Behind Every Rep: Laser Therapy, Mindset & the Making of a 7x CrossFit Games Athlete

Sponsor introduction and guest welcome 0:00

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I've personally and professionally used our Konia lasers for the past 20 years and they have revolutionized my approach to patient care. Hey everybody, Dr. Rob Silverman here. I've got superstar CrossFitter. Bethany Flores, and if I can say her husband, the wife always comes first. Randy Florez, a head strength and conditioning coach of the LA Lakers. I'll correct you there and say associate head, but at the moment I'm the only one in the facility. So I guess that stands as well. Well, just so you know, I am a Nick fan.

And yes, we had a... Okay. We'll get that out of way. Yeah. We haven't won in 52 years, going on 53 years. And I know the Lakers won a couple, got a cup of chips. So good job. Thank you. Y'all got closest here though, right? This is the closest it's been in a while. We got close. But just as a true Nick fan, No cigar. Yeah. Close enough. That was a good team. We, that was actually one of my favorite games of the season is playing there in the Madison Square Garden was, I think we kept it pretty close or they kept a close and we pulled away at the end, but that also an interesting night because we had a few trades right after the game.

One of our notable ones this year. So definitely a memorable evening. some guy, some mediocre basketball player called LeBron James had a great game that night, as I recall that he did that. He did. So, Bethany, how many burpees can you do in 10 minutes? We were talking about, I don't know. I only even think I've done that before. Honestly, one of the open workouts before my time, like in 2011, was seven minutes of burpies. But yeah, When was that? That was years ago? 2011. Brendan did it, my brother.

I honestly couldn't tell you. Couldn't you tell. That is a lot of burpees though. You have a bodybuilding background, as I understand. We saw those crab muscles. They look great. Yeah, there you go. My question is, how do you segue from body building, the antithesis of CrossFit?

CrossFit background and athletic transition 3:00

I feel like Yeah, when I was in bodybuilding, it was very like, ah, I'll never do CrossFit. It's stupid, you know? And my brother at the time was doing it. He started, oh my gosh, probably back in 2009. he forced me to do a workout when was like 16 in Crossfit. And I would just like nope, hate it, got into body building from 18 to 20 and then transitioned over I hate saying this part, but from an ex, I was with one of my exes and he wanted to do CrossFit. And so I'll just do whatever you're doing.

So I tried it out again and I'm like, oh, you know what, actually I do kind of like this. It was a good transition from competitive gymnastics. That's what I did at a younger age. I just felt like it encompassed all of that. All that I need as far as elements go and competing and all that, Well, I mean, the gymnastics is a gymnastics component to CrossFit. It's a great takeover from there. And the bodybuilding is probably a little bit more useful than people give credit for, because at least you have some muscle mass to start.

Correct. I feel like a lot of professional CrossFitters are now starting to do body building as accessory work. But I think having that foundation for the last couple of years before starting Crossfit really gave me, like, a boost over other people. So I'm glad that I did bodybuilding and even before that, I was just like a gym junkie, so I always just in the Globo gym and on machines and stuff. You've won a bunch of CrossFit contests, am I correct? Kind of, but I think Randy wanted to say something.

No, just going to make a note on that. I feel like Even though it wasn't really maybe intended that way for her kind of like you alluded to having that background first was really helpful because I've seen I think it was brought up like maybe last year or two years ago, there's a high level and I won't say her name, but a very high-level crossfit games athlete that I actually won one year maybe years But she was kind of struggling with her training and she got a new coach and her new Coach mentioned that, Oh yeah, we just added, you know, a bunch of rows and a punch of pulling and stuff.

That's very simple. Like if you're in the bodybuilding space or if your just in a regular, You know strength and conditioning space. Those are pretty normal things like chest supported rows or single arm rows, or things that. But if you're somebody that maybe just started with CrossFit, maybe you transition just from gymnastics or, you know, may be a field sport and you go right to Crossfit. I feel like a lot of them, they just miss out on a of the fundamental like basic things that can really help with that.

So I think, in a way, you got really lucky in having the foundation of some bodybuilding and track and field and the kind of engine that some of the cross country stuff gave you that, some other athletes haven't really had that kind transition. I honestly got really lucky with the things that I did before CrossFit because I didn't competitive gymnastics. That's when I hurt my back. So I had to quit that. And then I got into long distance running. I Did a couple triathlons, did obstacle course racing, then bodybuilding, been Crossfit.

and I feel like those were all just elements that were necessary for CrossFIT to just do well fast. But yeah, I guess a lot of the I got into long distance running because doctors just told me they're like, well, you'll never run again. You'll ever tumble again, never do gymnastics again so good luck at 12 years old. And I was like okay, i'm stubborn. I'm not going to listen to that. iIm doing running just to prove them wrong. Look out. So Randy, have you done any programs for her? Yeah, here and there I think.

So she's had several coaches she has worked with. I say several, I think maybe three since we've been together. And initially, when we first started dating, like probably most couples, you don't really necessarily want to take too much advice from the spouse. You don' want hear them. Because for all she knew, yeah, worked in strength and conditioning, but what do I know about CrossFit? that training is different than this training, which she never verbalized, but I think that was maybe the stance initially.

