Evaluate and Treat Injuries

ACL Reconstruction Rehabilitation Protocol Exercise

Injury Treatment

ACL Reconstruction Rehabilitation Protocol

Rehabilitation following Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction (ACL) continues to be a exciting and popular topic in orthopedics and sports medicine. Just pick up any journal and you are bound to find at least one article on the ACL in each issue! Over the past decade, Kevin Wilk, James Andrews, and I have continuously adapted and expanded our preferred treatment guidelines following ACL reconstruction. Kevin has published many classic manuscripts on the topic and we collectively have presented our treatment program several times in journal articles the last decade. Since these publications, Kevin and I have continued to advance our rehabilitation protocol. I am pleased to announce that we have officially just released our latest protocol for Accelerated Rehabilitation Following ACL Reconstruction with our latest protocols at RehabilitationProtocols.com. But because our ACL reconstruction rehabilitation protocol is one of our most popular, we simple want to give it away for free!

April 17, 2017

rehabilitation protocol following arthroscopic rotator cuff repair

Injury Treatment

Rehabilitation Protocol Following Arthroscopic Rotator Cuff Repair

There continues to be great debate over the most appropriate rehabilitation progression following rotator cuff repair. Although our surgical techniques have gradually progressed from full open repairs, to smaller mini-open repairs, to the current standard all-arthroscopic repairs, many clinicians continue to utilize the same rehabilitation guidelines from past invasive procedures. And more confusing is the lack of consensus among surgeons regarding the optimal postoperative rehabilitation protocol following arthroscopic rotator cuff repair. Protocols can vary as drastically as beginning gentle passive range of motion and isometric exercises post-operative week 1 to delaying 12 weeks for the initiation of similar exercises. I want to share the postoperative protocol that I have developed with Kevin Wilk and James Andrews to give you some guidance on how we are progressing patients.

March 23, 2017

the use of rehabilitation protocols in physical therapy

Career Advice

Is it Time to Finally Ditch Using Rehabilitation Protocols?

The use of rehabilitation protocols in physical therapy continues to be common practice. However, a recent trend on social media has been to criticize these guidelines and those that follow them. Students are even coming out of college shunning the use of protocols. We should be using our brains and individualizing programs based on each person. But rehabilitation protocols can actually help us do this better if used properly. To highlight this, it helps to break down exactly what rehabilitation protocols are, and are not, in physical therapy to best understand how we should be using them in our practices.

March 20, 2017

Clinical Examination

What Exactly Is a SLAP Tear? Top 5 Things You Need to Know About a Superior Labral Lesion

Superior labral, or SLAP, tears are common shoulder injuries. There are many different classifications of SLAP tears that dramatically alter how you treat them. Knowing the difference between the types of SLAP lesions can help you successfully evaluate and treat these injuries.

February 13, 2017

Injury Treatment

6 Keys to ACL Rehabilitation

This month’s Inner Circle webinar is on 6 Keys to ACL Rehabilitation. In this presentation, I’ll go over the 6 key foundational principles that you need to understand to maximize your results with ACL rehab. There are many surgical and patient variables that may speed up or slow down the standard rehab progression, however, you can build an optimal program by following these 6 principles.

November 28, 2016

how pelvic tilt influences hamstring and spine mobility

Clinical Examination

How Pelvic Tilt Influences Hamstring and Spine Mobility

How many people come to you and complain that they have tight hamstrings? It seems like an epidemic sometimes, right? I know it’s pretty common for me, at least.

Many people just tug away at their hamstrings and aggressively stretch, which may not only be barking up the wrong tree, but also disadvantageous.

I have really gotten away from blindly stretching the hamstrings without a proper assessment as I feel that pelvic position is often the reason why people think they are tight. This is pretty easy to miss

In this video, I want to explain and you visualize the how pelvic tilt influences hamstring mobility and spine position. Often times the hamstrings feel “tight” or “short” when in reality their pelvic position is just giving us this illusion. I talk about this a lot with clients at Champion and often find myself making these drawings on our whiteboard.

Keep this in mind next time you think someone has tight hamstrings or has too much thoracic kyphosis. Often times the key is in the hips!

November 14, 2016

shoulder impingement assessment and treatment

Clinical Examination

Shoulder Impingement – 3 Keys to Assessment and Treatment

Shoulder impingement really is a pretty broad term that most of us likely take for granted. It has become such a junk term, such as “patellofemoral pain,” especially with physicians. It seems as if any pain originated from around the shoulder could be labeled as “shoulder impingement” for some reason, as if that diagnosis is helpful to determine the treatment process.

Unfortunately, There is no magical “shoulder impingement protocol” that you can pull out of your notebook and apply to a specific person.

I wish it were the simple.

A thorough examination is still needed. Each person will likely present differently, which will require a variations on how you approach their rehabilitation.

But the real challenge when working with someone with shoulder impingement isn’t figuring out they have shoulder pain, that’s fairly obviously. It’s figuring out why they have shoulder pain.

October 24, 2016

Enhance Performance

Should Everyone Deadlift?

The deadlift is an amazing exercise, but often underutilized, especially in the rehabilitation setting. This is a shame because the deadlift can be very helpful for many people. In this article I discuss why I feel the deadlift should be an important part of anyone’s program, especially those in rehabilitation.

October 10, 2016