Reading Rehab

Data Nerds is a new series that we are introducing which will be alternating weeks with our usual journal club podcast. In this series, we share cases from our clinical practice where we utilize objective testing to inform our decision making, with most attention paid to the results of the tests and interpretation of the information. Therefore, this works best when you can see the numbers. Luckily...

Data Nerds is a new series that we are introducing which will be alternating weeks with our usual journal club podcast. In this series, we share cases from our clinical practice where we utilize objective testing to inform our decision making, with most attention paid to the results of the tests and interpretation of the information. Therefore, this works best when you can see the numbers. Luckily...

This week Mike and Pat discuss a recent article from the Brazilian Journal of Physical Therapy which provides normative data for calf endurance using a new Calf Raise app. The standard 5/5 MMT 25 rep single leg calf raise stilll reigns supreme! What do you think about this app? It is free on the app store, so play around with it clinically and let us know how it is most helpful for you! The articl...

After a week off, Mike and Pat are back to talk through a short article about backward design in sports rehab. Essentially this is starting with the end in mind. The authors feel there has been enough publications demonstrating why this is important in sports rehab, but not enough on how to actually do it. Listen to the podcast to hear us break down the different components and give some examples...

This week Mike and Bryan talk through two articles that provide good foundational knowledge for what power is in sports and what are some ways that we can develop power. Some key topics we discussed are the force-time curve, importance of understanding sport demands, and using velocity to train different strength and power characteristics. The articles can be found here: https://www.nsca.com/conte...

Data Nerds is a new series that we are introducing which will be alternating weeks with our usual journal club podcast. In this series, we share cases from our clinical practice where we utilize objective testing to inform our decision making, with most attention paid to the results of the tests and interpretation of the information. Therefore, this works best when you can see the numbers. Luckily...

This week we discuss knee and ankle strength demands during deceleration tasks. The biggest takeaway is that from a short acceleration, 5 meters, both knee and ankle strength were significantly correlated to deceleration performance. However, with a 10 meter accelereation, knee extension strength variables were the only ones to relate to deceleration performance. This was a great discussion about...

Data Nerds is a new series that we are introducing which will be alternating weeks with our usual journal club podcast. In this series, we share cases from our clinical practice where we utilize objective testing to inform our decision making, with most attention paid to the results of the tests and interpretation of the information. Therefore, this works best when you can see the numbers. Luckily...

This week we discuss limiters for rapid force production, specifically muscle slack. This narrative review breaks down the 6 processes that happen when contracting a muscle, and focus on the areas of potential delay. Muscles that do not have any pretension must first take up slack before being able to exert force, which could increase a mechanical delay time up to 100 milliseconds. This is importa...

Data Nerds is a new series that we are introducing which will be alternating weeks with our usual journal club podcast. In this series, we share cases from our clinical practice where we utilize objective testing to inform our decision making, with most attention paid to the results of the tests and interpretation of the information. Therefore, this works best when you can see the numbers. Luckily...

This week we discuss use of concentric vs eccentric exercise to build muscle. Out the gate, our biggest suggestion is if you are trying to have a complete program, you really need to do a good mix of all muscle actions. And the results of this study suggest that one muscle action isn't really better than the other. It seems like the other training variables (frequency, intensity, time under tensio...

Data Nerds is a new series that we are introducing which will be alternating weeks with our usual journal club podcast. In this series, we share cases from our clinical practice where we utilize objective testing to inform our decision making, with most attention paid to the results of the tests and interpretation of the information. Therefore, this works best when you can see the numbers. Luckily...

This week we discuss tendon stress and strain. This article was a review written by one author which was published in 2022. We found the definitions provided in the article to be particularly helpful. Strain is the change in tendon length relative to normal length, while stress is the amount of force relative to the tendon (force/CSA). These describe what is happening to a tendon. Stiffness and Yo...

Data Nerds is a new series that we are introducing which will be alternating weeks with our usual journal club podcast. In this series, we share cases from our clinical practice where we utilize objective testing to inform our decision making, with most attention paid to the results of the tests and interpretation of the information. Therefore, this works best when you can see the numbers. Luckily...

This week we discuss knee and shoulder isokinetic torque strength targets among healthy athletes. This study had a sample of 233 athletes from 27 different sports! This is a little worrisome in that there is not a large sample for any one sport. They even grouped sports up into six different categoies, but there was still not enough data per category. Lumping sports could also be problematic becau...

Data Nerds is a new series that we are introducing which will be alternating weeks with our usual journal club podcast. In this series, we share cases from our clinical practice where we utilize objective testing to inform our decision making, with most attention paid to the results of the tests and interpretation of the information. Therefore, this works best when you can see the numbers. Luckily...

This week we discuss multi-ligament knee injuries. These are uncommon, but devastating injuries. In athletes, return to sport rates are as high as 53%, but in higher competitive levels it could be more like 23%. The authors note there is a lack of evidence describing return to sport testing in this population, which they attempt to rectify with this article. They describe different phases of rehab...

This week we discuss isokinetic testing for shoulder internal and external rotation strength! This scoping review had a lot of promise, but unfortunately it did not live up to the hype for us. We learned there is a lot of heterogenity in testing set ups, but the seated 90/90 position is the most common, with 60 and 180 degrees per second being the most common speeds tested. The most common objecti...

This week we discuss considerations when treating posterior medial meniscus root tears. Each meniscus has an anterior and posterior root, and a root tear is a radial tear within 1 cm of the attachment. Radial tears cut across the fibers of the meniscus disrupting the hoop stress mechanism: how the meniscus disperses load by expanding with axial load. Possibly due to this disruption, meniscal root...

This week we discuss a proposed testing battery for baseball pitchers. The authors discuss the importance of a comprehensive testing battery to both minimize injury risk and identify areas for performance improvement. We feel Table 1 does a good job detailing the main points of the article. There are many key physical qualities for baseball pitchers, including: trunk rotation mobility, trunk rotat...

This week we discuss cervical examination for vascular pathology prior to cervical manipulation. In general, our biases are against cervical manipulation. However, if you choose to perform cervical manipulations, this could be a useful paper to understand to limit the risk of adverse event from the technique. The authors primarily advocate for thorough history taking, multiple clinical tests inclu...

This week we discuss the training of marathon runners! Most PT's likely won't need to know about marathon training in the detail provided by this article, so we try to also distill down the main concepts. These are: more easy volume is associated with improvements in performance, therefore if you are working with marathoners you want to really push them to make sure their body can withstand the st...

This week we discuss a recent article from the Journal of Athletic Training which asserts transdisciplinary collaboration is required for high performing medical teams in elite sport. They introduce two "largely competing" models for athletics organizations: the high performance model and medical models. The high performance model places a performance director at the center of a team of ATs, PTs,...

This week we discuss appropriate responses to mechanical loading since it is likely that an appropriate amount of stimulus to drive adaptation in one tissue could be maladaptive, or at least ineffective, for other tissues. This article explores acute vs chronic adaptations to stress, endurance vs strength/power training, and muscle, tendon, cartilage, and bone response to loading. There is a bread...

This week we discuss wearable technology! This systematic review of systematic reviews is unique in that the authors plan to continue updating it every 6 months as more new research comes out on the validity and accuracy of consumer wearable technology. The most common consumer wearable technology are watches and rings which measure things like heart rate, sleep, and step count, among many other p...