by Miles Nicholas, PT, DPT, CSCS, FDN-C >> Request an Appointment There is no avoidance of wholeheartedly toast legs after your first few trips to the ski slopes! But there are things you can do in the weeks/months leading up to ski season that will lessen the degree to which this fatigue affects your performance throughout the day and reduces the risk of fatigue-related injury. I’d recommend starting with general strengthening activities such as squats, deadlifts, lunges, and calf training in addition to jumping tasks (plyometrics). Our “ACL Risk Reduction” blog provides a rough ov ..read more

by TH (TomHenry) David, PT, DPT >> Request an Appointment We see a lot of climbers here at Evolution for finger injuries. Fingers are obviously extremely important for climbing and, just like any other joint, need to be warmed up and like varied loads! There are many joints and muscles in the fingers and hands, and we often see that people tend to favor certain grip types over others. However, this can repetitively stress the joints, tissues, and muscles of the hand to a point of discomfort or lead to injury. Here are some simple exercises to warm up your wrist and fingers before ..read more

by Charlotte Huang, PT, DPT, LSVT-BIG, FDN-C >> Request an Appointment Why are speed and power development important? As humans age, we tend to lose our speed and power development first before we lose our strength and muscle size. Take a second and think about the last time that you got hurt. Half of the time, it’s reported that something was done too fast, which caused pain or injury. Training encompasses more than just training the muscles. It all comes down to our nervous system – both speed and power development are considered high intensity to our nervous system. We need to t ..read more

by Nikki Patel, PT, DPT, MS, LAT, ATC >> Request an Appointment Target Audience: athletes, coaches, parents ACL rehabs are typically a long and grueling process that require a lot of hard work, dedication and effort to make sure your athletes are rehabbed to their optimal performance. Coaches/parents are one of the first gatekeepers to seeing these athletes once they return to sport and are discharged from physical therapy. This is especially true if the team these athletes play for doesn’t have an Athletic Trainer on staff. The purpose of this article is to educate athletes, coaches and ..read more

By TH (TomHenry) David, PT, DPT >> Request an Appointment We don’t talk much about ankles in climbing. We talk about pulleys, sick crimps, and that kid that just stomped your project. Well, I’m here to tell you that your ankles are important and that they are critical for toe hooking. The interesting thing about toe-hooking is that it utilizes a set of muscles that aren’t typically loaded while climbing. Your calf muscles and toe flexor muscles are loaded every time you step onto a hold and keep your heel raised. But the muscles that bring your ankle and toes upward, specifically y ..read more

By Emily Herbster, PT, DPT >> Request an Appointment To be a well-rounded climber and handle a wide variety of routes, we need to develop power. Power is strength divided by time, or in other words, the explosiveness that comes from using your muscles quickly and maximally, for example, squatting for strength versus jumping for power. With power in climbing, it’s important to be able to coordinate your movement precisely in order to stick the next hold. These moves often involve some type of single leg push off, single or double arm pull up, and a catch on extended arms. Below are ..read more

By Thomas Martinho, PT, DPT >> Request an Appointment Swimming is a full body sport, however upper body mobility is especially important for both swimming efficiently and avoiding injury. Swimmers typically struggle the most with the mobility and control in the recovery portion of the stroke. The recovery portion is when the athlete brings the hand out of the water and enters it back above head. This movement requires a combination of thoracic rotation, scapular retraction, shoulder extension and internal rotation, followed by scapular upward rotation and shoulder flexion/abduction ..read more

By Becca Wezensky, PT, DPT, OCS >> Request an Appointment Many climbers have experienced pain at either the medial (climber’s) or lateral (tennis) elbow at some point during training or peak season. Any quick google search for these conditions will bring up wrist flexion and extension strengthening and stretching; however, these exercises fail to treat possible irritation to the nerves passing through the arm on their way to our fingers. Without making things too complicated, our nerves are the pathway for signals to be sent back and forth between the brain and the rest of our body. Ner ..read more

By Riley Kerr, PT, DPT, ATC, TPI >> Request an Appointment Golf is one of the most frustrating sports in the world. Those who know, know (trust me… I’m one of those that really knows.) For many, the pursuit of the perfect golf swing is often made more frustrating by injuries and pain that hinder performance and overall enjoyment of the game. Most often, this pain happens in the low back. Golf is literally a pain in the back. So why do so many golfers experience low back pain and what can we do about it? Understanding the Kinetic Chain The golf swing places enormous demand on the body an ..read more

By Cory Szostowski, PT, DPT, DN-C >> Request an Appointment Biking requires constant gripping and pressure through the arms to control the bike. This can lead to increased compression through nerves and vascular leading to riders experiencing numbness/tingling into their hand. Symptoms usually only happen intermittently, resolving once pressure is relieved, but there are some riders who experience persistent/recurring tingling and numbness that limits their ability to ride long distances and enjoy riding.  Symptoms commonly stem from excessive stress on the ulnar nerve at guyon’s c ..read more