Tag: exercise capacity

The 5 Common Modifiable Variables For Programming A Great Workout and Program

There are numerous modifiable variables in an exercise program that you can use to improve your workout experience, increase effectiveness, and make the workout more fun. A Modifiable Variable is anything you can manipulate in a workout program (which is literally everything) to change the challenge. It includes exercise choice, movement patterns, exercise pool, alternative exercises available, sets, reps, intensity, rest breaks, prep exercises, warm-up, exercise order, recovery activity, support exercises based on body response, and workout frequency. Our Team believes the most important initial modifiable variable is exercise choice, which is often not used well. This is one of the reasons we start with a movement assessment.  But all of these variables are important and have a huge impact on your experience and the likelihood of success with developing an exercise habit. Our team targets these variables beginning in activity progression and it remains a critical aspect of training

Read More »

The 7 Tissues to Consider When Progressing Activity After Physical Therapy

The Rehab Standard is an SPC concept that defines when a client has a higher exercise capacity than tissue capacity.   When your tissue capacity is lower than the exercise capacity, the focus of the workout is not how hard you worked out.  It is not how much you sweat or how good of a muscle burn you got. The focus is on the healing tissue and that is was not overloaded, irritated, or provoked.  A violation of the rehab standard can present as pain after the workout or the next day, even if there was no pain during the workout. The key is to focus on tissue capacity in the exercise selection, intensity, volume and the type of tissue injured. We want to look at this last one, the type of tissue injured, in relation to activity progression following an injury. The 7 Tissues to Consider When Progressing Activity Improving

Read More »

The 5 Big Problems Facing Clients with Pain and Injury Who Want to Get Back to an Active Lifestyle

There are numerous problems facing people in living an active, healthy life, but it can be difficult to articulate the problem that needs to be solved. Let’s look at two people dealing with low back pain. One person bent over this morning to grab a pencil and now cannot stand up straight. The second person developed back pain years ago and stopped doing certain movements because of discomfort. The pain is still present daily and they use a combination of meds, massage, and chiropractic to keep big flares up away. Their problems are different despite both dealing with low back pain. The solutions are very different. The person who just hurt their back needs a diagnosis and a home plan targeting healing strategies and triggers. This may mean more frequent visits and removing anything that makes their symptoms worse. We will likely see this person a few times per week

Read More »

The Injury Types That Are Mismanaged During Activity Progression

The rehab standard is simple; the limit to your exercise is not how hard you can work out, but rather working as hard as possible without going past your tissue capacity.  Our team sees violation of the rehab standard as the most frequent cause of failure during activity progression. A client will feel great and start to progress their workouts. There is no symptoms during the exercise and often no symptoms the same day, but the next day they feel horrible.  We know that in activity progression, you need to understand the type of tissue that is healing, the specific exercise, and volume. We also need to consider the type of injury: chronic, recurrent, and acute.  Chronic Injury For chronic, we mean is has been present for a long time. When you have a chronic injury or chronic pain, there are two issues: your exercise capacity is lower because it

Read More »
Smith Performance Center Tucson

Tuck Jump Assessment for Physical Therapy

A review of our publications and the impact on physical therapy, injury screening, and protocol In the last few months, some of our research efforts in physical therapy, strength training, and injury screening have been published by the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research and the International Journal of Sports Physical Therapy along with a commentary in the Journal of Sports Science and Medicine. The publications were focused on jumping test performance and the underlying methods. These tests are useful in a full rehabilitation program to determine readiness for activity, however, even the best tests have limitations that need to be understood. There is no such thing as a perfect test but we can use a variety of tests to gain a more complete perspective.  After a publication, it’s fun to look back at the results and figure out how to use them to improve the outcomes at Smith Performance

Read More »
Craig Smith

Craig Smith

BUSINESS Craig Smith is the co-owner of Smith Performance Center. He founded SPC with Sarah Smith in 2015 with a mission to provide the Tucson community with the support and tools to manage their health and stay active for life. He is a partner with Evolve Flagstaff. Founded in 2017, Evolve brings together gym, physical therapy, nutrition, and meal preparation services to support the Flagstaff community. Craig Smith founded Amptimum with Ryan Seltzer in 2020. Their mission is to unleash the clinical skill set of allied health professionals by developing documentation mastery, patient management processes, and robust analytics. WORK As a physical therapist, Craig is interested in physical therapy concepts with clinical application, PT diagnostic methodology, innovative healthcare solutions, and team-based practice. He specializes in lower extremity care, gait analysis, and physical therapy. As clinical director, Craig works to develop a shared framework for his physical therapy and coaching team. The shared framework, called PT Solutions and the HHP Program, is carried out daily with hundreds of patients and members. As a consultant, Craig works with allied health professionals to understand their clinical processes. This focus allows for clinicians to optimize their operations and to improve their clinical outcomes, train new staff, and reduce the burden of practice. AWARDS Craig graduated from NAU with distinction and was awarded the Distinguished Graduate for the Department. He graduated with honors from the University of Nebraska at Kearney and was awarded the Outstanding Major of the Year in Exercise Science by NAHPERD. Most recently, he was awarded the Excellence in Achievement from Northern Arizona by the NAU Alumni Association in 2020. RESEARCH Craig has presented research at the American Society of Biomechanics National Conference, the American College of Sports Medicine Annual Meeting, and the National NEXT conference along with numerous local and regional meetings on topics surrounding injury screening and prevention. He has publications in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, Journal of Athletic Training, Journal of Orthopedic and Sports Physical Therapy, Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, Journal of Sports Medicine, and Lower Extremity Review. Craig and his colleagues, Dr. Warren and Dr. Chimera, were selected as one of the “Best Clinic Case/Research Submissions” at the 60th Annual Meeting and 4th World Congress on Exercise is Medicine of the American College of Sports Medicine.