When discussing the thoracic spine (upper back), we often focus on the importance of mobility in this area. Limitations in upper back range of motion can have a huge impact on your overhead mobility, neck pain, and lower back health. But weakness of the thoracic spine is not commonly discussed. But if you are doing front squats, cleans, and deadlifts,...

Many athletes trying to push their squat weight up end up dealing with shoulder pain with squatting. While we don’t commonly associate the back squat with upper-body injuries, this is far more common than you might think. But breaking down your upper body mobility and addressing tightness can help alleviate this issue while you use other squat variations to continue...

I’m frequently asked by athletes and other clinicians what makes good CrossFit programming. Writing a training plan for a gym following the principles of using “constantly varied, functional movements, performed at high intensity” is incredibly difficult even for veteran programmers. When I’m analyzing CrossFit programming, there are a few “red flags” that I look for in the plan. Things that...

We often think of nutrition, hydration, and mobility work in our preparation for sports. But how often have you considered your internal core temperature or ways to regulate that to improve your performance? Probably not very often. But, simple tactics like palm cooling have been shown to have dramatic effects in athletics. Let’s discuss how. Thermoregulation and Performance In the...

Developing a strong skillset as an orthopedic physical therapist requires a broad range of skills. We must be able to create buy-in with our patients, analyze movement, and formulate a plan to attack areas of weakness. The following are the best physical therapy books I’ve read to address all three of these areas. I hope they help you in the...

I am frequently asked what the best blood flow restriction bands are. As with any trend in the fitness world, many manufacturers have designed blood flow restriction products recently to match the growing demands for BFR equipment. Like most fitness tools, the best set of BFR bands is highly related to your goals. Unfortunately, some devices on the market have...

The hip thrust, popularized by Bret Contreras, is one of the most widely used exercises for targeting glute strength and hypertrophy. This movement takes the standard glute bridge and increases the difficulty by elevating the shoulders for a greater range of motion. A variety of different variations will allow us to increase the intensity of the hip thrust for more...

The psoas march is one of the best exercises for strengthening the hip flexors and abdominal muscles. It’s effectiveness makes it a staple in many programs I write for addressing hip impingement, hip flexor tightness, diastasis recti, and low back pain. If you’re looking to improve any of those areas, then these psoas march (PM) variations will be sure to crush...

The GHD Sit Up is one of the most challenging abdominal exercises in all of fitness. This exercises takes the abdominal muscles through a larger range of motion as the spine extends and flexes during the GHD sit up than most “core” exercises commonly used. This large motion results in the GHD sit up being incredibly challenging and many athletes...