Todd McDougle DC - ICA Sports and Fitness Science Council

Join Dr. Brant Hulsebus as he interviews Dr. Todd McDougle in this inaugural episode of the ICA Sports and Fitness Health Science Podcast. They discuss the origins and evolution of the ICA council on sports, Dr. McDougle’s groundbreaking techniques in chiropractic care for strength athletes, and the council’s mission to enhance human performance through specialized chiropractic adjustments. The episode delves into Dr. McDougle's journey, international recognition, and the council's efforts to foster a supportive community for sports-minded chiropractors. Tune in for insight on dynamic warm-ups, injury prevention, and the exciting developments in chiropractic care within various sports disciplines.

Transcript

0:15

. Hi I'm Dr. Brant Hulsebus. And thank you for joining us on the ICA sports and fitness health science podcast. We started this podcast to bring to you some of the top ICA chiropractors that evolve in the world of fitness and sports. And what a better way to start off this podcast and talking to Dr. Todd McDougall and dr. McDougall, give me a favor. Tell everybody why we're here and who you are and how this got started. It's an amazing thing. I know several years ago I was lucky enough to meet Dr. Coralee Van Egmond and then Ron Hendrickson and those guys really had this thing that was just dialed in, which was the ICA Council on Sports. And it was actually fitness and sports health science. And It was a powerhouse. They had tied in with the Arnold's and the the sports and fitness program that he has every year in Columbus, Ohio. And in fact, I, later, after graduating and meeting Arnold Schwarzenegger for the first time, I was able to actually, eventually become Guest speaker at that event. As time had gone on I had also been working myself into leadership position as a innovator for strength athletes and the chiropractic adjustment. And as time has gone on there became an opportunity. Based upon a need to step up and redesign the Sports Council and bring it back to life. Which, thankfully, I have people like yourself that have volunteered to accomplish that task. And here we are. So I was at that Arnold when you did your first presentation. That was a lot of fun. And I'm going to say this about you here. I don't know anyone that takes care of larger patients. When I say larger patients, I don't mean like they're big, like they're in charge of companies or corporations. These are the biggest people I've ever seen in my life and you're their chiropractor. So how did you get involved in taking care of these massive individuals? I was asked by a person who really believed a lot in the chiropractic profession. It was a pro strongman athlete by the name of Chad Coy. Chad Coy. He asked me if there was a way that we can do a chiropractic adjustment in such a manner that the athlete themselves didn't have that weakness or that feeling of being sprung right after the adjustment was performed. And so I graduated in 97. So in the mid 90s or 95 and before, they'd actually got away from Doing static and ballistic stretches, which were basically a warm up application that we all did when I was a kid growing up. And what had been designed with the latest up and coming exercise fizz personalities and teachers, coaches, etc. Was the the movement away from those kinds of stretches towards what is called dynamic warmup. And so a lot of dynamic warmup had to do with going through the particular motions and activities of the event that you were going to participate in, whether it be swimming or weightlifting or football or golf or whatever. And then that. That movement pattern would be your warmup. So no longer toe touches, hurdler stretches, things along those lines. When I got digging, want to be, really started focusing and digging into what we were doing as chiropractors, what I discovered was, is that we were still doing on strength athletes. A version of a long lever stretch, which would be a static stretch, get the patient into position under tension, and then we would bounce it. And when we would bounce it, we would actually be duplicating a ballistic stretch. And so the end result of that actually had to do with the blowing out of the neuromuscular recruitment. This actually was discovered in 1910 by a doctor Hoffman. Not the baby Hoffman, the other Hoffman, and that Hoffman's reflex is what I started down a path with. and changed chiropractic applications on strength athletes worldwide. And, also, I was nearly killed in a accident, industrial accident in 1988. So there were a lot of movements I couldn't do anyway. And due to lack of flexibility, elbow damage, shoulder damage, things along those lines. So I went to chiropractic college in a handicapped state. Not just mentally, but also, physically and It's so wild to be able to take what I've designed, developed on strength athletes and then bring it all the way across to, like you said, the largest, strongest human beings on planet earth. And we're talking people who are, 6'9 450 pound men. And to see their performance gains immediately after getting the adjustment, whether it be injury oriented or just performance gains from where they were. It has been an astounding journey. Astounding. they've requested you all over the world, correct? You've traveled all over the place to see these guys? Cause they just love the benefits of what you're doing, right? Yes. And also when they end up having other. Providers that will do the side posture applications such as I think he won in 2020 Alexei Novikov from The Ukraine he had told me he says listen I was over in Dubai He says I had a guy put me on my side. He didn't do what you do. And He said he broke my back And broken Ukrainian. You broke my back. And and he said how, what happened? How did he break my back? I strong before I not strong after. And so I explained to him just what we just shared just a moment ago. And he goes why do other people not know this? And I go, honestly, I haven't taught them yet because I'm the only