know the kind of the culture of your business?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so when we hire someone, first of all, many people come work with us because the culture. So they know the culture before, because we our branding our Mark employer in French, again, so for my English. But people know that when they come in our business it's a culture, it's a free culture, it's a free company. So that's the first thing. And when they come, there is an onboarding process that is very complex because we want to be sure that they become very good very fast and that they understand how we function. So for every new people in the organization, I give a talk how we organize our culture inside the organization. What's the rules? Because being freed company doesn't mean that we have no rules. We have a lot of rules, but there is no hierarchy of decision.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's interesting actually. So one of the things that and I don't know if there's any examples of this in your business, but one of the things that Netflix talks about is because they have no holiday policy, so they don't have a flat structure. So if the leader of a team takes very little holiday, by default everyone underneath them takes very little holiday. So one of the rules of having a no holiday policy is that the leader has to take a decent amount of holiday, because that encourages the employees to take a decent amount of holiday, or the team to take a decent amount of holiday, and they know that the productivity then is better because of that. Is there anything, any examples that you can give me of how you have, you know, the rules that you have to set to get the best out of the team in this sort of structure?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, what you said about Netflix is very interesting because one of the problems when you don't have vacation, organize and structure and policy is that people sometimes don't take enough vacation.

Speaker 1:

That's what they found. They found initially that people took less because when people have a holiday allowance, they're worried about losing it. So they take it because they're worried about losing it. If they have no holiday allowance, there's nothing to lose. Therefore, they just take less, yeah.

Speaker 3:

And it's interesting also when you say the leader must show the example by taking holidays. And you know, I'm the type of guys that I'm always in vacation or I'm never in vacation. I don't do the difference, because I work Saturday, sunday, but I go run when it's sunny in the middle of the day and I organize my schedule to be happy and I work a lot and I love that. And probably that's maybe a problem for some people in my team because they see me sometimes as a leader of some cells that are maybe not taking a lot of vacation. I don't know. But yeah, you know all of this thing.

Speaker 3:

When you lead a company, a free company, all of this thing comes up during time and you say, okay, maybe we need to do something for this specific problem. Because we realize that sometimes people are very tired but still working and don't think to take vacation. And we address this in. We meet every week during one hour Tuesday morning at 9,. We meet for one hour to give energy, to know what we do, everybody to be on the same line for the project etc. And just keep up a life and keep up like organized. So sometimes we see someone tired and say, okay, man, you need to take vacation now, and yeah it's.

Speaker 3:

I don't know who. You say that. I don't know what to say exactly about our company because it's functioning pretty well, but it's difficult to define sometimes how we function because it's so out of what most of people live Like. Most of the company have structural hierarchy. There is a bus they decide to give to the other one. You apply, you have some tasks. In our business we don't have so much task. We have responsibility and we organize our job around that.

Speaker 1:

And it must be. I would imagine that in that sort of environment you have to have a clear set of goals for each different person in the team. Is that how it kind of? Is it focused around goals? And or for each different member?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, we need to have a why, a collective why. That is a pretty clear. We need to define pretty well what's the common good and after that everybody we like last month we fix our priority for all the falls until Christmas. So everybody know pretty what they need to produce, what they need to do, and at this point everybody works and do the job they need to be done for create richness in the organization. And if we create collectively richness, we decide collectively what we do is this richness. So that's another thing. At the running clinic we decide all together what's the salary we have. So there is, there is no bus. So we decide and what? Recently? Because the COVID, because many thing, we need to decrease our salary and it's not a decision of the boss, is a collective decision because we didn't produce enough money to pay everybody, Like we said.

Speaker 3:

so we decrease and now we are working to come back to normal and we hope that we will be able to increase.

Speaker 1:

And I suspect that that means that people take that sort of news or decision because it's a collective decision much better than he said. That that's not fair. I'm out so yeah, no, that's brilliant. One of the one of the things we've also got is we ask guests to ask sorry, listeners to ask a question. So the question we've got for this episode, which was from Max, so thank you, Max. What do you beat yourself up about?

Speaker 3:

Means what I do bad.

Speaker 1:

Well, no, what do you criticize yourself for?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, I lost a lot too much time on social media scrolling like the. I really need to stop that. That's a big, big problem for me. When I say it's a big problem is that I lost probably probably close to 30 minutes one hour in a day to doing this type of thing and not working on my computer for real job, and so that's one of the thing. The other thing is I eat a lot too much chocolate. I come from Switzerland, I love chocolate and I eat a lot, a lot, a lot.

Speaker 1:

So sometimes I do. I was gonna say if it's dark chocolate, it's good for you anyway, isn't it?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, but it's not dark first. It's a lot. I have some quizzes sometime and I eat like like the big lint, like the big one, oh, wow, yeah, and I can pass through one in one day.

Speaker 1:

I thought you were going to say the big Toblerones that you see in the airport.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, also, yeah.

Speaker 1:

But they're painful to eat, aren't they? You end up with one of the Alps sticking in the roof of your mouth. They're not easy to eat, but so I'm going to give you before I ask for your book recommendation. I'm going to give you a book recommendation actually because, based on what you beat yourself up about and being distracted by social media, I just read a brilliant book called Indistractable by near EL, spelled N-I-R-E-Y-A-L, near EL, indistractable. It's about how you can stop yourself being distracted by social media email, whatsapp, all of that kind of stuff. Absolutely brilliant book. So I would check that out. But what would be? I always ask people for recommendations on books that you found helpful. Ideally books in English, please. Would be really appreciated, because at least that way we can I can add them to my reading list. But have you got any books that you find yourself recommending to people?

