The Sports Physical Therapy Academy Podcast · Dr. Chris Garcia

EP170: "The Worst Clinical Approach To Treating Athletes"

·23 min·1 clip

Work backwards from the tournament: plyos four weeks out, playing setting two to three weeks out, instead of loading exercises to get pain-free now.

1. The Sports Physical Therapy Academy Podcast's EP170, "The Worst Clinical Approach To Treating Athletes," contrasts insurance-based physical therapy habits with the needs of pro and high-level athletes. 2. Host Dr. Chris Garcia is a physical therapist, residency-trained sports specialist and owner of three cash-pay clinics in San Diego, which he says he founded over 10 years ago as the city's first cash-pay PT practice. 3. His thesis is that therapists who prescribe volume-heavy home programs and skip manual therapy add stress to athletes and lose them, because athletes are "very predictable" once you understand their schedule. 4. Garcia describes the Olympic Training Center setup, where athletes lived in a dorm 365 days a year, practiced Monday through Saturday, and lifted three to four times a week, totaling about 10 hours of weekly training stress. 5. He says insurance-based therapists are used to being "volume producers," assigning 27-exercise programs because patients may have only six approved visits, which does not suit an athlete who already trains 10 hours a week. 6. He recalls managing a volunteer program at the Olympic Committee, where visiting therapists arrived "hotheaded," over-prescribed exercises and opposed manual therapy, even though a pro setting allows 15, 30 or 45 minutes of daily manual work. 7. Using NBA players as an example, he notes about five hours a day of practice, treatment and warmups plus heavy travel, and says therapists who ignore this schedule can "contribute to the problem." 8. He argues that even LeBron James-level athletes need better movement, but only one target at a time, such as three months on ankle mobility and then hip mobility, or the athlete becomes non-compliant. 9. He reframes success from "pain-free in two visits" to prevention, saying athletes will 'forever be in pain' and want a clinician tracking metrics and force testing as 'an insurance policy.' 10. Sports and cash-pay physical therapists who want more athlete clients would get the most from this episode.

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from The Sports Physical Therapy Academy Podcast