Past Your Prime

Are you an active adult struggling with that "hip pinch" during deep squats?  Most people blame "tight" hip flexors and then stretch them aggressively every week... but if stretching worked, you wouldn't need to repeat it.  In this episode of the Past Your Prime podcast, physical therapist Craig Smith and pro athlete Alex Keicher break down the real mechanics of Hip Flexion...

Is Osteoarthritis really a death sentence for athletes and active adults?  In this episode, pro-volleyball player Alex Keicher and physical therapist Craig Smith debunk the myth that an Osteoarthritis diagnosis ends your athletic life.  We expose the gap between what MRI imaging shows and how you actually feel, and prove that joint pain management is possible without surgery or endless cortisone i...

Meniscus tears and overcoming knee injuries does not necessarily mean surgery.  In this episode of the Past Your Prime Podcast, physical therapist Craig Smith and pro volleyball player Alex debunk the myth that a "degenerative meniscus tear" on an MRI exam is a career-ender for athletes and active adults.  Discover why imaging findings often don't match your actual pain, how force ab...

Active adults blame lack of rest for their constant exhaustion, but the real culprit is misunderstanding fatigue.  In this episode of Past Your Prime, physical therapist Craig Smith and pro-athlete Alex Keicher break down the science-backed Fatigue Model: explaining why recovery strategies for athletes fail and how you can reclaim energy for pain-free living. Tonight's episode is perfect for b...

For active adults, cortisone shots feel like a magic solution: but they're a ticking time bomb for joint degradation. In this episode of Past Your Prime, pro volleyball player Alex Keicher and physical therapist Craig Smith pull back the curtain and expose the "doom loop" of steroid injections: why they mask the real problem, accelerate cartilage breakdown, and leave you chasing the...

Active adults often hit a plateau after injury or midlife transition: stuck managing pain instead of pursuing real performance.  In this landmark episode of the Past Your Prime Podcast, hosts pro volleyball player Alex Keicher and physical therapist Craig Smith welcome their very first guest: strength coach Kenny Sewall.  Kenny reveals his framework for helping busy, broken athletes not just retur...

Knee and Achilles pain don't always need surgery: they need the right stimulus. In this new episode of the Past Your Prime Podcast, Craig and Alex reveal why isometric exercises (static holds like wall sits) trigger rapid pain relief and joint stability for active adults.  Discover how staying still becomes your most powerful tool for staying active. And learn which holds work the fastest for...

Recurring injuries sabotaging your active lifestyle? Discover why stretching or ice miss the real problem. In this episode of the Past Your Prime Podcast, Craig and Alex break down the exercise deficits keeping you injured: and share the exact assessment framework (local, regional, central modulation) that stops the injury cycle before it starts. Learn how to identify YOUR gap and start to train p...

Pain-free living starts with understanding your tissue capacity. In this episode of Past Your Prime, our performance experts Craig Smith and Alex Keicher break down the "Risk vs. Benefit" analysis that every active adult needs to know in order to build a smart workout strategy.  Learn why overcoming exercise pain requires knowing your limits before maxing out performance, especially for...

The crushing guilt of missing a workout. Tonight, we dive deep into the psychology of active adults and the 'slippery slope' that turns one missed session into a year on the couch. Whether you're focused on overcoming injuries and pain free living or simply maintaining fitness as an active adult: understanding the difference between quitting and recovering is key.  In this episode of t...

Let's explore the intricate connection between lower back pain and athletic performance in this insightful new episode of Past Your Prime. Join hosts Craig Smith, a Physical Therapist and Strength Coach, and pro volleyball player Alex Keicher as they unravel how hamstring tightness and lower back pain can severely impact your mobility and overall sports performance. Discover why what feels lik...

In this episode of the Past Your Prime Podcast, dive into the science of effective warm-ups and how they play a crucial role in sports injury rehab and athlete injury recovery. Hosts pro volleyball player Alex Keicher and physical therapist Craig Smith reveal why traditional stretching might be harming your performance and increasing the risk of injury. Learn about the RAMP protocol (Raise, Activa...

