A common expression among various fitness circles is “there’s no such thing as overtraining, just under-recovering”. Regardless of your stance on the topic of overtraining it warrants further discussion. For instance, an individual may experience all the symptoms of overtraining but simply not be getting sufficient sleep to support their recovery. Once sleep is corrected, their performance will return to...

One of the least discussed components to an athlete’s workout programming is the workout warm up. This piece of your workout will get your body prepared for optimal performance and should not be ignored. In this article, I’ll outline how athletes should structure their workout warm up and then share several examples of warming up for specific movement patterns. Workout...

In this video, we talk about shoulder pain with kipping pull-ups and muscle-ups and four of the most common things we see leading to people getting irritated shoulders during those movements. We also recently discussed this topic on the Performance Plus podcast! Shoulder Pain with Kipping Pull-Ups Issue # 1 – The Stiff Shoulder The first thing’s going to be,...

The deadlift can be one of the best exercises for building total body strength and improving the health of your spine. But many athletes get recurring low back pain after deadlifts. If that is you, then we will share the most common causes of this to help you get past deadlifts being an aggravating activity. Low Back Pain After Deadlifts...

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...