When Technology crosses Exercise, does your commitment improve? Ask Dr. David Cruz

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What does it take to turn a passion for rehabilitation into a game-changing tech platform used by healthcare professionals around the world? In this exciting episode of the Crackin’ Backs Podcast, we sit down with Dr. David Cruz, founder and CEO of WebExercises​, to hear the incredible story behind his groundbreaking work in sports medicine, exercise technology, and patient rehabilitation.

With over two decades of experience as a chiropractor, working with elite athletes and teams, Dr. Cruz blends his expertise with technology to create tools that personalize exercise prescriptions for better patient outcomes. But this journey hasn’t been without obstacles. Dr. Cruz shares how he overcame adversity, including a shocking scam that almost derailed his vision—and the pivotal advice from a friend that kept him going.

In this episode, we explore how WebExercises is transforming the healthcare landscape by customizing rehabilitation programs and strengthening the patient-provider relationship, particularly in a post-pandemic world. Dr. Cruz offers valuable insights on the future of rehabilitation, the growing role of AI and wearable tech in health monitoring, and how technology will continue to shape patient care.

Listeners will also learn the key principles Dr. Cruz recommends for anyone—athletes and everyday people alike—looking to improve their health, prevent injuries, and enhance their performance. Plus, he addresses the biggest misconceptions about injury recovery and reveals what’s truly essential for long-term wellness.

If you're interested in the intersection of technology, sports medicine, and personalized care, this episode is a must-listen! Tune in to learn more about Dr. Cruz’s incredible journey and the future of exercise prescription.

We are two sports chiropractors, seeking knowledge from some of the best resources in the world of health. From our perspective, health is more than just “Crackin Backs” but a deep dive into physical, mental, and nutritional well-being philosophies.

Join us as we talk to some of the greatest minds and discover some of the most incredible gems you can use to maintain a higher level of health. Crackin Backs Podcast

Transcript

Dr. Spencer Baron: 0:01

David Join us as we sit down with Dr David Cruz, the visionary behind web exercises, who's transforming Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation with cutting edge technology. With decades of experience working with tons of athletes, elite athletes, Dr Cruz shares how personalized exercise programs and advanced tech are shaping and reshaping recovery and performance. Curious about all the AI and health or the biggest myths in injury prevention, this is an episode you won't want to miss. Get ready to rethink everything you know about rehab and recovery.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 0:41

Well, welcome to the show. We've got the big and famous and legend, Dr David Cruz on. And yeah, David, you bring up such a wealth of knowledge and rehabilitation, exercise technology, sports medicine. And as the founder and CEO of WebEx, we're so happy to have you, because hopefully today, we're going to talk about bridging Health Tech and practical rehabilitation to tools that the masses can use as well as healthcare providers. But we're so happy to have you on the show today, bud. You know, welcome to the show.

Dr. David Cruz: 1:11

Thank you so much. Dr Terry and Lord Baron, you know,

Unknown: 1:16

you know, I had to

Dr. Spencer Baron: 1:21

throw that in my show.

Dr. David Cruz: 1:25

In Spencer for for a bit of time. And you know, it's great meeting you Terry. So yeah, I, you know, love being able to share what I can share and learn what I can learn from you guys as well. And yeah, looking forward to it awesome.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 1:40

And that's exactly, yeah, that's awesome. So, you know, with decades of experience as a chiropractor and working with athletes and teams, you know you, you have a CC, a CSCS, which is a strength and conditioning specialist, you hold advanced certifications and corrective exercises of moving screen. I mean, you're so overqualified to talk about rehab, it's and so I love to hear how you started, what's your your journey, and how you got here? Yeah.