You can correct me if I'm wrong, like bad, just not mixing business too. Yeah. And so, But, I feel like the couples that are in this space, you often see a lot of, You know, husband and wife, husbands, the coach, wife is the athlete. So I it maybe naturally transitions that way sometimes. over time with each coach that she's had, I've become a little more involved so much. You know, to the point where this coach, that he works with a bit now, on the front end, it's hey, you know I want him involved, especially with the strength work, conditioning, like we think about energy systems, they're Those energy systems are there regardless of what sport you're playing.

Which one is more predominant? Which ones do you need to focus on more? It's probably, you know, that now that's what sports is it. Crossfit, the combination of methods that are thrown together when it comes to like their workouts and the conditioning. And then I feel like in the space of CrossFit, they use a lot of repeat workouts. Like they might, if you did a workout in 2014 and that was part of quarterfinals or semifinals, They revisit that and retest it years later. So knowing the history of the sport too is helpful.

That's not something I really had before meeting her. But what I do have, I think is a good level of knowledge and expertise with just getting somebody stronger getting something more powerful,

Programming, coaching, and energy systems 9:00

getting them to accelerate better those are things that you know you can use in football using basketball and I think you could also use and CrossFit so. For programming, it's been more the weightlifting piece, the strength, hypertrophy, accessory work. She has a good amount of knowledge as well. So us collaborating on that. And then her coach has been laying out the conditioning pieces and then also collaborating with us on maybe some of the skill work too. being like eyes and the ears in the crossfit world because people just know things it's crazy you just people talk and like hey this workout's coming out even though it''s not supposed to be released or whatever i'm like dude how do people know that yeah that's another advantage like i''m not tapped in with any other cross-fit coaches you know like I converse with them while we're there at competitions but I don't sit around on a day-to-day talking about, oh, we're going to see this workout this time.

Or I heard so-and-so said there's going be sandbags in this work out, so we need a program for that. And that's an advantage to having a coach that is kind of on the day to day. This girl lives in Atlanta and works with a group of coaches as well that work with other athletes. So she kind gets the scoop on what might come next. That's helpful, I think, when we are programming on this end, too. You made a great point about programming for energy systems. So there's three major energy system. You have the ATP energy, which is really power and everything.

And I always ask all my docs, what's the number one athlete or what athlete utilizes that ATP system? And the answer is, believe it or not, a golfer and a golf swing, more so than an Olympic lifter. So it's kind of funny because we don't necessarily associate power with golfers. But I would say out of all the sports, CrossFit is the most mixed energy system sport. And I think that's where I see many people fail at optimizing their results because they just don t understand that. How do you eat for that?

Do you need carbs or fat for protein? How you train for it? What exercise do do? So I mean, really great points. Now, My question to you is, where did you learn how to Olympic lift? Because I think Olympic lifters are outstanding athletes. Is that for him? That's open ended. I'm going for the cup. Yeah, I was about to say, he knows probably more than I do just because he's studied it. Mine's just I get lucky with everything fall into place. I think maybe a little bit more of maybe the history of it and then the sorry our dogs making a bunch of noise in the background.

But I think some of the programming for weightlifting and and those things I maybe know a little bit more about than her. But as far as the execution and the skill, she just was a master at picking it up. And that's, I a good athlete is she's able to pick things up really really quickly and particularly for the sport of CrossFit when sometimes you don't know what's coming and they might throw a skill at you last minute or a mixture of skills last-minute and you have to learn on the fly. I think that's something she is really, really good at is picking things on-the-fly and figuring that out.

We're being really hard-headed and making sure I know how to do it and I won't stop until I figure it out That too. He's extolling your athletic prowess. So let me ask you, open ended to both of you. Barbell, dumbbell, kettlebell band. Now I understand you're both, you know, your train elite athletes. You're an elite athlete. Which one do you like and why? You like the barbell. Okay. I love the Barbel personally, but if I'm having to pick one piece for everybody, Or that's gonna cover, I guess, the most things.

I'm probably picking a dumbbell. I just think from a functional standpoint, you can do more things that are unilaterally loaded. You can carries, overhead press, lunge, goblet squat. It's just very versatile. I know you could do all of these things with a kettlebell, but I think, from learning standpoint if I'm giving this to my 60 plus year old mom, I'd rather give her a piece that's a little bit simpler to navigate versus a Kettlebell. It all comes down to who's teaching it too, but I want to leave less room for error.

And you could argue, well, the band could do that too. But the resistance profile of the ban is something that, you know, it's friendly for a lot of people, But now it is not versatile in the sense of if I just have a skinny, micro orange band with a power lifter, somebody who already has a great amount of strength, I don't know that it could work for them. Kind of a loaded question to be honest with you though. Oh, I load them up for you. I got another one for your squat, deadlift, Olympic lift.

These are for elite athletes. This is not for broken down old Rob. We do some TRX squats, we do gobbling squats. we some rogue deadlifts. My trainer's happy, and I don't die. And I just need a little bit more sleep at night. Which one? You want to take this one? I got the last one. I just want say on the barbell. That's why I picked bar bell for myself. Cause I feel like I can get the most use out of that as an elite athlete compared to anything else. Like you can load it more. So now if we're talking about movements and I guess that's where the answer changes.

If, if I'm choosing something, it's the Barbell, uh, just, yeah, you. You don't have to use it loaded. It's very versatile as well. For the dumbbell, like I said, already alluded to, I think that can be used with a lot of people, depending on the weight for the masses. For athletes, you said Olympic lift, squat, back squat. Weird barbell squat deadlift. I already know what I'm picking. And this is a loaded question too, because you have to assume that they're technically proficient with all. If that's the case, Because you get the largest bang for your buck, you're getting great power output.

