Master Trainer and Rehab Specialist Jean-Paul Francouer of Little Rock, Arkansas knew from his extensive career that it often wasn’t just the structural components, or hardware, of the body that were responsible for compensatory movement patterns and pain, but the nervous system, or software, that needed training. As he shares in this episode of The Undercurrent Podcast, that belief led him to electrical stimulation therapies and specifically direct current. Once he integrated the Neubie into his practice, not only was he able to retain clients for longer by moving them from rehab into fitness training, but he grew so busy that he hired someone to take on his burgeoning client load.
I’m [Garrett] Salpeter. And I believe that the most powerful and transformative way to help people recover from pain and injury, heal from trauma, and reach their highest levels of fitness and performance is to focus on the nervous system. In this podcast, we’ll share knowledge from the frontiers of neuroscience and inspirational stories of how applying that knowledge has empowered people from all walks of life to heal, adapt, and grow. Welcome to this episode of the undercurrent podcast, I am joined by JP Frank core from Little Rock, Arkansas, JP, thanks for being here.
[Jean-Paul] 1:01
Thank you.
[Garrett] 1:03
And JP is one of the first practitioners that went through our education certification process right back in 2017. So we’ve been at we’ve been working together for over three years now. Happy anniversary. Yeah. It’s awesome to have you on the show here, I’m excited, to share your story and give everyone a chance to hear some of your experiences because I think that there’s a lot that’s going to be valuable for a lot of people to hear. Can you let everyone know just a little bit about your background as a more of a manual therapist, and, and exercise also, a little bit of your, your background and just kind of how you know how you came to work with us and how it all started?
[Jean-Paul] 1:48
Well, I got my first training certification in 1987. So that tells you how long I’ve been in fitness. But, I started through the years I had, I was a trainer. And in the early 90s, I opened up a health club and I had that for about 16 years and sold it right around the same time I was going through a divorce and, and thought I was going to get out of fitness for a while I was an I was a trainer and massage therapist, but I was just kind of done with it for a while. And I tried my hand at being a spinal rep spine rep for about six months.
[Jean-Paul] 2:28
And it wasn’t working out. And I kept getting bugged by the former clients to come back and train and I was like, I’m just not going to do it. And I’m trying something new. And finally, somebody said, what would it take to get me to train you to get you to training, and I just tripled my rate. And I just said because I figured I just, you know, throw something out there and they wouldn’t go for and they said done. And I was like what really? Like, okay, that was easy.
[Jean-Paul] 2:51
And I realized at that point that’s why I was so burned out of training is that I just wasn’t charging enough because I put so much into my clients that I just wasn’t it wasn’t feeding me back. And so once I did that, I was able to work and make it work with not as many clients and I was enjoying it. I’m enjoying my career, but there was always that I’m always searching and seeking new information. And having had you know, going through a plethora of injuries on my own. I was always looking for something more I like to work with, you know, people with injuries.
[Jean-Paul] 3:31
And I sort of accidentally stumbled into direct current therapy. I was working as a golf performance and functional training specialist on weekends at an exclusive private country club. And the owner of the club was a financier billionaire guy who’s nice. He, he was like anyway, he called me one morning and he was hurting, his back was jacked up and he said I can’t even put on my socks. Can you come over and work with me?
[Jean-Paul] 4:13
So I went over I did some like my manual therapy with him. And none of it was working and I told him I would check with him the next morning. Well, in the background, I had been I’ve been experimenting I had another client who had an old stem device that was a direct current stem device that was collecting dust in the closet was one of those old kinds of dials analogy I’d been just reading about it and trying to learn enough about it and I the next morning he called me and he said hey, you know I’m still feeling pretty bad I don’t think I’m going to make it to this tournament. He was trying to fly to Augusta to be in this golf tournament. And I said
[Garrett] 4:51
Like siesta like the masters.
[Jean-Paul] 4:54
Yeah, no, no, no, he wasn’t a professional. This was I mean, this is a members-only tournament but that like I guess the GA Yeah, yeah, that that. Yeah, it was called their jamboree. So So I told him he know I’ve been experimenting with this stuff. I’m not sure if it works if it’ll work or not, but I have high hopes, it seems to make a lot of sense. Logically, I can come to try it with you, and it might give you some relief. And he said, Okay, bring it on. I’m desperate, you know. And so I went and tried it and worked, you know, worked hotspots, which I barely understood at the time, but they were I was very much a neophyte. And, and, and, you know, by the time we were done, he was feeling pretty good.