Dr. David Cruz: 2:08

I mean, gosh, let's go. Let's go back. What the harp that goes, you know, the music that takes you back and so forth, to early 2005 I graduated from life West in a 96 got into private practice and quickly learned that your care is only as good as it is in the office, and if you can get patients to participate more, they tend to get better. So I've always looked at patient care as a shared responsibility, where part doc, part patient. And so since I've I've come from kind of a sports medicine undergraduate, and just I'm a nerd with regards to looking at all the different movement screens and all those things. And so it really started out of need in that at the time, if you can remember the printed handouts of stick figures. I mean, that was kind of the gold standard. And then, okay, you circle the ones you want, and you hand in the patients, and the next thing you know, you walk out to your car at the end of the day, and there's your patience paperwork on the ground, right? I guess you're not doing that at home, right? So it's one of those things. So you go, Okay, well, this doesn't work too well. So it literally started. I had a patient as a software programmer, and I kind of thought, I don't know, this light bulb went off. You know what? There's this new thing called the internet, and can we deliver some photos and videos over, you know, this online, internet, AOL, whatever it is, the dial up and so forth, and so that's honestly where it started. It started a need in the sense of, you know, how do I provide better care for my patients, right? And we've all figured this out. I know you guys have been practitioners, and it's tons of experience. And it's, how do you figure stuff out. If something doesn't exist, well, what I need to do to try it, figure it out. And honestly, that's where it was. And so I started talking to my software programmer, and we had a very basic version of web exercises on my personal website that had about 40 or so exercises for patients to go to, hey, go to my office website, click on, like, hip or low back, and you'll see some exercise I want you to do. And then, as the probably got 6070, exercises, I came to him and said, you know, is this something that we could actually offer to, kind of the public, not public, but basically to the healthcare because we got, we go to a healthcare providers. We got a mainly chiropractors, and also physical therapists and and other sports medicine. And he's like, yeah, absolutely. So at that point, signed a contract with the company worked for. We built out the initial version. But what I realized was you need broadband. Deliver images, videos and so forth. And we had dial up broadband was only in about 18 to 20% of businesses in 2005 2006 so, you know, we I struggled a bit. I, you know, continued to do what I could to get out there. And we pivoted. We created what's called a desktop CD. So it was a single install. So we sold a CD of web exercises through different distribution companies, Myers and others that you'd buy it, you install it, and it was there. There was no online. And that's what really kept us going, till about 2012 when the online started to adapt. It was one of those things, just like any business, I don't care whether it's chiropractic or a hardware store, when you meet challenges, you just kind of figure it out, what do I need to do, right? And so fortunately, I had, you know, my programmers been with me, and still is to this day, and we had the idea, well, let's see if we can make a CD of it instead, so we don't rely on internet. And that's what we did. So it's really been this kind of serendipitous journey. You know, it's one of those things that we always think of success is of, you know, a plan and a goal, and we're just going to do this, but if you really look at it, it's just kind of squiggly line back and forth and just figuring out. And, you know, I've been fortunate enough to really have people come in at the certain time of you're at a critical moment, I say, and you've just been blessed with somebody coming in at the right time. And if I can, I'll show you, I'll share an interesting story, not not a lot of people know about. So it was probably about 2007 and I was kind of struggling in that I'm practicing, I don't know much about software and building a software business, but I'm trying to figure it out healthcare providers are creatures of just habit to this day, and I know that, and so they don't like technology necessarily at the time it was early on. And if you look at this famous book called Crossing the Chasm of how you adopt technologies and so forth, it's this belker, and there's early adopters, and then the late adopters over and then there's these laggards at the end. I mean, healthcare are the laggards of technology, right? So I was struggling with just trying to keep this idea going, because I really had a vision of, how can I make healthcare providers more successful and patients more successful? And I think this is something which could do it. And so I went to this business meeting, and I met this guy, and we'll just, we'll just call him Ernie for now, and I was explaining it, and he really liked the idea. And he was somebody that, you know, knew how to do things, and knew how to grow things, and knew how to raise money and all those things. And I didn't know anything, right? So I'm just listening and, okay, sounds great. And so forth. So we continue the conversation after and then he starts talking about, okay, well, we need to raise money. We need to do this. And then you know what? We need to strategize. And I'm like, Okay, sounds good, right? I know nothing from nothing, so sounds like you know what you're talking about. Okay? And I live in the Bay Area, where there's just lot of tech kind of resources and companies and and consultants. So okay, so we set up a meeting. So the first thing we need to do is set up a brainstorming session, but I need you to bring in people that you trust. And I thought, okay, but shouldn't we also bring in some people that you think are key? But okay, and it's gonna cost you $2,000 for me to run this brainstorming session that you're bringing the people in for that's like, Okay, I'm still, like, trying to, like, right? So we had it set for this Sunday, and then it turns into his fees are pay him outright. He wants percentage of the company and right? And all that. I didn't sign anything yet. I was waiting till he did this brainstorming session. So he had it set on a Sunday at my office. Right? It's like, okay, you bring the people at your place, and you can make me two grand. I look back on this and go, come on right. So back to serendipity, and you never know how things intervene in your life. It's a Thursday morning before. I didn't see patients. On that Thursday morning, I was supposed to do paperwork, but I'm sure I was just working on web exercises, right? That's all I was doing. Phone rings, pick it up. Hey, Dave, it's Mike. My next killing me. Do you mind if I come in? Tell you who Mike is shortly, sure Mike come on in. He comes in. Not seen any patients, but it's a long time patient put him in on the treatment table, put a little stimrocular pack on his neck and so forth. And then I just tend to like, right, chat, right? I'm with my patients. I just chat and talk and so. Forth. And I told him a little bit about web exercises and great and so forth. And so I told him that I was kind of stuck. I meet with this guy, Ernie, I think this is the way forward, and this and that and so forth. And I'll never forget this. The guy is Mike McColl. You guys hear of power bar or Clif Bar. He's the founder of it, Mike, I know exactly who he is. The most, the nicest gentleman you'll ever meet. He sold that. He went on to have other companies, construction companies. He's the type of guy. He's would come in and work boots. He's digging trenches, working with the crew, right? I mean, just an amazing guy. Okay, I'll never forget this. He's face down. He looks up and goes, Don't you do that? I deal with those sobs all the time. They will do anything they can to get 51% of your business. You're not doing anything wrong. You cancel that meeting, then you call me for anything you need. There's no shortcuts. It's hard work. Keep your head down and keep doing what you're doing. And he stayed for like a half hour and talked to me after that, and at that point, sorry, Ernie, we're off, right? So it's these certain things that you're thankful for, that really try to and there's been others as well that changed that trajectory that okay, this is my vision. I'm not quite sure I'm trusting. But then something else comes in to say, No, stick with what you know. Keep going, keep your head down. And there's no, no, no, shortcuts, and so, yeah, just for lack of better word, just kept grinding. And then I joined this medical Orthopedic Group, you know, in 2007 or eight, and practiced with them for many, many years too.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 11:53

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Dr. David Cruz: 13:05

yeah. I mean, pretty lucky man, COVID Sport too, right? You practice hard, and you know what the luck like you are, the harder you practice, yeah, yeah,

Dr. Spencer Baron: 13:13

unbelievable, yeah. What happened? I would love to know what you know based on technology and how technology has transitioned. So much you talked about dial up, which I crack up about that whole thing, to look back on how we evolved from that. And then you created a CD, and then now we have this evolution. When did you switch out technologically to

Dr. David Cruz: 13:39

yeah, good, question. It was, it was, I think it was 2000 and was it 2000 or 12,014 when EHRs became more mandated? I can't remember the years either 12 or 14 when really it was a push that you need to start using EHRs in your facility. That's what really kind of pushed it forward to the online, and from there, that's where the adoption became more. That's where he started integrating with some more. We integrate with EHR companies, and that's where it kind of started. But I would say back to healthcare providers being the laggards on technology. And I don't mean that in any way, except because, right, I practiced, and I know I was a creature to have it and so forth. It's just we get set in our ways, and it's a lot of times hard to adopt these new procedures. And I think because we were kind of forced to actually start adopting some EHR technology, is what is? What helped? Yeah,

Dr. Spencer Baron: 14:37

that's funny. I think back I hadn't thought about this in a while, but, you know, I remember when our our desktop computers were this wide, you know, or this deep, you know. And I remember learning Dragon software. Do you guys remember dragon? Yes, the first dictation, absolutely for hours, and it would still get the words wrong that you're like. God, so, yeah, there was quite an evolution there. So how do you see the, like, the transformation, and you know, now you, you went back to Internet. And then what I really, really want to know is, when the, when the pandemic hit, yep, how did, how did things could have changed massively for you or not? Yeah.

