Resistance Training for Recovery & Prevention with Dr. Myers & Coach Kosta

Doctor Chris Myers talks with strength coach Kosta Telegadas on White Coat Warriors

Dr. Chris Myers: The views expressed by myself and the guests of this podcast do not reflect the official policy or position of the US Air Force, Department of Defense, or the US government. Welcome to White Coat Warriors. I’m your host, Doctor Chris Myers. And on this podcast, we talk about human performance optimization and training paradigms for you, the young medical professionals, and how you can use it in your own professional practices to help yourselves and your clients. Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of White Coat warriors. Today we’ve got another great episode for you. Today we’re going to be talking with strength coach Kosta Telegadas, a great friend of mine and colleague, as well, who helped write chapter ten of the human weapons system book, that you see behind me and what this podcast is based on. So we’re going to talk a little bit about shop, about resistance training, how it can be used with, you know, injury prevention and recovery, but also with you as young doctors, how you can use it yourself to help improve your performance. So, welcome to the show. Tell, Kosta.

Kosta Telegadas: Yeah. Hey, Chris, thank you so much for having me. Really, grateful to be here, man.

Dr. Chris Myers: Yeah, appreciate it. Yeah, it’s great to finally have you on. So, I know you all, watch. Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

Kosta Telegadas: Yeah, I’ve been a strength condition coach since I was roughly 20 years old. Starting the intern in that route. currently working with the tactical populations, all over the world right now. It’s been fantastic. And, love martial arts. really big into brazilian jiu jiu jitsu. I’m a writer. I helped publish an ebook for strength coaches as well, to help adapt certain methodologies and give them some framework for the tactical setting when they come in. And, really just excited to be here with you today, man.

Dr. Chris Myers: I appreciate it. Yeah.

So let’s talk about your background in strength and conditioning

So let’s talk about, kind of your background in strength and conditioning. So we know, I know you started really young in this. So what really got you motivated to get in and into coaching itself.

Kosta Telegadas: Yeah, so we got to go back to my high school days on that, man. basically, I was a basketball player. when I was born, I was a swimmer. Had loads of, musculoskeletal injuries and issues just riddled up and down. Nothing major but acute pop up everywhere you can imagine, right? Low back, shoulder, ankle, you name it. so, started back a freshman year of high school. I, made the basketball, team. I didn’t think I was gonna make it, and I wound up, being seated on the depth chart at the lowest depth chart. I was the tallest guy on the team, weighed the most and just could not be a physical body at all. Right. Yeah. So from there I wound up getting a pretty nasty low back injury that year. probably hit something like spray my paraspinalis or something like that in the low back, but it was just nasty. Even just getting up and sitting down were crippling. So in the offseason the coaches kind of questioned whether I was going to go play on the JV team or not from the freshman to the JV level. So, I wound up wanting to prove him wrong. And so I got in the weight room. We had a multi million dollar state of the art facility at Douglas Freeman High School and it was a public school. So it’s not a super healthy public school, it’s not a super poor public school, but it’s just right in the middle. And they brought in a strength coach from Arizona State University, coach, Rooney. So hey, coach Rooney, if you listen to this, I love you, man. Definitely probably one of the most positive masculine figures I’ve ever had in my life. He was the first guy to challenge a lot of the beliefs that I had about myself and work with me, with the basketball team in there. He’ll tell you. I went from coming in two days a week to five days a week. I couldn’t get enough. And it showed, you know, all the pain went away and my squat went from barely being able to squat the bar with proper form down to the box all the way to being 300 that offseason, you know, over the course of a year, year and a half. Right. So yeah, it was fantastic. I fell in love with the weight room, saw the performance in basketball and it went from being last in the depth chart to being first guy off the bench, for the JV team that year. So I saw it first and foremost. from there, you know, I went off to college because he got me to get my act together. I was probably closing in on being a c or d student in high school and wound up getting up to an a and b student because of the discipline that was built from that. wound up not knowing what I wanted to do in college. Just thought back to what I liked and maybe, hey, this is my chance to pursue it. So I get into Longwood University. It’s a small d one school in Richmond, Virginia or, sorry, right outside Richmond, Virginia in Farmville. Excuse me. And basically, I don’t know, I’m sitting there and I’m thinking back and I was like, well, you know what? I want to go try to be a strength coach. Like, let’s just try it. I’ve tried the physical, therapy, going to the clinics, watched them do the spider walks up the walls. I’ve gone to see personal training. It seems more like sales. I’m not really into that. Right. And we’ll fast forward to some stuff and where that maybe came in later, but now I’m. I was like, I want to try strength and conditioning. So I go kind of shadow some strength coaches in the Richmond area during, during, that summer, between sophomore and junior year, I’m like, yes, this is 100% what I want to do. I get in the best shape of my life again, after being at a pretty low point, and then from there, got a chance to really just explore it. I got an internship at the school because the school didn’t have enough strength coaches. So they’re like, yeah, kid, come on. You start Monday with the teams and just built it. Yeah. I mean, we had two for, I think I want to say, like, twelve or 14 teams, something like that. So it’s not. Not enough underfunded d one school, right. Like, goes in and wound, up really loving it. Get, a chance to run teams after six months, which is pretty rare. they gave me cross country, and then I just built up from there, built the trust with that strength staff. Then I went on, summer internships in between there at Liberty University under Bill Gillespie, with the football team over there, and then wound up going to VCU, during that summer after I graduated, I wound up, you know, really falling in love with it, man. from there I got into Miami. At Miami, I was made a Ga after six months, so able to work with very high level division one teams. And I was given, cheer, dance and swim. So very diverse, like, you know, no real money teams, but great experience, right? Yeah, I wound up leaving there and, you know, I saw a lot of good people get let go with the Dd one politics, and saw kind of the stress that came into that. Bumped into Tom Palumbo, who is, working specific group right now. And Tom pulls me aside and he says, kid, I wish I had gone to the tactical setting. God, 20 years ago when I first started. He’s been to Ohio State, he’s been to Georgia, he’s been to Pittsburgh, you know, and he says, I’ve never and always. You’re looking for new jobs as strength coaches for maybe people in your audience who don’t know, he says, I’ve never looked for a new job the past ten years. Like, I haven’t done it right. And he goes to work, loves what he does, gets, great results with his population that he’s working with now and is the reason I decided to pursue that route. So, coached at a local high school for a little bit, just in the meantime while trying to get my name in the field. Then got a job offer from Exos up in Detroit, Michigan. So I, moved all the way from Miami back to Richmond, Virginia, up Detroit. So we saw the entirety of the east coast in the midwest. Really, liked my job there. I got a chance to work with, NFL combine prep, firefighters, general population. It was a really good hodgepodge role from there. Got a chance to, you know, get promoted and kind of be a team, a, ah, team lead that oversaw some heavy, training in our new facility they were building. unfortunately, COVID happened. And right as COVID happened, I lucked out and got on the contract that I am now and been, working on the tactical side ever since. It’s truly been a blessing. You know, it’s just been absolutely incredible for me. And now I got, promoted again and, well, we’re all over the place now, so it’s been a lot of fun.

