The Art of Manliness - January 16, 2018


#371: The Best Ways to Rehab From Injury


Episode Stats

Length

59 minutes

Words per Minute

191.86551

Word Count

11,504

Sentence Count

7

Misogynist Sentences

4


Summary

Dr. Darren Deaton is a physical therapist, a CrossFit coach, and a Starting Strength Coach. In this episode, Dr. Deaton discusses the common myths people have about the safety of barbell training and why family practitioners and physical therapists contribute to the existence of those myths. He then explains why strength training is the best tool for rehabbing an injury and why the reason you have a bad back in the first place is because your back isn't strong enough to support a barbell.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast whenever you
00:00:18.760 experience an injury or have a niggling pain in your lower back you probably decide to completely
00:00:22.880 rest up so that whatever ails you can heal and recover but then the pain doesn't go away so
00:00:27.500 introduce some light isolation movements to help with recovery but the pain still doesn't go away
00:00:31.500 so you rest some more and pretty soon it's been months or even years since you've done anything
00:00:35.080 that resembles real exercise my guest today argues that if you want the pain to go away you got to get
00:00:39.660 off the barker lounger and under a barbell his name is dr darren deaton he's a physical therapist
00:00:44.280 crossfit coach and a starting strength coach and today on the show darren and i discuss the common
00:00:48.600 myths people have about the safety of barbell training and why family practitioners and physical
00:00:52.400 therapists contribute to the existence of those myths darren then explains why strength training
00:00:56.220 is the best tool for rehabbing an injury and why the reason you have a bad back in the first place
00:01:00.660 is because your back isn't sufficiently strong darren and i then discuss his overall philosophy
00:01:04.540 and approach for rehabbing patients utilizing barbell lifts as well as other physical therapy modalities
00:01:08.960 we then get into specific injuries that barbell lifters and runners experience and how to rehab them
00:01:13.340 we end our conversation discussing the effectiveness of practices like dry needling and electrical stimulation
00:01:17.860 and recovering from persistent pains and injuries after the show is over check out the show notes at
00:01:21.840 aoweb.is slash deaton darren deaton welcome to the show thanks thanks for having me so you and i we
00:01:36.600 met a few years ago at a starting strength seminar because you're a starting strength coach who is
00:01:43.140 auditing the seminar so it's one of the requirements and so we've interacted before then but you've got
00:01:47.600 interesting background besides being a starting strength coach tell us a little more about yourself
00:01:50.920 and what you do sure so i've been a doctor of physical therapy for 28 years i'm the founding
00:01:57.000 partner of a orthopedic and neuro physical therapy practice group dallas for north texas area i'm also a
00:02:04.140 starting strength coach i think i've been a starting strength coach since 2012 or 13 and i'm on starting
00:02:10.660 strengths staff on the seminar staff teach at some of the seminars i'm also a usaw sports performance
00:02:17.600 coach coach and also a crossfit level what they call level three trainer so i've gone through three different
00:02:26.440 levels of their coaching training so i've had a varied background in fitness my wife and i actually met
00:02:33.140 over 30 years ago when i was actually 31 and a half years ago when i was 19 years old in a health club
00:02:41.380 i was a personal trainer of sorts and she worked there also and that's that's kind of where we met
00:02:47.720 there in the junior college too when i was taking some summer classes so so i've been in the fitness
00:02:52.780 industry in the uh for you know over 30 plus years i've been in physical therapy for close to that too so
00:02:59.620 the background that i have in relationship to the the lifting community is uh more specifically with
00:03:06.500 starting strength i'm also a starting strength online coach on the starting strength online coaching
00:03:12.380 product that matt reynolds started a little over a year ago which is a great product for lifters who
00:03:19.100 don't have access to a personal coach one-on-one in a physical presence it's great to have good eyes on
00:03:26.820 coaching so that's that's about my background i think that i'm a little different in the sense that and
00:03:31.500 so are my clinics i have two partners in my practices we have four different locations here
00:03:36.620 in the area and in our practice we have a barbell rack or a squat rack i guess you would say a power
00:03:43.940 rack barbells bumper plates steel plates and we use a lot of traditional barbell training in our
00:03:51.460 clinics for strength training because we feel like it's probably the most effective tool that we have
00:03:56.080 in our hands so that's that's pretty much it all right so barbell training your primary
00:04:01.280 practice which is weird because you're a physical therapist i've been to the seminar i've i've in at
00:04:07.040 the seminar rip like pretty much went after a physical therapist like they don't know anything
00:04:11.220 so how did you a physical therapist get into starting strength barbell training particularly
00:04:16.420 starting strength so basically i went to the the starting strength seminar i think in 2012
00:04:23.320 that's when i got my certification i got this my certification at the same time you know i attended the
00:04:28.800 first seminar sat for the platform test passed the platform test and the exam and then became a
00:04:34.120 strength coach but there was a period of time there for probably at least three to four years where i did
00:04:41.120 very little within the community of starting strength just because of my practice life was busy
00:04:46.160 i had crossfit gyms but as a you know i was i'm a big reader when it comes to strength
00:04:51.840 and so i kept reading you know i've read starting strength the barbell method and then also practical
00:04:58.120 programming and then several other texts and it just continued to intrigue me so i continued to follow
00:05:03.240 it and later i i ended up getting involved again back with the starting strength community i'm now on
00:05:10.360 staff as a staffer do staff some of the seminars but you know if you as you know when you go to the when
00:05:16.900 you go to the seminar pts are not held in a very high light and and in a lot of ways that's to be
00:05:23.100 they earn that because of the way that we have talked about strength training and barbell training
00:05:28.760 within the medical community so it's hard it's hard to survive as a pt in the starting strength
00:05:34.400 community you have to have pretty thick skin but i think that it makes sense to me barbell training is
00:05:41.980 very methodical it's very predictable and also from a science standpoint when you think about physics
00:05:48.460 and moment arms and loads and force production it you it just makes sense to a to a didactically
00:05:55.840 thinking mind someone who is very analytical it makes sense and so i couldn't get rid of that
00:06:00.920 the more that i learned the more that i got around other starting strength coaches and and mark
00:06:06.020 ripito the more i realized that this this is really the method that i want to promote as the
00:06:12.340 primary strength training model both in my clinics and also in my gyms so let's talk about some of the
00:06:18.840 myths that exist in the medical field but particularly the physical therapy professions we've had jordan
00:06:24.040 feigenbaum on the show who's a medical doctor also starting strength coach we talked about some of the
00:06:28.160 the myths that even just like family practitioners have about barbell training in particular but what are the
00:06:33.840 the big ones you see in the pt world about weight training or barbell training in particular well
00:06:41.060 first i think i think the average consumer or client of a of the medical community needs to understand
00:06:47.360 that when it comes to strength training when it comes to the development of strength pts probably pts
00:06:55.040 definitely get more academic training than medical physicians both deos and mds do but physicians get very
00:07:03.120 little um education when it comes to strength training endurance training just just anything