Dr. David Cruz: 15:21

I mean, it was twofold, one, so I got a practice in 1516, active practice, and then focused on web exercises. We grew year over year till the pandemic hit. We actually grew a little bit more beginning the pandemic, I think partly because everybody was trying to figure out, hey, how am I going to keep in touch with my patients and do that sort of thing? But then after people, I think, understood that, hey, this is going to continue to go on for a while, and my bottom line is affected and so forth, we've actually dipped about 10 15% since the pandemic, and now we're finally kind of coming out of that. So I think it was on the exercise prescription, home exercise platform. It's one of those things that people first jumped on, but then it became more of a financial and I think we're still dealing with financial. I mean, if you look at all industries. I mean, everything is in this odd. I don't care if it's tech, healthcare, finance. I mean, everything's odd right now, in the past year or two, and so I think we're all trying to figure out this kind of what's this new normal? I on the on the good side, we have a fully compliant online education platform. We've got hundreds of hours of online education for chiropractors, physical therapists and certified trainers. What the pandemic did was push the Online Education fast forward it so it allowed a lot more online learning instead of butts in seat. So so that that was good, because a lot of states at the time were only maybe quarter half hours can be online. And then what it did was allow a lot of states to just be like, Oh, you can do all your education online. So kind of it was kind of two fold, I think, with regards to our education versus our hep program. And that's

Dr. Spencer Baron: 17:15

what I was wondering, because all of a sudden, during the pandemic, maybe a year into it, everybody was doing exercise programs so you can exercise at home. And that's why I asked, because I thought maybe there was a point where you just would, you know, suddenly, you know, blow up. Yeah.

Dr. David Cruz: 17:33

I mean, initially, initially, we did spike. And then I think, as I mentioned, everybody realized this isn't going away very quickly, and I get to start looking at my bottom line and what I'm spending because everything's get everything's just a little odd, and it stayed for at least in California, was crazy. How long the restriction stayed in place.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 17:53

Not in Florida.

Dr. David Cruz: 17:56

I know that. Just saying, I know, yeah, different world in California,

Dr. Spencer Baron: 18:04

yeah? So. So let me ask you, Dave, the you know, personalization is such a key thing now, because you can make it really personal. Sure, how? How important is that become for you? Because it's from the days of sending somebody a disc, you know, with a bunch of exercise on it? Yeah. How is it done

Dr. David Cruz: 18:21

now? No, good, good. Good question. And I mean, part of my belief from the beginning and starting wild web exercises is, you know, right exercise for the right condition gets the right results, and the right exercise is only if you have an assessment. And that's why we only go to healthcare providers. We don't go at all to the public, because we want the right exercise based on what that patient's being really seen for. And so that's where, with our platform, it can be very, very specific to that condition and then sent to them digitally on their phone or computer. And there's tracking, so the provider knows exactly how that patient's doing when they're not in the office. Are they logging in? Are they doing exercises? Do they have pain? Do they have any comments? So it's really a touch point to make sure your patient is successful when they leave the office. And patients successful outside the office make us successful. You know, in the office, that's really kind of where code comes from.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 19:19

You know, you said something that everything from you know your Ernie story, to everything else that you like to you hit these challenges instead of just turning around, you kind of hit them and figure out a way around the wall. So is there any other story that kind of stands out, that of a unique challenge that you faced when educating when you're trying to educate the clinician who has to educate the patient through a platform that you can and how did you overcome it?

Dr. David Cruz: 19:49

Yeah, I'll tell you a story, another story where I was stuck. It was probably 2012 13 or. Something of the sort. And it was very similar in that we were, we did okay with the CD, but hadn't totally transitioned into the online we're in this kind of, this weird situation of people like the CD, because, from a purchasing standpoint, it's you want something that's tangible. At the time, when I go to buy something, I want something tangible. We aren't we weren't used to at the time, something online that's intangible. It's like, it's fair and dust, it doesn't exist, right? It's just so how do you make something tangible? And that was with our CD. People got that package they loaded in the computer, right? And it was tangibles tactic, right? You can, you can feel it, touch it, look at it. Versus, I sign up online. You're taking my money for this online thing. And I mean, now it's, I mean, that's all we do, right? But in 2010 12 or, I mean, it's like, right? People are always not even believing in that, probably, right. And so that was probably another little bit of a sticking point. And I'm not quite sure how I met him. And that's I remember sitting in the parking lot in my office, getting on a call with somebody that put me in touch with somebody that put me in touch with somebody. And he said, You know what? I think this gentleman, Jerry, could be, you know, really helpful for you. I'm like, Sure, great. So I met with Jerry, and he turns out, at the time, to be the Senior VP of global technology for HP, Agilent, okay, he had also had started an incubator for a bunch of startups near where I am, in Northern California, and he became a good friend. I mean, just, just a mentor and a good friend. And I, I've had coffee with them a couple months ago, and I just, I look at again, these kind of these serendipitous situations where you're kind of stuck, and then just kind of somebody comes in and gives you some whether it's encouragement, direction, whether it is motivation, I mean, something that you need to help, kind of keep you moving forward. And I know I've had other instances, but those two are probably like, I feel like as at such this crossroads in both situations, like, do I keep doing this or not? I mean, because we always question ourselves and so forth, and I really remember those two situations as kind of pivotal for me. And, you know, fortunately, you know, I was blessed that somebody came into my life and that gave me some of that direction at the time. And with that said, and I went sideways on your question, so I think it was an education question, or we can move on something else. I kind of lost track as I picture that story.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 23:08

No, it was just that transition. But actually, I have a more philosophical question that stems from your two stories of Revelation. What were you thinking of when before? How were you thinking before these angels came into your world and shared some thought process that moved you forward or changed the way you thought dramatically. What was it you were what was going through your head?