You're working a ton of structure, a lot of musculature all at once in a very functional way. But the caveat there is most people aren't very efficient with those and it takes forever to learn. So if I'm getting an elite athlete in basketball, that's usually not going to be my go-to, especially in this setting, when a lot of them maybe only have a year or two under their belt, they're well-trained in the sense of they've been playing basketball since they were anywhere from four years old, seven years, some pick it up a little bit later.

They're well-trained on the court, but they have a very low training age by the time they get to you sometimes. They may have spent a year or two in a college weight room and may or may not have been exposed to those lists. So when you get them after they got drafted, You don't necessarily want to spend six to eight weeks getting really, really good at that movement for them to then get it a stimulus, whereas you could get a similar stimulus with something else right away and make a ton of progress in that first off season.

Yeah, absolutely. The Olympic lifts, great central nervous system stimulants, chiropractor central, nervous, system back squats. I can tell you one thing, it's great for spinal compression. Good injury. Deadlift, yeah, as long as you hip hinge. I believe that the deadlift is better. Of course, sometimes when people do it wrong, it's bad for them. It's good for me. Speaking of back injuries, young lady, my understanding, that's how we kind of like have a little tie in. And I understand you had an injury, Yeah, I did.

Can I first say, just to pause you. I just want to give credit to Randy and say this is why I love him with questions like this, because I'll just like say something that just comes to my head. Like he always has like forethought, like he thinks about everything. And I think that's why one I loved him just as a person and having him as my person, but to like having them as part of my career too, might be okay, but just because you can doesn't mean you should. And there's been a lot of that over and over again with my career.

Back injury, recovery, and laser therapy 18:00

He's just been able to be like, what are the basics? Let's hit the basic. How do we keep you available to play? And so that's what he's brought a lots of my careers. So I'm like really grateful for that. But it's that type of thinking right there where it was like okay this is a loaded question and then his brain just spirals. Anyways, I just wanna It was loaded because I thought it was deep. It wasn't a stumper. Yeah, I know. But his brain will just go. And I love that about him. Right. He was really pondering it.

Basically, he said, Rob, if it's you, you can't do any one of the three because you're not actually. Stick with the dumbbell. Me neither. I'm just kidding. With the kettlebell or the TRX at this juncture. Yes, stick with a band. So we met because we have a common friend, Dr. Kirk Gere, who I work with at Aconia. And my understanding is you had a back injury. You want to give a little backdrop to what went down and how it all turned out? Yeah. So I've had chronic back issues since I was 12. I'm now 32. It's not anything crazy.

People that know that have bulging discs, they just act up whenever they want to and however long they went to. And so sometimes it's a couple days, sometimes a few weeks. This last one in 2022, it was basically 365 days of being in a lot of pain and taking me out for a whole season in CrossFit. So yeah, it was kind of to the point where I was like, this is career ending for me. It wasn't because of the bulging disc itself, because I've had that. And I feel like if you look at 100 people's backs with the MRI, most people have bulge in this.

But for some reason, mine just went on complete strike. down for the count. I was having trouble walking, squatting, going to the gym. So it messed with me here, but also messed me physically too. That's kind of like a very quick background. But it's been a part of my, pretty much my life for last two decades. It's a shadow. A shadow that sucks and it is frustrating. ominous black cloud shadow. So you injured your back and I understand that you utilized a device to help you get over it and your results were outstanding.

Yeah, I'll let Randy kind of speak on that, because he's actually the one that introduced the laser to me. I guess with the background of over 20 years, i've been from doctor to doctor, to the doctor. You name it, and I've probably done it. So when it comes to doctors, am very skeptical. When it come to devices, Am very sceptical. Everything's been like more of a band-aid. so I'm just kind like, we'll see about that kind thing. But yeah, let him speak. Yeah, I want to kind of acknowledge what the with the back issue that specific time to its.

It's her career sometimes like this issue puts her in a really tough spot like if you think of. her income and her career, a lot of it is based on, just like any athlete, performance. And so, you know, she's kind of come up to some of these qualifying times where, okay, it's time to qualify for the games, or I need to do well on this to qualified for semifinals. In that particular time, I think it was a quarterfinals qualification to then qualify semis to go to the Games that year. And in training, she had some stiffness in it.

At that point, you have to make a decision. Are you going to sit this year out and potentially lose sponsorships, lose prize money from a lot of these competitions this here? And that's multiple competitions you'd be missing. Or are you gonna try to push through and then potentially risk having to set a year anyway, but now you can't even train and prepare for the next year. So that kind of what she ran into that year is, she chose, we chose to push through and hope that the pain could be held at bay and one warm up lift and not just put her out for the next year.

But it's a very tough decision to make because yes, you want to protect yourself and you wanna stay healthy and you know everybody wants that for you but at the same time it's this this space especially CrossFit I feel like is a very and this is any sport like what have you done for me lately if you're not winning right now people forget about you, you know, especially with the social media presence that a lot of sponsors care about. If you're not relevant at that time, they're going to look for the next relevant athlete to sponsor.