[Jean-Paul] 5:31
He was moving around, and I was like, wow, that worked well. So I just at that point, I said, Look, be careful, don’t golf, just at least now you can fly there and sit in a golf cart and drink with your buddies and, and enjoy yourself. But you know, just be careful. You’re not, you know, clear to golf yet. And he said, Okay, and then, you know, that was on a Tuesday. And then that Saturday, I walked back into the club. And everybody was greeting me, it was calling the miracle worker.
[Jean-Paul] 5:59
And I was like, unless it’s like, the third time, and by the time I finally got it to the clubhouse, everybody said, Hey, Miracle Worker, and I said, Okay, what’s all this about what happened as it did that morning to playing and they said, Oh, you haven’t heard. And I said, what he said, he won first place. I was like, Okay, there’s something here. So at that point, the light bulb went off. And I went into that technology, and I went and got a machine on my own.
[Jean-Paul] 6:22
And I tried to get some training and, and, you know, spent a few very frustrating years, trying to understand this stuff, and wrap my mind around and try and find other practitioners and just try to figure my way around how to how to blend this in with my practice. And, you know, definitely did not know how to blend it in as a fitness tool, but still trying to do like, rehab-type stuff. And, and in my efforts to, to sort of build that network, I stumbled across your website one day, and I was like, that sounds an awful lot like the same language. It sounds like the same thing. But you know, surely there’s nobody else that does this. And so it’s right
[Garrett] 7:04
There. There’s very little direct current. So yeah.
[Jean-Paul] 7:08
And I remember, I remember that day like it was yesterday, I called and, and I just, I, you know, randomly call. It’s like, I’m just going to call these people, and of all people, you answered, and I was like, and I was like, Yeah, you answered when you were talking to me. And I said, well, and you introduce yourself as the founder of the company. I was like, Oh, wow, well, I caught the guy here. And like a 10-minute discussion you gave me like five or six takeaways that I was able to immediately go and apply to my business, to what I was with what I had, and I was like, okay, these guys are doing it, right? They know how to do this. And it was, I knew a like that scene. And Jerry Maguire, you had me at hello. So I already knew but you know, by the end of the day, I had made my decision that I was I went in, I knew that this was the direction I was going in. And it was immediate, it was an immediately noticeable turnaround for everything for my business for everything.
[Garrett] 8:08
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. I’m so glad we happen to connect on that fateful day in 2017. And, you know, all just for context for everyone all, you know, direct current is a very small part of the overall electrical stimulation world. And that’s one of the things that we talk about, as being, you know, a kind of differentiating factor. And so I think it’s so cool that you had seen some of the benefits of the combination of your, you know, manual therapy work, using direct current in the past, and then I’m so glad that that was really, that was some of my same experience, where I had seen some of the opportunities and the benefits of it.
[Garrett] 8:50
But you know, as far as I could tell, no one was going anywhere close to really maximizing the benefits of what it could do, and applying it and the range of applications that I saw. And so I felt like there was just this big vacuum that needed to be filled and decided to try to fill it. And it’s cool, just to kind of hear those parallels, because I think you and I had similar experiences of seeing some opportunities, searching for answers, you know, certainly some frustrations along the way. And so I think that’s just, you know, just a little added commentary, but thank you for sharing that.
[Jean-Paul] 9:25
I think. It was like hitting, like bursting through the clouds. And I mean, it’s like, okay, this is what I this is just like it was meant to be so I got home with my new machine shortly after I did the class. My first plant out of the gates was a very active gentleman who had a 100% Tear of his meniscus. And I did not know for a fact if I could help him he was scheduled for surgery, and it was 100% tear, but I thought you know if nothing else I can at least, you know, get him stronger. And help him recover faster.
[Jean-Paul] 10:02
You know, I didn’t think I was going to be able to prevent the surgery. But he came into me and, and I, I worked with him for a couple of weeks. And he went back to his, the physical therapist they’ve been working with. And the guy was doing some kind of stability tests on his knee and, and he did the test again, he was like, what’s going on here? And he said, what do you mean, he said, I don’t like to use the M word. But I think some kind of miracle has happened, your need is stable. I don’t know what’s going on here. And that’s when he told him what he was doing. And of course, he called me and then, you know, and anyway, interesting conversation.
