Blog
15 Jun Why I Walked Away From My Career As A Physical Therapist
You should probably know that this article is potentially the most painful article I've ever written.
Painful because I'm openly sharing why I chose to walk away from a great profession.
As a matter of fact, this one is going to take some courage to hit the "publish" button.
It's been several years now since I walked away from my role as a clinician.
I was an orthopedic physical therapist (hopefully, a damn good one too).
I still get a lot of questions about why I left the clinic?
Until now, I've never shared the full story, but because I'm asked about this so often, it's time.
(*Special "thank you" to Tami and Luis for your recent questions. It was your questions that formed the basis for this article).
Keep in mind that there are lessons in this article for every reader.
Do I regret leaving PT?
I'll explain soon.
Things happen for a reason and it’s the choices we make that shape our lives.
22 May The “Gap” In Physical Therapy (Why Most Physical Therapists Don’t Understand Strength And What We Can Do About It)
I was recently talking to a top strength coach.
He was telling me about his experience at a strength seminar where he was doing a presentation for a group of physical therapists.
What he told me was that he was shocked to discover that the group of physical therapist’s had very little knowledge of barbell training - and strength training in general, for that matter.
As a former physical therapist, I was quick to point out that there was indeed an “educational gap” in the training for physical therapists (PT’s) and that I wasn’t surprised at all by his comments.
I do think the tide is changing in today’s world.
For me personally, I was a “lifter” long before I was a PT (I’ll talk more about that in a minute).
The Gap
24 Apr How The Turkish Get-Up Benefits Everyone
The more I learn about human movement and strength, the more I'm convinced of one thing. A well executed Turkish get-up (TGU) or get-up will make anyone who performs it better and stronger. The get-up is beautiful strength. That is, moving better and moving stronger. It's being more resilient. How phenomenal is the get-up? While, I hate to use the word "magical" about any one exercise or approach, the get-up is about as magnificent as I've seen. It's truly a "one-stop-shop" for many things. Here's a quick list of benefits from this "ancient" exercise:
28 Mar Here’s The Secret To Getting Stronger
The more I learn through the years, the more I'm convinced about one thing. To achieve greatness, you have to be willing to stick to the basics. What are the basics? More in a minute about that. This is perhaps one of the most important questions in fitness and...
07 Mar How To Beat Low Back Pain (A Bulletproof Plan To Speed Recovery And Forge A Strong Back)
I've got quite a backstory. Literally. I'll give you the abbreviated "cliff notes version" if you haven't heard me discuss this before. I had a major low back injury many years ago in my training career (*severe L4-5 disc herniation with persistent radiculopathy that required surgery. Indeed, it did require surgery after conservative measures failed and symptoms worsened quickly and progressively). Fast forward to today. My back is doing extremely well, although it will never be 100%. In my opinion, you are never 100% anytime you have had a major injury. What was one of the worst experiences of my life ended up completely reshaping my training and my entire life in many ways that go way beyond the scope of this article. My injury was one of the key factors that led to me becoming a physical therapist (although I have since retired my role as a active clinician). Today, I'm strength coach and movement teacher that integrates my education and background as a PT.
28 Feb The Essential Guide To Warming-Up (How To Warm-Up)
How important is the the warm-up? How much time should be spent on the warm-up? What should you be spending your time on before a strength training session? I'll make a case to answer these questions for you in this article. Let me be the first to tell you, I'm not a huge fan of warming-up before training. If it were up to me, I'd skip the warm-up and just train. But, that really doesn't make sense. A well designed warm-up can increase muscle temperature, core temperature, and increase blood flow. Have you ever heard someone say they were "trying to get the blood flowing" before a training session? Well, there seems to be truth to that statement. But it goes deeper than that and there are other important reasons to warm-up.
14 Feb 5 Specific Things You Can Do On Active Recovery Days
No doubt, you train hard. Hard training means you need to recover.
The question came up recently in a group discussion - "What do you do on active recovery days?"
It's an interesting question. I felt like I wanted to share it here and expand a little more.
Active recovery days are for recovering, they're not training days. As a highly regarded strength coach stated, "You don't get stronger by lifting weights. You get strong by recovering from lifting weights." The point is that recovery is very important for all of us, my fellow strength enthusiast.
First, we have to define what it is we're talking about.
What exactly are active recovery days anyway?