My 3 Favorite Exercises for Preventing ACL Injuries
ACL injuries are devastating, and the best remedy for them is to try to prevent them in the first place. In a recent blog post, coach Mike Lefebvre listed 4 things to help prevent ACL tears and laid out a few concepts that we like to train in order to prevent ACL injuries. When we train these concepts, most exercises fit into more than one of the concepts that he mentioned. Below are a few examples of my favorites. Single Leg Landmine RDL Why I like it: The landmine RDL hits just about
Baby Steps: Quality Post Rehab Fitness
Small Quality Baby Steps In today’s world we want everything in an instant. From what we eat to our online orders, we want things as fast as possible. This same principle applies to us after an injury or when we’re suffering from pain. We all want the fastest route to the state we were in prior to the injury or pain, but what many people fail to realize is that getting things quickly comes at a cost. The cost when it comes to post rehab training is that if we
Hamstring Injuries Are No Joke
Hamstring injuries are no joke and can linger longer than athletes want. We all know athletes who have had hamstring injury issues that seem to never go away. They’re one of the most common injuries among athletes and studies have shown that reoccurrence rates of these injuries are high as well. With these two ideas in mind, hamstring injury prevention should be top priority for athletes who sports require them to complete high intense sprints and changes of direction. To start off, we need to know what the hamstrings do. The
Coaching the Mental and Emotional Side of ACL Rehab
If you’re an athlete or an active person over the age of 30, you’ve had enough years to understand that life is a series of ups and downs, and to explore different activities that bring you happiness and a sense of fulfillment. But for a dedicated teenage competitor, a serious injury such as an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear can be devastating because their identity, sense of self-value, and dreams about their future are often tied to success in a given sport. And, the younger they are, the harder it is
The Road Back
The road back from an injury is often long and filled with a lot of ups and downs. There are weeks that we feel like we’re on the right track and will be better than before. Along with those weeks, there are also some where we feel as if we’ll never be back to doing what we love. Weeks can be unpredictable at times and it’s both mentally and physically draining. In those dark and hard times our mental toughness will be tested and we need the right mentality. That
Preventing the ACL Injury Epidemic
In recent years, we have seen a steady increase in the number of ACL injuries, particularly in young female athletes. Why is this happening and how can we prevent it? There are a multitude of possible reason for it, but the good news is that it is preventable. Much of the cause is due to the increased participation in sports over the past 30 years, and particularly the increased participation in women’s sports. Women are naturally prone to suffering ACL injuries because of a series of anatomical factors working against
5 Tips For Reducing Your Risk For Lower Body Injuries
"What could I have done to prevent this?" I asked myself that question everyday for five months while struggling to walk up the front steps of my middle school in crutches. When I was fourteen I suffered an awful ankle injury playing basketball. I was in a cast for what felt like a lifetime. I was miserable and extremely upset that I couldn’t play basketball. When the cast was finally removed, I went through physical therapy and that's when my passion for exercise science blossomed. After about two sessions it dawned
What is Physical Therapy Post-Rehab?
The Physical Therapy (PT) Post-Rehab program at Olympia Fitness + Performance is a collaboration between your strength coach, your physical therapist and you, the client. It is a focused program where you can work on taking the next step from PT to active life. Each party has distinct yet overlapping responsibilities. The physical therapist diagnoses the source of your pain and dysfunction, and prescribes a treatment plan to bring you to the point where you are largely pain-free. At this stage, you then transfer to working with a strength coach, who
Knee Injuries and Female Athletes
The last thing any athlete or parent wants to hear is that they need a whole year to recover from a serious knee injury. Too often young female athletes suffer from knee injuries that sideline them for a good chunk of time and take them away from the joy of playing their respected sport. Sadly, female athletes are more prone to knee injuries than their male counterparts. There are multiple reasons for this and they include anatomy, core stability, and conditioning. So what can young women do? Should they avoid participating
Injury Prevention: Why Do We Work on Single Leg Balance?
Successful single-leg balance can be defined as your ability to maintain upright body posture without having to step down or grab onto something. In more scientific terms, it refers to the ability of your central nervous system to keep the body’s center of mass within safe boundaries above the base of support (your foot) during or after perturbation. Perturbation is commonly defined as a disturbance of motion, course, arrangement, or state of equilibrium. Some examples of disturbances include an unstable surface, body contact with another athlete or an unexpected obstacle, or