00:07:09.600 outside of of medicine and so the idea that a physician would be the expert in that field or even
00:07:16.600 you know the the physical therapist um is is probably not accurate but a lot of the misconceptions that
00:07:23.520 are out there is first of all when it comes to the barbells that it's you know the movements are
00:07:26.960 dangerous that you should isolate movements that you should do individual exercises that are smaller
00:07:33.680 movements and there are some cases where we have to be careful with patients when we're talking about
00:07:37.840 the rehabilitation side post-operative care injuries where there's structural issues then there are
00:07:43.840 certain times where we have to be careful about how we intervene with those exercise activities but
00:07:48.800 there is a significant difference as you know between exercise and training and so i think it's i think
00:07:54.480 it's important that people recognize that that the barbell is is probably in my mind at least and i think
00:08:00.560 in a lot of the minds of a lot of strength coaches and several pts i know and physicians like like jordan
00:08:06.480 and austin baracki he's also a physician dr jonathan sullivan and that would be that the barbell can be a
00:08:12.480 great tool it's very safe a lot of people think it's not safe but it's extremely safe it promotes
00:08:18.480 compound movement versus isolated movement and we know that compound movement is safer to the
00:08:25.040 joint because it stabilizes the joint it stabilizes the surrounding tissue if that makes sense gotcha
00:08:30.160 yeah so i mean whenever i've preached you know hey to people you need to get started with barbell
00:08:35.280 training i've had a lot of guys particularly older guys in their 40s or 50s they say they've got a bad
00:08:40.320 back is that something that can prevent people from barbell training if they you know have got a
00:08:44.800 a bulging disc or something like that what what goes on there what's your prognosis as a physical
00:08:50.240 therapist no i i think that the last thing that someone needs to do is stop strength training when
00:08:55.120 it comes to the back injury you know a strong back is a healthier back and we know that through the
00:09:00.880 literature now and through research that a back that's weak hurts more backs that have larger muskature
00:09:07.920 better stability and support it supports the the tissue that's been damaged it supports the disc
00:09:14.560 the ligament and structures and the the spine itself so you know i i don't tell too many people
00:09:21.200 this but most of the people that that hang around with me my circles know this but two years ago i i had
00:09:28.240 four low back surgeries in the same calendar year so i had three laminectomy disectomies at the same
00:09:35.360 level and then i eventually had a lumbar fusion at l4 l5 so as a pt you know that's you know when you
00:09:42.160 think about that as the the myriads of patients that i've treated all these years it's that was
00:09:47.760 pretty discouraging but i had a condition called spondylolisthesis i had an unstable segment the
00:09:53.520 only way to finally take care of that was through surgery so and i'll just tell you that getting back
00:09:59.200 under the barbell over the last two years has been the best thing that i could have ever done for my back
00:10:04.960 the other day i i squatted for three sets of five my my old pr for a single rep prior to back surgery
00:10:11.360 i'm dead lifting for a set of five what i used to pr and so you know when i talk to clients specifically
00:10:18.640 patients but also members that were within our gyms or when i have one-on-one clients through strength
00:10:23.440 training sessions i tell them you know there's a lot of misconception out there about lifting weights
00:10:28.320 and bad backs if you're a physician or within the community that you hang around with if they tell
00:10:34.000 you you know you don't need to be lifting heavy weights anymore the one thing we hear all the time
00:10:38.720 is that you've probably heard this right don't don't lift more than 10 pounds right
00:10:43.600 i mean don't lift more than 10 you're never to lift anything more than 10 pounds and don't ever
00:10:48.320 bend over you should squat with your legs only well you and i know that that's that's not the proper
00:10:53.520 way to use the hip in the back it's a lever so it should be used as a lever that back needs to stay
00:10:58.720 straight but the hip is the driving force for that the hip the glutes the hamstrings and so what we
00:11:06.640 try to do with our patients now and our clinics and what i try to do with my strength training clients
00:11:11.920 is help them understand anyone can lift a barbell and get stronger in the hips and low back a lot of
00:11:19.360 back pain is what we call non-specific low back pain and the best way to treat that is with strength
00:11:24.400 training yeah i think that's a great point because i've read that in other places that there's like
00:11:29.200 research on like home depot employees who wear those back braces they tend to have more back
00:11:35.760 injuries than people who don't wear the braces right because they they're basically relying on
00:11:41.280 that belt to act as an exoskeleton for them so they get a week back and then whenever they're at
00:11:46.240 home with the thing off and they pick up a load of laundry they pull their back and then they they're
00:11:51.680 out for a while yeah i think there's this mindset or this thought line that's created that it can be
00:11:56.880 pretty pervasive and that is you know you're you shouldn't use your back this way or you shouldn't
00:12:01.520 use your back this way and i think they develop a mindset that you you have to be careful with
00:12:06.560 your back well sure you have to be careful with a lot of things but but being careful and assessing
00:12:12.240 risk is different than um being uh just cautious about things you know i mean some people are just
00:12:19.120 so overly cautious they develop weakness and i i'll give you a good example i had a patient this
00:12:24.240 morning that i treated that's a post-op shoulder patient and it's very similar to to you know the same
00:12:29.840 situation with the back patient and that is his physician told him i don't ever want you to lift
00:12:34.880 overhead again with your shoulder and so my question to that doctor might be and to that patient might
00:12:40.720 be well did did he feel like did the physician feel like that he got a good repair in your shoulder a
00:12:46.320 good what we call purchase of the hardware or the tendon or whatever he repaired in the shoulder
00:12:51.920 well the patient said yes he said my shoulder was the perfect shoulder to perform this procedure on
00:12:57.120 so if the shoulder joint is designed to raise up over your head why wouldn't you go back to
00:13:03.680 strengthening it in that method and use it it just functionally makes sense well the same with the
00:13:08.960 back the only difference is with the back a lot of people don't know how to lift they don't recognize
00:13:15.200 how to use the hip and they definitely do very little strengthening on a day-to-day basis when it comes to
00:13:20.320 the low back so what does let's say someone who's never lifted before they've got an issue like that
00:13:27.120 either an issue with their back or a shoulder i know shoulders are very common with folks
00:13:32.800 as a practitioner and as a coach like how do you go about introducing them to barbell training well
00:13:39.760 would you know it matters where i see them if i see them in a clinical environment the approach is
00:13:45.520 it's similar but the you know i'm in my medical world there if that makes sense um there are some
00:13:52.160 you know let's say a physician has uh ordered pt for the patient prescribed pt and i'm seeing them
00:13:58.240 because they had a lumbar sprain and strain or they have a bulging disc or what they would call a
00:14:02.400 quote-unquote bad back i might treat them a little bit different but we still go into education we talk
00:14:08.000 about using the hips as a lever we talk about using the the back in a straight angle that the back stays
00:14:15.040 in a nice locked straight position when we lift and then we go through and we start teaching them
00:14:20.160 how to deadlift how to back squat i teach them the overhead press too because that builds the the
00:14:25.440 midline stability the core strength and then we gradually also add other assistive exercises in