Dr. Chris Myers: That’s great.

You see a lot of lower back and neck injuries in tactical populations

So I want to hone in on one of the things that you, that you mentioned. So you talked about your injuries, right? So you talked about, you know, lower back working through that, especially during your high school basketball. And that’s, that’s something that I know we see in our tactical populations. You know, definitely like lower back, shoulder, knee and neck injuries, particularly with yourself. You and I have kind of discussed this, you know, privately is with your population. You see a lot of lower back and neck injuries. Talked about how you use your skills as a strength and conditioning coach and your program to kind of help with that, both from a kind of a rehab and a, prehab standpoint.

Kosta Telegadas: Yes, from a rehab, rehab standpoint for the most part, I will include my ats on developing one. So for the medical population, who doesn’t know, that’s gonna be your athletic trainers really specialize a lot of the prehab and rehab and kind of acute injury treatments with, our guys right now. And from there, we want to go through and really have them sit down. Hey, what’s this phase going to look like? What are we going to actually accomplish here? What are you seeing trends on your end? And how can we reverse that? But from the warm up standpoint you know, we don’t get too far from the basics. Right. We’ll go look at, neck and low back, stability. We’ll look at core stability. We’ll look at shoulder, hip, and, ankle mobility specifically, as well. We’ll, do some glute activation, and we’ll also do, some posterior training in the upper back, as well before they get into their main working sets that day. So we don’t stay too far from it. We give them a lot of variation, but, we really hone in on those. For my people that are coming off some sort of activity where the low back is going to be strained, we’re going to do something as simple as just hanging from a bar for 30 seconds to a minute. yeah, you’d be surprised, man. it gives you that temporary relief. It puts a little bit of millimeters of distance in between, the vertebrae and lets the disc relax a little bit. So, that’s been a game changer for us. And it’s just so small, so easy. Loosens up the lat, gets the grip strength there. If they really want to, and just prep some right before the set. Or if we do something like a heavy squat, you know, that day, or heavy deadlift, we’ll go in and just hang from a bar directly after that before they get into their accessory work that day. And individuals. Oh, yeah. And for my individuals who really are struggling, we’ll add in the McGill big three, before the workout, during the workout, and after the workout, as well.

Dr. Chris Myers: Can you explain what the. Can you explain that, with the m. McGill big three are.

