How to Train Without Pain (Back, Shoulders, Mobility & Strength) | Dr. John Rusin
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What is Dr. John Rusin’s background and why did he merge physical therapy with performance training?
the science and practice of enhancing human performance for sport, play, and life. Welcome to Perform. I'm Dr. Eddie Galpin. I'm a professor and scientist of human performance. Today, I'm talking with Dr. John Russin. John is a physical therapist and world expert in pain and performance. In this conversation, you're going to learn a tremendous amount about how to stay out of and return from chronic pain. We're talking about back, neck, shoulder, knee, and all of those nagging areas that just won't seem to go away. John's career over the last several decades has focused on specifically that question. How do we make sure we're using things like your warm-up, corrective exercises, soft tissue, and foam rolling tools to make real measurable and significant changes?
So regardless of whether you are someone who is in a lot of pain or not, there are so many useful tools in this conversation that I think everyone's going to enjoy it. So with that being said, please enjoy today's conversation with Dr. John Russin. Dr. John Russin, you're finally here. Finally here. Glad to be here. Thanks so much. You have done such a good job, in my opinion, of blending these fields of performance and physical therapy. I've not always saw eye to eye personally with the field of physical therapy. That's your academic degree. Your doctorate is in that side. But you moved in this direction. I'm wondering... right out the gates here. Can you just share with me, how did that get into your brain?
Why did you start developing this model that has this combination of being out of pain, being out of injury, moving well, but at the same time, trying to perform at your best? How did that come about? As cliche as
it sounds, I grew up as an athlete myself. And I lived in a household that was very unique because I had my mom who had a PhD and she worked at Damon College in Buffalo, New York, where I'm from. And my dad also had a doctorate, and he had a doctorate in education, and he was the athletic director of 27 schools in the Western New York area. And that's the house that I lived in, Dr. and Dr. Russen. And I played sports growing up, and I took that to a college level. And after I was done with my collegiate baseball career, I took a job as a strength and conditioning coach. Division I, it was my epitome of everything. And very clearly, I knew that I needed to chase some more academics because, oh, we'd been good in school.
And I didn't know what I wanted to do because I was already in the weight room. I was already working with high-performance athletes. That was my forever job. And I got introduced to this topic, which was new at the time, Doctorate of Physical Therapy. And I had no idea what physical therapy school was gonna be, but all I knew is that I had a scholarship and I could do that while continuing to coach. And I ended up two semesters later enrolled in a DPT program. And within about three months, I realized that chasing the clinical realm for my entire life's work was not gonna be doing what I was gonna do. And I ended up making the choice that I was gonna take that academic credential, I was gonna take my degree, I was gonna take that license, and I was gonna do the insane thing, which was to leave the clinical side of things, actually never entering the clinical side of things, and going right back to where I started, which was sports performance.
And out of 74 graduated class of my class, I was the only one that didn't take a physical therapy job. That's how I started into that. I was the ugly duckling. I was the person that went in and did a totally different side of things on physical therapy, moving back into performance. But one thing that I did learn is that I had a whole new level of understanding of how to rebuild a human body in pain. And I knew very well that that was going to best serve my athletes and my clients later on in my
career. If I had to guess, Charlie Weingroff would probably be the first guy who I came across who has a physical therapy degree, comes from that, but was a strength conditioning coach, a performance coach, was doing that stuff a long time ago.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is Dr. John Rusin’s background and why did he merge physical therapy with performance training?
0:00–12:57
2
How can you tell if a lingering ache is a true injury that needs medical attention?
12:57–25:42
3
What are the six phases of Dr. Rusin’s daily warm‑up and why does each matter?
25:42–48:38
4
What’s the difference between mobility and flexibility and how does the motor‑control gap affect pain?
48:38–1:14:13
5
Why does the hip thrust become the key glute activation drill in the warm‑up?
1:14:13–1:26:14
6
What are the optimal cues and grip variations for a truly effective face‑pull?
1:26:14–1:35:11
7
How should phase 5 of the six‑phase warm‑up be used to practice movement patterns before heavy loading?
1:35:11–2:01:02
8
Why are loaded carries such a high‑ROI exercise and how can they be programmed for all ages?
2:01:02–2:23:43
Speakers
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