00:14:31.440 also but a lot of people when they think of spine strength they think of the abs right right i'm going
00:14:37.200 to do sit-ups to get my abs strong right the problem with that is that that's not how the spine
00:14:43.520 and the abdominal wall actually functions on a day-to-day basis in the human body it's mostly
00:14:48.880 an isometric muscle group it's a it's a group of muscles that stabilize the spine through isometric
00:14:55.280 contraction throughout the day and then when you volitionally want to use the the spine to lift
00:15:00.320 something heavier then you valve salva you tighten up keep that back nice and straight and you you hinge
00:15:06.640 at the hip and so those are the kind of things that we teach the number one thing is is i educate
00:15:11.920 them on the front end that this is the proper way to use your hips and your back you can be lifting you
00:15:18.800 can get strong over time and you can get stronger probably than you ever thought you could be
00:15:23.920 but the biggest limiting factor is going to be their mind we've got to change their mindset
00:15:28.560 so we gradually work them through their rehab program if they're a patient
00:15:32.320 we put them then i put them into a barbell program give them some basic level programming they
00:15:37.040 can either do that on their own in a local gym or they can then come and see me as a strength coach
00:15:42.560 and we'll work with them one-on-one and then put them on a program also gotcha okay so the bottom
00:15:46.720 line is if you have an issue and you've been leery of getting into strength training but you've been
00:15:50.720 wanting to don't be afraid go in it go seek professional advice but what do you do like you go to a pt
00:15:56.800 who's not a starting strength coach and they're gonna give you the typical advice of here's a soup can
00:16:01.520 and you know do a shoulder like what do you do if that's what they prescribe well i mean in every
00:16:09.840 community there's there's a differing level of expertise in every single community and you know
00:16:14.160 years ago i've been in the fitness industry my wife and i met when i was 19 years old in a health club
00:16:19.920 where i was a quote-unquote personal trainer i'm not real sure what i knew back then but i was a personal
00:16:25.200 trainer but you know in every industry we have varying levels of expertise and so i wouldn't
00:16:33.680 say necessarily because a physical therapist is a licensed pt that they actually possess the knowledge
00:16:41.120 or the experience base to do the type of strength training that that i think is effective or that you
00:16:49.520 might think is effective now based on the fact that you do starting strength um so it's kind of
00:16:55.520 difficult sometimes you you're not real sure what you're going to get yourself into but but i can say
00:17:00.320 this and if you're a patient and you've been treated for low back pain and you're not getting the results
00:17:06.000 that you want from your physical therapist and and or your doctor whoever you're seeing your
00:17:10.160 chiropractor whatever medical professional or alternative medicine person you've you've sought um you can go to
00:17:17.600 startingstrengthonlinecoaching.com and you can you can seek out a starting strength coach and and i can
00:17:23.680 say this that every single coach that's on that staff has an expertise level on how to do barbell
00:17:30.000 training and could probably help you work through your black back pain and getting back to a healthy
00:17:37.120 strong back where you can live a successful lifestyle that's one thing i know for sure so in a in a local
00:17:43.760 sense if you're dealing with a physical therapist that you feel like you're not making the headway
00:17:48.240 that you want to make then reach out to starting strength online coaching you could also reach out
00:17:53.440 to me and i could hopefully find you someone in your area that's a little bit more strength minded as a
00:17:58.240 therapist you know most most physical therapists they mean well and i think there's a lot of great
00:18:03.680 physical therapists out there that are very strength minded today and we do see a trend in the world of
00:18:08.960 physical therapy to move toward a more active strength training mindset a more preventative
00:18:16.080 mindset but we still have a lot of physical therapists in our community too that they're just
00:18:20.080 not effective in their ability to create true muscle hypertrophy strength and adaptive change in the
00:18:26.320 patient so when we had jordan feigenbaum on the show dr jordan feigenbaum on the show and you know he
00:18:31.360 he highlighted the research that basically shows that weight training is probably one of the safest
00:18:34.720 activities you can take part in like soccer is you're more likely to get injured playing soccer
00:18:41.040 than you are lifting weights with that said it is possible in the in the process of your training to
00:18:47.600 get banged up experience injuries some hurts so in your experience as a coach and as a physical
00:18:54.800 therapist practitioner what are the most common i don't know if you want to call them injuries or
00:18:59.520 just dings to the body that you see whenever someone's barbell training and i think the same
00:19:04.960 the thing we see the most probably low back sprain and strains a lot of times you know if you're
00:19:10.400 training with if you're doing any type of training it's not it's not if an injury is going to occur
00:19:16.160 it's really it's really when when in your training career your training life are you going to get
00:19:22.000 injured i mean you can get injured bending over and pick picking up a pencil and and probably it has
00:19:27.920 happened through cumulative trauma over time improper lifting lack of strength in that segment lack of
00:19:34.320 activity in your lifestyle maybe a sedentary lifestyle so you know there are a lot of things
00:19:38.880 in life that that cause injuries but the the most common injuries that we see would be low back
00:19:44.400 sprains and strains shoulder sprains and strains that would probably eventually kind of show themselves
00:19:49.520 as rotator cuff injuries most likely groin strains like a you know an adductor strain through squatting
00:19:55.760 hamstring strains and sprains and then also sometimes we see some bicep tendonitis elbow
00:20:01.120 tendonitis from barbell training just like we do any other type of training but like you said the
00:20:07.920 injury rate in barbell training is extremely low and and this is a this is an interesting just little
00:20:14.400 tidbit of information years back it's been two or three years back i was doing some studying on
00:20:19.440 olympic weightlifting and and you know what olympic weightlifting that would be the clean and jerk and
00:20:24.160 the snatch so that's a dynamic effort that's speed-based this power-based strength-based but
00:20:31.840 there's a lot of movement in a very broad range of motion okay so it's even less predictable than
00:20:39.600 barbell weight training where you're doing let's say the press the bench press the back squat and the
00:20:46.720 deadlift but i was doing some studies i was doing a study probably two or three years back because i was
00:20:53.200 talking to some parents about using olympic weightlifting for dynamic effort explosiveness
00:20:59.760 for younger athletes and at the time i believe it was the american college of pediatric medicine
00:21:06.640 had come out with a position statement working with dr kyle pierce who works with the usaw to
00:21:13.680 support they eventually said that if if a child if an adolescent was going to strength train or do a
00:21:20.320 strength training program then a safe way to do it would be something like olympic weightlifting
00:21:27.680 because number one it's coached number two it's predictable and number three it's something that can
00:21:34.000 be linear based you can gradually increase the loads over time as technique improves and as strength
00:21:39.280 improves and expertise and so you know i think about that in this format if if olympic weightlifting
00:21:47.840 is that safe for that young population how much more safe would just classical barbell training be
00:21:56.880 where it's there is not as much speed there's not as much dynamic effort it's more a controllable
00:22:03.120 motion so that's the one thing i love about barbell training is i know that when my client walks into
00:22:09.440 the gym or into the clinic that next day i know exactly what they're going to do how they're going to do