Kosta Telegadas: Yes. The McGill big three. You’re looking at the McGill crunch, the McGill side plank, and the bird dog. Okay. I’m sure. Yeah, we can. Yeah, we can plug in a ton of different variations or maybe even show a video in this podcast, as well to give your audience an idea. Just because I can’t do it right here in my apartment.

Dr. Chris Myers: Yeah, I wouldn’t ask you to.

Kosta Telegadas: Yeah. but, you know, they will, put their hands underneath their low back, do a nice crunch, where their shoulders will come slightly off the floor, and they’re going to engage. We call it the six pack muscle. It’s the abdominis. As harder as they can. then they’re going to hold that, from anywhere. From. You know, we’ll have them hold it for 10 seconds and then switch legs. Well, one leg’s in, one legs out, each side, go through three times. We’ll do side planks either just 30 seconds straight or do three sets of 10 seconds alternating through just to keep them moving. Cause sometimes our guys don’t have to stay in one spot doing the same thing for too long. And then the bird dogs we either have move through it very slowly with a fully clenched fist and pushing their leg back to the wall behind them. Those are just two common cues. I say, you know, punch the guy in front of you, kick the door close at the same time, and they’ll touch their elbow underneath their kneecap, right under their, midline at their belly button. But it’s, it’s done under control and moved very, slow for them, so they get that core stability, a little bit of spinal decompression. And then two other methods we use are the inversion table, which is done in the athletic trainer’s office right now. And then the, glute ham inversion, we will literally just have them get on a glute ham as if they’re going to do a back extension. And I’ll just say, all right, let your hands relax to the floor. Try to get your head as close as you can to the floor, and just watch their low back just sink slowly down. It’s very minimal, but that’s interesting. Yeah, they’re actually decompressing their spine. and that’s about the. Yeah, that’s about the primary methods we use right now to help with the low back injury, specifically.

Dr. Chris Myers: Okay, excellent.

What about some of the neck injuries that you see? 

What about some of the neck injuries that you see?

Kosta Telegadas: Neck injuries? I mean, you’re looking at all sides of the neck, man. It could be from the back of the neck, directly over the spine, all the way down into your, thoracic region, all the way to something going on with the trap, on the outside of one of the shoulders leading up and in. So I don’t do too much with that. Outside of any sort of foam rolling or lacrosse ball or maybe if a thera gun and just gun it on quick. Right. Nothing crazy, nothing wild. but the biggest thing you can do is address t spine mobility to help out with some of those issues as well, and then have them dig a little crossbone to the upper back. for neck work specifically, we do a lot of preparation for that. What they are going through, they will tuck, their chin in, and we even have different series that we can go through. So one of the series that I start with for every single person is the supine neck series. And all it is, very simply put, is they’re laying on their back, feet are close to their butt, knees are pointing to the sky. They’re going to engage their belly button down to the floor. Then they’re going to actually take their, chin up off the floor, poke it to the ceiling, and then retract back down without having the back of their head touching the floor. Okay. I’ll do that for either reps or time. That’s part one. There’s four parts here, so bear with me. Oh, wow. yeah, then they’ll go through, and they will do chin, forward. They’ll tuck the chin down. They’ll bring it back to the same position they started in and retuck. So now you’re getting that deep flexion.

Dr. Chris Myers: Yeah.

Kosta Telegadas: The neck. the last one or the last two will do is they will, levitate their. Sorry, excuse me. Elevate their back, of their skull up off the floor. They’ll tuck. So it’s not touching. They will go right ear, right shoulder, pause in the middle, left ear, left shoulder. so they get that lateral flexion. And then from there, they will do the, actual tuck. You know, you’re going to check right, pause in the middle. Tuck, check left, right. So, those are very simple things that we can do. And there’s multiple series. That’s just an example. We could really dive. Yeah, weeds. then as they get better at that, I’ll progress into some weighted variations, whether they’ll have a plate on the side of their head and m do reps or time, ah, under good, slow movements, under control. And then eventually, if the long term. You know, my previous place, we were at a, weighted neck machine like you see in the NFL or collegiate ball weight rooms. And, you know, there’s a bunch of tempos that we can do for those. And though that, ideally, is where I want to get everyone, but you have to expose them to a lower regression first because most of them can’t even do the 30 seconds when they first start.

Dr. Chris Myers: Right. Yeah. I like the fact that you’re talking about working the different areas of the neck with that first series, because that work, that’s a similar issue that young, doctors will see, especially as they start getting into surgery and such, where you’re on your feet for anywhere from eight to 13 hours a day. So we’ll talk that portion in a second. But how do you work on the operating table? You’re looking down. So a progression like that could very well be used by our young doctors to help optimize their performance or even just help prolong their performance a little bit, relieve some stress as well.

