The Ready State Podcast

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What does it take to keep someone performing when their job leaves almost no room for downtime? In this episode of the Ready State Podcast, Kelly and Juliet Starrett sit down with longtime friend Dr. Drew Contreras, a retired Army physical therapist who went from supporting soldiers in combat to becoming the first full-time physical therapist embedded in the White House Medical Unit.

Drew shares what he learned caring for everyone from White House staff to Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden – and why the fundamentals of human performance matter even more when time is your most valuable resource. From encouraging naps during relentless work schedules to introducing walking meetings at the White House, Drew explains how small changes can help people stay functional under extraordinary pressure.

The conversation also explores the changing role of physical therapy, why PTs should be doing more than treating injuries one patient at a time, and how technology such as digital health and AI could reshape the profession.

What You'll Learn in This EpisodeWhat working with two sitting U.S. presidents taught Drew about keeping people functional under extreme pressure
Why naps, walking meetings, and other simple interventions can make a major difference during sustained periods of high-stress work
How physical therapists became a “force multiplier” for keeping soldiers healthy and operational during deployment
Why Drew believes physical therapists should play a bigger role in performance and musculoskeletal primary care
Why embracing new technology such as digital health and AI will be essential for the future of physical therapy
Key Highlights: (00:00) Intro to Dr. Drew Contreras
(02:55) How a Combat PT Got Handpicked for the White House
(07:00) The Birthday Basketball Game That Started It All
(12:05) Building a Wellness Culture in the White House
(19:15) What Actually Moved the Needle on Health
(22:05) Naps, Walking Meetings, & Reframing Work
(26:30) Deploying as One of the First Combat PTs
(31:00) PT as Human Performance, Not Just Rehab
(33:20) Treating Obama vs. Biden – Different Ages, Different Needs
(38:50) Leading the APTA & Scaling Physical Therapy
(43:45) The Money Problem in Physical Therapy
(53:30) PT as Musculoskeletal Primary Care
(1:00:30) AI, Digital Health, & the Future of PT
(1:04:21) What the Presidency Really Does to a Person
(1:11:30) Infinite Shelf: Legacy by James Kerr

Huge thanks to our sponsors, LMNT, BEDGEAR, and Momentous.

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Juliet and I have been saying yes to everything this fall. We're calling it the Fall Travel Junket, and it's stacked with events from Phoenix to Vail to Antarctica. Follow our Instagram or subscribe to The Ambush for details. And spoiler: you can join us in ANTARCTICA! For real!

We've been watching the new season of Ted Lasso, which is putting women's sports on mainstream television in a way that's hard to ignore. We get into what that means culturally, including who we'd want to see make a cameo.

Private equity is moving into youth sports with the "stay-to-play" model and it's terrible for players and parents. We dig into that, the "pay-to-play" model, what's happening at the policy level, and what parents can actually do.

We close with two Instagram trends that gave us pause: men in the longevity space calling facelifts "aesthetic wellness," and a dating site for people who didn't get the COVID vaccine.

New episodes of The Ready State Podcast drop every Thursday. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss a thing!

What You'll Learn in This EpisodeWhy Ted Lasso's new season is putting women's sports inequities on mainstream display
What the WNBA surge and Copa 71 reveal about the growing appetite for women's sports
How private equity operates in youth sports through the stay-to-play model
What New York Magazine and the Denver Post found when they investigated the pay-to-play childhood
What parents can actually do right now, from supporting Senator Murphy's bill to keeping rec leagues alive
Why calling facelifts "aesthetic wellness" is a branding problem worth naming
What "Unjected" is, and what it says about the stranger corners of wellness culture

Key Highlights:
(0:00) Welcome back + Goings on in Starrett Land: our empty nest and the Fall Travel Junket
(02:10) PT Biz Mastermind and Brett Bartholomew's Non-Superficial Conference
(02:46) The Assembly in Vail, Eudaimonia, and the Antarctica expedition
(04:46) Ted Lasso's new season and the women's sports moment
(06:15) WNBA, Copa 71, and cultural momentum toward the 2027 Women's World Cup
(09:54) Ted Lasso cameo wishlist: Emma Hayes and Megan Rapinoe
(12:45) Private equity in youth sports: NYMag and Denver Post investigations
(13:56) The stay-to-play model and Senator Murphy's bill
(17:24) Free play, skate culture, and why it matters
(20:15) What parents can do: rec leagues, Positive Coaching Alliance, taking action
(22:30) "Aesthetic wellness": men calling cosmetic procedures a health practice
(27:48) Unjected: the dating site for the unvaccinated
(29:52) Outro

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What if the biggest breakthrough in women’s health isn’t a brand-new protocol… but learning how to better apply the fundamentals to the person in front of you?