00:22:15.760 it i know the set and rep scheme there's there's no unknowns and to me to be able to do that and to
00:22:23.040 track that over time day in day out there's this gradual progressional linear model that's developed
00:22:30.160 that creates strength and the other thing is the connective tissue the connective tissue gets gradually
00:22:36.000 stronger over time so the likelihood of an injury is much less apparent than if i just went in and did
00:22:44.880 some random exercise workout if that makes sense right so you just go into the gym you like go to
00:22:49.520 all the different machines at a random whatever she just yeah and i i think i think people have a
00:22:56.000 misconception about barbell training because let's face it you go into any larger globo gym you go into
00:23:00.880 any facility and and you see people doing things that that well you know now based on on being trained
00:23:07.760 in a classical barbell program and having a great coach you know now that that there's a certain way to
00:23:13.440 lift a barbell there's a skill right it's it's not random it's very specific and it's very methodical
00:23:20.320 well there's a lot of stuff that goes on in gyms that you just you just have to roll your eyes at
00:23:24.400 it's just it's it's not good training it's not training at all it's exercise and like rip rip says
00:23:29.600 you know it's exercise is getting hot sweaty and tired but training is outcome driven
00:23:34.080 it's it's specific and we we're doing something to create a change in the human body
00:23:39.440 whatever that change is whatever that physiological change is but but that's the beautiful thing of
00:23:44.720 barbell training and and that's why i think it can be so effective in a rehab model too is because it
00:23:49.280 is predictive because the patient or the client gradually increases over time just like they
00:23:54.960 would in any other rehabilitation program we just happen to be using the barbell more often
00:23:59.440 our clinics all four of our clinics that we presently have have barbells in them
00:24:03.360 we have you know standard weights i guess you would say plate weights we have everything from
00:24:07.760 fractional plates to 45 pound plates and then we also have squat racks power racks in each one of
00:24:13.920 our clinics and so our therapists use that some therapists would use it more than others but you'll
00:24:19.440 see that most of my patients use the barbell rack almost every single patient will have some application
00:24:24.320 with it so there's a lot to unpack there with some of the stuff you said i want to go back to the
00:24:28.880 kids in weightlifting because that's a question we often get the kids people want to get their kids
00:24:33.760 with weightlifting but they probably heard the the rumor that the old wives tell that when you say
00:24:38.960 that's what they're called nowadays like that you know it stunts their growth because it somehow
00:24:42.160 damages growth plates is there anything true to that or is that a bunch of bunk no i mean that's a bunch
00:24:47.040 of bunk i mean i think there is a an age as they're going through their stages of development
00:24:52.320 their skeletal development where we have to be more careful than than other ages but you know with with
00:24:57.840 younger clients let's say clients that are 12 13 14 and and not all let's let's just say 13 14 year
00:25:05.120 olds not all 13 year olds have the same skeletal development as all all 13 year olds there there's
00:25:12.080 a difference they may be a little bit farther into puberty they may have more skeletal development
00:25:18.480 they may be carrying more muscle mass you can have a you can have a 13 year old that that's very
00:25:23.200 underdeveloped and you can have a 13 year old that's that's you know six foot one inches tall
00:25:27.760 and 200 pounds and and very developed uh physiologically or physically in regards to skeletal
00:25:33.360 structure so you know the key thing we do with younger clients is first of all we teach them form we
00:25:38.800 teach them how to move the barbell and that's built off of repetition and coaching so in cueing and
00:25:44.400 teaching them so we teach them first we cue them and we coach them through all those movements to make
00:25:49.200 make sure that they're sound and safe let them have fun while they're in the gym and then a little
00:25:53.920 bit later in life then we gradually start adding load and put them into a novice linear progression
00:25:58.800 but i i think the safest method to develop strength in some of these younger athletes which is not being
00:26:04.320 done very well in high schools today would be to put these these young athletes these 13 14 year old
00:26:11.120 athletes into a sound novice linear progression and then just gradually increase that strength over time
00:26:16.800 if if these strength programs would do that by the time these kids got into high school
00:26:22.400 some of the numbers would be unbelievable in regards to their strength capacity and and i think that
00:26:26.880 would roll into their ability to perform their sport you know you know when it comes to what people think
00:26:32.960 kids need for their sport that we don't need to train them specific to their sport when it comes to
00:26:38.720 strength we just need to get them strong we get them strong then the the sport specific coach can deal
00:26:45.920 with all the sport specific issues that come with that that uh that that sport but our goal as strength
00:26:53.520 coaches is to get them a good foundation of strength and then they can use it for whatever they want to
00:26:59.440 use it with so let's backtrack so you said some of the most common injuries that you might experience
00:27:04.000 while barbell training is spring backs lower back pain bicep tendinitis something i've dealt with
00:27:10.400 shoulder stuff so what happens let's say you get the back thing like you you're doing a deadlift
00:27:14.560 and while you're pulling you tweak your back do you freak out like what do you what's what are the
00:27:20.240 immediate steps you should do to start rehabbing that should you stop training all together what's
00:27:25.440 your approach well the last thing i want to do is is stop a client whether they're a patient or just
00:27:30.560 a strength client from training or to stop moving you know i i my the other starting strength coaches
00:27:36.160 and just some of the people that know me and in professional circles i always use the term
00:27:40.960 motion is lotion you know you you got to stay moving it's good for the human body we want
00:27:45.680 increased blood flow so there's a there's a misconception that you injure your back well
00:27:50.000 you should stop doing anything for them sometimes a prolonged period of time and that's that's farthest
00:27:54.240 from the truth now we know that that you should probably get back under load now how you get under
00:28:00.240 load and when you get under load and how much you load is determined based on what type of injury it is
00:28:06.160 is it an injury or is it just hurt you know i mean there's a lot of little tweaks that occur along the
00:28:10.480 way you get a little sprain and strain here you get a little soreness here you know you get a little
00:28:15.760 hurt quote unquote well that's different than being truly injured so what what you want to do first
00:28:22.240 is you you want to seek the help of someone who has um you know a diagnostic background you know i
00:28:28.320 prefer that you you seek you know a sports medicine physician if you if it's a minor injury or a minor
00:28:33.840 sprain and strain then it's something probably that you can take care of yourself you want to ice the
00:28:38.320 injury directly after the injury you want to stay moving though and you eventually want to get back
00:28:43.360 underneath that bar so you know the key is if if you're barbell training as your as your strength
00:28:49.040 method but the key there is we do need to get in some of these cases some form of diagnosis done
00:28:56.160 and i just say that as a i'll put my white coat on there that's not my strength my strength coach
00:29:02.240 coat but you know if i put my white coat on then an accurate diagnosis up front is important but
00:29:08.800 let's say you went to your family doctor or a physical therapist based on what state you live
00:29:14.560 in and you got the diagnosis of a lumbar sprain and strain you know they're going to tell you stop
00:29:19.360 lifting for a while don't barbell train and that's that's not what i would have you do what i would have