Do you have any recommendations on resources that our young audience can look at

So do you have any recommendations on resources, that our young audience can look at to kind of get more information based on, similar to that next series that you just mentioned? I know on this one.

Kosta Telegadas: No, no, you’re good. I don’t know any books off the top of my head, but if they, I could easily attach several different articles, whether it’s research based articles or just general programming articles, like you’d see on like elite fts or team builder or God knows what platform. Right. So, but those were definitely good resources for them to start. I would also recommend they also do a ton of pulling to help up with their posture as well.

Dr. Chris Myers: Okay, yeah, we’ll talk that in a second, but so what we’ll do, for those who are listening, we’ll find those resources and we’ll post them, here, with the podcast. So you’ll be able to have links to those to dive in further if you want to act, you know, bring in that type of exercise and stretching to help alleviate your pain, especially in those long hours in the or and er.

So let’s talk about that posture portion that you were mentioning

So let’s, now let’s, let’s, let’s talk about that posture portion that you were mentioning, because that’s the second component. Right. So dive into that a little bit. What are your thoughts and some of your methodologies on that?

Kosta Telegadas: Well, one thing I use in my current population right now is we don’t really get away from single arm or single leg. We call it unilateral training for the doctors that don’t know. that’s going to be primarily what we do for a lot of upper body work. you know, we’re looking to just get them settled and get them going. We’ll teach them how to do a basic dumbbell row, you know, hey, we got one knee on the bench, one hand on the bench, good flat back, pull the back to the back pocket, reaching that latin proper form. Exactly. But then from there, as we get more advanced, let’s say we want to add some size. we could do a chest supported, dumbbell, row, but I call it a, single, single, double. So they’ll be just nothing but time under tension and volume at an appropriate weight. So they’ll literally do row with the right row with the left row both at once. And that’s one rep. And we’ll go up anywhere from eight to twelve reps with that. And by the end of it, you just see guys just smoked afterwards. But that’s going to fix a lot of your posture. As far as the rowing portion goes, if you’re going to look at the other portions, you want to really work the rotator cuff because as you said, if your head is looking down, so your shoulders and the rest of the body follows. So a lot of cable external rotations, whether it’s high rotations, such as a Cuban with a band or a cable, or even a small weight like a two pound dumbbell, or going out externally low, each of those angles is going to be critical for them. And then training a lot of the, trapezius muscles, specifically the middle and low trapezius, because so much of the time, if we do like barbell shrugs or even if we’re just sitting here like this, you see that these muscles are just going to be overactive. And those low traps aren’t even going to be activated properly. So what they can do is do low banded rows and I mean really row that low. they could do, dumbbell wise, those are one of my favorites for the low traps, but they do them under control. So I’ll literally have them lay on a bench. They’ll retract their shoulders back, they’ll hit two reps, right. And then they’ll actually, protract their shoulders forward, pull back and then hit another two reps. So we find if we break it up every two reps, they really light up those low traps properly. Whereas a lot of people just squeeze their shoulders back and down and crank out twelve to 20 reps. And, and you wonder whether posture never got fixed in the first place. Right. So activation is crucial. And there’s a million other exercises we go to, but those are my main go to for the over.

Dr. Chris Myers: That’s good. Yeah, similar with us with my population. Right. So what we utilize is the I love the eyes wise tees supported. So for those who are listening, and what we’re talking about or what I use is a lot is rehab techniques for, especially when it comes to the four rotator cuff muscles. And so when we talk about the eyes y’s and t’s, your lands, prone on the, Yeah, you’re laying prone supported and we’re doing, you’re taking very light weights. We’re talking about anywhere between three and five pounds in each hand. And you’re doing an I y and then a t, with your arms and you’re really contracting your, your ensuring that the scapular is very, is locked in and you’re activating the the supraspinatus and the infraspinatus with that. And those are, that’s another way to really help, with posture and with, you know, when you, you have an overactive, anterior upper body muscles. So what we’ll do is we’ll also provide some other routine, simple routines that, costa and I have mentioned in here as well. and just, these are easy. These are honestly 510 minutes routines that you can do in the morning or at lunch to really kind of help with optimization of your performance just on a regular workday. I personally, I do it, after working on the floor for 3 hours, and I go and sit for three more hours, lunch, I get up and I go do, I do gluteal activation, work. And I just used mini bands very similar to what Kassen mentioned before. He mentioned the bird dog. that’s very, you know, besides working core and lower back activation stability, it’s really good for. Glad you’ll activation as well. Monster walks. And the reason we do that is because there’s a thing called, gluteal amnesia. And with us and sitting in a chair in an office all day, that’ll do it. Or if you sit down for a long period of time and then you get up and go walk around, the gluteal muscles don’t activate as easily as they should. And so that’s one of the reasons to kind of help with that. Can help with reducing fatigue throughout the day too.

