The New Grad Physio Podcast

Why is it that patient’s struggle with certain rehab exercises? You pick the right rehab exercise for your patient… You tell them what it is, you might even demonstrate it... But whatever you do they just can't seem to get it! It might be a simple squat, deadlift or a hip hinge exercise like an RDL but however hard you try you struggle to get your patient to do the movement pattern well... Your pa...

You might want to think twice about using this common hip exercise! The glute bridge is probably the most used hip rehab exercise in physio. But did you know that most therapists use it incorrectly... Often with patients that do not need an exercise like the glute bridge! Even worse than that... The glute bridge can actually be detrimental to some patients, especially when you consider how most th...

Why is it that some hip patients respond well to your treatments and rehab... Yet other patients struggle and see their symptoms quickly return leaving them (and you) frustrated that they are not able to progress? To try fix this… You start trying different treatment techniques or rehab exercises... Looking for that quick fix to get on top of your patients symptoms but this does not seem to help…...

What is the best rehab exercise to use for a patient with knee pain? Listen to this week's podcast episode to find out. The answer might just surprise you!!! Enjoy the show! PS. Andy would love to hear your feedback on this podcast. Please leave a review or get in touch at andy@newgradphysio.com and he will get right back to you. PPS. To get a copy of Andy’s book ‘How To Become A Competent, Confid...

Do you feel your knee pain assessments go ok until you get to your special testing? Maybe you pick something up you weren't expecting... Or your patient tests fine with the tests you thought they would be sore with? Most new grad's make some simple, but critical mistakes during their objective assessments... Most of the time without even knowing! It is easy to get it wrong when you have been taugh...

Making sense of your lower back assessments and making the right diagnosis is difficult enough as a new grad... But taking a patient with back pain through a full rehab plan, from start to finish, without flaring them up can be even harder! Depending who you listen to some therapists tell you that hands-on treatments are really effective for lower back pain... Others tell you to avoid manual thera...

Do you struggle with lower back pain patients? You are not on your own! It is the area of the body that most therapists struggle with the most. You've been there I am sure. You get the referral and it's a lower back. You run through those red flag questions in your head. You remind yourself of the most common pathologies that you need to look out for. You feel ready but as you start the asses...

Patients presenting with hip pain can sometimes be tough to get a handle on. Often they might improve to your hands-on treatments and early rehab exercises… But as soon as they go back to things like the gym, running or sport the hip gets irritated and your back to square one!  Sound familiar? The hip is one of the most difficult joints to treat because it can be so easily aggravated. Just ab...

Working out how to make the right career decision can be tough. Do you start in the NHS and do your rotations...then decide which way to go? Is this the right thing if you know you want to work in private practice or sport... Or should you head straight into one of these areas? How do you transition from one area to another... Like private practice to sport full-time, or vice versa... Or climb the...

Sat in a supermarket cafe back in 2010 a short conversation as a new grad physio changed my career. I’d just started working at the Leeds Rhinos, a job I had took straight from University. I had skipped the usual academy and part-time roles to join full-time with the first team. Things were great but… A conversation I had that day in that supermarket cafe changed things. Learn what advice I got an...

You do not need me to tell you how important your patient assessment is. The assessment is at the start for a very good reason... As it informs everything else you do after that. It gives you your diagnosis... Helps inform your patient prognosis... And tells you what treatments and rehab to prescribe your patient. Even as an inexperienced physio and even with complex cases, you should always...

Assessing swelling during your knee pain assessments is something I am sure you already do... But are you missing the main point of this simple assessment? You might use tests like a patella sweep or patella tap test to assess for the presence of knee joint swelling... But what do these tests really tell you and how can you use these simple test results to accurately find the right patient diagnos...

The key to success with any patient is being able to clinically reason what you are doing. It is being able to make sound judgements based on the findings of your clinical assessment and making the right call with a patient’s diagnosis and prognosis. This can be hard as a new grad, especially if you are seeing injuries that you might not commonly see, or injuries that you have not had mu...

Being able to clinically reason what you are doing in your patient assessments, treatments and rehab, is key to getting consistent patient results. Without it...you are just guessing! We talk about clinical reasoning ALL the time in the therapy world... Yet most therapists, even experienced ones, do a really poor job in actually applying this practice to their day to day work.  Do you sometim...

Most therapists I speak to think they have a problem with their treatment and rehab programmes. You think you need to learn more skills... So you go on courses to learn loads acupuncture, dry needling, ART or some other 3-word treatment technique or... You start using using blood flow restriction training or some other 'sexy' rehab protocols or a new exercise that you have just seen your favourite...

Getting your foot in the door in sport is tough. You are in direct competition with 1000's of therapists, for the same job roles. The same can also happen in private practice and in the NHS. The demand for good new grad jobs, far outweighs the number of jobs out there. Throughout the pandemic many clinics and sports clubs cut therapy staff and whilst we are (hopefully) seeing the back end of...

I learnt this the hard way.  Earlier in my career working in sport this usually resulted in a barge of questions and shouting from an angry head coach... Or patients becoming frustrated when I could not fix them after the first few sessions, so they stop turning up for their sessions in the clinic. I did not appreciate the important of something so simple and this led me to a lot of problems!...

Do you worry when your patient reports they have neck pain? Anxious that you might miss something serious… …or that you might do more harm than good and make your patients symptoms worse? Or maybe you are unsure what to do if your patient gives you a positive response to one of your red flag questions. It was drilled into you at Uni that you need to screen for serious injuries during any spinal as...

As simple as the knee might appear, I am sure you have had some patients with knee pain that you have found tricky to deal with.  You may have struggled with your objective assessment and been unable to find the right diagnosis. You may do too many special tests, even when you can not really reason why you are doing them (this is really common) and at the same time just irritate your patient...

Finding the time for CPD can be challenging but it is something you know you need to do to stay up to date with the latest evidence and continue to grow as a therapist. University only teaches you so much. Hopefully it taught you how to be safe and competent with your patients… But the real learning and growth as a physio starts when you graduate. Ensuring you do not waste your time, effort and mo...

Ever wondered what a top sports physio would do differently as a student and new grad if they had their time again? In this week's podcast episode Gareth Robinson a top physio with experience working at the highest level in both codes of rugby and football... Experience traveling the world with a top golfer as his personal physio... And an extensive private practice background including being the...

The physio room is NOT the place your patient needs to be if they have something sinister going on and it is your job during the assessment to work this out. Failure to identify possible sinister problems is not great for you or your patient as you might start treating something you should not. This is why you ask those important red flag questions… But 99% of therapists fall short when screening...

Working with real patients in the real world is a far cry from treating your classmates in a practical session or when you were out on placement. Then you were still learning...  And you had the fall back and 'excuse' to get things wrong. But once you qualify that all changes. Patients expect you to fix them and they do not care if you qualified 10 months ago or 10 years ago......

You may have heard about physio's assessing the rib-cage as part of their patient assessments. This might seem complicated... But it's really not. If you can understand what the ribs do when we breathe in and out, and how this relates to movement at the lower back... You will be able to see how poor rib-cage movement can heavily influence lower back pain. This is really important because a failure...

If you see patients with lower back pain (this is everyone) then you need to listen to this week's podcast! Red flag questioning is such an important part of your lower back pain assessment... That you must get right! Otherwise you risk missing something important and starting your hands-on treatments and rehab when it might not be safe to do so!  Listen now for some help and to make sure you...