In this episode of the Past Your Prime podcast, pro volleyball player and pain-free living activist Alex Keicher and physical therapist Craig Smith delve into an essential sports movement for aging athletes and active adults overcoming injuries: jumping and landing.  Today, athletes and busy fitness parents will learn how to protect their knees, lower back, and Achilles tendon from the "Landi...

Are you an active adult striving for pain free living while juggling a healthy lifestyle?  In this comment section episode of Past Your Prime, we tackle essential fitness strategies and pain management techniques specifically designed for active adults. Wondering if stretching truly helps or if muscle soreness means you should ease up on your workouts? We dive deep into common myths surrounding st...

Are you struggling with intense muscle soreness after training? Today we are breaking down Pro Volleyball player Alex Keicher’s favorite physical experience (allegedly): DOMS - Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. Does it truly hit harder as you get older? Is the famous “No Pain, No Gain” a lie all along? Does stretching, ice, sauna or forty packs of beer in one night TRULY help you walk again when expe...

When we talk about “pain”, everyone has that “oh, crap” moment at least once in their lifetime. The moment where that excruciating pain takes over and everything feels that it is about to break. However, “feeling hurt” doesn't automatically mean “being harmed”. Experiencing pain does not necessarily mean getting injured. So today we are going to answer that one million dollar question: should you...

Today, we are talking about the body's foundation: the feet.  Your feet don't care what sport you play or what activity you do. It cares if it can handle the load. Once again, it's all about physical capacity. This episode is for those keep taping their ankle and pretending everything is fine; for those who wonder if their shoes are helping or hindering them; for those who wants to know the secret...

Tightness. Stiffness. Inflexibility. Or some other loss of motion might be the most common complaint Craig hears after pain. But tightness is a description, not a diagnosis. So, if you came here hoping Craig would give you a new stretch for your ‘tight’ hamstrings… sorry, today, you will have the definitive answer to this question: “What do you actually mean by ‘tight’?”. Today, on this Past Your...

Today we’re talking about returning to playing sports. Most people don’t quit because they’re lazy, they quit because something keeps breaking, hurting, or derailing them. And, most importantly, they don’t know how to develop a better standard, realistic timelines or a plan that doesn’t assume they’re still 21 and sleeping ten hours a night. If you need help figuring out how to stop restarting you...

Why every time one thing starts to feel better, something else decides to hurt? Is that bad rehab? Or is that actually how bodies work?  Because if you’ve ever felt like rehab turns into "injury whack-a-mole", where you fix one problem and another one pops up... well, this Past Your Prime episode is for you! Craig’s has seen this pattern constantly, especially with foot injuries, and tod...

Alright, folks: you know the drill.  You are scrolling through YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, YouNameItNewSocialMediaHere and what not. Then, you see the shiny and new fitness influencer of the hour telling what exercise you shouldn’t do in fifteen seconds or so.  No context, no explanation, no nuance or even logic. Just Doomsday talk: do a deadlift and you will DIE A TERRIBLE DEATH AND THE UNIVERSE...

Craig often thinks about the New Year as another point in time to analyze, commit, and change his current system. At this time of year, he spends about 50% of his time discussing goals.   Alex, on the other hand, spends 90% of his time getting hurt. Most New Year's resolutions are not goals - they are challenges. On this episode of Past Your Prime, we get back to the useful framework of identi...

It's the holiday season and your New Year’s Resolutions are that you are going to be more active in 2026. But you have done this a million New Year’s before, haven't you? And being more active felt worse… until you eventually quit, anyway. This is Exercise Hell: when movement consistently makes you feel worse, not better. In today’s episode we will dive deep into how to avoid this Hell altogether...

Imagine the following scenario: you are someone who likes to lift and/or exercise. One day, you have a mild lower back pain and it is not even clear which exercise did this to you! After two weeks you notice more symptoms with higher-intensity exercise. You reduce your activity for about a month or so and avoid things that cause pain but try to stay active. Then, you go back to your original daily...

Artificial capacity is everywhere — shoes, braces, taping, sleeves, supports, straps, and all the tools we slap on our bodies to perform, recover, or just survive daily life. The problem isn’t the tools. It’s using the wrong one at the wrong time. In this episode, Craig breaks down how artificial capacity really works, why it matters, and how misunderstanding it leads to recurring injuries, chroni...