Kosta Telegadas: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And you know, honestly, what I found too is if you even do a lot of single leg work, single leg rdls, single leg, leg curls, you do single leg step ups, lateral step ups, lunges, lateral lunges, and a ton of progression series we can give them there. But you really have to train at full range of motion. To get those glutes activated. Right. I mean, I love a lot of the stuff we see in the field about micro dosing. Sometimes with like athletes in season, but sometimes only going partials. And in this setting, you, whether it’s with doctors or with tactical athletes, you need to go that full range of motion.

Any strength conditioning program that’s wellness oriented needs to start working in

Dr. Chris Myers: And I think you hit right on it is so, when we, when a lot of people hear strength coaches, they think bigger, faster, stronger, and yeah, a lot of times, especially in the performance setting, that is the case. But we’re, right now we’re kind of talking more of the wellness setting. And so it’s a completely different approach. And so working range of motion is one of the number one aspects that a strength coach really looks at. And any type of program, you know, strength conditioning program that’s wellness oriented, needs to start working in. Is that mobility and that range of motion?

Kosta Telegadas: Yeah.

Dr. Chris Myers: So if you were to, if you were to give it a piece of advice to a new set of young, and we’re not talking residents yet, but senior medical students, if they had to focus on one or two things at coming out of being in school for eight years, what would you say as strength?

Kosta Telegadas: Ah, coach, full range of motion, like we talked about, first and foremost, load. the weight. Slow. I understand a lot of people want to throw weight on the bar. Like, oh, today is too easy. Great. It’s too easy. Fantastic. Add five to ten pounds next week, especially if you don’t have a coach watching you or someone who’s tracking your maxes to give you the proper percentages or RPE or whatever you’re going to do. I, would then say, you know, focus on total body. You know, you’re still going to be stressed out day to day as a med ed student, if you’re going to go total body, that means, hey, we’re doing an upper push and a lower pull, right? We’re going to do a bench press and a leg curl, right? So those kind of movement patterns are what you’re going to want to target and look at. Because at the end of the day, if you want to go, let’s say, do your quote unquote like bro splits, right? You got your chest and tries, you got your legs. The next day, you know, you got your abs and arms, whatever it may be, you will see real quick, you’ll probably burn out. You’re not going to get the results you’re really looking for. And on top of that, you’re going to find difficulty in your schedule. So two to three days a week is going to be another factor. Right. We talk about frequency. Sometimes two to three days a week is more than enough for a medical student who is about to go into their residency to train. You don’t need to be working more than that. I guarantee you, between the lack of sleep, high caffeine intake levels that they’re experiencing, and just overall stress, you’re going to just want to train that. And that way you can at least be consistent. Consistency is going to be your best option at the end of the day. I tell our guys that now, look, if you can’t get in, you know, five days this week. Cool. Here’s a three day plan of this week and the two day version of it so that we can account for that stress that is, quote unquote uncontrollable sometimes. M, from an athlete’s point of view. Same thing for doctors, same thing for mom and dad at home, general population. Same thing for someone who is just older and, you know, in their senior years and wants to just keep moving. It’s the same principles just applied slightly differently.

Dr. Chris Myers: Sounds good. So now let’s take it a step further. Now you’ve got that, you know, these residents, right, who are still, they were used to the long hours, med school. Now it’s much longer, you know, upwards to like, you know, 36 hours calls, doing all the grunt work. What’s some of the advice you’d give them? Cause I. Let’s think about it. I think it would be very similar to some of your guys in the tactical population, too, in that paradigm. What would you suggest?

Kosta Telegadas: Prioritize sleep first and foremost, if you can, and where applicable, because if your body is not well slept, you will see just your overall health drive down, and it’s going to be an awful, awful fast decrease. So the other piece that I’ll say is, a lot of people say nutrition, nutrition, that’s very important. I’m all for it, but we got to get that sleep first. As the base of that pyramid, we don’t have that. The whole pyramid comes collapsing down. Then let’s focus on diet. Let’s get our proper protein intake, good carbohydrates, right. Proper healthy fats, not necessarily eating fast food at McDonald’s. Let’s get maybe some avocado is a good fat example, or some omega three s of some sorts from fish. then I would focus on working out, but with the residency, we have those long 36 hours calls, sometimes doing a quick hIIT workout. whether that’s an on the minute work. Like, you have four exercises, you go through four rounds, but you don’t rotate exercises until the minutes over. And your goal is to beat the reps, volume and intensity assigned within that minute for that specific exercise. That’s a really good one. For a great example, even today I had 20 minutes. I did, on the minute, I did four different exercises, and I went through five rounds of them. 20 minutes done nice and easy. just had a really hectic day to day. And sometimes you’re going to have to do that. So those are the three biggest key points for them. But if you don’t focus on sleep. When and where you can get it. You will pay down the road for it, definitely.

