Written by Coach Paige

We believe that rehabilitation and training for performance are one in the same. They may fall on different ends of the spectrum of athleticism, but the process of progression is identical. It’s about understanding your weaknesses, learning how to move your body well, and building capacity and durability with progressive overload to handle whatever life throws at you. Whether you are a former athlete or a recreational one, whether you are currently going to the gym with the same old training routine from 10 years ago or perhaps that nagging knee pain after running sprints keeps coming back -technology has a way to help you. With telehealth and online personal training, the trainer and P.T. can come to you! Whether on your laptop, ipad or cell phone, virtual physical therapy and fitness coaching provides flexibility and expert knowledge at an affordable price.

Hi Friends! I am Coach Paige, the movement specialists and strength coach at Rooted in...

“Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones, but Words Will?...”

The next time you get under a heavy barbell, give yourself the following cues:

1. Don’t round your back, or your discs will explode.
2. Keep your knees from going over your toes, otherwise your kneecaps will slingshot forward and take out someone’s eye
3. If you feel anything sketchy, just push through it.

How confident did you feel just now? Are you ready to smash a new PR? Words are neurological events and what we hear is transformed by the brain into emotional, conceptual, and potentially even danger signals (3). Words are very powerful tools, and have the ability to bring healing or cause harm depending on what words are used, and how they are delivered.

As a coach, using the “right” words in the gym or on the field can activate both the pain-busting opioid networks (7). and the feel-good dopamine-driven reward systems in the brain, producing motivation, effort, and empowerment. Using...

As we learned in Power Athlete Episode - 251 with Adriaan Louw, working with athletes in pain is a tricky business, but one that has fast become an integral component of today’s training environment.  

As strength and conditioning coaches, physical therapists, or sport coaches,we will encounter men and women who are managing some sort of pain, and the effectiveness of this management factors into the successes and failures of our programs. Therefore, in order to help these individuals, we need to truly grasp the concept of pain and understand how it affects our athletes on both a physical and mental playing field. Is all pain the same?  What happens when pain persists? Such questions quickly lead us down a rabbit hole, attempting to seek complex answers from medical providers who may not have the slightest clue about the athletes we work with.

The aim of this article is to answer those questions, explain the difference between acute and chronic pain, and provide...

Did you know that the US healthcare system spends approximately two billion dollars a year on the management of pain due to sport-related injuries alone? Beyond just the physical discomfort, this pain creates a huge financial burden for athletes when it comes to things like rehabilitation costs and loss of salary.

• 50.9% of all NHL players missed at least one game within a season of play, and injuries represent a total salary cost of approximately $218 million yearly (3).
• Knee injuries alone cost the NBA $358 million dollars last year (9).
• The NFL spends around $35 million dollars annually in salaries to players who cannot play due to pain or injury (9).
• Medical costs for sports injuries and pain-related ER visits exceed $935 million each year (6,7).
• Training and sport related pain accounted for 20% of all ER visits for children ages 6-19 (6).
• The US spends $50 billion on the treatment of back pain each year. (NIH 2,4).

These statistics are staggering, but the fallout from...