Kelly and Juliet Starrett sit down with Dr. Abbie Smith-Ryan, professor of exercise physiology and nutrition at UNC Chapel Hill, to explore what the latest research can teach us about training, body composition, creatine, and women’s health across the lifespan. Drawing from more than 15 years in the lab – and her experience as a collegiate runner who suffered 9 stress fractures – Abbie explains how our understanding of female physiology has evolved.

They unpack how women can use body composition data without becoming ruled by the numbers, why creatine may become even more valuable as we age, whether women really need female-specific strength programs, and how to approach HIIT and recovery during perimenopause and menopause.

The takeaway? Human bodies aren’t black and white. And now that we have more tools than ever, the focus should be on finding the ones that work best for you.

What You'll Learn in This EpisodeHow Abbie’s experience with 9 stress fractures shaped her approach to training, fueling, and women’s health
Why body composition data can be a valuable tool for tracking muscle, bone, fat, and long-term health
What the research says about creatine for women, from muscle and hydration to potential cognitive benefits
Why women don’t necessarily need “women-specific” strength training – and when female physiology should influence how you train
How to use high-intensity interval training, recovery, and scaling to get results without turning every workout into an all-out effort

Key Highlights: (00:00) Intro
(01:43) Meet Dr. Abbie Smith-Ryan
(04:00) Advocating for Women's Health Research
(06:37) Women's Health Research: What's Changed & What's Missing
(11:40) 9 Stress Fractures, Underfueling, & Low Energy Availability
(17:54) Body Composition & Injury Risk
(23:21) DEXA, Bod Pod, & Measuring Body Composition
(30:43) Body Composition for Midlife Women
(35:47) Juliet's Bone Density Loss During Menopause
(37:28) What the Research Says About Creatine for Women
(41:42) Creatine Hesitancy, Myths, & Safety
(45:41) Creatine Loading & the Menstrual Cycle
(48:23) Creatine Dosing: 5g vs 10g & Brain Benefits
(52:32) What's Changed in Athletic Performance
(54:43) Applying Elite Performance Science to Everyday Women
(55:27) Women-Specific Strength Training: Science vs Marketing
(1:00:32) Overcomplicating Exercise
(1:02:16) HIIT, Recovery, & the Menstrual Cycle
(1:04:50) HIIT vs Sprint Interval Training
(1:07:30) The 20-Minute HIIT Protocol: 1 Min On, 1 Min Off
(1:09:48) Abbie's Proof of Practice Podcast
(1:13:49) No Black & White Answers
(1:16:07) Have We Improved Sports Science?
(1:20:23) Infinite Shelf: '90s Rap Music

Huge thanks to our sponsors, BEDGEAR, Momentous, and LMNT.

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Juliet and I are officially empty nesters. Both girls are launched, the bathroom is clean every morning, and we're figuring out what the next phase looks like. It rhymes with dusk bike rides, protein shakes for dinner, and a cereal bar in Marin we somehow didn't know existed until now.
We also revisited one of our longest-running household debates: women's pain tolerance. An Instagram infographic claiming childbirth equals breaking 20 bones made the rounds and reignited everything. We cover what the McGill pain scale actually says, why medical research has failed women on pain, and the full story of my eardrum, which ends with blood in the ER and a pain scale I have never quite recovered from.

From there we got into our book Outplay and the data shaping every youth sports conversation right now. The number everyone cites is that 70% of kids drop out of sport by age 13. A researcher on LinkedIn tried to find the primary source and came up empty. So did researchers at the Aspen Institute. So did everyone else. We unpack what the CDC data actually shows and why citation drift doesn't mean youth sports is fine.

The biggest chunk of this episode is something I wanted to make sure we gave real time to: what two years of running the Starrett System has actually taught us. Most people coming into the program weren't working a coherent physical practice at all. They might have been doing some weight training or riding a Peloton, but nobody was hitting all three legs of the longevity triangle: strength, conditioning, and mobility. Nobody was sprinting. And a lot of people believed that the moment they felt discomfort, they should stop.

Watching that shift has been one of the most rewarding things we've done. Member Lily gained 5.4 pounds of lean mass in eight months. Cole said he's craving training every day for the first time. The fall cohort starts September 8th. Early bird: $200 off at starrettsystem.com.