Three things that mess up sleep are nicotine, alcohol, and caffeine

Dr. Chris Myers: So I love that you talk sleep. So let’s talk the triad asleep. The three, the big three that. That mess up sleep. And you. You touched on one of them before you said big caffeine, which agreed. And even with us, I went through probably about six cups of coffee today. Today was a long day.

Kosta Telegadas: Trust me, in grad school, I was a bang energy guy, unfortunately. But it was. But, you know, when you’re working 80 hours a week and you have grad school on top of that work, you know, it adds up. So sometimes I wouldn’t recommend it. But if you can, grab a cup of coffee, grab a drink if you really need, but try to stay away from them if you can. Don’t be like this.

Dr. Chris Myers: And so, when we talk about the three evils of sleep, we’re talking. I got balloons flowing here. we’re talking about nicotine, alcohol, and caffeine. Those are the big three. And that’s what we typically see in our tactical populations. not necessarily so much, probably with the medical field, at least, on the nicotine side, hopefully, because we all know the, downsides of that, so you can’t just get rid of it. so how do you modulate those three with your population? And maybe I could give some insight to what some advice we can give to, our young, medical professionals.

Kosta Telegadas: Be honest with them, be straightforward, but don’t try to change them. This behavior has to be changed involuntarily. Right. Or, excuse me, voluntarily, from them. So, yeah, sorry, I got my mixes up mixed up right there, but voluntarily from them. I would say, for a med student specifically, if you really feel the need, just maybe could blow off some steam, man. Hey, we’re gonna head to the pub. We’re gonna head to the bar, head to the club, whatever it is, take your night to do that, because I do think there is a mental health component of that where you need to blow off some steam and be with your other residents, whoever it may be, just chill out for a second. Now, obviously, we can avoid that. That’s obviously the best case scenario. But I’ll be honest, if I was in med school, I’d probably drink a little bit, too, right? So it’s one of those ones where you need to just accept that’s going to be part of the population.

Nextly, let’s address caffeine. Uh, try not to be over reliant on it

Nextly, let’s. Let’s address caffeine. Caffeine. I’d say you know, one, two cups of coffee is good if you can space them anywhere from four to 6 hours apart, right. Because that’s roughly the half, half life of the caffeine right there. You’ll be in a much better situation. try not to be over reliant on it. And if you go before bedtime, right, try not to avoid anything past, I would say, like, 02:00 p.m. So if you have a normal work day of, let’s say, eight to five, right. I try not to drink caffeine past 01:32 p.m. If possible. Because by the time I get home and get to bed, that caffeine is now finally wearing off at night. Right. So you want to make sure that you’re falling within those time ranges. So if you do need it, fantastic. I would recommend not loading it up with a bunch of sugar and crap from Starbucks. So that’s another big cheaper, too, probably much cheaper, you know, like a normal cafe. whether no matter where you’re at in the world, the world looks at Starbucks and they’re just like, oh, man, like, how do you guys add so much crap to your coffee? I’m like, hey, man, it is what it is. So, but a simple, even like, expresso shot is more than enough to get the job done if you’re going to use it. And then I’ll say, as far as nicotine goes, well, be better. I’m sorry? Just be better. I don’t think we don’t need to address that one too much. But obviously, if you’re going to use, I will say this, if you are going to use nicotine, and you are hell bent on doing so, get a, pouch or some zen pouches, whatever it be. Anything where you are inhaling smoke, is going to be terrible. Inhaling any kind of those little vapes or e cigarettes that are super big now with all the younger people. I’m 30 years old and saying that, but, you know, it’s a real thing. I see, you know, 1415 year olds vaping and it’s, it breaks my heart. yeah, I’ll say another one is, you know, avoid cigarettes, avoid anything with heavy, ah, amounts of nicotine in it that are going to keep you up late at night, too, and give you quote unquote energy. It’s fake energy, but stay away from nonetheless. So those would be the big three pieces of advice I would give as long winded as some of them were. Yeah.

Dr. Chris Myers: And do you kind of pig about off that? I, I heard saying a few weeks ago, someone, mentioned a 6321 paradigm, when it comes to sleep, yeah, it’s really interesting. So the six hour, it’s.

Kosta Telegadas: It’s.

Dr. Chris Myers: It’s hours based. So 6321. So, of course we talked to big three evil, but there’s other stuff like lights, screen time, little things like that, even eating. Like, we’re talking about glucose stability. So, like, 6 hours, like you just said, caffeine nowhere, 6 hours before bed, 3 hours. wow.

Kosta Telegadas: I forget.