So just want to kind of acknowledge that, I guess that's always a difficult thing to go through and difficult decision to make. But it did lead us in a positive direction, when it comes to thinking about Okay, what can we do differently? How can program things differently, how can prioritize just keeping you safe and keeping available and the longer we can do that in turn your performance is gonna improve just cause you have more time to train and there's not this kind of undulation and up and down with being able to try and not train.

So one of the pieces was let's reduce the overall volume. I think that's a big thing when it comes to CrossFit is one, they spend so much time just hammering away. And I'm not speaking for every coach in Crossfit or every CrossFitter, but there's so many time spent in general. just hammering away at the glycolytic energy system, just hammering away how can I get into this pain cave, you know, these wads that are just accumulating a ton of volume. And not to say that, to me, that is the sport a lot of times is you have to be able to accumulate lactate and be to tolerate it and flush that out and go to the next thing and recover.

But to do it every day, day in day out consecutive days for weeks at a time without any kind of recovery periods. I feel like it's something that hurts a lot of athletes and just general CrossFit gym goers as a whole. So it was looking at our programming and thinking, you know, where can you emphasize more aerobic work more zone to and that's been not just my idea or her idea, but also with talking to other professionals in space. Where can you add zone two and take away some intensity elsewhere?

You know, so you have kind of those high intensity days, low intensity, days. Where Can you think about loading, you know? If spinal loading is kind Of your issue, and that's required in your sport, those compressive forces, You have to be able to handle those. It's the nature of the sport. How can I prioritize those maybe on some days and then make sure that I'm getting recovery after those. So having a day maybe where there is axial loading and, then a, day, maybe, where it's more gymnastics work and yes, there's always some type of loading on the spine in general, but how can I make it maybe lower intensity?

So thinking about those things and then also thinking are there other avenues we can go? So one that we looked into that I actually found a guy online that was in the area that recently moved to was somebody that had an expertise in postural restoration institute. So doves super deep in PRI, teaches courses in PRI, and that's Dr. Locatelli. We just call him Dr Loc. That's why it took me a second to think of his full name, but he's been a huge help to both of us, especially her just kind of giving her exercises to help get her rib cage in a different position, especially in relation to her pelvis, and he's definitely much more of an expert on it than me, but just getting her into a difference position so there's less compression on that spine.

So that was something I think was very helpful and she still uses. And then all of this kind of coincided with actually just by a stroke of luck at our practice facility, I was telling you before the call, I just happen to be training guys. And this was kind of during the summer period where things are typically a bit slower. Also, that's a big time where we as a staff of performance staff, this is PTs, athletic trainers, strength coaches, we tend to do more continuing education because there's less travel for us.

There's last team commitments, We do have summer league. But beyond that, were pretty much in house so we can bring in experts to, you know, teach us about manual therapy, teach us about the ankle, the foot, and then bring in different vendors to show us modalities that we haven't been exposed to, or maybe a different version of a modality that that might be an improvement. So I was training guys on the weight room side and one of our ATs told me, hey, we're bringing in You know a vendor if you want to stop in and just see what they have like that would be helpful to more people we can get in there, the better so decided to go over and that's when Dr Kurt Gare who you mentioned a little bit ago.

um was then kind of giving a presentation he had these you know green green lasers red lasers and you can talk more about that and honestly i don't know much of the research he like if you get dr kurt gar going on about him he'll rattle off a bunch of research and you know all about the mitochondria and the ATP regeneration he just it's a snowball and we're just kind of like yeah I got you as long as it works you. But he was able to during that time when he, was demoing to our staff he used me as a guinea pig I kind, of moved around you, know single leg balance stuff some lunging some squatting with the laser He showed us some case studies and as he was kind of going through those, he talked about a specific case where somebody had some low back pain.

He brought up some study on studies on that. And all in my mind, as soon as you said backpain, I'm immediately thinking of her. Oh, maybe this can help her Obviously, you're in the facility you are thinking about guys like how can this help our guys but my mindset completely shifted like maybe this is something I can get for her like if we're not going to buy this here I could look into it. on the side. But I saw it as an opportunity towards the end. Like, there were there. You know, it was a great presentation, but there was kind of crickets.

I think like our our head ATU is like, I don't know if we're going to purchase this, like we'll see. We'll stay in touch. And I was just kind like well, actually, if you really want to test this out, we've got a perfect candidate, you know perfect guinea pig who's willing and definitely ultra like you get her on board like with the PRI stuff, for example. She will try anything all the way 100%. Like if she thinks it's going to help a little bit, she's gonna do it every day, twice a day. You know, almost to a fault where it is overboard.

So that's something I could guarantee with. We'll definitely see if the laser works because she is going use it. And on top of that she's very critical of everything so if she uses it for three weeks straight and there's no difference she is going to tell you and she can be honest because she like myself is naturally skeptical. So he let us check out a laser. We went out to his clinic and, you know, he talked through some of the same things. we asked questions and again, kind of snowballed some research out.

But yeah, so we were able to hold on to a unit for a long time and he, let's hold onto, that was the red laser, I know at that time it was green initially and then we ended up getting a red later. For that first game season, you had a green leading up to the games. But yeah, that was honestly that season for her and she can talk more about it, I felt like was a miracle. And you don't really know, is it just the laser? Is it PRI? is that both together? There's obviously luck involved in everything.