person in the world that actually discusses this and how it does things. and can negatively affect. Listen, side posture applications, a wonderful application. So you're not going to hear me knock it. And in fact, it's so good at what it does. Even athletic trainers and physical therapists want to do it, right? So we know it's beneficial, but I think, what we as chiropractors need to reorient ourselves with is the simple fact that not all techniques are the same. regardless of what they teach in school, and also right tool for right situation. Yep. I talk about it all the time. I learned 14, 14 different ways to adjust your C1 going through school. And we picked the right one for the right time for the right situation. Somebody comes in with neurological stuff, we're thinking upper cervical tachycardia or recoil. Somebody else comes in with a headache or concussion, we're thinking a whole different area. So you couldn't be more right on. My father always said the application of chiropractic always works, the application does not. And so they keep talking about finding the right application with the right adjustment for the right person and get dynamic, crazy, positive results. That's amazing. In clinic is take what I've developed in strength sports and cross it over, and granted I have to change that just a bit, to go ahead and apply it on people who've got artificial hips, rods and screws, people with scoliosis, people with plates in their neck, and things along those lines. So post surgical applications of this are also highly effective, but When you figure out how to enhance the performance of an athlete, why wouldn't we have increased performance in our patients too? Now definitely you would not put a person with a full cage in their, screwed in their back. You would not put that person in side posture or, somebody that has artificial hips. You would not put them in side posture. Unfortunately, what I will say is we have colleagues out there that are doing it. And. The patients really need to be, they need to have an awareness of things. And not all chiropractors know all things. We all have different experiences, right? You with the hockey, me with the strength sports, some of our colleagues who do golf and rodeo and things along those lines too. Those are, you can use those applications, but sometimes it's not the right application, just like we just said. Yeah, I ask chiropractors all the time if you ever refer to another chiropractor like a cervical specialist for a reason. So medical doctors refer to other medical doctors all the time for different specialties. Our profession needs to get better at that. But I want to turn the road here a little bit. I want to talk a little bit about this counsel that we're doing. I think this is our first podcast that we're doing. I think a lot of people might be tuning in and are like, what's this council all about? What are these guys doing? Do you want to give some of the little clues of some of the things that we've been working on that we're trying to bring to tuition? And that's great. I know if people will go ahead and go to the icasportscience. org. I actually have a letter there that, talks about what it is that we are, who are we? We're an organization focused on human performance with a dedication enhancing athlete function through measures and method involving chiropractic adjustments as the primary application. Our goals are, are not limited to offering opportunities for the sports minded chiropractor to have fellowship with their colleagues. The perpetuation of chiropractic itself really must aid in the development of skills that focus on specific and proper adjusting methods, just like the ones we're talking about, which are tailored to be sports specific while reducing injury to the chiropractor during the execution of care. We want to create a unique learning environment to ensure that the chiropractors can successfully engage both athlete. and care team members as they share the amazing experiences of positive outcomes that become evident in the achievement of the athlete's dreams. I think combining these three areas will aid in the formation of a deep foundation of principles matched with confidence and competency that's necessary for chiropractors, not just the young ones who are coming out of chiropractic college, but also those individuals who. Have been at it for a while and they just want to hone in just a little bit. The big thing that we wanted to make sure that we let everyone know that we're not here to duplicate programs that already exist. There are, different programs such as the CCSP and the diplomat program in sports, that's all fine and good. We're not there to duplicate with that. Those certification programs. Oftentimes. We'll end with the execution of testing measures, but unfortunately in many situations with those kinds of programs, there's not actual opportunities to serve in the field of competition. We want to try and change that. And I think, just like what we talked about, whether it be, working with NFL, NAFL hockey pro amateur baseball, basketball rodeo golf. Tennis, any of those kinds of things, for me, strong man, obviously, and power sports, those are things that, we want to try and add into the mix here and just try and make things happen for these doctors. But here's the other side of it. We are the International Chiropractors Association. So the other component of this is we truly want to get to the point that we are doing this internationally and I'm planning on doing one in York. United Kingdom I believe in August is when that is tied in with the official Strongman Games European Championships. So I'm very serious about it. Last year, we also, we partnered with SWIS, which was with the Dr. Ken Kinakin, this it's actually the Society of Weight Training Injury Specialists. He actually was, I, it's just so great. He honored me with a Lifetime Achievement Award. And there were some pretty amazing providers there. But to get that that award really wow, that was touching. To say the least but