[Jean-Paul] 10:38
But needless to say, he worked with me for another two weeks, but he worked with me for a total of a month, and never had the surgery. And he has never had any problems with knee stability. He’s never had any recurrence of knee pain. This is, you know, the first person I work with, and, and he, he plays golf, he hunts, he runs, trail runs, and he plays tennis and in a very, very athletic guy and uses his legs a lot and is very, very fit. And was just giddy that he was able to avoid that surgery. And now he stayed with me and, you know, stayed on was working out with me, because he liked the way the machine felt. And that was a really big benefit to, you know, this machine I just noticed immediately felt better than anything I’ve ever used. And I liked the way I felt when I use it, I get a little euphoric, you know, rush when I use it, and I see it in my client’s faces every day. So So I know that everybody’s getting something beneficial from whether they’re getting therapy or workout, which you know, it’s not half and half.
[Jean-Paul] 11:45
If you’re ready to supercharge your practice, listen to this, [Garrett] and Team New fit. I’ve just released a new online course entitled Introduction to the new fit method. In this detailed eight-hour course, you’ll gain mastery of the fundamental techniques in our practice, including muscle testing, and activations, nerve glides, and joint articulations. You’ll also get introduced to our patented direct current stimulation device, that newbie, an incredible machine that’s empowered professionals just like you to help their patients heal, adapt, and grow faster than they ever thought possible. To learn more, go to www. ne U dot fit, slash learn. And now back to the show.
[Garrett] 12:19
Well, let’s, let’s talk about it for a little bit. Because I know that you have a combined background of you know, more therapeutic manual therapy, and also exercise and fitness. And you kind of combine those two. And I know that you know, also has spoken with you several times that you know, that’s been one of that ability to kind of transition people when they do their rehab into more fitness has really kind of filling up your schedule, can you just talk about no. Can you talk about how you kind of can transition people and retain those clients for longer and how you kind of apply that on more of that later stage rehab, and even kind of general fitness, maintenance kind of realm?
[Jean-Paul] 13:05
So generally, I don’t, I probably am not typical, like I think in a typical therapy clinic setting. People just come in and get the therapy and they go and I’m more of an I don’t bill insurance, I pretty much just give somebody the hour. And so it allows me to be more high touch with them. So so if I can get somebody you know, moving well through the therapy, I’ll start you know, I’ll still give them the rest of the time. So I’ll spend so it gives me a little extra time to kind of work with them on other things.
[Jean-Paul] 13:39
So I’ll start introducing them to fitness stuff. And so somebody comes into me for you know, like a little torn rotator or something or like a sprained elbow or something. By the time they’re, by the time I’ve got them rehab, you know, usually within, you know, a few sessions, they still were getting done with our therapy and about 10 to 15 minutes. So I’ve got time left, and I’ll start doing training with them. And, and by the time we they get to the end of their first 10 sessions that I’d say. I’d say it’s I don’t know what my exact retention rate is. Because I’m not one of those, you know, business geeks, you can dive into the numbers, but I would say that just about everybody that I work with, stays with me. I mean, I have very few that don’t.
[Jean-Paul] 14:20
And that’s created a bit of a problem. And it’s a good and a bad thing. I have gotten so full that I you know, have trouble, you know, seeing every client that wants to be seen. And interestingly also, I don’t do any advertising, other than just occasionally posting stuff on Instagram and Facebook, which I’m very bad about honestly, but I could be a lot better. But actually, things got so busy that I bought a year and a half or two years ago I trained I started training someone to help me, Denise laughter and brought her on as a therapist and she She went through the training then and, and she, before COVID Even though my space is sort of small, I was able to do two people at the same time in this clinic.
[Jean-Paul] 15:08
And so, we got busy. You know, the, you know, the fast forward to COVID I went from, you know, for about a month, we was pretty slow, but then people started wanting to come back. And since I’m a home-based clinic, and all the gyms were closed, and almost created a perfect situation for me. So I was getting calls from clients that I hadn’t seen in years, and you know, I got busy again, and, you know, I, I’m pretty much maxed out, I can’t train anybody else. I’m, I’m going to wait until just a few more months until the whole COVID thing is blown over before I sign a commercial lease somewhere. But I do want to expand my business, I’ve gotten to a point where I kind of either have to make a choice and either just stay where I am in kind of making pretty good money. You know, I’m not complaining about that. But it could be you know if I want to get to a point where like something like what you got, you know, or you’ve got, you know, four or five train people working on, you know, several machines in a clinic and the gym. That would be an ideal situation.
