Dr. Chris Garcia
100 episodes listed below
PRESS PLAY
Are you a physical therapist or physiotherapist looking for tips, tools, and strategies to work with more athletes, become a sports specialist or get a job in a sports setting...so you can finally enjoy the career that you've always dreamed of? If so, you're in the right place...this podcast is for you. Your host is Dr. Chris Garcia, a physical therapist, business owner, entrepreneur, nationally recognized public speaker, and residency-trained sports specialist. Dr. Chris Garcia, PT, DPT, SCS, CSCS, USAW has worked in professional sports and traveled around the world working with elite athletes throughout his career, and...
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Chris Garcia makes the clinical and business pressures of sports physical therapy concrete, with especially useful attention to patient communication.
Chris Garcia turns the working problems of sports physical therapy into direct, practical instruction. The Sports Physical Therapy Academy Podcast moves between clinical judgment and the realities of cash-based practice, with recurring attention to patient expectations,…
Chris Garcia has words for when your patient needs answers before you have them.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A blunt reminder that retention problems often start with the provider, not the patient.
This episode is a blunt coaching session about why patients drift away, and it keeps putting the responsibility back on the clinician. Chris Garcia makes a simple point: when someone drops off, the answer is often a missed expectation, an unspoken next step, or a conversation…
Sports PT rewards follow-through, not just interest.
Chris Garcia uses a post-vacation reset to deliver a plainspoken reminder for healthcare and fitness professionals who want to work with athletes. The message is steady throughout: interest alone is not enough.
When the answer is unclear, honesty and research are the clinical move.
Chris Garcia centers the episode on the strain of facing a complex case, a new body part, or a new procedure without knowing the next move. His advice is plain: slow down, do the work, and tell the patient what is known and what is not.
A practical reminder that delivering bad news is part of the job.
Chris Garcia treats delivering bad news as a practical skill for healthcare and fitness professionals who work with athletes. The focus stays on hard conversations around surgery or the need for surgery, and on handling those moments with more confidence and clarity.
A blunt look at whether cash physical therapy fits clinicians who want to work with athletes.
Cash physical therapy is treated as a serious option for clinicians who want to work with athletes, start a business, or just see whether the setting fits.
A hard nudge for sports PTs who keep confusing motion with progress.
Chris Garcia frames sports PT goal setting as a yearly check on whether the work is actually going somewhere. The episode keeps returning to the same pressure point: if there is no clear plan for CEUs, weak spots, or broader development, progress tends to drift.
A sharp case for looking past impairments and toward the load, work, sleep, and training patterns behind pain.
EP176 argues against treating impairments as the whole story. Chris Garcia keeps circling back to the harder question: what changed, what kept happening, and what finally pushed the body over the edge.
A sharp reminder for cash-based PTs to stop selling pain-free and start speaking to function.
Chris Garcia lays out five common clinical mistakes cash-based physical therapists make, and the strongest point is the one about promise-first language.
Peter Attia evaluates longevity science, from CETP inhibitors to protein debates, through evidence.
Morning medical evidence, compressed for practice.
Medical research, translated through patient experience.
Host Chris Garcia, a sports physical therapy specialist and business owner, outlines five common clinical mistakes that cash-based physical therapists make, which can lead to poor patient experiences and business outcomes.
Chris Garcia says a PT who unveils a program like the "patella femoral bulletproof program" at the 12th-visit discharge will usually hear "not right now, let me think about it." He prescribes a three-part fix: offer early (visits 1 and 2), offer consistently (at visits like the 6th), and use multiple mediums such as handouts, emails, texts, and websites.
Chris Garcia starts with a personal reflection from a week-long vacation in Cancun with his family and in-laws.
Chris Garcia takes on the challenge of delivering bad news to patients and athletes.
Chris Garcia opens by speaking directly to motivated healthcare and fitness professionals who want to work with more athletes, become sports specialists, or get jobs in sports settings.
Chris Garcia opens by naming a feeling every clinician knows well: being stuck.
Chris Garcia opens by treating cash-based sports PT as a real career decision for students, new grads, and experienced clinicians.
Physical therapist Chris Garcia challenges the traditional impairment-focused approach in physical therapy, arguing that for athletes especially, practitioners should focus on managing total physical stress from daily activities, work, and fitness routines rather than fixating on specific movement impairments.
Host Chris Garcia, a sports physical therapy specialist, provides a step-by-step framework for PTs to set impactful 2025 goals.
Chris Garcia opens by arguing that cash-pay patients stay when a PT adds service skills, not more CEUs, to a clinical base.
Chris Garcia, owner of Sports Performance Physical Therapy, names three misconceptions about starting a cash-based PT practice: 'anyone can do it,' 'it's easy to reach six figures,' and 'I'll have more time and see fewer patients.' He says a $100,000 take-home may require roughly $250,000 to $400,000 in gross revenue, and that new owners can end up at $10 to $30 an hour once total hours are counted.
Chris Garcia opens with the claim that clinical skills such as McKenzie exercises and mobilizations do not separate one PT from another in a patient's memory.
Chris Garcia, host of The Sports Physical Therapy Academy Podcast, opens EP175 by contrasting a $1,000 price tag on a BMW or home with the same amount for a MacBook to argue that cost depends on perceived value.
Chris Garcia, host of the SportsPT Academy podcast, says insurance-based PTs lose in cash practice because they bring PT school and APTA "factory" habits with them, using Amazon and McDonald's analogies.
Dr.
Chris Garcia says physical therapists dodge patient questions about timelines by answering "we'll talk about it next week," and he calls the difficulty a self-belief problem rather than a skills gap.