we also partnered with OSG last year. And then what else did we do? Oh, the Lee Haney Sports Festival tied in with Chiro Athletica and and Pete Gratale. And so we're not talking, What would you say? I don't want to offend anybody, but low end stuff. We're talking, top notch, high level performance athletes and professionals that we are bringing to the table and we want to bring other people to our table and include them too, so that they can share with. Doctors of all ages and all levels of skill sets, their story, and we want to be the place where those chiropractic doctors can go to do exactly that. Ya, when I became the team chiropractor 20 years ago, the hockey team. I didn't know what to do, how to start, or what to do. I just knew, hey, I just wanted to go adjust hockey players. I wanted to be in the locker room. My father always told me if you get adjusted your whole life, you'll become a star athlete. And then I guess genetics. I had a different idea but I still wanted to be in there and that's the way I got in there was being the chiropractor so I think it's gonna be neat for us to have a place for anyone that wants to get involved in sports regardless of the sport to find other chiropractors already doing it can already help guide you and maybe make you look at things you never looked at before I mean I trust me after 20 years of That and plus I did basketball baseball chiropractic and everything else So our website's out there, right? You're going to put a link to that on this podcast You should wherever you're watching this or listening to this. It should be a link to that And we're going to be doing this podcast. You're going to come back to see some more Dr. Todd was good enough to give a little preview for dr. Pete. He's coming up here real soon And we want to know what you think too, right? So if you got things you want to see or hear from us or areas you want us to go You Talk to some of our friends. Leave us a comment below. Tell us what you're looking for. We'd love to provide that for you the best we can. What we have is we have a library of ICA chiropractors that work with various teams in sports and our goal in this podcast and our website and our whole thing is to find those, tap them into you to give you access to those people. That's our goal is to kick around ideas and we're going to have seminars like Dr. Todd said. If you want to see this adjustment he's talking about with the eliminate the side posture, fix that adjustment for the athlete right before they go compete. That's the kind of stuff we're going to be doing. And right now we're looking at possibly the next one would be in Atlanta, correct? We have we've got one in Atlanta in November. We've got one tied in with official Strongman Games in December. The one in York is in August. In July, I've got another one in Columbia, Missouri, which is a Midwest. OSG Championships or prequalifiers. We also had a Mid Atlantic in Maine, I believe. Oh, no, Maryland. It's Mainer, Maryland, one of the other ones, but yeah, and that's just a strongman track, right? So the thing is, listen, we're interested in everything and everybody at all levels. If you take care of pickleball athletes, we want you, if you take care of the little league players, we want you too. We just want to give. The opportunities to be exposed to amazing things just so life is a lot less mundane and we can have that fellowship anytime, anytime people hear our board meetings for our council, we are all up. We're excited. We're idea forming. We're, when we all are in creation phase. Things like this podcast become a reality and we've got so many other things that we want to do as well. I know for me and in the Strongman Arena, I've developed this thing called Live Fire Training. Live Fire Training is not a scripted anything. It literally is 400 athletes that could be coming to your table from all over the world that have a wide variety of issues and injuries and you have to you. You, I have to figure it out, no pressure, but I want people to see what it is to really be a sports chiropractor and see that the adjustment done properly eliminates the need for so many ancillary things that people are wasting time with. And it's not that those things aren't beneficial. But the chiropractic adjustment done and applied properly can pretty much take care and eliminate all the extras. It, you just need to know how, and that's what we want to supply. And I can't end it better than that. That's who we are and what our mission is. We're going to invite you all to join us on this journey. And I'm going to invite you to come back here for some more podcasts. Talking about Dr. Pete coming up. We got Dr. Kevin Jackson coming up. Talking about concussion. His thing everybody does on the sidelines so cool to me and I can't wait to do that one and we got all kinds of fun cool stuff coming up. We got chiropractors from the nfl nhl and mlb We got strong man. I myself have a chiropractic clinic inside of a pickleball court Sorry, that pickleball stuff hits onto me a little bit, but we're going to come at you from every direction, and like I said, keep coming back, hit subscribe, follow us, like us, share us with other chiropractors, and help us spread this great thing. Dr. Todd McDougle Please become a member, yes, you don't, become a member. We've got a huge mission and there are a lot of chiropractors world wide. We want to be that brotherhood and sisterhood for you guys. Absolutely join us and our website again will be on the link here wherever you're listening to this or wherever you're watching this check it out. It's gonna be super fun. We look forward to having this adventure with you. Dr. Tom Dugall I'll say thank you very much for joining us and thank you for having the vision to restart this thing and I'll tell you what I'm excited. I don't know about you but I'm really excited. I do know about you. I know you're excited. I'm always excited, aren't I? All right, everybody. We'll come see you again next time. Thanks for joining us. See you later. Bye bye.