Dr. David Cruz: 23:42

Failure? I think, um. And here's something which, honestly, there's a few people that know those two stories. Only a couple people know this. Well, there's gonna be a lot of people that know this after I tell you. But here's the thing, so I started web exercises with those small inheritance I got from my grandparents. I was very close to my grandparents, and it was one of those things that, right, I'm in practice, I don't software's not cheap to build, build a software platform. So I took that part of that, and that's what was the initial seed of it. I didn't go to any investors. I didn't do anything. So when I say failure, letting down my grandparents, who I was really close to,

Dr. Spencer Baron: 24:33

did that drive you? Is that just to some

Dr. David Cruz: 24:36

degree still, to this day, yeah, because, yeah, I was very close to them. And to this day I still, I still think about that, and I think back to again, failure, right question yourself if you're doing the right things and so forth. And probably, yeah, I would say, not only failure for myself, but failing these people. What I cared about that gave me the opportunity to do that. So

Dr. Spencer Baron: 25:03

in other words, you didn't want to let them down, yeah, whether they're still alive or not, correct, yeah, correct, yep. That was your provocative. That was

Dr. David Cruz: 25:14

yeah, right there, yeah, yeah. There were a lot of factors, and that was definitely something that I end to this day. I still feel that, yeah, yeah, yeah. True story. I

Dr. Spencer Baron: 25:23

wish they were around to show them absolutely,

Dr. David Cruz: 25:26

yeah, yeah. I grew up with them, so absolutely, yeah. I'm a big military supporter. My grandpa was Marines for the division in World War Two, Guadalcanal, all the worst places ever, yeah, so I come from some military people, and so that's why we're big supporters in the

Dr. Spencer Baron: 25:48

military. Dave, the the idea of of working with professional athletes and elite athletes, I mean, sometimes it's easy because they're so highly motivated that you give them anything, and they're going to follow through. But what advice would you have for the Average Joe, the average Well, Josephine, the average person. I immediately thought of the anybody woke out there that if I just said Joe, they go, Oh, I'm not listening to that. He's all male oriented, you know, sorry, so, my apologies. Anyone who is will listen that sounded like God, just what would I give Josephine, right? Yeah, the average human,

Dr. David Cruz: 26:46

yeah, exactly. Well, here's, here's the thing. I mean, what I what I try and because when I'll still lecture maybe half times a year at different places, and I try and also bring in the general population on the why? It's like we all have our why? Why do you do Why do you get up in the morning? Why do you what you do? So how can we give some patients some why? If you why they need to exercise. And so I there's, there's a couple things, kind of, if you look at general health, I mean, two things, I think of, if you look at during the pandemic, if you look at a study done by Kaiser, close to 50,000 people, and it was basically based on your cardiovascular fitness level, and it was how much exercise you had. Did you have, you know, zero to 10 minutes a day. Did you have up to 30 minutes? Did you have more? And it's a clear linear relationship between the more you exercise, the least symptoms you had with COVID. So your mortality rate was much, much less the better you were. Cardiovascular and exercise fit related. So there's no question that exercise and moving makes a difference. If you look at the top 40 Musculoskeletal and health conditions across the world, they're all helped by exercise. I mean, there's not one on that list that isn't improved with exercise. And so I try and also get across, Hey, you don't need to give exercises just to your active athletes and people that are doing things on a regular basis, it almost makes a bigger impact to give exercises to patients that aren't doing much. How do you just get them moving again? Because that's going to make the biggest, a lot of times, the biggest impact. I mean, if we look at simple things too. So I want to be able to give people simple things they can do, do anywhere. I mean, another great study is shows it was 1100 firefighters over. It was a 10 year follow up. And so let me ask, let me ask you guys, okay, can you do 10 push ups? Yes, yes. Can you do 20? Yes. Can you do 30? Yes. Can you do 40? Yes. Okay, so there was a clear linear relationship 90% decrease in a cardiovascular event, ie heart attack with firefighters that could do 40 push ups or more. So as we think of I need to go out and do cardiovascular for just heart health and so forth. No, you can actually do some real basic strength training things. And if you look at the data, a lot of resistance training significantly helps your cardiovascular condition. And so my point being is that it doesn't have to be complex, it doesn't have to be a lot. It just has to be something that is simple to get them to do it, and a lot of times behavior changes is difficult. It takes anywhere from 21 days to 265 days to change a behavior, right? So we need to give patients the support. If people are really motivated, it change sooner, if not, it takes longer. So you know, what can we do as a clinician? To support them with that, to give feedback, to give reminders, and so forth, and so with web exercises, we have tied in some reminders if they're not logging into their program. So we're trying to do our best, but it's also up to the provider, and so we know at least what we do we're on the right track. We did a research study and stop me if I'm going on and on in 2016 a PhD, DC, he was the chair of rehabilitation for School of Medicine out at Florida State University. Yes, Florida State and so John. John Mayer is his name, and I known him previously. And so do you know who John is? John Mayer? Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 30:47

Wait, Terry, didn't we interview John?

