Excerpt from
Clinical Running Essentials

“People cannot hear you unless they are moving toward you, which means that as long as you are in a pursuing or rescuing position, your message will never catch up, no matter how eloquently or repeatedly you articulate your ideas.”

– Edward Friedman

Shifting from an action-oriented, “find it and fix it” mindset to one of a non-anxious presence is one of the most critical (and challenging) evolutions for clinicians. It requires us to respect that the athlete is always in charge. Otherwise, we strip away autonomy, and that always backfires.

Let’s be honest: how can we ever be in charge of someone else’s body when we’ll never truly understand all the moving parts of their situation?

That’s the mindset shift we must cultivate when working with injured runners.

In this Clinical Running Essentials sample clip, I explore how motivational interviewing (MI) principles help move athletes from passive compliance to active ownership… where real change happens. Not through shockwave. Not via overpriced PRP. But through alliance and exercising restraint in the urge to fix.

In this lesson, I share one of my most important learnings from Edgar Schein, who helps us rethink how relationships work in healthcare. Our goal is always to move from Level 1 (transactional) to Level 2 (relational) connections, as this is where trust lives and we can finally get somewhere together.

In this video, you’ll learn:

• • • How to shift your language to build alliance instead of asserting authority
    • Why exploring the runner’s goals matters more than dictating yours
    • The five MI principles I use in every consult and evaluation
    • The difference between surface-level rapport and deep trust
    • Balancing empathy with accountability so runners can grow through pain rather than avoid it

MI isn’t just a counseling framework. It’s a performance tool. It’s how we build better, more durable athletes. It’s how we stop handing runners a to-do list—and start helping them chart their own course. Or, as my friend Steve Makofsky says: it’s how we help them “own their shit.”

🎥 Watch the clip below:

Watch more samples from Clinical Running Essentials:

Want to go deeper?

Clinical Running Essentials is my brand-new, 20-hour, CEU-approved online course designed for clinicians who work with runners — and it’s officially live.

Inside, you’ll gain the tools, structure, and confidence to guide runners from injury back to peak performance, with content covering:

📏 Run-Centric Orthopedic & Clinical Examination
Apply evidence-based assessments tailored to running. As a direct access provider, assess joint integrity, soft tissue health, and functional movement while knowing when to refer or collaborate with other medical and allied health professionals.

🦴 Bone Stress Injuries
Spot red flags early, develop a refined understanding of imaging, and apply risk models to support clinical decision-making, especially for high-risk injury sites.

🔹 Lower Limb Tendinopathies
Confidently assess and treat Achilles, patellar, glute med, and proximal hamstring tendinopathies using education, progressive loading, and sound return-to-run strategies.

💪 Strength & Control Drills
Rebuild capacity with progressive loading and plyometrics emphasizing smooth, fluid movement for running performance.

📈 Return-to-Run Programming
Learn and apply clear, criteria-based progressions and objective benchmarks to return runners to consistent, confident training.

Clinical Running Essentials is the culmination of everything I've studied, practiced, and refined over the years — a course built to equip you with the skills, insight, and clinical reasoning to help any runner who walks through your door.

This is more than CEUs. It's a roadmap to guide runners out of the medical system and back to the sport they love — stronger, smarter, and with a renewed sense of possibility.

I created this for you and the runners counting on you.

LET'S GO!!!