So and maybe it was the different training approach, just kind of all factors coming together. But I think before that and Dr. Loke who helped us out a lot was on the front end. He was like, how soon? How soon are you competing? And I think maybe at that time, it was, like four to six weeks. And he was just kind of like no, I don't. I mean, you training four or six week maybe but competing like I think he was a skeptical, a skeptic, excuse me, of her ability until she went all the way to the games.

Because there, I, think the entire time he, was like, this is like this doesn't make any sense. Uh, so I don't know what that says more about the laser, her, you know, just the luck involved, the training. I. Think it all came together, but. um for her to be able to do what she did that year and that was the year you got 16th place which isn't your best placement at the games but if you were to have seen her months before struggling to Do a bodyweight squat definitely not lifting you know deadlifting 225 off the ground for multiple reps or doing 150 sandbag squats or I don't even remember what the what the events were that year.

But just her being able to get through that healthy was a miracle on its own, let alone beat a bunch of other girls who spent the entire year training. And a lot of them have their own things, but for the most part, people are healthy when they're there. So I think it was that that was incredible. Yeah, I will say that I believe that the laser is a great standalone device, but it also works synergistically within all of the items in your exclusive, extensive toolbox. And it's outstanding to hear how an elite athlete responded kind of like this.

So when you talk about mitochondria, it enables you to lock up and release all the energy in the mitochondria. It's almost like pressing a button and it turns it on, it allows the body to interconnect.

Training philosophy and exercise selection 33:00

But, Bethany. Tell me what happened, tell me, what it was like. I'll try to do my best. It's hard to really put it into words. And I think first off, I have to say I am a huge believer of God. Having that relationship with God throughout this whole process was a vital piece to all this coming into place. But yeah, the season for CrossFit is pretty long. So we start in February and then we have different competitions that you have to qualify for. And then it ends in August. It's a little bit different now just because of things changing in the sport.

But that year it was kind of like that. The first part is like this online part for three weeks and it's called the Crossfit Open. A week before that started, I was like, know, Randy, like I can barely do an air squat right now. And I'm just in a lot of pain. Like, I just don't know. He's like, well, let's just see what the workout is. As the workouts came out, everything was just like doable. I was like. . . I am not going to perform really well but it's very doable and that was kind of like the case throughout the whole season and every part was Okay, like I haven't done this in training.

It's been probably over a year since I've done certain things and lifted certain weights. And every time I showed up on the floor, I personally felt like a walking miracle. I just felt my body was able to do what it needed to on floor. it couldn't do it before and it could do after. But in the moment when I needed it the most, my just kind of worked together. Like you said, it's all those elements being put together, Being thankful that I have an extremist mindset and I do things to the utmost extreme, but at the same time finding balance and being able to be available to play and having him telling me.

No, you don't need to do that right now. Cause it was hard to listen to my gut and training because more is more, more as better and someone else is doing more. So I need make sure I'm doing war and this is what seven years for me, eight years in. And so my career all before this was just volume, volume volume. Um, and so I think having him tell me no a lot, which was really hard, was important. Doing the PRI exercises to the utmost extreme was very important, working on my mental health was a really important relationship with God, and then having that Arconia laser as well.

I think all of it just was the perfect recipe for, I don't know, just for things to really Like your mind to be blown. And I'm thankful that I've been writing out my story this entire time. So hopefully I'll be able to share it at a much deeper level. But that year in particular was pretty wild. It was Pretty crazy. The things that was asked to do on the floor. I was like, I don't know, Randy. I, I know I haven't, haven' done this in training. And I just don' know if I'm going to be able to do it and I' in pain right now.

So I dunno how I gonna be when I go to the competition and have to it on the floor. But yeah, it was a crazy experience. Um, and grateful for it. Well, the acornial laser that you were referring to has an FDA clearance for lower back pain, decreasing pain and increasing range of motion. So it worked quite favorably for you. As I said, I use it extensively on my weekend warriors, my average Joe, and my seven-time CrossFit athletes like you, female, of course, both male and female. So I've found a real, it's actually been a breakthrough for me.

It's revolutionized my practice, extended my practices and allowed me to achieve optimum outcomes than I ever thought were attainable before. I suffer from congenital torticollis, So obviously at birth, and I was breaking down in my 10th year of chiropractic. And then that 10 year, of Chiropractic, I needed something because I wanted to help people the way I always helped and found the laser. I started to laser myself and it didn't cure the congenital asymmetry, but it allowed me for increased range of motion and decreased the pain.

Actually, which I didn' understand at the time was that mitochondrial burst. to give me more energy. Now I use it in the life and not just sports injuries, musculoskeletal injuries. I laser people's guts, I lasered people brains, and I used it for neural input. And in my functional medicine world, it's really opened me up to a whole new genre of effectiveness. So like you two, i'm stoked. But that said, I have to ask Randy a question. You got this guy who's one of the greatest basketball players of all time.

My understanding is that he takes care of his body. Can you validate that? Because he looks great. Yeah. First off, I think I need to clarify that. He's the great basketball player of our time, so I'll say that does he take care I think I and he acknowledges us too. And I just got a call from Michael Jordan. I figured he heard you. Yeah, I I. Think I didn't mean to throw you off. Oh, yeah, you messed my train of thought up. That's OK. All right, that was good. It's funny, if you listen to LeBron talk about you know, I don't want to speak for him, but you can hear him on podcasts, like, and he's like I Don't know where people are getting this $1 million mark that I spend on my body a year.