Dr. Terry Weyman: 30:52

Wait, the researcher, yeah, yes, he's in California. Yes, you

Dr. David Cruz: 30:56

did sorry, yeah, he moved to California. Yep, he's no longer there, and he's out in California now, yes, yep. So I Yeah. So I've known John for years. We met long time ago. So in 2016 he had done a couple studies with firefighters that showed, if we do some core exercises and so forth, it helps with disability and back pain, right? But the problem is, is they were putting a trainer in the firehouses. So how do we make this more efficient, cost effective? So he called me up and said, Hey, we're taking bids on this. And so since the public use University, we had submit bids and so forth. So we got the contract, and we built out the digital platform. So we had three groups. So we had the supervised group, the trainers going into the firehouse. We had a control group, and then we had our group only. So we built a self directed version of our patient, which allowed the firefighters to log in, do their exercises based on the progression the modeling that John wanted, which was exercises, basic exercises, bird, dog, plane, side plank, the girl curl up and a variable angle. Roman chair. Extension machine, okay, super basic stuff. And the way we built it was, it would, we created an algorithm that, as the firefighters inputted their data based on when John wanted them to progress based on their input, either progress them, regress them on the program, or keep them the same. And so we did this. It was a an enrollment over six months with 200 firefighters, and the study went for two months, or, excuse me, two years. Okay, so after the two years came back, what the data showed was that for every one hour of lost work time using our platform, it was four times as much for the supervised group and five times as much for the control group. So we showed that you could absolutely use technology to have a positive influence with, I mean, people that are trying to get better. Here's the caveat, though, right? Firefighters are generally highly motivated, though, but my whole mission is, and this is back to your why, and I talk about this when I'll speak, it's like I've generalized it into like, three categories of patients. Some will like the athletes, right? People that want to get better, some might exercise, some probably just won't, no matter what you do, right? But if I can get to that two thirds, I mean, we send 40,000 exercise problems a month, right? I mean, we got over a million patients in our database. And so if I can influence that, you know, 30% that will, and hopefully inference that 30% that might, I mean, we're making a big impact on overall health, okay? And that's kind of like, Okay, what's your why? And why do you do this? And that's ultimately kind of why I try to do what I do.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 33:55

That's pretty cool. So this is kind of a shift for a moment. But Terry, do you remember the the peptide guy that we interviewed that had the benchmark for over 50 year old patients? Yeah? Are you familiar with this? Dave, because I'm thinking this could be a I'm not, actually, really, huh? It's not, it's,

Dr. Terry Weyman: 34:18

it's 12 different that when you did Spencer, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 34:22

In fact, you know what? I'll send you the videos of it, because I had I challenged patients on it, and it was you, when you told me about the push ups. It reminded me, I mean, there's 12 different activities that can be done that will determine your longevity, cardiovascular state of cardiovascularity and so on. But it was, I mean, really cool stuff that you should be able to do at 50 years old and up and the, you know, especially in South Florida, with the liability with, you know, people fall elderly folks, they had lose balance or grip strength. So. If they're on a ladder, and they go to grip and they fall back anyway. So these 12 bench are their their research. They're documented, and it's super cool. I'll send it to you. I was wondering if you were familiar with it, but it was interesting. It's become rather popular. It'd

Dr. Terry Weyman: 35:18

be awesome to put on the web exercises, you know, benchmark for 50, benchmark for 60, yeah, that's a great,

Dr. David Cruz: 35:25

yeah, yeah.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 35:26

And, and each one is graded in, you know, you know, you know, fair medium and excellent achievement, you know. So it's, it's also motivating for people over 50. So I thought, wow, while you were talking about that, it takes the push up thing you just mentioned and, like, makes it even more broad based. Yeah,

Dr. David Cruz: 35:49

yeah. No talk more about that. Absolutely, we can continue that conversation. Definitely,

Dr. Spencer Baron: 35:53

yeah, I'll send them over the videos over to you. But anyway, so what you were saying about motivating people, motivating people through a platform like what you have is there other little suggestions or items that that are in that program, other than the doctor being able to follow the patient?

Dr. David Cruz: 36:16

Yeah, I would say a couple things. One is what we're working on now. Well, one thing on technology side, and then couple ideas on patient interaction as it relates to providing home care, is that providers want things simple. They want things that are systematic and easy. So what we'll be releasing soon is you can schedule out like 12 weeks of a program if you want. So you can do phase one for the first month, and then it'll automatically progress somebody to phase two. Then it'll automatically press phase three and so forth. So it kind of takes a lot of that interaction thinking out of it. If the provider just sets it up in the beginning and then goes, obviously they'll go oversight to change an update and so forth accordingly. But, but, yeah, that's that's something which I think will really help providers, where just kind of set it and go and then they still contract patients, but they don't have to get in as often. On the interaction side, less is more. I mean, so often we'll all look in some of the data, and providers are giving like, 12 exercises, 20 exercises. It's like, No, give two or three, just, just a couple. If, if they prove they can do those and they and they want more, maybe for an athlete, okay, great. Just less is more. I'd rather have somebody do two things right then 10 things, not really right, and not even at all, right, because they're so overwhelmed. Yeah? I mean, yeah,

Dr. Terry Weyman: 37:50

I reject you something. Do you ever have requests for? Like, when you said the Phase One, two and three, like, getting ready for a sport? Like, you know, I'm a big snow skier. So it's like getting ready for the snow ski season, you know, or getting ready for a triathlon, or getting ready for a football season. Do you have stuff like that that's sports specific? That is phase one, two and three,

Dr. David Cruz: 38:14

two things. We have courses on our education site that talks about that. So you can apply that with our with with the home exercise program, we have protocols. So we have close to 100 pre made protocols based on conditions. We did have sport specific ones, and we changed it. But I'm honestly thinking of going back. And the reason we changed it because we would get support tickets from if you're a DC might train someone different than a PT versus an ATC and so forth. So that's why we kind of moved away. Because, I mean, there's, there's no right or wrong. Everybody comes from different perspective, and that's really what web exercises is. You know what? If you prescribe exercises, you're a client of arms. I don't care if you're DC, PT, ATC, strength and conditioning, you know? I mean, I we've had some super skilled trainers on our our education platform that are amazing, right? So everybody can bring a set of knowledge, and everybody has a certain skill set. But with web exercises, you can also create your own programming. You can also create your own here's my football program and here's my this. So then it's like one click, and then boom, you can, you can give it to somebody. But it's interesting saying that, because we've been having discussions about bringing that back, but that's one of the things that we ran into when we did have sports specific because we deal with a broad demographic, everybody would be saying, well, you should be doing this instead and

Dr. Spencer Baron: 39:43

that, yeah,

Dr. David Cruz: 39:45

good question, though.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 39:46

I think that's great. But what Terry was saying is, like, you pull up a recipe for training for a half, a half or a full marathon, and maybe you have all the x. Exercises or activities or stretching that you suggest, but have it so it's customizable, so correct

