2023 Winter Wellness Series with Greenepsych and CHOP

February 13th and 27th, NXT has been teaming up with Greenepsych and CHOP to deliver talks on topics that relate to mental health and well-being as well as achieving performance related goals. To join us on this journey, we are extremely fortunate to have Mitch Greene, PhD, Lauren Ruhl, LPC, and Brian Vernau, MD, FAAP, CAQSM.

Dr. Mitch Greene is a licensed clinical and sport psychologist, with an expertise in generating tailor-made solutions to his clients’ problems. Dr. Greene works primarily with athletes pursuing high-performance goals, as well as coaches and athletic departments looking to educate their student-athletes on mental health and performance enhancement strategies. Dr. Greene has spoken nationally and internationally on topics related to building confidence, managing doubts, sports parenting, and building an elite performance culture. Dr. Greene received his Ph.D. from Temple University and is the owner of Greenepsych Clinical & Sport Psychology, located in Haverford, PA.

Lauren Ruhl, LPC, CSCS is a licensed professional counselor and sports psychology consultant. A former college athlete, Lauren found her career path in helping others after suffering a season-ending injury in college. Lauren works primarily with athletes around issues such as recovering from injury, perfectionism, performance anxiety, generalized anxiety, depression, burnout, academic stress, and enhancing confidence. She provides individual and small group training for athletes, sport parents, teams, coaches, and health-care professionals (i.e., physical therapists, athletic trainers, etc) as well as working individually with clients, from elementary age to post-college age. Lauren supports athletes in learning not only the skills needed to be successful in sport, but also in life.

Below is a brief description of each topic as well as the recording of the actual session. This section will be updated throughout the Winter Wellness Series until all sessions are completed and all videos are posted.

February 13, 2023 – “How to Develop a Mental Game Plan”

Both are dedicated to helping athletes perform at their best. They will be presenting on “How to Develop a Mental Game Plan” for practices and competitions. Too often, competitive lacrosse players play without a clear idea of their goals or how they will respond when things don’t go according to plan. Dr. Greene and Lauren will discuss their best mental preparation tips so athletes can get the most out of their hard work and time on the field. There will be time at the end for any quesitons.

Brian Vernau, MD, FAAP, CAQSM, is a pediatric sports medicine specialist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) in the Division of Orthopaedics and the Sports Medicine and Performance Center. He is also the supervising physician for NXT Sports. His areas of expertise include pediatric and adolescent injuries and injury prevention, concussions, overuse injuries, medical issues in athletes, exercise intolerance and exercise in chronic illness. He focuses on movement patterns and injury prevention to keep athletes on the field in the future. He has a special interest in lacrosse athletes.

February 27, 2023 – “Injury Prevention”

This presentation is by Dr. Brian Vernau and he will be presenting on injury prevention and proper recovery. He will touch on a variety of factors that play into each. I saw his presentation and there is some really useful information in there!