Today’s episode welcomes back to the show Dr. Tommy John, along with neurological training adept, Alex Lee.  This episode was recorded in-person, after spending a few hours playing “around the world” in basketball and sliding down slides on a children’s playground.

Dr. Tommy John is a Chiropractor/Sports Performance coach (depending on which way his hat is aligned) and is a field leader in neurological training.  He blends psychology, culture and intention into a masterful training system that helps athletes stay healthy and maximize their sport experience.   His book “Minimize Injury, Maximize Performance” is a leading edge guide for the success of young athletes in today’s regressive sport culture that does not prioritize the health and well-being of young athletes.

Alex Lee is a chiropractic student at Life West who will graduate in 2020 and has years of experience in neurological training techniques.  As an athlete who experienced back pain as a result of training that didn’t prioritize human movement, he has found freedom from pain and enhanced athleticism by utilizing the techniques taught to him foremost by Dr. Tommy John, which he now utilizes in his own coaching and teaching.

This episode is all about how to optimize training from a neurological an psychological perspective.  If we think about the biggest rocks of training, the absolute foundation, it all starts with an athlete’s intentions and the basic functionality of the human body (being a “better human” as Cory Schlesinger puts it).  Dr. Tommy John and Alex share lots of anecdotes and insight as to how we can optimize our own performance, and that of our athletes by incorporating neurological principles in this awesome conversation.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.



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Key Points

Methods from a neurological perspective to “be a better human”
How fatigue can be a teacher and assessment from an intention driven perspective
How an athlete’s “why” impacts their results
How spending time away from weights, by using maximal intention ISO’s can be incredibly effective
Where the field of chiropractic and sports performance is headed
Alex and Tommy’s top bodyweight, barbell and ballistic exercises if they could pick only 1 of each
Early specialization and injury as a cultural sport phenomenon





“One of the easiest pass/fail methods to rewire the body is standing on one leg”

“We should be a good mover before we load the move”

“I get still excited that, in the face of whatever we are dealing with, can stimulate and adapt at any level at what you are trying to put intention behind”

“The brain doesn’t know we are training and it’s positive, it senses the system is being threatened.... it will do the gnarliest environment ever where it’s like “I am going to die if my knee hits the ground before 5 minutes is up of an ISO lunge”, the changes in the face of fatigue (are immense)”

“Every single suggestion I make is going to check your “why” and if you don’t have that clear picture, usually based around something you love… whatever that is, it’s coming and if you don’t have it, you will dip out… and your expectation of your gains is not going to be there”

“If there is an injury, if it senses it’s going back to that environment, it’s going to freak out, even if the environment is safe… one of the purposes of rehab is to break that PTSD”

“I remember 2 years after (training hard on ISO’s) I stepped back in the weightroom and was able to move stuff around… it was like Bruce Willis in “Unbreakable”.

“When you can get to a place in your head when you are training everything max effort, physiologically, the adaptation is insane”

“A true chiropractor will just go in and assess the spine and see where it needs to be...