00:29:25.920 you do is we would gradually go back into lifting and we might even use a rehab method called the
00:29:31.840 star rehab model the star rehab model is using a higher rep scheme with lower loads and body weight
00:29:38.000 loads to gradually increase the blood flow to that area just infuse that area with blood flow so that
00:29:44.560 we can increase the nutrients increase the healing agents to that area and then we just linear progression
00:29:50.400 gradually increase the load over time get you right back into training very quickly and instead of
00:29:56.960 just kind of hoping the body heals in a roundabout way we force the body to heal that makes sense let's
00:30:02.000 talk about tendonitis because i see this one this probably pops up for older guys in particular because
00:30:07.520 when you're young you're supple right when you get older you're a little stiffer and things aren't as
00:30:12.400 pliable so what's your approach to well first of all why does bicep tendonitis happen and what do you
00:30:18.560 do to train around it well any any tendonitis can't it matters what we're talking about here there's
00:30:24.320 there's three stages of tendon injury we've got tendonitis tendinosis and tendinopathy so a tendonitis
00:30:32.160 is basically just inflammation of the tendon there's been an inflammatory process there might be very little
00:30:38.160 damage actually done to the tendon but the tendon's inflamed through an over stretch and over strain or
00:30:43.280 overuse it could be you know overuse swinging a hammer or or it could be from lifting a tendinosis
00:30:51.120 is once we've had several tendonitis or we've had several smaller injuries then there's an actual
00:30:57.920 structural change to the tendon belly itself and the tendon cells that are in there are you have some
00:31:04.560 scar cells in there now and it's just not as healthy of collagen because collagen tissue is what your
00:31:09.440 body's made out of and the tendon cells are not as resilient that's what happens with some older
00:31:14.960 athletes or older lifters they get tendonitis from overuse or this sprain or this strain and then it
00:31:22.240 ends up being a tendinosis so once it gets warmed up it feels really good but before you get it warmed up
00:31:29.120 or maybe on a cold day or something like that it's achy and uncomfortable but once you start using it it
00:31:35.600 feels pretty good then the last thing would be like a tendinopathy and that's where the actual tendon
00:31:41.280 tears and there's a structural uh weakness in the tendon and eventually the tendon could rupture like
00:31:47.840 in you know like a a bicep rupture distal bicep rupture or a patellar tendon rupture achilles rupture
00:31:54.400 that would that would be the the worst thing that could happen because it completely detaches
00:31:58.000 so the way that i treat tendonitis tendinosis and tendinopathies is a little different based
00:32:05.680 on the severity of the injury so the rehab model is going to be different based on the severity
00:32:09.680 but let's say we're dealing with just a classical tendonitis the first thing we want to do is we
00:32:15.280 want to make sure that we're using that tendon we may have to reduce the loads for a period of time
00:32:20.960 because of the the structural inflammation that's there so we're going to use things like ice deep
00:32:26.640 transverse friction massage sometimes it's appropriate sometimes to use a corticosteroid
00:32:33.200 injection in that area or to use things like antiphoresis where we use a topical steroid
00:32:38.480 they also might be taking inseds you know non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs to reduce
00:32:43.200 the inflammatory process in the tendon but the last thing we're going to do is not use the tendon i'll
00:32:48.800 tell you this is a really interesting case i was treating a guy this morning or one of my colleagues
00:32:53.520 was treating him and we were just talking about him together and kind of working together on him
00:32:57.600 but he's had a medial epicondylitis which is a tendon inflammation of the medial elbow it's also
00:33:04.880 called golfer's elbow and um uh he basically has had this for about two or three years he's had
00:33:12.320 multiple injections to the area this is obviously a tendonosis he's got some adaptive tissue changes in
00:33:19.120 that area so what the therapist and i have been working on is to start doing some eccentric chin
00:33:25.040 ups with him start doing some eccentric curls with him and starting to really load that tendon
00:33:31.200 with eccentric activity higher reps body weight loads and lower loads but just really flushing that
00:33:38.160 tendon belly with blood expanding that tendon with blood products and um and lubrication so that
00:33:45.360 it can heal itself as best possible we also recommended something like an elbow sleeve with
00:33:50.240 them to keep it warm so that when he's at work and he's not using it we're keeping that body temperature
00:33:55.360 in that area a little warmer and what he's noticed over time is that it's actually getting better it's
00:34:00.720 improving so that's you know the number one thing we want to do is we want to keep these patients moving
00:34:07.280 we might have to or these lifters moving we might have to alter load and weight reduce it but we're
00:34:13.600 probably going to use a higher rep scheme with more sets and we're going to use um eccentric training
00:34:21.840 too along with that and then all the other things that we talked about inseds and ice and friction and
00:34:27.920 some of the alternate you know the the sideline therapies that we can use we could use e-stem on
00:34:33.360 it those types of things darren do you uh treat a lot of runners by chance i mean we treat a fair
00:34:39.200 amount of runners in our practice um we see we see quite a few what do you think are the most common
00:34:44.240 injuries you see with those guys oh probably achilles tendonitis is real common plantar fasciitis
00:34:50.960 is real common uh you know some of them will get some non-specific knee pain we'll get some achy knees
00:34:56.560 from having a little arthritis in the knees hip flexor sprains and strains um sometimes they'll get a
00:35:03.200 a little patellofemoral pain from from running within proper form or if they're running hills
00:35:08.000 or trails those types of things it is your general philosophy towards those guys too is like keep
00:35:12.240 them moving like you're not going to stop running you might just change the way you train yeah i think
00:35:17.040 with a runner it's it's it's a similar philosophy the number one thing i'm going to do is i'm going to
00:35:20.800 look at their strength base too if if they're under strength and runners are classically weak as
00:35:26.480 athletes if they're if they're if they lack strength which they probably do i'm going to put them in a
00:35:31.920 classical barbell training program and so we're going to get them under the bar and we're going
00:35:35.920 to get them stronger because a lot of times runners have injuries because of form breakdown and form
00:35:41.360 creep throughout their run you know they get tired they like the stamina that they need to run with
00:35:46.560 proper form we may do we may need to address their form you know we need to address the way they run
00:35:52.240 their shoe wear but with a runner what i might look at is volume two a lot of runners are or can be
00:35:58.880 classically over users they can over train so we're going to look at how much they're running
00:36:06.640 and one of the things that we that i've done over the years and and some of this came from my
00:36:10.960 background with crossfit and that is learning how to use high intensity interval training or interval
00:36:16.400 running to improve aerobic and endurance capacity without running the high volume that a lot of runners
00:36:23.760 or that a lot of triathletes or endurance athletes normally uh use so so we'll work on you know instead
00:36:30.880 you know let's say in the past they've used three long runs a week or five long runs a week we might
00:36:35.840 then come in and change their training model let's say let's do some high intensity interval training
00:36:40.080 on this day let's do some sprints or let's do some uh let's do something like the assault bike and
00:36:45.520 maybe do uh interval sprints on the assault bike and give your give your you we're we're still working the
00:36:51.760 hips and legs we're still working their cardiovascular system but what we're also doing is give their body