[Garrett] 16:16
Awesome. Well, I know you are based on grateful that you’ve carved out a little time to spend here with us. And, you know, one other thing I want to ask you about, you mentioned workouts, tell me about how you’ve been using it in your fitness and how it’s impacted you because I I’ve seen some pictures of your abs and not many How old are you? 5352 Thank you very much. Okay, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean they were 51 Right here. Yeah. No, but you’re one of the fittest, you know you know, physique wise, I mean, you don’t have you know, can’t be certainly under 10% body fat, good, you know, healthy, and you work all day, I mean, do tell us kind of just how your own story of how you’ve been able to, to have such a busy professional life and also, you know, maintain this healthy physique and your and your, you know, with your what kind of your workout routine is like also,
[Jean-Paul] 17:13
it’s, it’s, I’ll give you sort of like the ideal situation, which is like I work out with my wife, we because I have two machines now, but I don’t even use them all the time when we train. Most of them, we’re just using, you know, kind of four pads on each other. And instead of eight, you know, the person so we just kind of go through, we’ll work like three or four areas, you know, we’ll do some lower body training and upper body training of some sort. And, and I do it about two, or three days a week. But I can, I’m almost embarrassed to admit that sometimes I am lazy. And I just want to like if I have like a Saturday and I didn’t get a chance to work my legs and I know. And I just want to sit in front of Netflix, I’ll put the machine on like 55 and set it on a three on three off poles just like you know, watch a couple watching a show or something is I’ve gotten sore from that which is workouts pretty intense workouts with it.
[Jean-Paul] 18:13
You’ve seen some of the stuff I’ve posted on Instagram, you know where I’m jumping all around and doing all this dynamic stuff. But, my workouts really what I noticed though, is that just using it in any way, shape, or form, I always feel better when I’m done. I always feel more energized. I feel and I feel like it’s helped me maintain, you know, my muscle mass not maintained to put on muscle mass. I mean, I’m in my 30s I was looking at pictures just recently, of my skinny little self at 40 years old when I had, I was lean, but I had no shoulders, no arms, and they were just scrawny, and I was rock climbing. And I was like, and I realized that in the last you know, three years I’ve probably packed on you know, a good 10 pounds of muscle. Just really natural looking nice, lean, sinewy muscle. And I was like, damn, this thing works.
[Jean-Paul] 19:09
So really, in a sense, it’s kind of I’m kind of like a billboard for how this stuff works. Because I’m my target audience, the guys that I tend, tend to come to me are in their 50s and 60s. And I do have some people later but I got a lot of people who like, well, can this help me look like you? And I’m like, yeah. Because it will speed up your metabolism. I don’t other than eat and avoid gluten, sugar, and dairy. I eat pretty much constantly and whatever I want. And so I have a good metabolism. And I attribute that to I’d say at least 80% of this is the machine I’ll give 20 percent genetics but I’d say most of it is just the machine just makes you work on so much more intensely. You get so much more you know motor unit recruitment, you get so much more. I can just feel it working, increasing my metabolism.
[Jean-Paul] 20:01
And actually, I noticed when I’m using it real consistently that my appetite is a little bit higher even. But, everybody who works on it notices that they start getting leaner and stronger, almost immediately, they can feel the difference. I mean, people literally will come into me, it’s like, I don’t know, if it’s an optical illusion, I don’t know if I’m just if it’s just in my head, but I feel like my arms grew an inch after that were kind of like, they did grow, but you know, that’s not an illusion, you know, that you make progress that fast. And they and so. So that’s what I’ve been doing with myself, I do. You know, I follow some of the workouts that you have, and you sent me in that book. Sometimes I do variations. I’ll do usually a lot easier workouts than what you have in that book. Those are hard. Those are for that young 30 Something you have work and
[Garrett] 20:55
I love that you’re able to and this is something that you know, I’m in a similar boat, even as you were, you know, we’re busy. You’re taking care of your clientele, you know, all day long. You know, as a busy professional to be able to get a meaningful workout in 20 or 30 minutes and have it be safe and not have to lift super heavy and not even have to, you know, exactly go to the gym or use a bunch of credit to heal. I don’t
[Jean-Paul] 21:23
Need to lift heavy that’s you know, my I might deadlift, a couple of like a kettlebell that’s like 50 pounds or something. But I, but I don’t have any heavyweights in here. And so people think it and but here’s the thing, though, I know I’m stronger. I have not to deadlift, I have gone years that deadlifting. And this is a funny story. I was at a friend’s house, he had he has a Cross Fit gym set up in his garage. And I had not lifted in years, all I’ve been doing is this kind of stuff. And that lifted. Like I had not done formal like deadlifts with a big barbell.