That's that. I feel like you see that in SportsCenter. You see it on ESPN, you saw that years ago, LeBron spends X amount of money on his body per year and I don't know that there's a number on that. He definitely has a guy on his payroll that's been with him for 20 years. So he definitely invests in his body, he has things at his house, He'll go off to consistent appointments with different specialists, whether it's for his feet, for orthotics, custom-made orthotic, different things like that, I think in comparison to all of the other players that you see, he's more dialed in with that stuff than most.

He definitely prioritizes recovery. he brings his own food, it's all measured out, and he has people that are probably paying way more attention to this than he is, but to his credit, is religious with What he's putting into his body. It's it's all mapped out. He's not I've yet to see him just eat raising canes or anything like that Consistently hydrating consistently, you know, You can wake up early you can Wake up 6 a.m. And he he is in the training room getting bodywork done You know he'll beat you to the weight room or to court many days.

he already in there I think part of it is I think he likes those hours, probably similar to a Michael Jordan, similar too, a Kobe Bryant, where he knows he's the only one doing it. You know, at that time, he can be in the gym and, you know know that all the guys are still asleep. I Think there's a mental component to that as similar at all of us, You Know, it's just a good feeling if you on the days that you do wake up at 5am and you're You're the one doing work, you're The one reading, or the One taking that quiet moment in the morning, it just gives you this feeling to start the day.

And I'm not saying this is me, by any means, if anything, this Is more her. But it gives You that kind of sense of accomplishment, to Start the Day. So I think that's, he's wired that that way. It's it's insane to think about the fact that you know, he's in year 21 and he is still doing that so I can't even imagine what that was like year five, you now. Second team All-NBA. 21 out of 22 years All NBA. Yeah, I'm a fan. So I am going to have a nutrition question but it's going be a little different.

It's nuance for each one of you. Bethany, tell me about your nutrition. Oh no, no. I know you have. Well, mine's tough because to kind of back up in my early teens, I had a lot of eating disorders. Yeah, just like really under eight. I think it was just from gymnastics embedded in mind. You got to be small. Got to stay tiny. And I took that when I got out of gymnastics and especially with my back because I couldn't do anything. Well I'm going to control this part of my body. So there's a lots of under eating.

a lot of just abuse to my body. So I gave myself a lotta eating, or sensitivities, food sensitities. And so I've been climbing out of that hole for the last 15 years. I can say now that I'm in a way better spot than I have ever been, but I definitely was dealing with leaky gut, traveling IBS, I guess TMI, But like the first two years of competing at the CrossFit Games, Like I couldn't even brace my stomach without pooping my pants.

Nutrition, gut health, and recovery 43:00

It was that bad. Like my, stomach lining was completely gone. I had to do a lot of like elimination diets, take a of things out. Um, I've been able to add a, lot things back in, but there's still a a that causes sensitivity. And so I wish I could just be like a normal athlete and be, like, Oh yeah, just, whatever for carbs and get candy in during competitions and whatever, my body doesn't work like that. It doesn t digest those things very well. I can have them every once in a while, but it's definitely not a part of my diet every single day.

So it s very clean. s pretty much the same. m pretty boring when it comes to food. But I honestly don t have a problem with it. l like eating ground beef and ground turkey and chicken and Rice, vegetables, yeah. I keep it very, very simple. Always stay very hydrated. Have like the half gallon or the gallon with me. But yeah, I give it a very simply with my body and my diet just because I can't digest things very well and I have to be very careful with stomach. Well, one, we'll talk about that. Number two, there's robust data that indicates that over two hours per day of intense exercise, causes a release of zonulin, i.e.

damages the gut or damages in the tight junctions and causes leaky gut. So an example of a superstar athlete, look great in everything, but yet has a gut problem. Me as a practitioner, and I tell everybody who's in a sports orientation, just because they look good and they can snatch 250 pounds, That doesn't mean the inside is functioning optimally, especially at the gut level. So there's some new work coming out that I'm doing for gut for athletic performance, and it's exciting. And I do incorporate laser with that.

We'll chat and I'll tell you what to do off camera. I love that! Randy, the athletes, I mean, specimens, that basketball players are the greatest athletes. That's my opinion. And that's because I did play a little basketball, but that said, how are their diets? I mean, they're not eating Snickers bars like the guys in the seventies were. I'm just going to drink that. Yeah. You'd be surprised. Maybe not actually. It varies quite a bit. There's such a big spectrum of guys who are really dialed in.

I think of, I don't know if I should name drop. Probably not, but we had a player two years ago who, personality-wise, almost kind of a know-it-all, for good reason. had a great academic background, just super intelligent guy and all of his, you know, we have a catered set up for breakfast, lunch and especially like in season when we're traveling, and you have food on the plane, your food at the hotel, food that the arena is almost too much food around. But the stuff he would grab, um, And just his portions and everything I thought were really well done.

Um, and he kinda, he kind of had his layout for what he wanted, like for breakfast. He'd tell the kitchen staff, Hey, I want this every day. I'll let you know when I'm here. And then if you could have this for me, that's great. Uh, but then you have guys that I mean, they're still going the late night, you. Jack in the box run the raising canes, bring it on the plane kind thing. I think it just has a lot to do with, you know, yes, they're very good at what they do, but several of them come from different backgrounds, and grew up in different areas with a different setting, single parent, whatever, there's so many influences that they may or may not have had that that kind of change their overall structure of how aware they are of these things.

