Back Pain: Myth Busting

A recent article on healthline quoted nearly $134 billion dollars spent out-of-pocket (this figure does NOT include money spent by insurance companies) on back and neck treatments in the US between 1996 and 2016, more than was spent on managing either heart disease or diabetes. Suffice it to say that back pain is a problem in the US – in …

Functional Fitness: Are You Strong Enough?

Updated: Apr 1, 2022 5 Functional Movements That Will Help Decrease Your Risk of Sports Injury A big part of my job in helping my clients get out of pain is understanding what level of fitness they were at before they got injured or started feeling discomfort. Knowing this information not only helps to set goals, but gives me an idea …

The Importance of Strength Training for Teen-aged Athletes

According to the Aspen Institute, 73.4% of teenagers participated in some form of organized sports in 2020. That equates to more than 21 million teenagers participating in sports ranging from cycling to swimming, track and field to wrestling. Soccer and basketball maintain their stronghold as the most popular sport for teen-aged participation, but the COVID-19 pandemic has provided a pretty …

3 Exercises You Can Do to Prevent Shoulder Pain While Swimming

When swimmers have pain, it is most often in the shoulder. This is usually the result of the thousands of overhead repetitions that occur with the hours of practice often required for age group athletes. With overuse comes fatigue and this can lead to lapses in a swimmer’s ability to maintain good swimming technique. Additionally, swimmers will have excessive flexibility …

Four Things You Can Do to Prevent a Sports Injury

I have been a swim coach for nearly 20 years. Before I started coaching swimming, I was a pretty high level competitive swimmer. I have been a physical therapist for just about 10 years. I work predominately with high school aged athletes (as a coach and PT), though I also see adults of all ages and younger kids. I work …

What are shin splints, and how do I deal with them?

Shin splints. You know, that dull, achy soreness over the inside part of your shin that is worse when you pull your toes toward your nose, but generally goes away if you’re not exercising (though you may notice it a bit when you’re just walking around). The bane of many a new runner. People often experience shin soreness when they …

Let’s talk about something important…

I was recently (just last week, in fact) talking with my swimmers after practice. One of the girls was giving another a hard time because she will often try to get out of a full warm up or cool down swim by asking the coaches questions or picking up a conversation with another swimmer or by creating some other kind …

Dry Needling for Sports Performance

With IronMan Wisconsin on the horizon (September 14, 2021), you, like I have probably noticed the influx of runners and cyclists on the bike paths all over Madison. An article on active.com reports an average requirement of 13 hours of training PER WEEK to prepare for a full length IronMan. That’s 2.4 miles of swimming in Lake Monona, a 112 …

But why are my muscles still so tight?

This might be you, be it your low back, hamstrings, upper traps… You name it, you stretch all the time, but you’re still feeling tight. So what gives? And is stretching really all it’s cracked up to be? First of all, a true lack of range of motion that causes dysfunction is a good reason to stretch. Maybe your lats …

Stretching: Clear as mud.

Stretching is a complicated topic. And like many things, what we know about stretching has changed (and will continue to do so) with time. There is a ton of research that’s been done, and often the result will leave readers with more questions than answers. Should I stretch? When should I stretch? Does stretching make me prone to injury or …