[Jean-Paul] 22:01
And I was like, oh, that looks like fun. I just jumped down and pulled it three times and set it down. It’s like, okay, well, let’s, let’s go on over here and look at what you’re doing. He said, he was like, JP was almost 400 pounds. And I was like, Oh, geez. And I knew I didn’t warm up, I didn’t do anything. He’s like I saw my body is staying strong. So I think a lot of people, you know, think maybe I’m just kind of fluffing the muscles like no, I’m conditioning the muscle and making it stronger. And I can get under an I can get under a heavy load when I want to. And those few times that I do want to perform something I find that I have, I have what it takes, I can still jump I can still sprint, I can still like lift heavy if I need to. But as for training, I don’t just keep it light. I just load my I load light load on certain movement patterns. But um, but most of the load is coming in through the machine.
[Garrett] 22:59
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Thank you for sharing that. And one other thing before we say goodbye. You told me one time an interesting story about someone with some ear trouble that you had you had helped with tinnitus, right?
[Jean-Paul] 23:14
Oh, yeah. Tell me about that. Well, he has a strange case of something called somatic tinnitus that he got from some feedback. He was on a radio show, and when he got a he got some really loud feedback. And he had tinnitus. And it’s like, just rings at like, eight or nine level. It’s just like, you know, just deafening. And so what we what I did was and this was I consulted with you guys and gotten the, you know, gotten with some of the smart and smart people that we have in the mastermind call that just intimidate me how smart and they would they gave me some really good feedback and kind of told me what areas to work and I got the glove, and I started working on and scaling to kind of loosening his neck, I did a neck loosening protocol with him and I started working around his TMJ or working around his temporalis we found hotspots and I would add that would force his jaw to kind of clench and I would kind of hold that spot and haven’t go through the jaw mobilizations.
[Jean-Paul] 24:15
And then when we got done, it would be much lower. So it’s gotten down to a manageable level where he said if you know he it’s still he can still barely hear it. But he said it’s as if I didn’t already know that it had been there. I wouldn’t know that it’s there. He’s like it’s gotten to a manageable point. But it wasn’t before that though. It was just unmanageable. It was just you know, just constant ringing and it was like I guess that would be pretty annoying to have a constant alarm going off and you’re when you’re Yeah, and the only thing that would make it go away or turned down as if you found this little spot on his head like this and he would hold it down. And that made it made the sound go down a little bit.
[Jean-Paul] 24:58
So that was kind of what made me think this would be a good candidate for that. And actually, I’m going to start doing some of the level two stuff with him. Now, now that I’ve learned more about the vestibular system, thank you, I’m going to try some more of that because he does have some issues with balancing and stuff. So I think it might all be related. So Oh, fabulous, very good. So I, I’ve loved the level two, by the way, I can’t wait to I’m going to have to rewatch it just to make sure that I got everything down. But, that was a was a lot of great new information. So I feel like just totally geeked out for a couple of days. So, you know, you’re always pushing and always creating new stuff for us. That is worth the price of the machine by itself. I mean, it is.
[Garrett] 25:47
Well, thank you. And thank you for being a part of not only our first level, a level one course that we had back a few years ago, but you were also part of our first level two.
[Jean-Paul] 25:57
That’s right, that’s awesome. I will stay with it, you come up with level three, in which I guess directing comments with your mind somehow I will. I don’t know how you do what you do. I mean, you know, you do this, you do this podcast, you have this business, you’re seeing clients, you’re traveling, I guess you’re not traveling as much now but, but you are building something special, and I’m just so happy and pleased to be a part of it. And, I and very proud to be a part of it. So
[Garrett] 26:31
thank you, thank you if the feelings are mutual, and then also, you know, in terms of all that all the stuff that we’ve been able to accomplish, I have to extend a lot of gratitude to our team, who, you know, we’ve got a wonderful team here that without whom, you know, none of this would be possible. And so there I was making a fact. And then being able to work with people like you who are taking this work and being just such positive, you know, representatives of this movement that we’re building together out in your community and, and other practitioners doing it in theirs. And I think we’re all able to grow together, which is exciting.
[Jean-Paul] 27:08
That is why I’m here. It’s like that whole raise all boats to tide mentality. You guys have that down. And that’s right,
[Garrett] 27:15
Good. Very good. Thank you so much, JP, for joining us. I appreciate the insights into your practice, you know, some of your personal stories. And I think that elements of this will resonate with everyone who’s listening. So thank you to everyone who’s tuning in to the undercurrent podcast, it’s a pleasure to do another one of these, and thank you, JP, thanks again. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to the undercurrent podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review and be sure to subscribe to stay up to date as we release future episodes.