Dr. David Cruz: 40:07

it is exactly. So when it pulls it up, they have full control over to edit it and not and that's when we were talking about it's a good example, like, here's a 12 week training program. That's where we started talking about it again, because a lot of sports is these programming, right? So what I was talking to you earlier about being able to do a 12 week Progress Program that automatically progresses. That's where some of the sport discussions started coming up again, and that's why we're thinking about reintroducing that when we do have that automatic progression. So you could set, you know, a marathon training schedule for eight, eight weeks, or soccer schedule for 812, weeks, or whatever it is, yeah. What

Dr. Spencer Baron: 40:47

about, sorry, what about conditions? Did you mention this? Maybe you did condition specific. Like, I hate using the term core strength, because it's so overused. But like, if somebody wants more core

Dr. David Cruz: 41:03

strength, yes. So there's two ways. Our whole our search database, you can choose body region. We have different libraries, from balance to women's health to yoga to nerve flossing. We have a variety of libraries, okay, it also has protocols as well, like you're talking about for conditions, and it starts with, I think the first ones, like an Achilles tendonitis or ankle sprain, and it goes all the way through to rotator cuff and progressive strengthening. So there's usually two or three phases with just about every protocol we have. So we have close to 100 protocols with progressive strengthening. Oh, my, wow, that's outstanding. You can also, if we don't, we have probably close to 4000 exercises. But you can also add your own so you go, you know what? Dave Cruz doesn't hand web exercise doesn't have my exercise I want. Well, you can upload your own photos and videos knock yourself out. So

Dr. Spencer Baron: 42:00

there you

Dr. David Cruz: 42:01

go. Great, great, your own library. So cool.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 42:04

All right, then good to know. I want to talk about AI and other wearable technologies. Yep, you know what? You know? What is there any integration that you may have in the future for that? Or what do you think about that currently. Yeah,

Dr. David Cruz: 42:22

so, here's another time for another story.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 42:26

Yeah, already.

Dr. David Cruz: 42:30

So, so this is okay. I'll give you the story. And this is where I kind of want to go back in 2013 I think it was so I practiced with a couple orthopedic surgeons, and one was a shoulder doc. One's a hip doc. And we started talking about, how can we create a platform different than web exercises, that allowed them to give patients the education they need, pre surgical, post surgical, and maybe some post surgical care before they get to PT, because they repeat the same thing over and over again based on the condition, right? So we created this company called physio MD, and it was all designed to do do that. And one of our part there was four of us, was the three of us, and then the fourth partner was a tech guy out of Silicon Valley, which was a really good friend of one of the docs. And so we created this with video education to the patient. We used web exercises. We shot content specific for post surgical and how to care for yourself for a week or two prior to pt. The programming was such that there were four phases that, first, just simple range of motion. They had to check off whether they could, you know, lift their arms so far, what was swelling and so forth. They're a bunch of checkpoints, and once they checked them off, it would move to the next level of exercises. Okay, the other thing we did, we had a gaming company out of Israel that we integrated some of their technology. So nowadays, if you look at a lot of these digital AI trackers, you put the camera on and it tracks the rain their arm and range of motion, you can see right? I had the beta in 2014 for shoulder. I would put my iPad up, move my arm, and it would track my arm with no sensors or anything. In 2014 10 years ago, okay, using gaming technology that we wanted to integrate, because we wanted objective data for the surgeons to say, here's the range of motion, right? Okay, so fast forward. We had a lot of opportunities with big insurance companies that literally said our musculoskeletal care is like, you know, 5 billion a year. If anything you can do, we're we're on, okay? Okay, so the problem is, I was busy with web exercise and trying to run business two busy surgeons. The fourth partner gets hired by a, I won't say the company, but it's a fruit. We'll just say it's a round red fruit. You got hired by them, and it absorbed all of his time, even though he's like, don't worry about it, so forth. Then we started going a little sideways on, kind of wanting to do more and integrate more and so forth. And we just kind of, I think, lost track of where we initially wanted to go, and with soft words like, what's what's the MVP, what's the minimal viable product to get out there? You're always going to reiterate, you're always going to update, and so forth. And I think we just lost focus. And it kind of just died a slow death. Fauci MD, and I was just like, because we all dumped cash in, we all jumped sweat equity in and but going back to what you were saying about AI, I would like to be able to start tracking some movements with patients right in the same way. And the availability of the technology is so much easier now with what Apple has available and so forth. So that's, that's where I'd want to go more in that direction for but yeah, so there's, there's another story.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 46:22

No, that's great. Those are good stories. Fascinating. You know, gray hair, that's what they just or no hair, no hair. But that interesting to know that, that, that history of, of tracking, there was, there was very few programs out there, I remember that actually would track biomechanics, you know, rather than putting dots on your, you know, correct, you know, body parts, yeah, yeah,

Dr. David Cruz: 46:52

no, exactly. And that's everything is becoming much more data driven and objective and so forth, which, which, I think is essential. We built our own digital outcome assessment questionnaire so you can send patients like an SF 36 or born mouth, neck and or back disability, and they fill it out on their phone, and it comes back digitally scored to the provider. So just things like that, to help the provider establish the efficacy of care, whether it is, you know, you're just trying to get somebody better, or whether it's a PI, whether it's a PI, whether it's private insurance, it's just kind of that's the world where we're working in now. So, you know, we want to try and obviously support provider the most objectively as we can. But then what can do to the patient to help them stay engaged? Because if our patients aren't successful, we're not successful, right? Yeah,

Dr. Spencer Baron: 47:38

you know, you mentioned post surgical rehab and stuff that you know someone could follow along for shoulder. But now what's really been become popular is prehab. Some surgeons are very progressive and are having their patients do prehab so they're less comorbidities. In fact, I did, we interviewed a surgeon, a spine surgeon, that that evaluates the patient's nutritional perspectives and habits, because, you know, he's doing artwork on you, and if you screw it up, because you ate like shit, you know that's yeah. So, yeah. So, prehab has become very Vogue. Any you got stuff like that?