00:36:56.480 a little rest from the pounding if that makes sense so the thing we look at with runners would be
00:37:02.080 we check out their training program the volume that they're running we look at their form and then what
00:37:08.080 we're going to do is probably put them into a strength program because it's predictable get them
00:37:12.880 strong maybe make sure that we're strengthening that connective tissue and then we can do all the
00:37:17.200 things that we talked about earlier with tendonitis and and other injuries using modality care and
00:37:22.560 physical therapy care to reduce the inflammatory process along the way and get them back to running
00:37:29.200 this is a personal question related to running because i i experienced this and so like i think
00:37:34.320 two years ago about two years ago no year and a half ago i did some like wind sprints for like the
00:37:39.760 first time in a long time and i like boy that's painful it was pain like so yeah i think i what
00:37:45.920 happened was after like the day the next day on my left like hamstring like up near my butt
00:37:52.800 it was just this pain it just hurt all the time and i think it was like a some sort of
00:37:57.760 tendonitis like the hamstring is there a tendon there yeah by chance yeah yeah and it was like
00:38:03.520 for like i mean pretty much it's just until fairly recently like the pain went away but it took like
00:38:09.120 a long time so like what do you do like if you're a runner and you get tendonitis there because i think
00:38:14.160 it might be a hard place to treat yeah i mean the the hamstring the hamstring comes up to what's
00:38:19.040 called a conjoined tendon it's a very it's where the hamstrings all convert back up in there and
00:38:24.000 they attach on the ischial tuberosity it's a sit bone it's what you sit on and so if you're yeah it
00:38:29.840 really flare up when i was like on a long road trip i was like i'd get out of the car i would just hurt so
00:38:34.160 bad yeah you go to stand and you're like oh my gosh that's killing me yeah you start you start
00:38:38.960 having to use that hamstring again but yeah i mean something like sprinting is is is perfect to
00:38:44.880 injure that if you haven't been sprinting and here here's the here's the the thing you got to
00:38:50.160 watch sometimes is that when you're doing something like that like high intensity interval training
00:38:54.960 sprinting there's a ton of sport hormones going on in your body your your body temperature you know
00:39:00.720 i mean you've got everything warmed up everything feels great and and really a lot of those hormones that
00:39:05.600 are rushing through your body at the time they're designed to reduce pain they're they're designed
00:39:10.080 to reduce the the the nocioception the pain response in your body so you know then you get a
00:39:15.360 little overuse and there's an inflammatory process you may have not torn the tendon but you may have
00:39:21.360 irritated its origin or the insertion down near the knee when you're talking about the hamstrings
00:39:27.920 and there's an inflammatory process so you know it swells down in that area and with the swelling
00:39:33.920 and the the damage to the tissue comes pain and so you know i mean you probably did the best thing
00:39:39.920 you could do as you you know you previously ran and you just said recently you got rid of it and i
00:39:44.960 bet your barbell training has been great for developing the strength of that origin of that tendon
00:39:52.400 so with something like that the number one thing we want to do is we can treat that area there are
00:39:57.040 things we can do we can do dry needling to that area we can do east end to that area we can go up
00:40:01.920 and friction massage we can stretch it we can do strain counter strain work where we do eccentric
00:40:07.440 dynamic loads on it but you know what i would do with a patient that has that i'll give you a good
00:40:12.480 example i had a young football kid that saw me several years back he played football for a very
00:40:19.360 large high school locally and he wanted to get rehab for a hamstring tear or sprain strain that he had
00:40:27.200 had he'd have five different hamstring sprains in the last two years as a football player well his
00:40:33.760 brother was already playing at a division one college he had great genetics so the goal was
00:40:38.080 to get him back to play playing at a level where he could participate in the in the college combine
00:40:43.920 and hopefully get a good school bid to go play football so his dad brought him to us one of my the
00:40:50.160 other therapists who's one of my business partners was actually treating him and i just filled in one day
00:40:54.240 for him and and i got to talking to the dad got to know him a little bit and so we we did the rehab
00:40:59.040 on him and the way that we rehabbed him was we had him do good mornings deadlifts back squats weighted
00:41:05.280 lunges you know we really worked on developing the tendon strength at its origin at that sit bone through
00:41:13.040 eccentric and concentric weight training so as time went on his father contacted me and said hey he wants to
00:41:20.640 get stronger so i think it was december a year ago he started strength training with me and so i think
00:41:26.720 we started him in the first week of december he was back squatting 275 for three sets of five when we
00:41:32.000 finished with when i finished with him in february i think he did three sets of five at 4 30 on the back
00:41:39.200 squat i think he was dead lifting close to 500 pounds and he went and sat for the college combine and
00:41:46.000 got a got a bid to go play football at a school so you know i think that the key there is is that
00:41:52.800 we we've got to sometimes give the human body it's based on the severity of the injury so in a case like
00:41:58.960 yours if you had torn that that tendon from its origin you know if it had been do you know the grades
00:42:05.920 of the tears brett the different grades of tears i don't okay so a grade one would be a minor tear
00:42:12.880 there's really no structural damage to the tendon where it originates on the bone it's just an
00:42:19.760 irritation there's an over stretch a grade two there's a very small tear zero to 25 percent of
00:42:26.000 its fibers a grade three 25 50 of its fibers up to 75 of its fibers and then a grade four would be a
00:42:34.640 complete rupture of the tendon and so or just barely hanging on there so you know if someone came to me and
00:42:41.120 said they felt a pop up in there and it was very painful and they had very poor hamstring strength
00:42:47.920 very poor hip extension and knee flexion i want to make sure what we're dealing with there i might
00:42:53.760 even get an mri of that or a ct scan just to figure out what what level of tear or injury are we dealing
00:43:00.560 with does that make sense no yeah that makes sense but yeah i think you did exactly what you should have
00:43:05.440 done um you know running doesn't make you a stronger runner it makes you have better aerobic capacity
00:43:12.400 potentially and it makes your you know your your feet are able to handle the pounding better you
00:43:18.000 know your body you know you get chafing in the right spots and you know you got to do some mileage
00:43:22.480 but i think also a stronger runner is a faster one so you mentioned some alternative recovery or
00:43:29.680 rehab tools i mean it seems like in the past i'd say five years there's been more attention paid
00:43:36.560 to sort of rehab and recovery you know i remember when i started you know training in high school
00:43:42.400 barbell training then it basically was like if you hurt go sit in the ice bath and that was it now
00:43:48.240 there's all this stuff which like is your as a practitioner like what stuff actually works
00:43:54.160 and why does it work you know you mentioned dry needling like what is that cupping is another one
00:43:59.120 and what does those do and do those actually do anything what what do they do for rehab and
00:44:03.600 recovery so so i've got to give away all my secrets and tricks right no you got just a few of them
00:44:08.960 right okay i can't give away my my my snake oil tricks here you know no i think you know unfortunately
00:44:17.600 there's a lot of things that that are being done in clinics today that there is not a lot of research
00:44:22.400 to support some of those things i i try to stick with the ones that i know you know in in