But just, I thought when you got to NBA, you would have more of an understanding, or players would more have an understand of at least what protein is, what are the different macros, like what the foods that make up these different macro's and what should I be eating. And really, a lot of them, it's just like training. It's like lifting. Some of you have to start at, It's a blank canvas and you just have to start over. Some already have their thoughts that may or may not be what I deem or we deam correct.

So maybe you have alter those a little bit and some are I think exactly, are exactly where they need to be. Are they drinking Gatorade out of the Gaterade cup? You don't have answer that. Out of a Gatterade Cup. Some, some drink it out of their, their little yeti deal that we have. We are not with Gatorade and we do not incurred. Okay. We are with Prime. You are not with prime, but the Lakers support prime. Right. No Gatorade. Okay. Sorry about that. Those showers, no Gaterade, nothing like that I will say there are guys that like Gatterade and a lot of them water it down.

quite a bit. Um, that's kind of a taste thing. And then just, I guess some don't want that much sugar content. Other guys don' care about the sugar. Content will have as much as they can have. But, um, There are guys that I don't know if you're familiar with the electrolyte element element tea. A lot of guys have have started to drink that actually love to hear your your thoughts on that's like that. Or we can do it offline. I think there's some positives. It's not something that I would take. Sometimes companies have to spend so much in marketing to get the big fish.

that the product may lag a little behind. And one thing that I respect from both of you is that, yes, we all endorse products, but we don't endorse a product for a check. We endorse the products because we'd be willing to take it, give it to our friends and families, our athletes, and we stake our reputation on it. So not having it in the office, I guess, take from that. which you just may. That's fair. Bethany, I have a question. I'm going to go home and give my wife a CrossFit workout today. What do you want her to do?

Not a hundred burpees. Yeah. Well, right now I feel like, well, the last three years for me, it's all about posterior chain. And just trying to build my posterior as much as possible. So I felt like that's definitely lacked my entire life and probably is. not helped my back. So I'm all about the back side. And as much as you don't like hitting squats or putting that barbell on your back, I am all like, hitting more of a bodybuilding kind of session and stuff. Actually, the one that we did yesterday wasn't too bad.

We've been kind taking class and just dabbling in, just doing stuff together and taking advantage of the summer. But the ones that did we yesterday with the goblet squat, wall ball. and then max calories on the bike. That one wasn't two, two minutes off. Max calories. She'll love that. Thanks. You want me to have my 21 years? I'm not, I am not one person that likes the eco bike, so I'll always, always program it. I call it the devil machine. Come on. It's a love hate. So love. Hey, the great device.

Really is. Well, you get so much from that, So I would always Program Echo Bike and anything for anybody. RossFit has without question woken up the world to Olympic lifting again. Burpees, the rower, The Devil's Bike or the aerodyne bike if you want to call it. And thank you very much for the 100 burpees in 10 minutes. I have a buddy of mine and he's my age. And he says, Rob, I need one thing from every podcast guest to do on Monday to make my life better. What are you going to give him? As far as exercise?

Yeah. As. Far. like the front end of her answer. Make it specific to him. Yeah, he plays a lot of tennis, lives overseas. He's my idol, so let's go. It's your idol. Your idol? Definitely his posterior, then. Let me think. I want a good answer for this. Well, I can fill the space real quick with something. Well I was going to say something, fun fact, Randy loves doing lower body work. As much as he's jacked with his upper body, this man hammers his lower-body and it is very nice. It is thick and super strong, but he is the only man that I've ever been around that like really hammers his lower body and doesn't just say that, but I don't know if it's just like his, his background of the knowledge and really looking up things throughout his career, But he really hammer's like posterior chain.

LeBron James recovery habits and athlete care 53:00

I think that's what kind of like switched my mind over. Cause I didn't really know about that until I met you. But posterior chains stuff, he's your man. it is probably in general and normal, just male thing to want to, I need a bigger chest or any bigger biceps or I tend to gravitate towards lower body stuff. I don't know why it's just more fun to me. It's more, um, it was more helpful. Yeah. Probably more useful overall health. You're, you're training a larger amount of tissue in, in the movements that you doing.

And then probably lends itself well to longevity. A true exciting topic for me, longevity! I have an answer I think for the advice for the exercise. It depends on his level, though. You said he's your idol tennis player. Well, he is my idol in life. He plays tennis. But he not my idle because he plays Tennis. OK, OK. I was going to say if this is an elite level tennis players, I like I liked Nordics Nordic hamstring curls. Yeah, great move. Wow. If he He's in his sixties. I'm probably not going to say, Hey, go do Nordics.

Um, you know what? A staggered stance. RDL. Why stance Romanian deadlift? If he hasn't done those, learn them, hammer them. I think that's a move you could do very well whether you're in your 20s or your 60s. And I Think it's an area that neglected quite a bit is just hinging in general posterior chain in General. For most people, And it's not about quad dominant or hamstring dominant. Like there's a larger number of musculature in the quads versus the hamstrings, but. So you don't have to make those balanced or even necessarily.

