Pro sports teams have access to every recovery device, supplement, and performance tool on the market. In this episode of OffTheCharts Health, Dr. Amy Papermaster sits down with Dr. Nate Whitney, a Major League Baseball physical therapist and former professional center fielder, to evaluate elite recovery options together.

We cover:

• A day in the life across 162 games, no weekends or holidays off
  Prevention vs. rehab, and the "subclinical injury"
• Why he is careful about correcting a healthy elite performer's "impairments"
• Position-specific breakdown: catchers' knees and ankles, outfielders' running volume between innings, pitchers' elbows
• Tommy John and the velocity paradox
• The 30 percent one-year spike in oblique injuries
• Supplements in the clubhouse
• Youth sports specialization
• Mental health in the clubhouse
• The modalities: scraping, cupping, needling, myofascial release, red light laser, PEMF, force plates, GPS, wearables, etc.
• Why the fundamentals done well are the real cutting edge
• The unsolved data problem

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Educational content only. Not medical advice. Views are my own.

Ryan Roe, PA-C, ATC is one of two full-time medical providers caring for nearly 700 student-athletes across 20 varsity sports at the University of Texas at Austin, currently the top-performing collegiate athletics program in the country.

You might spot him on the Texas sideline in an SEC football game and he's the person the athletes come to for health and wellness.

We cover:

• A day in the life caring for nearly 700 elite college athletes
• The multi-disciplinary integrated care model at UT Athletics: physicians, PAs, athletic trainers, dietitians, mental health providers, sports scientists, physical therapists
• Why this model works, and what it would take to bring it into everyday healthcare
• Concussions: how evaluation and return-to-play have evolved, and what the NFL research is teaching college programs
• RED-S (Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport) in female athletes, and why "not having a period" was normalized for far too long
• Hormonal contraception in athletes and how it complicates the RED-S workup
• Mental health, the NIL era, and the pressure on 17- to 25-year-olds performing under the world's cameras
• Sports science: catapult load monitoring, force plates, DEXA, wearables
• Recovery science: cold plunge, sauna, red light, hyperbaric, contrast baths, and what the evidence supports
• Supplements, NCAA regulations, and what's off-limits even when it's over-the-counter
• Regenerative medicine: PRP, PPP, stem cells, BMAC, peptides, and where the wild west begins
• “Back to basics” are sometimes the most important tools

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Dr. Lucy McBride has practiced primary care internal medicine in Washington DC for 25 years, writes the weekly newsletter 'Are You Okay?' to 41,000 readers, hosts a hit podcast, and has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, USA Today, CNN, MSNBC, and PBS.

Her new book, Beyond the Prescription, is a framework for thinking, asking better questions, and becoming a more informed and empowered participant in your own health.

We cover:

• Who she pictured reading the book, and what was missing from the shelf
• Becoming the "CEO of your own health", and what that looks like in practice
• The two forces pulling patients apart: a healthcare system that misses the human, and a $6.3 trillion wellness industry "weaponizing partial truths"
• The middle path she offers between medical maximalism and wellness culture
• The Four I's framework: informatics, inputs, infrastructure, and insight
• Health data, biographic data, and the story that rarely makes it into the chart
• How childhood, everyday habits, and lived experience show up in your labs
• Nutrition, protein, and our relationship with food
• Supplements, the illusion of certainty, and how to be an informed consumer
• How to partner with health tech and wearables as a clinical tool without letting them run your life
• Movement as medicine, injury, and caring for your physical container in midlife
• The serenity prayer, unwinnable battles, and where agency actually lives
• Mental health is health: the mind-body connection, the unconscious, and the stories we tell ourselves
• The patient personality and how the version of yourself who shows up at the clinic
• Her vision for the future of primary care, and where AI can help

Beyond the Prescription is out August 11th wherever books are sold!

Find Dr. McBride's newsletter and podcast at lucymcbride.com.

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