00:44:28.960 medicine we use this thing called evidence-based practice and basically it's a it's a three-pronged
00:44:33.920 stool and think of a stool that's sitting on the ground it's got three legs one of those legs is
00:44:39.120 research you know research and data and for most of the physical modalities or treatments that are
00:44:44.800 out there we still lack the quality of research that we would like to see for support of a lot of those
00:44:51.920 modalities we we we have some pretty good data out there but we we still we still could always use
00:44:57.920 more data the second stool leg the second leg would be clinical experience the the person that's actually
00:45:05.760 treating you what kind of experience and anecdotal and observational evidence do they have as a
00:45:10.880 clinician to say that hey i've used this on on you know 100 clients and it works i don't care if the
00:45:16.960 research supports it or not or if the research is less supportive or minimally supportive i've seen
00:45:22.640 this work and then the third one would be the the patient value or the client value in the client
00:45:28.160 experience if a client came in to me and said i've had ultrasound every single time this is flared up
00:45:33.200 and ultrasound helps i'd be remiss if i didn't use ultrasound even though i might think that ultrasound
00:45:39.440 is not going to be as highly effective as another method because the patient has built a value in that
00:45:44.640 treatment does that make sense yeah that makes sense sure so so we we take if we take that approach
00:45:50.720 then some of the things that i think that are very effective on an evidence-based model at varying
00:45:56.480 levels of evidence not all these things have the same level of evidence but the number one thing that
00:46:01.920 we know is the most supported by the literature would be resistance training even in the physical therapy
00:46:08.800 world we know that resistance training using load and weight with set and rep schemes and and we would
00:46:16.720 vary that resistance training with three different variables that would be volume intensity and
00:46:21.920 frequency volume how much are they going to do of it frequently frequency how often are they going to do
00:46:28.720 it you know based on recovery and things like that based on their injury or or whether they're if
00:46:33.840 they're not a patient you know based on their training model and then also intensity and intensity
00:46:39.760 could be based on the set and rep scheme it could be based on the load you know there's a lot of
00:46:44.960 things that can that can vary the intensity but generally that's the load base of the of the scheme so you know i
00:46:51.600 think resistance training would be the first thing and a lot of people think that's old school a lot of
00:46:55.520 people think that's kind of boring but but i think that resistance training would be is the most
00:47:00.000 effective method for us to rehab for me to rehab clients today the second thing would be able to
00:47:06.560 use my hands i do joint manipulation on patients sometimes using joint manipulation in the spine
00:47:13.520 and the extremities we don't really know why that works there's a lot of theories that are out there why
00:47:19.840 that works but but i generally get a very good response using joint manipulation with certain types
00:47:26.160 of patients and certain types of diagnoses we use electrical stimulation e-stem in varying forms some
00:47:33.920 of its contractile based where we actually cause a muscle contraction we're not we're not trying to
00:47:38.560 get the muscle stronger because that's kind of a debunked theory but what we're trying to do is get good
00:47:44.560 muscle contraction and then we also might have the patient volitionally they can they try to contract
00:47:50.160 the muscle and then we stimulate the muscle also with muscle stem at the same time
00:47:53.840 uh so we're getting that combined effect and then we might use e-stem 2 for pain control or for
00:47:59.920 pain mediation so that they can do more activity and be more active and move more and then we use
00:48:05.440 things like dry needling dry needling is a great technique i mean dry needling is the western form of
00:48:11.680 acupuncture and we know acupuncture has has some has good benefits um but as a therapist that's
00:48:18.880 certified in dry needling i use dry needling for the physiological effect that it creates
00:48:23.680 increased blood flow um increase um firing of the local receptors in the in the region the
00:48:30.320 improvement in reducing trigger point activity and and helping the muscle to relax there's a dry
00:48:35.760 needling technique that we use on the knee that uses a nine point technique where we put needles
00:48:40.640 in nine different locations around the knee and on an osteoarthritic knee i can put that that
00:48:45.600 system on them i put the nine needles in the knee combined with a low current electrical
00:48:50.800 stimulation and they get a great relief in knee pain and so um we use we use things like that too
00:48:57.040 and so there's other things that we could use you know and there's some modalities that that are used
00:49:02.320 in the sports medicine world today and there's really just there's very little research to support
00:49:07.200 those things and i try to stay away from those things so it sounds like what the dry needling does
00:49:11.280 you're basically creating an inflammation to drive blood there to treat another a subline inflammation
00:49:17.360 right yeah i mean theoretically that would be it you're you're and and we would generally use dry
00:49:23.200 needling when the primary healing primary healing model has failed to heal the region so what we're
00:49:30.720 trying to do like you said is we're trying to create another incident that's that the body would see as
00:49:36.080 an injury right and that incident what we're trying to do is is influence the body to increase the blood
00:49:42.560 flow it causes a small inflammatory process that's more controllable and then hopefully through
00:49:48.400 exercise and activity and education we can get the patient moving again and get the inflammation down
00:49:53.120 you know inflammation causes pain structural damage causes pain and so we're trying to get the
00:49:59.360 inflammation down get the structural damage to heal but the best way to get that area to heal is to
00:50:05.840 put that tissue under movement if it's if it's you know if it's a contractile tissue like muscle tissue
00:50:12.880 tendons tendons we really wouldn't consider a contractile structure on its own but it's part of
00:50:18.160 the contractile element because it's attached to the muscle so the muscle attaches the tendon
00:50:23.680 attaches the muscle to the bone and the ligaments attach bone to bone so in those scenarios we're trying to
00:50:30.240 get blood flow to all those tissues so the human body can heal itself okay so it sounds like a first
00:50:35.840 first thing you're gonna do rehab is continue with resistance training at a different level you
00:50:41.120 know probably modify the level or the intensity and then if that doesn't work you might you incorporate
00:50:46.960 some of these other practices or these other other methodologies yeah and i'll probably combine it
00:50:52.480 together you know if a client comes in and they're having some pain then i'll then i'll probably do
00:50:58.320 and that's based on the severity of the injury if if the injury requires a period let me give
00:51:03.520 you an example let's say someone comes in in there they have a post-op rotator cuff repair they they
00:51:09.680 rip the rotator cuff off the bone it's just been repaired before three or four anchors they're in
00:51:16.320 their post-op period there's certain precautionary measures that we have to take during that period
00:51:21.200 because there's a there's a structural integrity issue there that we just have to be careful with so
00:51:26.320 we don't re-tear the tendon before it has a chance to purchase into the bone does that make sense yeah
00:51:31.680 that makes sense so in that scenario what i'm really doing is i'm trying to give them pain
00:51:37.600 mediation first so let's say they come in one day post-op well the first thing we're going to do is
00:51:41.840 we're going to start using gentle gentle passive range of motion we're going to clean the post-op
00:51:46.880 wounds up we're going to dress them then we're going to use ice and e-stem to increase the blood flow to
00:51:51.520 the area along with that range of motion and then give them a home program and send them on their way