Dr. David Cruz: 48:26

Oh, absolutely. And so, that's why I feel so fortunate. I mean, I worked with, I think, couple of the best surgeons, you know, in Bay Area, they were very conservative. I mean, so often mark his, especially with hips. And with hips you get Si, you get all sorts of glute hip dysfunction and so forth. And he'd all eat. A lot of times you just be like, go see Dave for four weeks first. Just yeah, or Dan was a shoulder, shoulder guy. And a lot of times you get thoracic, right, all the scapular stuff. And be like, yeah, go, go see day for a bit. So that's where, you know, I don't see the divide as much from my perspective between medical and chiropractic and so forth, because we can provide a huge service that's needed. It's just a matter of connecting with the right ones. And here's an interesting kind of tidbit. It's a little off topic, but it has to do with rehabs. I used to, there used to be some pushback, or at least when I went to school, it was, who's a straight who's the mixer and so forth, which means all, all that, right? It's just, here's the not the crazy thing, here's the interesting thing is that in the 1800s there was a guy named by Bernard McFadden. He basically his whole mission was health and wellness through fitness, diet, better care for yourself. The early chiropractors of the 1900s adopted his teachings called physical culture that transcended into BJ in. If you look at pictures of the clinic in Davenport, there's pictures of BJs gym for patients at the facility. That's right, a lot of times my lecture, I'll throw that up. It's an old photo that has a bike has different exercise equipment. So anybody that says, Oh, you're a mixer, because you're an exercise or anybody that talks about it's not part of chiropractic. Exercise is more founded in chiropractic than anything else, and that's another reason why I don't care what your philosophy is, you should be giving patients something active to do,

Dr. Spencer Baron: 50:35

you know, just, just for because we have some late listeners out there. Just to clarify, straight and mixer is not a sexual preference. It's a chiropractic philosophy of one that would have straight to just do. Come on, Dave, right, what did you think when you're never mind? I'm not asking you,

Unknown: 50:55

I'm just shaking my head.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 50:58

Okay.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 50:59

SMH, gotcha. And so, you know, straight, straight is one who just adjusts, and then a mixer is one who employs, you know, exercise and all sorts of physical therapy. And I know that Terry's dying right now that I brought that up, but hey, we do have some lay listeners that might have misconstrued or talking about one late listener, my, my, other, my, my, I know Terry's got a question for you, but I'm going to ask you that one more here about misconceptions about injury, Injury prevention and recovery and so on. You know, what are some of those experiences you may have on WebEx that, oh, over injury prevention.

Dr. David Cruz: 51:44

Well, here's the thing. I mean, the data is insurmountable, that if you do some sort of prehab, you're going to cut down on injuries. I mean, just look at high school girls, 13 to 18 year with the incidence of ACL, right? If you look at something like that due to weak medias and hip rotators and so forth and bad biomechanics. I mean, if you do rehab, well, prehab as as part of that, then abs, you're gonna cut it down. I mean, it's, it's not even anything which is debatable at this point. I mean, it really isn't especially, especially in sports. I'm coaching my daughter's high school varsity volleyball team, and when we started off the season, yeah, we were doing some condition to make sharing, trying to get their hips strong and so forth. So it should just be part of what's done, not only for you sports, but I mean any sport, back to kind of weekend warriors going out, injuring themselves, right? Because they're not just doing some some simple things on on their own. So to me, it's, it's it's nothing that's in question, whether you're going in for surgery or whether you're just trying to prevent an injury, for for an athlete, there's, to me, it's not even a question,

Dr. Terry Weyman: 52:55

you know, with injury recovery, as well as changing your paradigm, as far as going to a different level of fitness, whether you're a sedentary going to active or active going to elite, there's a huge mental component. And whether it's, yeah, fear of re injury or just mentally trying to get to a different platform, how does your program handle incorporate the elements of the mental side,

Dr. David Cruz: 53:22

yeah, I think that has to do with it's, it's back to the shared responsibility in that, for one, we want to make sure that it's that the provider gives the exercise which is reasonable, which, like I said, two or three, right? Because there is, there's a whole bio, social model as relates to this, right? There's physical, there's mental, there's, like a lot, there's all sorts of of that. There's tons of research on that. So we, we tend to just focus on more of the musculoskeletal, but there are, whether it's the fear of avoidance or whether it is, you know, the previous injury. There's all these different factors. So you have to take into consideration, as the provider, some of those and what those barriers might be. The other thing too is, you know, encouragement in the sense that making sure the exercises are appropriate back to the two or three simple things they can do. And we in our platform, it shows if the patient actually logged in or read their email or anything things along those lines. So if the exercise program is sent and the provider sees that it wasn't open, it was just, it was sent and delivered, but nothing, then it's up to the provider. It's up to me to re engage that patient and discuss, you know, we really want you to get better. This is really, you know, important and what's, what's the why behind that barrier? So at least we try and give some feedback to the provider. Lets them know, is their patient engaging? Are they not, and if they are, how much are they having pain? How are they progressing? Or if they're not engaging at all, well, that's a different discussion, and that's where back to that shared responsibility. You can have that dialog with that patient to help them make them so. Successful, because we all want our patients to be successful. Ultimately. You know, a

Dr. Spencer Baron: 55:05

lot of people ask what keeps us going during these long recording sessions? And the truth it's all about the coffee star, gross, to be exact. Seriously, this stuff is the perfect fuel to get us through every episode. And it's bold, it's smooth, and it's exactly what we need, whether we're cracking jokes or diving deep with a guest, Stark roast keeps me sharp, keeps me focused. It's the fuel behind every great conversation that we have here, whether it's early in the morning or late at night. Stark roast is there to keep us energized and ready to roll. So if you're a coffee lover like us, or just need that little extra boost to get you through the day, we highly recommend Stark roast. It's the good stuff. Thanks for Stark roast, for sponsoring this episode, and click on the link below in the description to buy some of your own. It's the real deal. Now let's get back into it. Very good, very good. So we are nearing the end of our program, but we would be remiss in going over the rapid fire questions, which is oftentimes the most fun. Now the rule is you're supposed to answer briefly and quickly, and, you know, off the off the cuff, yeah, but we always tend to get hung up on an answer and make a joke or comment, so it's fair game. But Dave, there's five questions, and if you're ready for question number one, give me the thumbs up. You good. Hit me right on. You're now a high school varsity volleyball coach in your early career, you played against the great Karch Corelli. What is one lesson you learned as a player that you still use as a coach today?