What You'll Learn in This EpisodeWhy the "70% of kids drop out of sports by age 13" statistic cited by the American Academy of Pediatrics and major sports governing bodies may have no verifiable primary source, and what the CDC and Aspen Institute data actually shows
Why the claim that childbirth equals breaking 20 bones is a myth, and what the McGill pain scale says is actually more painful
Why medical research has historically underserved women on pain, and how self-reporting skews the picture
What two years of running the Starrett System revealed about what most people were actually missing in their physical practice
Why having a strength practice, a conditioning practice, and mobility work are three separate things, and why most people were only doing one of them
What the "longevity triangle" is and why most wellness and longevity conferences have almost no conversation about it
How teaching people to train around injuries and physical limitations, rather than stop, has been one of the biggest shifts for Starrett System members
Why the program's nutrition approach centers on abundance and eliminating nothing, and what happens when people who have been chronically underfueling start eating enough

Key Highlights(00:00) Welcome to RECESS / Kelly and Juliet go officially empty nest
(00:31) The bathroom story and Byron Katie's towel wisdom via Gabby Reese
(03:19) Life as empty nesters: bike rides at dusk, protein shakes, cereal for dessert
(04:43) Listener ask: send your best recipes for two
(05:18) Women vs. men pain tolerance: the debate renewed
(06:44) Kelly's eardrum story
(08:57) McGill pain scale and Juliet's finger
(11:11) Outplay: preparing families for youth sports
(13:32) Pay-to-play, private equity, and the Norwegian youth sports model
(16:26) The 70% dropout stat and its missing primary source
(19:12) Starrett System: origin story from the YPO conference
(26:48) Starrett System: member results and the September 8th fall cohort
(30:41) Cereal bar in Marin and the great Raisin Bran debate
(34:07) Wrap and early bird CTA

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Andy Stumpf spent years navigating some of the most extreme environments imaginable as a Navy SEAL, but he says the hardest lessons he learned had nothing to do with combat. In this episode of the Ready State Podcast, Kelly and Juliet Starrett sit down with the retired SEAL Team Six operator, pilot, skydiver, and author of Drownproof to explore the mindset that helps people stay steady when life feels anything but that.

From a chaotic military skydive gone spectacularly wrong to the emotional toll of divorce, Andy shares why the ability to "chunk" overwhelming challenges into the next manageable step has become one of the most valuable skills he's ever developed. Along the way, the conversation dives into self-talk, asking for help, ownership, leadership, flow state, and why resilience isn't about being fearless – but about learning to focus on what you can control when everything else feels out of control.

Whether you're navigating a personal setback, leading a team, raising kids, or simply trying to build a more resilient mindset, this episode offers practical lessons for staying grounded, making better decisions, and keeping your head above water when the inevitable storms of life arrive.

What You'll Learn in This EpisodeWhy resilience is less about toughness and more about controlling what you can control
How breaking overwhelming challenges into small, manageable steps can help you navigate almost any crisis
The surprising role that self-talk plays in performance, confidence, and decision-making under pressure
Why asking for help is one of the strongest leadership skills, not a sign of weakness
How finding a healthy "flow state" can improve focus, reduce stress, and build long-term resilience through work, sport, or everyday life

Key Highlights: (00:00) Intro & Andy's Background
(05:15) Origin of "Becoming a Supple Leopard"
(11:00) Backstory of "Drownproof" Title
(17:49) Where We Learn Resilience & Life Skills
(20:22) Breaking Tasks Into Small Chunks
(23:12) Andy's Wild HAHO Jump Story
(30:43) Everything Goes Wrong Mid-Air
(37:52) Getting to Safety & Lesson From the Jump
(43:04) How Divorce Was Harder Than SEAL Training
(47:38) The Power of Self-Talk
(49:11) Asking for Help as a Sign of Strength
(54:32) After-Action Reviews, Accountability, & Leadership
(54:34) Why 85% Quit BUD/S
(58:14) The Chunking vs. Overwhelm Theory
(1:00:00) Hell Week & the Psychology of Time
(1:09:57) "It Takes Longer to Do It Wrong"
(1:17:32) Writing Drownproof
(1:20:38) BASE Jumping, Wingsuits, & Risk
(1:23:44) Flow State, Not Adrenaline
(1:31:23) The Sphere of Influence Exercise
(1:33:32) Redirecting Negative Self-Talk
(1:34:47) The Infinite Shelf: Money & Meaning

Huge thanks to our sponsors, LMNT and Momentous.