Meet Dr. Trent Nessler

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Dr. Trent Nessler a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Dr. Trent , thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?

My father taught me, not by telling me but by his actions. My parents were teenage parents. They moved us across the country in 1976 to start my dad’s own construction business. Shortly after, in 1979, while on family vacation in a 3rd world country, my father suffered a spinal cord injury. After a tragic injury like this and year and 1/2 of rehab, my dad was back at the office and growing his business. From a wheelchair he grew it into one of the largest construction businesses in the US. In 1998, after graduating PT school, I started working with my dad and over the course of 18 weeks of hard work, sweat and unrelenting determination, we were able to get him up and walking again for the first time in 25 years. He was using loft strand crutches for his daily and work related activities. A short three years of new found freedom and he was involved in a bad car wreck. Thrown from a car at 90 mph, he suffered a C1/C2 spinal cord injury. After this near death experience, he was back in a wheelchair as a complete quadriplegic. Depsite this, his continued determination and drive, from a wheelchair, grew his business into one of the nation’s largest construction companies. Today, with thousands of employees across 5 states, he taught me you can do anything you put your mind to, no matter what the challenge.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I am a sports physical therapist and sports biomechanist. Very early in my career, I became passionate about trying to prevent ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) injuries in youth athletics. With over 250,000 per year in youth athletics, the long term health consequences and impact to future joint health are profound. I knew I had to help address this $5B health care crisis. I would never have imaged that this passion would have driven my entire career over 28 years.

In pursuit of this vision, I started to research and develop ways that I could assess athletes for risk for these devastating injuries. Through years of research and development, in 2017, I partnered with a tech company to develop an assessment using their wearable sensor technology. Since it’s commercial release in 2017, it has been used to assess 450,000 athletes across 5 countries. The data that has been collected from this technology is not only saving knees but providing insight on how we can truly impact these injuries in a profound way.

In 2024, I wanted to develop a clinic that uses this data to develop treatment strategies that truly impacts these injuries and improves the way athletes move. At The Athlete Lab, we use a movement based approach that uses data to irmprove how athletes move in order to reduce risk for injury and improve athletic performance. Our protocols are used by clinicians and physicians throughout the US to provide more effective ACL rehab programs, return to sport testing and drive athletic performance. As a functioning PT clinic and research facility, we have also developed new innovations leveraging the latest biohacks to provide athletes with optimal outcomes in the shortest time possible.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Determination, persistance and unrelenting desire and passion to not accept anything less than what you want. My father’s story is one of inspiration but also a clear indication of what can be accomplished when those three traits drive you to accept nothing less. My father taught me that despite, what would be to most, insurmountable odds, he was still able to achieve his goal. Not just overcoming one spinal cord injury, but two and still growing his business to be one of the largest in the country. Not only that but to grow a construction business, a labor intensive, macho drive business like that, from a wheelchair. This taught me that no matter what the odds, no matter what barrier there was (perceived or actual) that I could overcome it. If my dad was able to do this, then what is my excuse.

It is this experience, growing up and not hearing my dad say, but watching my dad do, that made me know that I could accomplish anything. I had my health, my physical capabilities, my smarts and I was following the calling that God put me on earth to do. And that is what I am doing. From a passion I had to impact ACL injuries, from the vision I had to profoundly impact, the technology we created, the data we have collected and the programming we have developed as a result of, is impacting close to a half a million athletes across 5 countries. And we have only begun.

Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?

What I do when I feel overwhelmed and stressed…… I choke people. Kidding, sort of. See I have been a fitness buff my whole life. I am 56 years old and have weight lifting for 46 of those years. Never stopped and never will. Fitness is how I cope with stress. The more fit you are and the better your nutrition means you deal with stress better (physically and emotionally), you sleep better and your body recovers faster. This is a big part of my business where we leverage the latest biohacks and stack them together to provide athletes and healthy individuals with exponential health benefits in a natural way.

For me, the more intense the exercise program, the better I feel….later…..after the soreness wears off. One of the best forms of training I did started 13 years ago, This is when I started training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ). You have no idea how physical this is, especially as a “mature” athlete. Grappling with people who are 1/2 your age and many times much larger than you is one of the hardest forms of training. I was awarded my black belt on 9/11/23 after 11 years of training and yes, I like choking people……

What BJJ has taught me is how to operate under extreme pressure (physical and mental) and extreme physical exhaustion and still think through my next move quickly. This is a huge part of our game, not only what are you going to do but how is your opponent going to respond. For business owners, you can see how this might help you on the business side. For me, it changed my life and will be a part of my life till the day I die.

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