Dr. Chris Myers: I forget that one, two is eating, and then one, no screen time. Right. Or really limit your 1 hour. there’s different versions of it out there as well. so just, like, little rules of thumb like that could really help improve your quality sleep. We’re not even talking about. Okay, you need to be having seven, eight, 9 hours a day. If you only have four, how can you maximize those 4 hours?

Kosta Telegadas: Exactly right? And, yeah, you know, you maximize that as best you can. honestly, just trying to decompress yourself before you sleep is going to give you the best quality of sleep you can get. And avoiding a lot of those, six, what is it, 6321, scenarios that you just mentioned, it’s going to be very difficult. I think one of the things that I’m guilty of from time to time is when running a side business, I got clients all over the world. Sometimes I am up a little early, and I’m going to bed a little bit later outside my normal work hours to work on, on this and build this up over time. but I will be on my phone, I’ll be on a computer. I’ll be programming for clients in jiu jitsu or firefighters or even just normal gym hot people like you and me. Right? So it’ll be, I guess, the best way to say, just contain it as best you can. Plan out your day ahead of time. If you look at the notes app on my phone, I have to do Monday, to do Tuesday all the way down, and then say to do on the weekend, and then just plot that out. and try to assign a time to it. Right. If you put it on a calendar and a schedule, you’re more likely to do it but at said time because you also get a reminder and you won’t forget. I mean, all the guys you work with know that, all the guys I work with know that, but we live and die by our schedules, and I think if you can take those tactics, if you will, and put them into your medical residency students or senior med students or even the first year doctors. Right. Put it on the calendar. Lock it in. Don’t let it fluctuate.

Dr. Chris Myers: Yeah, man, this is great. I mean, I. I know we started off with strength conditioning. Now we’re talking about time management.

Kosta Telegadas: It’s a big thing.

Dr. Chris Myers: It is. And it’s, you know, and I.

Kosta Telegadas: It.

Dr. Chris Myers: We’re hitting the whole paradigm here. This is great. Then for those out there, this is how our conversations tend to go when we talk, we trade ideas. Weekend, week out. he’s literally down the road for me, even though that’s another country away. But we work closely together, with our populations.

Dr. Chris Myers: Kind of like recapping.

Kosta Telegadas: Right.

Dr. Chris Myers: So we’ve talked about definitely your background, which is very vibrant and extraordinary. It’s great. Talked about some basic, strength and basically just resistance training items and flexibility items, for our young doctors, we talked about how you can open up the posture a little bit with, what, posterior chain type of work and, core activation. Talked about, neck issues, how we can work on range of motion. With that, you, talked about some of your big advice for our senior medical students and for our young residents. I think that was very powerful. Then we, of course, then would listen to sleep and everything else.

Get good at soft skills as a doctor? I think a lot of

before we start winding down, do you have any other pieces of advice that you would like to impart, to our audience?

Kosta Telegadas: Get good at soft skills as a doctor? I think a lot of it’s not. Let’s dive into this, man, because I really want to talk about this. Whether it’s with coaches or people who are directors or vps at companies, all the way down to, if you’re working at tacky old population, leadership matters at the end of the day, m. and building trust, whether it’s with your subordinates or your superiors, matters. So, at the end of the day, you should be socially aware of, who’s in charge by, let’s say, rank in our case, m. Or we could say, by title in the civilian world. Right. That would be another great way to go about that. I think that sometimes everyone’s a little bit different. So sometimes having the right team in place and the right hiring processes in place are going to be crucial. And as doctors, when you’re dealing with patients, you are seeing them at a rough time in their life. If we have a guy come in, whether it’s you or me and the guy’s hurt, we are seeing them at a lower point than usual. We should proceed by asking them how they’re doing today. How can we help what can we build on from there? Hey, by the way, if they have a wife, how are the wife and kids doing? those are small social cues that will build you a lot of reputation along the way. Know what your client is really trying to say sometimes and really go through the checklist with them and then follow up with them. Show them that you care. You’ll be surprised what a simple follow up will do to your reputation if you do it correctly. we had a guy here who was really struggling with some personal stuff going on. Wasn’t even about the weight room anymore. Text him. Hey, dude, chop it up with me. What’s going on? Let’s talk. What’s up? And he just talked to me over the phone for 30 minutes, and that was that. And sometimes that’s all they need. so I would say go with your soft skills, especially if you’re looking to get promoted and then lead a team. You can’t lead a team of the dictator mentality, you know, you see how that’s working in Russia and, North Korea, right? So not. Not working too well. So, yeah, I would say get your soft skills good. Learn how to communicate effectively, properly and timely. If you go on long winded advance, sometimes with a client, it may not work well, you know, we’re not going to sit here and explain all the biomechanical advantage of a sled push. We don’t have the time to do that. Right.