I just feel like more often than not, especially if you think of a sport like CrossFit, there was a lot of wall bowl, that there there is a a bike, There's lot a squatting. There is lot just quad emphasis, like knee flexion type work like that. And yes, there's pulling elements in there too. There's dead lifting, cleaning, snatching. But relative to the squatting movements, the time under tension and the overall volume that you get for those is so much higher on the front side of the body than the back side.

So I think especially if you're in her sport, it benefits you to hammer those things. people in general, I think, tend to gravitate towards pressing and squatting. So when the normal person goes into a gym, they're typically going to do some version of bench press, overhead press. You know, you're pressing machines, and then they are probably going squat, lunge, leg extend. But pretty rarely are you going to see a guy in there hip thrusting. And I think it's becoming more popular, but hip-thrusting, doing RDLs, heavy RDLS.

I mean, it may be more common. You see guys doing deadlifts, probably not well. That's usually more, you know, I'm super flexed at the spine. Not in a good position. Um, and definitely like, It's very rare that, especially in, uh, a regular kind of just general population gym, you're almost never going to see somebody doing a single leg hinging pattern where it's a, a you know, single-leg RDL or a staggered stance RDLS. So those are things I think might be novel to your idol to add in. I resonated with you.

Yeah. I love it because when you think about it, most of the exercises we spend on perform on one leg instead of two per se. So I will pass that on to him. But I did want to ask you both a question as a couple. What's next for the two of you? Well, we are. You can say it. She's expecting we're expecting. Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah, that's gonna change life quite a bit for both of us. I think, obviously for her career being one of a physical nature of being an athlete, she has to put that on pause, at least in the way that she was doing it.

We're kind of brainstorming on some other things maybe that, She could get into in meantime that don't require that level of physical effort. I don't even know if this would be frowned upon but getting really good at shooting like handguns and it seems kind of random but there are things there,

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are competitive I guess they call them the tactical games where it's like a mixture of almost like CrossFit with shooting elements in there. I don't know a ton about it. And I'm not saying you would necessarily compete in that right now, but if you got really good at shooting and use this time to do that, then maybe that's on the back end of this. Just thinking ahead. Yeah, makes sense. We haven't done that yet, but maybe that's coming next. So putting for for you, you can talk more on this if you want.

But I guess putting that on pause and focusing on other other areas, she mentioned earlier, She's kind of writing her story right now. Fully developing that and you know, maybe getting to a point where it's all together and editing that. I think it would be a really cool story that's still in process, and this will definitely be part of it. New chapter, as they say. Maybe a big one. A very big one. It creates change for me too, because nature of the NBA schedule, you have 82 games, hopefully some more after that, and there's plenty of travel in there.

So having this career with, when the time comes, a newborn potentially and trying to manage Being present there and being available for the players for a team but also being present for her and helping her where where she needs help and be home as much as i can is gonna be another challenge and it also changes the gravity of everything you're doing because. in professional sport or even college sport, or any kind of coaching. I mean, you see it every year. At the end of the year, head coaches, so-and-so gets fired, and so is getting a new job.

It's just almost a revolving door sometimes with the higher level you go. So with that lack of stability, You know when it was just me or when its me and her or especially when i was me. It was easy to be like okay well if this doesn't work out i'll pick up and go to the next thing but now when you have another person that. can't help themselves and is relying on you and I'm not speaking on her, I was speaking when we have a child, you have to just take those things into further consideration. So it changes things in that regard for me, but as far as what's next for just supporting her and trying to manage my career while, you know, with the added workload at home, so to speak.

Well you guys got some bun in the oven, and you got somethings popping, if you will. Yeah, I think I also want to add, um, since we've been together the last six years, We've known that we wanted to do something together. We just haven't been able to figure out exactly what that is. But maybe this will give us a little bit more time to kind of maybe pop up some ideas, but I think we know in the near or the far future that we're meant to do something together, especially with our resumes that we have like power couple status for sure, not to like toot around horn, but it's true.

And I think that, we can do really cool. It's just figuring out exactly what that is, But there's definitely something in store for both of us to together. You know what? You won't be the first woman to give birth, go back to sports and dominate. Your not the only person who thinks LeBron's the greatest player. ever. You keep going, you get those guys in shape. When you come to Madison Square Garden, the greatest arena in the world with the most. It's a good one. Yeah, it is. The most disappointing team ever, but they don't want KD now.

If you give me a call and we'll hang out. you two are great. I'll give them some tickets. So let them know how they can get in touch with you if they want to know more about your story. Yeah, for me right now, Instagram is Bethany CF. I also have a YouTube channel going. It's just Bethny underscore Flores. put together fully but that will hopefully be available at the end of this year. It'll be called the refinery project. So those are kind of like those places that you can find me and I'll let Randy share his.

You know what would be cool is that if you could be one of the guests on hers. I accept. And we're going to talk about the greatest basketball players in the history of the NBA. And I'm going give my top 10. There you go. So everybody check in. Yeah, there you got there. You go for me. I'll say I am significantly less active on social media. Do you have an Instagram coach, Randy F2? You're almost better off reaching out to her to get in touch with me as you. Oh, yeah, you found. You didn't notice that one bit?

Yeah, outside of that, no podcast, nothing. I join her when I can. It was great to have you. Yeah. Thanks for having me. No, I appreciate that. Let's do this again and I'll definitely pop on your podcast. associate head strength and conditioning coach at L.A. Lakers, Bethany and Randy Flores. Thanks so much.