00:51:56.560 as the the tendon heals and opportunity allows itself then we'll start to load that tendon
00:52:04.000 gradually over time through kind of a passive to active assistive to active range of motion model
00:52:10.160 and then add resistive range of motion whenever it's appropriate so there are times when you're
00:52:15.760 talking about fractures or structural integrity issues where a ligament's been severely damaged
00:52:22.320 where we got to be careful with with motion we still want motion but the motion is going to be
00:52:27.920 controlled in regards to its range and its volume and how much load we're definitely going to put
00:52:33.360 through it but with all clients i'm probably going to combine those modalities and those techniques
00:52:38.240 together so a good example would be they come in we do some exercise training with them that day
00:52:44.320 and then we finish the session with ice e-stem whatever else we're going to use that's a that's
00:52:50.080 what you would consider an adjunctive modality and how do you know when a patient's like they're good
00:52:55.120 right because a healing the healing process it's sort of like a muddled bleeding you know it sort of
00:53:00.480 bleeds to moment to moment like is there like a moment where you realize yeah you're good to go
00:53:04.640 you can just go back to what you've always what you did what you were doing before that kind of sounds
00:53:09.040 like the the the magical looking glass there or something i wish i had that exact answer to the
00:53:16.000 exact time i i know at this time and at this minute you healed but here's what i teach our
00:53:21.840 our new therapists that come out when the dpt's come out of schools and they come into our practices
00:53:25.840 one of the things that i we've actually uploaded into what we call our clinical toolbox for our
00:53:31.120 therapists it's an evidence-based compendium of articles and different text sections out of books that
00:53:38.000 i've read or other therapists have read over the years one of them is a pathology text and and what
00:53:43.680 i did was i just copied the pages that pertain to the healing timelines and time frames for different
00:53:50.800 types of human tissue so it doesn't it make sense that a tree grows at a certain rate right that certain
00:53:57.920 plants grow at certain rates and certain animals grow at certain rates and humans grow at certain rates
00:54:03.520 and they also heal at certain rates we we can generally say that that most muscles will heal
00:54:09.520 within two to four weeks and will be pretty structurally strong unless it's a severe tear
00:54:15.120 with a with a lot of bleeding and you know there's a lot of damage to the muscle but when you're talking
00:54:20.080 about your average brain strain you're talking about two to four weeks and when you're talking about
00:54:24.320 tendons and ligaments you're probably talking somewhere around six to eight weeks before it's it's healed
00:54:29.840 fairly well and we can load it even more and more and more when you're talking about bones then it's
00:54:35.360 it's age dependent based on how old the person is but generally we're talking about you know most people
00:54:41.360 are in a cast for somewhere between three to six weeks based on the severity of the fracture so the
00:54:47.440 first thing you want to look at is what what tissue am i dealing with here so let's take the case that
00:54:52.800 you had where you most likely had a small tear or disruption of the origin of the hamstring tendon
00:55:00.640 at the the sit bone right when you were running well in the in that scenario if you came into my clinic
00:55:07.840 and you could produce a strong contraction but it was painful then i know how to grade that in regards to
00:55:16.800 damage and i can give you a general idea how much damage is in there before we even look at an mri
00:55:23.200 now let's say you produce a very weak contraction and it was extremely painful and i thought you had
00:55:31.280 a pretty good pain tolerance because you know a lot of it is neuroscience and pain behavior right
00:55:35.440 some people are just generally more durable than others and they tolerate things more but let's say
00:55:41.120 i knew you as a as a as a friend or a client a lifting client you came in and i knew this guy's tough
00:55:46.640 this guy's tough as nails and you came in and you produced a very weak contraction in the hamstring
00:55:52.960 and it was extremely painful then that would give me cause to want to seek further diagnostics
00:55:58.240 because i'm thinking this is probably a grade two to a grade three tear or strain and spring does that
00:56:04.400 make sense yeah that makes sense so let's say you came in and you could produce no contraction of the
00:56:10.080 muscle you couldn't extend the hip or flex the knee very well at all and you had less less localized
00:56:19.120 pain but just more diffuse pain in the general region but it wasn't quite as painful as i would
00:56:25.440 have expected it to be now i'm really concerned because the muscle's not contracting in the manner
00:56:30.240 that it's supposed to the muscle's not functioning and i'm thinking that one end of the muscle may not
00:56:35.760 be attached does that make sense there yeah yeah so so then from that standpoint we're going to rehab
00:56:42.400 you based on the severity of the injury you know in some of these cases they're surgical but once you
00:56:47.120 come into rehab we look at those time frames and this is a great example would be like a post-op acl
00:56:52.960 injury or rotator cuff injury and we have some general time guidelines that we follow
00:56:59.040 in in some of those injuries you you're going to find that most physical therapists are very very
00:57:04.720 conservative on those timelines and because we're in the medical industry and there's that
00:57:09.600 approach avoidance and you know kind of you know clinician do no harm physician do no harm model and
00:57:15.360 there's a lot of medical liability there we have to be careful um so i kind of put on two different
00:57:20.880 hats one hat as a physical therapist and one hat as a as a strength coach and so once you can
00:57:27.520 reasonably handle body weight load then we gradually load you over time when i feel like
00:57:33.200 you're competent in your movement you're handling loads frequently then i'll just send you on your own
00:57:39.200 way and let you train yourself and and just follow up with me with me when needed it's great well
00:57:45.120 darren this has been a great conversation packed with information is there anywhere
00:57:48.080 anywhere where people go going to learn about to learn more about what you do well unfortunately
00:57:52.000 i'm old so i'm in my 50s and i'm not quite quite caught up with the whole social media trend but
00:57:58.800 i'm kind of dysfunctional there but but um yeah they can people can get a hold of me if they'd like to
00:58:04.160 at my starting strength online coaching email which is d deaton at ssonlinecoaching.com
00:58:13.040 or they can get a hold of me through my rehab email address which is dld
00:58:18.960 at riata therapy that's r-i-a-t-a therapy.com and i still have my my crossfit fort worth website up
00:58:27.520 it's for strength and conditioning crossfit fort worth hopefully within two months i'll have a small
00:58:32.800 i plan to open a small boutique barbell gym in my local community where i'll mostly be doing um
00:58:38.960 barbell training but also some conditioning on a need basis specific a need basis so but i'd love
00:58:44.960 to hear from guys if you just have a question a concern you need more information that's the best
00:58:49.760 place to get a hold of me in those email addresses awesome darren deaton thank you so much for your
00:58:53.840 time it's been a pleasure thank you bro appreciate it my guest today was darren deaton he is a physical
00:58:58.400 therapist as well as a starting strength coach you can find more information about what he does at
00:59:02.640 starting strength online coaching also check out our show notes at aom.is slash deaton that's d-e-a-t-o-n
00:59:09.280 where you can find links to resources we can delve deeper into this topic
00:59:23.200 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice
00:59:27.440 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com if you enjoy the
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00:59:42.080 for your continued support and until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly