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We share actionable advice about pain management, injury, strength training, exercise, rehab, and how to make healthcare work for you.

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The 5 Big Problems Facing Clients with Pain and Injury Who Want to Get Back to an Active Lifestyle
By defining the problem, you know where to start during rehab and developing an active lifestyle. Once you know your problem, you can focus on what needs to solve it.
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The 8 Reasons All HHP Clients Go Through a Movement Assessment
There is an entire area of research devoted to what behaviors keep people moving and what makes them stop. Keeping people active is not simple and there are numerous reasons why a person will stop. The purpose of the movement assessment is to figure out issues that will stop you from moving.
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7 Signs Your Heel Pain Is Not Coming From Your Plantar Fascia
As a general rule, you will be diagnosed with plantar fasciitis if you have heel pain. I have not seen a patient reporting heel pain that was diagnosed with anything other than plantar fasciitis for the last 5 years. This is not the only structure on the bottom of the foot that can cause pain.
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5 Steps To Develop A Diagnosis In Physical Therapy

“My butt hurts.” A significant proportion of my conversations start with this statement. She continued, “ I have regular active release along with dry needling. I stretch my hamstring ALL THE TIME and I still have pain.” Her frustration was palpable. “I know I have a tight hamstring and there is scar tissue.  But it’s been 8 months.” She assumes the pain must be the hamstring; we call this the pain generator.  The hamstring tendon attaches right where her pain starts. The tightness is over the hamstring muscle belly.  She describes the pain in a clear way that implicates the hamstring.   She made a convincing argument that the hamstring is the issue and the diagnosis has been repeated by multiple medical providers including a physician

Read More »
Smith Performance Center Tucson

Knee Pain Meniscus Degeneration and Clinical Experience

  How do you manage knee pain with a meniscus tear?   Meniscectomy, sham surgery, and clinical experience avoiding surgery for pain and function Clinical practice is filled with successes and failures. For some reason, the failures are the thing you remember most and for me, lead to the biggest changes in practice.  The patient that never feels better will never quite leave your mind even when you go home from work.  Knee pain and Meniscus Tear – Round 1 Since my main interest has always been the lower extremity, specifically the foot, ankle, and knee pathomechanics and pathology, I wanted to be the best at rehabbing these injuries right off the bat. My failure with a patient suffering from chronic knee pain led me

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Physical Therapy Solutions for Knee Pain

  Why should I go to Physical Therapy Solutions at Smith Performance Center for my knee injury instead of another clinic? Physical therapy at Smith Performance Center is not a cookie-cutter, one size fits all type of operation. Depending on what problem you have, the ‘right’ service might be different. Our process, called the SPC Difference, uses physical therapy in 3 distinct services: PT Solutions – One on One Physical Therapy Sessions using SPC Methodology PT Movement – Group Physical Therapy Sessions using Task Based Protocol for recurrent, chronic, or post surgical injuries Health and Human Performance – Long term strength and movement programming your own coach including injury surveillance, early injury detection, and treatment integration Physical Therapy Solutions  The first service that typically brings

Read More »

Knee Pain and Physical Therapy

Knee pain is a big issue with numerous treatments to consider. We believe that physical therapy is a great way to resolve your knee pain, but not all physical therapists treat the same way. Our team suggests that patients with knee pain consider the following: make sure you get a diagnosis, understand your prognosis, develop a treatment plan, and understand the triggers occurring in your day to day. Why isn’t your knee pain going away? You may not remember when you started thinking you had bad knees, but at this point, you start to have an internal debate with yourself about standing up.   Do I really need to go to the bathroom or should I wait? Or maybe for you, you decided to bike now

Read More »

5 Steps To Develop A Diagnosis In Physical Therapy

“My butt hurts.” A significant proportion of my conversations start with this statement. She continued, “ I have regular active release along with dry needling. I stretch my hamstring ALL THE TIME and I still have pain.” Her frustration was palpable. “I know I have a tight hamstring and there is scar tissue.  But it’s been 8 months.” She assumes the pain must be the hamstring; we call this the pain generator.  The hamstring tendon attaches right where her pain starts. The tightness is over the hamstring muscle belly.  She describes the pain in a clear way that implicates the hamstring.   She made a convincing argument that the hamstring is the issue and the diagnosis has been repeated by multiple medical providers including a physician

Read More »
Smith Performance Center Tucson

Knee Pain Meniscus Degeneration and Clinical Experience

  How do you manage knee pain with a meniscus tear?   Meniscectomy, sham surgery, and clinical experience avoiding surgery for pain and function Clinical practice is filled with successes and failures. For some reason, the failures are the thing you remember most and for me, lead to the biggest changes in practice.  The patient that never feels better will never quite leave your mind even when you go home from work.  Knee pain and Meniscus Tear – Round 1 Since my main interest has always been the lower extremity, specifically the foot, ankle, and knee pathomechanics and pathology, I wanted to be the best at rehabbing these injuries right off the bat. My failure with a patient suffering from chronic knee pain led me

Read More »

Physical Therapy Solutions for Knee Pain

  Why should I go to Physical Therapy Solutions at Smith Performance Center for my knee injury instead of another clinic? Physical therapy at Smith Performance Center is not a cookie-cutter, one size fits all type of operation. Depending on what problem you have, the ‘right’ service might be different. Our process, called the SPC Difference, uses physical therapy in 3 distinct services: PT Solutions – One on One Physical Therapy Sessions using SPC Methodology PT Movement – Group Physical Therapy Sessions using Task Based Protocol for recurrent, chronic, or post surgical injuries Health and Human Performance – Long term strength and movement programming your own coach including injury surveillance, early injury detection, and treatment integration Physical Therapy Solutions  The first service that typically brings

Read More »

Knee Pain and Physical Therapy

Knee pain is a big issue with numerous treatments to consider. We believe that physical therapy is a great way to resolve your knee pain, but not all physical therapists treat the same way. Our team suggests that patients with knee pain consider the following: make sure you get a diagnosis, understand your prognosis, develop a treatment plan, and understand the triggers occurring in your day to day. Why isn’t your knee pain going away? You may not remember when you started thinking you had bad knees, but at this point, you start to have an internal debate with yourself about standing up.   Do I really need to go to the bathroom or should I wait? Or maybe for you, you decided to bike now

Read More »