Dr. David Cruz: 56:52

Well, let me clarify that I didn't play against him as a bit older, but I played against guys that did play him against him. So be humble as you lose to better players. There's always people better than you out there. Oh,

Dr. Spencer Baron: 57:12

that's for sure.

Dr. David Cruz: 57:15

My team, you know, Win Win humbly and lose humbly. You know,

Dr. Spencer Baron: 57:20

agreed. So good question number two, Dave, if you could instantly master any skill or hobby, for that matter, what would it be,

Dr. David Cruz: 57:31

piano or guitar? Really, don't know why. Yeah, I've just always wanted to play musical instrument, and I've tried the piano a little bit. But Oh, my God, when you're old, it's hard. My son is self taught on the guitar, which is awesome. And I listen to him and go, God, I wish I could do that. So I'd say, yeah,

Dr. Terry Weyman: 57:51

it's in

Dr. Spencer Baron: 57:52

your genetics somewhere, huh? Oh,

Dr. Terry Weyman: 57:54

he's self taught on the piano. And it's like, how the hell did you do that? I've been trying to self teach guitar for three years now, and I still can't play. Mary Had a Little Lamb. I mean, it's

Dr. David Cruz: 58:08

terrible, exactly. It's like golf with my son. It's like, just, you can't replace youth. He hits it 50 yards past me now. It's like he's 16 years old.

Unknown: 58:19

You can't replace youth, asshole getting

Dr. David Cruz: 58:25

his head mentally though,

Dr. Spencer Baron: 58:26

yeah, you

Dr. Terry Weyman: 58:28

sound

Dr. Spencer Baron: 58:30

question number three, Dave, what's the most ridiculous piece of advice you ever received? And did you try it?

Dr. Terry Weyman: 58:38

Oh my gosh,

Dr. Spencer Baron: 58:39

I'm thinking about that story you told us earlier about the guy that you almost Yeah,

Dr. David Cruz: 58:45

God, I'm thinking of something more ridiculous than that. I don't know old Ernie. I don't know, but he was, yeah, he was a snake oil salesman. I tell you that. I'll just say thank to Mike. Mike, I didn't take Ernie, ernie's advice, because I probably wouldn't be sitting here right with you right now, right?

Dr. Spencer Baron: 59:00

Oh my gosh, that's probably true. Yes, yes. Very good, very good. Yeah. Question number four, David, you're stranded on a desert island, okay, the only one album that you could listen to forever. What's your pick?

Dr. David Cruz: 59:19

I probably have to go with, like, older school, like, Journey escape or something like that, classics, yeah? Something like, like, back when I was in high school and so forth, yeah? Probably something like that. Yeah, I'm

Dr. Spencer Baron: 59:34

gonna break the rule here a minute. Terry, what's yours?

Dr. Terry Weyman: 59:38

Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd,

Dr. Spencer Baron: 59:41

ooh, classic, classic, all right, rays, you know, I was thinking of while you were I don't even know why. I wasn't prepared to answer, but for some bizarre reason, I wore out the two albums in my life that I albums, you know, album. Films. Do you remember the that I wore? One was was Ted Nugent, but the other one was Black Sabbath, masters of reality. To this day, I still will listen to it in my car. I don't know what it does to me. It just, I don't know. There's

Dr. Terry Weyman: 1:00:14

so many glasses you got the wall, you've got Zeppelin, you got Aerosmith dream. And there's so many classics that you could just go on Beach Boys for us, California guys, yeah, yeah. There's so many classes.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 1:00:31

There are, there are,

Dr. Terry Weyman: 1:00:33

they pick one. We could have all three of them,

Dr. Spencer Baron: 1:00:38

right? Yeah, I still got albums. In fact, yeah, all right. Question number five, if you wrote an autobiography, what would it be? What would be the catchy title that perfectly sums up your life, your whole life's journey so far,

Dr. David Cruz: 1:01:01

winning it business by replacing yourself.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 1:01:05

Oh, you were ready for this question. I've

Dr. David Cruz: 1:01:08

thought about that. Yeah, no, it's funny because, because I don't say it again, winning it business by replacing yourself. Because when you replace yourself, you can sell your company, you can walk away for a month. Everything continues to grow and flourish and run, and you can make whatever decisions you want. That's how you know. Spencer,

Dr. Terry Weyman: 1:01:29

there's a tile for this podcast. Yeah, I know that,

Dr. David Cruz: 1:01:32

honestly, that if, when I sell web exercise and I'm done that that's that's literally what I want to just write a journey, and that's my goal, winning the business. How to reply, replacing yourself.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 1:01:44

Well, you need to write the you need to write a book with that title, because that would be, wow. That's funny, because I tell some of my friends I

Dr. Terry Weyman: 1:01:53

go, what's your my phone, because I'm writing that down right now. So don't give me crap, but that's awesome. Winning. That

Dr. Spencer Baron: 1:02:04

is good. Go ahead, Dave man, this was a fantastic, I really, really pleasure. Guys. Love the stories. Love the stories. Anything, any words of wisdom. Terry, you want to share, or

Dr. Terry Weyman: 1:02:19

No, I think, and we're going to put the description to all your your programs on their website. So if people listen to show want to find you and get more information. But thank you. This is, this is, it's you solve problems there. Every practitioner, big or small has so if people haven't heard about web exercises.com they need to, need to go check it out. So thank you so much for spending some time. I know you're a busy man, so thank you so much for spending time with us. My pleasure.

Dr. David Cruz: 1:02:48

I can't thank you enough. It's been, it's been great. Really appreciate you guys. Thank you for all you do.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 1:02:53

Thanks David. Thank you for listening to today's episode of The cracking backs podcast, we hope you enjoyed it. Make sure you follow us on Instagram at cracking backs podcast, catch new episodes every Monday. See you next time you.