Dr. Chris Myers: Well, we could.

Kosta Telegadas: We could, right? But it’s one of those things. Does that person really care? Exactly right. No, they don’t. So. Okay, dude. Hey. We’re going to load the sled up with 45 pound plates on it, and we’re going to push it as hard as we can for 10 seconds on, and we’re going to do 50 seconds off, and that’s going to be some of your, like, heavier conditioning for the day. Why am I doing this? Well, it’ll keep your legs strong, get your heart rate up to a zone where you’re going to develop a conditioning base. Fantastic. That’s it. Super simple, easy put. So if med students can find a way to find out what their guys are saying and then actually bridge the gap between the deep medical knowledge to their understanding, they’re going to be way better off.

Dr. Chris Myers: Powerful. That’s perfect. Let’s, just stick a fork in it, because that’s done. That’s perfect.

Kosta Telegadas: Awesome.

So you mentioned you wrote a book on strength and conditioning called Triphasic

Dr. Chris Myers: So, yeah, so, last thing. So you mentioned you wrote a book. So tell us a little bit about the book and where we can find it.

Kosta Telegadas: Yeah, so it’s on. I published it on team builder. they’re strength conditioning software that a lot of strength coaches use to deliver their programs. A, virtual app, if you will, so they can find it on their website. And I’ll post a link for it, with you and, your staff right now for the podcast. Basically, the book encompasses a, very famous methodology called Triphasic. It’s, made by a coach in Minnesota whose name is Kal Deetz. He’s a legendary strength and conditioning coach. And it’s also worked with doctor, Peterson, who has done a fantastic job of blending the science with a professional coach to create, elite outcomes, if you will. The premise of that can be modified at multiple levels. That’s what’s so great about the triphasic methodology. So what I did is I took it and I modified and refined it again and again and again to something that it works and can be modified at all different levels. Whether someone who is post, operation, we need to get them better. I gave examples on that. Another tenure we talked about was the novice, the intermediate, and then the actual, advanced athletes that you see. and then within each of those, tenures, you will have the actual triphasic component, which is two to four weeks of eccentrics, so, slow descending of the movements, two to four weeks of isometrics. We’re going to hold it at the point in the range of motion with the most tension, and then two to four weeks of dynamic, work, or concentric work, is how we describe it. So you’ll go up and down, and you’ll have a lot of heavy loading, but it’ll clean up a lot of your form. And on top of that, I show you three different ways in each of those triphasic methodologies in each tenure, of how you could solve that problem. So it gives you multiple avenues. So, for your doctors, it would be great to just even start off with that eccentric phase and build up the aerobic base that’s paired with it as an example. But I made it because coaches need it, because I struggled when I came into the tactical setting. And then I found if you modified it this way, it’s applicable not only with tactical, but at scale. And at the end of the day, doctors, lawyers, engineers, whoever can benefit from it. And that’s the goal, and that’s the rationale behind the book, to give a framework for people.

Dr. Chris Myers: Perfect.

Kosta Telegadas: All right.

Dr. Chris Myers: Yeah. So, like you said, we will post a link to that, at the bottom, or, excuse me, at the end of this, podcast. it’s a great book, easy read. it’s an ebook, PDF, filed through team builder, with another great platform. your ACL example, in there was a very powerful example on how to use the triphasic approach. I really like that. And then finally, yeah, oh, no, it was a great book. And you also helped write, co author, chapter ten and the human weapon system, where you talk a little bit more about your methodology and such too. So if you want to get more of a deep dive into Kosta’s brain and how he thinks, pick up those two books first. Pick up the triphasic book. And then, you know, get the HWS, the human web system book. and let’s just say he’s got some more content coming out here in the near future on advanced strength and conditioning principles. So, what that comes out, we’ll, we’ll plug him on there as well and talk about that a little more in depth, how you can apply that universally, too.

Kosta Telegadas: Absolutely.

Dr. Chris Myers: Yeah. So great. this has been fun. so if anyone has any questions, is there a way for them to, get in contact with you?

Kosta Telegadas: Yeah, so they can shoot, me an Instagram direct message. my handle is telegatus. I’ll attach them there for, your viewers. And if they want to reach out to me via email, I have my personal, coaching email and business email that we’ll put in. It’s just coach Kosta, telegatusmail.com. And if they’re interested in outsourcing their training to me or working around their busy schedule, more than happy to help them out with that, we can hop on a call and help solve those problems for them.

Dr. Chris Myers: Perfect. I love it. So. Well, it’s been great talking to you. It always is great talking to you, man. appreciate it. Always learn something new. And I hope our artists, I know they definitely learned something as well, and I just hope they enjoyed it. So, everyone, thanks very much for listening, to the WCW. And until next time, have a great day.

Kosta Telegadas: Cheers, man.