Speaker 3:

Oh, there is a lot. I will give you the author of different books, because I don't know if you know Alex Hutchinson.

Speaker 1:

Oh, yes, Andrew.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, Andrew, and there is. He wrote different other books and Andrew and he was very good. Alex is one of the experts that makes some page in my book, but this is clearly a very good one. And there is Daniel Lieberman that published another one I missed the title, but it's very, very good too about the evolution of human being.

Speaker 1:

Daniel Lieberman. Is that the exercise? I think, Is that right? The book?

Speaker 3:

Yes, I think so yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, both of those are. So did you say there was another book by Alex Hutchinson, Endure, and another one?

Speaker 3:

I think he wrote like three, four.

Speaker 1:

Oh, okay, I love Endure, but I haven't read any of his others, so I shall look up the others.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And what was it about those books that you find yourself recommending them? What do you say? What is it about those books that you find so powerful?

Speaker 3:

Open mind about how the body works, but I am a lover of the body working Like oh, it's working, how it's Like. The book of Alex is interesting because you learn how you can stretch your brain by the reality, by going further that what you think you can really be able to go. Yeah, but there is a lot of interesting concept in those books and you know I don't read a lot and that's one of the things now with the social media and I think about Instagram and the little capsule, that you can learn a lot of things too, and that's one of my problems. I scroll on social media and I read a lot of stuff that doesn't make sense. But there is very interesting thing on little capsule, on different thing that you can learn very fast and very quick.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Yeah, it's a blessing and a the opposite of a blessing. I'm not sure what the saying is, but, like, for example, my youngest daughter is really keen on TikTok and I hate TikTok as a social media. I think it's awful. And yet she'll come out with some really interesting facts and you're like where did you get that from? How did you know that? Oh, I saw it on TikTok. So there's some great stuff there. You can learn a lot of good stuff, but equally, you can become. You can just lose hours scrolling through nonsense easily as well, can't you? So it's a blessing and a curse. That's the saying I was looking for, blaze. It's been absolutely brilliant. It's been really interesting chatting to you.

Speaker 1:

I think there's a huge amount to take away from this interview, particularly around preventing running and recovering better. Preventing injuries and recovering from injuries better. I think that's absolutely brilliant. But I love the stuff about the business as well. I think what you're doing there is really interesting. If people want to watch or learn from the running clinic, where's the best place to find out what courses are going on? Are you ever coming to the UK? Tell us a little bit more about where we can find you.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, if they go on therunningcliniccom they will find all the course we have online, because we have different course online. We have also the fundamental of running injuries. That is by Zoom one time a year in English because we know. So if someone from England want to follow the course, it's possible Most of the time. Jean-françois Esculier that gave the course.

Speaker 3:

You know what's special with the running clinic is that we have a systematic weekly review of the literature about running. So we are looking for more than 2,500 title every month about running injuries prevention, treatment, diagnosis, et cetera. And we keep all the things that is pertinent for runners and for health professionals and that's built continuously our course. So our course is updated all the time with this literature. And Jean-François Esculier have a baby one week ago, so he takes some weeks, months off, but he's the guy that developed most of the English part and he's the guy that went in UK last time some years ago. So we will go back to UK for sure. And on the website of the running clinic you will see all the course we give e-learning presentation and tons of information about the mechanical stress configuration, the minimalistic index, the peace and love. We have different blogs, different articles that you can follow there. So, yeah, everything is on the website and we have, for sure, social media stuff that my team take care, but yeah, Brilliant, excellent.

Speaker 1:

It's been absolutely fascinating. Thank you so much. I'll be looking out for you in the UK for sure.

Speaker 3:

Thank you very much, charlie, and sorry again for my poor English and my big accent.

Speaker 1:

Your English is exceptionally good, so thank you. That's it for this episode of the Triathlon Podcast. If you want to find out more about Blaze, the best place to go to is therunningcliniccom, but he's also on LinkedIn, as blazedubois Dubois is spelled D-U-B-O-I-S, and on Instagram he's blaze underscore duois. So keep up the amazing training and keep on the amazing learning as well, and in the meantime, keep on training. If you like what we do at the Triathlon Podcast, you've got to register for Tribe Talk. It's an email that comes out every two weeks packed full of everything to do with swim, bike and run, but also nutritional help, business coaching and a whole lot more, whether that's books, videos, ted Talks, apps or technologies. It's packed full of ideas that can help improve your sport, your life and your business. So register for it at tribeathlonecom and you'll be sure that every two weeks, your inbox is full of some amazing ideas and resources to improve your life.

Speaker 1:

And remember this episode was brought to you by the Trusted Team and by Fourth Discipline. If you want to find out more about how the Trusted Team can help you grow your business and improve your work-life balance, go to thetrustedteam, and if you want to find out more about how Fourth Discipline can help take your performance in sport and life to the next level. Go to fourthdisciplinecom. If you enjoyed this podcast, please do review it and share it, because it helps other people find what we think is really valuable learning lessons from amazing athletes. So please do that. You can also find the whole back catalogue at tribeathlonecom and you can also find out about the Tribe Athlon app, which helps people find events, find people to train with and enjoy their events through their tribe. So check out tribeathlonecom.

Running Injury Prevention and Professional Background
Running Training Load and Recovery
Brain in Recovery
Nutrition, Exercise, and Injury Recovery Impact
Pros and Cons of Running Shoes
Flat Structure and Decision-Making Company
Running Clinic
Sponsorship for Personal Growth and Performance